Fic: Guns Don't Kill People (Logan/Nick Fury)
Title: Guns Don’t Kill People
Author: eva_roisin
Pairing: Logan/Nick Fury
Characters: Logan, Nick Fury, Daken
Description: In the woods, Logan deals with the aftermath of having defeated his son.
Spoilers: Wolverine Origins #49
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Angst, sex
Notes: I don’t really ship these two, but I think it’s pretty damn hilarious that Fury went all the way to the Canadian wilderness to keep Logan company on his birthday (or at least Logan thinks he did, which is weird in and of itself).
Guns Don’t Kill People
After all these years, he knows only this: A broken heart is something his healing factor just can’t fix. When it comes to this kind of pain, he’s no better at healing than anybody else.
Maybe he’s a little worse, actually. Ordinary people have only so much time to live and grieve. The exigencies of mortality force them to suture up their lives and get on with things. Logan doesn’t have this sort of impetus; for him, five or ten years is really nothing at all. The heartaches of yesterday are not, in their intensity, so much different from the heartaches of today.
The first broken heart is always the worst.
The last broken heart is always the worst.
Each broken heart is always the same, but freshly devastating in its sameness.
Logan works through this infuriating tautology on his own. He does not, among other things, ask Nick Fury what he thinks about broken hearts.
Nick tips the bottle back and says something. He’s been talking for the last half an hour, filling Logan in on superhero power jockeying and politics, but Logan couldn’t summarize what’s been said if he wanted to. He just wants Nick gone so he can go back to work, back to building his cabin. Maybe in another hundred years he’ll be ready to talk. He should tell Nick to come back then. Lord knows they'll both still be alive.
He can’t believe that Nick came all this way just to wish him a happy birthday.
In fact, he doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe it for one single minute! It doesn’t make any sense.
When Nick had laid it on him, when he’d told Logan the reason for his strange, out-of-the-blue visit, Logan had worked hard to conceal his surprise. He'd leaned back and looked into the fire. “What?” he’d said.
“Your birthday, Logan. The day you came into the world, all those years ago.”
“And?”
Fury had just nudged a log with his boot. The fire flared slightly.
Logan had locked eyes with the bastard.
(Birthdays are not special or unique to him. He’s had so many, after all-and he’ll have so many more. His birthday goes by each year without a blink, and that’s the way it should be. He thinks there’s something narcissistic about birthday celebrations, something self-aggrandizing and vain. Why rub people’s faces in the fact of your existence? Being born is not special. It is not much of an achievement, relatively speaking. It happened to everyone at some point or another.)
“You have everyone’s birthday committed to memory?” Logan had said. “You go visit everybody?”
“Just my favorite people,” Nick had replied.
“Well . . . I’m fuckin’ flattered. The whole fuckin’ world goes to hell on a platter, and you find the time to . . . you find the time. That’s-that’s blessed.”
“The fuckin’ world has not gone to hell on a platter,” Nick said, picking out the least significant detail of Logan’s statement. “In fact, things are better now than they’ve ever been.”
Logan shot him a glance.
“They are,” Nick had said, and then he shoved the bottle in Logan’s direction and began to talk.
He’s been talking ever since, but Logan hasn’t been listening.
These days, Logan finds it difficult to listen or watch passively. His attention span has changed since he’s gotten his memories back; he’s not used to being an audience.
“. . . Anyway,” Nick says, “it is what it is. It’s not how I envisioned things, but it’s the way things are.” He gives Logan an up-and-down glance as though sensing he’s lost the man.
Logan tucks his hands in his pockets.
“Well,” Nick says.
A moment of anticipatory silence. Logan knows he’s supposed to say, “Yeah?” He keeps quiet.
Nick reaches into his jacket and pulls out a thick, tattered envelope. “For you,” he says, holding it out to Logan. “Happy birthday.”
Logan accepts. He pulls back the envelope’s lid and looks inside. “Jesus Christ.”
