Silver or Lead
“Plata o plomo.”
He’d thought using his old name again would be enough to fly under the radar, letting him shed ‘Logan’ and ‘Wolverine’ from the collective consciousness of the wide world like a snake shedding its skin. But no matter how far he goes and how hard he tries, there’s always somebody, somewhere, that wants his particular set of ‘skills’.
“Plata o plomo.”
A mobster from one of the big Cartels wants to hire him; knows what he is, and what he can do, and doesn’t like hearing no to his ‘generous’ offer. He keeps sending more men to ‘negotiate’ - men who like to kill, men willing to die for a bit of blood money, like he used to be - and he keeps giving them the same answer, and he loses count over how much blood and how many limbs and how many bodies…
They stop coming, eventually.
—-
“That’s new,” Charles says one day, out of the blue, his fingers slipping underneath his collar, tugging it wide. “Where did you get that? You didn’t have it before.”
He pulls back, and Charles makes a disgruntled sound, his hand falling onto his lap as Logan answers, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Charles snorts, “Bullshit. You didn’t have that two days ago.”
“You don’t remember what you had for breakfast an hour ago,” Logan snaps, and the twinge of guilt in his gut doesn’t stop him from shoving the pills into Charles’ hand. “Take your meds.”
Charles scowls though he does as he’s told, but then he’s grabbing Logan’s hand again and yanking him close. Trembling fingers press lightly against the raised and scabbed flesh, familiar and gently comforting, after all these long years.
“You’re being careful,” Charles says, not quite a question.
“Yeah,” he agrees, taking Charles’ hand and wrapping it gently within his own. “I always am.”