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Somewhere in New York City...



“RAAAGH!” The crowd of unruly men roared as Logan smashed his fist into his opponents jaw, shattering the bone instantly. He swung again with his wrapped hands, catching his other side with his bare knuckles, this time fresh, scarlet blood spurting from the wound. The bandages were around his palms, but not his knuckles, the dry and calloused little nubs where left exposed to do there worst---something that this man was the best in his field at. But Logan hadn’t escaped without wounds himself from this fight, a badly swollen black eye on his right side and several weeping cuts about his toned body were testament to that. But he’d certainly come off the better in regards to the other man.


Ricky ‘the butterfly’ Totti crashed to the grubby, off-white floor of the boxing rink, a bloody mess. He writhed about the ‘mattress’ for a moment, in abject pain, his crumbled jaw-bone causing him unconscionable amounts of anguish. But despite his ‘effeminate’ nick-name, he was after all a bare-knuckle boxer and as such was made of stronger stuff than most. Ignoring the vomit-inducing levels of pain, the bulky, sun- tanned thirty year old Italian American pushed himself up from the floor, sweat and blood dripping to the ground as he did so. At first he needed the thick blue and red ropes of the rink to support him. But eventually he was able to support himself of his own volition. Despite the fact that his coach was shouting to him the whole time, in a thick Hell’s Kitchen ‘Italian’ accent, to stay the fuck down---he ignored him.


Logan smiled, his customary half sneer, half wry smirk, from beneath a menacingly arched brow. His blood was up and he was ready to finish this ‘young’ punk off. Of course, everyone seemed young to him, he’d been on the circuit for so long---too long. He ‘danced’ about on his toes, like a real pro---his fists up and rolling, just waiting for the other man to drop. But he didn’t and Logan knew that he had a stubborn fucker on his hands here; he was going to have to go for the true knock out---not a pretty sight in bare knuckle boxing.


Logan jabbed him a couple of times in quick succession, thick splatters of dark blood spurting from the other man’s face. Totti swayed---but didn’t quite fall, much to Logan’s annoyance. He didn’t want to kill this guy but the way he was going---he was heading in that direction. The crowd roared, just like a Roman gathering at a Gladiator fight, the men there bayed for blood---real blood. They wouldn’t stop until their appetite was satiated. Logan wasn’t above satisfying that need. But just as he thought, and the crowd of rowdy punters thought that that time was near ‘The Butterfly’ suddenly began to falter, stumbling from side to side. Logan stepped back, but he knew in the back of his mind that lesser fighters would have gone in for the kill at this point---but not him. No, he just watched as his feeble competitor fell to the ground, unable to take it anymore.


After a rather swift count down, the-poor-substitute-for-a-referee, an ex-cop who’d been kicked off the force for drunkenness, drug dealing, prostitution rings and much worse, waddled over to Logan, his grotesquely large beer-belly bulging over the top of his thick leather belt, a small section of filthy, hair covered fat was exposed just beneath the black and white stripped T-shirt, grasping at his hanging left wrist and hoisting it in the air. “The win goes to ‘Looogaaan the Wooolveeerrrrriiiine!’” He turned around in a slow circle, showing the latest ‘champ’ off to the baying crowd. But everyone knew that no-one really won in this game. It wasn’t a matter of skill---just brute force, and Logan had that in abundance.


Logan climbed out of the rink, the whole time the low chant of “Wolverine, Wolverine, Wolverine...” burning in his ears. He sloped off through the crowds alone as he had no trainer, enduring the good-natured back slaps as he pushed his way through. But the truth of it was that he wanted to get as far away from this ‘scum’ as he possibly could. As quickly as he could. Without making so much as the barest eye-contact with anyone in the small room, Logan left the fray.



* * *


Ororo was stood outside the old warehouse as hoards of drunken, shouting and cursing men filed out into the bitterly cold night. Scanning over the people, with their trashy attire, Confederation Flag baseball caps, tatty hard rock/heavy metal T-shirts in what looked like a ‘Hells Angels-Wannabe’ fashion parade, she looked for someone suitable, maybe some inebriated idiot who’d just won big on the fight and was flashing it about to all and sundry. So as the soft white flakes of snow began their lazy descent to earth from the heavens above, Ororo waited and waited and waited...


