Chapter 1
Setting: AU based around the universe of ‘What If... Wolverine had Married Mariko’ (What If Vol. 1, issue 43). It is also influenced and draws on elements of the first issue of Claremont’s X-Men Forever, and like that is set around the time when the original five ended their version of X-Factor and returned to the X-Men. Like X-Men Forever it takes place after the fall of Asteroid M and the possible death of Magneto. There won’t be any Gold or Blue teams, just Cyclops and Storm as joint team leaders, though that won’t really matter here. Another important aspect of the set-up of this AU is that Madelyne Pryor isn’t a clone of Jean Grey here. As originally conceived they just look alike, and Scott meant it when he said he loved and married her for herself. Like X-Men Forever, Nathan isn’t, or doesn’t become, Cable, and he wasn’t infected by Apocalypse with the techno-organic virus. They came down as a family when Jean was found, and Scott and Maddie have remained happily married. For the events leading up to where we are, please read the part one in the Shadow of the Horseman series Sublime Malice.
Genre: Romance/Adventure
Pairing: Logan/Jean
Rating: 16+
Further Info: For further information and background to this story please read my other story Sublime Malice. Sublime Malice is under an 18+ rating, but that largely applies to the end of chapter 14 there, so that intimate scene can be skipped. And the background at the beginning at least will explain such things as Logan’s “ghosting” ability and how it came to be.
Disclaimer: I don’t own or hold any rights to X-Men, Wolverine or any associated characters and properties. They belong to Marvel/Disney and their creators. Please support the original works. This is not written for profit.
Chapter 1
One minute turned out to be closer to ten, and Logan didn’t begrudge a single second of it.
The sun slid a little further across the sky, the waves kept up their patient, lazy rhythm against the sand, and Jean stayed exactly where she was, warm and loose against his side, her fingers tracing slow, absent patterns over his chest. If he’d had any sense of self-preservation, he’d have kept very still and let the moment run as long as the universe was willing to allow it.
Of course, the universe had never once been that kind to him.
“Okay,” Jean sighed at last, without lifting her head. “Time’s up. Tell me about the attendant.”
“Mm.” Logan kept his eyes half-closed, the picture of a man with nothing on his mind but sunscreen. “Young guy. Name tag says Kenji. Carrying the drinks tray over by the cabana bar, three o’clock. Don’t look.”
“Looking is exactly what I’m not doing.” She nestled her chin against his sternum, smiling up at him like he’d just whispered something filthy, and he had to admire the commitment. “How sure are you?”
“Sandalwood, cold steel, an’ somethin’ underneath like old incense that’s been burned too long.” His nostrils flared slightly. “Same smell I picked up in Madripoor off a pack of ninjas that tried to turn me into a pincushion. It’s the Hand. No doubt about it.”
“One of the most beautiful beaches on Earth,” Jean said, very softly, “and we pick the one with a ninja problem.”
“We didn’t pick it, darlin’. You did.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
She pinched his side, and he grunted, and they both grinned like idiots for a moment before the grin faded into something more thoughtful. Jean propped herself up on one elbow, shading her eyes against the glare as though idly admiring the water, and Logan felt the faint, familiar brush of her mind against the edge of his, polite as a knock on a door.
I’m not going to read him, she sent. Not yet. If the Hand has telepaths — or if he’s trained to notice being probed — we’d be tipping our hand. Pun not intended.
Pun entirely noticed.
Logan.
What? I’m on vacation. Lemme have my jokes.
Her laugh bubbled up out loud, bright and genuine, and a pair of sunbathers two chairs over glanced their way with the indulgent smiles people reserved for honeymooners. Jean noticed it, too, and Logan felt the wheels turn behind her eyes.
That’s our cover, then, she sent. We’re exactly what we look like. Two people madly in love, ridiculously relaxed, who couldn’t possibly be interested in anything except each other.
Not much of a stretch.
No, she agreed, and the warmth that rolled across the bond made his chest go tight. It isn’t.
The Azure Cay Resort sat on its own crescent of private island, a scatter of whitewashed bungalows and palm-shaded walkways stitched together with lantern-lit paths, built almost entirely around one idea: couples. Couples’ massages. Couples’ sunset sails. Couples’ cooking lessons, couples’ dance nights, a moonlit “Renewal Ceremony” every full moon for anyone feeling sentimental. Jean had read the brochure aloud on the plane in a breathy, gushing voice that had made the man across the aisle give them a very strange look.
Back in their bungalow, Logan watched her spread that same brochure across the bed, tapping each event with a fingertip like a general plotting a campaign.
