Rant - while i have no porblem if people want to give a suggestion, some seem didnt know their place to demand something, if you want something, do it yourself, i have no obligation to fulffil what ever fuxk you want. remember, this shit is free, if you want to read, read, if you don't, just fuck off.
sorry, i need to make it clear, i didnt demand anything from you guys, but if you have some suggestion speak nicely, don't need to make it look like a demand.
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"Come in, bub." Logan remained reclined on his bed, his hands tucked behind his head as a makeshift pillow. He looked entirely at peace, despite the chaos and "mumbo jumbo" currently upending the world. It seemed he had finally accepted his past, his present, and his future. Of that, he was certain.
As Steve entered the tent, his eyes scanned the room. There was nothing special about it, no framed pictures, no personal trinkets. It was a plain, utilitarian space designed for nothing more than sleep. James lay on the bed with a cigar clenched between his teeth. Steve winced, he hated that smell. With his heightened senses, the acrid smoke stung his nose and clouded his vision, making his eyes feel sharper and more sensitive than usual.
"Sit down, Steve," I said, gesturing to a crate. "Ask your questions. But be careful... you might not like the answers."
"How can you do what you do, James?" Steve asked, his voice heavy with curiosity. "Are you some kind of secret super soldier?"
As far as Steve knew, he was the only "anomaly" in the world, aside from Johann Schmidt. The question had been gnawing at him for days, a persistent itch he couldn't scratch, and he was finally desperate for an answer.
"No, bub... I'm no super soldier." Logan offered a faint, knowing smile, clearly sensing Steve's mounting suspense. "I'm what people in the future will call a 'mutant.' A human who has mutated. Do you understand what that means?"
Steve simply shook his head. He remained silent, careful not to interrupt the story James was finally beginning to tell.
"Let's just say I'm a human who's physically enhanced without any outside help," Logan explained.
"It's in our genes. There's something called the 'mutant gene.' Less than one percent of the human population carries it... and I'm one of them. My brother, too, if you're curious about the others."
Steve didn't know where to begin, he couldn't find a foothold in James's story. To him, this sounded like the nonsense of children's fables or cheap pulp fiction. It felt impossible.
How could something like this even exist? He searched James's face for a hint of a lie, but all he found was the cold, hard truth of a man who had lived through the impossible.
"Don't be weird about it, bub. You might not see any mutants now, but they're out there," Logan said, his voice dropping an octave. "I haven't met many others yet, at least, no one I know for sure has powers, but maybe in the future... maybe I'll see more of 'em."
"How can you be so sure you'll meet another, James?" Steve asked. He truly couldn't wrap his head around it. After all, the lifespan of an average man rarely stretched beyond sixty or seventy years. If a person was incredibly lucky, they might reach a hundred, but in these times, that felt like an impossibility.
"And how can you be so certain there are others out there with this 'mutant gene'?" Steve asked, his brow furrowing. "I've never met anyone like that other than you, and you only just told me. How do you know?"
"I may look like a grunt, bub, but inside my head is an IQ that rivals Stark's," Logan explained, a smirk playing on his lips. "Why do you think I could infiltrate all those bases without a soul noticing? It wasn't just luck."
"Heheh... a little demonstration would be good for you." Logan pulled the cigar from his mouth and pressed the glowing, cherry-red tip directly into his left forearm.
Steve watched in horror as the skin charred and sizzled but the smell of burnt flesh barely had time to fill the tent before the wound began to knit itself back together.
"James, what are you doing?!" Steve cried. Ever the protector, he instinctively reached out to stop James from burning himself. But what he saw next shook the very axis of his world.
He had assumed Logan was just "bullshitting" him, but the proof was right there, raw and undeniable. He watched, breathless, as the charred skin vanished. The wound knitted together so rapidly it defied nature; in seconds, the flesh was smooth again, as if the burn had never happened. It wasn't just fast, it was impossible.
"It's okay, kid... it's not like it won't heal, as you're seeing right now. But here's a little something extra."
Logan raised his left hand. Suddenly, three claws, each nearly fifteen centimeters long, burst from the gaps between his knuckles with a terrifying, wet shnikt. Steve recoiled, fidgeting in his seat as he stared at the lethal blades. The sight of it sent a cold shiver down his spine.
"As you can see... my bones extend and keep healing themselves. As for the claws if they break, they grow back. But they aren't indestructible, they're still just bone, after all. I don't know how else to explain 'em. They're part of my original mutation, along with the healing, the senses, the strength, and a knack for understanding animals."
"But that still doesn't explain what you did out there," Steve pressed. "You ran so fast. Even with increased strength, it shouldn't be possible to move like that."
