DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
thatcraftykid
track four // “GREAT GIG IN THE SKY”
ASK THE DEAD MAN WALKING
A flash of anger plants a “No Trespassing” sign on his thoughts.
“I asked you once; it wasn’t an invitation to move in.”
– Logan –
Icy water trickles down into the collar of his shirt, washing away some of the cold sweat he’d broken out in before he’d been knocked the fuck out of commission. Again. That’s twice – three times, if he counts last night – that he’s been laid flat right when Marie needed him most. And not five damn minutes after he swore – he fucking swore – to take care of her.
Right. With a body full of metal, he’d been a puppet on strings as far as Magneto was concerned.
Logan splashes more water on his face. The residual tremors that dizzied his brain and shook his joints ever since he’d snapped awake in the train station, half-hovering next to Jean, half-dragged by Cyclops, are mostly gone. Phantom vibrations persist, like he’s wearing his whole skeleton wrong.
Another splash and he lifts his head, meeting his own eyes in the mirror for half a second of fierce accusation – that’s right, bastard, you let your girl bargain away her freedom for your worthless hide – before flicking his attention to the reflection of Xavier and Storm standing outside the bathroom.
He swipes the back of his neck with a towel, which he throws into the sink. He turns away, pushing down his shirt sleeves and pulling on his denim jacket.
Too pissed off to keep the blame all to himself, Logan directs his glare at Xavier. “You said he wanted me.”
“I made a terrible mistake,” he replies, leaning forward in his chair. “His helmet is somehow designed to block my telepathy. I couldn’t see what he was after until it was too late.”
No, not too late. Nowhere close to too late. It would be too late if he was holding onto Marie’s lifeless body, and even that wouldn’t be the end of it. There would be a world of pain to inflict.
But these people don’t think like he does. If they did, they’d have already mounted a response. All that talk about electromagnetic fields interfering with Cerebro and masking Magneto’s position is no excuse for sitting on their asses to wait it out. If Magneto’s two steps ahead like Jean said he always is, Logan will just have to go cut him off at the knees.
Without a word, he sweeps by Storm, who uncrosses her arms in surprise. “Where are you going?”
Logan pauses in the doorway long enough to slip on his coat. “I’m gonna find her.”
“How?” Storm asks.
“The traditional way – look.”
Annoyingly enough, she follows him down the stairs. It’s nothing he wouldn’t expect. She already tried to talk him out of going after Marie once tonight. A real team player.
“Logan, you can’t do this alone.”
“Who’s gonna help me? You? So far you’ve all done a bang-up job.”
Storm herself had been barely conscious as they’d left the wreckage of the train station, tails tucked firmly between their legs and unnoticed by any of the dazed-looking police.
“Then help us. Fight with us.”
Jerking around, he sneers, “Fight with you? What, join the team? Be an ‘X-Man’? Who the hell do you think you are? You’re a mutant. The whole world out there is full of people who hate and fear you, and you’re wasting your time tryin’ to protect them? I got better things to do.”
Logan turns, but he can’t leave it at that. These people are delusional. No one gets to be a hero, not in the real world. He may not remember how, but he’s sure as shit learned that lesson.
“You know, Magneto’s right. There’s a war coming. You sure you’re on the right side?”
“At least I’ve chosen a side.” Her sanctimony is enough to make him grit his teeth and start walking.
Storm can go ahead and enjoy her pretty little notions of what it means to be on the frontlines, fine. Best he can do is hope she dies with them. As for Logan, he’s picked this battle for one reason and one reason only, and it’s personal. Beyond that, Magneto can have his war and Xavier can have his dream. Not his problem.
Logan opens the front door and slams shut it behind him.
He smells Jean in the garage before he sees her standing next to the open passenger side of a Porsche four-door. She’s outfitted like she’s prepped to take a jog, navy jacket zipped up to the X-insignia on her left breast. Her scent is…Something’s off there, but it could be the gasoline and the oil.