“The pool money,” Fury says. “Six grand.”
“Six grand? And no one won?
Fury shrugs. “A lot of people won. No one won. Depends on how you define it.”
Luke Cage had started the pool shortly before the siege--when it was clear that Osborn was on his way out. He took bets on which fake Avenger would crack first under questioning, and which one would give them the most dirt on Norman Osborn and everyone else. Moonstone, as Logan recalled, had been a favorite.
Logan had not placed a bet.
“Why the hell are you giving this to me?”
Fury shrugs again. “Most people put their money on Moonstone. But a lot of folks also put their money on Daken.”
“Daken?”
“People didn’t bet that Daken would crack. They bet that Daken wouldn’t crack, that he’d hold out for the best deal possible. That he’d make a deal to end all deals. But what they didn’t bet on-and what they should have taken into account-was that he wouldn’t have gotten caught in the first place.”
Logan folds the top of the envelope down and tries to hand it back to Nick. “I don’t need this.”
Nick glances over at his shoulder at the unfinished cabin. “I think you do.”
“Fuck it. Why don’t you go sink this into one of your government projects? Put it toward your legal fund or something?”
Fury presses his lips together. “I have to ask.”
“You don’t.”
“He’s a war criminal. If you know where your son is, you have to-”
“Stop,” Logan says, and now he understands why Fury came here. Birthdays be damned. This is about Daken. (He should have known. Everything is about Daken.)
Fury squints at him. “Well, that’s fine. We’ll find him some way or another. And when we do, you can bet your ass that-”
“You don’t have to worry about him anymore,” Logan says. He looks at the bottle. Then he takes a decisive swig.
Silence. The fire, still young and strong on dry tinder, crackles away. The rest of the forest is quiet.
“You killed him,” Fury says.
“I said you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
As soon as Logan speaks these words out loud, he knows they are a lie. If Daken wants to be a worry, he’ll certainly find the means. Logan does not underestimate his son’s ability to complicate life in new and entirely fucked-up ways.
He also knows that Fury knows more than he’s letting on. He just wants Logan's confession for himself. He wants the lurid details. Even when he can get any information with no trouble at all, he still covets a secret page from Logan’s diary, the carte blanche access to all of Logan's thoughts.
“Well,” Fury says. “That’s something, at least.”
Logan looks down at the envelope. Six grand. It splits three ways easy enough. He knows three people who deserve it more than he does. He stands. “Thanks,” he says quietly and then moves to the tent.
Once inside, he flicks on the light and lays the envelope on the chest. On second thought, he decides to tuck it inside of a book. Chekhov’s short stories. So boring! Yeah, he has no one to blame for that but himself. He let Daken get to him. Back when they traveled together-the first time they were looking for Romulus-they were sharing a cab and Logan reached into his back pocket to get some money for the driver, and Daken brushed his hand against Logan’s thigh and whispered into his ear, said that if you put a gun on the wall, it had better go off. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Guns don’t kill people.” Then he glanced up and told the cab driver to keep driving.
It was, Logan thinks, the worst experience of his life.
He leaves the book and pushes back the tent flap.
Outside Nick is pacing, his cell phone pressed to his ear. When he sees Logan, he closes the phone and puts it in his pocket. “No reception here anyway. Guess I’m spending the night. You got an extra sleeping bag?”
***
He really doesn’t care about his birthday. It’s nothing to him.
But what kills him-what fucking galls him-is that Fury had to be the one to remind him. And Logan, despite his best efforts to stay calm, couldn’t conceal the fact that he was secretly surprised.
This is what pisses Logan off the most. After all this time, Fury still has the capability to knock him on his ass.
Not now, though. He watches as Nick shuffles out of his clothes. It is, in essence, the most predictable thing in the world. Nick has middle-aged seduction down to a science-the frankness, the familiarity, the lack of insecurity and, with that, the lack of willingness to impress. It is what it is, Logan thinks. Nick’s body is functional but not beautiful. Not to him, anyway.
