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In his long lifetime, Logan had felt pain so severe and intense that most were lucky to simply die from it. But the one kind of pain he had never been made to experience was the lasting and persistent kind that required healing and medical attention. It was the kind he already knew Peggy would need, which was unfortunate because he was wholly unequipped to provide any of it. He cursed under his breath and twisted himself around to have a look at her. The scrape along his cheek was already gone, leaving only dried dirt and blood in its place. His cigar was long gone.

"I'll live. What about yer shoulder? Still attached?" He had learned long ago the art of popping his own joints back into place. It was not a pleasant experience in the best of times. He needed no instincts to know it would likely go worse for her.

"Attachedish," she answered. But her thoughts were already honing in on exactly the same conclusion as his: the unpleasant chore of putting the shoulder back into place was about as inevitable as anything else involved with this mission. Peggy gave herself the length of three more breaths before she tried (again) to sit up. The injured arm sat limp and tenderly preferred, while she made the other do the brunt of the work. "Give us a hand, won't you?"

She gritted her teeth and nodded at the shoulder in question. What she did not say was that he (having so handily knit himself back together before her eyes) might as well help her get herself set to rights, as well. Any interrogation about his strange healing had to wait until her head wasn't swimming with pain.

It wouldn't do to pass out mid-questioning.

No one would ever accuse Logan of being sensitive, but he had at least the decency this time to help ease her into a sitting position. He was beside her now, one armed around her back and resting on her healthy shoulder. It might have been an uncomfortable kind of proximity were they not both already accustomed to holding hands by now. Even so, playing doctor wasn't what he'd signed up for.

"Ya know, darlin'. Yer real pretty when yer tryin' to act tough."

It was a comment he did not expect her to appreciate. But that was the point. The very moment he could see a response preparing to roll off the tongue, he placed his hand against the injured shoulder, braced her other half against him, and pushed hard. It was a sort of kindness to do away with any kind of countdown, but not one for which he expected to be thanked.

Indignation. Pique. Pain. Without the benefit of anything to bite down upon, Peggy was left to grit her teeth all the harder and wear her resistance like an iron in her bones. There was no shame found in betraying her nation-given mandate to maintain a stiff upper lip, and her abrupt cry of hurt reverberated back at her -- bouncing off the narrow valley walls. Adding to the pain was the sudden instinct to close her fist, squishing what was left of his blood between her fingers. The moment was visceral and arguably more intimate than all the reluctant hand-holding that had come before.

"Wanker," she growled through her grit teeth. It felt good (better) to let some of the office polish melt away in a crucible of injury. The deep ache remained, but she could already tell it apart from the hot unbearable sting of a dislocated shoulder. "You ought to have told us--"

She honed her anger into a hot point. Flushed her word with disdain for what he'd held back and what he'd not said. Not to her, at least. Peggy couldn't decide which scenario was worse: that Logan had hid this strange talent of his from all of the SSR, or that he'd shared it only for the SSR to neglect telling her.

Having not realized his own secret was in jeopardy, Logan did not know what to make of her accusation. He'd loosened his hold on her the moment he heard the bones pop into place. Her cry of pain was certainly worthy of sympathy, but he wasn't prepared to coddle her while she dealt with the pain. He liked her, but he didn't like her that much.

"Told you what? That handholdin' ain't good for rough terrain?" He looked to his right and found his cigar, flattened and turn halfway in two from being rolled on and lost. He picked it up and examined it before realizing that it was in a sorrier state than the both of them. It would not be recovering from its injuries. He tossed it away. "Shit."

A woman did not rise through British army intelligence on a pretty face alone -- though God knows it helped. Peggy's expression was one of haunting hurt and hollowed eyes, but she mustered enough verve and emotion to look proper pissed. It hadn't taken long to go from seeing him heal to understanding that he was something...special. Peggy was no stranger to special. Wincing, she tucked her injured arm against her belly and flexed the bloody fingers despite the cost of doing so. This was how she drew attention to his blood.

"You're extraordinary." She said it like an accusation. Like a charge.

Extraordinary. Logan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Beneath his skin, he felt his claws and an instinctual urge to draw them. His brother Victor had maintained a very firm policy on what to do about people who found out things they didn't need to know. Logan, ever the pacifist of the two, generally paid no mind to common soldiers who knew. But he knew well that Victor would argue a government agent would be no end of trouble. Even without his brother nearby, he could scarcely argue that logic.

