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niceandfluffy2Promises: Doing It For The Team (16/?)
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
niceandfluffy
Rating: NC17
Setting: Origins: Wolverine movieverse
Warnings: Incest, AU, figging, mild bondage, violence
Pairings for chapter: Remy/Wade, Victor/Logan
Summary: The group explores the concept of team work, and Logan struggles to work out the complexities of his relationships.
Author’s Note: Gambit’s plane is roughly based on the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver. I have absolutely no idea what type it actually is, but that was the closest I could find to the piccies of it, although granted the nose looks slightly too short.
If you have made it to this point, you will have read 170,233 words of dodginess by the end of the chapter and clearly deserve the Dedicated Slasher Award :D. Thanks very much for following the story!
Previous chapters can be found here
Yeah, it was too long for LJ again. Sigh.
*
Opportunities sprung up everywhere. They blossomed in the dark, they grew in the barest of environments, and they reproduced when everyone else just wanted to sit and watch the television. Remy had learned never to ignore the potential of opportunities, but it was still hard when faced with very, very irritating situations.
Wade was the cause of many irritating situations by himself. He talked too much and normally about inappropriate things. He had a nasty habit of stealing chocolate based items, which LeBeau had taken many minutes to steal himself. He kept referring to the psychopathic Victor as a ‘snuggly bunny’, which was just plain wrong. And then, of course, there was the teleportation issue.
Remy growled softly to himself as he tested the rope in his hands for strength. The teleportation had gradually become stronger as the injection’s power struggled to control Wade’s ability, and Wade had a nasty tendency of getting over excited in a whole range of situations. The only thing that seemed to be controlled was the medium in which Wade reappeared; there had been a few undignified falls, but Wade had yet to teleport inside a wall or something solid, and that was just as well. Gambit had no idea what type of result that would actually produce, but he had a suspicion that he might need more than a tube of superglue on standby.
Of course, Wade might not be getting himself in physical danger, but there were a few social aspects that were proving problematic. The man’s teleportation range seemed remarkably wide, and often it took Remy a while before he found wherever it was that Wade had pinged to. Once he had ended up in a locked cupboard. Another time he landed inside a pantry, which then suffered some severe dessert losses. And the most memorable one to date was Wade appearing on his back on top of the base’s temporary alter that had been set aside for religious observation. Remy had found him still on his back, looking up at a particularly large cross with a slightly alarmed look in his eyes. He was damned glad the chapel hadn’t been in use at the time.
Remy ran his hand through his hair and wandered back into the bedroom where Wade was tied. Both wrists had been fastened together and the rope looped over the substantial metal headboard, allowing him to twist around if he felt like it. Gambit smirked slightly as he stopped and looked at him. Bondage had never been so useful. Currently Wade was lying on his stomach, kicking his legs back and forth as though he was a dreamy teenage girl looking up at a beloved movie star poster on the wall above.
LeBeau rolled his eyes and wandered closer, using the rope to give a little thwap to Wade’s ass as he did so.
“Oh, there you are,” Wade glanced over his shoulder and wiggled his backside as though there was an invisible plumy tail attached to it. “About time. I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
“Is dat even possible?” Gambit replied calmly, dumping the rope down on the nearby chair and eying him carefully. Wade didn’t look over excited, but he had a nasty tendency to go from cold to hot within seconds. “Any twinges?”
“Twinges?”
“Desire to teleport.” Gambit elaborated. “Tingling. Throbbing. Anything else beginning with t-,”
“Turtles,” Wade suggested.
“-other than wildlife.” he sighed. “Because I’m getting a little fucked off that you can’t stay in the same room for more than fifteen minutes during an erotic encounter,”
“An erotic encounter? That sounds like a lederhosen-clad safari,” Wade replied cheerfully. “And I promise I won’t teleport on you. Honest.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that a lot, mon ami.” Gambit replied dryly, folding his arms. “Mostly when it’s my go on top, I note. Funny that, eh?”
“It’s not my fault! It’s the throbbing! It leads me astray!” Wade protested, giving a little tug at the bonds. “Although I’m not sure how all this rope is helping. Perhaps you could give me a rub down? That normally gets all the tingling burning through me in a way that’s powerless to resist,” There was a winning smile. Gambit smiled back in the same winning style, and shook his head.
“Not yet, mon ami. I think,” he drawled, his tongue licking over his bottom lip for a moment as his eyes gleamed. “you need a little lesson in self restraint, no? Otherwise you’ll pop off in a puff of blue smoke whenever you get over excited. Not great for a battle.”
The look of surprise was a little too clear in Wade’s eyes. “You want me to try self restraint tied to a bed? Isn’t that .. well, a little redundant? Or boring. Really, really boring. I mean, all I can see is a pillow. That’s not exciting,”
“I’d imagine that depends what you use as a pillowcase,” Remy replied calmly, fetching a chair and pulling out a knife as he settled himself down. The presence of a blade attracted Wade’s attention, as he knew it would. Wade was a little predictable when it came to sharp points.
“You got a knife? What, you’re gonna stab me every so often?” Wade squirmed. “That’s a bit unfair, you know. Well, actually it’s a lot unfair. It’s like going to war against a bunch of midgets who are glued to the floor when you’re riding an elephant.”
“I’m not going t’stab you,” Gambit confirmed idly, taking the knobbly ginger root from his pocket and began to calmly whittle it into shape. He could sense the confusion without needing to look at him.
“Okay, what are you doing? Cause it looks crafty, and my type of crafty normally involves creeping into places rather than, y’know, actual woodwork.” Wade paused as he sniffed the air suspiciously. “And that doesn’t smell like wood. What is it?”
“Ginger,”
“Ginger.” Wade repeated. “You’re going to challenge me with ginger? Is this a cookathon? Am I supposed to create a three course meal whilst being tied to a bed, cause, to be fair, that would be quite challenging. Mind you, I could probably switch on the oven with my toes... they’re full of dexterity, my toes.” There was a little wiggle of said pinkies.
“Just wait and see,” LeBeau replied mildly, continuing with his carving endeavours. Wade eyed him sceptically.
“Okay, what are you up to? Because that was said in your sneaky voice that suggests that you’re up to something, and I know Vicky says you’re always up to something, but suddenly I’m inclined to believe him.” Wade squirmed on the mattress uncomfortably. Remy chuckled softly.
“I’m sure I’ve mentioned ginger to you before… not exactly the sneakiest moment of my life,” Gambit pointed out.
“Yeah, well, I never listen to anyone. Well, other than Bert and Ernie. When they talk, you just gotta listen,” Wade squirmed again as though the mattress had been turned into a lot of very cooperative snakes which had weaved themselves together. “So, remind me about ginger? Does it have superhuman properties?”
“It’s not a human, so I’d have to assume no,”
“Sooooooooooo,” Wade poked verbally again. “What’s it supposed to do? Is it like a truth serum drug thing? Does it vibrate if you peel it? Fly? Glow? Take over the world? What?! I need to know!”
Remy finished forming the shape and raised it up, rotating it so he could check all sides of the root. Satisfied, he nodded and looked back at Wade thoughtfully.
“Okay, den. You say you’re able to keep self control regardless of the circumstance, yes?” he purred. “Without exception. So you’re prepared to take on a challenge, yes?”
“I’m always up for a challenge! Except when I’m asleep, really, really far down, or watching cartoons,” Wade squirmed again, although this squirm was more enthusiastic. Gambit grinned.
“Don’t move for half an hour.”
The disappointment almost radiated off him. “That’s it?”
“Well, with a minor distraction…,” Gambit got up from his chair and wandered to where Wade was stretched out on the bed, running his hand over his muscular, naked back and down to his rear. He was already pre-lubed, of course. Wade was occasionally very thoughtful, although his motivations normally involved an element of impatience. “Keep your head on the pillow but kneel for me. I want your ass in the air,”
“I’m not surprised, it’s perky- OW!”
“Good boy,” Gambit shook out the stinging from his hand after the slap, and twirled the ginger root in his other hand idly. Wade eyed him then shuffled into position with a little grumble and not the most graceful of movements; he sat down on his haunches, his torso stretched out on the bed from the restriction to his hands, but Remy was more than satisfied with the situation. He gently fingered the entrance to Wade’s body with a digit, smiling at the little jump as Wade reacted. After a few moments pause, Remy carefully slid the finger into the tight, eager body.
“You wanted me ready,” Wade explained, trying to wiggle his hips to get him deeper.
“Dat I did.” Remy agreed, twisting his finger once before sliding it out again. He took hold of the ginger and gently began to insert it up to the little organic handle. Wade shifted slightly but made no protest, which was unsurprising; if the man was used to Victor’s size plundering him without so much as a ‘watch out’ for preparation, then a ginger plug the size of a thumb wasn’t exactly going to make him sweat.
Gambit smiled to himself. Yet, anyway.
Satisfied, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Wade shifted again, trying to judge what had been placed in his body.