Spotting Cyclops’s Harley to the left, he starts toward it. “Sorry, Red. I’ll take you out some other night.”
“Logan, be serious.”
Over his shoulder, he fixes her with an impatient scowl.
Jean presses her long fingers together. “Charles never had any intention of sitting back and waiting. The UN Summit is tomorrow night. We all want Rogue safe, but we need information.”
“I’ll get it easier alone.” Spheres of influence, she said before, which means there’ll be people in the city who know where Magneto likes to hide.
“Telepathy is easy. Intimidation at claw-point is self-gratifying.”
Logan swings his leg over the side of the bike and grips the key left in the ignition. That was a cheap shot, but it doesn’t make it any less true. “Shouldn’t you be tending the scout leader?”
“Scott’s resting. You’re the one who needs my help. Instead of squandering precious time, let me lead you directly to a known source. Vanisher. He’s an hour away, in lockup at Hiram prison. He’s our best chance of finding out where Rogue is or, at the very least, what Magneto intends to do with her. You’re not doing her any favors going off on your own.”
Goddamn it all to fucking hell.
He eyes Jean for a minute before getting off the bike. The woman knows how to make a point, he’ll give her that.
“I assume you want to drive.” She tosses the key to him.
What a diplomat.
Coming around the side of the car, Logan gripes, “So, you want me to break you into prison. How does Daddy Warbucks feel about one of his orphans turning criminal?”
“Charles knows what’s at stake. And, with any luck, no one will even know we were there.”
Logan snorts, his hand on the driver’s side door. “Yeah? What do you expect to do, Jeanie? Waltz right on through the front door?”
A grinning head pops right on through the car’s hardtop. “Good plan,” Kitty mewls. “Gee, Dr. Grey. Don’t you wish you’d thought of it first?”
This better be somebody’s idea of an elaborate setup for a well-worn punch line.
Jean doesn’t look like she’s joking. “Kitty is our way in.”
“I thought I was the way in.” Slice and dice, quiet if he can. Risky but manageable.
“No, you’re the worst case scenario.” Jean slips into the passenger seat. “We should go.”
“Little girl stays here,” he says to Jean before raising his hard look to Kitty.
Torso all the way out of the car, she’s leaning her elbows against the roof and rolling her eyes. “The ‘little girl’ is six months older than Rogue.”
Inwardly, Logan cringes. This one looks twelve.
“Kitty is eighteen,” Jean clarifies, sounding a little sheepish to be hiding behind that thin moral line.
“That’s right, totally legal adult here with an amazing gift and a future locker with her name on it in the not-so-secret lower levels.”
He was a little off, earlier. Xavier doesn’t have it in him to brainwash kids into soldiers, true, but evangelizing them into X-Men isn’t as different as the old man probably likes to think.
“Besides all that,” Kitty huffs, “Rogue is my potential future BFF, so I’m going to do everything in my mutant power to help her.” Emphatically, she adds, “Gender and age discrimination not withstanding.” She slips through the roof and into her seat.
What on this godforsaken earth had Logan done to deserve the utter aggravation of this moment? He’d felt so vindicated storming out like he had, singular purpose in mind. One conversation later, he’s at the beck and call of a know-it-all kid and a wannabe politician.
A short blast of the car’s horn has him shoving himself behind the wheel of the Porsche as Kitty sits back. If he closed the door any harder it would have bounced off its hinges.
When he turns the key, the panel in the center lights up.
“GPS,” Jean says. “Find Hiram prison.”
Had the thing replied, Logan might have put his fist through it. Lucky for his temper it draws a red line on a map and leaves it at that. Jean angles it toward him.
Logan glances at the girl messing with earphones in the rearview mirror. Most people aren’t cut out for dangerous possibilities. Kitty is definitely most people. “Seatbelt,” he grunts, putting the Porsche into gear and starting out of the garage.