He tightened his fists, clenched his teeth, and then relaxed. "Drop it," he said acidly. "It ain't nothing fer you to care about. You didn't see anything."

"I know what I saw," she said -- voice hoarse with the last few minutes of torturous bad fortune. She might not know what lurked beneath his fists, but she could at least observe how they tightened. She could see the tension permeating his body right up until the moment it didn't. And yet: "You can't intimidate me into having not seen it."

It was (perhaps) a foolhardy hill on which to make her stand. She'd endured insult to her sex and injury to her body and hadn't met it with as much fire as she did this fresh attempt to monitor what she knew.

He stood quickly and abruptly without a trace of pain evident. "Intimidation don't even enter into it." He looked down at her with an icy and unfriendly coldness in his eyes. "We finish this and you forget what you saw. Otherwise I'm gone."

He did not need to make any grand gesture to make his words seem more convincing. They were not a threat, but rather a simple choice to be made. He might have signed on to complete the mission, but it was not so important to him as to risk the government asking questions he didn't care to answer. If it meant abandoning her here, then he would rather face a guilty conscience than whatever her SSR goons would have in mind for him. If he left her, then he might risk losing his own chance to ever escape - but right now he knew she needed him more than he needed her. He was the one with the passcode and she was the one withe injury.

Peggy wondered if this was the truest version of him: hostility beneath a cloak of cigar smoke and false flirtation. And then she wondered which man she preferred -- the honest one or the one she'd expected all along? She sat (hamstrung) and watched him unveil his coldness to her. It hardened her freshly-bruised jaw. It hardened her very soul.

Grappling with the loose-rock valley wall, Peggy made a point of standing on her own. It was a slow and labour-intensive action, with false starts and frequent pauses. The pain was prohibitive and her head still swam, but after much expended effort she found her own feet. Gingerly, she walked forward. It was safe enough to eschew his touch for now, but she knew she'd have to seek it eventually.

For now, pride prevailed.

Both sides of him were as real as Logan came. There was an honest chord to him that fought for the sorts of thing men should fight for. But there was the beast as well and the beast thought only of survival. He could be protective and loyal, but only to the point that his safety was threatened. Peggy represented a cog in a greater beast that he knew he had no hope of successfully fighting off. He didn't need to be caught to know what lay in store for a mutant and especially one that didn't die.

He watched her silently stand and move along on her own through the pain and injury. He himself did not budge. She was entitled to her pride, but she was not worth risking his own survival. Not many people were. Like her, he said nothing. But unlike her, he was making no special effort to resume their journey.

Each step delivered shockwaves: vibrations from foot to skull, shaking up all the little bits of her that got banged and bruised and bashed on the way down. Peggy was (at least) pleasantly surprised to find herself capable of movement -- wondering whether he didn't take the brunt of their fall, somehow. Not that he looked particularly impacted when she glanced stoically over her shoulder. He wasn't moving. All well and good for him, who'd done his healing. But she craved somewhere with a bit more cover -- somewhere lower, well-beneath the narrow bridge above, where she could sit and let her own much slower healing process begin. The plateau would not suffice but -- mercifully -- the remaining handful of switchback path wasn't quite so dreadful steep as the first half.

"Do keep up," she grimaced. But there was no bite left to the words -- indeed, they betrayed an unhappy desperation. Until this past minute, she'd been trying hard to convince herself they needed each other rather equally. She may not have cared much that he disparaged her, but she cared to realize how mismatched she was.

Much as he wanted to address the problem of her knowledge, he was cowed by her insistence to carry on in spite of injury. He did not perhaps feel guilty, but he certainly felt shamed. Battered as she was, Peggy Carter was continuing the mission. He could scarcely stand behind while she dragged herself into the mouth of hell. So despite intending to hold his ground, he finally yielded and fell into step behind. Free to move at his own pace and maintain his own balance, it was easier now for him to navigate his way down. He could have easily moved on ahead of her, but he kept his eyes glued to the back of her. She was in no right state to be handling this on her own.

