#warpath

The Blackbird cut through the night sky like a silver shark, silent and lethal and humming with the kind of engine power that made Kitty Pryde sigh wistfully every time she lent it out. Old Man Logan had his hands on the controls, knuckles white, jaw set, eyes fixed on the horizon with the thousand-yard stare of a man who had seen too much and was too tired to blink.

Beside him, in the co-pilot's seat, Warpath was wrapping a bandage around his forearm with the kind of aggressive efficiency that suggested he was angry at the burn for existing.

"You're doing it too tight," Logan said, not looking over.

"I know," Warpath growled, pulling it tighter.

Logan sighed. "You're gonna cut off circulation."

"Good."

In the back, Lady Deathstrike sat with her back against the hull, a disassembled blade across her thighs. She was cleaning it with the kind of reverent attention most people reserved for religious icons. Domino, across from her, was doing the same with her sidearm, though with significantly less reverence and significantly more annoyance, because she kept getting gun oil on her gloves.

"That was a cluster," Domino said, not for the first time.

"Standard," Deathstrike replied, not looking up.

"Standard for us, yeah, but-" Domino gestured vaguely with her gun. "She blew herself up. Like, intentionally. With us standing right there."

"Warpath was about to get shot."

"So? Warpath gets shot all the time. It's his thing."

Deathstrike's lips twitched, the closest she ever came to a smile. "She disagreed."

Domino opened her mouth, closed it, then shook her head. "I'm not saying it wasn't effective. I'm just saying it was insane. Who carries a live explosive into a firefight and then jumps into the middle of the enemy formation?"

"Someone with a healing factor." Deathstrike said.

"Someone with a death wish." Domino corrected.

Neither of them mentioned the fact that, for about thirty seconds after the explosion, there hadn't been enough of you left to wish for anything. Just a skeleton. Some smoke. And a lot of very dead guards.

Warpath, for his part, had gone very quiet after you'd reassembled yourself. He hadn't said thank you—he wasn't sure he knew how—but he'd stopped glaring at you quite so hard. That was, for Warpath, practically a hug.

"She's not human," he said quietly.

Logan snorted. "None of us are, bub. Plus she's her father's daughter, so buckle up 'cause we've got two hours 'til home."

The cargo bay of the Blackbird was technically for equipment storage. Crates of ammunition, spare uniforms, emergency rations, the occasional decommissioned Sentinel head that Beast wanted for "research purposes." It was cold back here, and loud, and smelled like jet fuel and old sweat.

You loved it.

After a mission (especially after a mission where you'd died) you needed solitude the way other people needed water. The constant noise of the team, their heartbeats, their breathing, their smells, it was too much. Your senses were already dialed to eleven, and your healing factor was working overtime, and your brain was slowly, painfully rewiring itself from the base level up.

So you sat on the floor.

You sat on the metal floor, legs crossed, back against a supply crate. Your ash-blond hair hung in tangled curtains around your face. Your yellow eyes—still slightly unfocused, still rewiring—stared at nothing. And your claws, your beautiful, deadly, adamantium-laced claws, were extended to their full length.

You were licking them clean.

It was a habit. A compulsion. A need. The blood, enemy blood, your blood, it was all the same at this point, had dried in the grooves of your claws, and the taste was coppery and warm and right. You licked methodically, starting at the base of each claw and working your way to the tip, curling your tongue around the metal.

Click, click, click went your claws against your teeth.

You were loopy. You knew you were loopy. Your healing factor had been working overtime because regenerating from a skeleton took a lot out of a girl and your brain was still rebooting. The human parts, the parts that formed sentences and understood sarcasm and remembered that you weren't actually a cat, were currently offline, busy rebuilding neural pathways.

The animal parts, however, were thriving.

Your eyes kept drifting closed. Your head kept nodding. Your tongue kept moving, muscle memory taking over, because your higher brain functions were currently offline.

The metal was cold against your tongue. Nice. Calming.

You licked. You blinked. You licked again.

