Madripoor Nights

Setting: An AU built on the X-Men Evolution verse, though treated more as a general framework than a strict continuity — the series provides the outline and history, but elements of 616 comic canon are folded in freely. Think based on rather than set in. The story picks up years past the show’s timeline, well into “X-Men proper” territory, for reasons that should become clear. Jean Grey is twenty-six here. The Phoenix Saga hasn’t happened yet.

Genre: Romance/Adventure

Pairing: Logan/Jean, with Scott/Emma and Ororo/Hank referenced in the background (Forge is still a kid in this AU, and rather than force the Black Panther marriage, Ororo ends up with Hank, mirroring the Ultimate universe).

Rating: 18+

More info:

This is a Logan/Jean story set in a world generally patterned on X-Men Evolution, but not bound by it — the setting and history are a foundation, with 616 elements mixed in. It takes place roughly six years after the series, with Jean at twenty-six: a bit older than when Logan meets her in 616, but that gap felt necessary to make the pairing work without discomfort, and it let me write in a more grown-up X-Men setting besides.

The idea grew out of a simple question: how could a Logan/Jean relationship work in an Evolution-style setting at all? One answer was obvious immediately — it couldn’t, not in the show’s actual timeframe, without being deeply uncomfortable. Jean’s a teenager there, and Logan wouldn’t see her any other way (thankfully). If it happened at all, it would have to happen years later, the way it eventually did in the comics. That’s the reason for her age here. It still raises questions, but Kitty and Colossus found their way to each other once Kitty grew up in 616, so I think it can be handled fairly. I’ve done my best to treat the issues honestly rather than wave them away — you’ll be the judge of how well that worked.

As in the series itself, I’ve cut the love triangle out from the start. The Scott/Jean/Logan dynamic — to say nothing of the polyamory tangle the comics eventually built around it (Emma included) — has always struck me as the most exhausting part of this corner of canon. Scott/Jean in 616 carries a lot of baggage of its own (abandoned families, psychic infidelity, a romance that’s supposed to read as fated but often reads as toxic), and I didn’t want any of that here.

Also: Logan’s healing factor works the way it does in the comics (or the Hulk vs. Wolverine anime, or the live-action films) — as an actual, functional power, not the “informed attribute” version cartoons aimed at younger audiences tend to give him, where he’s rarely allowed to actually get shot, burned, or blown up on screen.

Disclaimer: I don’t own or hold any rights to X-Men Evolution, X-Men, or any associated characters and properties. They belong to Marvel/Disney and their creators. Please support the original works. This is written for no profit.

Chapter One

(This scene was inspired by a similar one in Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run.)

Logan sat cross-legged, eyes closed, meditating in an isolated clearing on a ridge overlooking the Xavier Institute. Dawn broke across the sky in a riot of gold, red, and purple, chasing the night away, fading the stars as the colour bled slowly into blue.

His senses reached outward on their own — the light breeze combing through the branches and the grass, moving across his skin, stirring his hair. He could feel his own pulse, steady beneath his skin.

He heard the woods changing shifts: nocturnal creatures withdrawing as the dawn broke, day creatures stirring to take their place. Skittering feet, rustling feathers, small hearts beating, breath moving in and out — his mind sorted and placed each one automatically, out of long habit, until the woods around him took shape without his eyes ever opening.

Breathing slow and even, he let his nose take in the woods’ full, chaotic layer of scent, sorting it the way he always did, painting in the last of the picture his ears and skin had already sketched. Even blind, the world came to him in full colour.

Clear your mind.

A deer began drifting toward him as he kept trying.

An image surfaced without warning — silky red hair, emerald green eyes — and he growled low enough that the deer bolted.

Logan exhaled and started over, working to centre himself, to let his thoughts, his emotions, his body settle back under his own control.

His mind had been a mess lately. Off-balance in a way he wasn’t used to.

And it was all because of a certain former student, now fellow X-Woman: the redhead psionic Jean Grey.

It had come on so fast. He and Jean had never had a single complication between them — not until recently. They’d always gotten along fine. He’d always liked the kid: her determination, her sharp mind, her passion. Her spitfire temper.

She and Scott had been the first two Charles ever took in, the two he and Ororo had watched over and taught personally. For that reason they held a special place in his heart. He didn’t always show it, but it was there.

