Logan woke with a start, sweat rolling off him in sheets. Max moaned softly beside him, but didn't wake up. What the hell? It felt like they'd gotten to bed just minutes ago. Perhaps they had. Logan sat up, tossing the covers off and swinging his feet to the floor. Something chittered at the edge of his conscious thoughts - closer now than usual. It set his teeth on edge. He knew he wouldn't be getting back to sleep anytime soon. Usually when he slept next to Max he was able to make it through a somewhat uneventful night of sleep. What was different this time? His captivity this time around seemed pretty run of the mill, from what he could remember. Well - except for them blowing his chest cavity open this time; and he'd only felt the edges of pain due to the drugs they'd pumped him full of. He could only imagine how astronomical the facility medical bill for narcotic supplies had been. It took an impressive amount to keep him doped effectively for any length of time. Logan ran a hand over his face and slowly stood up. He needed to find something to do to bleed the agitation off. Something was irritating the shit out of him, and it was compounded by the fact that he had a vague idea of what it actually was. He pulled on a pair of jeans and a white tanktop and quietly headed downstairs. As he walked through the sitting room, he spotted a figure sitting in a corner chair in the low light. It was looking outside. Logan scented the air, recognizing Scott before he saw the outline of the kid's odd glasses. "Figured you'd be long asleep by now." Logan murmured, walking over to him. Scott looked over and replied, "I seem to be having problems sleeping lately." "That why you were up when we got in?" Logan asked, leaning back against the arm of the couch. "Yeah." Scott's reply was quiet, almost a whisper. The boy was brooding about something - something heavy. "You still in the complex?" Logan tapped the side of his own head gently, wondering how much action the kid had seen before that. Scott's expression was pinched as he smiled tightly. "I can't seem to leave it. I can't stop seeing what they did to you." Logan slid his hands in his pockets, his tone soft. "You ever seen anythin' that rough before?" Scott let out a halfhearted laugh. "I've seen a lot of nasty shit in my time, Logan - but that.." Now that surprised him. Logan found himself re-evaluating his opinion of Scott somewhat - hearing the truth behind his words. It made him wonder what the boy had gone through. "How do you do it?" Scott asked, bewildered. Logan thought about it for a moment, then rumbled, "How'd you get through - when the shit got thick for you?" It was difficult to read the boy's expression without being able to see his eyes, but Logan could feel his scent shift, becoming bitter and acrid. "I just did. No other way through it." Scott's words were clipped, as if the memory - whatever it was, was still strong enough to bite. Logan nodded and replied, "Same here." Scott took a breath, then seemed to shut himself back down into that distant calculating persona that he always wore. "Fair enough." What the hell did the kid want? Some long sob story bonding session? He wasn't gonna get it. Logan leaned forward and growled, "It ain't magic, kid. You deal as best you can. That's it." "I'd say your case is quite a bit more extreme than most." Scott snapped. Logan could tell that the boy was getting irritated, but didn't want to let it go. "We all got our shit sandwiches to eat, Scott. After awhile, you either start trainin' yourself to start likin' shit or you buckle and break. 's the way it is." Scott stiffened and replied, "Great outlook. You should write a book." Logan laughed and crossed his arms, knowing how to help the kid now. "You just need an ass kickin'. It'll set your head straight. "And you think you're the man to do it?" Scott replied, his tone cold. Logan grinned and growled, "I think you need yer bell rung clean and hard to clear your head out. It's a good distraction." "Jean's right. You're psychotic." Scott stood up and started walking away. Logan chuckled and murmured, "Yeah. She'd know." Scott spun to face him and spat, "What would you know? You haven't been around any of us long enough to know a goddamned thing." The boy started advancing on him, getting angrier by the minute. "You just decide to take off, leaving Max here - not even having the courtesy to tell