Lick. Lick. Lick.

Somewhere above you, the engines hummed. Somewhere behind you, the door to the cargo bay hissed.

You didn't turn around. You didn't need to. The scent hit you before the sound did: smoke and musk and grown and alpha and something spicy and warm that your hindbrain recognized as safe. Home. Father.

Victor.

He filled the doorway like he'd been carved out of it. Six-foot-something of muscle and metal and bad decisions, his uniform still singed in places where bullets had grazed him, not that you could tell by just looking at the pristine skin underneath. He'd already healed. He always healed fast. He was annoying like that.

His yellow eyes found you immediately. Sitting on the floor. Licking your claws. Looking like a cat who'd just been hit by a truck and was too dignified to admit it.

His nostrils flared. He scented the air: blood, healing, exhaustion, you, and something in his chest tightened.

Cub. Hurt. Fix it.

The Inversion had given him a conscience, but this wasn't conscience. This was older. Deeper. The kind of instinct that had kept wolves alive for millions of years. The pack was only as strong as its youngest member, and his youngest member had just detonated herself.

"Brat." he said, by way of greeting.

You didn't answer. Your tongue was busy with your index claw.

"You look like shit."

You didn't answer. You just kept licking your claws.

Victor walked toward you. His footsteps were heavy on the metal floor. Thud. Thud. Thud. He stopped directly in front of you, looking down with an expression that was half-scowl, half-something softer.

"You blew yourself up."

Lick. Lick.

"Warpath was about to get shot," you mumbled, not looking up.

"So?"

"So he's on the team."

Victor sighed. It was a heavy, put-upon sound, like he was the one who'd been blown up. Then he crossed the remaining distance and dropped to the floor beside you with all the grace of a sack of bricks.

Thud.

The Blackbird shuddered slightly. From the cockpit, Logan's voice echoed: "Watch the weight distribution, Creed!"

"Watch your mouth, old man!"

You ignored him. You kept licking.

For approximately three seconds.

His hands closed around your waist.

Massive hands. Warm. Calloused. Claws brushing against your ribs through the thin fabric of your uniform. He didn't ask permission, he never asked permission, and he didn't wait for you to protest. He just dragged you backward, across the cold metal floor, until your back hit his chest and your body was nestled between his legs.

You made a sound. It was not a dignified sound. It was somewhere between a squawk and a hiss, and it echoed off the cargo bay walls as he manhandled you into position: sitting between his legs, your back against his chest, his arms locked around you like a seatbelt made of muscle and spite.

"Hrrrrk- Victor!"

"Hush."

He was so warm. You hated it. You loved it. You were too tired to figure out which.

You made a huffing sound that he'd learnt to interpret as an 'I'm fine leave me the fuck alone' over time.

"You were sitting on a cold floor licking your own blood like a freak. That's not fine. That's weird."

You twisted in his grip, trying to face him, but he just tightened his arms and pulled you closer.

You hissed at him.

Full-on, fangs-bared, throaty hisssssss.

Victor didn't even flinch. He just waited, patient as a mountain, until the hiss ran out of steam. Then he reached up with one hand—the other stayed locked around your waist—and started grooming you.

His claws combed through your hair, untangling knots, scraping gently against your scalp. His thumb wiped a smear of something (ash? blood? both?) off your cheek. His fingers traced your jaw, your neck, your shoulders, checking for injuries that hadn't quite healed yet.

You huffed at him. It was not a hiss. It was softer. Hmph.

"Don't 'hmph' me, brat. You blew yourself up."

Hmph.

"You're not even denying it."

Hmph.

"You're being very vocal today. Two whole sounds. I'm impressed."

You bit his forearm. Not hard—just a warning nip, your fangs denting his skin without breaking it. Your toxins didn't release. You were being polite.

Victor looked down at your mouth on his arm. Then he looked at your face.

"Did you just… nibble me?"

You let go. You went back to licking your claws. They were already clean, had been clean for a while actually, but the adamantium was cold, and the cold felt good against your tongue, and you didn't want to stop.