Steve needed to know if Erskine's serum could truly be rivaled by a natural mutation. To him, the Serum was the pinnacle of human perfection, it improved everything across the board.
But James was different. While the Serum had rewritten Steve's biology, Logan's mutation had simply awakened dormant cells that were already there.
What Steve didn't know was that James had a secret: he had learned to tap into his life force, his Chi.
Steve froze. His mind raced back to what he knew : Logan had been born in 1886. He stopped mid-thought, the numbers spinning in his head. 1886. If he calculated the years correctly, that would make Logan... fifty-seven years old.
A fifty-seven-year-old man? He looked like he was in his prime. He looked younger than most of the Sergeants in the camp. Steve finally asked the question that had been gnawing at the center of everything:
"James... are you immortal?"
That was the crux of it. James's strength hadn't come from a bottle or a lab in a matter of weeks. It was the result of a lifespan that didn't seem to touch him at all.
Logan simply grinned at Dr. Erskine's creation, he found the serum ingenious. It didn't just boost the body, it elevated the mind, turning the subject into a tactical genius.
"I was born in 1830, kid," Logan said, his laughter gravelly and deep. "Hahahah! That makes me well over a hundred years old. I stopped counting a long time ago."
This was a staggering new reality for Steve Rogers. Everything he had known about the limits of the human body was being rewritten in front of his eyes. A single thought began to take root in his mind: with James at his side, this war could truly be won. With a man who couldn't be killed and who possessed a century of experience, victory didn't just seem possible, it felt inevitable.
It explained why Steve had been so unsettled by Logan's behavior. The man walked into the heat of battle as if he were strolling through an amusement park.
To Steve, it was surreal, downright bizarre. Yet, Logan's nonchalant attitude was beginning to open Steve's eyes. He realized that in the chaos of the field, losing your cool was a death sentence, Logan's calm was a lesson in survival.
"Why didn't you do more, James?"
Steve's voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of his conviction. He looked at Logan with an earnest hope, his heart aching for the people they hadn't been able to reach. To Steve, a man with Logan's power should have been able to stand at the front lines and save every single soul. He wanted, he needed, James to be the hero the world was crying out for.
"Don't pin your hopes on me, bub. I'm just a soldier... I follow orders," Logan said, a dry chuckle escaping him. "You might be Captain America, but me? I'm just a normal guy here, kid. Heheh. So, you do what you have to do. If I can help, I will... but I won't join your crusade. Let's just say not everyone likes it when there's another 'super soldier' in the room. That's why I've kept my head down all this time."
Logan watched him, looking as though he could read Steve's every thought. He wasn't wrong. Not everyone wanted another hero, some just wanted the weapon. If the wrong people got a sample of Steve's blood, they would find something far more potent than the Serum itself. They could try to clone him, to mass-produce him. But Logan knew the truth: the Serum wasn't just chemistry. It required a mind like Erskine's to make it work, and that kind of genius couldn't be replicated in a lab.
"You might not like the way I operate, but this is who I am. It's how I've survived," Logan said, his voice turning cold and serious. "I have family back home to look after, and I won't have people coming after them just to get to me. If that day ever comes... well, let's just say I wouldn't leave a single soul alive."
He looked Steve in the eye. "Not everyone is as nice as you, kid. That's why I follow you. Because you're doing the right thing, and I know I'm not always built for it."
"Your heart's in the right place, bub... but not everyone is as kind as you. I'll do anything for my family, even if I have to do it my way. That's why I'm telling you this: follow your heart, kid. Do what you can. But if it gets too hard and you feel like you can't go on... ask for help. There's nothing more idiotic than trying to carry the whole damn world by yourself."
Steve looked at James, really seeing him for the first time. He realized the man had been through hell. Logan had watched everyone close to him wither and die while he remained, the sole survivor of his own history. It took a staggering amount of will to keep living in a world like that.
Steve wondered how anyone could stay sane after a century of watching loved ones vanish. He realized then that Logan's nonchalant attitude wasn't a sign of cruelty; it was a shield. Despite the blood on his hands, James wasn't a monster, he was a survivor.
"Kid... if you survive this, or whenever you've had enough... if you want to live a quiet life away from the bustle of the world, come find me in Houston. Go to a town called Pasadena. You won't even need to ask around, just walk in, and people will tell you where I am."
Logan wasn't just offering a location; he was offering a way out. He was giving Steve a future to look forward to beyond the trenches and the blood, a promise of help that extended far beyond the end of the war.
"You can come in, Peggy dear," Logan called out.