Kitty keeps her eyes on the glowing device in her hands. “I totally dug the Annie reference – Professor X is both loaded and bald, and Dr. Grey has red hair – nice one, I’m with you. But, seriously, you expect me to believe you give a hoot about the rules of the road? You’re not buckling up.”
No one’s ever accused him of practicing what he preached. “Suit yourself,” he replies, digging out another cigar from his coat pocket. “But if you go flyin’ through the windshield, try not to break the glass before you break your neck.”
Letting out a tinkering laugh, she buckles herself in. “Well, fine, if you’re that down on your own driving…”
Cigar between his teeth, Logan lights the tip. Kitty, head bopping along, looks out at the scenery. Jean looks at Logan.
“Could you roll down your window if you’re going to smoke, please? I have allergies.”
About ready to tell her to hold her breath, Jean’s smile shuts his mouth. He hits the button and throws the whole cigar out on the pavement. Her perfectly sized, blindingly white teeth glimmer even brighter in the moonlight.
The things men do for women. Enough to make him sick.
Silence falls heavily around his shoulders. Jean’s making no secret of the fact that she wants to say something, but she’s evidently waiting for permission. She wants to talk about Marie, no doubt, so she can keep on waiting.
Wouldn’t take a psychic to know that he’s anxious, but he’s not about to explain what’s really unseating his stomach – the probability that Marie’s reckless choice of answers to her past over Xavier’s rescue attempt had something to do with the part of Logan she can feel inside her head.
What’s he doing up there, anyway? Logan sees a version of himself snarling, pacing behind locked bars. Putting Marie on edge, making her lash out, telling her to run. What’s he showing her? Everything? Shit he can’t remember, either because it’s lost or it’s blended together into the usual pattern he falls into when the effort to act civilized isn’t worth the company: fight, fuck, flee. Might be wrong, but he does it well. Not that he’s proud of himself. He’s…Does she know what? Does she know more? Stripped of all pretenses, all semblances – The beast in the cage, is he in her head now, too?
Under his tight grip, the wheel guides his hands steadily to the right. “You can stop that.” He’d been hugging the line, but he wasn’t about to drift into the next lane.
“Something of a reflex,” Jean explains. “You’re…busy.”
A flash of anger plants a “No Trespassing” sign on his thoughts. “I asked you once; it wasn’t an invitation to move in.”
“I know, and I apologize. I can’t quite help it at the moment.”
He glances over at her. Her head is tilted against the back of the seat, exposing the long line of her throat. She takes in measured breaths. That odd scent lingers.
“I don’t read minds on purpose or very often. I really shouldn’t be starting with yours.” The corner of her mouth ticks. “That’s Charles’ opinion on the matter.”
When she meets his eyes, he sees that her irises have all but disappeared.
Logan reaches over to close his hand over hers, trapping her fingers. Her heart rate, already thumping like a jackrabbit’s, jumps. He turns her arm over, cocking an eyebrow at the butterfly bandage on the inside of her elbow. The scent is stronger. Iodine and another chemical.
“What’s his opinion on that?” Logan wants to know, letting go and pointing his eyes back on the road.
“It’s nothing. It’s a low-level stimulant that acts as an enhancer to mutant powers. Hank and I are developing the prototype.”
“And he’s using you as a guinea pig. Sounds real smart.”
“We’re both testing the formula. I’ll grant you it’s not ideal scientifically, but it’s the ethical way to do it. Most scientists who seriously study this sort of thing agree that mutations must go beyond the X-gene. In science-fiction they like to say that ninety percent of the human brain is uncharted ability, but, frankly, that’s nonsense. In fact…”
She’s sliding into doctor mode again, but the consummate professional routine wouldn’t fool anyone with eyes. There’s a nails-down-his-back kind of woman in there, begging to be let out. He can spot the type at thirty paces, get them into compromising positions in under thirty minutes. Once in a while, he’ll meet a woman who’ll fake hard-to-get but the charade never quite does it for him. The good doctor and her cool demeanor, well, he decides that’s genuine. He likes it as a novelty.
