Restive Nature
Rated: NC-17
Disclaimer: I in no way, shape or form own the characters of Dark Angel or X-Men or anything related to them. I simply like to play with them for a short while.
Timeline: This is a slightly AU story. It takes place more in Max’s timeline, with the pulse occurring. It begins after the episode ‘Blah Blah, Woof Woof" It doesn’t affect the X-men much, as Professor Xavier is affluent enough to afford the best in life. It also takes place after the first X-men movie, but as I haven’t seen the second one, I’ll leave that stuff alone.
Pairing M/L
Summary: Once again Max is on the run. But this time she is led to a safe haven.
Chapter Eight
Logan followed Max to the building that they had visited earlier that day. She parked on the other side, in an alley, with an apartment complex closing her in. He parked Scott’s bike in the previous alley. Quickly, he keyed in the code to the security system that Scott insisted on. The code had to be re-entered, or the bike couldn’t be started again. It was a simple matter, for the mechanic anyhow, to interrupt the gas flow, and locking up the wheels, preventing the use of the bike. He’d done it mainly to prevent it from being stolen. But he’d never gambled on Logan’s keen senses being able to pick up the code.
Logan hurried to the alley that Max was in, peering carefully around the corner. He didn’t want her knowing that he was there quite yet. He saw her push her bike behind a dumpster. He glanced round the area, wanting to make sure that there were no people around to interfere, then jumped into the alley. Stupefied, he searched the dark shadows, but could find no trace of her. It was only by his specialized hearing that he garnered a clue. A slight squeak gave away he position on the fire escape above him. He grinned at having caught her, but it faded quickly when he realized that the first platform was ten feet high above him. There was no way he could reach it. ‘How the hell did she get up there?’ he wondered. ‘She can’t have jumped it and she didn’t have time to scale it when I wasn’t looking.’ He decided there was no help for it. He’d just have to ask her when she returned.
He stared upwards and was startled to see a long cord, attached to a crossbow bolt fly from the apartment building to the office building. It was pulled taut and then Max stepped out and walked across as if it were a plank of solid wood. His jaw gaped as she crossed without incident. His curiosity was raging about this woman who had invaded their lives. Even the most intensive military training couldn’t produce these results. Logan wondered if perhaps Max was a mutant in denial. Maybe she’d been keeping it a secret to keep from attracting attention from unwanted sources. He dropped down to his haunches to wait, determined to get some answers.
He didn’t have to wait too long. She dropped down in front of him twenty minutes later, completely nonplussed at finding him. "Cold down there on the ground?"
"Not really," he grunted. He gestured towards the haversack. "I take it you got what you were looking for?"
"Would you believe I was taking a moonlit stroll?" she parried. At his raised eyebrows she sighed and answered. "I got what my Logan needs. Information. That is his job, you know."
"But that doesn’t tell me why you’re doing the dirty work," Logan pressed.
"I don’t think it’s any of your business," Max retorted.
"I’m making it my business," Logan growled threateningly, grabbing her arm as she turned away from him. "Maybe I’ll make it Xavier’s business." He saw that that got no reaction. "Perhaps even the business of the local police. They don’t take kindly to burglars roaming the streets, no matter how sweet their asses look in cat suits."
Max laughed outright at the threat. "First off, it’s nobody’s business what I do, least of all you. Secondly, the police don’t take kindly to crackpots making false accusations. You’d have to prove that a crime took place here and I don’t see that happening."
"Who the hell are you?" Logan snarled. She shrugged.
"I’m just a girl trying to make a living," Max scoffed. "What’s the harm in that?"
"Wait, I thought you worked for a messenger service?" Logan demanded. "How does that coincide with burglary?"
"Have you ever tried to live on a minimum wage salary in Seattle?" Max laughed. "It ain’t easy. I have to do a little work on the side occasionally."
"So that’s why you work for this guy then?" Logan surmised. She said nothing to change his mind. He sighed. "I guess we should head back to the mansion then."
