Title: Missing 8/? Author: sharonmjl47
Rating: R language.
Category: Movieverse.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, and no one. Sad, isn’t it!
Feedback: Please, bad or good. If no one tells me it’s bad, I won’t know!
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Christmas at the mansion was amazing, but the thoughts of their mother always clouded the fun slightly for Louise and Liam. As far as Louise was concerned the time went by painfully slow.
Hank had her in the med lab every other day, running tests and constantly monitoring her health. Her shaking continued most nights, but Hank had started giving her sleeping tablets to try and stop them. At the moment it was working and she had had about three nights so far without a fit. Hank said that as far as he could make out it was some part of her mutation that for some reason couldn’t manifest. He was stumped - he hadn’t admitted it to her yet, but he was no closer to telling her why it happened.
She had agreed with Xavier, despite her father’s protests, that she would help Hank to rehabilitate Victor. They started off slowly, giving him children’s phonics and picture books and by the end of the second month he was communicating well, with nods, grunts and growls, but he wasn’t speaking yet. He still spent most of his time in the lower levels with Hank, but she took him for walks around the grounds a couple of days a week. Hank was pleased with the way he took notice of his surroundings and other people, but thanks to Louise’s calming mutation he didn’t act on his impulse to run and hide, or attack anyone that approached. Not that Logan liked any of it, complaining constantly and making sure he kept a close eye on Creed from afar. She had also agreed to let Logan and Scott train her for the team - Liam had already been accepted and she now knew that she wanted to be a part of it as well.
Somewhere in the middle of all of that and her normal mansion chores, she saw her mother for an hour every day and managed to study for her teaching finals. She, Liam and Logan were stressed, but everyone was coping.
The past four months however had worked at least in Hank’s favour: He had made progress with the Clemency counter virus. He was ready to try it. As it was now March, winter finally creeping away. Most of the students were lazing around in their rooms, shooting pool or playing foosball in the rec room or out with their friends.
Jubilee was late up as usual on a Sunday and was making herself a large pot of coffee to wake up. Hank came in from the garage and went through the kitchen. “Hey Hank.”
“Good morning.” He continued through the kitchen and Jubilee looked him over - he had obviously just been out.
“Hey, what’s that? Oh my God! It’s so cute!” Jubilee crouched down to the cage that Hank had been carrying and poked her finger in trying to stroke the large chocolate--coloured rabbit inside. “What’s his name?”
Hank chuckled nervously. “Ur, it doesn’t have one. Right - must be off.”
“Hank, slow down!” She held onto the cage so he couldn’t go anywhere, then took it from him and placed it on the kitchen table. “I think Brownie, you know as in chocolate brown… hey! Why do you have a bunny?”
He adjusted his glasses. “Jubilation, my dear, dear friend, I have many… many important things that I need to be getting along with. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll take… the rabbit and be off.”
Jubilee stepped in front of the cage. “Hank, no offence, but you don’t strike me as the kinda guy who just one day wakes up and decides to buy a pet rabbit. So, the furry dude stays until you can tell me why you *have* said furry dude!” Hank sighed.
Walking back into the mansion from their run together, Liam and Logan were both sweating. Logan stopped by the stairs as Louise came trotting down with Scott.
“Hey, good run?”
Scott nudged her. “Yeah, you can tell, they’re all high on testosterone.”
She giggled. Logan growled. “A least I *got* testosterone One-Eye!”
“Hey, I’ve got testosterone!”
“Yeah, in your big toe!” Liam and Louise laughed at them and Louise was about to say something when they all turned to hear shouting coming from the kitchen. “What the hell’s going on in there?”
All four of them crowded into the kitchen to find Jubilee guarding a cage and yelling at Hank. “There is no way in hell that I’m going to let you commit bunny-cide!”
“Bun… bunny-cide! This is preposterous! *It* is a rabbit and *it* is crucially important to my work. Now step aside.”
Scott stood in between them and raised his hands. “Guys... guys, what is going on?”
Jubilee pointed at Hank. “He’s going to kill Brownie!”
Confusion showed on Scott’s face. “Who’s Brownie?”
Hank huffed. “My lovely but rather *interfering* colleague Miss Lee has decided that the rabbit is now Brownie, but in fact the *unnamed* rabbit is in fact part of my laboratory equipment that I purchased this morning and she is now holding it hostage!”
Scott turned to Jubilee. “Jubilee if its Hank’s rabbit you really should give it back.”
“What! So he can just kill it! That’s what he’s going to do you know! Kill a poor defenceless animal!”
Scott looked at Hank. “Are you going to kill it?”