Even if – glancing at the little girl in the backseat, he hates himself for the qualifier – it lacks the flushed charge of single-minded pursuit. Of looking up from a hammer and nail to find that he’s got the full attention of dewy brown eyes close-set on a face that never quite settles on bashful or brash, too young or old enough. He’s been an object of lust-fueled spectacle far back as he can remember, but that mixture of curiosity and hope and gratitude is something else. Glass-spun sugar again, because he knew even then that eventually he’d handle her too rough and lose the only sweet thing that had ever wanted a part in his life.
Logan takes a sharp corner, his eyes darting to Jean to make sure she’s still caught up in her dissertation.
“…And that’s why we think that mutation affects the brain itself. Moira is studying brainwaves – action potentials traveling in reverse directions, that sort of thing – but Hank thinks it’s more primal than that. The amygdala,” Jean says, like she’s tasting the word. “Of course, his critics say that would mean that mutations are some kind of autism, which is a little premature since there’s yet to be an established link between autism and the amygdala…”
Logan tries to stop tuning her out. The fact that she thinks he’s the type of guy who’d actually pay attention to any of this genetic biology shit rather than on who he’d prefer underneath him and why is offering a hell of a lot more credit than he deserves. He wants to earn it.
When Jean finally winds herself down, Logan takes all the technical jargon and condenses into one succinct explanation: “Steroids.”
“Control,” she counters. “If the amygdala is really the key, then strengthening it might lead to an end of unconscious or reflexive use of power.”
“So it’s personal.”
Jean places a hand over her thighs and tiny specks of lint lift away from her tight pants. “I think a lot of women have romantic notions of what it means to look into the eyes of the men they love. But it wouldn’t just be for Scott,” she’s quick to clarify. “I’m sure Rogue, for instance, would be grateful for the possibility.”
First in line. Anything to keep her so-called monster from winning.
Logan considers the road ahead. “She wanted to come back. She wanted help.”
“Charles believes in second chances. And third and fourth chances. When we find Rogue, she’s more than welcome to return.”
“You’ll help her,” he says, meaning Jean specifically. Meaning extra attention, special care.
Jean waits until he meets her gaze, then she nods. “I can do that.”
It isn’t so much a load off his shoulders as it is a part of the deal. Nothing he alone can do for Marie is enough to satisfy his promise. So he’ll make it his job to see to it that she has the best of everything, even if that means sharing the task.
“I made a lot of excuses earlier,” Jean says carefully. “But you were right. We should have done more about Southaven. We could have saved her a lot of pain, and we wouldn’t be in this position now.”
“We’ll get her back.” When in doubt, Logan always chooses certainty.
The GPS shows an underpass half a mile from the edge of the triangular prison. Headlights off, Logan pulls in and parks alongside a turned-over dumpster.
Kitty uncurls herself from her position against the window and stretches hugely. “We’re here already? Coolio.”
Ten minutes from breaking into a maximum security complex specifically designed to house mutants and she’s yawning like they’re about to visit grandma in the nursing home. Great.
The hike through the woods to the edge of the outermost fence is an easy one, though Logan could stand for thicker coverage and a darker night. Approaching the twenty-foot barbed wire, he can feel the electric current surging through the metal. Spotlights mounted on towers swirl across the grounds in irregular patterns, and he can smell a platoon’s worth of guards trolling around inside.
“She gonna make us invisible while she’s at it?” he asks Jean pointedly.
“The reason security looks so tight is because mutants have successfully broken in from the outside,” Jean replies. “They’re keeping it out of the media, but it’s enough of a concern that the government is considering turning over the prison to military control.”
“Sounds like the beginning of a nice little police state.”
“An alternative is to hire and train mutant guards. Naturally out of the question.”
“Right?” Kitty sticks a hand directly through the fence to test it. “Heaven forbid anyone encourage us to use our gifts in productive ways that actually, you know, benefit society as a whole.”
