I do not own X-Men: Days of Future Past.
I am slightly obsessed with it though. Obviously.
Through Eyes of Orange and Blue
Chapter 3: Sorry Tales and Tentative Plans
The big guy turned and looked to Hank. Angry and dumbfounded, inquiring as to what had happened to him. Him, the great man that had once been Charles Xavier.
Oh man. I've held this inside for so long. And now I'm going to confess to you? The guy who punched me in the face?
Hank moved around Charles' cluttered mess of a study, closing caps on liquor bottles. Clutching them in his hands like they were all he had left to cling to as he relayed his story.
Growl.
Yes, I know I'm acting like a maid in front of the big guy.
Growl.
Well, somebody has to clean up around here.
Growl.
Yes, I know I'm excusing his behavior.
Growl.
He's my friend, Beast.
Growl.
Yes, I know. Now can it so I can talk.
"He lost everything," he wearily explained to the big guy. "Erik. Raven. His legs."
He sighed, glancing around at the shambles of a once proud existence.
"We built the school, the labs, this whole place."
He felt an overwhelming sense of embarrassment and shame for Charles, this man who had fallen so very far from where he had once been.
"Then, just after the first semester, the war in Vietnam got worse. Many of the teachers and students got drafted."
A sense of shame for himself as well, being caught up in this mess for ten long years. For being caught by this hairy brute of a man.
"And it . . . broke him. He retreated into himself."
Hank felt his story spilling out though he tried to maintain his outer calm. He needed someone to know it. Maybe not all of it, but to know of it. He was reaching out. Not only for Charles but for himself.
He had never really told her, his orange toenailed friend. Her with an emotion for a name. She radiated such light and beauty that he hadn't wanted to diminish that. This big guy, though, this Logan. He was already all dark undercurrents and strife.
So it was okay.
"I wanted to help, do something. So I designed the serum to treat his spine. You know, derived from the same serum that helps me . . . control my mutation."
He paused, attempting to collect himself then continued.
"I take just enough to keep myself balanced but he . . ." Hank looked down, his guilt and grief threatening to eat him alive. ". . . he takes too much. I've tried easing him back but he just couldn't bear the pain. The voices . . ."
Shameful for another to see how Charles was living, how Hank had allowed Charles to live. Enabled him to do it.
"The treatment gives him his legs but it's not enough. He's just . . . lost too much."
The rushing flow of words dried up and Hank looked blankly at the man who stood before him, privately desperate for him to understand, to care.
I swear to everything in science if he laughs or makes some sarcastic remark, I will rip his guts right out of his body.
Growl.
Yes, I do mean it, Beast.
The big guy didn't. He gazed at him with brooding, sorrowful, compassionate eyes.
And from then on, Hank considered the big guy to be his friend.
Logan.
They existed together in silence for a while. Logan seeming to ruminate everything he had learned since arriving here. Hank considering the vast implications of the future world Logan had described.
Lots of negative waves in here, Hope. Not beautiful and righteous at all. I wish you were here. But then again, I don't.
"I'll help you get her."
Hank turned toward the voice to see Charles speaking to Logan.
"Not for any of your future shyte, but for her."
Her. Yes, her.
Hank could almost see the framed picture of her that sat reverently in Charles' quarters. Raven, in her human form. The form he'd first seen her in. The form in which she'd first smiled at him. The form she'd almost kissed him in. The form she'd sat in his lap and peered into the microscope in. The form he'd first fallen for.
The form she hated.
Hank didn't know how Charles could bear her looking out at him and the dreary world he inhabited. How did it not fill him with shame and embarrassment?
Hank himself had no such framed portrait. Nor did he want one.
Logically, he knew the photograph could not actually see anything.
But he always averted his eyes away from it whenever it came into view.
Because emotionally and mentally, every time he felt its gaze upon him, it hurt and shamed him so very much.
Logan seemed to take Charles' gruff manner in stride.
"Fair enough."
Hank let his machinations of the pseudo-omnipotent photograph slide away and focused on the present. On Charles, who had returned. For now. And Hank dared to let a smile drift across his face.
Hello, Charles.
