Title: The Tags That Bind

Rating: NC-17/M

Genre: A bit of everything, but mainly romance

Pairing: Logan/Rogue

Disclaimer: I don't own X Men or any of its super awesome characters.

Summary: His tags were meant to remind her of his feelings for her and to make her feel secure even if he wasn't there...he never meant for them to put her in danger. Takes place during X Men 2: United.

A/N: This is just a prologue, and it picks up in the middle of the raid on the mansion that occurred during X Men 2: United.

To anyone else, it would have looked as if he was just trying to kill as many bad guys as possible, but in reality, he had been looking for her. If any bad guys had been on the way to her room, they died. He promised her three years ago that he would take care of her. During those few years, he developed a tender spot for her, which soon grew into an attraction that he refused to acknowledge.

When she told him she was with Bobby, part of him was relieved to see that she found someone her own age, but the other part was heart broken that she seemed to have gotten over her crush on him.

He saved her and the boys from a near attack before leading them to a secret passageway and closing the door behind them.

Now that he was sure she was safe, he could concentrate on the fight, so he rushed back into the house and went about his business, killing bad guys left and right. As Marie, Bobby and Pyro rushed through the dark tunnel, she stopped and looked back, "Bobby! We can't leave Logan by himself!"

Bobby almost touched her arm, but remembered her skin and motioned for her to come with him, "Rogue...he's more than capable of defending himself."

She rushed back toward the passageway, "No...I'm going back to get him."

Logan had his encounter with Stryker, who narrowly escaped after "the animal" disposed of the soldiers who seemed to serve as his personal bodyguards. Logan rushed out of the mansion through another passageway to make sure the children had escaped into the woods. He didn't want to chance that Stryker's troops might be crawling around the outer perimeter of the property.

At that same moment, Marie reentered the mansion through a tunnel. She was immediately accosted by a soldier, who grabbed her and held her arms behind her back. She wished the soldier hadn't been wearing gloves and long sleeves...she could've taken him out in the blink of an eye. She struggled as she was dragged into the foyer where Stryker stood. He slowly strolled up to her with a smirk on her face, "Didn't know mutants could be as pretty as you, my dear..." She glared and jerked away as he ran a hand down her chest, "What's this here?"

He fished the dog tags out of her cleavage and laughed, "Well well...what's a pretty little thing like you doing wearing the Wolverine's tags?" Marie didn't even look at him. She just stared at him as she continued to struggle against her captor. Stryker smiled sinisterly after waiting for a few moments for an answer, "Well, you must be really special to him. Wonder what he'd do to get you back..."

Logan regrouped with Bobby and Pyro in the garage. He panicked internally, "Where's Rogue?"

Bobby stuttered, "W-w-we thought she was with you...she went back in to get you."

Logan grabbed the collar of the boy's shirt and yanked him to his face, "You let her go back in there alone?"

They looked up as they heard choppers leaving the school. A look of sheer panic and despair washed over Logan's face as he loosened his grip on Bobby.

Stryker had her.