After around half an hour the cold, tired and hungry young woman was about to give up and go ‘home’, a dirty little squat in the worst area of the Bronx, that had no electricity or heating to speak of and whose water, when it deigned to make an appearance from the badly rusted taps, was an odd shade of Vermillion Red. Ororo blew into her cupped hands that were covered by the barest pair of ineffectual fingerless gloves the world had ever seen---but they did well for being able to dip into peoples pockets, and that, let us not forget, was the most important thing. The white-haired African immigrant was about to disappear off into the night when she spied one last person coming from the ‘venue’, although others were still milling around inside. He was tall and really quite handsome, not in the ‘classical-Greek-god, smooth golden skin, square-jawed, image-of-male-perfection type of way, but much more interesting than that. He had strong features---manly features that seemed to be set into a permanent but strangely sexy scowl, despite the black welt beneath his right eye and long nasty-looking cut that began at the bottom of his left ear lobe, ran the entire length of his appallingly unshaven cheek and disappeared off underneath his Kurt Douglas-esque chin. Digging into the pocket of his battered leather jacket the man retrieved a half-smoked cigar and quickly proceeded to light it but was disturbed half-way through his task when a short, pug-faced man came out of the large, black-painted wooden doors behind him. The tall man cast the shorter one a look of somewhat vague indifference before carrying on with lighting his stogie. The ugly little man came up to his side regardless and in hushed tones began to talk to him, or more over talk at him as the ‘bruiser’ didn’t seem all that interested in reciprocating the conversation. Then, without looking at what he was doing the shorter man’s podgy, gold-ringed finger delved into the pocket of his tweed jacket and pulled out a thick wad of green notes, rolled tightly. That was when the more attractive of the pair started to take notice, looking down intently as the other man unfurled the notes and quickly counted through them, but before he could finish his gentlemanly display of honesty the money was unceremoniously snatched from his grasp and stuffed into the inside left-hand pocket of the tatty leather.


Ororo made a careful note of that as she watched ‘Mr Bruised-But-Beautiful’ set off down the road and when she was satisfied at the distance between them, she followed.


*


Logan stopped suddenly about three blocks away from the warehouse, not missing the fact that the lightly treading foot steps behind, that had been trying ever-so-carefully not to make the compacted crunching sound that invariably comes with walking on snow, stopped also. He smirked darkly to himself as he continued with his long stride, instinctively feeling at the inline of his pocket for his switch-blade---sure enough it was there, as always, his trusty ever present companion.


Waiting until he’d gotten around fifty yards up the street and was stood outside a particularly rowdy sounding bar, from which the sounds of crashing furniture and smashing glass, cries of rage and cowardly screams, could be heard, Logan slowed his pace but so subtly that his ‘tail’ didn’t notice and then coming to an abrupt halt as soon as he felt they were close enough Logan span around. Swinging his left arm out as he turned with uncanny speed, he grabbed a chunk of damp, woolly, black coat, using the momentum to slam the person into the flaking, pebble-dashed wall of the noisy saloon at his side. With his forearm pressed tightly against their wide-pipe he was surprised to find that the strangled cry that came from them sounded quite feminine. That’s when he reached up with his other hand and grabbed at the red and green checked scarf that was wrapped around the bottom half of their face, finishing just below their big, wild brown eyes.


“Don’t hurt me!” The girl gasped, her accent sounding vaguely foreign.


Logan was thrown for a moment by what he saw before---he’d never seen anything like it. But quickly pushing such unexpected thoughts from his mind he pressed harder at the girls neck as he reached into his other pocket, but he didn’t take his weapon out immediately, he just felt it for reassurance as he hissed, “What the fuck do ya think yer doin’?” The girl shook her head from side to side frantically in reply, pursing her beautifully full lips as her silver mane fell about her face, framing its soft brown surface perfectly. Logan felt the edges of his lips twitching as he began to relax his arm from her throat, “I said, what the fuck did ya think you were doin’ sneaking around behind my like that kid?”


Suddenly indignant, she huffed at him and gained the confidence to try and push him from her, “I’m twenty four you stupid bastard!” She shot back quietly; her attempts to push him from her were quickly abandoned.


Logan felt that quiet twitch that had been dancing about the corner of his mouth pulling it up into something like a lop-sided grin, “Fine, woman, whatever---that doesn’t answer my question does it?”

“Idiot!” She hissed at him, taking out her anger at her own slackness on him, for the game was well and truly up, “You know exactly what I was doing---you just won big didn’t you, at the fight?”


He gave a sharp laugh, “Ya could say that, seen as I was one of the fighters an’ all.”


