Chapter 10
You wouldn’t know it looking at him, he didn't live like it anymore than he acted like it, but Wolverine was actually very wealthy, a long life, a dozen fortunes he'd won and with few needs he could certainly settle comfortably down.
But he'd wanted to get away from the trappings of civilisation and the problems that came with it. So he'd come back here. He’d thought he’d gotten free, and he’d come to Alaska to bury myself in a bottle and to choke himself on whiskey and tobacco.
But he’d dragged it with him.
The house had sentimental value. Once he’d even called it home, though he couldn’t think of it that way anymore. It was also the site of his single worst memory. The big cabin looked very innocent; quiet, windows dark, and nestled between soft drifts of fluffy snow. The white powder coated the roof and window ledges of the cabin as well. A chill, icy wind buffeted the structure lifting flakes into the air, and rustled the branches of the green pines dotting the otherwise empty field around it. It was built in a shallow depression, out of sight unless you knew what you were looking for.
It was a log cabin styled house, large and yet reserved, a comfortable retreat from the cold. There were three long leather couches in the area and several glass and wooden tables by their corners while a small table stood behind him. A long dining table with a closed window frame, and a large fire was burning in the grey stone fireplace. He looked up at the stuffed heads of his various prizes and sighed before turning back to the fire. He wanted to collapse. There was perhaps enough blood left in him to keep a small kitten alive, and he could barely keep his head straight.
It would be so easy to succumb. To just slide down, let himself drift off and only wake when it was all over. But he took the hard way, like he always did. He didn’t know any other.
You could beat him, you could toss him around, but that was all you could do. He was Wolverine. And he never gave up. Ever.
Behind him, he could hear the wind hitting the side of the house and he could see closed windows keeping it out. Above, the roof crisscrossed and from it's centre, a chandelier made out of deer antlers hung from a iron chain. The floor was mostly bare and wooden, but the area in front of the fireplace was carpeted, a bear skin rug. The bear had surprised him and Silver Fox long ago, at a picnic, and he hadn't messed the pelt up too badly with his claws. Now he was bleeding all over it. The bear probably felt some small measure of satisfaction at this, and he supposed he couldn't blame it.
He wasn’t entirely defenceless. There were locks on all the doors and windows, and keypads in the corners of the room. He'd had made this place a fortress, by the standards of this isolated part of the world. Bad memories had made that a priority.
But it wouldn't keep Slade out. Not for a heartbeat. It wouldn't keep his less competent but annoyingly persistent brother away either. And he could fight the two of them again, but that hadn’t worked out so well for him.
He was going to have to run.
He didn't like it, but it was the right move. Retreat, heal, fight again on his own terms, not on Slade’s. That was the smart approach. That was the right approach. For all the fighting he'd done, he'd run a lot more.
His eyes fell, in a movement that would almost be natural if he hadn't been doing all he could not to stare out of habit, at the small stand above the hearth, where rested all he had to remember the woman who had, on consideration, most likely been the closest thing he had to the love of his life.
But not, in the end, his wife.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing hard, as other old memories surfaced. He realised that out all the places he had been, and all the women he had known, the ones that shined the most in his thoughts now were in a far off, tranquil place, where he had a chance to be something else. A chance he'd missed, by bad luck or bad judgement - in the end who could tell?
Logan leaned back, looking upside down at the Daisho resting in its place. The smaller wakizashi sword was excellent of its type, razor-sharp and about a foot and half long in a gentle curve. It was, however, a modern work, less than eighty years old, and had only seen a single war.
The katana slumbering in its sheath above the smaller companion sword was another story entirely.
The Yashida Clan sword was a miracle of metallurgy, one of the first of it's kind, a Masamune original, forged by Japan’s legendary swordsmith, and nearly six hundred years older then Christ.
Logan carried blades inside his arms that were sharper, and far tougher, but the sword upon his mantle was a work of art, complete in regards to its purpose. It had been given to him as a sign of Mariko’s favor. It had been taken away for similar reasons. And in time, he'd stolen it - partly so as to remember her, partly because, well it had seemed the thing to do.
