He was Loki, god of mischief, and naturally, when he had promised Charles Francis Xavier a spell of protection such a long time ago – or short time, at least for him – he hadn't really stopped there. While there really was a beautifully intricate runic pattern woven around the keystone of the mansion, glowing faintly with silvery magic and the deep scarlet of fresh blood, one new layer added for each new soul finding shelter by those who followed Xavier's ideals, the surrounding stones were filled with power as well. They held dozens of nasty surprises for every being of magic or foreign to Midgard that came near the X-Men's home with ill intentions, in particular if they planned the theft of Loki's gift to twist it for their own use. Because even if it may not seem much to most humans, especially spread over a group and firmly bound to a condition, there were many out there who would give quite a lot for a Trickster's luck, as Xavier had put it.
They would steal the stone, force the runes groaning and screaming out of their patterns and into a mockery of their true purpose with their own name at the center, erasing any and all conditions, and claiming for themselves an eternal second chance.
Failure would lose its meaning, every defeat would merely be a setback and death a minor inconvenience until the spell found a way to trick the Norns' watchful eyes and change fate so that its master could try yet again.
Not a nice image.
Loki knew that he would have been in deep trouble if his f… if Odin would have ever found out about his little gift to the mortals, but Odin, like the rest of the nine realms, had never paid great attention to backwards little Midgard. Should Thor ever manage to find a way back that would certainly change, but by then the spell would be long gone and not one trace remaining.
At least that was the plan.
Unfortunately Loki's measures to protect the keystone were truly the work of a master, if he may say so himself, and while he usually would be quite proud of his accomplishments, right now his foresight just served to piss him off. Apparently "Intent to Destroy" had been among the many things he had warded the keystone against, and instead of simply teleporting in and out or at least wandering in unnoticed as had been the original plan, he had been forced to fight his way across the front lawn in broad daylight, children screaming and running from him while he dodged and unraveled his own spells and curses.
He was Loki, god of mischief – and naturally nothing went according to plan…
Even missing most of his memories, Logan had seen a lot of strange things in his life. Wonderful things, horrible things, things that made him wish for death finally to come and things that made him embrace life more than ever before.
And yet, he was fairly certain that he had never encountered something like this before.
The afternoon had started like any other, with the only exception that Ororo and Hank were away, on one of the many conferences trying to calm humanity's nerves about the ever-present "danger" of mutants in their midst once again.
That left Logan as the only adult in the mansion, keeping watch over far too many kids, who naturally thought that it was a great idea to spent the day outside "exploring" their gifts a bit, and a handful of wannabe-adults, who had forgotten their responsibilities as "grown-ups" the moment some of their younger comrades had brought out the water-pistols.
Now it was an all-out war going on the front-lawn, with dozens of different camps trying to soak each other however they could, laughter and shrieking filling the whole property.
Logan had at first (half-heartedly) tried to stop it, grumbling and threatening and promising retribution for everyone who even thought about including him in their little mock-riot, but by now he was sitting on the front-step (Dripping wet but less bothered about it than he had thought he would be. Somehow, hearing the kids' happy laughter after so many weeks of mourning and numbness after Alcatraz and Jean and Professor X and Scott and… everything had made the minor discomfort worth it.), smoking a cigar and just keeping watch to make sure that nobody was badly hurt and that every bit of damage ended up more or less fixable in the end. Storm and Beast would understand – if not, at least it would teach them about leaving him in charge. He was no babysitter, no nice if a bit gruffly uncle, had never been and would never be. Period.
Logan watched lazily as a single snowball, courtesy of a commendable team-effort of Bobby and Piotr flew into the air, gaining more and more mass the higher it got, until it was directly above their main antagonists in the "battle". There was shrieking and yelping as the children scrambled for cover, expecting a minor avalanche to hit them anytime now – but it never came.
Instead the snowball suddenly hit something invisible with a resounding FLATSH! and stuck to it.
Normal children and perhaps even adults wouldn't have noticed or if they did, they would have stopped and stared, dumbfounded. But the inhabitants of this particular mansion were anything but "normal" and so their first reaction was to seek shelter.
But even while they ran for the mansion, following plans for such situations that had been drilled in their heads by endless repetition, they were too slow to avoid the first wave of attack.