He had caught her scent outside; he could smell the spike in her hormones and the shift in her breathing as she looked for Steve. Kids in love, he thought with a private smirk. They'd do anything for each other. It was almost sweet.
Steve stood up quickly, his eyes darting to the entrance as he saw Peggy standing there. "Peggy," he breathed, lifting the tent flap to let her in.
As Peggy entered the tent, the color had drained from her face. It was clear she had heard every word from outside. She looked at Logan, her eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and guarded curiosity.
"Are you serious, James?" she asked, her voice steady but sharp. "Is what you just said... actually the truth?"
"Well, you heard it," Logan said, leaning back as he tapped the ash from his cigar. "I don't much feel like repeating myself. Too lazy for all that talk."
He flashed that grin again, the same cocky, wolfish smirk that had become his trademark ever since he'd been transferred to this unit. It was a mask he wore well, using humor to deflect the weight of a century's worth of secrets.
"But how?" Peggy stammered, her composure finally breaking. "How could something like that even exist? You're telling me you're over a hundred years old... James, it doesn't make any sense."
"Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either," Logan replied, his face twisting into a mock-curious expression, as if he were just as confused as she was.
"It's not funny, James!" Peggy snapped. She felt a flash of heat in her cheeks, her temper rising at the realization that he was playing with her. She was used to being the smartest person in the room, and Logan was treating her like a rookie.
"What can I say, Peggy? Not everything in this world is meant to be explained or told," Logan said, his voice dropping to a low, gravelly rumble. "Sometimes, you just have to leave things alone. Don't bother digging where you don't belong."
He took a long drag of his cigar, the ember glowing bright in the dim tent. "Humans are curious creatures, it's true. But you've got to learn to curb that desire. Curiosity... it's a double-edged sword. It can bring a whole lot of good into the world, but it can bring just as much ruin if you aren't careful."
Peggy considered his words. In the SSR, she was used to being the one who held the keys to the kingdom. Usually, if she wanted to know something, she simply asked for it. But she also knew how the machine worked: if a secret was "Above Top Secret" beyond her pay grade, she wouldn't hear a whisper of it a second time. She looked at Logan and realized he wasn't just a classified file. He was a mystery that no amount of clearance could ever truly unlock.
"Leave it be, Peggy... let's make this our secret," Logan said, his voice softening just enough to show he wasn't joking anymore. "If your life is ever in a pinch, if you find yourself in a predicament with no way out, you can come to Houston, too. I'll be there for you."
He looked between the two of them, the star-spangled hero and the brilliant agent. "That offer stands for both of you. Always."
"You keep talking about Houston and Pasadena," Peggy said, her brow furrowing in confusion. "But you sound like you're telling me to move to a kingdom. How is a soldier supposed to just 'show up' in a place like that? You make it sound as if you own the whole city."
Logan just let out a dry, knowing huff of laughter. Peggy was right to be skeptical. To her, he was just a grunt in a muddy uniform. She couldn't see the century of investments, the hidden land deeds, and the gold stashed away from a dozen different lifetimes. To Logan, Pasadena wasn't just a town, it was his territory.
"Ehh... let's just say I own about five percent of Houston Brothers Bank, Peggy," Logan said with a casual shrug, as if he were talking about the weather. He leaned in closer, dropping his voice to a playful whisper. "Don't tell anyone, alright? It's our little secret."
To top it off, he flashed her a wink and much to Peggy's utter confusion gave her a quick finger heart.
Steve stood there with his jaw practically hitting the muddy floor. He looked like someone had just walked off with his most prized possession, his eyes darting between Logan's smug face and Peggy's stunned expression.
Peggy's mind was racing, her thoughts spinning faster than she could track. She was already mentally calculating the logistics of a soldier owning a stake in a major Texan bank.
Beside her, Steve leaned in, his expression a mix of bewilderment and concern. "What exactly do you mean by that, James?" he asked, his voice earnest.
Oh, Steve, Peggy thought, a surge of affection hitting her despite the confusion. He was the love of her life, and even if he was sometimes a bit slow to catch on to Logan's games, she wouldn't change a thing about him. She glanced at Steve's honest face and then back to Logan, who looked far too pleased with himself.
"Steve, where do you think the funding for this war comes from? Where do you think the SSR gets its budget?" Peggy asked, her voice taking on a rare, serious edge. "Your uniform, your rations, your bunk, even your damn underwear, it all comes out of Houston, specifically from Pasadena. There is a real power at work there, Steve. Seventeen families at the helm, pulling the strings of industry..."
Steve started to speak, his eyes wide with a realization that went deeper than just money. "You mean to say "
But she was cut off before she could finish the thought.
