Chapter Text
Chapter one
“The new students have been weird since I told them about my childhood. How did you tell others about it and not have them run away?” Laura queried her sudo father figure, or the half of him that wasn’t under the truck at least, which she was perched on top.
“I know Kitty and some of the others weren’t put off what you told them, and I’m glad you’re being more open with your past, but you need to be less blunt with it. Pretty sure some of the X-Men I served with still have nightmares about my past.” Came the gruff reply from underneath the truck.
“I didn’t want them thinking Gabby was an extreme case and avoiding her. Now they seem to just be wary of her, but are avoiding me.” It was true, Gabby had been getting strange looks from some of the other students because of her known association to Logan and her. At least that was less of an issue now, Gabby was the happy Wolverine in the eyes of her fellow students.
Relatively happy one at least.
“Yeah our crap isn’t for most people. I know your teammates accepted yours, but they had me as a trial run.” Logan slid out from under the truck, looking up at Laura who was lost in thought. For one not commenting about her sitting on the hood of his truck, even he had to learn time and place after a century or two.
“Even after all this time, it feels… like it’s a barrier.” Laura eventually continued, “no one else really understands, most are still worried about it. How did you cope with all this?”
“I got drunk a lot, hit on Jean, stabbed a few people and got thrown out of a plane.” Logan grinned as she turned to look at him, not impressed in the slightest. Their relationship was still a work in progress, a couple of years ago she would probably attack him for that.
“I’m serious Logan.” She growled, her calm facade cracking, showing how much this was bothering her, earning a sigh from the older man.
“So am I kiddo. Don’t go making the same mistakes as me, the only reason Scott kept me around this long was because of Chuck. I’m the best at what I do, most of which isn’t very nice, but I ended up finding a home here, you just have to pick your friends carefully. Having someone to bond over trauma and ‘unlock their tragic backstory’ helps.” Logan moved to sit against the truck, knowing he wasn’t getting any work done until this conversation was over.
“Unlocking what?” Laura looked at him in confusion, it almost felt like what Kitty had been trying to explain to her about boomers trying to talk like millennials. A concept she still had trouble with, but it just felt wrong to hear the old man use phrases like that.
“It’s just a phrase a friend of mine used, he’s helped me through a few things, but you didn’t hear that from me.” The older man laughed to himself fondly, recalling some of their past adventures. At least the ones where he didn’t want to stab webhead.
“Who is it?” Came the puzzled query. Logan had few friends she could think of, most of them she knew from the X-Men, though she was aware he had others in the Avengers.
“Spider-Man actually.” That deepened Laura’s frown, thinking for several more minutes, before leaping off the truck and stalking into the manor. Logan just shrugged and went back to what he was doing.
********
“Spider-Man, as in this clown?” It must have been an hour later, before she reappeared, thrusting a tablet at Logan the second he stuck his head out.
The screen had a headline from the Daily Bugle, something about Spider-Man stopping a mime themed gang, because he didn’t want other clowns in town to show him up.
“Jonah’s had a hate boner against the guy for years.” he grumbled, pausing for a moment, “but yeah, he is a clown. That part you can tell him I said.”
“How could someone who doesn’t take what we do seriously be able to help you with your past?” Laura was convinced he was winding her up at this point. She hadn’t looked too deep into the other hero, sure, but everything that came up painted him out as either ridiculous, a menace, or both.
“One of the few men I trust, living ones anyway. Steve Rodgers thinks highly of him, as do a number of others. Sure he’s annoying as hell sometimes, well, most of the time, but he is someone you can rely on when push comes to shove.” He could see his clone thinking about what he said, the mention of Captain America giving her pause for thought.
“Why?”
“Here, let me show you something…” he held out his hand for the tablet, which was passed over, before passing it back when he had found what he was looking for.
They sat in silence, while Laura watched the video brought up on the tablet. It looked like it was shot off someone’s phone. Absorbing Man was trying to get away after a bank robbery gone wrong, panicked screams filled the air as he threw an armoured truck at the heroes trying to stop him, which missed and went flying towards the crowd.
Then out of nowhere, a red and blue blur arrived on the scene, hurtling over the fight, a blast of webbing blinding the villain as Spider-man rocketed towards the crowd in pursuit of the truck. Laura blinked as she watched him not only overtake the falling truck, but catch it with minimal effort, placing it on the ground between the crowd and the fight, before checking on the civilians.
She was trying to work it out in her head, armoured trucks weighted like ten tons, the way he caught it, that wasn’t close to his limit. After getting the crowd to safety, the video ended with Spider-Man leaping back into the fray and helping subdue Absorbing Man.