She’s not a kid anymore, though, is she, some traitorous part of his mind pointed out. Hasn’t been for years.

He ignored that thought as best he could. He’d gotten a lot of practice at it lately.

Since Jean had come back from college, the two of them had grown closer — especially after she and Scott broke up, a little over two years back.

That had happened right after he, Scott, and Ororo returned from being trapped in the Savage Land by Magneto — after everyone had assumed the three of them were dead. Something that had been building underneath for a while finally came to a head, and Scott and Jean decided, mutually, to end things.

It had seemed amicable enough. Truth was, neither of them had been genuinely happy in a long while. But it wasn’t his business, so he’d stayed out of it — they were adults, and he had no interest in sticking his nose into that kind of drama if he didn’t have to.

Still, cynical as he was, some part of him had been quietly rooting for the two of them, and he’d felt for them both when it didn’t work out. But what fits when you’re young doesn’t always hold once you’re older — especially living the life the X-Men led.

For a while after, Jean and Scott kept some distance, finding their footing as friends instead.

Then, a little over a year ago, Scott started seeing Emma Frost, freshly returned to the Institute and back on the team.

Logan hadn’t known what to make of that at first. Emma had changed, some — but in his book she could still be a manipulative bitch when she wanted to be, and he’d worried about his oldest student getting caught up in it. Ororo shared the concern. Charles seemed cautiously fine with it, and Scott was his own man now, not a kid anymore, entitled to his own mistakes as long as Frost wasn’t doing anything to his head. So far, though, the two of them seemed genuinely good for each other, and Emma had turned into a solid X-Man and instructor. His misgivings had turned out to be unfounded.

He could admit that much, at least to himself. Of course, he’d sooner die than say it to Frost’s face, though — the ice queen’s ego didn’t need any more boosting.

Once Scott and Emma became official, Jean — not wanting to feel like a third wheel, and with Emma admittedly a little territorial at the beginning — had started drawing more missions and assignments with Logan instead. She’d also started coming to him for meditation work, to help steady her focus after everything with the breakup on top of everything else she’d carried since she was a kid. Logan had been skeptical he had much to offer over Charles, but the Professor thought the same discipline that kept Logan’s berserker rage in check might help Jean rein in and focus her own abilities.

It had worked better than either of them expected. Her control improved. She seemed steadier, more at peace. And somewhere in the middle of all that, Logan had started actually getting to know Jean as the woman she’d become, instead of defaulting to the kid he remembered. He found he liked her company — found an easy rapport with her he hadn’t expected. She’d grown into someone thoughtful, compassionate, sharp — with a wild, spitfire streak that surfaced when you least expected it. He grinned sometimes just thinking about how much he enjoyed provoking that side of her.

She had drew him out of himself, the way Rogue and Kitty sometimes did. More, she had a steadying effect that could pull him back from the edge of a berserker rage with nothing more than a touch. He couldn’t place exactly when that had started being true. There’d only ever been one other person who’d had that kind of power over him.

Maybe that should’ve been his first warning sign, he thought wryly, looking back.

At the time, none of it had seemed like anything unusual. She was a friend. His old student. The kid who used to run around pestering him with Scott in tow.

Just a friend, a teammate — someone he could no more imagine looking at differently than he could Kitty or Rogue. He could acknowledge, in the abstract, that she was beautiful. But it was more like an observation than noticing her as a woman. He couldn’t have imagined that ever changing.

Then came the Purifier mission.

— Flashback —

The X-Men had gotten word that the Purifiers — the well-funded, well-armed terrorist wing of Reverend William Stryker’s “peaceful” anti-mutant crusade — were planning to hit a pro-mutant rally.

Logan was there undercover with a small team, working the crowd for anything out of place. He was paired with Jean, running his senses alongside her telepathy through a psi-link, sweeping the crowd for Purifiers.

He hated places like this. Too many people, too much noise, too many lights — every sense he had was under constant assault. Nothing new, though. He’d dealt with worse in his old life as a spy. He centred himself and let the information sort itself out.

Half an hour in, just as he was starting to think the whole thing was a bust, Jean’s focus sharpened on a thought-signature and she signalled him.

He picked up the trail — a woman and her male partner, dressed as stagehands. Closing in, he caught the unmistakable smell of C4 on them both, and his stomach dropped.

He peeled off without a word, sending Jean a mental flag to warn the team and security about the bomb.