Logan rolls his shoulders to loosen up. “We stand around here any longer, they’ll be laying down the red carpet and leading us in at gun point.”
“Then let’s get ready to make a run for it.” Kitty shrugs, taking a hold of Jean’s hand and waggling her fingers at Logan.
He grimaces, making no move to take her hand. This is the best they can come up with? Fuck’s sake.
Drawing a breath, Jean stretches out her free arm. A hundred meters away, the lights on top of the far towers blow their fuses.
Counting the steroids, hard to tell if that’s supposed to be impressive.
Sirens kick up, making Logan grit his teeth. Black outlines steadily converge on the other side of the complex.
Blinking, Jean says, “Anything out of the ordinary, and the guards have to immediately respond as if there’s a mutant attack. But the lockdown system is so intricate and there are so many false alarms a day, they’ve gotten careless.” Off his eyebrow, she admits, “Once it became clear that the FBI wasn’t going to let any of our allies talk to Vanisher, we started developing strategies to see him ourselves.”
These people are up to their asses in quicksand, surrounded by enemies on all sides.
“Coast is clear!” Kitty stage whispers, launching herself through the fence and dragging Jean along. Logan catches Jean’s wrist at the last possible second and pushes through with her.
Jogging, he fixes his grip and takes the lead as they go through the second layer of fencing. He tugs Jean closer behind him, forcing Kitty to redouble her efforts. Logan points a set of claws straight ahead. If there are guards on the other side of the wall they’re running straight into, Logan’s not about to give them time to get over the surprise.
The bunk beds he passes through tell him this is a cell. One man who might as well be three is the only person inside, his girth perched on a tiny toilet seat.
“Don’t mind us,” Logan says over the alarm, retracting his claws and elbowing him in the face. The sumo wrestler goes skeletal in the blink of an eye. He slumps back against the wall.
“Ew,” Kitty puts in breathlessly. She faces the other direction, fingers clamped tightly on her nose.
“That wasn’t strictly called for,” Jean says, shooting the diet guru an empathetic look.
Guy’s a convict about to take a dump. Plenty called for. No time to make a point out of it – the alarm cuts off, flashing lights with it.
“Now what?” Logan demands.
Jean pulls up her cuff to check her watch. “We have less than five minutes before the sweep makes it back to this side of the prison. The highest-level prisoners are kept underground, and the most valuable right in the center. Vanisher has two guards stationed outside his door at all times. The alarm system automatically seals the cell from any outside entry until the all-clear is issued.”
So they’ll drop down through the ceiling. It’s a lot to admit, but the girl’s plenty useful. He motions at her to get a move on.
Kitty groans slightly as she complies. “Can we not sprint this time? Short legs!” she hisses.
“You don’t wanna run, hope the guards really do have their heads up their asses,” he tells her.
Dipping her shoulders in and out of the bars, she reports, “Coast looks clear. Let’s take it stealth-like, okey doke? I did put on dark clothes for a reason,” she says, tugging on her long-sleeved shirt. The front has silver glitter kittens glued on, with “Meow,” written in script all over it. “I work best in shadow.” She gives him half-ironic jazz fingers. “Shadowcat.”
“Yeah,” he intones. “You’re a regular black op.”
Logan grabs her by they elbow before she can even think to salute him sarcastically – it’s what Marie would’ve done, were she part of this little adventure – and impels Jean through the bars with one hand partly on her back but mostly on her ass.
Catcalls start up the moment they pass by the first cell – “Ooh, I like a redhead”; “You into sharin’, big guy?”; “Baby child, come over here. I’ll split ya in half.” That last one earns the piece of shit a flash of claws and telekinetic bitch slap from Jean.
The block erupts in laughter.
“Easy now, easy now,” lean, tough-looking guy a few cells ahead says. “You lookin’ for some particular mutant or you come to gawk at all the freaks in cages? There ain’t a lot of us in here – hell, there ain’t a lot of us anywhere – but tickets still ain’t free.”