"Yeah, I need to send this stuff off and then figure out what I’m going to do for cash while I’m here."
"I don’t think the professor intended to charge you room and board," Logan chuckled, helping her pull the motorcycle out from behind the trash container. "Unless you’re one of those types that thrives on activity? Then I’m sure he can find something for you to do. Maybe you could take over teaching Scott’s mechanic classes."
"I’m not sure I can take on a class of adolescent know it alls," Max stated quietly. Logan had the sense that she was lost in thought. She shuddered slightly, then took the handle of the machine from him. "Besides, I’d probably incite them to riot."
"Yeah, I never considered myself the ‘good role model’ type either," Logan laughed. He stared down at the young woman who’d captivated the majority of his thoughts today. Since meeting her, he could barely keep his mind off of her. Curiosity, annoyance, interest, attraction all wrapped up in one sweet looking bundle. He could barely keep his mind off her. He wondered if there was anyone in her life that he should be jealous of. The question was out of his mouth before his brain could take it back. "So, did you leave anyone behind in Seattle? Anyone who might worry about you?" ‘What about Jean?’ his mind screamed at him.
"All I left behind me were some good friends and a pissed off boss," Max scorned.
"No boyfriend?" his traitorous mouth smiled.
"I’m between them at the moment," Max said strangely, looking at Logan as if sizing him up. "Why, are you offering yourself for the position?"
"No, no," he protested immediately, holding up his hands as if to ward her off.
"Let’s go then," Max muttered, still eyeing him strangely.
They returned to the school separately, Max parked her motorcycle and hurried into the house before Logan could detain her further. He picked up the book he had been reading earlier and made his way up to his own room. He entered and shut the door firmly behind him. He had noticed through the crack under the door that Max’s light was on. He could hear her through their shared wall, moving about her room. He lay back on his bed and tried to keep his thoughts off the young woman. She was such a conundrum that he was afraid of the headache he would get trying to figure out her life. He still carried the sense that he knew her, having vaguely recognized her scent earlier. But with his faulty memory system, he wasn’t sure where from. And she certainly wasn’t forthcoming about possibly knowing him. His thoughts tumbled about, keeping him from coherently reading anything understandable. An unbidden image of her in her cat suit came to him. It fit snugly on all the right curves. He shook his head before the image could go further and forced his attention back to the book.
In the next room, Max was completely oblivious to her neighbor’s struggles. She was on her knees, exploring the area between the mattress and the box spring. She found nothing. Sighing, she stood and decided to lift the pictures off the wall. Originals, if she wasn’t mistaken. She removed the largest and heaviest one first, again finding nothing. She checked the other two and found plain old wall as well. She set the pictures back, making sure they were straight. She was almost starting to believe that she might actually have found a safe haven to shelter in. She pulled the disk that she’d copied at the office from her haversack and placed it in the drawer of her nightstand. She could have gone down to the study and sent it back to the Eyes Only informant network. She could have, but she didn’t want to alert anyone to her abnormal sleeping patterns.
She pulled out a book and lay back on the bed to read awhile. Then maybe she’d exercise. Then she could read some more. Then maybe two or three hours of sleep. She sighed as she thought of the long nights ahead. Maybe she could find a small television and video machine to fill her hours. Tossing her book aside, she decided to head downstairs and explore some more. If anyone caught her and asked why she was up, she could always claim that she was after a midnight snack. Perhaps got lost in her sleepy state? She slipped from her room as quietly as she could. But she hadn’t counted on the super sensitive ears of her neighbor, unconsciously trained on her every move.
Logan heard the door next to his open and shut. He wondered what she was up to now. He debated leaving off his reading and checking on her, then decided he didn’t have the energy to chase her if she went out again. He lay on the bed for all of five minutes before his curiosity got the better of him. He rose to his feet and slipped through his own door. He padded down the stairs, wondering where he would find her. He scanned what he could see of the ground floor and was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her disappearing into the elevator. He waited for it to return to the main floor, then followed. She was waiting for him. He greeted her with a lopsided grin. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Maybe I could get that tour now?" she asked in a soft voice. He chuckled and gestured down the hall.