“Is that it?” he said in disappointment. “I was expecting something .. well, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but possibly something with an electric shock or explosions or something with an additional grr,”
“Just wait,” Remy murmured softly, moving to sit back down on his chair. Wade sulked at him.
“Wait, wait, wait, that’s all I hear, and you know I prefer…,” There was a long pause. Wade slowly shifted his hips in investigation, the confusion growing in his eyes. Remy smiled smugly as he leaned back on his chair and stretched like a cat in sunshine.
“..fuck,” Wade finished.
“Yeah, I know you prefer fuck,” Gambit replied absent-mindedly. Wade squirmed again with a little more urgency.
“This stuff is getting warmer…,”
“I’d say it tingles a bit in a persistent manner,” Gambit replied cheerfully, then grinned even wider as Wade’s hips moved again with the jerking movements of a drunken rabbit. The ropes holding the man’s wrists together jarred against the headboard as he moved again with a little groan.
“It stops soon, right?”
“Half an hour, Wade.” Gambit replied sweetly. “Or can’t you manage it?”
There was a little explosion of curses in various languages as Wade tried to find a position which didn’t increase the sensation. He clenched his buttocks, then suddenly discovered the error of his ways as he immediately stopped with a howl.
“This is burning!” Wade wailed. “You never said you were going to shove a flamethrower up my ass!”
Gambit smiled to himself and stretched again as though he was sitting on a sun drenched beach with a book and a glass of wine rather than in a bedroom next to a bound mercenary who had ginger root inserted up his rear end. He estimated that the burning would last for a good twenty minutes if he’d carved it correctly, although Wade’s use of lubrication was probably dampening the sensation a little. And then, of course, was the little erotic burst it would give…. Remy’s smile inherited a predatory hint to it. The most Wade could do was rub against the mattress, and each time he did so he would move against the organic plug inside his body.
Revenge was sweet, and quite tasty if you used it in cooking.
Sure enough, it didn’t take more than five minutes before Wade was wailing about the other side of his neither regions.
“You can’t just leave me here!” he squirmed, his buttocks desperately trying to work out what the best way to act would be. LeBeau glanced up at him.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I can.” he purred.
“I’ll get my enraged squirrel onto you!” Wade wailed desperately. “He’ll do naughty things to you, and everything!”
“Sounds serious. I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Remy replied solemnly. “In the meantime, I’d suggest not clenching as much as you’re doing. It’ll just make it burn harder,”
“Bastard!”
“You were expecting someone else?” he chuckled, leaning back in the chair and slowly putting his feet on the bed. There was another flurry of curses and Wade wriggled again, hissing and growling.
“Okay, I’m sorry for teleporting on you! And nicking your last pair of boxers, which I note you stole from someone else, but I left my SquirrelGirl pair at home, which I guess this technically is, but that’s not the point!” Wade twisted on the bed, trying to free his arms. “And-,”
“Wait,” Gambit frowned, slowly putting his feet down on the floor as he turned to look suspiciously at the door.
“Wait? Wait?! You try being in this position and then you try waiting!!”
Gambit wasn’t listening. He had felt the slightest of trembles which suggested that one of the main doors had been opened then slammed, and the base had few staff members still turning up. Even if they did, they tended to sneak into the building and then sneak out again before they attracted anyone’s attention. That left-
“Well, well,” Victor purred as he pushed open the door and strolled in, hands in his pockets. “And do we have here?”
LeBeau felt his blood go cold. Victor. There was a time and a place to speak to him, and now was seriously not it. He slowly moved his feet from the bed to the floor, his expression as casual as he could make it. The predator’s expression was mild, but then that never meant anything. Victor could disembowel someone and still have the same, bored expression he had when doing the washing up. Well, if Victor did the washing up. Both feral brothers seemed to have a dislike of getting their paws too wet, and Victor viewed soap with so much suspicion anyone would think it was planning a world take over.
“He’s torturing me!” Wade wailed from the bed. “With ginger!”
Victor’s brow furrowed as he strolled around the bed, glancing at the little plug that was just visible from a distance. “Ginger?”
“Yeah! The stuff you put into cooking!”
“Well, that’s novel,” Victor sniffed and winced slightly at the strong scent. A clawed finger gently poked at the external plug, which made Wade squirm even more. Remy watched him suspiciously, ready to fight if the cat became territorial, but Victor’s expression seemed almost serene. That hadn’t been the reaction that LeBeau had expected, despite the little slip of paper that Wade had waved in his face. Victor on his own was worrying too; so much for ‘bonding’.
“Where’s Logan?” Remy broke the silence of investigation, his eyes shifting to the doorway and then back again. Victor eyed him indifferently.
“Why? Worried I’ve eaten him?” Victor’s smile increased wolfishly, a sparkle showing in his eyes. LeBeau growled, but the little conversation was saved by an appearance from the man in question. Logan took a step into the room and looked at the bound, naked, squirming Wade in bemusement. He looked at Victor.
“That was quick, even for you,” he commented. Victor chuckled.
“Nothing to do with me, brother dearest. Your little pup had him tied up before I arrived,” Victor shrugged, and paused to scratch a nail down Wade’s flank. A trail of blood followed his finger and smudged against the smooth, firm, golden skin.
“Okay, stop trying to sharpen your claws on me and get the damned thing out!” Wade complained loudly, bucking even more. Victor ignored him, although his hand slipped underneath Wade’s hips as he bounced upwards; by the sudden halt of words, Gambit had a good suspicion that Wade’s groin had just been caught and squeezed hard.
“Has he been behaving?” Victor continued to talk in a completely normal, slightly bored voice. Remy frowned at him, surprised to have the question directed at him, and then looked at Wade who was currently giving him an urgent look.
“Uh.”
“Oooh, bad answer,” Victor purred. Wade yelped as the hand flexed again.
“He’s been okay!” LeBeau added hastily. “Just a few issues with teleportation.”
He was painfully aware of both ferals turning their full attention onto him. Logan eyed him for a moment, and then prowled closer to the bound mercenary. Wade shifted and twisted harder, panting softly as he tried to glare at everyone he possibly could.
“C’mon, at least take the damned thing out! I’m too young to be stuck like this, I’ll be corrupted and you’ll hate me when I’m corrupted, I’ll paint all the walls black and listen to really loud music that sounds like a couple of cats are fucking on the dustbins and steal all the food. Me, not the cats. Okay, I steal a lot of food already, but these would be the really nice food, and then I’ll take- hey, that tickles!!”
Logan withdrew his finger from where he had just poked the other man in the ribs, and then looked back at Gambit dubiously.
“Firstly, if you’re going to bind him, use a gag.” he said sternly. “Second of all, he ain’t looking particularly teleporty at the moment. Aren’t we still giving him that big needle of green gunk in the ass?”
Remy waited for an explosion, any explosion, but Logan seemed completely unconcerned about the reasons why Wade was tied to the bed in the first place. His eyes were calm, but inside something was feeling decidedly off. It was one thing to have a casual relationship, but the word casual couldn’t really be replaced with indifferent.
“The effect’s wearing off. It’s slowing it, but not properly stopping it,” Gambit replied finally, moving onto a script he knew. “He doesn’t seem to be able to teleport if you tie him up to something immobile though.”
“And don’t either of you get ideas from that!” Wade complained. “It’s bad enough that spice boy here likes to get rope involved. C’mon, could someone finish me off? And when I say that, I mean orgasm rather than decapitation, cause I’m really not in the mood to play football with my own head,”
Victor’s claw was back to fingering the little root of ginger still sticking from Wade’s body in the curious way that a cat would bat a new fuzzy toy.
“And don’t shove that too far in, I want to be able to get it out again!” Wade added. “It’s not catnip! And furthermore OW, FUCKING HELL-!!”
The plug was removed with less care than it was inserted. Victor raised it up and turned it this way and that, inspecting it thoughtfully. Wade flopped onto the bed with a groan of relief, taking a pause from talking in his attempt to reclaim oxygen. Finally Victor gave a little snort and tossed the plug carelessly onto his lover’s back.
“Very artistic,” he commented, leaning over Wade and grabbing his hip to flip him over. An eyebrow rose at the sight of his hard, urgent erection, and a mild look aimed itself at Remy. “Now, if you’re going to borrow my toys, you’re going to have to return them in the same condition you found them. I’m not going to get pestered to sort out a problem created by some street rat with a need to experiment in the kitchen, hmm?”
Gambit gave a little side glance to Logan, but the man seemed his usual self; there was an underlying tension in his eyes, but then again Logan had seemed to have that ever since LeBeau had known him, a slightly thoughtful concern as though the man wasn’t quite certain he’d remember to switch off the gas before leaving a house. Great. This was definitely not what he had in mind. He had assumed he had at least another day before the ferals returned from their little trip, or at least a few hours warning.
He perched on the bed next to Wade, who immediately snuggled up as much like a fluffy cat as he possibly could. Okay. If Logan wasn’t going to react, then it was clearly time to see exactly how far he was supposed to take this. LeBeau’s hand slid down the perfectly toned stomach to grip his penis firmly, giving Wade an excuse to sound like a cat as well. All in all, there was far too much purring in this group.