Charles wasn't done though. These days, he never was.
"I'll tell you this," he intoned darkly. "You don't know Erik. That man is a monster, a murderer."
Well, good to see we found another can of worms for you then.
"Think you can get Raven to change, to come home?"
Hank didn't know where his feelings, his thoughts lay there. Dread, desire, hope?
Hope . . .
"That's splendid," Charles sarcastically remarked. "But what makes you think you can change him?"
And then Logan dropped another bomb of revelation.
"Because you and Erik sent me back here together."
Well now, that is truly amazing. And highly doubtful, my friend.
They needed a plan.
Now it was Hank's turn to divulge his information. When everything had fallen away and Charles had retreated, Hank had remained vigilant in his surveillance, his research to into mutant activities.
And so it was him who knew the most about Erik Lehnsher's prison. And had passed it on to Charles. And now to Logan.
"The room they're holding him in was built during the second World War when there was a shortage of steel. So the foundation is pure concrete and sand, no metal."
Charles picked up the flow of the conversation seamlessly as the three men studied the blueprints of the Pentagon that Hank had secretly obtained.
"He's being held a hundred floors beneath the most heavily guarded building on the planet."
Logan's question surprised both Hank and Charles.
"Why is he in there?"
Charles looked expectantly at Hank before chuckling his reply.
"What? He forgot to mention?"
Hank picked up the answer before Charles lost himself again to his bizarre sense of macabre-ish humor.
"Uh, JFK."
Logan seemed stunned.
"What? He killed . . ."
Charles continued to chuckle but there was no humor in it.
"What else explains a bullet miraculously curving through the air? Erik always had a way with guns."
Yes, yes, your spine. I know and I'm still sorry. But we need to focus here, Charles. Focus. Please.
Hank withdrew, studying the blueprints. Then looked up as Charles challenged Logan once more.
"You sure you want to do this?"
Logan tossed up his hands toward Charles in surrender.
"Hey, this is your plan, not mine."
We just have some tiny, simple problems. And they're not simple. Or tiny.
"We don't have any resources to get us in . . ." Hank began.
". . . or out. It's just me and Hank," Charles supplied.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Serum-head. Even if you are right.
Logan considered their information momentarily, then seemed to reach a conclusion.
"I know a guy. He'd be a young man now. Grew up outside of DC. He can get into anywhere."
When Logan admitted he didn't know how to find him, Hank turned to Charles. He knew what he'd say. But he had to ask.
"Is Cerebro out of the question?"
Charles looked at Hank resentfully and ducked his head without responding.
You know, there really should be some sort of computer information network, a world-wide thing. To find anybody, anything, anytime. Yeah, that'd be great.
For now though, Hank shrugged.
"We have a phone book."
Anybody else want to give Hank a cuddle during his confession to Logan there? Come on, everybody, line up. Big ole' group hug for Hank.
Now don't you feel better? Thought so. *grins
Now that we've done that . . .
Yes, to some of you who are thinking this story tells everything from Hank's POV. I think he may be the one who sees the most the clearest. Logan is focused on saving the future. Noble. Charles most of time is wading through a mire of serum fog or withdrawal. Not so noble. Then there's my guy, Hank. Ahem, excuse me, then there's Hank. He's just maintaining this whole time. And NH plays it so close to the vest most of the time that I just can't resist digging in there a little, you know?
If you're lost on the OC Hope and the 'negative waves' references, they're in my pre-DoFP story 'In Between'. And they're all crammed up here in my head along with everything else.
Ah, so you've figured out I've got the dialogue down pat, huh? *winks* Well, make of that what you will. I'm just enjoying myself here. ;D
Thanks to Shanynde, angeleye02, theFGnat, YouWILLbealright, lol, Paradox Predator, Voodoo-Mutant-Child, MoonlitShadowsoftheHumanSoul, and brigid1318 for your reviews.
Thanks to Princess Of Darkness12, Jasper6509, The Clara Oswin Oswald, and cherryblossomfallingintherain for returning to add your support to this story.
See you in the next chapter. We're going to have some fun with our boy Quicksilver. Shake off some of this angst, yeah? :)