Giving it to him had rested the physical honour of Clan Yashida quite literally in his hands. The sword was the living symbol of all the extended family’s honour, and giving it over to Logan’s guardianship, an outlander of no blood, had been almost unimaginable.
It had meant he had her love, her trust. And he'd ruined it all, like he'd ruined everything he touched, all to somehow end up here. Running again.
He wanted to fight, he realised, with a sigh. Wanted to turn around and give Slade everything he had. Why not? What did he have to lose?
He wondered how he had gotten so old, when he seemed to always act so damn stupid.
He'd run from every home he'd ever had. Everyone who'd ever loved him. From who he hoped to be, from who he had been, and who he feared he was. And he was thinking of making a stand? Here?
No.
Because if he threw everything he had at Slade, he'd come up wanting. You want to win the big fights, the important ones, the ones that matter, you have to do more then just give it your best.
He heard the movement, smelled her hair and her skin.
“Didn’t think you were coming back until late.” She said, with a yawn.
"Felicia?"
“Last time I checked.” He’d caught her napping (it wasn’t that late, but then, she didn’t have much to do), she was wearing a distractingly slight sweater and a scarf, and still had a kind of careless glamour that seemed too perfect without the benefits of a design studio. But then, Felicia Hardy was a beautiful woman, features sculpted by good genetics, with only a little discreet surgery - and he'd finally convinced her to lose the overabundance of facial cosmetics that, to Wolverine's mind, only detracted from her natural perfection. Just beneath her hair, long and white in tresses as smooth as silk, he could make out a number of fine wires trailing from her scalp - the modifications made to her for her powers.
For a moment he tensed, then relaxed. "You should get your coat." He said, a bit harsher then he intended.
She was a spontaneous sort of girl, not one given to introspection or planning. He could barely tell how it happened, how the two of them had found themselves living together in the wilderness for two months. It was only supposed to be a casual thing, afterall, they'd both felt lonely, where was the harm in keeping each other company some nights, sometimes? Somehow, it had become this unhealthy mess of a relationship. He wondered which of them was using the other more, but supposed it didn't matter. They were both consenting adults, and as being between places went this wasn't all that bad. Just…
"Aren't you awful surly tonight? I thought we were past all this." She purred, a deep vibration in the back of her throat that he hadn't know humans could make before he met her, and moved closer, swinging her hips a touch more then necessary. She was trying hard, for her own benefit more than his, he expected. She was used to being fantasised about, to being admired and desired by everyone she met, and out here she was alone. Still, he appreciated it. He didn't know a red-blooded man who wouldn't. "Actually, I was planning on an early night tonight, and since you're back you could join me."
He sighed. "I mean we're leaving. Or we're in trouble."
She sighed, and folded her arms under her breasts. "You're serious?"
"Yes. Anything you want to pack?"
"Nothing." She sighed, and rolled her eyes, a touch exaggeratedly for his benefit, then flounced back the way she'd come. She returned half a heart-beat later all bundled up in an immense mink fur coat that covered her head to toe (trailing on the ground a little behind her). "Lets get going then, we might find our way to something like civilisation if we move quickly."
"Just a moment." It took more effort then it should have, to force his wounded body to stagger down the hallway and into the room he slept in. But he needed to do one more thing in order to feel like himself. He was in costume less often than other people in this line of work, but he'd brought it even if he was going into partial retirement. Didn't feel right not to have it along - it would have almost been like leaving himself behind. He pulled on a yellow full-body spandex suit with blue shorts, boots, shoulders and gloves, a red belt and a yellow headpiece with large black 'ears', which only left his muscular arms uncovered. Three metallic pieces on both hands clipped into place to serve as channels for his claws if he needed to let them out.