“Did you manage to get the research done?” Logan grunted, almost as though he was completely blind to the work being performed on Wade. Gambit shrugged slightly, and ran his hand down Wade’s length delicately. This was surreal. The only way forward was to play the game as it was set out, and try to find the instructions at a later date. If Logan could be indifferent, so could he.
“Yes. Did you get what you were looking for?” Remy’s eyes slid from one to the other curiously. The brothers glanced at each other with the same casual expression, before Victor smiled slowly and moved to the wall to slouch against it and Logan managed to shrug using only his eyebrow. Gambit decided that was probably a yes. If they hadn’t, he doubted whether they would even be in the same room together.
“Where’s this report?” Logan queried idly.
“In my head. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t do paperwork either. I just prefer my ass not to be shot to pieces,” LeBeau replied calmly. “And you can wait until my hands are free, okay?”
Victor growled softly. Gambit frowned at him in confusion for a moment, then rolled his eyes as the memory was jogged. Great. The chain of command was apparently eager to increase, although he didn’t mind Logan joining it quite so much. Purring ‘sir’ at him, preferably after turning the other man to jelly, would have its advantages.
“Sir,” he added. Logan frowned at him, and then looked irritably at Victor.
“You might want your ass kissed, but I don’t.” he looked back at LeBeau, before shaking his head and giving him the first decent smile of the day. About fucking time, too. “Don’t call me sir, kid. Makes me feel old and grouchy. And don’t say a word,” he added to Wade.
“Would I?” Wade asked sweetly, his eyes closing and a satisfied look showing on his face as Remy continued to stroke him. Gambit paused, and looked at the brothers who were still watching him with the curious, faintly hungry look they both seemed to share. They might have different viewpoints, but they certainly did have some aspects which seemed to be identical.
“A bit of privacy, perhaps?” he suggested softly, meeting Logan’s eyes.
“No,” Victor drawled, leaning back against the wall. Logan sighed and walked to collect his brother, giving him a firm push towards the door. He prowled to the bed and gave LeBeau a lopsided hug into his chest, pressing a kiss on his head in delayed welcome before ruffling his hair.
“Meet us at…,” Logan hesitated, then shook his head. “.. somewhere. You’ll find us,”
“Listen for the screaming?” Remy asked mildly.
“Could this conversation occur after I’ve come?” Wade protested from the bed. “Cause this is really getting irritating now, and I should know. I’ve specialised in irritating for many, many years.”
Logan snorted softly and gave Remy another soft smile, which slowly eased some of Remy’s fears. He smiled back, and ignored Victor who made a dismissive snort from the doorway.
“Yeah. Romantic. Nice.” he drawled, before pushing open the door and walking through to the corridor. “Save me some chocolates,” he called back.
“Ignore him. You need some relaxation time too,” Logan advised, moving his hand to ruffle the hair once more until Gambit caught it with his other hand. Once he could cope with. Twice was just asking for a bad hair day, and a static charge which he hadn’t been planning on.
“I hate everyone,” Wade sulked from the bed. “Even Tiddles.”
LeBeau chuckled, and got back to work as Logan vanished from the room. Wade’s upset, at least, he could deal with.
*
“The base is large.” LeBeau had positioned himself at the ‘head’ of the room to begin his speech, and Logan could see him sweep his surprisingly hard gaze over each of them before continuing on his speech. “And it is completely different to the one you see here. The Island is basically a medical site, one to investigate and run tests and go through the processes. It has prisoner facilities but dey are limited, and the records state that they are not supposed to take mutants of a certain power.”
Gambit looked at them again. “None of you would be kept here, at the Island, if you were subjects. Your experience and abilities rule dis place out. Wade was borderline before his changes, and even then they kept him here because his injuries required Victor’s blood to stabilise him.”
Victor’s smile broadened. “So you’re not considered dangerous enough?” he purred, and Logan could hear the amusement in his brother’s voice.
LeBeau’s eyes turned to Victor thoughtfully, before he gave a careless shrug. “I had my own specially created cell. Dey thought I was too young to pose a significant risk.” The Cajun smiled in satisfaction. “Dey were wrong.”
Logan cleared his throat to halt the little battle of ‘I’m more dangerous than you’, and lifted his head. “Go on.”
To his credit, Gambit moved on without argument. In fact, the youngster had seemed remarkably in control since they had returned, his eyes cool and calm regardless of what seemed to happen. After a few days of Wade, Logan guessed that the rest of the universe was pretty tame.
“Details on the other base are limited. And I really mean limited. What files there are about it are coded and tiny, and few members of this base properly knew about it. The rest worked on rumour and suspicions.” Remy moved to the wall and began to lean on it as he continued to speak. “Dey had one pilot to take people there, and he seemed to be from outside this base. Not a run of the mill employee. Mutants who were taken there rarely came back out again, even if they were scheduled to do so. Wade was one of the few ones who did, and dat was probably only because he was the military’s current pet.”
“I’m a pet?” Wade looked bewildered for a moment, and then looked down at his hands as though expecting them to turn into paws. “Do I get a wheel to run around in? Am I pedigree?”
“I’m impressed they didn’t neuter you when they had the chance,” Victor replied, leaning back in his chair so far he was almost horizontal. Remy snorted softly.
“Dey recommended it.” Remy commented. “According to his file he was too sexually driven. Thought the control chip would be enough to conquer it.”
“They did?” Wade’s voice was one of amused horror.
“We ain’t here to discuss either Wade’s balls or his sex drive,” Logan growled from his chair.
“Hey, they weren’t talking about taking your balls! I bet you’d be wailing more about it if they had!” Wade sulked hard in his chair.
“Remy,” Logan stepped up the growl in his voice in order to steer the conversation back to his preferred topic. There was a particularly thoughtful look in the kid’s eye as LeBeau studied him, then there was another nod and the report continued as the grumbling subsided.
“We all know the base is in an old gold mining camp. From what I can pick up, accommodation and basic non-secure functions occurred in the buildings surrounding dem.” Remy picked up a pen and began sketching on the wall. “You’ve got a few really big buildings, ex-processing places I guess. I’m not a miner. They’re roughly here, here and here.” Little black squares were drawn in a semi-circle at the bottom. “The main shafts into the mountain are roughly here..,” A few Xs were sketched above the semi-circle, so the buildings surrounded them on one side.
“Seem to be quite deep. It’s this bit dat has the information blackout.” Gambit looked up, surveying his audience carefully. “The main rumour seems to be dat they’ve taken the original shafts and carved further into the rock, creating some underground rooms. For what..,” he shrugged. “It’ll probably be safe to assume they’ve got the cells to keep their prisoners deep in there, to stop them breaking out. Trouble is, we don’t have any idea on what else they were doing with them in there. Medical experiments? Possibly. Testing their abilities? Can’t find anything to give us any more clues.”
“Skip to the chase, kid.” Victor growled, boredom evident in his voice. Victor never did do meetings well. “I don’t really care what they were doing,”
“You should. They’re probably still there,” Remy replied steadily. “This base worked with the Island, but it’s a situation all on its own. Just ‘cause this one’s gone belly up, don’t mean the other one has. From what I’ve heard, the gold mine’s been working longer than the Island. Got a lot of stuff there. Established. All in all, a fucker to get in and out quietly. This place isn’t fucking around when it comes to the big guns. Yeah, you guys are all pretty much unkillable, but you can all be inconvenienced, right?”
The firm gaze levelled at them again, Gambit’s pen tapping irritably against the wall. Logan raised his head and gave Victor a side glance, which his brother completely ignored. He could see the impatience in Victor’s stance already.
“So, what sort of weapons are we talking about?” Wade asked lazily. “Big guns, small guns, some as big as your head. Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist, that’s what the showman said-,”
“Okay, could someone please stop him singing?” Gambit waved a hand towards Wade. “And we’re probably talking complicated stuff here. Weapons designed to take down powerful mutants… and, if I were a gambling man, I’d put my money on weapons like Wade. Mutants gone through the process and under their control. He can’t have been the first, their technique was too good.”
That suggestion caught Victor’s attention. Logan could see him lean a little further forward, the fed up expression slowly being replaced by a thoughtful one. Victor always did like a challenge, and the world wasn’t fun unless he was slowly ripping something to pieces. Mutant weapons were a perfect target.
However, Logan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to see four or five ‘Wade Projects’ together. That had the prospect of being a monumental pain in the backside.
“Have we got any maps or plans of this place, kid?” Logan began to tap his finger on the table idly. Gambit made a little face, almost as though he had started chewing on a sweet which hadn’t been as nice as he was expecting and definitely suggestive that Logan had hit on a topic that wasn’t sitting well with the Cajun. He had a suspicion he knew why. The kid liked his escape routes, and without a map he was left blind and at the mercy of Nature’s Odds. The gambler liked to stack the pack in his favour.
“We have basic ones.” Remy replied with distaste. “Location, general area, that sort of thing. No proper plans. No idea what’s going on underneath the surface,”
“Let’s grab a gopher and then train it for our own purposes,” Wade piped up. “And then attach a really small camera on its head…no? This is a bad idea?”