“Every activity,” she said, “is something people do in pairs. That’s either the world’s most romantic resort or the world’s most efficient recruitment pipeline.”
“Couples are easier to work on,” Logan said, leaning in the bathroom doorway, a towel slung around his neck. “Hand likes loyalty. Takes two people tied up in each other, you turn one, the other follows. Or you break ‘em apart an’ use the grief. Either way’s useful.”
“That’s horrible.”
“That’s the Hand.”
She chewed her lip, then pulled out the small, flat communicator Hank had tucked into her bag before they left — for emergencies only, he’d said, with a look that suggested he’d known exactly how long that promise would last — and thumbed it open.
Kitty’s face popped up on the screen about four seconds later, hair in a towel, a face mask half-peeled off her chin. ”Please tell me this is an actual emergency, because I am having the best Saturday of my life.”
“Define ‘emergency,’” Jean said.
Kitty went very still. Then she squinted. “Oh my God. Are the two of you already fighting ninjas? It’s been like eight hours."
“Not fighting yet.” Logan leaned into frame. “Just smellin’ ’em.”
“You are unbelievable." Kitty tore off the rest of her mask and flung it out of view. “Hank’s going to want a full report. Do you want us to come? We can be there in—”
“No,” Jean said gently. “Not yet. If a big team shows up, the Hand scatters. For now it’s us, a tropical resort, and our cover as the most disgustingly in love couple on the island.”
“So... not acting, then.”
"Kitty."
“I’m just saying.” Kitty’s grin was unrepentant. “Check in tomorrow. And if you die, I’m taking your room and eating all your snacks.”
The screen went dark. Logan huffed a laugh, and Jean pocketed the communicator, then turned to look at him with that glint in her eye that always preceded a plan.
“So here’s what I’m thinking,” she said, sliding off the bed and crossing to him, her hands settling on his bare chest. “We do exactly what any couple would do. Dinner. A drink at the night bar. Dancing, probably. And while we do, we watch everyone. The staff, the guests, the couples. Especially the couples.”
“An’ you wanna dance.”
“I want you to dance. For cover purposes.” She was all innocence, which was how he knew she was enjoying this immensely.
“I don’t dance, Red.”
“You dance with me.”
He opened his mouth to argue. Looked down into those eyes. Closed it again. Thanks to the bond, she knew he could dance.
“Damn it,” he said.
“That’s what I thought.” She went up on her toes and kissed him, quick and sweet and smug. “Wear the blue shirt.”
Dinner was served on a deck cantilevered over the water, tables lit by hurricane lamps, a string trio playing something soft and unobtrusive in the corner. The food was ridiculous — seared fish Logan couldn’t have pronounced, some kind of coconut thing that Jean made an embarrassing noise over — and for the first twenty minutes, he honestly forgot he was supposed to be working.
Then Jean’s foot nudged his under the table, and the lazy warmth in her expression sharpened by a fraction.
Don’t look. Two tables over, by the rail. The couple in white.
Logan reached for his glass and let his eyes drift across the deck as casually as a man scanning for the waiter. A man and a woman in their late thirties, both dressed in crisp white, both sitting perfectly upright, both eating at precisely the same pace. She lifted her fork a heartbeat after he did. He smiled when she smiled. Neither of them had said a word in the last five minutes.
Marcus and Dana Whitlock, Jean sent. I got their names from the welcome board. Married nine years. They were at the pool this afternoon. Her mental voice went quiet. They were arguing. Not viciously, just the kind of bickering long-married couples do. She’d told him to put on sunscreen and he’d refused, loudly.
An’ now?
Now it’s like watching two people who’ve been rehearsing the same dance for a month.
Logan sipped his drink and sniffed, as discreetly as he could. Sandalwood. Incense. And beneath them, faint, something sweet and chemical he couldn’t name.
They smell like the guy with the drinks tray, he sent. Only more.
Can you handle a bump in the road?
Depends on what the bump is.
The answer came when the Whitlocks rose from their table, hand in hand, and began to cross the deck toward the exit — on a path that would take them directly past the table where Jean and Logan sat. Jean laughed at something Logan hadn’t said, tipped her head toward him as though sharing a secret, and, as Dana Whitlock passed, rose smoothly as though to stretch her legs, her fingers brushing the other woman’s arm.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said brightly. “Clumsy.”
“Not at all,” Dana said, with a smile that was perfect, serene, and utterly, utterly empty.
