Summary:Gwen invites Logan over after her release from medical care Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The texts from Gwen from the hospital had given Logan a heads up on her location, and her condition, until she was ready to be sprung from medical observation. But once she's out, she remembers what it's like to be on her own again. It doesn't settle well with her. So it takes her only long enough to get a shower - a real shower - and a fresh change of clothes, before she texts Logan again.
"Guess who's been set free. Hint: It's me."
He had been texting her fairly regularly, checking how she was doing, apologizing he couldn't come to visit, and asking when she would be out. Once he was sure she was on the mend, he even gave her a little grief for postponing their trip again. He wasn't texting at all hours, but with enough frequency, at odd enough hours, that there was fairly regular contact between them, even if via phone.
It isn't long before Gwen gets a text back in response to hers. "Took you long enough! I should teach you how to heal faster."
"PLEASE teach me how to heal faster!" comes her texted reply, as she is nestled on the couch comfortably. Then another: "You wanna come over? We could get things ready to go camping. I mean, if you don't want to postpone it again."
The text comes back soon enough. "We gonna play the compare scars game? Because I got hardly any."
Then, another one a moment later. "When you want to go? I'm game to come over but do I bring everything we'll need?"
"Sorry, I got no scars. This one left a mark, but that'll be gone before ya know it. Bring everything you need, if you want to take off. Or bring just your bad self if you wanna hang out. We could leave tomorrow instead, or y'know, next year." Gwen giggles and sets down her phone, getting up and gingerly moving over to the kitchen in sock feet to pour herself a glass of orange juice.
There is no reply for a few minutes. Then, suddenly, Gwen's phone chimes again. There is a reply: "Okay. Bringing the shit. Where do you live?" Assuming she provides an address, he will confirm that he's on his way. It was take him some time, driving through New York traffic, to make his way to her, but eventually he will arrive at her building and complete the ritual of buzzing up, if needed.
Gwen buzzes Logan in, but per her directions, she's not living in a typical apartment. Instead, Logan was directed to take the roof door out to what appears to be maintenance living quarters atop the building. At one time, it probably housed someone responsible for the upkeep of the building. But now it's a lovely little almost house, atop an older apartment building. It has been remodeled from the ground up. And what's more, it's only across the roof from the place where Logan and Gwen grilled out all those weeks ago. That night, it sat in darkness on the periphery of where the firelight could reach. Logan may not have even noticed it.
When he arrives, Gwen shows up at the door with a hug, dressed in a yellow off-the shoulder oversized tee bearing the likeness of Batman, and black leggings. She has more of a bounce to her step than she has had since she left the hospital. "Hi!!"
Logan had been trying to cultivate a suitably grumpy affect for one deadpan comedic purpose or another, but when he sees Gwen, he can't help but grin. He folds his arms around her and gives her a squeeze that requires him to lift her from her feet for a moment. "Heya, Gwennie," he answers, tone not as effusive as hers, though for his understated style, it's obvious he's pleased to see her.
He has a backpack slung over one shoulder and he carries a fairly ordinary bouquet of flowers, recently purchased, in his opposite hand. He extends them to her. "I figured… since I couldn't come see you while you were laid up, I'd do the get-well flower thing now."
"Awww!" Gwen squeezes him tightly as he hugs her, and once he puts her down, she accepts the flowers with a face bright as the sun. "I never got flowers before!" She sniffs them, and finds a few of them quite lovely in fragrance. "Lemme put these in a…" Vase? Why would she have an extra vase? So she dumps a bunch of silk poppies out of a vase onto a small breakfast table that seats two, fills the container with water, and arranges the flowers in the white vase in such a way that the perfectly ordinary blossoms are transformed into an extraordinary bouquet. All it took was just the right touch. "Thank you…they're beautiful!"
Logan trails into Gwen's apartment behind her, watching as she goes about arranging the bouquet and tending to it, showing a level of attention and flair for decor that he either lacks or is reluctant to call upon. He sets his backpack down by the front door as he watches her, nudging her door shut with a push of his booted foot. He looks around the place - curious - seeing it as a mirror into her soul. He gives a light sniff, which might tell him more than his cursory look around. He grins and lifts a shoulder in a one-sided shrug. "Ah, it was nothin'," he answers. "Least you can do for a girl when she gets shot while out heroin'," he notes. Then, stepping nearer her again, he drapes an arm across her shoulders. "So you learn your lesson yet? Ready to give it up and be a selfish bum like me?"
"Nope, I can't give it up. Not now. I'm sort of committed to helpin' the team. They helped me, when I fell. I didn't have the slightest idea what happened or how I got to the medbay. But they took me, and looked after me. IF not for them, I probably wouldn't be here." She regards Logan seriously for a moment. "And you're not selfish. You may think you are, but I've not seen that side of you. Not in the least. Except y'know…when you CHEATED at the TV's." She grins and winks, leaning into his side.
"Shootin' don't even teach ya?" he answers, looking down at her and offering a wolfish grin. "It's a good thing you're so pretty. And besides, don't knock my cheating'. It made things work out pretty good." His other hand lifts across his body, to press a knuckle on the underside of her chin so that he can lift it that bit more and lower his head to steal a kiss from her.
Gwen tenses, as usual, but she doesn't pull away. In fact, she probably tenses less than she has in the past. She returns his kiss, and she holds him more tightly. After the kiss, she'll protest. "Shootin' didn't even slow me down!" A lie, evidenced by the way she's been moving since he arrived. Guarded. Careful. Deliberate.