“See, he might be a clown, but he’s damn good at what he does.” The smug comment breaks Laura out of her thoughts.
“Who trained him to be that fast?” Laura replaying the video, muting it, just focusing on one person. This video alone painted a completely different picture to the articles.
“No one really, he’s had the odd bit here and there from various Avengers, but most of it is either instinct, or on the job experience.” Laura was on her third watch of the video by this point.
“And he’s going to be able to understand? What did he go through?”
“Not my place to say kid, you want to know, best hunting him down for a chat sometime. That channel has a whole bunch of videos of him, run by a fan or something. The papers might often slander him, but the man is an Avenger for a reason.”
“I think I have a lot of research to do…” Laura stated quietly, before wandering off again.
‘Well that should keep her out of trouble for a bit’. Logan thought to himself, before finishing up the repairs to his truck. At least he would have that ready to go for his trip tomorrow.
********
He was trying to enjoy a quiet beer several hours later, now that all the kids had gone to sleep, leaving him undisturbed. He had barely sat down and his phone started ringing. Took him a moment to realise it was his, very few people had his number.
“This had better be important.” He growled into the speaker.
“Logan! Buddy old pal! Have you been holding out on me?” Recognising the frantic voice on the other end of the line, Logan sat in surprise. It was rare for webhead to call him, let alone sounding like this.
“Speak of the devil and he shall appear…” groaned Logan, “what do you mean have I been holding out on you?”
“Weeell…” There was a pause on the line and the familiar sound of webshooters and rushing air. “Do you have a sister, daughter, relative of yours that’s less grumpy and easier on the eyes?”
“Sounds like you don’t need my help then…” With a threatening growl, he made to hang up, before pausing when he heard screaming and the sound of a struggle. “Webhead, what’s going on?” He was left waiting for several seconds, convinced he had just heard his friend get ambushed, before he heard the other hero regain control of his phone.
“So I’ve been trying to escape from what looks like the female version of you for the last hour! I climbed a skyscraper to escape and she used her claws to climb up after me! She even has foot claws!” Spidey whisper-shouted down the phone at him.
“Ooooh, right, you’ve not met Laura yet… I really should have phrased that better… You taunted her, didn't you?”
“Of course I did, she didn’t seem to have any way to get to me, then she started scrambling up the building like it was nothing! Logan, what did you do? What did I do to you?” Spidey was actively panicking now, the ominous phrasing didn’t help his mood.
“What did you do with her?” Logan could just feel the headache that was already forming from this.
“She’s webbed to an air duct like five blocked back, if she's like you, she could take being dropped off a rooftop, but I don’t want to piss her off any more than she already is! Why does she want me dead!”
“Oh she doesn’t want you dead, I might have accidentally told her to hunt you down. Should have worded that better, but she was having a crisis about… well you know my backstory, hers isn’t too far off…, you’re experienced with clones as well…”
“...so your… daughter?”
“Daughter is close enough.”
“Is hunting me down, to try and unlock my tragic backstory?”
“I still hate that phrase…”
“Just answer the question Logan!”
“Well I might have mentioned how you helped me, so yeah, can you put her on?”
“Put her…” whatever Spider-Man had been about to say was cut off by a yelp and a thump. As well as several seconds of struggling before everything went quiet.
“Come on kiddo, I know you can hear me…” Logan definitely needed something stronger to drink. Also to have a word with Laura about not taking him too literally.
“Thank you for distracting him, I was able to hunt him down.” A female voice Logan knew all too well answered.
“You didn’t rough him up too badly did you?”
“It’s mostly my dignity at this point, what little I have left, but thank you for asking.” came Spider-Man’s muffled reply.
“I’m sitting on him so he doesn’t escape, but he is otherwise unharmed.” Laura clarified.
“You have no dignity webhead… Alright I was going to introduce you to each other sooner or later, Laura, Peter. Peter, Laura. Now get off him and let him up.”
“It’s a secret identity for a reason Bub!” Logan could hear the complaining and the sound of shuffling over the phone.
“She’s one of the good ones, now your problem for the night, best of lucky old pal.” Logan grinned, hanging up now that the crisis was averted. Glancing at his untouched beer, he decided to break into Scotts room and steal his whiskey.
Assuming those two hadn’t strangled each other by morning, he was going to need something to drown his sorrows in. Super healing really made getting drunk a pain in the ass. If anyone would ask him, it was totally revenge for something Peter had done to him, people might think Logan liked the guy otherwise.