Guy sounds like he’s got some authority, so Logan side-arms the rest of his cigars at him as they clip past.
“Go on ’bout your business,” he replies, and the other mutants grumble themselves into silence.
Jean motions for them to stop at the end of the row, where a thick, steel door contains the cellblock. She pats her pockets carefully, choosing the right to unzip. She produces a smoke bomb and points the long wick toward him. “I don’t know what happened to the lighter I had.”
He smirks a little as he takes out a book of matches. “Kid nicked it.” He’s striking the match when he realizes that “kid” means nothing to Jean. Unlike him, she’s got a lot more than one to look out for. “Rogue.”
“Well, we’ll just have to go over the rules with her as soon as she’s back at school.” Jean carefully hands the burning stick to Kitty, who takes it like it has two heads.
Logan snorts at the idea of anyone telling Marie what to do, especially now that she’s got him in her head. “Lots of luck.” To Kitty he says, “You got about three seconds. Three, two – ”
“Gah!” Eyes closed, Kitty cocks her elbow awkwardly and chucks the smoke bomb, her arm sailing through the metal. Apparently knowing she’s the dictionary definition of “throws like a girl,” she turns bright pink. “I watch baseball. I don’t so much play.”
The alarm starts his assault on his ears again, accompanied by the sound of gunfire behind the seal.
Firmly taking a hold of Kitty’s shoulder, Logan thrusts his head toward the wall. The dent his forehead leaves against the steel seems to wobble when he stumbles a step back. Fucking hell.
“Um, hello! Ask me first!” Kitty hisses, grabbing on to his arm.
Before he can shrug her off, Jean’s weakly grabbed a hold of his other one. Her eyes are closed, her expression strained.
From behind the barrier, metal drops heavily on the ground to a chorus of surprised grunts and protests. So that’s what Jean meant when she said the guards would never know they were there. She’s pinning it on Magneto.
“Now?” Kitty asks.
At Jean’s nod, they take off. Through the steel, through the smoke. He can’t see anything beyond the gray and the sting, but he follows the sound of heavy boots treading remarkably lightly on the stairs to the northeast and west. The precision is nothing like the fumbling of the guards outside.
Reeks of military.
Lip drawn into a snarl, Logan almost has his fist clenched tight enough to pop claw when the floor drops out from under him. His stomach mid-flip, his left foot catches the top of a table full of medical supplies. The impact sends both it and him crashing to the floor with excessively loud clangs.
His nose is pressed to concrete when Jean’s toes touch down feather light beside his face. She hastens over to the jimmy-rigged hospital bed as Logan rolls over on his back. Laces dangle from a pair of size six sneakers the way Kitty dangles from the ceiling.
She looks down her pert nose at him, wincing. “Uh…Oops?”
Logan gets to his feet with a grunt. “Get down from there before you start lookin’ even more like a piņata.”
“Are you going to catch me?”
The crackle of a communicator and the clicking sound of technology biting them in the ass sets off Logan’s claws.
“I said I was sorry, jee – Ah!” Kitty drops, yowling.
Logan breaks her fall on his back, steadying her with one hand, claws of the other trained on the thick, metal door. “We got gate crashers, Jeanie.”
“Dr. Grey, my fingers – ” Kitty is tense and gasping. No scent of blood, at least.
He shakes her a little so she doesn’t pass out on him, looking back to see Jean with her head down, all her concentration on the mind she has cradled between her palms.
“Jean. Door. Soldiers. Worse case scenario. How much time you need me to buy? Jean!”
“Quiet!”
The panel on the side of the door erupts into sparks, crashing the alarm into dead silence. Movement on the other side of the door pauses. Kitty sucks in her whimpers.