They moved on. Jean sat back down and picked up her fork, and Logan watched her face carefully, because he could feel it through the bond: a cold, tight spike of unease, almost nausea.
Jeannie.
Her mind is smooth, Jean sent. She didn’t look at him. Not blank. Not damaged. It’s like someone took a hot iron to the surface and pressed everything flat. All the little edges that make a person — gone. Underneath there’s something still alive, I think. Something small. But it’s behind glass.
Logan set down his glass very carefully.
Hand’s got a mind-control process, he said. Or the next best thing. Done right, you wouldn’t even know the person’s gone till it’s too late.
How long does it take?
Dunno. But they were fightin’ at the pool this afternoon. So we’re talkin’ hours, not days.
Jean’s jaw set. He felt the fury ignite behind her calm, her telepathic presence flaring bright and hard, and for one heartbeat the lamp flames on their table guttered sideways as though a draft had passed through. She reined it in almost at once, but her hand found his across the tablecloth and held on.
We’re getting them back, she said. Both of them.
Yeah, Logan said. We are.
The night bar was a long, open-air pavilion at the water’s edge, strung with lights, thumping with a low, smoky, island-flavoured beat, a dance floor of polished boards laid directly over the sand. Couples swayed in loose knots under the paper lanterns. The bartender, a cheerful woman with a flower tucked behind one ear, slid them two drinks with little paper umbrellas, winking at Jean’s dress — a deep green wrap number that Logan had been struggling not to stare at since they left the bungalow.
“Honeymoon?” she asked.
“Sort of,” Jean said, and the way she looked at Logan made his collar feel too tight.
They found a spot near the edge of the floor, where the lantern-light thinned out and the whole pavilion lay open to view. Logan leaned against a post, nursing the unfortunate umbrella drink. Jean stood in front of him, her back to his chest, his arms folded loosely around her waist, her head tilted against his shoulder. To the rest of the world they were a couple lost in each other.
Seven staff on the floor, Logan murmured into her mind, his eyes sweeping the pavilion. Two behind the bar. One in the corner by the speakers. Three walkin’ the edges. Every one of ’em’s got the scent. But none of ’em are Hand proper — they’re the same as the Whitlocks. Smooth-minded.
So there’s a handler somewhere. Jean’s fingers drifted over his forearm. Someone who isn’t wearing a name tag.
Odds are he’s watchin’ right now.
Then let’s give him something to watch.
The band slid into something slower, a lazy, aching melody, and Jean turned in his arms, looping her hands around his neck.
“Dance with me,” she said, a little breathless.
“You said that was a cover.”
“It is.” Her lips curved. “That’s not why I’m asking.”
He’d never admit how long it took him to answer, because he spent most of that time just looking at her. The lantern-light caught the red of her hair and turned the green of her eyes to something that belonged to a different, better world. He thought about the base, about the sarcophagus, about the voice in the back of his skull that had spent the last week going suspiciously, ominously quiet. He thought about how he’d come within a hair of losing this.
“Yeah,” he said roughly. “Okay.”
She melted into him as they moved onto the floor, and for a few minutes, he let himself simply dance — slow, steady, hands at the small of her back, her cheek pressed to his chest, the bond humming warm between them like a held note. She hummed along under her breath. He’d have been happy to stay in that moment for the rest of his life.
Don’t stop, Jean murmured in his mind, her mental voice gone soft and a little husky. But look at the bar. Far end.
Logan turned them in a slow half-circle, giving himself a view down the length of the pavilion.
The Whitlocks sat at the end of the bar, side by side, perfectly still, drinks untouched. And leaning in beside them, one hand resting on Marcus Whitlock’s shoulder, was a tall, lean man in a pale linen suit, silver hair swept back from a lean, tanned face. He was murmuring something in the couple’s ears. Both of them nodded, in perfect unison.
Then the man in the linen suit straightened, and looked directly across the length of the dance floor at Logan and Jean.
He smiled.
It wasn’t a hostile smile. It wasn’t even a threatening one. It was the polite, welcoming smile of a host greeting a pair of favoured guests. And it was the single most frightening thing Logan had seen all week.
Jean, he said, very quietly, he made us.
I know. Her arms tightened around his neck, her voice calm as glass. Keep dancing.
“Welcome to Azure Cay,” the man said — not loudly, but somehow his voice carried, clear and warm, over the music, the chatter, the waves. His eyes never left Jean’s face. “I do so hope you’re enjoying your stay, Ms. Grey.”
The music kept playing. The couples kept swaying. And somewhere deep in the back of Logan’s mind, something old and patient opened one slow, interested eye.