Logan didn’t bother to respond as he studied the others who would form whatever team the mission would produce. Their information was limited, but he suspected that the kid was on the right side of paranoia. He and Victor rarely bothered with information in the past, but then there was always Stryker or someone else in the background who did, who could then steer the right fighter to the right situation. Anything that made it a quicker in and out job was fine by him.
And then came the subject of the ‘team’, if it could even be called that. He and Victor could work and fight together, as naturally as day following night, but if they disagreed over anything then that team work suddenly split. Both Wade and LeBeau fought as individuals, and even during Team X Wade was always happiest on his own with a room full of people to kill, working his way through them like a particular bookwormy kid with a whole series of comics. Logan had no idea what the new abilities would create in Wade either. He might well follow his usual routine, but knowledge that he couldn’t go splat could very well make him even more reckless than normal. His gaze moved onto Victor, who had never been labelled as a particularly fantastic team player, then onto LeBeau, whose lifestyle seemed to ensure that he focused primarily on getting his own ass out of the firing line rather than working with the rest of the group.
He leaned back in his chair and wished he had a cigar to smoke. All in all, they had a group of individuals, who might work in the same direction at the same time. If they weren’t bickering with each other at the time, they were doing well.
He could see Victor watching him thoughtfully, but then Victor always could read him like a book.
“We’re back to fighting together,” Logan grunted in response to the silent raise of the eyebrow. “M’wondering about it.”
Victor’s eyes slid to the younger members of the group, then back again critically. “We go there. We kill anyone who stops us. We get fixed, then go home again. Not a hard plan, baby brother. Even for them.”
Gambit gave a snort of disgust and muttered under his breath in what sounded like a messed up version of French. Logan suspected he might have done the same had he been the only non-healing factor member of a group. You took everyone else’s splat for them.
“There’s a good chance we’ll have a lot of enemies to pick from,” Logan grunted. “No Stryker this time to coordinate,”
“We don’t need Stryker.” Victor replied dismissively. “Anyway, we all know what we can do. You rip people some new assholes and various other blade related injuries. I’ll do the same. Wade’s nimble enough to do the flank protection, ‘specially if he’s got his blue smoke teleportation thing fixed, and Boy Wonder over there has a knack with distractions and things that explode. As long as he doesn’t explode the thing I’m standing on, or the mountain, then we’re fine,”
“Guarding the flank?” Wade folded his arms and sulked even harder. “That is so damned boring!”
Logan’s eyes were fixed on his brother curiously. “You think you’re gonna be able to fight alongside the others? And that’s helping ‘em out, rather than just not attacking them.”
Victor rolled his eyes. “If you mean your pup, then he’s got worth going in, so yes. Going out, on the other hand…,” Teeth glinted in the light, and then Victor snorted softly at Logan’s still stern expression. “Stop worrying, baby brother. Or do you need proof?”
“Proof?” Logan repeated dubiously, and noted that LeBeau’s head lifted slightly at that word. Victor shrugged idly and tapped his finger on the table.
“Let’s go find us a fight, hmm?” his eyes twinkled. “There’s always a place where there’s a dodgy bar or two, and ..,”
“Ooh, ooh, we know one! There’s a porcupine in it!” Wade waved his hand. Victor turned his head to look at him, then across at LeBeau who had a weary look to him. The Cajun tilted his head in grudging agreement.
“We came across a little group who liked to play rough,” he confirmed in his slow, soft drawl. “Ain’t gonna last long with you, though. Might have friends. Ain’t gonna be particularly quiet though, if you catch my drift,”
“Well, that’s okay isn’t it? The more the merrier,” Wade clapped his hands together cheerfully. “And we can get a drink! Oooh, and some chips. I like chips. Especially if we can find something to dunk ‘em in.”
Logan sighed softly. “Gonna be too easy, Victor.”
“Well, let’s do some team play work,” Wade suggested, keen not to lose his entertainment. “Find some woods, and me and Vicky’ll attack you and Gambit, okay? But not properly attack, because that’ll just be really messy, and I’ll never find your ear if I accidentally chop it off. Not in those leaves.”
Gambit rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers tiredly. “You want to do the violent version of ‘hunt the flag’?”
Wade snapped his fingers. “Yeah! That’s perfect!”
Logan chewed it over, eying his brother who had the weary look of a man who had been saddled with two five year olds. He shrugged finally. Short of attracting the wrong type of attention to find some enemies that might last more than a few seconds, they didn’t really have much option.
“Okay. But not with those teams. I’ll go with Wade. You,” he addressed his brother. “go with Remy,”
He wasn’t sure which one was more irritated, Gambit or Victor. They eyed each other for a moment, like a dog verses a cat, and then turned their not delighted eyes back onto Logan. The pair was momentarily joined in agreement of their disagreement. Well, it was a step in the right direction.
“Seems unnecessary,” Victor grunted.
“I agree,” Remy folded his arms. “We have fought already. We know how we both fight,”
“Yeah, you do. But you’ve never tried fighting together,” Logan leaned back in his chair in faint amusement. Wade looked between them in fascination for a moment, then ruined Logan’s relaxation by walking behind him and giving him a bear hug in a Wade-shaped scarf way.
“Anyway, we’ll beat you,” Wade waved his free fist in the air. “We’re a sneaky, underhanded, grr team full of grrr possibilities and grrr-,”
Logan calmly punched him in the face in order to push him backwards. That was one good thing about Wade’s experimentation; the healing factor meant that he didn’t need to worry about damage anymore. Wade took the hint, although the bruised nose wasn’t enough to stop his cheerful enthusiasm. Logan made a mental note to aim lower next time.
“Anyway!” Wade announced. “Back to the victory!”
Victor snorted softly. “Even saddled with Pup, we’d still win,” he replied loftily. Logan smirked slightly. His brother’s competitive streak did run deeply, although even that might not prove strong enough to stop the pair from fighting. He had absolutely no idea how intense it would be in Gambit, although a gambler wouldn’t be too good at his work if he didn’t possess a strong desire to win.
“So that’s a yes to the games?”
“It’s a stupid idea,” Victor growled.
“But it’s a yes,”
A growl aimed itself at him for what Victor rightly assumed was a leading series of questions, but a shrug finally confirmed his agreement. Logan’s smile increased, although it froze slightly as his insane team-mate’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. Logan sighed softly. Teamwork was going to kill him.
“Right. Get yourselves ready and we’ll meet up out the front in ten minutes.” Logan ran his hand through his hair and got up to leave, but discovered the universe wasn’t quite done with him as his young lover caught him by the arm. Remy waited until the other two had left, before finally releasing Logan’s arm and stepping back to survey him carefully.
Logan waited for a few seconds, before becoming bored of the whole thing.
“You gonna complain more about working with Victor? Cause it’s gonna be easier to do it now than do it later with someone aiming a gun at you as well,” Logan said with a soft gruffness. LeBeau shook his head.
“Not my concern at this time, mon ami.” Cats eyes looked back at him carefully. “You are,”
“Me?” That was news to him. Logan frowned at him uncertainly. “Why?”
“What happened out there.” Remy studied him carefully. “What happened in here too. We never did talk about sharing our affections with others,”
Logan looked at him in bewilderment, and then thought it over. He hadn’t quite expected to find Remy and Wade together as they were, even with a piece of paper waved under his nose so frantically that it was like his own personal fan. He still hadn’t quite worked out how he felt about it either, but what with Wade being tied up in Victor and therefore himself, it seemed a very small step for Remy to end up treating the mercenary as a playful sex toy. And, after all, he did come into their partnership knowing that Remy was happy with his casual series of relationships. If he spent his time curled around Victor, there wasn’t really much right to demand anything from LeBeau.
He shook his head and gently ran his hand down the faintly concerned expression in front of him.
“Guess we didn’t. If you want to play with Wade, then you can. Just make sure you’re clean afterwards,” he said, and was faintly surprised when the concern didn’t shift. Logan frowned uncertainly. That had been the right answer and yet LeBeau still seemed wary, as though he was expecting an elephant to fall on him at any moment.
“If you want to.” Logan added, suddenly unsure about whether Wade’s affection had been desired in the first place. However, it had been Wade tied to the bed and it had been his backside which had suffered the touch of ginger. That wasn’t the usual position for a sexually aggressive predator, unless they truly were rubbish in their role.
Remy’s eyes studied him carefully. “I see,”
“You see?” Logan was definitely lost now. “You see what? You were messing around, I don’t mind, end of story.” And yet the boy still looked sulky, as though Logan had swiped the last chocolate in front of his nose. He growled through his teeth. This was giving him a headache.
Thankfully the universe was feeling benign to him. Gambit shrugged and turned to leave, taking with him the relationship headache which apparently existed without having bothered to send him a memo. Logan watched him go in bewilderment, then shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. The world was crazy, and it was likely to get crazier before the week was over.
That didn’t make his headache any better.