The snowball still stuck to something right above their head, making the slightest curve of the surface just barely visible. Suddenly small bits of the snow began to fall off and a faint whirring seemed to permeate the air, increasing in frequency and volume until it resembled a high shriek that caused more than one student to scream and to clutch their heads and ears in pain, or their jaws, where it sent their fillings rattling.
Logan was on his knees, roaring like a beast while his metallic bones seemed to vibrate right through his flesh, his eardrums bursting and healing over and over – and then something bright red and melting hit the thing above their heads, making it flash in a myriads of colors, streaming sizzling over something that was suddenly very visible and very obviously a shield of some sorts, a shield that was humming angrily while liquid the color of Cyclops' lasers tried to find a way in, searching for cracks or tiny faults it could exploit and force its way through.
The liquid found none, the shield, as large as the whole property and now glowing in a soft, reassuring, translucent blue, held and the strange energy slowly slid down, dissipating along the way.
And on the other side of the protective field a man appeared out of thin air.
For a moment, every occupant of Xavier's School for Gifted Children thought that Magneto had returned, then the glow of the shield lessened a little bit and the view became clearer.
The stranger wore a cape and a helmet, like the Master of Magnetism had done, but instead of the usual dark red and purple hues, his clothing was colored in green, dark brown and a pale, deceptively soft looking gold. He was lean and tall, the high, curved horns of his helmet adding to his height and intimidation factor, and he was wearing something that was obviously armor, even if it did look nothing like what the knights of the Middle Ages had donned.
He stared down at the barrier and the recovering students for one moment, then he held out a hand and the same, bright scarlet began to build around his fingers once more, sneaking up his arm like a living thing, coiling and sliding around the long fingers, searching for something to consume.
The air seemed to scream again, shrieking high and tortured when the man leaned back to throw, the mutants below him answering with their own cries of pain.
Then red exploded over the shield once again, licking at the surface and searching, testing, hunting for a way in.
Once again, after a breathless, horrible moment, it found nothing and vanished.
But the soft blue it left behind glowed just a little bit weaker – and the man, so far away that only Logan could clearly see it, smirked.
"INSIDE! NOW!" Wolverine bellowed. He fought his way to his feet and forced the sobbing Rogue up beside him. He could feel the vibrating start yet again, the sign of another attack brewing far above them, and he knew that it was only a matter of minutes until whatever it was that shielded them gave out and their enemy would be upon them.
He actually doubted that the mansion stood any chance against the liquid power, but perhaps the underground base would keep the kids safe even when the upper levels burned and the stranger would be fooled into believing his victims dead.
But for this to work the kids had to actually be inside the building to begin with.
And they didn't have the time.
The mutants barely managed to get farther than a few feet, then the next attack forced them to their knees – but this time the attack didn't seem to end and soon a sickly purplish light began to light up the lawn. Logan clenched his teeth and forced himself to ignore his pain and to turn over, so that he could see what was happening.
This time, the man hadn't contented himself with throwing his little ball of doom but had apparently followed it down to the barrier, to give it more juice. He hovered inches from the shield, his hands firmly pressed against the glittering surface, tendrils of red light curling around his arms up to his shoulders, his liquid attack spreading and slowly but surely sinking into the blue, marring it with ugly dark veins. Logan could clearly see the stranger's face now, pale and white even when it should be awash in bright scarlet or at least the sickly purple of the dying barrier, eyes too wide and bright to be completely sane, thin lips constantly moving and whispering inaudible words, not faltering once, even when the combined power of the shield and the attack began to burn his hands, thin wisps of smoke curling in the air.
And then, a crackling sounding over the screaming and crying of air and children alike – and the shield burst into billions of pieces, not one reaching the ground before vanishing.
The man didn't even pause to acknowledge his success. Too bright, too green eyes in a too pale, too youthful face for a madman drifted curiously over the mutant children in front of him, and then focused on the mansion in the distance. He floated closer – and suddenly in the air in front of him a sign appeared, bright yellow lines in a shape Logan had never seen before. They both had only a second to stare at it in confusion, then it exploded in flashing light and heat, throwing the armored stranger back and out of Logan's sight.
Logan blinked.