He said nothing, though. Aside from pressing the point of his secret, there was nothing to be said. For now, the mission and survival had to continue. Perhaps by the time they found somewhere to rest, she might have enough wits to come around to his way of thinking. He didn't see how she had much of a choice in the matter.

Peggy was hard-pressed to think on a time she'd felt worse. Her career had never been easy or simple -- and one doesn't reach even her level within an organization without enduring some manner of hardship. Violence. Cuts. Gashes. Burns. Bruises. Broken bones. It wasn't even the first time her shoulder had been dislocated -- but it was the first time she'd experienced so many injuries in tandem. And it was the first time they'd been incurred so far from active civilization. So far from so much as a field hospital.

But she knew she wasn't prepared to languish part-way to shelter and waste away with more weakness than was her due. And so it was a hefty forty-five minutes before they reached the culmination of their chosen path. The bone-dry riverbed was narrower even than the bridge (in parts) and provided ample cover. Coves and caves where one (or two) might spend a passably secure evening. Peggy didn't wait for his agreement before she chose a particularly roomy berth, staking its claim by dropping her rifle onto the dusty ground.

"We won't manage a fire," she announced as she eased herself down to sit on a rock that was just-about the right height for a chair.

Silence suited him well, though it was not easy for him to follow the slow pace she'd set for them. But he preferred she kept his back to him where he did not need risk seeing what accusing look she must no doubt be harboring for him. Indeed he saw little of her until they had found the cave. Daylight still seemed to persist above them, but by now there seemed little point in waiting for the natural cycle of night to come to them. Even a regenerating man needed his rest. He raised no objection to their choice of lodgings and so seated himself on a smaller rock not quite so chair sized.

His heavy pack came off first and he immediately began to look through it. They had days worth of rations and plenty of water still, but not enough to last if they did not find a natural source soon. This cove they found themselves in wasn't even damp, despite having once been pat of the river itself. He grimaced as he pulled out the canteen and felt the weight of it. He held it out to her. "You'll be wanting to clean those cuts. Bad enough you waited this long already."

Her mouth opened. Shut. Opened again. A dozen-odd barbs sprung to her tongue, but she weighed the value of each one and found their usefulness wanting. She was angry -- oh, she was livid. But she had to ask herself what would be accomplished by letting that anger pilot her words. Very little, she surmised.

"Our water?" She asked -- chin tipped up. Defiant. "Come, now. A man who thinks to bring cigars must not have skimped on the--" her eyes narrow. As though she's sizing him up. "Whiskey? Rye, most likely. Every rye drinker I've ever known has looked like you. Alcohol will clean better than our drinking water will."

Perhaps she could not help herself but be a little contrary.

Having lived a life of short term injuries, the notion of using hard liquor for a wound had literally not occurred to him. He had never played the medic before and it wasn't often he was with anyone that needed tending after. Logan carried his injured comrades to safety, but then it was always someone else's job to patch them up. Only this time, there was no one that he could take Peggy to. Even so, he wasn't eager to give up the vodka.

But out it came in a separate flask from the bottom of his pack. Before surrendering it, he had himself draft. It wouldn't even do enough to get him buzzed, but it at least would improve his mood. "Try'n be sparing. That's all I brought."

She went to great pains while raising the flask and giving it an experimental sniff. The crinkle of her nose suggested (quite unabashedly) that she judged his taste in spirits. She judged it harshly. Too much time spent on the Western Front had brought her into contact with too much bad vodka. But she likely couldn't ask for a better booze to clean her cuts: no pesky sugars and grains getting in the way of its work.

Peggy was sparing when she doused the worst of her wounds. It stung -- perhaps worse than the relocation of her shoulder had done. It was torturous work to tend to her own injuries. Not because she wasn't up to the task, but because the introduction of such sting was easier when done by another hand. It made her long for Mister Jarvis's company, for he had a steady hand and a good bedside manner.

"--I trust you can spare a mouthful more for the patient?"

Logan was of no help whatsoever. Aside from sacrificing his supply of booze, he simply sat perched and watched. Halfway through her session of wincing, he began to distribute their food rations. A fire would have made for a more interesting meal, but their supper tonight would consist of dried goods and water. Anything fresh had been already consumed well before they arrived in the city itself. Going forward, their meals would be more of the same. At least until they found something more palatable or reached the point of their mission where they had no option but to turn back the way they came.