Then he was moving, shoving through the crowd, following the scent, ignoring the shouts behind him. Jean’s telepathy smoothed his path, making the two of them read as security to anyone who looked. He ducked backstage and down into the cellarage beneath the stage just as the main speakers stepped up to the podium above.

He heard the ticking before he saw anything — too faint for human ears, but not for his. He tore across the space, clearing obstacles without slowing, and threw back the sheet covering it.

One second left on the timer.

Jean was right behind him. No time to explain. He threw the thought at her through the link — get back, shield it — and dove onto the device, covering it with his body.

Guess we’re about to find out just how good my adamantium-enhanced bod an’ healin’ factor really are, he thought, and then—

White light. A deafening crack. Pain like nothing he’d felt before, tearing through every inch of him — and somewhere in it, his name, screamed into his mind. Then all-consuming black nothingness.

—

Time passed without shape. Eventually the nothingness receded, and awareness crept back in.

He didn’t know where he was at first. Moving hurt — everything hurt, like he’d been flame-grilled and put through a meat tenderizer. But pain meant he was alive, and that much he could work with.

For a long while he drifted in and out, feeling his body knit itself back together, piece by piece.

Still here, then.

Eventually his body felt mostly whole again, and he forced his eyes open. Vision came back dim and blurry — new eyes, probably, still adjusting. His other senses lagged behind them, dulled down to something almost human while the rest of him finished healing.

He recognized a medical room, though he couldn’t place which one. For a moment, disturbingly, he couldn’t place much of anything — not who he was, beyond a vague, animal certainty that he was a mutant, and something about a bomb.

But some instinct told him not to worry. His healing factor would put the rest back together in time.

Then he heard a gasp, and quick footsteps at his side.

A woman leaned over him — red hair like fire, brilliant green eyes wide with worry, a face so exquisitely beautiful it stopped his thoughts cold. A soft hand found his.

Her scent reached him before anything else did, as his sense of smell came back online — and with it came a strange flicker of déjà-vu, an image of the same woman in older clothes, something about a rose, gone again before he could hold onto it.

He focused on her face instead, and found himself thinking, with simple clarity, that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

She’d been saying something. She stopped mid-sentence, gone quiet, and in that same moment his memory clicked back into place — Wolverine. Logan. X-Men. The Institute. Xavier. He was in the med bay, and he knew exactly who was in front of him.

Jean Grey. Someone he’d known since she was a teenager. His student. His friend. His teammate.

And, he realized with a jolt of shame, apparently something else now too, if his own thoughts a moment ago were anything to go by.

He closed his eyes again — it already hurt less — his old faithful healing factor doing its work while he tried to compose himself. He hoped she hadn’t caught any of that. Her sudden silence suggested otherwise. She’d probably been running a light scan, checking how he was doing.

This could get awkward, he thought.

He opened his eyes again and managed a slightly sheepish grin. “Hey, Red. You’re a sight for sore eyes, darlin’. So — how’d we do?”

He hoped, fervently, that she’d chalk anything she’d picked up up to confusion from the healing process. That was, he decided firmly, exactly what it was. She was Jeannie. Someone he’d known since she was practically a kid.

Yeah, he told himself. That’s all it is. Not thinkin’ straight.

If Jean had sensed anything, she let it go. “Everyone’s fine, Logan. You covered the blast, and I contained what got past you with a telekinetic shield. The Purifiers’ attack failed, and—” She stopped, tears spilling over, and dropped her head onto his shoulder, crying.

Wincing, he lifted an arm — already stronger than it had been a minute ago — and folded it around her, rubbing slow circles against her back, murmuring something soothing, trying very hard not to notice how good she smelled now that his nose had caught up with the rest of him.

“Hey, Red. It’s okay. We did it, darlin’,” he said, his voice steadier than before.

Jean’s head snapped up, green eyes flashing. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Logan.” The words came out somewhere between a growl and a plea. “You think you’re immortal, but even your healing factor has to have a limit somewhere. I could have lost you today. You idiot."

She held his gaze, hard. “Promise me. You won’t pull something like that again.”

He smiled at the fire in her, and without quite thinking about it reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear — and tried not to notice how soft it was against his fingers.

Something was clearly happening here. He pushed the thought down anyway. “Wasn’t much of a choice, Jeannie. I was closest, and I had the best shot at surviving it. Comes with the job, darlin’. But I appreciate you worryin’ about the old man.”

