Dilemma
Logan was aware that he needed to do something to help the girl, she barely slept and spent most of her time training or patrolling, she was like a caged wolf in the institute.
Exactly like him and he was struck once more by the similarities between them, they barely slept and often woke up with their claws out, they always sniffed the air to assess the numbers of people when they entered a room, they always tensed at the faintest noises ready to kill the threat and if he knew something about himself it was sharing traits with him was not healthy for a 16 year old girl.
But it was their differences that interested him the most, despite the obvious gender and height differences, the girl seemed fond of high places and would often be finded in a tree or on the roof, unlike him she kept a tight lid on her emotions and they only showed when they broke past the tight wall she had created around them, the main difference was their way of fighting, he was brutality and anger given bodies and claws that only purpose was to shred appart everything around him, Laura made it look like art, each movements flawless and fluidly becoming the next, each movement was close to perfection and he admired her for it.
He knew that they needed to talk but he was not really good at it and the last time he tried ended with a twin set of claws in the throat wich wasn't an experience he was wanting to reiterate.
"X can really give it to you" said the voice of Emma Frost as she entered the room and he simply growled once wich only made the woman roll her eyes "Laura's giving it to you would not make a good pun" and it was his turn to roll his eyes but he also knew that she mostly meant no ill with it and that presenting herself as an evil bitch was her way to cope with her own demons, better dress yourself as the monster that getting it thrown at your face every time.
"She's not getting better" commented the blond, her eyes not moving away from the girl reducing the Danger room robots to a pile of dismantled steel.
"No, I know she worry about the Facility finding her and wanna hunt them down and she's feared by the other students since she put Keller in his place" and there was a tad too much pride as he said it "Yes but it did him good" she pointed and Logan had to admit that after nearly getting sliced in half in the middle of the hall for being a jerk and three counselling sessions per week the kid was clearly getting over himself and even seemed nice if you looked from very far.
"Still don't like him" he grunted and she smirked "You're such a mama-bear, she can defend herself just fine" and if he hadn't been so surprised by the fact that someone found a sliver of parenting instinct in him he would have pointed that he didn't did enough if his kid was plagued with nightmare about her own past.
"That's what I meant" said Frost answering his thoughts "You're placing the bar too high, you didn't knew each other 2 weeks ago and she had no one but a handful of people caring for her and their all dead, she has more respect for you than anyone, start trusting her and she'll do the same" summarised Frost and he could see the psychology major showing "It's not her I don't trust it's the me that's inside her" he pointed.
"Then show her that it is not her that you mistrust" stated Frost as if it was the easiest thing in the world "Oh and I'll give you a date for your first counselling appointment" she pointed as she turned to leave "And like I point to every students in this building..."
'You can't really escape me' she finished in his head before leaving, great his day just got more of a headache than it already was, he really needed a beer and he knew just where to go to have some.
And that's how he found himself under his car with a toolkit and a pack of beers at 3 a.m listening to some crappy radio song.
"It's the injection system" and he nearly slammed his head against the car as he shot up in surprise, Laura had a tendency to entirely slip past his senses and to surprise him at the worst timing.
"And there is some kind of leak of brake fluid" and if Logan knew one thing it was that the girl rarely did useless thing so it was probably true "Thanks but what are you doing here" he asked and she gave a nod toward the black motorcycle she had arrived with and he made a mental note that like him Laura like to tinker or train when she couldn't sleep "Need some tools" he offered and she nodded and brought her bike next to his car before seating cross legged on the ground and start her inspection of the vehicle.
Like everything she did it was careful and methodical each movement was smooth and precise and once Logan was certain that she was not in any form of danger he set up to do his own work, the two did their work in silence with their back turned to each other only talking to ask the other for a tool.
After some time Logan also noticed that she seemed to like music with a fast beat as she often would tap her foot or finger on the rhythm of rock, pop, rap and folk but heavy metal or other type of loud music made her frown and he understood it better than anyone, if the music was too loud or too much at once their enhanced hearing was unable to process it all and they would end up with a headache.
He heard the buzz inside the speaker of his phone half a second before it rang and he answered Immediately "What do you want Fury" and if the man had picked on the fact that Logan had no wish to be disturbed right now, it didn't show "Nice to talk to you too Logan but as you guessed this is no social call, we lost some data related to Weapon Plus but if it was just that I wouldn't have called" said Fury knowing that he had the mutant attention as soon as he said Weapon Plus "It is the work that was made by Parker based on your charge mother work but the real kick is who we suspect is responsible of the theft, Sentinel Services" and that was the last nail on the coffin, Logan was in one way or another, may it be out of his friendship with the Parkers or to get Fury out of Laura's back.