He gestured for her to drink up. "My brother'd have killed you already. Victor never did care to risk anyone knowin' we weren't like other folk."

"You have a strange manner of comforting a person," she answered so dryly. Fully aware (it seemed) that he likely made no effort to comfort her. Luckily, Peggy had herself convinced she didn't require it of him. The vodka (rancid-bitter as it was) would be comfort enough, and much like with the cigar she grinned and beared her way through another unpleasant ritual. This one, at least, put fire in her belly.

"It ain't meant to be comfort." He held out his hand, expecting the flask to be returned so he could have his own share before putting it away. "You've seen what I am. You got any notion the trouble you could cause me?"

Killing her or abandoning her was not an outcome he desired. He liked her, for all she actually represented. But Logan was a survivor and that kind of survival meant doing things that he wasn't too proud of.

"I know precisely how much, yes," she answered with concrete in her voice. Peggy nudged the flask's cap back into place, but didn't bother screwing it shut. She offered it back to its owner. "And perhaps I know it better than you yourself do."

It was difficult not to: having been so involved at the outset of Project Rebirth, to witnessing its inception; implementation; abandonment. Worse yet, she'd been privy to what HYDRA had done even after it had begun to be dismantled. Reinhardt and the bloody swathe of mutilated bodies left in his wake -- all done in the name of science. The search for powered individuals.

"You're not the first...remarkable man with whom I've worked, Logan." She doubted he needed the reminder. But perhaps she needed it. To regard him as something similar to Captain Rogers, if only so she might stop the fluttering fear in her heart. It wasn't fair to be frightened.

And yet, fear in the face of such power was natural. Wasn't it?

He snorted. "You talkin' about Cap? He was a kid they made in a lab. I ain't disrespectin' him either. I owe the sorry bastard for busting me out of that prison. But there ain't nobody who made me like this."

The flask was set aside and he leaned forward. There was no point in secrets now. He held the back of his hand to face her and tightened his fist. From the wrist, the skin broke and parted ways. Ivory white bones jutted through the holes that had formed there. The claws were ugly looking things, but were sharpened at the end to match a razor's edge. At their full length, each claw was long enough to reach well past the length of his fingers.

"Me and Victor ain't some experiment gone wrong, teacup. And we sure as hell ain't looking to be anybody's blueprints."

Something in his claim offended her. That much was unmistakeable. But Peggy Carter held her tongue and kept some semblance of the peace, refusing to blurt out that no one -- least of all the SSR -- made Steve Rogers. The science that had blasted through Captain America's body was something of an after-thought to her mind: far more remarkable (to both her and Erskine) was the heart that powered the whole thing. No: Captain America had not been made, he had been chosen. Perhaps it hadn't been that way for Logan, and that alone was the reason why she kept her emotions in check. It helped neither of them for her to make her martyr's stand upon a hill of no consequence to their conversation.

And then the claws came out and arguments died away all on their own. Had she the strength and fortitude left, she would have sat up a little straighter. As it was, she merely let her stare settle long and hard upon the vicious growths. Peggy didn't think it necessary to blow hot air about how she wasn't about to jeopardize anyone's freedom with loose lips -- however natural it might have been for him to feel concern for such an outcome, she couldn't help but feel she owed him no assurances when she'd given no reasons to feed into his suspicion.

Instead, she corralled her curiousity into one question: "You were born with them, then?"

All the talk of reports and photography had been all he needed to be suspicious. Even revealing this much was more than he had done with most others. He'd had lovers who didn't even know what he really was. By far Peggy was the highest in the infastructure of the government to ever see or know what he was or capable of. Even now he could hear Victor's take on the situation. You're too soft, runt. This bitch ain't worth it.

That thought flickered in his eyes with a sudden flash of anger. He did not love Victor or even particularly like him, but several lifetimes filled with war and long empty roads made any consistent companionship something treasured. The truth of it was, it didn't matter what Peggy knew. She'd be in the grave soon enough, one way or another. It didn't matter if it was now or in fifty years.

He retracted the claws back into his wrists. "Born. Or they came later. Don't really matter. I was a kid the first time they came out."

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LOGAN @lumberjackman X-Men (available in film and animated canons)

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