*
ONWARDS TO PART B
Author:
niceandfluffyRating: NC17
Setting: Origins: Wolverine movieverse
Warnings: Incest, AU, figging, mild bondage, violence
Pairings for chapter: Remy/Wade, Victor/Logan
Summary: The group explores the concept of team work, and Logan struggles to work out the complexities of his relationships.
Author’s Note: Gambit’s plane is roughly based on the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver. I have absolutely no idea what type it actually is, but that was the closest I could find to the piccies of it, although granted the nose looks slightly too short.
If you have made it to this point, you will have read 170,233 words of dodginess by the end of the chapter and clearly deserve the Dedicated Slasher Award :D. Thanks very much for following the story!
Previous chapters can be found here
Yeah, it was too long for LJ again. Sigh.
*
Opportunities sprung up everywhere. They blossomed in the dark, they grew in the barest of environments, and they reproduced when everyone else just wanted to sit and watch the television. Remy had learned never to ignore the potential of opportunities, but it was still hard when faced with very, very irritating situations.
Wade was the cause of many irritating situations by himself. He talked too much and normally about inappropriate things. He had a nasty habit of stealing chocolate based items, which LeBeau had taken many minutes to steal himself. He kept referring to the psychopathic Victor as a ‘snuggly bunny’, which was just plain wrong. And then, of course, there was the teleportation issue.
Remy growled softly to himself as he tested the rope in his hands for strength. The teleportation had gradually become stronger as the injection’s power struggled to control Wade’s ability, and Wade had a nasty tendency of getting over excited in a whole range of situations. The only thing that seemed to be controlled was the medium in which Wade reappeared; there had been a few undignified falls, but Wade had yet to teleport inside a wall or something solid, and that was just as well. Gambit had no idea what type of result that would actually produce, but he had a suspicion that he might need more than a tube of superglue on standby.
Of course, Wade might not be getting himself in physical danger, but there were a few social aspects that were proving problematic. The man’s teleportation range seemed remarkably wide, and often it took Remy a while before he found wherever it was that Wade had pinged to. Once he had ended up in a locked cupboard. Another time he landed inside a pantry, which then suffered some severe dessert losses. And the most memorable one to date was Wade appearing on his back on top of the base’s temporary alter that had been set aside for religious observation. Remy had found him still on his back, looking up at a particularly large cross with a slightly alarmed look in his eyes. He was damned glad the chapel hadn’t been in use at the time.
Remy ran his hand through his hair and wandered back into the bedroom where Wade was tied. Both wrists had been fastened together and the rope looped over the substantial metal headboard, allowing him to twist around if he felt like it. Gambit smirked slightly as he stopped and looked at him. Bondage had never been so useful. Currently Wade was lying on his stomach, kicking his legs back and forth as though he was a dreamy teenage girl looking up at a beloved movie star poster on the wall above.
LeBeau rolled his eyes and wandered closer, using the rope to give a little thwap to Wade’s ass as he did so.
“Oh, there you are,” Wade glanced over his shoulder and wiggled his backside as though there was an invisible plumy tail attached to it. “About time. I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
“Is dat even possible?” Gambit replied calmly, dumping the rope down on the nearby chair and eying him carefully. Wade didn’t look over excited, but he had a nasty tendency to go from cold to hot within seconds. “Any twinges?”
“Twinges?”
“Desire to teleport.” Gambit elaborated. “Tingling. Throbbing. Anything else beginning with t-,”
“Turtles,” Wade suggested.
“-other than wildlife.” he sighed. “Because I’m getting a little fucked off that you can’t stay in the same room for more than fifteen minutes during an erotic encounter,”
“An erotic encounter? That sounds like a lederhosen-clad safari,” Wade replied cheerfully. “And I promise I won’t teleport on you. Honest.”
“Yeah, you’ve said that a lot, mon ami.” Gambit replied dryly, folding his arms. “Mostly when it’s my go on top, I note. Funny that, eh?”
“It’s not my fault! It’s the throbbing! It leads me astray!” Wade protested, giving a little tug at the bonds. “Although I’m not sure how all this rope is helping. Perhaps you could give me a rub down? That normally gets all the tingling burning through me in a way that’s powerless to resist,” There was a winning smile. Gambit smiled back in the same winning style, and shook his head.
“Not yet, mon ami. I think,” he drawled, his tongue licking over his bottom lip for a moment as his eyes gleamed. “you need a little lesson in self restraint, no? Otherwise you’ll pop off in a puff of blue smoke whenever you get over excited. Not great for a battle.”
The look of surprise was a little too clear in Wade’s eyes. “You want me to try self restraint tied to a bed? Isn’t that .. well, a little redundant? Or boring. Really, really boring. I mean, all I can see is a pillow. That’s not exciting,”
“I’d imagine that depends what you use as a pillowcase,” Remy replied calmly, fetching a chair and pulling out a knife as he settled himself down. The presence of a blade attracted Wade’s attention, as he knew it would. Wade was a little predictable when it came to sharp points.
“You got a knife? What, you’re gonna stab me every so often?” Wade squirmed. “That’s a bit unfair, you know. Well, actually it’s a lot unfair. It’s like going to war against a bunch of midgets who are glued to the floor when you’re riding an elephant.”
“I’m not going t’stab you,” Gambit confirmed idly, taking the knobbly ginger root from his pocket and began to calmly whittle it into shape. He could sense the confusion without needing to look at him.
“Okay, what are you doing? Cause it looks crafty, and my type of crafty normally involves creeping into places rather than, y’know, actual woodwork.” Wade paused as he sniffed the air suspiciously. “And that doesn’t smell like wood. What is it?”
“Ginger,”
“Ginger.” Wade repeated. “You’re going to challenge me with ginger? Is this a cookathon? Am I supposed to create a three course meal whilst being tied to a bed, cause, to be fair, that would be quite challenging. Mind you, I could probably switch on the oven with my toes... they’re full of dexterity, my toes.” There was a little wiggle of said pinkies.
“Just wait and see,” LeBeau replied mildly, continuing with his carving endeavours. Wade eyed him sceptically.
“Okay, what are you up to? Because that was said in your sneaky voice that suggests that you’re up to something, and I know Vicky says you’re always up to something, but suddenly I’m inclined to believe him.” Wade squirmed on the mattress uncomfortably. Remy chuckled softly.
“I’m sure I’ve mentioned ginger to you before… not exactly the sneakiest moment of my life,” Gambit pointed out.
“Yeah, well, I never listen to anyone. Well, other than Bert and Ernie. When they talk, you just gotta listen,” Wade squirmed again as though the mattress had been turned into a lot of very cooperative snakes which had weaved themselves together. “So, remind me about ginger? Does it have superhuman properties?”
“It’s not a human, so I’d have to assume no,”
“Sooooooooooo,” Wade poked verbally again. “What’s it supposed to do? Is it like a truth serum drug thing? Does it vibrate if you peel it? Fly? Glow? Take over the world? What?! I need to know!”
Remy finished forming the shape and raised it up, rotating it so he could check all sides of the root. Satisfied, he nodded and looked back at Wade thoughtfully.
“Okay, den. You say you’re able to keep self control regardless of the circumstance, yes?” he purred. “Without exception. So you’re prepared to take on a challenge, yes?”
“I’m always up for a challenge! Except when I’m asleep, really, really far down, or watching cartoons,” Wade squirmed again, although this squirm was more enthusiastic. Gambit grinned.
“Don’t move for half an hour.”
The disappointment almost radiated off him. “That’s it?”
“Well, with a minor distraction…,” Gambit got up from his chair and wandered to where Wade was stretched out on the bed, running his hand over his muscular, naked back and down to his rear. He was already pre-lubed, of course. Wade was occasionally very thoughtful, although his motivations normally involved an element of impatience. “Keep your head on the pillow but kneel for me. I want your ass in the air,”
“I’m not surprised, it’s perky- OW!”
“Good boy,” Gambit shook out the stinging from his hand after the slap, and twirled the ginger root in his other hand idly. Wade eyed him then shuffled into position with a little grumble and not the most graceful of movements; he sat down on his haunches, his torso stretched out on the bed from the restriction to his hands, but Remy was more than satisfied with the situation. He gently fingered the entrance to Wade’s body with a digit, smiling at the little jump as Wade reacted. After a few moments pause, Remy carefully slid the finger into the tight, eager body.
“You wanted me ready,” Wade explained, trying to wiggle his hips to get him deeper.
“Dat I did.” Remy agreed, twisting his finger once before sliding it out again. He took hold of the ginger and gently began to insert it up to the little organic handle. Wade shifted slightly but made no protest, which was unsurprising; if the man was used to Victor’s size plundering him without so much as a ‘watch out’ for preparation, then a ginger plug the size of a thumb wasn’t exactly going to make him sweat.
Gambit smiled to himself. Yet, anyway.
Satisfied, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Wade shifted again, trying to judge what had been placed in his body.
“Is that it?” he said in disappointment. “I was expecting something .. well, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but possibly something with an electric shock or explosions or something with an additional grr,”
“Just wait,” Remy murmured softly, moving to sit back down on his chair. Wade sulked at him.
