Rest Of Forever
Summary: Logan Howlett x fe!Reader -> When you join the staff of Mutant High and meet Logan, neither of you realise you've just met your forever.
Disclaimer: Fluff, falling in love, friends to lovers, elemental control! reader, mutant abilities recognised through stress, mention/descriptions of tragedy and stress, domestic fluff, hurt/comfort, he fell first and harder, kissing, swearing.
You could remember when things started to change; you’d never forget it.
Between the stress of exams, home stress with the fear of being the one thing your family didn’t exactly like, and trying to find some kind of balance between it all, you had driven out to the abandoned field just outside of town.
Most of the grass was either driven over or trodden on from people using it for all sorts of things. The last time it had been used was just a week before for the Spring break bonfire. You hadn’t been invited, but from the stories that were told at school a few days later, you were glad of that fact.
The logs that once carried the fire were charred and slowly slipping away with the growing winds.
You felt like you couldn’t breathe.
Throwing the door open, you were pretty sure you’d still left the key in the ignition. You wanted to scream. You didn’t like to scream, but you felt like you needed to.
Somewhere between the whipping of wind, circling around you over and over, only getting more intense and the noise inside your head, you dropped to your knees.
A scream ripped out of your throat before you could stop it.
All you could feel was…anguish. Pain and suffering over and over. You screamed some more, hearing more voices in your head than you wished to; and none were nice. People you wanted to forget, people you didn’t want to become or be associated with.
You needed to ground yourself. You needed to find a pause, a way to recognise you were still on Earth, still on the ground.
Your palms fell to the dry dirt.
What should have been cold and damp as you dug your fingers through it, trying to anchor yourself to the miniscule pause your head gave you, instead started to vibrate.
It wasn’t until the fence five hundred feet away started to shake and lift out of the ground that you realised a tornado was starting to be created…by you.
Finally, you had peace in your mind.
But only for a moment because, just as everything else became silent, worry started to creep through you. The tornado wasn’t small by any means and it was headed straight towards you.
“Shit.”
Scrambling to your feet, you ran back to your car and tried to start the engine. It stalled for a moment, but with a hit to the dashboard, it roared to life and you moved as quickly as you could.
Checking on it in your rearview mirror, it was only growing.
That tornado became known as The Titan. It tore through the entire town, ripped houses from their concrete slabs and forever changed the town’s policy to tornado attacks.
“Can I help you?” A voice asked as you hung your coat by the door way and picked the large yellow plastic box up from the table.
From around the corner of the staircase, a man appeared. Tall, lumbering and a great head of hair. He sensed something about you – that much you knew.
“Hi,” you smiled lightly, sticking your hand out to him, catching the heavy box with your knee. “I’m Y/n.”
He hesitated in taking your hand, but eventually shook it anyway. “Logan.”
You smiled. “The history professor.”
“How do you-”
“I used to work here,” you told him, quickly. You held onto the box securely once more as he let your hand go. “I wasn’t meant to arrive til next week but-”
“Y/n?”
From down the hallway, Xavier appeared in his wheelchair with a beaming smile on his face. “I thought you couldn’t get here until next week?”
You nodded. “I thought so, too. But I got my reviews handed in early and apparently there’s meant to be roadworks on the highway again from Sunday so,” you shrugged.
“Well, that’s wonderful.” Xavier smiled. “Logan, perhaps you can help Y/n to her old office?”
“Oh, that’s al-”
“Nonsense. Besides, it’ll give you both an opportunity to get to know each other.” Xavier nodded down the hallway. “It’s just across from yours, Logan.”
Soon enough, you and Logan were walking side by side down the corridors and towards your office.
“Are you sure you don’t want some help?”
You shook your head. “No, I’ve got it. Thank you. So, you’re The Wolverine?”
Logan nodded. “Uh, yeah. I’m sorry, I don’t really know about you.”
You chuckled. “That’s alright. I don’t really have a superhero name, but my abilities are usually tied with elemental capabilities. Create, conjure, control – that sort of thing.”
Logan nodded. “When did you find that out?”
You paused for a moment. “Uh, when I was younger. Just before mid-terms in my Sophomore Year.”
“Late bloomer, then?”
You smiled a little. “Yeah, guess so. When Xavier found me, he told me apparently I had an extraordinary ability to suppress my emotions, but in doing so, it made them…grow stronger.”