Victor watched you for a moment. Then he sighed again, the long-suffering sigh of a parent who had somehow ended up with the weirdest cub in the litter, and resumed grooming.

His claws worked through a particularly stubborn knot in your hair. You leaned into the pull, just slightly. Your eyes half-closed. Your tongue kept moving, licking, licking, licking.

Your claws were already clean, Victor noticed. Of course he noticed.

"Claws are clean, brat."

Click, click, click went your claws against your teeth.

"You're going to file them down." Victor said.

You ignored him.

"You're going to give yourself a fucking damn hairball, you brat."

You ignored him harder.

"Okay, that's it. No more licking."

He grabbed your wrist—gently, for him, which meant he didn't break any bones—and pulled your hand away from your mouth. You growled at him, low in your throat, and tried to pull back. He held on.

"No," he said.

You growled again.

"No," he repeated. "You're done. They're clean. You're just being obsessive now."

You stared at him with your yellow eyes, pupils still huge and round from the regeneration, and you hated that he was right. Your claws were clean. You were just… enjoying the cold. The repetition. The sensation.

Victor stared back. His own eyes, yellow, like yours like father like daughter, were narrowed.

"You're loopy," he said.

Hmph.

"You're loopy and you're nonverbal and you're licking your claws like a cat with a mouse problem."

Hmph.

"I'm going to check you for injuries. Don't bite me."

You did indeed bite him again, just another nibble on his bicep.

He didn't even react. Just kept running his hands over your shoulders, your arms, your sides, searching for wounds that hadn't quite closed. Most of you had regenerated fully. Your healing factor was fast, adaptive, efficient. But there were patches where the skin was still pink and tender, still knitting itself together.

His fingers found one on your ribs. You flinched. He grunted.

"Healing." he said.

"'viously," you managed. Your voice was a rough and slurred rumble, barely there, like you'd forgotten how to use it.

"Don't talk. You sound weird when you're rebooting."

"Fuck you."

"There she is."

Victor's claws moved higher. Up your spine. Over your shoulders. Across the side of your neck.

And stopped.

His whole body went rigid behind you. His breathing changed, it went sharp, focused, predatory in a way that made your own hackles rise.

Victor's thumb brushed against it. You hissed—a real hiss, sharp and warning.

"Hold still."

A spot on the back of your neck, just below your hairline. A gash. Still knitting. Still wet. You'd forgotten about it, there'd been so many injuries, and your healing factor had prioritized organs and major blood vessels over surface wounds, but Victor hadn't.

You felt his breath against the back of your neck. Warm. Humid. And then-

His tongue.

Rough. Sandpaper. Wet. He licked the wound, a long, slow stripe from the base of your neck to your hairline, and you froze.

Every muscle in your body locked up. Your claws shot out to their full length.

And then the human parts of your brain, the ones that had been offline, the ones that formed sentences and understood social norms and remembered that your father was currently licking your neck like a wolf with a pup-

Came roaring back online.

The world stopped. The engines faded. Your brain, which had been slowly rewiring itself from animal to human, flipped a switch.

Your pupils, which had been huge and dilated and kitty-mode, snapped into sharp, vertical slits.

"What," you said, and your voice was ice, "the fuck."

Victor kept licking.

"Are you- Victor. What the fuck are you doing."

"Cleaning you."

"I'm healed-"

"It's still open."

"It's knitting, you animal-"

"Same thing."

His tongue dragged across your neck again, slower this time, more methodical. The rough texture scraped against your healing skin, and—horrifyingly—it didn't hurt. It actually felt kind of… good. Like scratching an itch you didn't know you had.

"Victor."

"Brat."

"The fuck you doing."

"Cleaning you."

"I'm healing. I don't need-"

"Your body is rebuilding tissue. My saliva has enzymes that speed up the process. It's basic biology."

"You're licking me! Stop licking my neck."

"Stop having a wound on your neck, then."