He still felt sore. His head still swayed, his vision wavered, and he really needed a sleep. But now, they were just problems to be overcome. He turned, and made his way back outside, heading for his motorbike. He'd have to backtrack as far as route 73, but then he could follow the open road wherever he wanted. Next time he'd be more careful. He wouldn't be found again unless he wanted to be. Until he was ready to be.
Slade had talked enough, and Wolverine had been listening. Vandal Savage had put a hit on him. He'd crossed the immortal before, a few times, but recently… It didn't matter. The man had made a big mistake. Shortly, he'd get shown just how big.
He swung a leg over the bike, and revved it a few times. The lithe woman all bundled up in animal fur clad woman with flowing ivory hair leaped onto the bike behind him. "You know," she said, lacing her arms around his chest from behind him. He could feel her firm breasts press up against his back and felt a little aroused at the prospect. "All this racing and secrecy is enough to get all the adrenaline pumping… get a person all worked up. You worked up?"
Her hands started to trace the definition of his chest and abs, but he pushed them off. "Yeah. Never can resist you. But we can't be distracted. Not now. If either of them find us, then things'll get really ugly really quickly. It's Deadpool and Deathstroke, working for Vandal Savage."
She raised one delicate eyebrow. "Danger as well. Exciting. You do know how to show a girl a good time."
"That's really distracting." He said, revving the engine and driving back up the way he'd come.
"Kinda the idea, big boy."
He didn't remove her hand. He was too busy steering. "Time and a place."
“You’ve been doing it wrong all this time.” She pouted, then stopped all at once, as a chill crept down her spine. There was a figure standing on the road ahead, too distant to make any details, yet somehow unmistakable in spite of that.
"Contact." Slade stood in the centre of the road waiting for them, humming Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Run through the Jungle' under his breath. His rifle was held in his hands, and he'd taken his mask off. This time, he didn't bother with the physical confrontation, the fight, the slow build-up to the kill. He'd already scratched that particular itch. This was the next part, after the hunt and fight were done. He braced the rifles stock solidly against his shoulder, keeping his arms loose, narrowed his eye as he took careful aim, then put his finger on the trigger. It was a heavily customised weapon - by technical definition, the Browning M2 was a massive, one-hundred-forty-pound semi-automatic rifle, but it was hard to think of it as anything except a cannon. Normally they were mounted on Humvees, helicopters, or aircraft carriers. It could fire non-stop for three and a half minutes, with an effective range just shy of two miles. As he had told his brother, the bullets it was currently loaded with were worth a hundred thousand dollars each, and with a fire rate of 25 every second, It cost thirty million dollars to fire the weapon for twelve seconds. But rapid-fire was for people who missed. Slade wouldn't need more then one.
Wolverine made a tight turn most stunt drivers wouldn't dream of attempting, without even slowing the vehicle down, and headed back the way he'd came, hoping for some tree-cover. Too little, too late.
Range accurate to within a quarter of a millimeter for a mile. No wind or other factors that mattered, nothing to throw him off his game or distract him. Wolverine wasn't a distant target, he was a clear one, with no cover or other mitigating factors. No need to account for acceleration, he was driving in a direct manner, punishing the engine for all it was worth. Things couldn't be better. Slade's finger tightened on the trigger but he didn't pull it yet, double-checking all the motions in one micro-second, then as satisfied as he could be with his shot, he fired. The gun spat fire, and he felt the world come crashing back, but his eyesight and concentration were uncanny. In the space between the tic of a second his eye following the bullet as it sped across the distance to his target, traveling more then a kilometre a second and outracing it's own sonic boom. Wolverine's back was turned, but he had no compunction killing a fleeing enemy. He watched as Wolverine spasmed as the bullet hammered into his body, Right in the sweet spot where the Medula meets the spine, the bike wavering, wobbling alarmingly then skidding as he lost control and crashing into a tree. Black Cat leapt clear. Wolverine did not. He was slumped to the ground, pinned under the twisted remains of his bike.
"Game to Deathstroke." Slade said, and got back in his jeep.