Jean’s unsteady breathing is the loudest noise in the whole damn prison. She blinks rapidly. Steadies herself. “I need to concentrate. Five minutes. Watch the door and take care of Kitty.” She closes her eyes and makes a face like she’s jumping off a hundred-foot diving board into a glass of water.
Footsteps back away. A small explosion, and debris flies. The door holds tight against it. The rest of the prison might be an exercise in futility, but it certainly looks like the man in charge has spared no expense on this room.
Still listening intently to the soldiers outside, Logan eases Kitty onto the floor. She pulls up her knees to cradle her face but sticks out her hand dutifully. Ah, Christ – he holds her wrist in his palm, eyeing the splintered bones tenting the skin of her middle and ring fingers. The clearness of the tread-marked bruise points to an intentional asshole show of force rather than an accidental stomping.
Logan looks around the scattered medical supplies for a splint or something, but, what the hell, it’s not like he knows anything about the fixing side of broken bones. He pats Kitty’s wrist a couple times. In place of, “There, there,” he says, “You should’ve pulled the fucker down with me. I’d have shoved his leg bone out through his boot for you.”
Kitty lifts her revolted face. So not all teenagers take comfort in violent, black humor. That would’ve at least gotten a snort out of Marie. But Kitty just chokes once more on a hiccup-sob, big, fat tears dripping from her chin.
He doesn’t blame her any more than he can help her. It’s that last part he can’t stand. “You make an awful lot of noise for a mouse,” Logan grouses.
For half a second, she looks hurt. Then her mouth pinches. She takes a deep breath and rises to the occasion, “Phys-physiognomy is, seriously, a completely debunked pseudo-science. And not at all politically correct, given that mutations often take on a, like, physical manifestation. Take yourself for a perfect case in point. Your hair actually tufts. If you were stockier, that plus the claws would – ”
The god-awful screeching sound of metal on metal makes Kitty and Logan cringe. He helps her to her feet so they can stand by Jean, who’s jolted out of her trance.
“He tell you where Marie is?”
“Telford is barely in there,” Jean tells him gravely, face ticking. “Magneto signed his death warrant and the prison doctors buried him alive. I can’t help him. We have to get him back to Charles.”
“This was supposed to be an interrogation, not a damn rescue mission.”
Deftly, Jean unplugs Vanisher from the machines strapping him to the bed. “It was always a rescue mission. I just thought he’d be conscious. Take this. I want to analyze it later.” She hands off a bag of clear fluid dangling a detached IV. “Kitty, how’re you doing sweetheart?”
“Fine. I’m earning that locker, Dr. Grey.”
“Yes you are.”
The screeching noise stops abruptly. Five thin blades of uneven length saw through the door’s seal. Five more start slicing through the bottom. Logan shoves the IV bag into his inside jacket pocket and lets go of Kitty, intending to confront whatever the hell is on the other side of that door direct.
“Logan, no. We’re leaving. Take him, please.”
The military setup of the prison and Vanisher’s doctors makes Logan want to stay and figure this shit out.
“I could see what Magneto’s base looks like, but the Professor will be able to get Telford to remember where it is.”
Jean wouldn’t be much of a mind reader if she didn’t always know the right thing to say.
Vanisher is nothing but skin and bones. Logan lifts him easily. Kitty presses against him and clutches Vanisher’s arm with her good hand. Jean places her palms flush against his ears.
“You sure about this?”
She smiles grimly. “No. He’s a long-distance teleport. There’s a good chance we could end up on a beach Fiji, because that’s where I’d really rather be right now.”
“Get me Rogue back, and I’ll take you bikini shoppin’.”
Jean closes her eyes. Vanisher opens his.
Logan’s stomach is yanked over his nose, and then he’s kneeling in the dimly lit foyer of the mansion. Kitty is shuddering beside him, while Jean is sprawled out on the wooden floor. She’s breathing like a horse after a race, mouth open wide. The band-aid over her vein reminds him that the power boost worked after all.
“Dr. Grey!” Kitty yelps. She sits back on her heels, crying out, “Professor! Ms. Munroe! Mr. Summers!”