“Well, I do hope that I won’t, but there is the distinct possibility that the animal won’t survive, so well, yes it’s possible that I will inadvertently kill it.”
Liam stepped next to Jubilee and stroked the rabbit through the cage. “Hey, he’s kinda cute.”
“And he’s going to kill him!!!”
Liam smiled at Jubilee and Logan noticed how the boy’s pulse rate went up a little and his pupils dilated when he looked at her. He’d have to talk to him about that later, because Jubilee was the same age as Marie, even though she still acted like she was seventeen. “Ok, I’m with Jubes and the bunny.” Jubilee linked her arm with Liam’s, nodded defiantly at Hank and then stuck out her tongue.
Hank raised his huge blue arms, put them on his hips and huffed. “Oh well that’s very mature isn’t it!”
Louise and Logan leaned against the kitchen counter to watch and chuckle at Hank who despite his blue appearance was slowly turning purple with anger.
“Hank, I’d like everyone to calm down…”
“No! No Scott, I will not calm down. That is my rabbit and it is required for tests that I wish to carry out today.” He turned back to Jubilee and Liam. “Jubilee, Liam, I realise that the idea of testing on animals isn’t widely accepted by most, but it is a necessary evil. No doubt you wear make-up, obviously not you my boy unless there is something that you’re not telling us, but I seriously doubt it. But you do Jubilee, both of you wear some clothes and shoes made from animal products, use medicines tested on animals… neither of you are vegetarian for heaven’s sake. It’s a rabbit!”
“I wear non tested on animals make-up, expensive I might add but I wear it. I do not wear animal products, yes I eat meat, but *not* rabbits and as for him…” Jubes pointed at Liam. “Well, he doesn’t get sick, Dr Frankenstein! So there is no way in the world we’re letting you murder a bunny in the name of science!”
Hank had heard enough. “I am not killing it in the name of Science! I am doing this in the name of Rogue! I have developed the counter virus for Clemency, but I have to test it first! If I remove Rogue, your mother, from stasis and it doesn’t work there will not be enough time to place her back into stasis and she *will* die. I *have* to test it first, there is but only one chance to get it right and I will not be foiled because of a blasted rabbit! Liam, Jubilee I am sorry to shout, as you both know I rarely get angry, but… but this is simply ridiculous!”
Liam let go of Jubes and turned to look at the cute rabbit, happily sitting and cleaning its paws. Jubilee crossed her arms over her chest. “But, it’s defenceless, it can’t agree to this test.”
“*But* nothing, it’s Marie.” Logan stared at Jubilee with a cold glare - not surprisingly, she couldn’t hold his gaze.
“But this is something that I feel really strongly about. The medical and scientific testing of animals is wrong!”
Logan rubbed his knuckles to try and hold in the urge to let his claws out. “So you don’t feel strongly about getting your best friend back, you’d rather have a fucking rabbit?”
“No Logan of course not! I just…”
“Just what? Come on Yella, just what?” He was getting angry now, unable to believe that Jubilee could really think that the rabbit was more important.
“I… ur, I…” she stumbled unable to find any valid argument, but still not willing to accept that the rabbit should be used.
“Animal research has played a vital role in virtually every major medical advance of the last century. Jubilation, this is the side of this particular moral argument that all those people running around the countryside with purple hair annoying fox hunters don’t actually get to see. The calculation of life, the value of it. In this situation, can you honestly tell me that the life of this animal is worth more to you personally than that of Rogue? Surely you must understand why I need to test this?”
Liam smiled at Hank; the answer was easy for him. He rubbed Jubilee’s arm. “He’s right.”
Jubilee shook her head. “50 to 100 million animals world-wide are used annually and either killed during the experiments or euthanized afterwards. It’s not right!”
“No, it’s not. In the cases were animals are used unjustly and in inhumane and unstable environments, then no its not right, I completely agree with you. But forget about them, I’m asking you in this *individual* scenario, is the rabbit worth more to you than Rogue?”
She looked at the rabbit, then to Logan and Louise, then to Liam and finally back to Hank. She shook her head. “No.”
“Thank you. Now kindly, step aside.” She did and without another word Hank picked up the cage to head for his lab.
They all stood there for a minute or two looking at the floor, before Jubilee muttered a quiet sorry to Logan as she passed him on her way out the door. Logan shook his head and then found himself being looked at by his children. He knew what they were silently asking.
“Give Hank some time. He knows what he’s doing and if there’s anything to tell he’ll let us know.”
Both nodded and Louise got a wrapped sandwich out of the fridge and a small bottle of orange juice. “See ya later.” Her voice was quiet and her body screamed with frustration, she wanted to help Hank, watch or simply do something to help her mother.