"Eighteen, dear... eighteen families in Pasadena," Logan interjected, his voice smooth and deceptively calm.
Peggy froze, her mind instantly cataloging the files she had memorized back at headquarters.
"What do you mean, eighteen?" she asked, her voice sharpening with professional doubt. "All our intelligence, every bit of research the SSR has conducted says that town is controlled by seventeen families. Not one more."
She stared at him, the gears turning. If there was an eighteenth family, they were invisible. They were the ghosts in the machine.
"Then there's me, Peggy," Logan said with a low, raspy chuckle.
Peggy looked like she was suffering from total mental exhaustion; her brain simply couldn't process the magnitude of what he was saying. Beside her, Steve sat in stunned silence, the weight of this new information hitting him like a physical blow.
"If you include me, then there are eighteen families in Pasadena," Logan continued, leaning forward into the light. "The Howlett family was a founding member of the town council, if you know where to look. It was never actually a secret... but people always have a way of overlooking the things that are right in front of them."
Peggy felt as though she had stumbled upon a state secret, one far heavier than any dossier she had ever carried. She was at a complete loss. All this time, James had been right here, moving among them, looking as ordinary as any other man in uniform.
But as she studied him now, she began to see the subtle differences. He wasn't just a man who happened to have wealth or status, he was a man who lived with a different kind of certainty. He wasn't just surviving the war, he was already prepared for the future that followed it. While the world was falling apart, Logan was already standing on the other side, waiting for them to catch up.
"Then what will you do after this war, James?" she asked, her voice soft but filled with genuine curiosity.
She watched him closely, trying to imagine this man, this founding father and shadow-investor, in a world without a front line. Steve looked over as well, leaning in to hear the answer. For them, the "after" was a dream they were fighting for. For Logan, it seemed like just another Tuesday in a very long life.
Logan took a slow, deliberate pull from his cigar, the smoke curling around his rugged face like a shroud. He didn't answer immediately; he looked like a man deciding how much of the truth to let slip.
"I don't know..." Logan said, a rare, thoughtful glint in his eyes. "Maybe I'll start some research on how to extend the lives of my people. Or maybe I'll just do whatever the hell I want. Who knows? That's all a long way off in the future."
In that moment, the weight of Logan's words finally hit them. Steve remembered their first conversation, back when he had thought Logan was just another rough soldier. He finally understood why he'd told me that Howard Stark wasn't the only genius in the room. Logan didn't just have muscles, he had a mind that had been sharpening for a hundred years, planning for a future that no one else could even imagine yet.
He said it so nonchalantly, talking about extending human life as if he were simply describing how to cook a Sunday meal. The casualness of it made Peggy's blood run cold. She began to doubt who "James" really was. Up until now, he had shown her nothing but his carefree, indifferent side, but this was different.
To her, life and death were the most sacred boundaries of the human experience. To Logan, they seemed like mere suggestions. She looked at him, searching for a flicker of seriousness, but all she found was that same effortless shrug. It made her wonder: was he a friend who wanted to help, or was he something far more dangerous, a man who had lived so long he had forgotten what it meant to be human?
"I think that's quite enough information for one day," Peggy said, pressing her palms to her temples. "I need to rest. It's too much to process in such a short amount of time."
She stood up, her movements slightly stiff, as if the weight of Logan's secrets was a physical burden on her shoulders. She truly couldn't take another surprise; she felt as though her head might actually explode if she had to lock away one more "state secret" in her mind.
Logan just watched her with that same knowing smirk, leaning back into the shadows of the tent as if he had all the time in the world, which, as she now knew, he did.
"Yeah, me too," Steve added, his voice heavy with the coming responsibility. "I need to get ready for the raid. You don't want to come with me, James?"
Steve looked at him with an earnestness that was hard to ignore. He truly wanted Logan by his side. It wasn't just about having an extra gun in the fight; it was about the fact that James had more experience in his pinky finger than the rest of the unit had combined. To Steve, Logan wasn't just a man, he was a living tactical advantage.
"If Colonel Phillips asks me to join you... well, who am i to talk him out of it?" Logan said, giving Steve a subtle nod, a hint that he was already on board.
He made it sound like he was just following orders, acting as if he were far too lazy to volunteer on his own. In reality, Logan had every intention of going; he just didn't want to make a big deal out of it. He stood up slowly, stretching his muscles like a predator shaking off sleep, and began checking his gear.
"And guys... don't tell anyone about this," Logan said, his grin widening into something sharp and a little dangerous. "Let's just say I was getting tired of running from pursuers, and a world war seemed like the best place to get lost."