Then he shook himself out of his stupor. "What are you still waiting for? A formal invitation? Get moving!"
While he watched with one eye how the kids stumbled up to their feet and in the general direction of the school, his other senses were fully focused on the direction the armored man had been thrown into. He would be back, that he was sure of.
And he was right. Barely a minute later, the students still not all safe behind the walls of the mansion, the man reappeared again, this time on his own two feet, his cape billowing behind him, and obviously pissed off beyond reason.
Logan could smell the sharp scent of ozone in the air and he could see something resembling heat waves forming around the stranger's hands, if heat waves would be colored a bright poisonous green. Fortunately somebody or something was still firmly on their side.
The moment the armored man's feet touched the grass, faint lines in a multitude of colors began to appear all over the lawn, some written in the air, others burning their way through earth and plants alike. Apparently the time for warning shots was over. Whatever helped them was obviously ready to get serious now, if the angry buzzing of power was any indication.
Logan decided that getting the kids finally to safety was far more important than watching the ensuing lightshow. In the following chaos of herding screaming, crying and weeping children and teens into the mansion and down into the basement, he only caught glimpses of the battle going on outside. There were explosions bright enough to wake the memories of wars he had long since forgotten, things disintegrating, changing, morphing, turning alive and attacking each other, trees trying to ensnare the limbs of their attacker and crushing him in their unrelenting embrace, while expressionless statues tried to uproot them or to rip them out completely.
The grass burned, the stones surrounding the fountain burned, the water burned, and smoke billowed about the lawn and left strange, otherworldly scents in the air.
Deep trenches appeared where attacks of both sides had missed or been deflected, a forgotten backpack slowly turned into a puddle of slime, some books had sprouted legs and wandered aimlessly about, the laws of physics had been bent and broken so often in the course of the last twenty minutes that they had apparently packed their bags altogether and decided to go on a vacation until this madness was over…
In the end, it was the stranger who prevailed.
The kids finally safe (apart from a few stubborn students, Rogue among them, who insisted on staying but at least had the common sense to hide inside the mansion and to watch the proceedings through the windows), Logan took a deep breath, unsheathed his claws and turned to face their attacker. Soft but determined steps behind him told him that his team, Bobby, Kitty and Piotr had stayed to fight their foe as well. He could smell their fear, they were downright terrified, but a quick glance showed him determinedly squared shoulders and brave faces. Their too wide eyes and trembling limbs gave their panic away, but it didn't matter, they were ready to fight to the death to protect their friends and fellow students.
Logan was proud of them and he hoped that they would survive this so that he could tell them.
The man, dirty, disheveled and coughing after almost being choked to death by something that had looked like a fine, silvery rope, had moved like living snakes and burned through his clothes and flesh like acid, seemed to be equal parts amused and irritated at their opposition.
His armor was dented by now and blood seeped from countless minor scrapes and scratches as well as some more serious injuries. Streaks of dirt and soot as well as slowly appearing bruises marred his pale face, and a steady stream of red (Logan was almost sure this particular injury had already existed before the fight) seeped out from under the helmet and down the left side of the man's face.
But for all the pallor of his skin and his heavy breathing and coughing, the stranger's brilliant green eyes still burned brightly and Logan could see no sweat to give him a clue just how exhausted their attacker truly was.
When the wind turned – the long, slightly burned cape hugging the stranger like a pair of deep green wings – it brought no scent of sweat either.
In fact, the man did not seem to have a scent at all.
Logan sniffed once again, just to make sure, sorting through the smells he associated with home, the stinging stenches whatever just had happened had left behind and then, oh so carefully, through the various odors that clung to the person in front of him.
He smelled the leather and metal of the stranger's clothes easily enough (and even if that armor was nothing like the tin cans the knights of the Middle Ages had worn, it obviously served its purpose, quite admirably so), he also caught a whiff of something that reminded him of blood but with a base-scent that was completely foreign, and there were also several faint traces left over from wherever the man had been before suddenly appearing on their front lawn (trees, flowers and stone, food, alcohol of some kind he had never encountered before, blood again, the salty tang of the sea…) – but the really important scent, the scent unique to this tall, lean man he couldn't smell at all.