Logan no longer wonders why he ends up in these situations. If there’s one thing he and Daken have in common, it’s this: they draw people in. Logan does it without really meaning to; Daken makes seduction the centerpiece of his life. Daken wants power and control; Logan just wants to be loved.
Nick finishes undressing and sets his gun on the small chest of drawers next to Logan’s bed. He touches the chest. “Where’d you get this?”
Logan shrugs, the blankets wrapped around his waist. “There was a yard sale. Up the road.” He leans back and tucks one hand behind his head. Tries to ignore how cold he is.
“You at least planning on getting a TV for this new house?”
“Why? You already thinking about another visit?”
Nick’s mouth twitches. “I don’t wanna miss the playoffs.” He kneels down next to the mattress.
“Okay then,” Logan says. He moves over to make room.
When Fury presses his mouth against his, Logan makes a pact with himself: from here on out, he’s not going to fuck anyone he’s known for more than thirty years.
Make that ten years. Nick drags his tongue across Logan’s face and then kisses his neck. Logan tilts his head back and squeezes Nick’s waist through the blanket.
Nick runs his fingers through Logan’s chest hair. He pulls the blanket away, grazes Logan’s chest and abdominal muscles. Stops to draw small circles around his nipple.
For his own part, Logan doesn’t do much of anything. Isn’t that what birthday’s are about? Selfishness? If Nick wants to give him a blowjob, let him.
“So this new team I’ve got,” Nick says, looking up, his hand on Logan’s shaft.
“Give me a break,” Logan mutters, his own emboldened desire rising at the back of his throat. He just wants to forget himself in pleasure now, wants to forget that it's Nick here with him. If he closes his eyes, he could pretend that this is anyone else. But no-who’s he kidding? He can’t. Nick’s shoulders are broad and distinct, his breath full of liquor, his vernacular one he shares only with his contemporaries, men currently living out the rest of their lives in nursing homes or preserved in the scrapbooks of Americana.
“Real stand-outs.” Nick pulls the blanket back farther and straddles Logan. He scoots down and tongues Logan’s naval. “Talented bunch. Special.” He inches down farther takes Logan’s cock into his mouth. Then sits back and looks up. “You want to know what I told them?”
“Shut up.”
Fury smirks and goes back to work. Fondles Logan’s balls. Like he means it. Like he means business. His fingers slide past Logan’s balls to his ass. One finger traces his asshole. Logan groans. He grips Nick’s shoulders.
Nick maneuvers himself so that he’s pressed length-wise against Logan again. Mashes his own cock against Logan’s stomach, his mouth pressed against Logan’s. He arches against him, his fingers reaching between them to work Logan’s shaft.
Minutes later, Logan grunts and comes on Nick’s stomach. Seconds after that, Nick comes on the sheets.
Logan leans back against the pillow, suddenly warm and not-so-strangely sated. Nick pushes the covers back and curls up next to him. He pats Logan’s arm, a gesture so out-of-place and buddy-like that Logan doubts that they just had sex.
“So tomorrow,” Nick says, “let’s get you a ride to Vancouver. And a shower. And onto a plane.”
“Fuck that,” Logan says, but not so meanly. He feels a certain post-sex generosity. He doesn’t even want to kick Nick out of his bed anymore, even though it’s warm and sweaty and way too crowded. “A man can live in the woods if he wants to.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that,” Nick says. He pulls away, reaches for his pants. Seconds later he’s next to Logan again, a cigarette between his lips. “But cabins are best used as summer getaways, not hibernation outposts.” He flicks his lighter. Takes a puff and passes it to Logan. “Goddamn, my balls are frozen.”
“I couldn’t tell,” Logan says dryly. He takes a drag. “Look, don’t take this personally.”
Fury snickers. “I’m not your type for a long-term gig,” he finishes. “I know.”
