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Logan spent the better part of a century searching for his soulmate, for the one person who matched his mark. Between wars he scoured as much of the world as he could reach, obsessively checking the wrists of every human and mutant he came across. Even when he forgot his own name, when he was just an animal, he remembered to check, but with no luck. Eventually he gave it up, decided his soulmate must've already lived and died, or maybe they wouldn't be born for a thousand years yet. Either way, he'd missed them, born too early or too late for completion.
Jean's mark didn't match his, but he loved her anyway. He was ready to settle with her, to choose her, and so was she. She was in the same boat, soulmate-wise — until Scott came along, bore his wrist and showed her he was hers. That was the end of that; there's no competing with a soulmate. The jealousy Logan felt in that moment wasn't for Jean; it was for the love in her eyes and how Scott's eyes reflected it, the way they knew and loved each other right away, like pieces slotting into place, specially made to complete each other. They cried with joy and relief, wrapped up in each other's arms, pulling back to stare into each other's faces and nowhere else, as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
That's what Logan spent so long chasing, that pure, unstoppable love, that feeling like he'd finally found home in the person he was born to protect. But the search is over now; it ended officially when he got his friends killed. It was then, hungover and screaming in the aftermath, that he finally understood:
It was never a matter of luck. He hadn't found his soulmate because he didn't deserve them, simple as that.
"Fuck you, you reluctant hero archetype son of a cunt!" Wade's shouting, kicking out at Logan's sides while Logan pins him to the reclined passenger seat, stabbing down into Wade's chest with his claws. "You made me leave my dog with that passive-aggressive freak, and you talked all that shit — it's no wonder you were drinking alone! How did you ever have any friends, were they assholes, too?"
Logan bares his teeth and snarls, twists his claws. There's a bomb in him, mid-detonation; it went off when Wade said the words "educated wish," and Logan doesn't think the smoke will clear until they're both in pieces. "I stand by what I said, every goddamn word. I'm not helping you do shit until you —"
"The fuck you're not!" Wade aims a punch at Logan's face, but he's clumsy with rage and Logan catches his fist, twists until it snaps, Wade screaming, failing to buck Logan off.
Logan impales Wade's wrist with his claws, pins it to the seat, but Wade struggles and rips it free. His glove and sleeve are torn off, baring his skin from the elbow down, with all its heavy, pocked scarring. It's low-hanging fruit, but Logan's just opening his mouth to tell Wade he's the ugliest thing Logan's ever seen when he spots it, drawing his eyes like a magnet. There on Wade's wrist, just beside the bone, a small brown mark in the shape of Logan's. Logan's studied his own mark for so long, there's no mistaking it. He falls silent, feeling as if a bolt of lightning has come through the roof of the car and fried his heart, frozen him in place. His mouth hangs open; his brain stutters, trying to process this.
His soulmate exists, is alive and here with him. Is thrashing under him, shouting in pain and frustration, still bleeding from wounds Logan gave him, his broken wrist snapping back into place with a wet pop. Logan's hurting him. This is the person Logan was born to protect, and he's hurting him.
Gasping, Logan sheathes his claws and recoils, smacking his back against the dashboard in his haste to get away from Wade, to let Wade go. "I'm sorry," he says. "Holy shit, I'm so —"
"Get fucked!" Wade's on him then, stabbing into his chest with that little knife. Logan doesn't feel the pain, feels nothing but elation and guilt, his eyes fixed on Wade's face. He wishes Wade would take the mask off, because he didn't know it the first time he saw Wade without it, but Wade's face is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. It's all so clear now; why couldn't he see it before? That this is his chance to do right.
Logan stares up at Wade's mask, then at his wrist, his hand around the hilt of the knife. Logan reaches for Wade's wrist, holds it very gently, rubs his thumb over the mark. He couldn't see it because he couldn't see the mark. He should've checked; he always checked, before he gave up.
"Um," Wade says, tensing. He looks down at where Logan's touching his wrist, tilts his head. "So you're holding my hand now. Am I to assume you've suffered a grievous head injury and you're delirious?"
"I'm so fucking sorry —" Logan's voice cracks. He takes Wade's hand with both of his, brings it to his mouth so he can kiss the mark. He hates how Wade flinches. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Are you healing okay?" Logan asks, and kisses the mark again, and again. "Can I get up? I just — just wanna hold you, wanna look at you, make sure you're healing."
"Wow, um." Wade pulls his hand back and moves off of Logan, shifting to sit on the back seat. Logan sits up, wanting to follow but unsure if he's allowed. "You just went from zero to a hundred in terms of, like, liking me. Was it something I said?"