Just something vague, like freshly fallen snow…
The man straightened, finally over his coughing fit, and made a show of relaxing his pose, while in truth he just shifted into a more hidden, battle-ready stance only another experienced fighter would recognize. He smiled, charmingly so, if you disregarded the fact that the smile never reached his bottle-green, fathomless eyes, and held up his hands, showing them that he had no weapons.
Logan snorted, yeah, right, as if he even needed weapons to send them all to hell.
"Look, my dear friends, I do not want to fight you. I have no quarrel with you and this endeavor is already taking me longer than I first expected."
The voice that would have normally sounded soft and smooth was rough and scratchy now but still possessed a distinct persuasive quality. Logan could sense the other three behind him relaxing just the tiniest bit. That would not do.
"Pretty words… Then why did you attack us in the first place?" Logan growled, taking a threatening step forward.
The stranger's smile widened and he slightly cocked his head to the side, opening his arms wide. "As you may remember, I did not attack you at all. I am merely here to retrieve something that resides inside your school." He shrugged, his face turning rueful. "If everything had gone according to plan, you would not even have noticed me being here. I would have taken what I have come for and you would have never been bothered by my presence. Unfortunately, things became complicated once I entered the property and my options became somewhat limited, leading to this unfortunate misunderstanding…"
A slow smile again, showing far too many teeth to be reassuring, the mask cracking. "So if you will just let me retrieve my trinket, I will leave in peace and never bother you again. Nobody needs to get hurt and we all can put this little misunderstanding behind us, to never be thought of again. So… may I pass?"
For a moment Wolverine was tempted.
If the stranger told the truth and Logan agreed, the students would be safe and the whole ordeal would be over in a matter of minutes. They would still need to repair the damage the "complications" had caused, of course, but once the last traces would be gotten rid of, he could forget this day and pretend it had never happened.
But naturally things couldn't be so easy and three things spoke against taking the armored man up on his offer. For one, Logan could not say if he lied about his intentions or not. Usually his senses and instincts told him if a person was truthful or not, catching the slightest shift of scent, the slightest twitch or tell that showed if somebody was truthful or not. This man showed no nervousness that indicated a liar fearing to be caught and his scent was still indecipherable for Logan. But at the same time his instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong, that even if the stranger told the truth, he was also withholding information and could not be trusted. It was maddening and deeply unsettling and worrying, especially if coupled with the man's abilities.
Logan had never seen anything like what had happened before, he was certain, and he had seen a lot of mutations in his life and had heard about even more. Just minutes ago, he had witnessed reality being broken countless times with merely the twist of a hand and some whispered words, and by now he was pretty sure that this man was not even human. And that would open a whole new can of worms that Logan did not even want to consider.
And then, there was reason number three…
"Sorry, but we can't do that. Somebody obviously went to great lengths to protect whatever is hidden inside our school. And you seem pretty desperate to get it. To me that means that you probably shouldn't get your hands on it, especially if we don't know just what you can and will do with it once you have it."
Surprisingly it wasn't Logan who called their unwanted guest out on his bullshit but Bobby, who had apparently worked on conquering his fear in the last few minutes and stood now firm and determined, his trembling subsided to a barely noticeable twitching of his fingertips.
Beside him, Piotr nodded and shifted into his metallic shape, ready to defend the school with all he got and Kitty, while still shaking and biting her lip, seemed willing to fight as well.
Logan was really, really proud of them.
Their opponent, on the other hand, was far from impressed and showed the first real emotions in the whole conversation: Frustration, irritation and annoyance.
"You do not even know what you are speaking of! The trinket is harmless, useless even in most hands. It cannot be used as a weapon and is no threat to you or others. And those traps – " He made a wide, sweeping motion with one arm, encompassing the whole property (And were the lines in the grass that marked the – he had called it traps – slowly reappearing? If so, then if they could keep tall, pale and obviously very desperate to get that "trinket" busy for long enough, their problem would be taken care of without them actually doing anything. Hopefully the kids saw it too.), "were meant for everyone, not just me."
"And yet, they never harmed us and we live here." Bobby apparently drew courage from the slip ups of the stranger. He lifted his chin a bit and took a step forward.
The man laughed at that.
It wasn't a nice laugh, just a sharp bellow without any mirth, followed by the grimace of one who feared that he had just given something very important away.