Logan glances down. “I was going to say that we can’t both sleep here. One of us has to move. These days, I wake up with my claws out.”
“Really,” Fury says, considering. A slight pause. He wants to ask for more details but restrains himself. “I’ll take the floor then. It’s your birthday, after all. A man shouldn’t sleep on the floor on the same day he came into the world.” Seconds later, Nick’s putting his clothes back on. “You know, Logan, it is a big deal.”
Logan stares into the dark.
“Your birthday. You’ve come a hell of a lot closer to actually dying than most people, healing factor or no. Each year is a victory. Every hour is a triumph.”
Logan’s long used to the fact that Nick likes to use these battle metaphors. “Hmm,” he says. He closes his eyes.
“Don’t kid yourself.”
Outside the tent, the fire is almost out. Nick’s shadow is long and wide and indistinguishable from the other shadows in the room. In a few seconds, he’s curled up on the floor, a pile of old blankets beneath him.
***
Daken asked for three things: a meal, a bottle of expensive wine, and a bottle of prescription pain-killers.
When Logan returned to the hotel room, Daken was curled up in the bed, his wrists folded against his chest, his eyes closed. He didn’t flinch when Logan came close.
“Didn’t think you were coming back,” Daken said. He opened his eyes, looked at Logan, and sniffled.
Tears coursed down Daken’s cheeks, and Logan felt something break loose inside of him. He reminded himself that his son wasn’t really crying. These were tears of physical pain and self-pity, not remorse-not regret and genuine sadness.
Still.
Logan approached the bed slowly. He didn’t want to touch Daken again. Hours before, he’d pinned him against the pavement. His son hadn’t had the strength to fight back. He’d just cried out when Logan made the crucial incisions, the ones that ensured Logan’s continued survival and Daken’s continued defeat. In that moment, Logan was putting down everything that had ever threatened his existence.
“Please Logan,” Daken had sobbed. “Please stop.”
After wrapping the Muramasa blades and stashing them in a nearby sewer, Logan returned to find Daken, nearly unconscious and breathing heavily, sprawled on the pavement, clothes soaked with his own blood. Muramasa blade wounds were something his healing factor couldn’t easily fix, and Daken was going to bleed for a little while. Logan held out his hand. Daken’s own hand shot out, found Logan’s and squeezed. Hard. Then, with a surprising show of strength, he pulled Logan close to him. Clutched his shoulders and wrapped his arms around Logan’s torso.
Logan held him. He started to gently lift Daken off the ground to take him back to his hotel room. (He now admits that he didn’t quite know what to do in this moment. In his mind, he had meticulously envisioned everything up until this point. But this-Daken writhing and injured and vulnerable-was something he hadn’t taken the time to imagine.)
Daken pressed his hand to the back of Logan’s neck and brushed his lips against his cheek. He clung to Logan. There was no space between them. Logan’s eyes stung.
Hours later, in the hotel room, Logan tried to hand Daken a wrapped-up hamburger.
“Leave it,” Daken said, nodding to the end table. “Give me the wine.”
Logan handed him the bottle.
“You could at least bother to uncork it,” Daken said. He tried to flex his wrists and grimaced from the pain. “I can’t.”
Logan got a corkscrew from the drawer.
When Daken got the bottle, he took a long swig. Then he set the bottle down on the nightstand and looked at Logan.
“The pain?” Logan asked.
“Standard. Inescapable.” His eyes were glassy, red-rimmed. “Why are you still here?”
Logan stood there, his hands folded in front of him.
Daken looked away first. He set the bottle back onto the nightstand and nudged it away. Then he lay back onto the bed and rolled onto his side. “Go.”
Logan turned, gathered his jacket. “Goodbye, Daken.”
Outside, the morning was crisp but cloudy, the air clear, the dawn waiting. He reached into his pocket. He had left most of his money on the nightstand for Daken, but he still had enough for a train ticket, and for a way back home.