Logan being alive was terrific news. His loss had shaken most everyone, but him being back meant another layer of protection for Haven. It also meant he had some catching up to do with people. People like Bobby! And what better way to catch up with someone than while doing so during some hard physical labor? That’s how men bonded, right?
Bobby had needed his little shack to get a revamp since he’d returned. Just a little add-on. Somewhere he could put his little cot and a bedside table. He also needed a table.
There wasn’t a better person to ask for help with this sort of thing than Logan. He had all the blueprints worked out, it was the building he needed help with. The last time he tried building something he was about fourteen and had ended up just buying his mother the damn birdhouse.
Logan was a man of many talents, carpentry being one of them.
He made his way to Logan’s door, blueprints under his arm. Knocking, he waited patiently, shuffling through the papers again.
The farm was not yet inside the walls, but they had still competently prepared the fields back in autumn to be quickly tilled and planted when spring came. For now the earth was frozen and dead. Raven hoped that the soil was good.
She had decided she wanted the farm house. She would take guests but she wanted a space that was hers, of her own making. There were already plans for some of her people to build cabins of their own so that they could get up and work the fields.
The wooden patio was in need of repair, but it would be charming eventually. She inspected the broken-toothed steps that led up to the door, and saw that in addition to the broken step, there was rot rising up in the wood. The entire stair would have to be replaced. She sighed, and with a greater strength than her body appeared to have, she pulled one half of the buckled step out of the structure, put it aside, and tugged the other half clear. “Can I help you, Logan?” She asked, to let the man know that she had heard him approaching. She had the strangest sense she was about to be yelled at.
Laura had let him know that Storm was still here and more than likely working on the expansion of haven. He had spent his first few days at Haven reconnecting with his daughter and getting to know his…would it be granddaughter? He wasn’t sure what Gabby was to him yet but it had felt good to spend time with them, catching up on the apparent four years that he had missed. But now, he needed to see her.
Logan was nervous. He had to be. For him their relationship was still going strong, he loved her just as much as he always had. But he had to tell himself not to get excited. That he had been gone for four years and she more than likely had moved on. Which he hoped she had. The last thing he’d ever want would be for her to mourn him and not live her life.
Heading out to where she was, he slowed a bit as he came up behind her. She was just as beautiful as ever. Watching a moment he finally said, “sorry I’m late, but I promise I have a good excuse darlin…”
She turned, the cloud of white curls swished with the motion of her body. Logan. She had been so busy with everything going on that she had not heard the rumblings of a short, grumpy man’s arrival. She knew at this point not to assume she was hallucinating, or simply mistaken. No, there was no mistaking it.
It was him.
Even if she had wanted to move onto someone new, where would she have found the time? She had her obligations to the school with the fact that anyone fit to help her was either dead or a fugitive, or perhaps gallivanting in space. No, even when Ororo had finished actively mourning for Logan, she had not even thought of taking a new lover.
What had death been for him? How long had he even been dead? He was perfectly well now, strong and vital, everything she remembered from before he had lost his healing factor. She felt the arresting swell in her heart, the ache of remembering, the rush of love. Static had built up in the air, it had not been Ororo’s intention, but even she struggled to contain her emotions at times. Who could blame her if one of those occasions was now?
The clouds that were above them rolled away and vanished, the sky took on an almost unnatural shade of blue, and she was finally moving, ignoring the stupid thing he had just said, and instead rushing into his arms as tears formed in her eyes.
Nathan twirled the psimitar once overhead as he came down slashing at Logan’s legs, his grin feral as the cold air whipped around him, the metal lance in his hands thrumming with psionic energy. Nothing said good morning like a good, trying spar, and no spar was quite like one with the Wolverine. You learn to take pleasure in the little things when living in apocalypses.
“You better not be going easy on my Logan,” he warned as swung the butt end of the staff into the other mutant’s face. “Or I’m going to make you regret it.”
She had wanted to spend the day on the expansion efforts, but duty called her other places. The sheep, though probably grateful to have been sheared after two years in their winter coats, were less impressed with the paddock situation. They had broken down a section of fence and were now roaming the compound freely. With a hammer and a tin of long nails, she began to make her way down the hill.
And then she smelled it. Or rather, him.
She dropped her hammer, the tin with it, which she would later be glad did not burst open. She turned, and upwind of her saw a figure that she couldn’t fail to recognise. She had not dared to hope, but now she had the chance to say what she had never managed to say when he was alive. She broke into a run towards him, still half convinced she was hallucinating.
It was a mistake for Bobbi to take for granted that the odds of going into labour in the two hour window she had estimated Natasha’s procedure would take were astronomical. Of course with those stakes, her waters broke just after she removed the disease-eaten organ. She took a deep breath as fluid seeped down her inner thigh, soaking into her scrubs.
With the absolute calm befitting somebody performing eye surgery, Bobbi placed the useless eye in a receptacle that Paul was offering, and asked evenly, “Can you have them prepare the OB suite and get someone to find Steve?”
“Doctor?” Nurse Paul queried as he set down the eyeball.
Bobbi glanced over at Clint, “Babe, keep your reaction to like five percent until we’re done here, but I’ve just gone into labour.” In another situation, his deer in the headlights look would have been comical.
Things moved quickly after Natasha was prepared for recovery. Bobbi has never been so grateful to be so attuned to her body, she had a sense of when her contractions were going to come and could stop any delicate work to ride out the fleeting, intermittent, but increasing pain. Natasha was given a private recovery room to ride out the anaesthetic. Bobbi wasn’t entirely sure where Logan had come from but she was glad he was willing to sit in with Natasha, since Clint was going to struggle between being there for her and for the birth of their baby.