In a flash, the pale face in front of them was blank again, but Logan wasn't fooled.
He doubted that the kids had caught on to the unspoken message, to do so took experience they just didn't have yet, but he could clearly hear the unspoken 'Why should they?' in this sudden outbreak.
"Bobby? Kitty? Piotr?" The teens straightened when he used their actual given names instead of calling them whatever nickname he had come up with over the time he had known them.
"Whatever happens, you will not let him get to whatever is hidden in the school!"
Logan let his claws catch the light and hunkered down, getting ready to jump and fight the stranger in earnest now. He glared at the man in green and gold and bared his teeth in challenge. "Because whatever it is, it is either something meant for us or entrusted to us, and I've got the feeling that things will only get worse should we lose it here and now."
The stranger smirked, a nasty grin that showed just as many teeth as Logan did, and for one moment Wolverine couldn't help but wonder if the man in front of him was just as much a predator as he himself was, then he lifted his hands, green sparks glittering in his palms that rapidly grew into emerald flames ready to consume anything in their way. "My, you are a clever one, are you not?"
"Come here and find out, bucket head!"
Logan saw the manic, almost insane glint in the poisonous green eyes before him, he smelt the ozone of whatever attack his opponent readied, he could hear the kids behind him holding their breath in anticipation of the start of the fight, the shouts and sobs of their students watching them from the windows – and he could feel the icy gust of wind that was the only warning every single one of them got before the sky darkened abruptly, lightening arched high above their heads and loud, rolling thunder rumbled over, around and though them, resonating deep inside their chests and filling most of them with new hope.
And one with more than just simple dread.
Logan could hear first shrieks, then cheers from the school and he knew from the gasps and one very foul Russian curse behind him that his team had been surprised by the sudden arriving of the storm, but still, it was nothing in comparison to their enemy's reaction.
The armored man had jumped over a foot in the air at the first sound of thunder and had turned even paler if that was even possible, his eyes a faint, almost translucent mint-green in a snow-white face. His flames disappeared even before the first drop of rain touched the ground, as if frightened away by the bright lightening dancing freely on the canvas of the dark, heavy clouds.
Logan had never before seen such a tall man hunch to such a small shape.
Just as he got ready to use his chance and tackle the intruder, Bobby unfortunately decided to open his mouth again, feeling new bravado at the unexpected sight of their cowering enemy.
"What's the matter? Are you afraid of a little bit of thunder? Or are you going to melt in the rain, you monster?"
It was only Bobby's specific mutation that saved him.
Had it been anybody else, they would have been dead when green eyes flashed in an insane rage and hate and suddenly darkened to a smoldering crimson set in deep blue flesh, when a hand, no, a claw was thrust out and a wave of ice burst out of the palm, racing above the grass, the ground, swallowing Bobby whole and covering the whole damn fountain in a white so stark it was almost painful to look at.
The sudden attack left devastation in its wake, the lawn in between the man(?) and Bobby filled with tiny, deadly spikes that refused to break under Logan's heavy steps when he raced to Bobby's side, biting through his shoes and into his flesh instead, drawing hot blood that froze the second it touched the ground. The stones surrounding the fountain groaned as if in great pain, cracking and breaking under the strain of such an abrupt change of temperature and the deeply frozen water they should contain pushing out, out, out now that it was frozen more solid than it should be possible on this planet.
"Bobby!" Later on, Logan would never be able to say just who had all screamed in desperation, he only knew that he had seen Rogue struggling against hands holding her back while he hunched down next to an iceblock that had once been Bobby Drake.
An iceblock, that slowly but surely began to move, human features melting out of the uneven ridges and planes until Bobby, still in his ice-shape and obviously shaken to the bone, but alive and well, climbed back to his feet with Piotr's help.
Logan audibly breathed a sigh of relief – only to hold his breath again just a moment later, when a heart-wrenching, pain-filled whimper reached his ears. It was an animal-sound, an instinctual whine remaining from the days when they had all still hunted for their food instead of buying it in the supermarket, serving no other purpose but to convey nothing but agony and despair to whomever was there to hear.
