He couldn’t shake off the uneasiness and tension that had invaded him at the second he had stepped in to the building. A hospital. No matter what they called it now, it wasn’t a hospital. It was a hangar. A workshop. The source of pain.
“Just some small modifications, nothing too invasive,” the mechanic… No. The doctor waiting at him explained. He snorted, trying to hide his nervousness.
“Small modifications? That’ll be the day…” He muttered.
“Could you take off your shirt?”
“I think I could. Not so sure if I want to,” Logan grunted, his eyes narrowing when a lab technician wheeled in a small table covered with syringes and small gleaming steel devices. Scalpels. Wound retractors.
“I can assure you, that we’ll be taking every precaution to make this as fast and painless as possible,” the doctor said. Logan grimaced.
“Have to be fast. Won’t be painless. Anesthetics won’t do jack shit for me. Just strap me down and dig in. Sooner we get this over, the better for both of us,” he grunted.
“We do not ‘strap’ our patients down, as you put it,” doctor said. Logan huffed and shook his head. Unsheathed his claws.
“Let me make this very clear. My mutation eats that shit you have in those syringes like its fucking candy or something. Area you’re going to cut open is quite sensitive. I’ll fucking tear you apart, I’ll fucking tear everything and everybody within my reach apart if you don’t fucking bolt me down to that fucking operating table!”
“I’d do that if I were you.” Words made both men swivel around. Marie stood at the doorstep, looking not too happy.
“I’m sorry about this…” Regardless of his mutation and his request to be tied down during the procedure doctor Jeffries had attached an IV line to his jugular, just above his collarbone. It was slowly but steadily dripping numbing agents in to him, and they made him dizzy. He could only lay down, boneless and unable to move, when technicians attached his hands and feet to hastily constructed manacles on the operating table.
“Marie? I really am… I’m… Fuck.. Come closer, honey…” Double vision made it hard to see. She appeared to have a bright red aura around her, and all the details were blurred. He tried to squint his eyes to see more clearly. Marie. She really was there. She placed her hand on his chest.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered. He shook his head to clear off the cobwebs.
“Don’t like it either… But it’s just this one trip… After that retirement…” He chuckled weakly, nearly choking to his own saliva.
“Retirement… Sitting on a rocking chair on the front porch…”
“Like you could do that. Just admit it. You have wanted this all along. You can’t stand the idea of staying back when everybody else goes in to battle,” Marie spoke with a low, hushed tone, combing her fingers through his spiky hair. There was no accusation in her voice. She was just stating a fact they both had known already, but had been too afraid to admit.
“I’m still sorry… Kid? I love you…” Technician shoving the ventilator tube down to Logan’s throat made further conversation impossible. He could only watch with watering eyes when Marie was steered out from the room. Doctor Jeffries leaned over him, eyes twinkling gently behind his round glasses.
“We’ll be starting the procedure. Let us know if there’s any discomfort, and we’ll see if we can do anything about it.”
She wanted to scream for the injustice of it all. They had been promised a nice and cozy life at the base. And once again Army had screwed them. Logan had been assigned to a unit that would be leaving to the front line as soon as the group of recruits he was now training was ready. He’d be leading them in to battle. And as if that hadn’t been betrayal big enough, his superiors had decided that he needed to be ‘upgraded’. As if he were a machine they could tinker and tamper with all they liked.
She was too wound up to go home, but the unnerving silence behind the closed doors of the operating room made her nervous. Anxious to leave. She wanted to go in there, take Logan and leave the Army behind. But that wasn’t what Logan wanted. Just this one mission? She snorted bitterly. Just this one mission. Then the one after it was over. And then one more once it was over. Logan could pretend farmer or nice family man all he liked, but the reality had an ugly tendency to step in every now and then. This was what he was. A soldier. A perfect machine made for war and destruction. The sooner they both accepted it, the better.
She forced herself to stop pacing and sat waiting to a comfortable looking couch in the lounge.
“Get out. Every fucking one of you pricks, get out…” He was sweating bullets and spoke with hushed, raspy voice. When scalpel had parted his flesh for the first time he had bit through the ventilator tube and nearly choked to bits and pieces of it before he had managed to hack them out. Doctor Jeffries had wanted to end the operation then and there. Logan had told him the truth. There was no fucking way in hell Jeffries was going to get him under his knife ever again, so the good doctor had better do what he was going to do now.
It had taken two hours to install the necessary instruments inside of his arms. Normally procedure would have taken half of it, but Jeffries and his team had had hard time coping with his older modifications. Now that everything was over, he needed them to clear the room as fast as possible.
“Didn’t you hear me, doc? Get the fuck out…” He hissed when Jeffries started opening the manacles binding his feet, calm and determinant look on his face.
“I heard you. I’ll be leaving as soon as this is finished,” doctor said, releasing his ankles.
“Leave my wrists… It’s better if I take them off by myself…” Logan rasped when Jeffries moved to his side. Doctor shook his head.
“Impossible. I have already gone against everything I believe. I have to do something… Something to make it better.” Jeffries was a pale, red blotch of irritation burning over his cheekbones the only color on his face. First one manacle fell off, then the other. Last to go was the needle of the IV. That one Logan pulled off by himself, sitting up slowly, cradling his throbbing arms on his lap. Claws weren’t just itching. They were practically screaming for an outlet. Something, anything, anybody to sink them in to. Pour all the pain to somewhere.
Instead of backing off Jeffries stepped closer and tilted Logan’s head slightly backwards, peering in to his eyes.
“Why the hell did you come back? Why the hell you had to end up in here?” He couldn’t smell even the slightest hint of fear in Jeffries. Just utter tiredness and disgust towards doctor’s own actions.
“Have been wondering that… Don’t really know… Get off from my face, Jeffries…” Wolverine was waking up, pushing forward. Spewing poison, cursing him, cursing the doctor in front of him, cursing everybody and everything, bitter and enraged that he had been once again tampered.
Claws slid out from their sheaths, as well as the new installments, small round metal cylinders pushing through his actual knuckles and locking his hands to tight fists. Tips of the cylinders were already glowing angry red, blood on them charring and smoking. Miniature ray guns, designed to give him a chance to take out opponents that were too far for his claws to reach.
Jeffries took his left hand calmly, cradling it between his palms. Logan was practically trembling, trying to hold back the beast that tried to tear through. Jeffries raised the hand he was holding and brought the claws against his cheek, pressing lightly. Logan could only watch when blades parted doctor’s skin. Sight and scent of it seemed to please Wolverine, the Destroyer in him. It stopped fighting, slinked back, bloodlust satisfied.
He was able to sheathe his weapons. Jeffries let go of his hand almost reluctantly.
“I’ll be finishing now. You were my last patient,” doctor said, turning and leaving.
He waited until he couldn’t hear doctor’s footsteps anymore before he stepped down from the table. World tilted alarmingly, and he had to brace himself against the table. He waited for a moment, breathing deeply. Drugs were slowly clearing out from his system.
He unsheathed again, wincing when the barrels of the lasers tore through cartilage. Tips of them were hot enough to cauterize the wounds they made. They would cool down as soon as they slid back in his hands. He’d spent the coming week in training, learning to use them properly. Learning to use his claws again properly. Lasers were relatively light, but they threw him off balance anyway. He’d have to get accustomed to them before he could go out to the field.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000