"Send the data to the Institute, we're in a tight spot and I can't promise a full X-men team but I'm in on the condition that everything that you have on the girl is deleted and you'll leave her out of your schemes" said Logan he may already have been convinced but he wouldn't work without a pay, Laura safety from SHIELD seem like a good enough price in exchange for his services.
"I can't really offer that and you know it, I can make it a high clearance file but not much more, the Council already put an investigation on her deleting files now would make it too obvious, I'll stall instead and will send you everything they got so you can at least get ahead of them.." whatever Fury was about to say next was interrupted by Logan fist smashing through a wall.
"You're wanna repeat that real slow bub" growled Logan "Cause I may be going deaf with age and mistook what you heard, cause if you really didn't told me that there was a team going after my kid let me tell you that nothing in that glass tower of yours will stop me from making you pay" and he litteraly roared the last part with a level of anger he rarely felt.
"Why did you think I called" shot Fury back as if totaly unbothered by the threat "Beside your actual reaction just proved that you doing anything will be more detrimental to the girl situation than me using my spies to steer them off course" pointed Fury coldly "I'll send you what we got, beside I want McCoy expertise on what could be made by someone cracking those files" Logan grunted before flipping his phone shut.
Laura knew that Logan was aware that she had heard the whole discussion but none of them would point it and they continued to work in silence but her mind was still reeling with what had been said earlier, especially the 'my kid' part wich had opened a whole can of worms that she hadn't dared think about until now, what was Logan seeing her as.
To her he had been her sole role model when she was trained as X-23, what she aimed to become, to surpass, to be.
Once she was out of the Facility and had met him she had been confused about him and after talking about it with Ms.Frost during her counselling sessions the woman had pointed that it was normal for her to have mixed feelings about an absent parents wich Laura hadn't understood until she lived with him in the mansion, a part of her resented him for being the reason she existed and had suffered so much, another wanted to be closer to him, for him to trust her.
But her clashing feelings often ended with her lashing out at the man with her claws out.
She was halfway done with her work when the morning came and if Laura had learnt one thing during her short stay in the institute it was that she needed to make it to the bathroom before Pryde or she would only be able to smell the ton of products her room-mate used on herself each morning for the rest of the day, she packed Logan's tool and thanked him with a grateful nod ehen he told her that no one would mess with her bike.
Laura showered quickly and decided that since she had eaten a quick snack after her training session she could forgo breakfast to do her patrol instead, she already had messed up her schedule enough already.
Patrol around the institute was more an excuse to get away from the rest of the students body and to do a quick jog in the massive parc of the Xavier's estate and she had barely finished dressing that she felt the slight prick against her brain that came when a telepath tried to contact her and Laura lowered her defence enough to let someone message enter but not enough so any stray thoughts could be heard.
"I want to discuss somethings that could use your insight Laura, would you please come to my office" gently asked the voice of Ms.Frost in her head, Laura had always been surprised with how careful the woman was when using telepathic communication, it was always controlled so it never hurted or be uncomfortable in any way, Xavier communicating always left her an headache while the other telepath she knew were younger and probably not as refined in their power use as the vice head of institute.
She noted before she even passed the door that Logan was also in the room, she entered the office and Logan motioned for her to sit on the chair next to him and Ms.Frost didn't beated around the bush wich was more than fine for Laura, small talk was a pain as the girl had not any idea of what 'normal people' talked about.
"I called you here for three reasons, the first is that since we are low on staff member since the Phoenix event eight months ago, we're creating new teams" Laura didn't knew the details of it but she had learnt that three months ago some members of the Hellfire Club tried to awaken a cosmic power and use the Omega class mutant Jean Grey as a host but in the end with Emma Frost and her students help the X-men managed to prevail but at a great cost and since the X-men had barely been seen, now she knew why.