“Wait, wait, wait, that’s all I hear, and you know I prefer…,” There was a long pause. Wade slowly shifted his hips in investigation, the confusion growing in his eyes. Remy smiled smugly as he leaned back on his chair and stretched like a cat in sunshine.
“..fuck,” Wade finished.
“Yeah, I know you prefer fuck,” Gambit replied absent-mindedly. Wade squirmed again with a little more urgency.
“This stuff is getting warmer…,”
“I’d say it tingles a bit in a persistent manner,” Gambit replied cheerfully, then grinned even wider as Wade’s hips moved again with the jerking movements of a drunken rabbit. The ropes holding the man’s wrists together jarred against the headboard as he moved again with a little groan.
“It stops soon, right?”
“Half an hour, Wade.” Gambit replied sweetly. “Or can’t you manage it?”
There was a little explosion of curses in various languages as Wade tried to find a position which didn’t increase the sensation. He clenched his buttocks, then suddenly discovered the error of his ways as he immediately stopped with a howl.
“This is burning!” Wade wailed. “You never said you were going to shove a flamethrower up my ass!”
Gambit smiled to himself and stretched again as though he was sitting on a sun drenched beach with a book and a glass of wine rather than in a bedroom next to a bound mercenary who had ginger root inserted up his rear end. He estimated that the burning would last for a good twenty minutes if he’d carved it correctly, although Wade’s use of lubrication was probably dampening the sensation a little. And then, of course, was the little erotic burst it would give…. Remy’s smile inherited a predatory hint to it. The most Wade could do was rub against the mattress, and each time he did so he would move against the organic plug inside his body.
Revenge was sweet, and quite tasty if you used it in cooking.
Sure enough, it didn’t take more than five minutes before Wade was wailing about the other side of his neither regions.
“You can’t just leave me here!” he squirmed, his buttocks desperately trying to work out what the best way to act would be. LeBeau glanced up at him.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I can.” he purred.
“I’ll get my enraged squirrel onto you!” Wade wailed desperately. “He’ll do naughty things to you, and everything!”
“Sounds serious. I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Remy replied solemnly. “In the meantime, I’d suggest not clenching as much as you’re doing. It’ll just make it burn harder,”
“Bastard!”
“You were expecting someone else?” he chuckled, leaning back in the chair and slowly putting his feet on the bed. There was another flurry of curses and Wade wriggled again, hissing and growling.
“Okay, I’m sorry for teleporting on you! And nicking your last pair of boxers, which I note you stole from someone else, but I left my SquirrelGirl pair at home, which I guess this technically is, but that’s not the point!” Wade twisted on the bed, trying to free his arms. “And-,”
“Wait,” Gambit frowned, slowly putting his feet down on the floor as he turned to look suspiciously at the door.
“Wait? Wait?! You try being in this position and then you try waiting!!”
Gambit wasn’t listening. He had felt the slightest of trembles which suggested that one of the main doors had been opened then slammed, and the base had few staff members still turning up. Even if they did, they tended to sneak into the building and then sneak out again before they attracted anyone’s attention. That left-
“Well, well,” Victor purred as he pushed open the door and strolled in, hands in his pockets. “And do we have here?”
LeBeau felt his blood go cold. Victor. There was a time and a place to speak to him, and now was seriously not it. He slowly moved his feet from the bed to the floor, his expression as casual as he could make it. The predator’s expression was mild, but then that never meant anything. Victor could disembowel someone and still have the same, bored expression he had when doing the washing up. Well, if Victor did the washing up. Both feral brothers seemed to have a dislike of getting their paws too wet, and Victor viewed soap with so much suspicion anyone would think it was planning a world take over.
“He’s torturing me!” Wade wailed from the bed. “With ginger!”
Victor’s brow furrowed as he strolled around the bed, glancing at the little plug that was just visible from a distance. “Ginger?”
“Yeah! The stuff you put into cooking!”
“Well, that’s novel,” Victor sniffed and winced slightly at the strong scent. A clawed finger gently poked at the external plug, which made Wade squirm even more. Remy watched him suspiciously, ready to fight if the cat became territorial, but Victor’s expression seemed almost serene. That hadn’t been the reaction that LeBeau had expected, despite the little slip of paper that Wade had waved in his face. Victor on his own was worrying too; so much for ‘bonding’.
“Where’s Logan?” Remy broke the silence of investigation, his eyes shifting to the doorway and then back again. Victor eyed him indifferently.
“Why? Worried I’ve eaten him?” Victor’s smile increased wolfishly, a sparkle showing in his eyes. LeBeau growled, but the little conversation was saved by an appearance from the man in question. Logan took a step into the room and looked at the bound, naked, squirming Wade in bemusement. He looked at Victor.
“That was quick, even for you,” he commented. Victor chuckled.
“Nothing to do with me, brother dearest. Your little pup had him tied up before I arrived,” Victor shrugged, and paused to scratch a nail down Wade’s flank. A trail of blood followed his finger and smudged against the smooth, firm, golden skin.
“Okay, stop trying to sharpen your claws on me and get the damned thing out!” Wade complained loudly, bucking even more. Victor ignored him, although his hand slipped underneath Wade’s hips as he bounced upwards; by the sudden halt of words, Gambit had a good suspicion that Wade’s groin had just been caught and squeezed hard.
“Has he been behaving?” Victor continued to talk in a completely normal, slightly bored voice. Remy frowned at him, surprised to have the question directed at him, and then looked at Wade who was currently giving him an urgent look.
“Uh.”
“Oooh, bad answer,” Victor purred. Wade yelped as the hand flexed again.
“He’s been okay!” LeBeau added hastily. “Just a few issues with teleportation.”
He was painfully aware of both ferals turning their full attention onto him. Logan eyed him for a moment, and then prowled closer to the bound mercenary. Wade shifted and twisted harder, panting softly as he tried to glare at everyone he possibly could.
“C’mon, at least take the damned thing out! I’m too young to be stuck like this, I’ll be corrupted and you’ll hate me when I’m corrupted, I’ll paint all the walls black and listen to really loud music that sounds like a couple of cats are fucking on the dustbins and steal all the food. Me, not the cats. Okay, I steal a lot of food already, but these would be the really nice food, and then I’ll take- hey, that tickles!!”
Logan withdrew his finger from where he had just poked the other man in the ribs, and then looked back at Gambit dubiously.
“Firstly, if you’re going to bind him, use a gag.” he said sternly. “Second of all, he ain’t looking particularly teleporty at the moment. Aren’t we still giving him that big needle of green gunk in the ass?”
Remy waited for an explosion, any explosion, but Logan seemed completely unconcerned about the reasons why Wade was tied to the bed in the first place. His eyes were calm, but inside something was feeling decidedly off. It was one thing to have a casual relationship, but the word casual couldn’t really be replaced with indifferent.
“The effect’s wearing off. It’s slowing it, but not properly stopping it,” Gambit replied finally, moving onto a script he knew. “He doesn’t seem to be able to teleport if you tie him up to something immobile though.”
“And don’t either of you get ideas from that!” Wade complained. “It’s bad enough that spice boy here likes to get rope involved. C’mon, could someone finish me off? And when I say that, I mean orgasm rather than decapitation, cause I’m really not in the mood to play football with my own head,”
Victor’s claw was back to fingering the little root of ginger still sticking from Wade’s body in the curious way that a cat would bat a new fuzzy toy.
“And don’t shove that too far in, I want to be able to get it out again!” Wade added. “It’s not catnip! And furthermore OW, FUCKING HELL-!!”
The plug was removed with less care than it was inserted. Victor raised it up and turned it this way and that, inspecting it thoughtfully. Wade flopped onto the bed with a groan of relief, taking a pause from talking in his attempt to reclaim oxygen. Finally Victor gave a little snort and tossed the plug carelessly onto his lover’s back.
“Very artistic,” he commented, leaning over Wade and grabbing his hip to flip him over. An eyebrow rose at the sight of his hard, urgent erection, and a mild look aimed itself at Remy. “Now, if you’re going to borrow my toys, you’re going to have to return them in the same condition you found them. I’m not going to get pestered to sort out a problem created by some street rat with a need to experiment in the kitchen, hmm?”
Gambit gave a little side glance to Logan, but the man seemed his usual self; there was an underlying tension in his eyes, but then again Logan had seemed to have that ever since LeBeau had known him, a slightly thoughtful concern as though the man wasn’t quite certain he’d remember to switch off the gas before leaving a house. Great. This was definitely not what he had in mind. He had assumed he had at least another day before the ferals returned from their little trip, or at least a few hours warning.
He perched on the bed next to Wade, who immediately snuggled up as much like a fluffy cat as he possibly could. Okay. If Logan wasn’t going to react, then it was clearly time to see exactly how far he was supposed to take this. LeBeau’s hand slid down the perfectly toned stomach to grip his penis firmly, giving Wade an excuse to sound like a cat as well. All in all, there was far too much purring in this group.
