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Not seventy-two hours ago,

Even as he guided his motorized wheelchair over the paved pathways, the shadows of the night settling around him, Xavier was already zoning on his destination….and the person who awaited him there.

Coming to stop at the meeting place, Charles was still surprised at the sudden appearance of the person he was here to meet. Surprised, because although he had detected the other, he was unable to zone in on his actual location, and then….offering no greeting, either verbal or physical, the man in question was just there, risen up from behind a clump of bushes.

Although his garb was similar to the one he usually had on (except on missions and when he was alone with his family), even with six days worth of hair growth and the naturally wild hair shadowing his eyes, the deep frown on his face was clear to the older man. As was the haggard, tired…seemingly dead look in his eyes. Even before he said a single word, Charles realized that his this meeting with Logan was going to be his last one for quite sometime.

“’m leavin’.” Simple, short and about as subtle as a brick to the face. If only Logan had able to word them in a tone that did not seem as one from a man who had given up, lost everything….have everything that ever mattered to him, yanked away from….this time forever.
“Leaving…?” Charles started over the shock that shouldn’t have been there.

“Goin’ away.” Logan worded his decision in a different way, but without giving any intimation about his intended destination or for how long was he going to be away. “Away frem here….” ‘…from her.’ Were the first that were loud without being actually spoken.
“Oh.” Xavier sighed in realization, almost unable to stop himself before he blurted out something unwanted. “Logan…did you…” he knew he was going to ask a question which given Logan’s visit to the mansion just a few days ago, was redundant. “Have you talked to Ororo about this?”

Just the mention of her name was enough to cause Logan to flinch away as if he had been slapped right across his face, the pain he felt sharper than any physical injury. “There is no need. Doesn’t concern her.” He lied…almost. As far as he concerned, Ororo has made her decision, her choice clear to him. After all, it wasn’t as if she was going to stay single for ever….although he had hoped that one day, sooner rather than later, he would be him that she would choose again to be with. Just as she had done once all those years ago.

Although there was no guilt, no shame in his heart about what he had done to the people who had taken his baby girl and harmed her, the Wolverine proud at avenging the wrong that had been done to his pack, Logan did feel angry…and sad for the cost he had to pay to for his actions.

However, even now, even after all that had happened to him, Logan knew one thing for certain and that was….if ever life put him in the same circumstances…

…he would repeat his actions…Every. Single. Time.

--

“Logan…”
Even before the Professor could express his thoughts, Logan cut him off. “Takin’ time off. Will contact you when I….when…will contact you.” He did not know how long would be away, nor did he want to think about it.
“Where will you going to?” Charles held back from probing his friend’s mind, not quite sure that given the current mental condition of the feral’s mind, if he would be able to do so, even if he wanted.
“Don’t know. Haven’t decided. Canada, Japan, Mexico…nowhere.”


“Will you be searching for your past?” Xavier questioned. Even though over the years his trips, as Rogue and Jubilee had termed it, the fire to know his complete past still burned inside Logan. While there had once been a soothing wind to cool him, make him want to take a stand, stay in one place….put down his roots so as to say, there was nothing holding him here anymore.

“What else is there?” He sighed with a sad smirk. ‘Got nothing here.’

Feeling him rapidly slipping away, Charles made a last ditch effort, appealing not to man or the husband, but to the father. “What about the children?’
“…”
“Do they know about your decision.”
“…”

Just as it seemed that he wouldn’t respond, Logan answered slowly.
“Taking care of that….all of them.”

‘All of them.’ That could mean only one thing, one which Xavier voiced as a question.

“Jubilee too?”
“All. Of. Them.”

‘He’s talked it over with her,’ realized Xavier, a momentary doubt rising within him, whether Jubilee would also be accompanying her father on his journey to parts unknown. However, knowing that he was most probably leaving to get away from anything remotely linked to Ororo and their family, the proposition of Jubilee’s leaving didn’t seem all that bright.

--

“Here.” Logan pulled out a small six-by-six-by-four inch cardboard box and a two inch thick file folder from his bag, and handed it over to the Professor.
“What is…?”
“Open it.”

Flipping open the box, Xavier’s eyebrows rose in surprise at its contents, a cell phone, an X-insignia bearing, tracer-communicator and a X-issue watch, also with a built in tracer of its own. They were standard issue to all of the ‘independent-agents’ Xavier employed/hired for the field work that the X-Men couldn’t directly involve themselves with. As for the file folder, it had all the information regarding to seven different mutants, cases that Logan had been tracking, both for the team and the school or for just keeping an eye on them. Three of them were teenagers, two boys and one girl, including a sister-brother…twins, located in Montreal, Canada. As for the other four, the adults, one of them was currently working as a doctor in New York City itself, two had underground to join the Morlocks, while the fourth had recently left the country, also moving to Canada. As per his last location, he was working as a bouncer in a night club in Toronto.

