Wolverine needed saving. Wolverine was having a Bad Day. Not because of Ninjas, not because of his Mysterious Past (tm), not because of Department H, not because of Sabertooth, but because he was going to have to kill his friend. James Hudson had to die. It's too bad really, he really liked James. He had helped James with the initial phases of the formation of his Government funded team of Super-humans, Alpha Flight. He even told James he'd consider joining the team. James was ecstatic. James had called Logan and asked him to come down and look at the uniforms that had been specially designed by Reed Richards just for Alpha Flight.
Logan gaped at his "uniform" that hung on a body form mounted on the wall of the Alpha Flight lab. It was bright fucking yellow...with some sort of headpiece mask thing with large "wings" that protruded from each side. It had a bright blue panty. A large "W" graced the belt that adorned the waist above the panty.
"Um." Was all he could muster.
"I know it's a bit... colorful. Reed says they're very comfortable." James held up one of the blue pointed gauntlets, "See? Little holes for your claws."
"There's a panty, James." Logan stared at the monstrosity. It loomed evilly before him.
"It's not a panty. It's, uh, a padded brief...the suit it very close fitting and the brief is there for modesty." James said a little defensively.
"It's a big ol' padded man-panty, James...why is there a man panty, James? Why?" Logan felt the laugh bubble up without his permission. He turned the thing around. "It has pre-molded ass cheeks, James. Why does the panty have its own ass crack, James?" He started to giggle. He wasn't prone to giggling, but it poured out before he could stop it.
"You don't have to laugh, Logan." James frowned peevishly.
"Yes, yes I do." He gasped, and reached to touch the head wing thing, "Oh God." His snickering erupted into full belly peals of laughter. Tears trickled down his cheeks. He sat right down on the lab floor and roared.
"Jesus Christ, it's not that fucking funny."
"Panty!" Logan wheezed, nearly hysterical.
He calmed down several hours later. He and James sat in a rather scummy bar, Moe's, negotiating over several beers.
"Man-panty bearing costume aside, James...I don't think I can stay." Logan sighed, peeling the label from his beer bottle. "I have things to take care of." He had caught scent of Hand members weeks ago, but had managed to stay low under radar. He couldn't conceive of what they were doing in Toronto but didn't want to drag James and Alpha Flight into that fucking mess.
"I figured as much, " James said with a rueful smile, "Try and stay out of trouble, ok?" Logan grinned and tossed a wad of bills on the bar, downed the last swallow of beer and got up. "Oh, Logan. Shit, I forgot to tell you. There was a press release about Alpha Flight. You were in it but it's no big deal. I'll call the press and retract it."
Logan froze and turned. "I was in it?"
"Yeah...here." James reached into his satchel and extracted a 8X10 color glossy photo. It was a Team Photo. There Logan was, standing right between James and Jean-Paul. On the back of the photo was a blurb about each team member including "Wolverine". He handed Logan the evening's newspaper. On the front page were the Team photo and an article about Alpha Flight; including Logan. The date was today. Logan pondered where to bury James's body.
"I have to go." He tossed James the newspaper, jerked his jacket on and headed outside. He caught the wind and sniffed. He didn't sense The Hand or anything else unusual. Yet. He jumped into his truck and headed off into the night.
Fin!