“Did you manage to get the research done?” Logan grunted, almost as though he was completely blind to the work being performed on Wade. Gambit shrugged slightly, and ran his hand down Wade’s length delicately. This was surreal. The only way forward was to play the game as it was set out, and try to find the instructions at a later date. If Logan could be indifferent, so could he.
“Yes. Did you get what you were looking for?” Remy’s eyes slid from one to the other curiously. The brothers glanced at each other with the same casual expression, before Victor smiled slowly and moved to the wall to slouch against it and Logan managed to shrug using only his eyebrow. Gambit decided that was probably a yes. If they hadn’t, he doubted whether they would even be in the same room together.
“Where’s this report?” Logan queried idly.
“In my head. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t do paperwork either. I just prefer my ass not to be shot to pieces,” LeBeau replied calmly. “And you can wait until my hands are free, okay?”
Victor growled softly. Gambit frowned at him in confusion for a moment, then rolled his eyes as the memory was jogged. Great. The chain of command was apparently eager to increase, although he didn’t mind Logan joining it quite so much. Purring ‘sir’ at him, preferably after turning the other man to jelly, would have its advantages.
“Sir,” he added. Logan frowned at him, and then looked irritably at Victor.
“You might want your ass kissed, but I don’t.” he looked back at LeBeau, before shaking his head and giving him the first decent smile of the day. About fucking time, too. “Don’t call me sir, kid. Makes me feel old and grouchy. And don’t say a word,” he added to Wade.
“Would I?” Wade asked sweetly, his eyes closing and a satisfied look showing on his face as Remy continued to stroke him. Gambit paused, and looked at the brothers who were still watching him with the curious, faintly hungry look they both seemed to share. They might have different viewpoints, but they certainly did have some aspects which seemed to be identical.
“A bit of privacy, perhaps?” he suggested softly, meeting Logan’s eyes.
“No,” Victor drawled, leaning back against the wall. Logan sighed and walked to collect his brother, giving him a firm push towards the door. He prowled to the bed and gave LeBeau a lopsided hug into his chest, pressing a kiss on his head in delayed welcome before ruffling his hair.
“Meet us at…,” Logan hesitated, then shook his head. “.. somewhere. You’ll find us,”
“Listen for the screaming?” Remy asked mildly.
“Could this conversation occur after I’ve come?” Wade protested from the bed. “Cause this is really getting irritating now, and I should know. I’ve specialised in irritating for many, many years.”
Logan snorted softly and gave Remy another soft smile, which slowly eased some of Remy’s fears. He smiled back, and ignored Victor who made a dismissive snort from the doorway.
“Yeah. Romantic. Nice.” he drawled, before pushing open the door and walking through to the corridor. “Save me some chocolates,” he called back.
“Ignore him. You need some relaxation time too,” Logan advised, moving his hand to ruffle the hair once more until Gambit caught it with his other hand. Once he could cope with. Twice was just asking for a bad hair day, and a static charge which he hadn’t been planning on.
“I hate everyone,” Wade sulked from the bed. “Even Tiddles.”
LeBeau chuckled, and got back to work as Logan vanished from the room. Wade’s upset, at least, he could deal with.
“The base is large.” LeBeau had positioned himself at the ‘head’ of the room to begin his speech, and Logan could see him sweep his surprisingly hard gaze over each of them before continuing on his speech. “And it is completely different to the one you see here. The Island is basically a medical site, one to investigate and run tests and go through the processes. It has prisoner facilities but dey are limited, and the records state that they are not supposed to take mutants of a certain power.”
Gambit looked at them again. “None of you would be kept here, at the Island, if you were subjects. Your experience and abilities rule dis place out. Wade was borderline before his changes, and even then they kept him here because his injuries required Victor’s blood to stabilise him.”
Victor’s smile broadened. “So you’re not considered dangerous enough?” he purred, and Logan could hear the amusement in his brother’s voice.
LeBeau’s eyes turned to Victor thoughtfully, before he gave a careless shrug. “I had my own specially created cell. Dey thought I was too young to pose a significant risk.” The Cajun smiled in satisfaction. “Dey were wrong.”
Logan cleared his throat to halt the little battle of ‘I’m more dangerous than you’, and lifted his head. “Go on.”
To his credit, Gambit moved on without argument. In fact, the youngster had seemed remarkably in control since they had returned, his eyes cool and calm regardless of what seemed to happen. After a few days of Wade, Logan guessed that the rest of the universe was pretty tame.
“Details on the other base are limited. And I really mean limited. What files there are about it are coded and tiny, and few members of this base properly knew about it. The rest worked on rumour and suspicions.” Remy moved to the wall and began to lean on it as he continued to speak. “Dey had one pilot to take people there, and he seemed to be from outside this base. Not a run of the mill employee. Mutants who were taken there rarely came back out again, even if they were scheduled to do so. Wade was one of the few ones who did, and dat was probably only because he was the military’s current pet.”
“I’m a pet?” Wade looked bewildered for a moment, and then looked down at his hands as though expecting them to turn into paws. “Do I get a wheel to run around in? Am I pedigree?”
“I’m impressed they didn’t neuter you when they had the chance,” Victor replied, leaning back in his chair so far he was almost horizontal. Remy snorted softly.
“Dey recommended it.” Remy commented. “According to his file he was too sexually driven. Thought the control chip would be enough to conquer it.”
“They did?” Wade’s voice was one of amused horror.
“We ain’t here to discuss either Wade’s balls or his sex drive,” Logan growled from his chair.
“Hey, they weren’t talking about taking your balls! I bet you’d be wailing more about it if they had!” Wade sulked hard in his chair.
“Remy,” Logan stepped up the growl in his voice in order to steer the conversation back to his preferred topic. There was a particularly thoughtful look in the kid’s eye as LeBeau studied him, then there was another nod and the report continued as the grumbling subsided.
“We all know the base is in an old gold mining camp. From what I can pick up, accommodation and basic non-secure functions occurred in the buildings surrounding dem.” Remy picked up a pen and began sketching on the wall. “You’ve got a few really big buildings, ex-processing places I guess. I’m not a miner. They’re roughly here, here and here.” Little black squares were drawn in a semi-circle at the bottom. “The main shafts into the mountain are roughly here..,” A few Xs were sketched above the semi-circle, so the buildings surrounded them on one side.
“Seem to be quite deep. It’s this bit dat has the information blackout.” Gambit looked up, surveying his audience carefully. “The main rumour seems to be dat they’ve taken the original shafts and carved further into the rock, creating some underground rooms. For what..,” he shrugged. “It’ll probably be safe to assume they’ve got the cells to keep their prisoners deep in there, to stop them breaking out. Trouble is, we don’t have any idea on what else they were doing with them in there. Medical experiments? Possibly. Testing their abilities? Can’t find anything to give us any more clues.”
“Skip to the chase, kid.” Victor growled, boredom evident in his voice. Victor never did do meetings well. “I don’t really care what they were doing,”
“You should. They’re probably still there,” Remy replied steadily. “This base worked with the Island, but it’s a situation all on its own. Just ‘cause this one’s gone belly up, don’t mean the other one has. From what I’ve heard, the gold mine’s been working longer than the Island. Got a lot of stuff there. Established. All in all, a fucker to get in and out quietly. This place isn’t fucking around when it comes to the big guns. Yeah, you guys are all pretty much unkillable, but you can all be inconvenienced, right?”
The firm gaze levelled at them again, Gambit’s pen tapping irritably against the wall. Logan raised his head and gave Victor a side glance, which his brother completely ignored. He could see the impatience in Victor’s stance already.
“So, what sort of weapons are we talking about?” Wade asked lazily. “Big guns, small guns, some as big as your head. Give them a twist, a flick of the wrist, that’s what the showman said-,”
“Okay, could someone please stop him singing?” Gambit waved a hand towards Wade. “And we’re probably talking complicated stuff here. Weapons designed to take down powerful mutants… and, if I were a gambling man, I’d put my money on weapons like Wade. Mutants gone through the process and under their control. He can’t have been the first, their technique was too good.”
That suggestion caught Victor’s attention. Logan could see him lean a little further forward, the fed up expression slowly being replaced by a thoughtful one. Victor always did like a challenge, and the world wasn’t fun unless he was slowly ripping something to pieces. Mutant weapons were a perfect target.
However, Logan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to see four or five ‘Wade Projects’ together. That had the prospect of being a monumental pain in the backside.
“Have we got any maps or plans of this place, kid?” Logan began to tap his finger on the table idly. Gambit made a little face, almost as though he had started chewing on a sweet which hadn’t been as nice as he was expecting and definitely suggestive that Logan had hit on a topic that wasn’t sitting well with the Cajun. He had a suspicion he knew why. The kid liked his escape routes, and without a map he was left blind and at the mercy of Nature’s Odds. The gambler liked to stack the pack in his favour.
“We have basic ones.” Remy replied with distaste. “Location, general area, that sort of thing. No proper plans. No idea what’s going on underneath the surface,”
“Let’s grab a gopher and then train it for our own purposes,” Wade piped up. “And then attach a really small camera on its head…no? This is a bad idea?”