Finally, you reached your office. Logan unlocked the door for you and you walked inside. It hadn’t changed.
“Jesus, this is what was in here?” You heard Logan asked, somewhere behind you as he coughed.
There was dust everywhere, even on the paint-stained cover sheets. By the looks of it, Xavier had kept his word that Scott wouldn’t be allowed to change your office in any way, shape or form.
You smiled, laying the box down on your desk before tearing the plasterboard from the window and trying to unlock the window.
“Do you mind-”
Logan stepped over some of the old cardboard boxes to get to the other side of the window. “On three,” he told you.
On three, you both pushed at the window until it came free and finally opened. Taking in the scent of the honeysuckle outside the window, you smiled. Logan looked around for a moment, really taking in the room. Then, as he looked back at you, you graced him with a light smile just as a forceful but light breeze spun through the window and around the room.
He sneezed and coughed as a tiny tornado of dust blew past him and out the window, but when he looked back again, the office space seemed…almost like new.
Walking over, you lifted the box you’d been carrying, watching as the trapped dust under it flew out of the window too.
“Impressive.”
You grinned, unclipping the box. “Thanks.”
“School books? Are you going to be teaching here?” Logan asked.
“No,” you shook your head. “But I will be working here.”
“Don’t you have a job back…wherever you’ve come from?”
You nodded. “I do, but I need a break from the city.”
“So…what will you be doing?”
“Analysis for the team, and for Xavier. Help build packets for court cases surrounding Mutant Laws. And, if needed, covering a couple classes.”
Logan smiled. “So, you are here to teach?”
“Only if you’re out of business, Wolverine.”
He raised his eyebrows, but tried to seem cool about it. “You teach history?”
“Used to.”
“Figured with the element thing, you would have been a science teacher?”
You chuckled and shook your head. “No. Science was actually my worst subject. I might be able to conjure the elements, but that doesn't mean I understand their subject.”
Logan chuckled. “Fair enough. I, uh, I guess I’ll leave you to it then.”
You nodded, smiling. “Thanks.”
“It was nice to meet you.”
“You, too.”
By the time you officially started back working both for and with Xavier, you and Logan had gotten to know each other a little more.
And as the years went by, you grew a little closer with each and every interaction.
It was a random Thursday afternoon when someone cleared their throat at Logan’s open office door. “You done ogling?"
Logan felt his presence get knocked back into him as Rogue coughed. He hadn’t realised how long he’d actually been staring at you.
It took all of two days for Logan to realise, if he kept his office door open and so did you, he could see you sitting at your desk. And that was a seriously better view than the endless display of nature outside of his office window.
Logan cleared his own throat. “What?”
Rogue smiled as she walked inside and took a seat across from his desk. “Oh, don’t try to hide it. We all know.”
“Know what?” Logan asked, trying to turn his concentration back on the papers he still needed to mark.
Rogue smiled as she watched him. Red cheeks, nervous shake of his hands as he readjusted his pen. “Logan?”
“What, kid?”
“Just tell her,” Rogue said, calmly.
Braving to face her, Logan looked up. “Tell who, what?”
She smiled, sitting forward. “You keep your office door open.”
“As does any good teacher.”
She nodded. “Yeah, and I’m not saying you’re not a good teacher, because you are. But you’re not the kind to keep their office door open at all times.”
Logan felt she had more to say, so saving himself a scolding, he just continued to listen.
“She’s the first and last person your eyes land on when you enter and leave a room. And I know that when you can’t sleep at night…she’s the only one you want to talk to.”
Logan just sighed. “Marie-”
She shook your head. “Nu-uh, no.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“Don’t you think, after everything we’ve been through- after everything you’ve been through…don’t you think you deserve something good for once?”
Logan contemplated her question as he turned and looked back towards your office. Your door was still open and you were finally throwing off your headphones and glasses to lean back in your chair and force a fresh breeze through your window.
Deep down, he knew Rogue was right. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it a thousand times before. But…you made him nervous.
He’d lived over a hundred years, he’d met millions of people, experienced things in life that would make anyone have a cold sweat long after they’d been buried. But his feelings for you and acting on them?
That scared him more than anything he’d ever faced before.
He knew he liked you the minute he walked you down the hallway to your office when you’d first met. He knew he found you attractive when he turned around and looked at you just before you showed him a tiny fraction of what your abilities could do. And he knew he fell in love with you the night you appeared by his side and he realised he wasn’t dreaming.