He gave her a small wink, hoping to lighten things.

She snorted despite herself and shook her head, sitting up and wiping at her eyes.

“Sorry. I’ve just been so worried. A lot of people have — Laura, Kitty, and Rogue barely left this room the whole time. Everyone’s going to be so relieved you’re up.”

He saw her close her eyes for a moment — telling the others, he realized.

“Sorry for the scare,” he said, easing himself upright and off the gurney, moving slow and careful.

Jean steadied him for a moment as he found his footing. Then the doors banged open and Kitty came flying in, already crying, and threw herself into his arms. Rogue wasn’t far behind her.

Laura came in after them, pulling up short at the sight of him upright, visibly collecting herself, giving him a cool nod like nothing had happened — though he caught the small twitch at the corner of her mouth, and the unmistakable scent of relief rolling off her. He smiled back at her anyway.

In some ways, she was so much like him. She’d come a long way.

The Professor, Hank, Ororo, and Scott followed close behind, and after that everything blurred together.

— Flashback end —

The mission had been a success.

The bomb had been contained, and the Purifiers’ attack fell apart. The rest of the team and security rounded up several of their people, and their willingness to kill so many bystanders — humans and mutants alike — turned into a public relations disaster for Stryker. It wouldn’t be the last they heard from him. But it had definitely been win in Logan’s book, and one worth the pain that came with it.

Everything was fine.

And yet everything had changed.

Logan had spent weeks telling himself the sudden pull he felt toward Jean was just confusion, some leftover static from the healing process.

It hadn’t gone away. If anything, it had only gotten harder to talk himself out of it.

Her scent had become something he couldn’t ignore — his pulse picking up, his senses sharpening, every time she was in the room.

He couldn’t stop noticing, no matter how hard he tried, that she wasn’t a kid anymore in any sense of the word. Her silky, fiery hair, her brilliant emerald eyes, delicious curves, her legs that went forever, the swell of her large, firm breasts — he hated himself a little for cataloguing it all the way he did, especially knowing she probably still saw him as nothing more than her old mentor.

He’d been fighting down the part of himself that kept telling him to go claim her.

It didn’t help that she’d started wearing more figure-hugging and revealing outfits they were together — nothing outrageous, nothing that would have raised an eyebrow on its own, just enough to make it harder for him to keep pretending she wasn’t a woman.

She probably has no idea she’s doing it, he told himself. Maybe she’d always dressed that way and he simply hadn’t been paying attention before.

Then there were the dreams. If his waking thoughts about her were bad, his dreams were an X-rated movie playing in his head.

He was sure he was going to hell for this.

It had only gotten harder as the weeks went on — until Jean asked him to some function the Professor was hosting, along with Ororo, Hank, Forge, Scott, and Emma, and he’d said yes before he’d fully registered what he was agreeing to, too distracted at the time trying to ignore the effect she had on him.

He usually avoided those things entirely. That night, he soon found himself wishing for another bomb to jump on instead.

Then he’d seen her — in a black dress, strapless, fitting her every way that mattered — and every coherent thought he had left the building at once.

New definition of torture, he thought, and meant it.

They’d ended up together most of the evening, one way or another, and by the end of it his self-control had worn dangerously thin.

He’d finally had to admit the truth to himself: whatever this was, it wasn’t temporary, and it wasn’t going away on its own.

So for the last four days he’d been avoiding her — which, given his senses, hadn’t been especially hard — slipping out before dawn to meditate for hours at a stretch.

He knew it wasn’t exactly a mature strategy. Knew he was running like a little bitch. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and the better part of valour and all that jazz.

He just hoped he’d get himself under control before Jeannie noticed and called him on it — because when she did, he had no doubt he’d be on the receiving end of that famous temper of hers.

So here he was again, trying to meditate his way back to something like clarity.

And just as he finally started to sink into it — mind quieting, focus sharpening, the peace he’d been chasing almost within reach —

his nose twitched, and his progress was shot to hell.

He knew, before he even placed it, that his time was up.

Her scent reached him first — wild rose, a thread of spice underneath, like cinnamon folded into apple pie, and beneath even that, something he couldn’t quite name, something that spoke of wild and unconstrained passion held just barely in check.

Jean’s scent.

She was coming.