her when you're coming back. Then - THEN you get yourself into a clusterfuck that you couldn't even get yourself out of. I may be a kid, mister, but at least I take a little fucking responsibility." Logan raised an eyebrow and slid his hands back into his pockets. "Feel better now, Scooter?" Scott stood before him, nearly quaking with rage. Oh yeah. The nickname was an easy poke. Logan murmured, "All that anger? That fury? It's only gonna get worse unless you purge it. Boy." Yeah, it was a cheap goading tactic, but the kid was gonna pop on somebody if he didn't try to bleed off some of the crap he was putting himself through. Besides, Logan was finding that he enjoyed baiting him. Scott set his jaw and grated, "You want to end up in the infirmary again, fine with me." He strode over to the elevator, jamming his thumb on the down button. "What, outside ain't good enough?" Logan jeered. The kid was too easy. "I can level a city block with little to no effort, and the beams would be too easily seen at night. If we're going to do this, we'll do it in a space equipped to handle it." The elevator doors slid open and Scott walked inside. "You coming?" he snapped, holding the doors open. -- The two of them lay sprawled out on the asphalt of an apocalyptic looking street. The buildings around them had been totally decimated, as well as the automobiles and traffic lights. Rubble littered the streets and large gouges had been ripped out of the pavement in multiple locations. Both were breathing heavy. Christ, the kid was surprisingly good. At some point, they'd foregone the hand to hand and had started going almost all out on one another. It felt good to jump into combat against somebody that could hold their own against him, although Scott seemed the least likely candidate to do so. The combination of hand to hand coupled with the trick shots he was able to pull off through that damned visor were devastating - not to mention that the beams packed a hell of a punch. Logan had to hand it to him - the boy could be a tightass priss, but he could definitely bring it. It made him respect Scott a little more. "Had enough?" Scott's voice was haggard, and Logan could tell that he'd completely run the kid dry. The boy would definitely feel it in the morning. The kid was covered in bruises and small cuts. Logan had tried to keep the physical damage to a minimum on him, not wanting to cause any injuries that'd take too long to heal. He'd taken what the kid had dished out, knowing that it'd be just be a momentary recovery for him. It wasn't an equal playing field, but Logan had ended up with his own collection of cuts, gashes and bruises that were quickly healing as he looked over at the front end of a car that had been crushed flat. Logan slowly sat up, placing his arms on his knees. "Nah. I could still keep going. I just need a few minutes to recuperate, is all." "Jesus." Scott muttered. "You're a goddamned machine." Logan laughed and stood up, offering Scott a hand. "Yeah. I'm the Energizer fucking bunny." The boy took it and Logan hauled him up, looking up at Scott as the boy stood at his full height. The kid was at least six feet tall. Scott paused for a moment, then said, "You may be small, but you're a mean little bastard." Logan felt his lips pull back in the ghost of a smile. "And that headgear makes you look like an idiot." "Fuck you." Scott snapped, turning to walk away, still breathing hard. "You fight pretty damned good, Summers." Logan murmured. Scott stopped and looked back at him, stunned. "Don't let it go to your head." Logan turned away from him, walking over to a little keypad embedded in the wall. "Thanks Logan." Scott said it quietly enough that he probably thought that it hadn't been heard as he slipped out of the room. Logan smiled and began working on figuring out how to program his own scenario. -- Max rolled over, frowning as she patted Logan's side of the bed. The sheets were cold. She sat up and looked over at the bathroom, finding the door open and the light off. Where'd he gone? Had he had another nightmare and gotten restless? She got dressed and
headed downstairs, following the faint trail of his scent. He'd been up
for awhile, apparently. She followed it down to the basement; to the Danger
Room. As her bare feet padded along the hallway, she could hear the faint
sounds of someone putting themselves through their paces just inside.
