High, low, feint left then commit right. He blocked, parried, countered. Our claws met again and again, metal screaming against metal. The forest filled with the sound of our fight—breaking branches, tearing earth, labored breathing.
He was holding back. I could feel it. Reading my movements, letting me think I had openings.
It made me angrier.
I dropped, swept his legs. He went down hard. I was on him immediately, claws driving toward his throat—
He caught my wrists. Held me there, straining against his grip, our faces inches apart.
"What the hell is this about?" he growled.
I headbutted him. His nose crunched. Blood sprayed.
His grip loosened for a fraction of a second. Enough.
I rolled away, came up with a handful of dirt and pine needles. When he stood, wiping blood from his face, I attacked again—and this time when my claws opened his shoulder, I shoved the debris into the wound.
His eyes widened. The dirt held the gash open, preventing his healing factor from sealing it immediately.
"Clever," he admitted.
I did it twice more. Three wounds that wouldn't close, bleeding steadily, weakening him incrementally. Tactical advantage. Exploit every opening.
He let me land the next hit. Let me sweep behind him, get my claws to his throat.
I pressed the blades against his carotid. One quick slice. That's all it would take.
"So what's your problem, kid?" His voice was steady despite the blood soaking his jacket. "You gonna tell me, or we doin' this dance all night?"
"You know what you are," I hissed against his ear. My hands shook. "You know what we are."
"Yeah. Mutants. Weapons. Whatever you wanna call it."
"Exactly!" The word tore out of me. I pressed harder, felt his skin dimple under adamantium. "We are weapons! We must be stopped! We must be destroyed!"
The clearing went silent except for our breathing.
Then Wolverine spoke, quiet and cold: "Then do it, Laura."
My birth name. How did he—
"Kill me," he continued. "I won't stop you. But I ain't lettin' you kill yourself."
My throat constricted. "No, I have to die! It has to stop. I killed—I killed so many people. I killed her. I—"
"Look at me, kid."
I didn't move. Couldn't. My claws stayed pressed to his throat, trembling.
"Laura. Look at me."
Slowly, I pulled back enough to see his face. He turned his head, met my eyes. There was no fear there. No anger. Just... understanding.
"Your mother sent me a copy of a letter written to you," he said. "So I know what happened. What they did to you. And that it wasn't your fault. None of it."
The words hit like bullets.
"My—my mother..." My voice cracked. Broke. "They... they made me kill her, too."
Something shifted in his expression. Grief. Recognition. He'd lost people. I could see it in the weathered lines of his face.
"I'm sorry, Laura."
Three words.
Three words, and suddenly I was back in that corridor, covered in her blood, her body cooling at my feet, the scent of death and trigger pheromones thick in my lungs—
My claws retracted. I stumbled backward, away from him, my hands curling into fists.
Behind me, I felt Adrian's presence. He hadn't moved. Hadn't interfered. Just... watched. Ready.
Wolverine stood slowly, touching his wounds. The dirt fell away as his healing factor finally overcame the obstruction. The gashes sealed, pink tissue knitting together.
"You done trying to kill me?" he asked.
I couldn't answer. My throat was too tight.
He pulled out another cigar, lit it with a battered lighter. Took a long drag.
"Good," he said. "Now we can talk."
Movement behind me. Quiet footsteps on disturbed earth.
"Adrian?"
He didn't answer. Just kept approaching until he stood directly in front of me.
Then he flicked me on the forehead.
Hard.
My head snapped back from the impact. Not enough to hurt—I'd taken so much worse—but enough to sting. Enough to shock me out of the spiral I'd been falling into.
I stared at him. He stared back, pale silver eyes hard as ice.
White hair fell across his forehead in loose waves, disheveled from our journey but still somehow elegant. His light brown skin caught the forest light filtering through the canopy above. He was tall—I had to tilt my head back slightly to meet his gaze—and lean in that dangerous way that came from a lifetime of lethal training. Handsome, objectively. Though his face rarely showed anything but that same calculating emptiness.
Right now, though? Right now I could see anger bleeding through his mask.
"That's for thinking you could go off and die without me." His voice was flat, controlled. But I could tell he was angry. "You're all I've got."
The words punched the air from my lungs.
All he had. Just like he was all I had.
"Sorry," I whispered.
The fight drained out of me. All the anger, the self-hatred, the desperate need to end it—it all collapsed inward, leaving nothing but exhaustion and shame.
I lowered my head. Let it rest against his chest.
He was warm.
"Just don't do something like that again."
I nodded against his chest, feeling his heartbeat—steady, controlled, alive. My hands curled into his jacket, gripping tight.
Behind us, I heard Wolverine take another drag from his cigar. Giving us space. Or maybe just observing. The same way Adrian always did.
But I didn't care about Wolverine right now.
I just focused on breathing. On the rhythm of Adrian's heartbeat. On the way his hand came up after a moment's hesitation to rest on my head.
We'd fought our way out of hell together. Escaped, and when I'd tried to throw myself away, he'd gotten angry.
Whatever happened next—with Wolverine, with the X-Men, with whatever came hunting us from the Facility—I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I wasn't alone.
I'd never be alone again.