Logan held her arm. “Where you going with that?” He knew the answer the minute she bit her lip and avoided his eyes. His face hardened. “Don’t forget what he is, ever!” She sighed not wanting to have the same argument with him again, so she simply nodded and headed off to the elevator. She didn’t want to admit that she was getting to the point where she *needed* to see him, needed to touch him and draw a little bit of his power, just a little bit more of his primal emotions.
Liam got two bottles of water out of the huge silver fridge and threw one to Logan. “Dad, she’ll be alright. Her mutation seems to keep him in check, not that I’m saying I like it ‘cos I don’t, but she seems to have a handle on him.”
“Look, I just have a bad feeling about it that’s all. Hank said the amnesia is only temporary and sooner or later he’s going to remember that he’s a homicidal fucker that gets a kick outta killing people…” he took a swig of water. “And if he so much as touches her I’ll rip his heart out!”
Liam took a swig himself and frowned. “Who’s the one with violent issues again?”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Don’t you start!”
“Come on dad, you can’t tell me that you haven’t thought about it. I mean you don’t know anything about your past, what do you know about his? His mutation is more than a little similar and, well, even you admitted that you used to be more than a little primal.”
“Yeah, and I can still be, but I choose to keep a hold on my humanity rather than give into the rage. I mean I’m not saying that a little red-flag bloodlust isn’t good in a fight, because it can be, but...” He took another swig of his water. “I met him in a fight, what, three times? And each time I never got the drop on him. I don’t like admitting that, but there it is. I could take him - if it was a choice between him and your mother or you kids then I *would* take him, but he’s in a different league. Bigger, stronger, nastier, healing factor that works twice as fast as mine. He ain’t too bright, but… sometimes it don’t matter.”
“So how come you thought he was dead?”
“I honestly thought Scott had killed him on the Torch. He got the full force of Scott’s mutation without his visor, straight in the chest. I don’t think I’d survive that, and I wouldn’t want to test yours or Lou’s healing on it. So, I thought he was dead. FoH or whoever must have picked him up, right outta the goddamn water and straight to that hell-hole.”
Liam smiled briefly. “You actually feel sorry for him, don’t you?”
“Yeah I do.” He tossed his empty bottle in the bin, thinking for a moment that yes, he really did feel sorry for him on some level. “Don’t change the fact that if he hurts anyone I care about, I’m gonna rip his ass to pieces.”
The door to Victor’s room was only half closed as usual and she pushed it open all the way. He was lying on his back, asleep on his bed. His size made the bed look flimsy and unstable, but it held his weight surprisingly well.
She put the sandwich and juice on the small table and then stood by his bed, knowing she shouldn’t be so close to him, but she couldn’t help herself. She was drawn to him in some way, on some basic level that when she touched him it set of a spark inside her she hadn’t felt before.
Hank had bought him various pieces of clothing recently and he, for some reason, liked to sleep in his jeans. Biting her thumb nail she looked at his bare feet, up his strong legs and thighs, biting her lip when her eyes ran briefly over his crotch, then to his naked chest. His muscles rippled slightly and he shifted a little in his sleep. She stretched her hand out to touch him, bringing it back once, but then unable not to touch him. His cheek first, her hand shaking, then down to his chest, her mouth running dry making her lick her lips.
Before she could register any movement she had a vice grip around her wrist, there was a loud growl and he slammed her against the far wall. His other hand around her throat, claws digging into her soft flesh, her feet dangling in the air as he pinned her to the wall with his body and his nostrils filing with the scent of her fear.
She gasped for breath as his eyes bored hatefully into her. “Vic… TOR!” His grip lessened a little and his black eyes seemed to clear ever so slightly, then he let go of her stepping back and looking at his hands, then around the room, snapping out of his temporary madness.
Louise gasped for breath, not understanding what had happened. He looked confused and scared. She reached out and briefly touched his chest with the connection of her mutation open; the brief touch giving her an untamed blast of his hyped-up emotions making her gasp instantly breathless again.
He felt it and slapped her hand away, pushing her shoulders roughly and slamming her back into the wall again. “Don’t touch me!” She gasped again at his growled words and opened her mouth to speak. “Get out!”
She frowned. “Victor, I…”
He grabbed her shirt and brought her close, her frightened wide eyes meeting his, then he kissed her forcing his tongue into her mouth roughly, giving her no opportunity to object. “I said get out little girl!” He shoved her and she fell to the floor, but scrambled to her feet and out the door. He slammed it shut after her and after a second of stunning silence, he roared and by the sounds of it began to completely obliterate the room.
***********END OF PART EIGHT
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Author's Chapter Notes:
More thanks to BC for the brilliant beta.