His arm slips downward after the kiss, finding a comfortable perch at the narrow of her waist. He encourages that lean against him and he gives a faint, incredulous snort in response to her assertion. "You sure you're game to go tomorrow? I mean, you won't have to *do* anything - I can handle it all. But…" he leaves that dangling, in favour of a new question. "Where'd they get ya, anyway?"
"Bah. I'm good as new. I'm fine to camp. I mean, maybe I could only carry like eight tons or so, but I think I'm definitely good enough to hike and put up a tent." She grins, till he asks where they got her.
"Oh. Uh…" She reluctantly reaches down to her shirt, and shifts it from one shoulder to the other, to reveal an angry wound on the flesh that covers her collarbone. It's sealed, but red and mangled in the center, where the bullet passed through, downwards. "It broke my collarbone, but ricocheted off, through my lung and somehow out the other side. Pass through. Got one just like this inside my shoulder blade. Impressive, huh? But don't get used to it. The mark will be gone in a week or so, I figure."
He smirks at her bravado, but as he's confronted with the evidence of her wound, his brow furrows. He lifts a hand to rest it on her bare shoulder. His thumb traces over the entrance point of the bullet and his lips draw into a line. His eyes return to hers, a little flintier, though his words make it plain she's the object of his ire, not the recipient of it. "You can get taken out by a gunshot and you still do you what you do? That's insane." He pauses for a beat, then he notes, "I'd'a killed the guy who did it." It's not a boast - it sounds darker and more matter-of-fact. A confession, perhaps.
"He got caught and turned in, I think. There was a portal. Some people went through it. Some ran off. Some got turned over to police. I think he was one of those. But…Thing is, I can get shot and live. If I don't do what I do, someone else might get it who wouldn't." She looks up at Logan, her expression somewhat crestfallen. "It's not insane, it's just something I have to do. Because if I don't, who will?" She places her hand on his arm, as his hand covers her own wound. "Hey, I haven't found a bullet yet that could end me." Granted, this is her first one…but the statement's still true.
He listens with drawn lips and a furrowed brow. He doesn't seem particularly won over by her argument, though he doesn't press the issue any further. "You go into something heavy again, you call me. I'll drop whatever to come give you a hand," he tells her, now lifting his free hand to tap the end of her nose. Then, mercifully, he changes the subject. "So what we doin' before bed tonight?" he asks. "Big day drivin' tomorrow, we should get an early start."
"I figure I'm orderin' Chinese delivery. I'm not goin' ANYWHERE tonight if I can help it. I'm gonna have good food, good company, and some music. That YOU can't touch." She grins and winks at him. "Maybe we can play a little Battlship."
"Battleship? You and your love of shooting," he laments with a sigh. "You gotta let me order, though. I know a good place - just tell me what you want and I'll grab it." With that, he's lifting his arm from around her, moving to retrieve his phone from a pocket, and to set this taking-over of the ordering into motion.
"Oooh, cashew chicken and fried rice. Definitely. I've been wanting some since the night I went into that place, and the food there was awful. If not for some smuggled in takeout, I /might/ have starved to death." She grins. "Here." She grabs her debit card out of a small pouch on the counter and hands it to him. "I'll buy. But if you memorize this and use it to order porn, I'm gonna kick your butt."
Oh how quickly he forgets certain details, however. "Hey, I won't get shot playing Battleship. Can't help it if I have the fastest fleet on the seven seas."
Logan is already dialing a phone a number as he listens to her. He looks up and lightly takes the debit card from her with a wry grin. "Who pays for porn?" he murmurs by way of a rhetorical question. He lets the matter of Battleship die - leaving it ambiguous whether he actually forgot her propensity for cheating, or just was generous enough not to mention it. A moment later, he's ordering in what sounds like native Mandarin. He hangs up after a minute or so and he notes by way of an explanation, "They give you the crap stuff if you order in English."
"Well, aren't YOU just a barrel of surprises?" Gwen asks, slipping her debit card back into its pouch and tossing it on the counter. One way or another, it's a sign of trust. "Okay fine, no Battleship. What do you wanna do this evening? Besides speak some language that just pops out of you like it's somebody's birthday?"
Logan smirks. "There's… what, a dozen more? Where that came from," Logan answers with a grin. "I told you I was old, huh? That me 'n Cap fought together back in the day? Guess I picked up some languages in my old-ass life." He stretches and makes himself at home, padding over in the direction of her fridge. "You got anything to drink? Maybe we should just hang around 'n eat some greasy food 'n watch a movie."
"There are four of those Mad Alchemists left in the fridge, and some root beer. I'll have one of the latter, if you wouldn't mind snagging me one please?"
As much as it pains her to admit it, the couch and a movie sounds pretty great, even if she HAS been in bed for days on end. "That sounds good, but I'm not watching romantic comedies, I don't care how much you beg, so just put that right out of your mind, Mister. I'm not THAT kind of girl. I do have a copy of Tombstone I haven't worn out quite yet, though."
Logan goes to the fridge and retrieves a beer and a root beer, as requested. He nudges the door shut before he uncaps the bottles. He takes his time returning to Gwen and extends her drink toward her. He lifts his chin toward the couch in silent indication that they should make their way that way. "Tombstone, like the western? I'm game, if you wanna. I don't watch much stuff so most everything'll be new to me."
"Tombstone as in the only western that really counts," Gwen replies, leading the way to the couch as he guides her there from behind. "By the time we're done with this movie, you'll either have it memorized, or you'll have slept through it half a dozen times…"
He makes his way over to the couch with her, content to settle in heavily and recline. He seeks to drape an arm around her once more, to nestle in together, at least until the food arrives, and watch the much-hyped movie.