Max crept up to the door, peeking through the shatterproof porthole. Max watched him move, his body moving with a feline, fluid grace as he reacted and leapt away from a small pair of sharp, grappling pincers. How long had he been down here? How on earth had he figured out how to work it? Max knew better than to open the door in the middle of a session. She figured she'd ask him when he'd finished. She made her way back upstairs, padding into the kitchen in search of ice cream. Now that she was already up, the craving for rocky road was starting to poke at her. Warren, the rich playboy angel - as everybody'd started calling him, lifted his head as she walked in. He'd been sitting at the table, head bowed and held in his hands. Apparently he was having trouble sleeping as well. Max had heard some of the new female students going on about how 'dreamy' he was, and she had to admit that he definitely had something. He certainly had his parts built up in all the right places. Not her type though. Too 'pretty' and soft looking. She raised an eyebrow, asking, "Everything ok?" Warren responded with a halfhearted smile and a nod. "Yeah. Just couldn't sleep." Max grinned and walked over to the refrigerator. "Ice cream helps." she murmured, looking over her shoulder as she opened the freezer. He really was a nice guy - he just looked so lost lately. Max wondered what had happened to make him so glum. He didn't seem to want to talk about it, though. "Want a bowl?" she asked, pulling out the container of rocky road. He smiled and sat up, chuckling softly as he replied, "What is it with you and ice cream?" Max shrugged and pulled a bowl out of one of the cabinets, spooning a rather large amount of ice cream into it. People tended to get irritated if she ate it directly out of the container, as she'd done on several occasions. "I just like it. It's delicious. Isn't that enough?" Warren grinned and his wings trembled at his back momentarily. He smelled like he was starting to relax a little. "Where's Mr. Charming?" he asked, giving his back muscles a brief stretch. Max laughed and said, "Downstairs running through a Danger Room session." She brought the bowl over to the table, sitting across from him and shoveling huge spoonfuls into her mouth. "How on earth can you eat so much of that and still stay slim?" Warren eyed her with mock distaste. Max grinned around the spoon and swallowed. "High metabolism." Warren shook his head and murmured, "Won't last forever.." Max looked up at him and said, "You'd be surprised." -- The faces and images that flickered just at the edge of his awareness drove him harder, faster. Logan was actually sweating now as he leapt down to the floor and found the hidden keypad on the side wall. He turned the program off, and looked back at the room as it slowly bled back to plain metal plates. Not bad for technogeekery, he mused silently as he walked back to the middle of the room, centering himself and taking in a deep breath. Pushing himself to the limits of his endurance didn't seem to be helping, and something else occurred to him. Violence wasn't the purgative he apparently needed for this. Maybe a subtle, softer flowing movement would help. -- Max padded back down to the basement to check on Logan and let out a soft gasp of wonder as she watched him go through what looked like a complicated series of unnaturally graceful and slow martial arts moves. For such a thick, musclebound man, the moves looked almost out of place. Logan looked like he regularly lifted cars and threw them for a living, and to watch him move like this was literally mesmerising. She watched the individual muscles on his arms and back slide slowly against one another as he moved, his skin slick with exertion. He slowly turned - the movement flowing almost as if he were underwater - facing her and opening his eyes. Max blinked and stepped away from the door, frowning. She heard him walk over to the door, and as it opened she peeked around at him from behind it. "Wanna join me?" he asked, his tone soft and smooth. Max nodded, taking a step towards him. "Sure." She walked into the Danger Room and eyed him, asking, "How'd you know I was there?" Logan gave her a sly smile and replied, "It's a secret." Max rolled her eyes as she turned to face him. "Those moves..what do you call them?" Logan closed the door behind her and replied, "T'ai Chi Ch'üan." "How long have you been doing them?" He gently took her hand and positioned her beside him, moving into a stance that she mimicked. "I'm out of practice - but I think it's been a long time." he explained, beginning to move again as he watched her follow him. Max slowly moved along with him, trying to track his movements and copy them, but she didn't flow anywhere near as smoothly as he did. Logan smiled over at her, seeing the look of intense concentration on her face and said, "Stop tryin' so hard. Just let it happen. Go with it." "When did you get all Zen master?" Max asked, grumbling. Logan growled, "It's a quiet art. So shut up and follow me." -- Max found that her muscles actually ached a little by the time Logan decided to stop. "Harder than it looks." Logan murmured, looking over at her. "You ain't kiddin'." Max replied, gently squeezing the biceps on her left arm. "Does it help?" He nodded and quietly said, "Yeah. A little." "Good. Bed now?" she asked, hopefully. He smiled and said, "I should be able to sleep okay now." Max took his hand and grinned, pulling him along. "C'mon big nasty. I'll tuck you in." Logan chuckled and padded behind her, asking, "What, no bedtime story?" She laughed and said, "Anything you want, baby. Anything you want." -- "Your psyche is a very fractured jumble, Logan. Picking particular thoughts out of the maelstrom is difficult at best. There's no possible way that I can link times or names to the events that