"That's not- that's not how anything works!"

He licked again.

You growled.

Not an angry growl (he could tell the difference, because he was insufferable like that) but an embarrassed growl. Low. Throaty. The kind of sound a cat makes when you pick it up in front of its friends and it's trying to pretend it doesn't like it.

Victor recognized the frequency immediately.

"Aw," he said, and you could hear the grin in his voice. "Is the widdle kitten embarrassed?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"I'm just grooming you. Don't be weird about it."

He was licking your wounds like a feral animal, and you were the one being weird about it. The audacity. The sheer, unbelievable audacity.

You growled at him again.

Victor's ear twitched. He recognized that frequency.

"Quit complainin', brat," he said, and his massive hand came up to cover your mouth.

His palm was warm. Calloused. It smelled like metal and blood and him. It covered the entire lower half of your face, muffling your protests, and his fingers curled around your jaw to hold you still.

"Mmph-!"

"I said quit. I'm cleaning ya. Hold still."

You bit him.

Hard.

Your fangs sank into the meat of his palm, and your toxins flooded his system, paralytic and hallucinogenic and nasty, and Victor's eyes went wide for a split second before his body went sluggish.

His hand dropped from your mouth. His arm hung heavy at his side. He blinked slowly, pupils dilating, and cursed under his breath. A long, creative string of words that would have made a sailor blush.

"You little shit." he said, but his voice was slow and syrupy and his tongue wasn't working quite right.

You grinned up at him, fangs bared, eyes still slit-pupiled. "Don't. Touch. My. Mouth."

He stared at you for a long moment. Then, incredibly, he laughed.

Low and rough and sluggish, his whole body shaking with it, his head lolling slightly as the toxins worked through his system. "You're definitely my kid."

"Unfortunately."

"Best thing I ever made."

"Gross."

He laughed again, and then, because he was Victor Creed and he had the stubbornness of a particularly aggressive barnacle, he went back to grooming you.

Slower now. More methodical. His tongue dragged across the back of your neck in long, lazy strokes, and the wound was already closed, had been closed for seconds now, but he didn't stop.

And neither did you.

Because your pupils were dilating again. Growing. Spreading. The vertical slits softening into wide, dark circles as your hindbrain took over and your human brain went offline.

Safe. Warm. Father. Grooming. Good.

You stopped squirming. Stopped growling. Stopped thinking, honestly, because your body was currently running on pure instinct and your instincts were telling you to curl up and sleep.

So you did.

You turned in his arms. Slowly, clumsily, like a cat resettling on a favorite blanket, and curled into his chest.

Your chin propped up on his shoulder. Your nose nuzzling at his neck. Your breath warm against his scent gland, and you were trying to get him to scent you, trying to get his pheromones all over your skin so everyone would know.

Victor went very still.

His heart, sluggish from your toxins but still pounding, thudded against your cheek. His hands hovered over your back, uncertain for once, because this was new. You'd never done this before. You'd let him groom you, let him herd you, let him bite you and tease you and call you names. But you'd never let him scent you.

"…Brat?" His voice was rough.

You nuzzled deeper into his neck.

Mreow.

And Victor, Victor Creed, the Inverted Sabretooth, the man who had killed more people than most plagues, started purring.

Loud. Low. A motor engine of a sound, vibrating through his chest and into yours, so intense you could feel it in your teeth. He was purring like a lion, like a house cat, like a fucking freight train, and he couldn't seem to stop.

"Well, well, well," he said, his voice a lazy drawl. "What's this, runt? You want your old man to cover you in his scent?"

You didn't answer. You just nuzzled harder.

"Want 'em to smell me on you? Know you're mine?"

Mreow, you definitely didn't say.

"You want everyone to know whose cub you are, huh?"

Nuzzle, nuzzle.

"You want Logan to smell me on you and get all jealous?"

Nuzzle, nuzzle, nuzzle.