Bobbi had thoroughly frustrated her own staff by the time she was actually deposited in the delivery suite, not to mention past halfway dilated. “You know I wasn’t going to sit down for this part anyway, so I might as well have been useful.” She snarked as Paul took his leave. The nurse gave a nod to the fathers and Ellie, the nurse who had helped Bobbi deliver babies before, and would now deliver Bobbi’s own child into her arms, said, “Good luck,” and left looking like he was worried that Bobbi would throw something at him.
Instead she reached for Steve’s hand and squeezed it for the most intense contraction yet. She was still upright but sweating heavily. She was awash with adrenalin and oxytocin, which meant she was totally unaffected by how tired she knew she should be after Natasha’s surgery. At some point someone had braided her hair and she had no recollection of that. She honestly didn’t remember removing the bun her hair had been in under her surgical garb.
She had wanted to do this at home. They tended to do that these days, saving the hospital for when there were signs of distress, but seemed pointless to leave when they were already here. What had seemed like a smart decision was now something that she found herself questioning every five or so minutes, when she wasn’t thinking about how terrible this whole process was. What if this was actually a catastrophically wrong decision? Or worse, what if she actually needed to be here because there was a complication with this unnecessarily difficult ordeal?
“I’m going to go back and time,” she panted, “and find the first human to stand up,” another pant, “and kick her in the face.” She was a biologist. She knew fundamentally that her pelvis was too small for this nonsense.
“Bobbi, when the next contraction comes it’s time to push,” Ellie replied, as if all her patients threatened Homo Erectus, from her position crouched on the ground. In the throes of labour Bobbi had decided that the correct position was upright, holding onto Clint and Steve. Gravity felt like as essential a birth partner as any of the three people in the room.
She finally utilised the bed when it was all over, and her daughter was placed into her arms. Before she had been vaguely aware of the rest of the world around her in a bizarre, delirious kind of way; now she had lost track of everything except for a very small pink creature that was her entire universe in that moment. Wrinkly and miraculous. Tears rolled down Bobbi’s cheeks as she felt the tiny heart beating against her skin, falling into rhythm with her own.
It was late at night when Daken strode along the edge Haven’s territory, his eyes flickering often to its walls. He was throughly alert for any complications. He’d smell if any patrols or other groups of residents passed, but that didn’t mean his he wouldn’t be ready if they did. He wasn’t worried. No, his eyes scanned the darkness, evaluating the situation, forming the last few strands of his plan. He already knew early on at which point he was going to scale the wall that would create the least disturbance, should anyone be out and watching at this time of night. It wasn’t as fun as the alternatives, which was a pity, a small fleeting part of him thought; while he’d love to seduce the guards, there was the significant likelihood that Drew was on duty; and while he told himself confidently he could ensnare her given time... in this particular situation, attempting to seduce a guard who was immune to his pheromones was indescribably inadvisable. This plan was too important to fail for the sake of sport.
He needed to make this efficient so as not to be sighted. His claws were extended only enough to lift himself up the wall. He may be taller than his father, but he had infinitely more skill and grace. Still, he was a guy climbing over a wall from where he’d just been kicked out, and he needed not to be seen. He bit his lip as he reminded himself to curb the instinct to produce calming pheromones on whoever might be awake. It was good to make sure he wasn’t rusty in the stealth department anyway, right? He slid over the top quickly and landed lightly on the ground.
The added need for precision didn’t keep his own mind from straying. Visualize your goals, that was the golden, platitudinal motivational plan, right? If so, he could already taste it in his mind’s eye: the coppery scent of blood, the taste of despair beneath his tongue, the feel of her warm, dead body beneath his hands. He reminded himself to focus. There’d be no moment to savor his victory when the deed was done. The timetable would be short after his target was eliminated, and he was going to need to stay on track. Some might consider it dishonorable to murder an opponent in her sleep (especially here in Haven, where all thought they were so protected and safe). To them, Daken would laugh. It was practical. Storm was one of the most powerful of the X-Men. He knew he couldn’t beat her without cheating. What is honor when you’re dead?
This was so important. Yet despite all his intentions, against every lesson he’d ever learned, the blood rushed too loudly in his ears, a jumble of thoughts thoughts, a scorn at the ones who didn’t deserve their current power, a thrill of anticipation of what would surely follow this night. His mind was beginning to run ahead of himself. He’d been beginning to feel like a failure, looking at the three years since the apocalypse had broke out, and realizing how worthless it had shown him to be. He was only really mad at himself, but he wouldn’t need to be any longer. He’d wield more fear than Romulus — he’d never again have to live in the shadow of his father — his father — dammit, even thinking of Logan got him so worked up he could almost taste the man’s scent right now in his mind’s eye.
He was getting angry. He couldn’t afford this. Nothing compromised him more than Logan, and no road was a surer towards even the smoothest of plans going insanely wrong. He needed to focus on his technique and his plan. He slipped in silently through the window (he was so good at this he could make a grown man cry). It didn’t matter where his mind was at; he was lucky enough that stealth was programmed into him through years. He slipped inside her bedroom perfectly. It wasn’t until he was inside that he realized anything was wrong, and his blood went cold.
“Hey old man.” Peter grinned at his friend, leaning against the doorjam. He wouldn’t crowd Logan, not after everything he’d been through. “So I know you are older than dirt but I really didn’t expect you to pull the whole Jesus routine. Though he did his in only three days.”
It didn’t take long for word to spread around Haven about the mutant’s arrival. Tough rough hairy looking guy shows up and people take notice. Person that many thought happened to be dead, so yeah gossip running rampant there. Still Peter didn’t rush over. Figuring time to setting in and spend with Laura and Gabby would be most important.
That and this was his girlfriend’s dad. It added a new complication on top of their long (for Peter at least) friendship. Sure the guy trusted him to do some undercover work when Logan couldn’t. Family a different kind of trust.