Logan pulls the knife from his chest and drops it like an afterthought, more focused on staring at Wade. "You're my soulmate," Logan says.
Wade laughs, brief and bubbling, puffing out the fabric over his mouth. Logan wants to put his lips there. "Okayyy," Wade says. "Scratch that — zero to a bajillion. What the shit biscuit's gotten into you?"
"Your mark, it matches mine. Don't you feel it?" Logan moves into the back seat to sit beside Wade, heartened when Wade doesn't recoil. "Here, look, I'll show you —"
He peels off his glove, rolls up his sleeve cuff and holds out his wrist so Wade can see the mark. Wordlessly Wade takes Logan's wrist, turns it this way and that, inspecting the mark, then looks down at his own wrist, holds them side-by-side. Logan waits for the verdict, barely breathing.
"Huh," Wade says finally, and drops Logan's wrist. "Two similar moles, very interesting."
He sounds unimpressed, unconvinced, and it sinks Logan's heart. "A mole?" Logan asks. "No, that's — that's your soul mark. Didn't you know that?"
"Dude, this, this right here?" Wade holds up his wrist, points to his mark. "This is a mole. I've had it forever. I used to have more moles — crazy, I know, don't freak out — but this is the only one that didn't burn off at superhero camp."
"So, you..." Logan starts to piece this together, frowning. "You don't have soulmates, in your universe?"
"Not usually? And moles have nothing to do with it." Wade snorts at the devastation on Logan's face. "Jesus, and I'm the delusional one?"
Logan shakes off the shock. So all this time his soulmate's been universes away, in a world where they don't even have soul marks — but Wade does. Wade's his. "Okay, whatever," Logan says. He scoots closer to Wade, meeting Wade's eyes, wishing again that the mask was gone, so he could see himself in Wade's eyes. "Where I come from the marks on our wrists are so we'll know our soulmates when we find them. I've been searching forever for mine, and I just found him. I'm gonna be there for you, okay? Gonna get my shit together, gonna do right." Logan blinks back tears, wanting to be strong. "Fuck, I should've checked your wrist, I'm sorry. You didn't say whether or not you're healing okay — are you healing okay? Are you in pain still?"
Wade just stares at him for a while, unusually speechless. "I'm super confuzzled, not gonna lie," Wade says. "But other than that, I'm fine. I guess we're done fighting now?"
Logan sighs with soul-deep relief. "We're done fighting forever," he says, making a vow of it. "I'll never hit you again, I swear to God."
"Okay, I guess. Way to cut short the best scene of the movie," Wade says, then perks up, leaning toward Logan. It takes all of Logan's restraint not to meet him in the middle and kiss him through his mask. "Does this mean you'll help me? Even though I made an educated wish?" Wade asks.
"I'll do whatever you want me to do," Logan says immediately, meaning it as much as he's ever meant anything.
Wade reels back a little, as if from shock. "Wow. That was an easy resolution," he says. "I guess we've gone from frenemies straight to found family. Feels a little unearned, though, on your part." He tips his head back to peer out the sunroof as dusk settles overhead. "It's getting kinda late," he says, and turns back to Logan. "You want to sleep here?"
Logan nods, scooting closer again. "Can I sleep next to you?" he asks hopefully. "And hold your hand? I want to feel your mark."
"A mole fetish," Wade deadpans. "Congratulations, you have a rare kink I've never heard of before. Sure, I'll indulge you, why the fuck not?"
They lie down, Wade in the driver seat and Logan in the passenger seat, Logan holding Wade's wrist over the aisle between them. Logan wants more than anything to bring Wade over to him, have Wade lie on his chest, in his arms, but he knows he doesn't deserve that. He should feel lucky that he's getting to touch Wade's hand, that he's even breathing the same air as Wade.
"Y'know," Wade says after a while of silence, watching the sky blacken together. "If I have a soulmate, it's probably Vanessa, my actual love interest. You're hot and all, but...yeah, sorry. We might have to bust out the Unrequited Love tag."
Logan exhales roughly, squeezing Wade's hand. He expected as much, and really, does he deserve any better? "That's fine," he says. "You don't gotta choose me, God knows I don't deserve it. Just — let me hang around you, please? Let me know you."
"Whatever." Wade's quiet for a while, and Logan stares at him in the dark, watching the even rise and fall of his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing. "You know, you're really starting to freak me out," he says.
"I'm sorry," Logan says sincerely. Wade snorts.
"See, that. That right there," he says. "Since when do you apologize to me? Or anyone? You're so out of character right now, it's insane. I mean, a soulmate AU, really? If it turned out that ABO dynamics were a thing in your universe and you were an alpha who wanted to fuck me nasty, or an omega who wanted to be fucked nasty, that'd be one thing, I guess, but this? This cheesy insta-love shit? It's super out of place, it's throwing me off."