He’d been having a nightmare. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to have him speaking in his sleep, and toss around in a cold sweat. But when he heard your voice and he opened his eyes, he saw you…
“Logan?”
He took in a breath as he looked at you. Your beauty, encased in the twilight, shocked him down to his core. His hand reached out, slowly, trying to make sure you were real and not some kind of Angel he’d dreamed up.
“Y/n?”
You smiled, a slight curve appearing in the corner of your mouth. “Yeah, I’m here. You were having a nightmare.”
“I think I’m still dreaming,” he said, his voice still barely above a whisper.
A breathy laugh escaped you as he reached out to touch you. For a moment, he played with the ends of your hair. “You’re not dreaming anymore.”
“Feels like a dream,” he told you, half-asleep.
“Well, it’s not,” you assured him, quietly. You lay a gentle hand on his chest just as he covered your hand with his own to keep it there. “I’ll stay til you fall back to sleep.”
“Goodnight…Angel…”
You were shocked to say the least, but Logan didn’t notice. Instead, feeling your palm over his heart, he soon fell back to sleep. In the morning, he had no recollection of what happened. At least, it seemed that way to you.
Not long after Rogue left his office, Logan was left debating what to do. You were sitting in your office, listening to the natural breeze blow by, every now and again floating the scent of honeysuckle and lavender inside.
“Long day?”
Opening your eyes, you turned and looked at him. “Yeah. I’m ready for summer break to start.”
Logan smiled, an idea entering his mind. “How many papers do you have left?”
You blew a raspberry and nodded to the pile on the chair beside the entrance way. “All of them. Plus the final review of new-comer classes.”
Logan exhaled. “Wanna get out of here? For a couple hours at least?”
You weighed up your options. “Sure. What do you have in mind?”
Logan smiled. “It’s a secret. Just grab your jacket and meet me by the truck.”
“Not your motorcycle?” You asked, a little shocked.
“We’re gonna need something sturdier.”
You were intrigued so, with an excited look, you nodded. “Okay, then.”
Twenty minutes later, Logan was pulling onto the highway as you dug through the fast food bag.
Tearing the paper away from the straw with your teeth, you turned it over and pulled the straw out before slamming it into the cup and handing it over to Logan. You did the same with your own, placing it in the cup holder beside his own.
Carefully unwrapping his food, you placed it on his lap to reach for as he also concentrated on the surprisingly calm highway.
“So, where are we headed?”
“Still a surprise.”
It wasn’t until Logan was pulling off the highway and after a long stretch of road, started driving down a few smaller dirt roads that led towards a familiar forest that you realised just where he’d taken you.
It was the same safe space you’d driven him to in the early hours of the morning a while ago when he’d suffered the biggest nightmare you’d ever witness him have. He was still out of it by the time you arrived, and for a solid hour, you wrapped him in the silencing wind and enough scents of nature to calm his mind, body and soul.
“Thought we could both do with some fresh scenery,” Logan said as he looked at you, both of you standing in front of the truck and looking out over the cliff edge.
For a while, you both just sat on the ground, talking. And Logan watched as you dug your hands into the Earth beside you and let the dirt run through your fingers, absentmindedly.
The longer you both talked and laughed and shared untold stories, the more Logan noticed about you – or rather, the Earth around you. He knew plenty about you, already. Not that he’d ever get enough. But it was a rare sight to see your abilities fall out of you so naturally that even you didn’t notice.
The plants seemed lusher, the trees seemed to let out more oxygen, more flowers bloomed open, the wind offered a gentle breeze that would wrap around both of you and…you brightened.
By the time the sun was starting to set, the freshness of nature remained, but you were getting tired. Conversation had stalled, naturally, and when you weren’t looking, Logan found himself studying the same figure of you that he saw when you were in your office – only, this time, it was up close.
“Logan?” You turned and looked at him. But he was staring. He hummed.
You chuckled a little, your voice soft. “You’re staring.”
His eyes met yours, a little frozen before he looked away. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” you smiled, reaching out for his hand. “I like the way you look at me.”
He met your eyes once more, taken aback by the colour of yours. “And…how do I look at you?”
You swallowed. “Like I’m just as beautiful as the nature around us.”
“More,” he corrected, not taking the feeling of your hand in his, or the fact you were meeting his gaze, for granted. “More.”
