He loved her; she frustrated the hell out of him. He wanted to kiss her; he wanted to throttle her. It was an unsteady mix of emotions in an unstable situation, but above it all was the fact that he would do anything to protect her, even if that meant she ended up pissed at him. Or worse. As long as she was safe, he could live if she never talked to him again.

"Yes," he replied, steel in his voice. No, something harder than steel. Adamantium, maybe. Because there were times she'd managed to talk him or bully him into something, but he wouldn't budge when it came to her safety. "You can. I'll be right behind you, I promise."

He felt a tinge of guilt at that. He'd made a promise once that he wouldn't keep things from her again, that things would be different. And now he was lying to her. He wasn't going to follow her. Not right away. Maybe not at all, but he preferred not to be pessimistic. Just realistic. And realism said that he had a chance of surviving this depending on whether he could figure out a way to take the machine down and whether there were more out there like this one.