Logan considers what Wade's saying, really tries to unpack and interpret all the nonsense for the first time. "So what you're saying is that this would make more sense if I just wanted to fuck you?" He can work with that, he can —
"As far as fanfiction goes. That doesn't mean I'm down to pound, by the way, I'm still a little bit pissed at you." Wade yawns, and Logan wilts. Damnit. "Can I have my hand back now, weirdo?"
"Yeah, um. Just..." Logan brings Wade's hand to his mouth, kisses the mark one more time, then one more time, then one more time. "Sorry," he says, and only with near painful effort manages to release Wade, who snatches his hand back. "I didn't mean any of that shit I said," Logan tells him.
Wade scoffs. "You literally just said that you meant every word of it."
"But I didn't, Wade. I didn't fucking mean it," Logan says, with an edge of desperation. "I was frustrated, and I was taking it out on you, because I'm an asshole. I never would've said that shit if I knew —"
"If you knew about my magic mole, yeah, yeah." Wade yawns again, rolls over so his back is to Logan. "See you in the morning, I guess."
"I'll be here," Logan says hours later, unable to fall asleep, or do anything but stare at Wade's back.
Logan grabs Wade's arm and draws Wade behind him, stepping forward to snarl at the woman with the knives. He's tipsy, went through a few of the bottles of liquor he found while Wade slept, but he's still conscious enough to know he'd sooner turn himself inside-out than see Wade get hurt. "Fuck off," Logan says to the woman. "You lay one fuckin' hand on him and I promise you'll live to regret it, then not much longer."
The woman raises an eyebrow and lowers her knives, while Wade squirms out of Logan's hold.
"Uh! Okay, so —" he splutters, slipping past Logan. "What my buddy cop partner here means to say is that we come in peace and we should all be best friends!"
Two men in superhero get-ups file in after the woman, and Logan pulls Wade back behind him, bristling; now they're outnumbered. "Stay behind me, I'll take care of it," he says softly to Wade, then whirls to snap at the men and woman, "Listen up! You will help us!”
“Dude!” Wade whispers urgently. “This is the opposite of taking care of it!”
“Or I'll break your spines!” Logan adds in a low growl. Wade gasps.
"Excuse me?" says the man with the fangs. He draws a knife, and Logan unsheathes his claws.
"Woah!" Wade squirms away again, and shoves Logan back when he tries to charge forward. "Don't mind him, he's in heat! He doesn't know what he's saying!"
The man fiddling with a deck of cards says something unintelligible. Logan snarls at him, just in case he just took a verbal shot at Wade.
"I'm gonna go ahead and assume you just agreed to hear me out, so thanks for that," Wade says to the man with the cards, then spreads his arms placatingly to address all three of them. "Look, guys, this is a rewrite of a canon scene, everyone hates this shit, let's not draw it out any longer than we have to. Pussycat and I are here to kick ass and save my universe, and you're all gonna agree to help us because you got fucked over by your respective franchises. Or lack of a franchise." Wade nods to the man with the cards. "Cool?"
"We don't give a fuck about your universe," the woman begins. "But —"
Logan growls at her. "Well, you better start giving a fuck, before I —"
"God bless you!" Wade shoves Logan again, not looking at him. "Wow, that was some sneeze, huh, folks?"
"But," the woman finishes sharply, and shares a glance with the two men. "At this point we might as well. We've definitely reached 'fuck it.'"
"Nice!" Wade says. He turns to Logan in celebration, beaming beautifully. Logan sheathes his claws, disarmed. "Everything's really working out for me in this one, huh, peanut?"
"Guess so," says the man with the fangs, and grins. "By the way, Gambit was asking if you two are boyfriends."
"Well," the woman says. "The word he used was 'fucking,' but yeah."
"You don't gotta answer," Gambit says, then something else Logan doesn't catch.
"Yeah, but if you don't, we're definitely gonna assume you are," the man with the fangs says.
Wade tenses, and Logan surges a step forward, furious at these people for making him uncomfortable. "Fuck you," Logan starts, spitting. "That's none of your —"
"No! No, we are not!" Wade shouts, yanking Logan back by the shoulder. "Let the record reflect that I, Wade Winston Wilson, am as straight as an American flagpole. Or a Chinese flagpole, we need to make it past their censors, too. Disney has strictly prohibited me from doing cocaine and having gay sex, so yes, right here, right now, at least for the purposes of this franchise, I'm straight. And I have a girlfriend, kind of. So."