Logan didn’t bother to respond as he studied the others who would form whatever team the mission would produce. Their information was limited, but he suspected that the kid was on the right side of paranoia. He and Victor rarely bothered with information in the past, but then there was always Stryker or someone else in the background who did, who could then steer the right fighter to the right situation. Anything that made it a quicker in and out job was fine by him.
And then came the subject of the ‘team’, if it could even be called that. He and Victor could work and fight together, as naturally as day following night, but if they disagreed over anything then that team work suddenly split. Both Wade and LeBeau fought as individuals, and even during Team X Wade was always happiest on his own with a room full of people to kill, working his way through them like a particular bookwormy kid with a whole series of comics. Logan had no idea what the new abilities would create in Wade either. He might well follow his usual routine, but knowledge that he couldn’t go splat could very well make him even more reckless than normal. His gaze moved onto Victor, who had never been labelled as a particularly fantastic team player, then onto LeBeau, whose lifestyle seemed to ensure that he focused primarily on getting his own ass out of the firing line rather than working with the rest of the group.
He leaned back in his chair and wished he had a cigar to smoke. All in all, they had a group of individuals, who might work in the same direction at the same time. If they weren’t bickering with each other at the time, they were doing well.
He could see Victor watching him thoughtfully, but then Victor always could read him like a book.
“We’re back to fighting together,” Logan grunted in response to the silent raise of the eyebrow. “M’wondering about it.”
Victor’s eyes slid to the younger members of the group, then back again critically. “We go there. We kill anyone who stops us. We get fixed, then go home again. Not a hard plan, baby brother. Even for them.”
Gambit gave a snort of disgust and muttered under his breath in what sounded like a messed up version of French. Logan suspected he might have done the same had he been the only non-healing factor member of a group. You took everyone else’s splat for them.
“There’s a good chance we’ll have a lot of enemies to pick from,” Logan grunted. “No Stryker this time to coordinate,”
“We don’t need Stryker.” Victor replied dismissively. “Anyway, we all know what we can do. You rip people some new assholes and various other blade related injuries. I’ll do the same. Wade’s nimble enough to do the flank protection, ‘specially if he’s got his blue smoke teleportation thing fixed, and Boy Wonder over there has a knack with distractions and things that explode. As long as he doesn’t explode the thing I’m standing on, or the mountain, then we’re fine,”
“Guarding the flank?” Wade folded his arms and sulked even harder. “That is so damned boring!”
Logan’s eyes were fixed on his brother curiously. “You think you’re gonna be able to fight alongside the others? And that’s helping ‘em out, rather than just not attacking them.”
Victor rolled his eyes. “If you mean your pup, then he’s got worth going in, so yes. Going out, on the other hand…,” Teeth glinted in the light, and then Victor snorted softly at Logan’s still stern expression. “Stop worrying, baby brother. Or do you need proof?”
“Proof?” Logan repeated dubiously, and noted that LeBeau’s head lifted slightly at that word. Victor shrugged idly and tapped his finger on the table.
“Let’s go find us a fight, hmm?” his eyes twinkled. “There’s always a place where there’s a dodgy bar or two, and ..,”
“Ooh, ooh, we know one! There’s a porcupine in it!” Wade waved his hand. Victor turned his head to look at him, then across at LeBeau who had a weary look to him. The Cajun tilted his head in grudging agreement.
“We came across a little group who liked to play rough,” he confirmed in his slow, soft drawl. “Ain’t gonna last long with you, though. Might have friends. Ain’t gonna be particularly quiet though, if you catch my drift,”
“Well, that’s okay isn’t it? The more the merrier,” Wade clapped his hands together cheerfully. “And we can get a drink! Oooh, and some chips. I like chips. Especially if we can find something to dunk ‘em in.”
Logan sighed softly. “Gonna be too easy, Victor.”
“Well, let’s do some team play work,” Wade suggested, keen not to lose his entertainment. “Find some woods, and me and Vicky’ll attack you and Gambit, okay? But not properly attack, because that’ll just be really messy, and I’ll never find your ear if I accidentally chop it off. Not in those leaves.”
Gambit rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers tiredly. “You want to do the violent version of ‘hunt the flag’?”
Wade snapped his fingers. “Yeah! That’s perfect!”
Logan chewed it over, eying his brother who had the weary look of a man who had been saddled with two five year olds. He shrugged finally. Short of attracting the wrong type of attention to find some enemies that might last more than a few seconds, they didn’t really have much option.
“Okay. But not with those teams. I’ll go with Wade. You,” he addressed his brother. “go with Remy,”
He wasn’t sure which one was more irritated, Gambit or Victor. They eyed each other for a moment, like a dog verses a cat, and then turned their not delighted eyes back onto Logan. The pair was momentarily joined in agreement of their disagreement. Well, it was a step in the right direction.
“Seems unnecessary,” Victor grunted.
“I agree,” Remy folded his arms. “We have fought already. We know how we both fight,”
“Yeah, you do. But you’ve never tried fighting together,” Logan leaned back in his chair in faint amusement. Wade looked between them in fascination for a moment, then ruined Logan’s relaxation by walking behind him and giving him a bear hug in a Wade-shaped scarf way.
“Anyway, we’ll beat you,” Wade waved his free fist in the air. “We’re a sneaky, underhanded, grr team full of grrr possibilities and grrr-,”
Logan calmly punched him in the face in order to push him backwards. That was one good thing about Wade’s experimentation; the healing factor meant that he didn’t need to worry about damage anymore. Wade took the hint, although the bruised nose wasn’t enough to stop his cheerful enthusiasm. Logan made a mental note to aim lower next time.
“Anyway!” Wade announced. “Back to the victory!”
Victor snorted softly. “Even saddled with Pup, we’d still win,” he replied loftily. Logan smirked slightly. His brother’s competitive streak did run deeply, although even that might not prove strong enough to stop the pair from fighting. He had absolutely no idea how intense it would be in Gambit, although a gambler wouldn’t be too good at his work if he didn’t possess a strong desire to win.
“So that’s a yes to the games?”
“It’s a stupid idea,” Victor growled.
“But it’s a yes,”
A growl aimed itself at him for what Victor rightly assumed was a leading series of questions, but a shrug finally confirmed his agreement. Logan’s smile increased, although it froze slightly as his insane team-mate’s hand clamped down on his shoulder. Logan sighed softly. Teamwork was going to kill him.
“Right. Get yourselves ready and we’ll meet up out the front in ten minutes.” Logan ran his hand through his hair and got up to leave, but discovered the universe wasn’t quite done with him as his young lover caught him by the arm. Remy waited until the other two had left, before finally releasing Logan’s arm and stepping back to survey him carefully.
Logan waited for a few seconds, before becoming bored of the whole thing.
“You gonna complain more about working with Victor? Cause it’s gonna be easier to do it now than do it later with someone aiming a gun at you as well,” Logan said with a soft gruffness. LeBeau shook his head.
“Not my concern at this time, mon ami.” Cats eyes looked back at him carefully. “You are,”
“Me?” That was news to him. Logan frowned at him uncertainly. “Why?”
“What happened out there.” Remy studied him carefully. “What happened in here too. We never did talk about sharing our affections with others,”
Logan looked at him in bewilderment, and then thought it over. He hadn’t quite expected to find Remy and Wade together as they were, even with a piece of paper waved under his nose so frantically that it was like his own personal fan. He still hadn’t quite worked out how he felt about it either, but what with Wade being tied up in Victor and therefore himself, it seemed a very small step for Remy to end up treating the mercenary as a playful sex toy. And, after all, he did come into their partnership knowing that Remy was happy with his casual series of relationships. If he spent his time curled around Victor, there wasn’t really much right to demand anything from LeBeau.
He shook his head and gently ran his hand down the faintly concerned expression in front of him.
“Guess we didn’t. If you want to play with Wade, then you can. Just make sure you’re clean afterwards,” he said, and was faintly surprised when the concern didn’t shift. Logan frowned uncertainly. That had been the right answer and yet LeBeau still seemed wary, as though he was expecting an elephant to fall on him at any moment.
“If you want to.” Logan added, suddenly unsure about whether Wade’s affection had been desired in the first place. However, it had been Wade tied to the bed and it had been his backside which had suffered the touch of ginger. That wasn’t the usual position for a sexually aggressive predator, unless they truly were rubbish in their role.
Remy’s eyes studied him carefully. “I see,”
“You see?” Logan was definitely lost now. “You see what? You were messing around, I don’t mind, end of story.” And yet the boy still looked sulky, as though Logan had swiped the last chocolate in front of his nose. He growled through his teeth. This was giving him a headache.
Thankfully the universe was feeling benign to him. Gambit shrugged and turned to leave, taking with him the relationship headache which apparently existed without having bothered to send him a memo. Logan watched him go in bewilderment, then shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. The world was crazy, and it was likely to get crazier before the week was over.
That didn’t make his headache any better.
ONWARDS TO PART B