He was far too familiar with this particular noise, having heard it dozens of times on battlefields when the dying had no breath left to scream anymore or the horror of war just became too much for a soldier's mind to endure any longer.
For one panic-filled moment Logan feared that he had been wrong, that Bobby hadn't survived the attack unscathed, and that any moment now he would see the white, icy shape crumble, turning back into pink flesh and pain-filled eyes, already closer to death than to life and it wasn't fair, damn it, not after Jean and the Professor and Scott and…
"He is like us…"
The soft voice, not much louder than a whisper, broke through Logan's dark and fearful thoughts and kept him from actually starting to hyperventilate.
He started, looking around, found Piotr and Bobby thankfully still upright and not closer to death than just a moment before, and Kitty… Kitty, shy, sweet, little Kitty Pryde, the half-pint, as the only one who had kept her head and actually kept an eye on their enemy – Atta girl! – watching their opponent with a strange mix of fright, wonder and slowly growing sympathy.
"He is like us." She repeated louder, her eyes widening as she took in the sight of the man(?)/creature staring horrified at its own hands, at the dark blue skin interrupted by slightly discolored ridges forming strange patterns now and then, the blackish nails/claws, the faint traces of frost still rising from their fingertips…
The dark red eyes seemed far too large, far too young now for the being that had threatened them mere moments ago, its face showing more raw, honest emotion than in the whole previous discussion. And it still whined, still whimpered, 'Help me! Help me, I'm dying! I'm dying, if not in body than in mind and soul…'
And suddenly it wasn't half as scary anymore as before.
Because this, as sad as it was, was something they all knew how to deal with.
This was something they had witnessed far too often before, whenever they found a new mutant whose parents had disowned them, or who had run away in fright, or had been unable to control their "gift" the first time if manifested itself, or, perhaps, whenever they found a new mutant, period.
'Please, help me! I'm dying! My world is ending and I'm dying! That wasn't supposed to happen! Not to me! Not to me! Why is this happening to me? Why? Why? Why? Why me? Why now? My world is ending, please help me! Anyone!'
Yes, they knew this.
Because they all had a memory hidden away deep inside, of the first time their mutation manifested and the overwhelming despair they had felt at that moment, regardless of what had actually happened afterwards. Even Logan could remember the faint scent of blood and a faint, familiar shadow telling him to run, of a promise that he would be taken care of, and more than anything else, the stifling terror at what he had done.
'Please, help me! My world is ending and I can't start again! I don't have the strength to start anew! Oh god, I'm dying and I don't have the strength to go on!'
And they all had found the strength to rebuild their life in the end, most of them with the help of Xavier and the people of this school who had lent them theirs, until they finally found their feet again and accepted that life would go on somehow, that it always did, and that not all was lost, regardless how bad the situation seemed.
They knew how to deal with this.
And even if the creature before them was strange and foreign and different from any mutant they had ever encountered before, the X-Men couldn't help but relax their poses, their minds switching from attack and defend to soothe, comfort and contain any further damage in the matter of seconds. They were still cautious, too often a newly discovered mutant lashed out at anyone in their pain and desperation, but the being in front of them needed them, needed their help and they would be damned if, after all the sacrifices of the recent past, they would not hold up Xavier's ideals.
Logan wasn't sure how long it took and he also couldn't clearly say who of them had the most impact, if Kitty's soft, gentle words, Bobby's encouragement, Piotr's steady presence or his own gruff attempts at comfort finally reached the being and calmed it down enough to manage to slip back into his appearance as a tall, too pale man again. Perhaps it was even Storm's heartfelt concern or the Beast's slightly fuzzy but very blue and very calm appearance that did the trick, when the two last X-Men finally appeared a few minutes into their attempt to talk the stranger down from his panic attack.
Regardless, in the end, their would-be-attacker changed from blue-and-scary to pink-and-scary again, the ice surrounding the fountain finally begun to melt and exhausted, muddy green eyes looked at Storm, unerringly identifying her as the one calling the shots, even if Logan and Beast must look much more intimidating in comparison.
