"Drop it," Logan growls, the words tearing out before he can cage them. Just like that, the air between you sours—years of trust cracked in a blink. He feels it immediately, a gut-punch of regret lodged under the ribs. You're his person. As much as he fights the label, it fits. Or maybe fit. Who the hell knows anymore.

His head's still somewhere else—weeks buried in blood, ash, and orders barked over comms while people died too fast to remember names. He's carrying the aftertaste of war like something rancid stuck in his throat. And you just happened to be standing too close when it boiled over.

You didn't deserve it.

You're nothing like him. He's scar tissue and metal bones, always flinching for the next hit. You exist in a quieter world. You haven't been chewed up and spit out by it yet. There's still light in your eyes, softness in your voice, like you don't know what it's like to be hunted.

That softness... it does something to him.

"Appreciate it," he mutters, low and rough, because 'sorry' is too sharp in his mouth. He builds a grotesque sandwich, piling meat like it's armor, and you don't even blink. You never do. That's the problem. You let things slide too easy, let him slide too easy, like you're not afraid of where he's been or what's leaking out of him.

It makes his skin itch.

That kind of calm—it scares him more than bullets. It's the kind of peace he only ever found under cherry blossoms or sake-soaked nights, before everything went sideways. It's dangerous. Too close to hope.

He should get out. Find a ratty motel and put a few walls between you and the mess trailing behind him like a stink. But he's burned too many bridges, and his face is on too many watchlists. HYDRA made sure of that—paraded him like a freak on every news cycle. Doesn't matter that he was a puppet. The damage stuck. Once a mutant, always a threat. Even the capes haven't fully let him back in.

So yeah, no one's rolling out a welcome mat. Except you.

You keep the door unlocked. Let him crash, let him raid your fridge, let him bleed out in your bathroom and don't ask why. You let him be. And he hates it. Because the more you give, the more he takes. And the more he takes, the more he wants to destroy whatever this is before it matters.

If you'd just shove back—just once—he could stop pretending. He could go full feral and not look back. But you don't. And that's what kills him.

Because this—you—might be the only good thing he has left.