You swallowed, nervously, averting your gaze for a moment.
“What? What is it?”
Logan watched as a crease became visible between your eyebrows. And then your voice cracked. “Um-”
“Hey,” Logan’s voice was soft as he reached out for you, tilting your face til you met his gaze again. With a gentle thumb, he brushed away the fallen tear. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
You shook your head. “Nothing, it’s…it’s nothing.”
“It’s something, clearly.”
“It’s stupid.”
Logan leaned closer to you. “Y/n?”
Letting out a breath, you tried to steady your voice. “You’re gonna think I’m pathetic.”
“Never.”
You choked out a laugh and hummed as if to say yeah, sure.
“I mean it.” He told you. “Nothing is more pathetic than Scott when it comes to Sports Day.”
You laughed a real laugh for a moment. Somewhere between the laugh and your words, you found enough courage to steady your voice. “I never thought someone would look at me the way you do, let alone admit it.” You swallowed, looking to where your hand joined with his. “You already know most of my story.”
And he did.
Six months after meeting him, Logan learned of how you came to find out about your abilities. The damage that the tornado had done, the damage that it had caused you; both before and after.
He knew about where and how the team had found you; on the run after your high school graduation. No authorities were after you, and no family was coming to find you. But you had been scared of making a home and a family somewhere else in case they felt the same as everyone else did about the abilities they didn’t know you had.
He knew about the friends you had made and the family that had helped you face the tragedies you thought you couldn’t move on from. He knew about when you’d left to move to the city to start a corporate job and why you decided to move back.
He knew about your tragedies, your happy moments, your anger and your joy. He knew everything. And hadn’t judged you but rather accepted you into his life with open arms.
“But even some things I’ve kept to myself,” you admitted.
Even though you knew, if he thought about them, the unspoken things would be understood. But you’d never voiced them.
You’d never voiced how, despite all the change, you still feared a relationship and a family of your own in case something went wrong. You’d never voiced how you tried your best to accept things in your life but still craved the intimacy of what you had with Logan but still feared him turning you away one day.
You’d never voiced that you’d fallen for him a year into working by his side, over a cup of stale coffee at four in the morning as you both waited on Rogue getting back from her three day long road trip from Canada.
“I’m scared about this, Logan.”
Logan felt a drag on his heart at your pain, but also felt a weight lift off his shoulders. You weren’t the only one.
“I’m scared about this, too.”
For a moment, a look flashed across your face that he didn’t recognise. So he added; “I’ve had a lot go wrong in my life, but you are one of the best things that has. And I want to get it right with you.”
A range of emotions washed over you as he told you. The loudest being; he’s scared because he doesn’t want to get it wrong? Not because he’s scared of you?
Without another deafening thought, you surged forward and kissed him. He leaned back a little, shocked by the unexpected kiss. But rather than tearing himself away from you, a cog turned in his head and he leaned in, kissing you back.
With a hand threaded through the back of your hair, he pulled you as close to him as he could before leaning his back against the tree trunk and pulling you onto him.
With the sun setting behind you, Logan took a breather for a moment to drink you in, in case the entire course of his memories with you had been nothing but his own imagination conjuring up his dream woman.
“Fuck,” he breathed, soaking the vision of you in. The warm glow of the sun bounced off your hair, your cheeks were flushed and your lips slick with his kiss. “You’re perfect.”
Unable to speak anymore, he heard you breath and his eyes fluttered closed. He’d been through a lot in his life, but never once did he allow himself to think he could have…everything.
You were his everything. You would always be his everything. He didn’t want anything more than just you. Ever.
He caught the rise of your smile as he leaned back in and kissed you again. You pressed your chest to his as he leaned up more, practically begging for you to let him deepen the kiss.
As you did so, you made a sweet noise at the back of your throat. A noise he would spend a life-time chasing if it meant he had the chance of hearing it again.
The kissing slowed…eventually. But that didn’t stop Logan from reaching for you. The seconds between closing your passenger side door of the truck to getting in the driver’s seat felt like the longest seconds of his life. And once the engine started up and he’d backed the truck up, he soon had your hand in his.
Once he hit the back roads, he reached over and pulled you further down the bench seat until you unclipped your seatbelt and buckled yourself into the middle seat so he could keep his arm around you the entire drive home.
And the next morning as you woke up beside him, was the first of the rest of forever.