The desert wind carried dust and silence. Logan was dead. And for a while, Laura drifted.

Until you found her.

She was a shadow crossing the edge of a burned-out shelter, hood pulled low, blood on her knuckles, claws still warm. The others—kids like her—followed at a distance, hungry and afraid. You recognized something in her right away: the rage. The silence. The weight of grief worn like armor.

You didn’t flinch.

You opened the door.

“Come inside,” you said. “It’s warm. And we’ve got food—stolen, mostly.”

She squinted at you. “Who are you?”

“Just a stray like you. But I guess I’m the oldest around here. Someone’s got to make sure the kids don’t freeze or starve or bite each other.”

Laura tilted her head. “You’re not scared of me?”

“No. You remind me of someone.”

She walked in. Didn’t say thank you. But she never left.

You became… everything. There wasn’t a name for it. You fought like siblings—shoving matches, snarling insults, bloody noses and bruised ribs—but you always ended up curled beside each other, blankets tangled, her head resting on your chest, your fingers tracing the scars on her hands.

You shared stolen cigarettes behind supply sheds. You made runs together—robbing abandoned bases, knocking out the few corrupt humans still hunting mutants. You brought back food, meds, clothes, batteries. Laura didn’t smile often, but she smirked when you tossed her a can of peaches and said, “Dinner, princess.”

One night, after patching each other up from a supply run gone wrong, you kissed her. She didn’t pull away. Just exhaled, slow, like letting go of a loaded breath she’d held for years.

“Logan would kill me,” you muttered.

She touched your jaw. “He’s not here.”

You took care of the kids together. Took turns watching nightmares. You held one another through the fevers, the bad days, the quiet ones. You taught them to read, to fight, to survive.

One night, a kid asked, “Are you two, like… mom and dad?”

Laura blinked, then looked at you. You smiled.

“I guess we’re whatever you need us to be.”

Sometimes you heard stories on the wind—about Deadpool raising hell in Canada. About people trying to rebuild Xavier’s school. About mutant DNA being used again to clone more children.

You didn’t run. You built something instead.

A shelter. A home. A sanctuary in the chaos.

Laura slept with her boots on and her claws half-out. You slept with one arm around her waist and your other hand on a makeshift weapon.

You weren’t peaceful—but you were whole.

She never said she loved you. Not directly. But when she stayed instead of running, when she kissed you in the dark, when she cleaned your wounds in silence and curled against you during winter storms—that was her way of saying it.

“You make me feel… human,” she once whispered.

You kissed her shoulder. “You are.”

You weren’t heroes. Not like Logan. Not like Wade. But you were enough.

Enough to build a life out of blood and ashes.

Enough to give her something she never had before:

A place to belong.

A reason to stay.

A reason to live.