"And we would like you to join one of them, you already proved yourself a capable fighter and more than anything you have more field experience than most of our official members" Laura knew that most kids her age in the institute wanted to be in her place right now "I am flattered by the offer but joining a visible team will be more cons than pro, I am not use to working in a team and despite my abilities in any type of fighting situations, my skills and experience tend more toward stealth than anything else" summarised Laura "I would be more usefull to a black ops type of operation"
As she said the words Logan and Ms.Frost made a silent discussion with their eyes, well in this case it was probably a mind one but it seemed that at the end of it neither of the two adults had won their mental argument.
"On a totaly other note, I have a tutoring request from David Alleyne for Laura" said the vice headmistress clearly succeeding in changing the subject as Laura eyes widdened in surprise at that, David Alleyne was a mutant that could emulate the ability of the people close to him but the question was why ask for her to train him, she was fairly certain that they never talked and that the boy held a bit of fear of her, beside she was certain that emulating her own training was not a good thing to do.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't realised that her claws were slipping out until the sharp sting of pain followed by the sound of adamantium claws piercing through wood brought her back to the world.
She was about to apologise but Ms.Frost beat her to it "You don't need to apologise as it was my fault for not accounting your thoughts on the matter" she said kindly as if nothing had happened "But both me and Logan agreed that it is a good idea" she pointed and Laura raised an eyebrow at the man seating next to her.
"Yeah, you got skills that none of us beside the top tier trained can match but most of all you got patience and a good head on your shoulder, hell I still got trouble keeping my temper while teaching the newbies and I've done it for years" grunted Logan and Frost smirked before adding her own thoughts on the subject "Beside it is easier for you not to be crowded by students so one on one teaching seemed like a good idea and David his one of the most dutiful and respectful student in this academy" summarised the woman calmly
"But in the end the choice is yours" added the vice headmistress.
Choice was a luxury she was rarely given and didn't really knew what to fo with it, on one side she would lose nothing by refusing but on the other there was big variables that could mess up the task.
The rational part of herself was telling her to refuse but the emotional one was pushing her to accept, it was the first time Logan trusted her with anything and she really wanted to prove that she was worthy of his trust and while she didn't trusted Miss Frost as much as Logan, the woman had been kind and supportive of her since she arrived, then she remembered what Miss Frost had said to her on her first session, take the time you need and don't do things because you think we want you to but because you did "Can I think it over" she asked and berated herself for the meekness of her voice.
But it seem to be what Ms Frost was waiting as she smiled kindly "Very good, how about you come back with an answer by the end of the day" suggested the woman before adding something "And remember that we have other people able to teach young Alleyne if you refuse, so no big deal" and Laura had nodded at that not really knowing how to deal with kindness and empathy.
"And all of this lead us to our last subject and before getting in the thick of it I need to make something clear" said Emma Frost as her entire demeanour switched from aloof to serious in a blink "This is not a mission and you are in no way expected to accept it" Laura nodded understanding what the woman in front of her was saying 'This is not the Facility, you can choose to do it' but despite understanding it Laura wasn't certain that she was able to, it had been drilled into her to obey orders since she was born and old habits died hard and Logan as well as Ms.Frost knew it but she still nodded.
Ms.Frost slid a folder toward Laura who read it silently but as soon as she had ended the first pages dread was filling her, she had thought that she had destroyed her mother work when she had escaped the facility so no one could use it like that ever again but it seem that it was not the case, a researcher called Richard Parker who had been one of her mother classmates and first colleague had worked with her on a project that was supposed to allow a human/other animal DNA through a forced waking of the X-gene wich had been founded by SHIELD and the Weapon Plus program.
And those research were stolen, dread soon left place to anger then into steely resolve as she looked at Ms.Frost in the eyes "I'll do it" and she knew Logan was about yo argue but that was not up to debate "No, I need to do it, someone stole my own mother work in that I'd probably an attempt to make more Weapon X like you or me, I won't allow anyone to become what I am, much less using her research" she growled before he could get a word out.
"Then you have two days to prepare before going to New York, since you have your own vehicle we'll provide you with funds and a new suit" said Ms.Frost and Logan looked ready yo argue but was placated in a glance "But we won't let you go unrestricted, we want updates every two days in case it is not made we will extract you" and Laura was about to say something but was beaten to it "Job finish or not and this is not up to debate, if you do it we need to be sure you are okay at all time, you're one of my students and I'll be dead before watching any of them die once more" and Laura didn't need to smell the air to tell that it was the truth.
"Then I agree"
"Good, then you have two days to think of a codename while we're making you a suit" answered the vice headmistress with a playfull glint in her eyes.