"Do you want to start where I did, or just go from here?" he asked.
"Where did you start?"
"When I first arrived, I was still unconscious," Logan recalled. "Then I woke up in the infirmary. After I overpowered Jean, I ran out here, took some clothes from the training room and made my way upstairs. Hid behind the columns because classes were out, then burst in on the professor."
"What was with all that?" she laughed softly.
"Well, I had no idea who these people were," Logan informed her. "When I woke up, Jean was trying to stick me with a needle and I was definitely not going for that. I just wanted to get the hell out."
"I know how that feels," Max concurred. He stared at her, wondering if he dared upset the unspoken truce by asking about her past. It was as elusive as his was at this point, with so much of it not adding up.
"Anyone who’s been AWOL for ten years would have a pretty good idea about wanting out," he chuckled. "But the thing I don’t get, is that you said you were in for almost eleven years, been AWOL for ten, yet you claim to be twenty years old. So who the hell are you?"
"Who the hell are you to be demanding answers from me?" Max demanded angrily. "My life is my business. How many times do I have to repeat it?"
"Look lady," Logan was finally letting himself get hot under the collar as well, "everything you say contradicts at some point. To have been in the army for as long as you say, you’d have had to have enlisted the moment you were born. And what the hell was with disappearing up that office building? And the tightrope act? What, you ran away from the army and joined the circus?"
"Yeah, that’s exactly what I did," Max scoffed. "The marvelous Max and her miraculous mysteries." Logan could hear the scorn in her voice and cringed a little. He couldn’t understand why he was always on the defensive with her. He’d never been this nasty with others unless provoked. Something about her unbalanced him. "You know, all I’m trying to do is live my life the way I see fit. That means I am responsible and beholden only to myself. I knew it was a mistake to come here and put my faith in a bunch of mutants that I don’t even know. Every time I think I got the DL, I get a nasty little shock. My brother always says, don’t trust anybody and this time he’d right. So I’m just going to leave like I should have done in the first place."
Logan let her rant and get it out of her system. Then, without understanding why, only running on the lust she instilled in him, he yanked her to him and kissed her. She struggled faintly. His hands locked about her waist; unable to deny the feeling that now something was finally and completely right in his life. Like he was made to have her in his arms. She pushed a little harder again against his chest. He loosened his grip when he realized she wasn’t fighting him. He moved one hand up to her head and ran his fingers through her lush, dark hair. His lips moved over hers lightly now. No longer punishing, they were almost tickling. Finally she broke away from him. He stared at her as she scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand.
"Quite a technique you’ve got there," she taunted.
"I just wanted you to shut up," he shrugged back. He felt a little knife of disappointment spear through him. At least he had that question answered. She wasn’t interested. "Would you like that tour now?"
"Actually," Max backed away from him, "I think I’ll just go back to bed." She turned and hurried back to the elevator. The doors closed after her and Logan groaned in disappointment. Her mention of bed was definitely the wrong this to say. His own lips were still tingling. But, as he thought back over their conversation, he realized that he’d be better off staying the hell away from her. He wondered again about the possibility of her being another mutant. In their earlier conversation, he’d told her that he healed quickly. Quickly, that was a laugh. How about near instantaneous if it were a cut or scrape. The worst of it had been when he dealt with Rogue. She was the one person who even came close to killing him. Then something clicked in his mind. Max had claimed that she healed quickly as well. She had even jokingly asked if that made her a mutant. Was it possible that she was and was trying to figure it out? It might also explain why she looked so young, if she had a power similar to his. Jean still hadn’t come up with a way to determine his own age. He climbed into the elevator finally, still musing on these thoughts as he traveled back upstairs.
Chapter Nine
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