you've experienced, but there does seem to be a pattern to some of it." Logan eyed the Professor as the man continued, "You appear to have been part of a rather unusual experiment. As to what this particular experiment was supposed to address, I cannot say for sure. What I can tell you is that you have a rather impressive collection of mental snippets of soldiers, men in very officious looking lab coats and what appear to be one or two business men." Max felt logan tense beside her and she gently rested a hand on his leg. "Any of it explain 'Wolverine'?" Logan grunted, his jaw tightening. "The two things that seem most prominent are surface concepts of Weapon X and Wolverine. I have noticed that the soldiers seem to utilize the latter, whereas the men in white coats use the former in reference to you." Max murmured, "An insulting nickname, perhaps?" Professor X raise an eyebrow, his tone mild. "Hardly. Although the Wolverine may be small in size, it is capable of killing animals as large as reindeer or moose. Perhaps they meant it to be ironic." "Military boys ain't exactly known for their brains, Chuck." Logan muttered. "May I see the tag again?" Xavier extended his hand and Max dropped the metal tag and chain into his palm. He turned it over, peering at the name. He fingered the tag absently as he said, "The appeareance and feel of the facility seems to vary, but the majority of the images seem to involve some sort of tank full of fluid." Logan felt his body jerk again in response to the professor's words. He was suddenly surrounded by fluid, and the images around him were distorted, like a circus funhouse mirror. The weight of the water, or whatever the hell it was, was immediately oppressive and he struggled for breath, believing that he was drowning. Muffled, excited voices echoed through the liquid, but he couldn't make out what was being said. A sharp jolt rang through his nervous system and he screamed, feeling his mouth fill up with water. Logan bolted out of the chair, breathing heavily. Max was instantly at his side as Xavier murmured, "Another flashback?" "Yeah." The words came out in a croak as Logan rubbed at his temple. Max looked over at the Professor and said, "How long has he been having these episodes?" Logan tried to control his breathing as Xavier replied, "It's difficult to say. I've been witness to about three of them since the two of you initially arrived. Are his dreams improving? Does he still have the nightmares?" "Not when she's with me." Logan coughed, relaxing as his breath slowly normalized. Max peered over at him and asked, "Why is that?" Logan shook his head, his tone soft. "Damned if I know." "How bad have these nightmares become in the past, Logan?" The Professor leaned forward, placing the tag on the desk before him. "Bad enough that I stopped being around people while I was sleepin'. Otherwise, lots of property damage and blood followed." Logan locked eyes with Xavier, wanting to challenge his reasoning for letting him stay. To him, it seemed sheer folly. He was obviously dangerous, even with Max here. "Then it would seem that a new rule needs to be established to keep this from happening." Xavier turned to face Max, his tone formal as he said, "You'll need to stay with him when he sleeps." Max nodded and replied, "Yeah. I kinda figured." Logan frowned and she quickly added, "Not that it's an odious task, or anything." He let out a weak laugh, then addressed the Professor. "The Wolverine..Did you get the feeling that those military boys were scared of it?" Xavier nodded, his expression grim. "Oh very much, I think. In order to disarm a fear, you have to destroy it. Humiliate it. Rend the bogeyman asunder, so to speak. It explains their actions towards you the last time they had you in captivity, but by no means excuses them." "Good." Logan growled, collecting the tag from the desk and hanging it around his neck. "They want me to be the Wolverine? They fuckin' well got it. I'm done playing tag with these pricks." "I believe that most of the men responsible perished in the facility explosion." Xavier explained. Logan's answering smile was not pleasant. "Maybe I'll get lucky." Professor Xavier leaned forward and said, "Logan, I can understand your desire for retribution, but at the moment it is completely non-directed. I don't have anything substantive to give you. Allow me to make a few calls, to see what else I can find before you act." Logan thought about it for a moment, then his eyes narrowed. "You seem like a straight shooter, Chuck. One that don't much like the idea of people gettin' killed. Why are you willing to help me with this?" Xavier leaned back in his chair, his tone soft as he replied, "Because if this is what I think it is, men like this won't stop with you. They'll find other test subjects." His expression darkened as he continued, "Other mutants will endure what they've put you through." Logan grunted, "Can't shake hands with the Devil and expect to come away clean, Charlie." "I'm well aware of that." Xavier replied, his expression closing down. "Wolverine." Max watched the interaction between the two men, frowning. Something was changing here. "I'll get back to you once I have something." Xavier murmured, pulling a stack of papers over. He began to leaf through them and Max realized that they'd been 'dismissed'. Logan turned and began walking towards the door, and Max moved to follow, giving a last glace back over at Xavier. The man looked up at her briefly, his mouth in a tight line. "You comin'?" Logan asked her. Max slipped out the door with him. Go back to Chapter 14 - Go to chapter 16 To reiterate: MARVEL owns the rights to most of the elements in this story. Max, and her subsequent backstory, is my own creation, but everything else is either sub-canon, or warped canon yanked from the X-Men storyline. |