'He's good at reading body language then,' Logan concluded, still collecting info about their "guest" in case it got ugly once again or he should need it at a later date. He watched through narrowed eyes as the stranger tried to stand a little straighter and slip his pleasant but ultimately empty mask back over his features. He wasn't successful, his emotions staying clearly written all over his too pale face.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Storm sounded remarkably calm considering that most of the front lawn still resembled a war zone. And that there were currently three books dancing around her feet like around a bonfire, singing with high, chiming voices in a language that nobody had ever heard before.
She had more experience with calming newly discovered mutants down than any of them, Logan gave her that, but still… she seemed strangely unaffected by the multiple violations of the laws of physics still happening in the background, especially in comparison to Hank, who couldn't help but openly stare at some of the more absurd scenes. Instead she was focused fully on the man in front of her, sharp eyes taking in every little detail of his appearance, and Logan could almost see her coming to a conclusion about him. She knew something (and there would be words later on about holding back important information about possible enemies and visitors from her head of security, Wolverine swore to himself).
The armored man smiled, or at least he tried to. He only managed a faint twitching of his thin lips, then his face refused to settle into the familiar mask again, and showed nothing but a soul-deep pain and exhaustion. To his credit, the stranger noticed his inability to fool anybody any longer and just sighed. "I just want to destroy the spell written on the keystone of this mansion, nothing more, nothing less. I have no strife with you nor do I seek trouble. In fact, like I mentioned before, I planned for you to never notice my coming and going."
He sounded as tired as he looked, his voice scratchy and hoarse from the previous attempt to strangle him.
"Spell?" Hank managed to force his eyes away from the sight of two rose bushes trying to snatch some of the slowly returning birds out of the sky, apparently (at least if the feathers surrounding them were any indication) to stuff them into their beautiful, blood-red blossoms (Logan would never ever look at Ororo's beloved garden quite the same way again and he would arm the next poor kid on watering duty with a flamethrower, just in case), while a third used to the remaining droplets of the short rain shower to clean itself in a rather… suggestive manner.
The Beast raised on skeptical blue brow and begun in a rather doubtful voice, "Young man, I've dedicated my life to science since long before you've been born, and I assure you magic…"
He never finished his sentence, because the stranger made a noise that could have been a yelp but sounded actually more than a laugh before he hurriedly clapped a hand on his mouth.
It only lasted a second, but in this short moment the raindrops on the grass seemed to light up with an inner sparkle that made them look like liquid diamonds, the wind turned sweet and fresh, bringing the scent of hearth fire and dark woods with it, and the whole world seemed to hold its breath and focus on a single figure clad in green and palest gold.
Logan blinked, his nose still filled with the memories of better times, and emerald eyes had darkened to an ash grey again and the world had lost its sudden luster.
"I know who you are", Ororo's voice was strangely sad, as if something had happened that she had hoped would never come to pass but dreaded all the same. Her dark eyes were full of pity and sympathy as they rested on the stranger's face.
"Your Professor told you?" It was more a statement than a question but Ororo nodded anyway. "He had feared it would come to this one day."
For a moment there was a storm brewing in those dark green eyes, the previous rage threatening to return – then green faded to ash grey again, and the stranger closed his eyes and hung his head.
"How blind must I have been to not see the truth all those years. How pathetic. If even a mere mortal could see that the joke is on me. Was always on me…"
He shook his head, a small, bitter smile on his lips, and opened his eyes again to look straight at Storm: "You will not let me take back what is mine, either, am I right?"
Ororo took a cautious step closer, her expression still sad but also determined. "No, Loki."
The newly named Loki flinched as if struck.
Worried, Storm closed the last distance between them until she stood right at his side, one hand rising to touch his face. "Loki...?"
Suddenly the man in front of her straightened to his full height and brought his face out of her reach with a move that reminded Logan of a startled horse. Green fire was back in his hands as well as his eyes, his expression haughty and demanding once more.
"As if I would need your permission…" he sneered. "I wound the spell, it is mine and –"
A sharp slap echoed over the lawn and Logan could hear a faint awed "Ohh!" from the direction of the mansion and the hidden peanut gallery inside. He felt like "Ohh!" himself, but settled on admiring the dumbfounded look on Loki's face instead, one cheek showing a faint reddish tint.
Storm lowered the hand she'd used to slap Loki with and looked at the young man with angry but calm eyes. "Are you quite finished?"