"Ah," Gambit says, while the other two share a skeptical look. Logan tries not to feel too crushed.
"If you say so," the woman says.
Logan bristles again. If Wade says no, the answer's no, regardless of what Logan would prefer.
"OMG, peanut, look who it is!" Wade grabs at Logan's arm and points to a shadowy figure in the doorway. Logan sniffs, immediately distracted when he catches his own scent, or something very much like it.
"Oh, my," Cassandra says, knelt beside him in the hellscape of his mind. "This is interesting. You know, I'd expect a man from a universe where true love is predestined to be a bit...happier."
"Yeah, well." Logan slumps forward, braces his hands to the dirt, or whatever his brain has for substrate. "My soulmate is Wade."
"Oh. Oh, I see." Cassandra chuckles. "Yes, that does explain the angst."
"Look, lady." He grabs Cassandra's arm, half surprised when she doesn't strike him, or stab her fingers through his skull. She just stares down at him with vague pity. "Cut me some fucking slack," he says. "All my life I've been a fuck-up. I've hurt the people I cared about. I've been selfish, and self-destructive, and an asshole to anyone who tried to help me. This is my one chance to do right. He's my one chance to do right, and even if he wants nothing to do with me after, I'm getting him home.” Logan takes a breath, and as natural as letting it go: “I love him."
She tilts her head. "Why?"
He considers this; it's a question no one in his universe would ever ask. Why love his soulmate? That's right up there with asking why the sky is blue. It just fucking is. "'Cause it's what I was made for," he decides. "So, please."
"Fuck," Wade says when Logan's holding his hand, about a billion volts of time-energy shared between them. For Logan, it feels like he's being shredded one molecule at a time. "All these time skips are giving me whiplash. The author needs to just pick a scene and fucking stay there, y'know?"
"Wade, I would've died for you," Logan says, squeezing Wade's hand, though the effort burns. They're a closed circuit, Wade’s mark so close to his. "Guess I'll just have to settle for dying with you, huh?"
Wade gasps and groans at another wave of energy, and when it reaches Logan it's like a boulder to the gut. "Shit, we —" Wade pants. "We're really, genuinely soulmates, aren't we? There's something here, you're not just fucking around."
"We are —" Logan's suit top chooses this moment to disintegrate, and he's embarrassed until he notices the weight of Wade's ogling gaze.
Oh. That's reassuring.
"Huh," Wade says slowly. "Maybe it's just Madonna's angelic harmonies making me vulnerable to your stray-dog charms, but you know what? I'm kind of down for this. If we survive, I mean."
"We're gonna survive," Logan says, and for the first time since stumbling heart-first into this torture chamber he really believes it.
He finally has something to live for; someone.
"Everyone," Wade says just a few jostling hours after the near-destruction of the world, clasping Logan's hand before a room of not-quite strangers. "This is my Wolverine. I found him all on my own. He's little, and broken, but still good." He glances back at Logan, smiling; Logan's chest clenches, the love reflected in Wade's eyes burning a hole right through him. "Yeah, still good."
A woman pipes up, "Boo, you stole that from Lilo and Stitch!" Whatever the hell that is.
"Vanessa!" Wade snaps, not without a heap of affection. "We're not dating anymore, okay, I am moved on, you no longer have the authority to neg me."
"I liked it," Logan offers.
"Thank you, soulmate," Wade says, and pecks Logan's mouth before turning to address their stunned audience. Logan barely hears him over the rush of blood in his ears — and a little down south, too. He hopes they can get some privacy soon. "That's right, everyone, you heard me right. See, in Logan's universe they have this little thing called love. Insta-love, very convenient, and it's all about magic moles. Not the cancerous kind — well, except for me, I'm cancerous all over. In any case, our moles mean we're destined for each other, or something, like our souls are socks in a matching pair. That's why I wasn't even the teeniest bit tempted by Henry Cavill’s fine ass, I knew this beautiful disaster was the only Wolverine for me."
"Henry Cavill?" a man asks. “Did he say whether was doing Witcher season four?”
"Dopinder, please hold your questions until the end," Wade says. "Anyway! Also!" He flips off the ceiling with the hand that doesn't hold Logan's; Logan just smiles dopily at him, barely comprehending. Wade’s the perfect kind of crazy. Pure, unstoppable crazy. "I'm so totally not straight! I love gay sex, and I love cocaine! Me and my boyfriend are gonna do a shit-load of both of those things later! Get pegged, Disney!"
An old woman breaks into enthusiastic applause, for some reason. "Preach!"
"I'm so confused," Logan admits, love-haze lightening, but then Wade's kissing him properly, and what else matters?