“Oh---right” Ororo said nervously, trust her to decide to rob a bare-knuckle boxer, she had thought that he was just one of the riff-raff, but then again the state of his ace should have told her something. Dropping her gaze, slightly embarrassed she looked down the street to see if there was anyone around that she could suddenly start calling for ‘help’ to, as this man seemed to have absolutely no intention of letting her go. The distraction would be enough for her to get away; it wasn’t as if she’d genuinely need anybodies assistance really. But there was no-one about and as she returned her chocolate eyes back up to the man she was surprised at the intensity with which he was looking back. His darkly, glittering hazel eyes held hers fast---the look of a predator moving in with glee once it had caught its pray. She swallowed down hard as her eyes began to shimmer, not with tears, but with---she didn’t know.


“What’s yer name darlin’?” He asked low and completely unexpectedly, his eyes gradually falling from hers as he let them trail her face leisurely only to return to her Doe-like orbs with THAT look. Her mouth began to tremble as she slowly opened her lips, but she didn’t know whether or not she was going to respond to his question---she simply couldn’t think of anything, her own name even, as the intensity of his of his gaze deepened. The sound of the noisy crowd in the bar behind fell away into the distance for both of them as the snow began to come down heavier, settling on the pair as they seemed to be frozen in time.


“Ma’am?” A thickly Brooklyn accented voice called from somewhere near by, Ororo was about to look over, momentarily extracted from this unexplainable spell, when something most unexpected happened. “Ma’ am, are you---?” Officer Levi was stopped in his tracks as the tall man that had appeared to be holding the woman against the wall, against her will, brought his mouth down on hers, ravishing it fiercely. “Oh, sorry for the intrusion.” The stocky NYPD lieutenant said sheepishly, inadvertently diverting his eyes, but the ‘couple’ ignored him as they continued to make out. He’d really thought the woman was in trouble for a moment there, it was embarrassing when you misjudged these things. The officer quickly forgot about the pair as he entered the bar, talking loudly into his walkie-talkie with a request for immediate back up and proceeding with his regular visit to the notorious trouble spot. “O. K. PEOPLE---LETS BREAK IT UP! COME ON!”


Finally coming up for air, long after the ‘threat’ had gone, Logan pulled back, looking down at her, her eyes were still closed, her glistening pink lips still parted. He was savouring every last bit of the taste of her but as soon as her eyelashes began to flutter, denoting the imminent opening of her pretty eyes, he cleared his face of any kind of pleasurable expression. It had been a spur of the moment reaction to catching the sight of the approaching police officer, he hadn’t really thought about what he was doing, but as he got into it---he’d enjoyed it---immensely.


Ororo looked up and found herself smiling at him, her heart was racing as her chest fell up and down underneath her thick layers of winter clothing in a steady but quicker rhythm than usual. Fighting not to appear too flustered by his rather passionate ‘diversion’, she began, “Now that was---.” But she was soon cut off as the officer that had just entered the bar stumbled back out clutching at his badly bleeding face, screaming in pain. He was quickly followed by a crowd of brawling revellers, the fight getting out of control and spilling out onto the snowy pavement. Before Logan or Ororo had chance to move two of large men, one held in a vicious headlock by the other, fell into the pair, knocking them to the ground. Logan found himself instinctively pulling Ororo to him to protect her as they lay sprawled out on the ground and the fight came closer to them. Just then the echoing sound of police sirens could be heard coming closer and closer until the noise was on top of them.


“Come on!” Logan said gruffly over the insane din of the fighting drinkers and now the shouting police officers as they emerged from their squad cars and riot vans, brandishing clear plastic riot shields, batons, plastic-bullet baring guns and tear gas canisters. As the law enforcement went to work on restoring order, swinging, hitting and firing at anything that came within their reach, Logan pulled Ororo up from the ground. He began to run before Ororo had fully found her footing, slipping and sliding about in the now slushy, yellow mess that passed for snow.


“W---Wait!” She shouted breathlessly at him, but he ignored her and continued to pull her from the fray, dodging miss placed blows from both sides of the law as he went. Eventually out of the throng, Logan carried on running, dragging Ororo along behind him off into the deserted streets of the industrial estate area. He didn’t know where he was going, why he was still running and certainly why he was taking this woman, who he’d only just met, who had just tried to rob him, along for the ride.


-TBC-

Let me know if you’d like to see this story continue and I’ll get writing!





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