She didn't wait for an answer and only made certain that she had Loki's full attention by gripping his arms. "Loki! I am pretty sure that I know what has happened or at least part of it… and I feel with you, I really do. But stop behaving as if it's the end of the world! It is not!"
Faint thunder could be heard in the distance and the sky darkened high above them.
Loki's eyes became haunted and he shook his head, "You have no idea…"
"Yes! I do! We all do!" Storm made an all encompassing motion with one hand and the wind picked up in force. "We all were at this point, hopeless and lost and not knowing what we should and could do. But we all managed to find a way to live on and so will you!"
"You do not understand" Loki's voice sounded more like a sob at this point and his pale green eyes had filled with tears. "I never had a chance. I tried and tried… but I never had a chance in the first place and they just did not care…"
"Oh Loki…" Anger had given way to sad understanding by now and Ororo reached up and pulled the crying man close. "None of us had a chance. We all were doomed from the start." Logan could see for a moment the hollowness in her eyes and knew that she thought of her own beginnings as not-only-Ororo but Storm, and what it had meant for her life.
"But it is also a blessing and we have made the best of it in the end. We have made our own chance, and once we have done so, you have made sure that we will never lose this chance again. You have done so much for us, will you really take that all away?"
Loki let out a mix of a sob and a breathless little laugh, his head now completely hidden in Ororo's shoulder. "You have no idea what I have done."
There was worry in Storm's eyes and Logan grimaced, reading the implications of the statement and coming to rather nasty conclusions. The more powerful a mutant was, the bigger a mess they left behind once they discovered their situation. And while Logan still wasn't sure if that "Loki" really was human, he was pretty certain that that particular law applied to him as well.
This didn't sound good at all.
Still, it was no use asking Loki now just what he had blown up upon discovering the truth, Ororo and Logan both knew this. So Storm just continued to rub comforting circles on Loki's back and Wolverine sighed, motioned to Hank to help him and began to shoo the younger X-Men to the mansion to update the other kids on the changed situation.
"I don't know what else you have done, Loki, but I know that you have given us hope. A fighting chance. A future." Logan could still hear the sobs behind him as well as his team-mate's soothing whispers. "Don't take that from us. And don't take that from you. Don't give up! It's not over yet."
A murmur, too quiet for even the feral mutant's ears to catch.
"No, it's not! It may seem this way, but it is not, I promise, Loki. It will be okay…"
The rest of the conversation was lost to Logan, but he was pretty certain that he knew what would happen. The same that always happened.
Ororo would convince Loki to stay and the young man would fall into a bed, exhausted and finally, blessedly numb after the initial stages of discovery, shock, denial, rage and breakdown had passed. He would sleep like a log, his conscious trying to escape reality just a little bit longer, and Logan, probably with Hank's help, would use the time to wring any piece of information about their strange newest – Student? Member? – out of Ororo.
And then, the next morning, it would time to face the truth, for both sides. Loki would have to face the truth that everything that had happened had not been a nightmare and Logan, Ororo and Hank would have to face whatever had sounded like a good idea at the time when Loki had been convinced that the universe hated him and he had hated it back for dealing him such a fate.
There would probably at least one other breakdown, perhaps two – but then Loki would slowly be able to heal, to get back up on his feet and to eventually look forward to an actual future again. He would be able to move on and life in the mansion would certainly become even more interesting with him around, that Logan was sure of.
"I will clean up the mess tomorrow, I'm good at that…" drifted with the wind from where Ororo and Loki still stood. The young man's voice sounded still far too defeated for Logan's liking, but if he wasn't mistaken, there was the tiniest hint of wistful humor hidden in it.
A sudden idea hit the older mutant and he pause for a moment in his step, turning half around and throwing the tall, lean man behind him as well as the chaos he had caused a measuring look. (He distantly noticed that the colorful lines on the ground and in the air were fading again, and he suspected that to be a sure sign that they apparently would be stuck with Loki from now on.)Then Logan quirked his lips in a tiny smirk, lit himself a cigar and decided that it was definitely worth a try.
He would give his (apparently, but Logan was pretty sure he remembered him, even if not all those memories were good ones) old pal Fury a call and tell him that he would join his little "Avengers"-project – in another year or so. And maybe, just maybe, he would bring a friend…