He laughed a low, rumbling sound that was half-purr, half-amusement, and released a flood of pheromones. His scent washed over you like a wave: smoke and musk and alpha and home. It coated your skin, your hair, your uniform. It was everywhere.

"There," he said, his hand coming up to rest on the back of your head. "Now everyone knows. You're my cub."

You were already asleep.

Your breathing evened out. Your body went limp against his chest. Your claws still extended always extended curled against his shoulders, not breaking skin, just holding on.

Victor kept purring.

He didn't stop. Couldn't stop. His body was running on instinct now too, and his instinct was telling him cub is sleeping, cub is safe, keep her warm, keep her close, don't let go.

So he didn't.

The Blackbird landed twenty minutes later.

Old Man Logan powered down the engines, stretched his back. It popped in three places, which was fine, he was fine, and stood up. Warpath was already heading for the ramp, his bandaged arm held stiffly at his side. Domino and Deathstrike were gathering their weapons.

"Where's the kid?" Logan asked.

Domino shrugged. "Cargo bay. She always hides after missions."

"Creed?"

"With her, probably. He's been weird since we pulled her out of that facility."

Logan sighed the long, weary sigh of a man who had been dealing with Creed's bullshit for multiple lifetimes and headed for the cargo bay.

The ramp lowered. The night air rushed in, cold and clean.

And Logan stopped.

Because there, in the middle of the cargo bay floor, surrounded by crates of ammunition and the faint smell of jet fuel, was Victor Creed.

He was sitting against a crate. His back was straight. His eyes were closed. His massive hands were wrapped around a sleeping teenager who was curled against his chest like a cat in a sunbeam.

And he was purring.

Not quietly. Not subtly. Loudly. The kind of purr that vibrated through the floor and made the crates rattle.

Logan stared.

Victor opened one eye.

He looked at Logan. Looked at the sleeping girl in his arms. Looked back at Logan.

And grinned.

It was the smuggest, most insufferable, most I-have-something-you-don't grin Logan had ever seen. And Logan had seen a lot of insufferable grins from Victor Creed.

"Hey, old man," Victor said, his voice a low rumble that didn't quite wake you. "Look what I've got."

Logan's eye twitched.

"I can see what you've got, Victor."

"I know." Victor's grin widened. His hand stroked your hair gently, almost reverently. "Just wanted to remind you. She's my daughter. Not yours. Mine."

"You're insufferable."

"I'm a father."

"You're a fucking idiot, that's what you are, Creed."

"As if we don't share blood."

Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. Behind him, he could hear Domino snickering. Deathstrike was watching with an expression of mild curiosity. Warpath looked like he'd swallowed a lemon.

"We need to debrief," Logan said.

"She's sleeping."

"We can wait until she wakes—"

"No." Victor's arms tightened around you. "She's sleeping. She died today. She gets to sleep the whole day."

Logan opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

"…Fine."

Victor's grin became triumphant.

"One hour," Logan said, pointing a finger at him. "Then I'm waking her up."

"We'll see."

"Victor."

"Logan."

They stared at each other for a long moment. The purring continued. Youdidn't stir.

Finally, Logan sighed and turned away.

"One hour." he repeated over his shoulder.

"Sure thing, old man."

Logan walked back up the ramp. Behind him, he heard Victor's purring intensify. He heard the soft sound of claws carding through ash-blond hair. He heard a sleepy, grumbling mreow that was definitely not English and definitely not something he was going to think about ever again.

Domino fell into step beside him.

"So," she said, "are we just not going to talk about how Sabretooth is basically a giant feral cat with a baby?"

"No."

"Because I have so many questions-"

"No."

"And the purring-"

"Domino."

She held up her hands, grinning. "Fine, fine. But you have to admit it's kind of cute."

Logan stopped walking.

He turned. Looked back at the cargo bay. Listened to the purring. Thought about the girl who had blown herself up to save Warpath. Thought about the monster who was holding her like she was made of glass.

"…Don't tell anyone I said this." he said finally.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"It's a little cute."

Domino's grin could have powered a small city.