“The lady doctor,” Logan started getting Xavier up to speed. “She’s not out with her being a mutant. Leave her where she is. She’s a good person. Helps people. Keep an eye just in case…” He left the rest unsaid, both men knowing what was the ‘just in case’ scenario, the outing of the lady doctor as a mutant, and the subsequent puritanical backlash.

“The man,” the burly African American male was next. “Lucas Bishop. Until recently, was a detective in the NYPD. Just left one day. No reason given, no questions asked. Looks like people knew about him….at least his partner did and also the partner’s wife n’ kids. Partner’s human, so’s his daughter. Both wife and son are mutants. Leave them alone too. They are happy.” He gritted out the last few words. “The other two. The Morlocks….”
“Logan…” Xavier tried again, “maybe you should…”
“…lost them once they went into the tunnels.” Logan just disregarded his effort. “They…”
“Logan.” The second time it was louder, more definitive.
“What.” As was the response.

“Talk to Ororo,” Xavier reiterated his earlier point. “There is….are some things that you should…”
“Charles.” The use of his real name and the tone behind it, caused the Professor to stop. “Leave it.”
“Logan please. This is…”
“I told you to fuckin’ leave it.” All but a blink of an eye, any semblance of any proper conversation was gone, disappearing into the snarl of the Wolverine. “I do yer work, an’ you pay me fer it. That doesn’t mean that you own me and get to poke yer nose into my business an’ definitely not in my life.”

“Logan…”
“Fuck off old man.”

And with that he walked away, not seeing the way the Xavier fisted his hand and smashed it against the armrest of the wheel chair, his conscience warring against himself.

---

Now,

Seated alone in his office, eyes closed to the world, his mind trying its best to do the same, the aging telepath was doing all he could to push down the feeling of helplessness that was clawing at him, threatening to overtake his entire being. It should have been a cinch for him…had it only been his feelings, his thoughts that were flailing him.

He should have made Logan stop, told him everything…he should have done all that. If only he could have brought himself to break the promise that he made to Ororo.

Then he would not have had to witness Logan leave the way he did, walking away from his entire life…his family.

Just as he could have stopped the events of this morning from happening.

---

Few hours ago,

“Murdock…Matt Murdock. I’m Mr. Logan’s new legal representative.”

“Legal representative?” Ororo’s eyes widened, her heart plummeting into the seemingly endless pit that had just opened up inside her, her mind going blank as the thought, ‘What’s Logan trying to do now?’ flashed through it.

“Yes.” His super-enhanced senses allowing her detection of the effect his introductory words had had on the Ororo, Matt took a step back and gestured towards the empty chair a couple of feet away. “Please, have a seat…so that we can begin.”
The way she looked, first at Matt, then at the chair, the Professor and back at the chair again, it would seem that Ororo was seeing not only them but anything for the first time, the gaping emptiness in them causing Xavier to nudge her into comprehension.

“Ororo.” His voice sounded both in her ears and in her mind.
“Huh.” Seemingly breaking out of a trance, the weather witch schooled her features, adopting a passive stance as she slid down onto the chair, her body clearly rigid with tension.

Returning to the chair he had been sitting on, Matt reached for one of the files he had previously placed in front of him on an empty space on Xavier’s expensive mahogany desk. Flipping it open, he easily separated the top five pages and held them out to Ororo, who in her confusion and the cold fear that had gripped her heart didn’t even seem to notice that the lawyer hadn’t removed his dark glasses.

Staring at the sheets and the print on them for a few seconds, Ororo cleared her constricted parched dry throat. “Wh-what is this?”

“This…” Matt lifted his second copy of the papers he had just given to Ororo. “...is the proposal for a change in the current custody settlement that you share with your ex-husband, my client Mr. Logan, the current legal name of Mr. James Howlett.”

‘Change’ ‘Current custody settlement’ ‘Ex-husband’ The words rang through Ororo’s ears.

--

Even though she had not met the man, the name Matt Murdock was one that Ororo had heard of and read about….from the television and the newspapers. He was often in the news, both because of his clients and because of his uncanny ability of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. His clientele varied from the poor and downtrodden to high profile personalities such as Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four to a senior citizen wishing to having her landlord to just fix the heating in her apartment to Liz Allen-Osborn, ex-wife and widow of Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn. The same Norman Osborn who unknown to the general public and the authorities had been the first Green Goblin. Later on, after discovering the true identity of Spider-Man and the secret lair that his father had built into their mansion home, Harry had followed in his father’s footsteps, going against his onetime best friend, Peter Parker, all because he blamed Peter or importantly his alter ego, Spider-Man for the death of his father. Even though he later married and managed to keep the secret from his wife and son, his secret came out when one day Liz, chancing upon him using a secret entrance to a room that she did not know about, found out that the man she loved, her husband, the father of her child, was the villain responsible for so many innocent deaths and injuries. All because of his vendetta against Spider-Man and the good he did.