He gave them one last look, the smoke from his cigar masking his expression. He was telling them the truth, but only a piece of it. In the chaos of the front lines, a man who couldn't die was just another soldier, and a name like "Howlett" was just another face in the crowd. For the first time in a long time, he wasn't being hunted, he was the hunter.
"See you in five days," Steve called out, finally disappearing into the night with Peggy.
Finally. Silence. Logan let out a long, weary breath and sank back into his makeshift chair, ready to embrace a few hours of pure, unadulterated laziness. He had his cigar, the smoke thick and comforting, but there was one glaring problem.
He didn't have a beer.
"What I wouldn't give for a cold one," he muttered to the empty tent. He stared at the lukewarm water canteen on the table with genuine disdain. He made a mental note to himself: in the future, he'd invest a lot more effort into the things that actually mattered, like high-efficiency portable refrigeration. Then he paused, a dry smirk touching his lips. Someone had already patented the refrigerator back in the twenties, hadn't they? He just hadn't been smart enough to pack one in his rucksack.
I have so many plans, so many things I want to do... but back home, everyone is starting to feel the weight of the years. I can't help but worry about them while I'm stuck here. It's been months of nothing but letters, paper and ink can't tell me if they're truly alright. It's the one thing all my money and influence can't fix: the fact that their time is running out while mine just keeps on going.
Two of the seventeen family heads have passed away in the last five years.
Their sons have taken the reins, stepping in to continue the business, but it isn't the same. Watching the old guard fall makes a restlessness stir deep inside me.
It makes me want to invent something for them, a way to slow the clock, to make them age slower than a normal man. I have all this time, more than I know what to do with, while they only get a handful of decades. It feels like a cruel joke, and I'm tired of being the only one who knows the punchline.
"That's going to be my priority for the next ten years or so," Logan murmured to himself, the smoke from his cigar drifting into the dark corners of the tent.
He wasn't thinking about medals or military promotions. He was thinking about laboratories, blood samples, and the secret chemistry of his own veins.
If he could unlock the mystery of his own cells, maybe he could give the people he cared about a few more decades, maybe he could ensure the Howlett legacy outlasted the war. It was a massive undertaking, but for a man who measured his life in centuries, ten years was nothing more than a blink of an eye.
I missed it. I actually missed my goddaughter's wedding.
In the photos she sent, she looked radiant in her white dress, a far cry from the tiny, crying bundle I remember holding all those years ago. She met a good man, too. She wrote in her letter that he reminds her of me, which brought a ghost of a smile to my face.
It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that the "little baby" I used to know is now a woman starting her own family. Time is a funny thing, for me, it's a slow crawl, but for her, it's a sprint. I'm stuck here in the mud of Europe while her life is moving at light speed back in the States.
I've missed so much. Birthdays, holidays, milestones, all swallowed by the distance. But they know why I'm here. I'm fighting this war for them, standing in the gap so they can have a world worth living in.
People think because I don't die, it's easy. It's not. It still hurts like hell to get shot, to feel the heat of a blast, or to have the world explode right in front of your face. My body mends, but the memory of the pain lingers. I'm bone-weary.
I'm ready to leave all this war crap behind and actually live.
It won't be long now. In a month or so, this war is going to end. I'm going home, and once I get there, I'm never leaving again. I'm going to savor every single second I missed.
I'm going to sit on my porch, feel the sun, and remind myself what it's like to be something other than a weapon.
"For now, I'm heading back to the front lines to tear through Hydra," Logan said, his voice dropping into a growl of determination. "But once the dust settles, I'm going to help Peggy with that little project of hers, the one she and Howard are planning. Speaking of Howard... I'm going to need that brilliant, ego-driven brain of his for a few things I have in mind."
He leaned over the map, his eyes tracing the outlines of his home. "I want to bring hydrogen power and solar-harvested electricity to Pasadena. I'm going to turn that town into a modern marvel, a city that's fifty years ahead of its time. If the world wants to move into the future, I'm going to be the one to build the road."
"Actually... maybe I should just let things flow as they will," Logan said, his voice dropping to a cautious low. "The Arc Reactor is for my private use. I want my town on its own independent grid. I don't need the government poking their noses into my power usage once my experiments really get moving."
He looked out toward the horizon, where the smoke of the war met the clouds. He knew the cost of being too visible. If he handed this to the world too soon, they'd turn his clean energy into a cleaner way to kill each other. "We'll wait and see then," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Patience is the one thing I have plenty of."
to be continued-
this is the last of thing i wrote, i mass release till this chapter, and in the future i would update the story every 3 to 4 days or so.
Glossary
Next chapter will be posted on 27/1 next week, thanks for reading.....