An alarmed horde of kids scurry out from the TV lounge, talking over each other. All-American wraps his arm around Kitty and asks about Marie.
Logan, remembering what she said about “a nice boy” telling her to hit the road, glares blades at him as he stands. “Where the hell is Xavier?”
A big guy steps forward looking like Joe Montana in a sea of flag footballers. “They’re all down in medical.”
“Rumor is there’s something really wrong with the Professor,” the gum-snapper elaborates.
Pyro says from the side, “Hey Wolverine, shouldn’t that mutant terrorist you’re holding like your girl be in lock up at Hiram?”
Ignoring him, Logan thrusts Vanisher up toward the big guy. “Take him.” He picks Jean up and heads toward the elevator. “Follow me. Mouse, ditch the boyfriend.”
“She’s about to pass out!”
Logan gets in the elevator. “Hurry up,” he relents.
The six of them make a ridiculous picture when they come into the med lab, breaking Cyclops and Storm’s silent vigil over the prone, unconscious Professor.
“What’s all this?” the image of Dr. MacTaggart asks from a computer. Dr. McCoy shares the split-screen with her.
Letting go of Storm, Cyclops rushes over to snatch his one and only away from Logan. He mummers her name, stroking her cheek with his thumb. “Why do you do this to yourself?” Her eyes start to flutter.
Logan starts forward to help get her on the other table. “I think she’s – ”
Cyclops stops him cold. “No one gives a damn what you think.”
Crossing his empty arms over his chest, Logan scowls at the room at large while the others set up help for Jean, Vanisher, and Kitty under McCoy and MacTaggart’s instructions. It’s all thirty milligrams IV push of that or fifty of this, vital signs are weak or breathing is normal. Storm hands Kitty a few pain killers and a glass of water, and Bobby holds her hand as the drugs work through her system.
“Peter, how is Mr. Porter’s heart rate now?” McCoy wants to know.
Big guy looks at the monitor uncertainly. “Uh…no change. Or maybe slower?”
Jean groggily struggles to get Cyclops to let her sit up. “Scott, I need to try reading his mind again.”
“No way. You pumped three times the maximum dosage of that drug into yourself, now you’re crashing. Take it easy or you’ll wind up with an aneurysm. Hank, tell her.”
“I’m afraid he’s right, Jean. Not to mention…As you see, Mr. Porter is barely holding onto his life. Another invasion of his mind will surely kill him. We will make do with what you have already learned.”
“I don’t know – My head…”
“This is a disaster,” Cyclops pronounces lowly, wringing Jean’s hand. “You and Kitty hurt, Charles in a coma, Cerebro sabotaged, our only lead near dead – We agreed before that Hiram Prison wasn’t an option. We voted.”
“Scott, all of this is bigger and more important than your principles.”
“You slipped me a sedative . Damn it, what can’t you justify?”
“Charles never should have let you go behind our backs,” Storm agrees, laying a gentle hand on the Professor’s bald head. “Endangering a student, of all things…”
“All right, Oro,” Jean says in a tone of wounded friendship. “Two against one, I’m wrong again. I apologize.”
“That isn’t the point.” Cyclops finally helps Jean sit up and buries his face in her neck. “God, you make me so crazy sometimes.”
The tender relief on Jean’s face makes her more beautiful than Logan’s ever seen her.
He opens his mouth with an audible jaw crack. “Enough with this bullshit. Jesus Christ. So what, Xavier sent Jean out to get her hands dirty and you all got your panties in a bunch because she came home to a mess. Stop flinging shit at each other, and start focusing. Magneto has Rogue. Why?”
Everyone stares at him like he caught them with their fingers stuck up their assholes.
Then Jean says, “Telford Porter wasn’t born a mutant. Magneto has built a machine,” and they begin to piece it all together.
The Wolverine & Rogue Fanfiction Archive
Barely Legal Since 2000