Not able to live with Harry him and his activities, Liz filed for a divorce and wanted to sue him for sole custody of their single child, Norman Jr. However, given the clout that the Osborn name held, no one was ready to take her case, not one single lawyer in the…until Matt Murdock.

It was the memory of that case that was the cause of Ororo’s fear. Was he going to do the same with her and Logan now, as he had done with Harry and Liz. Was Logan going to take her children away from her?

‘Maybe you should have…’ a voice started to rise within her, one that she squashed even before the thought reached completion.

“What change?” She asked, her mind not able to understand the words, even though her eyes were reading them.

“Although its fairly simple….I suggest that you have your lawyer go through it.” Matt’s advice was both from him and from what Logan had asked him to do. “As per the current settlement, Mr. Logan gets the children for two days out of every fifteen that is out of every two weeks. In total, fifty two days a year.”
‘Yes.’ Not trusting herself to say anything else, Ororo merely nodded in confirmation.
“According to this new proposal,” Matt carried on, his voice deliberately slow and even. “instead of the two days a fortnight, Mr. Logan would like to have all the visiting days at the same time.”

A few seconds for information to sink into Ororo’s mind and then, “What?”

“He would like to have all the days at the same time.” Matt repeated himself, carrying on at the silence from Ororo’s. “As for the question of Mr. Logan’s frequent moving,” he brought up the main clause that Ororo’s lawyer had given during the custody hearing, “we can present the lease agreement and rent receipts for the apartment that Mr. Logan has in the city of New York itself. It is here that he has been staying for the last eight months…”
“I know,” Ororo responded softly, mentally repeating the address that over the past eight months had imprinted itself on her consciousness.
Nodding at her confirmation, Matt continued with his revelations, his next words striking another blow at Ororo, “...and although he won’t himself be a resident of that apartment anymore, he will still be keeping possession of it, with his older daughter, Miss. Jubilation Lee, whose name has been added to the lease, residing there in his stead.”

‘Not resident anymore?’ ‘Daughter, Jubilation Lee, residing in his stead.’ A handful of words and Ororo felt the ruined remains of her life completely crashing and being obliterated around her.

“As for Mr. Logan’s financial standing, I am sure Professor Xavier will be willing to provide the records of Mr. Logan’s employment for the past eleven years. Professor?

“Of course.” Xavier nodded in response, his cultured British accent tighter than its usual smoothness. “I can have my lawyers and accountant draw them up for you.”

“Thank you Professor.”

Lifting the second file from the table, Matt drew out the stapled pages from it, handing one copy each to both Xavier and Ororo.

“What is this?” It was Xavier who asked the question time. Ororo not even bothered to look at them…at the copy of a deed on the front, the deed for a house.
“Mr. Logan has established a trust for his children,” that caused the Nubian beauty’s head to jerk up rising tears welling up in her eyes. “with Professor Charles Xavier, Ms. Jubilation Lee and Mrs. Marie D’Ancanto-Lebeau as the officiating trustees. Under the trust is a house, a surrounding property of fifteen acres and a cash sum of four hundred thousand dollars. All this is to be equally split between the two children…once they turn eighteen.”

What was Logan doing? The realization finally hit home for Ororo.

He was severing all contacts. He was leaving…forever.

--

“Wh-where is he….” She fumbled over her words. “Where’s Logan?”

Instead of giving a response to her query, Matt glanced at the pensive looking Xavier, his actions telling Ororo all she wanted to know.

“Professor?”

Starting to answer, Xavier stopped at the sheet of paper Matt held out to Ororo, a second copy being placed before him.

It was a legal document, one giving Matt Murdock the Power of Attorney to act and appear in Logan’s absence for any legal purposes.

Not only was Logan leaving….he was already gone.

---

Now,

Tears flowing out of them, curled up on her bed in the privacy of her loft suite, Ororo’s eyes were staring at the papers placed on the side table, stuck at the date on the deed for the house….its significance clear to her.

Just three and half a months before Kendall was kidnapped, before all hell broke loose.

It was going to be Logan’s gift to her….for their fifth marriage anniversary.

Note: With the confusion that I have been causing with ‘X-ed’ I wanted to keep this one on the straight and narrow, though somehow the angst just got knocked up a couple of notches.

As for the Harry-Liz situation, it’s a mix of the Spider-comicverse canon and the path the movieverse looks to be on.

More soon. Please Review.





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