Title: CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE
Author: Marvelous
Chapter Summary: All hell breaks loose. Gleefully nasty cameo appearance by Magneto & Mystique.
Chapter Six
The hallway outside the door was chaos. A red light flashed in counterpoint to the screech of the alarm. Scott felt instantly disoriented. A slew of armed guards surrounded both ends of the corridor. He couldn't count how many. All of them had guns pointed at him and Wolverine; one soldier, who was apparently in charge, shouted something at them. Scott could only guess it was an order to freeze, but he could hear nothing over the sound of the siren. Wolverine shoved Scott back, then released him and charged into the nearest group of soldiers.
Madness reigned after that. There was an explosion of gunfire, audible even over the siren. Scott flattened himself against the wall and dropped to a crouch. He was utterly defenseless in the hallway, but he refused to go back into the relative protection of the cell.
He was mostly ignored in the resulting tumult. The soldiers had more than they could handle with Wolverine. Scott had never before seen Wolverine in a full-out berserker rage. Fervently, he hoped he never would again. Wolverine ripped through the soldiers, claws shredding armor and flesh. Scott was thankful to the siren for blocking the shouts of the dying soldiers.
And then Wolverine's hand was locked around his wrist again. He dragged Scott down the now-deserted hallway. Scott couldn't tell what was going on. Wolverine still wasn't himself, yet the serum wasn't having the right effect on him anymore. At least he seemed to have a vested interest in keeping Scott alive.
They were out of the hallway now and in the enormous chamber, the one Scott had passed through on the way to the interrogation chamber. It seemed like a lifetime ago; Scott realized it had just been yesterday.
The chamber was vast, filled with a great deal of abandoned machinery. The alarm was still blaring, but it was quieter here than in the hallway. Scott could hear Wolverine's low growl as he looked around the room. Wolverine dragged Scott to a corner, behind a stack of culvert pipes.
"Logan, what's going on?" Scott asked.
Wolverine snarled in reply. He didn't seem capable of speech in his present state. He shoved Scott against the wall, then threw him to the ground. Before Scott could react, Wolverine grabbed his hair and forced him up on his knees. He crouched down behind him.
"Logan, what--?" Scott's question was cut off by Wolverine's hand clapped across his mouth and a warning growl in his ear. Wolverine's breath quickened. Once again, Scott felt Wolverine's erection pressed against him.
Pain and fear gave way to panic. Scott surged forward. The hand on his mouth dropped to his throat and squeezed. Scott gasped for air. He brought up his hands to try to pull Wolverine away, but the adamantium-enhanced arms didn't budge.
"Please," Scott gasped out. "Logan, stop." He went limp in Wolverine's grasp. Instantly, the hand on his neck relaxed its grip.
Helpless, hurt, and terrorized beyond comprehension, Scott began to shake uncontrollably. Unable to find any way to protest against what was happening to him, he stopped resisting.
Wolverine's position shifted. The hand at Scott's throat moved to his hair. With a gentle, uncertain motion, Wolverine began to stroke Scott's hair. Scott didn't move, though he couldn't stop trembling. Hysteria threatened to overtake him. Was Wolverine trying to comfort him? Scott was being held gently now, but firmly, and he had no doubt the arms would tighten around him if he tried to move away.
Wolverine was smelling his hair now, then the back of his neck, across the collar, then burrowing his face into Scott's back. His hand went to Scott's face, stroked his cheek, his neck. Scott was being petted, reassured, like one would reassure a frightened animal.
Wolverine sniffed him again, deeper. His limbs tensed against Scott; Scott's heart jumped as he felt the change. Wolverine growled again, sniffed once more, and released Scott. He rose to his feet. The claws popped out.
In the next moment, Scott picked up on what Wolverine's heightened senses had alerted him to. More soldiers were entering the room. Abandoning Scott, Wolverine gave a howl of fury and launched himself out from around the culvert pipes.
Once more, chaos erupted. In his present position, Scott was hidden from sight, but he couldn't stay there. He was wounded and defenseless. As much as he hated to abandon Wolverine, even temporarily, he'd be no use in the fight. If Wolverine had to protect him, he'd be a hindrance. And once Wolverine took care of this current batch of attackers, he'd probably attack Scott again. Putting some distance between them was the best option.
First, he had to get out of the room undetected. Luckily, the chamber was so cluttered with equipment that it was an easy thing to slide along the wall, ducking behind objects and crouching low to keep from being spotted. He was limping badly, and he couldn't run, or fight, but he could move, and that was the important thing.
A few feet away from the open door that led into the corridor, Scott paused behind the protection of a stack of wooden pallets. He couldn't see into the hallway; he had no idea if more soldiers were hiding in reserve. He'd have to chance it. Keeping low, Scott slipped out the door and into the darkened hall.
There was someone there, a lone individual crouched in the shadows beside the door. The figure turned around and looked at Scott. Scott caught the flash of black leather, the swirl of shoulder-length auburn hair.
And then he was in Jean's arms, in a tangle of arms, both of them pulling each other into the shadowy alcove beside the door.
"Jean," he whispered, pressing her as tightly to him as he dared. "Jean."
She was holding him tightly too, in a way that hurt all of his strained joints and pulled muscles, but it was a good kind of hurt. He was a little surprised he hadn't sensed her in the hallway through their ever-present mental link, but it was something of a relief that Jean wasn't reading his thoughts. He'd let her know everything soon enough, but first they needed to get out of there.
For the moment, however, it was enough to just hold onto her. Jean had somehow maneuvered him so his back was against the wall. She kissed him now, roughly and with more intensity than usual. Her grip around his waist was starting to cause him real pain; when she bit down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, Scott pulled back in shock.
"Jean..." he said, then stopped as Jean seemed to ripple in the dim light. Pale skin and black leather shifted into a seamless mass of midnight blue. Scott stared in shock at Mystique. At their last meeting, during the fight at Liberty Island, she had tried to stick her claws into his back while in the guise of Wolverine. It didn't seem like her intentions had significantly changed.
"Not quite, Cyclops," she said. She smirked at him and pushed him back against the wall. "I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
She leaned in until her mouth was almost touching his. He twisted his head to the side; her tongue flicked out and licked his cheek. With revulsion, Scott realized she was licking off the blood and semen Jordan had smeared on him. "I like you better this way," she said, her voice low. "Torn and bleeding and filled with Wolverine's come."
He shoved her away, no longer caring about attracting the attention of the soldiers in the adjoining chamber. "Get off of me."
"Now, now." Scott straightened up at the sound of a new visitor to their little party. He couldn't make out the features of the cloaked and helmeted figure approaching them, but he knew the voice. Magneto. "Mystique, my dear, why don't you let go of the poor boy? He's having a terribly rough day."
"What are you doing here?" Scott asked.
Magneto smiled at him, crinkling his eyes, looking every bit like someone's kindly uncle. "Why, rescuing you and Charles, of course."
"Why do I find that hard to believe?" Scott focused his attention on Magneto and tried to ignore Mystique, who was standing mere centimeters away from him.
"My dear Cyclops." Magneto's voice held nothing but exasperated affection. "If we meant you any harm, would we go to such lengths to protect you from this?" Magneto raised a hand in the air. Scott looked at him, not understanding, until he saw a handful of small metal rings float through the open doorway into his hand. Grenade pins.
And then Mystique was on him again, dragging him to the floor, covering him with her naked body. Magneto crouched as well, his elegant crimson cape pulled around him. He held up both hands. There was a tearing of metal, then one of the panels lining the ceiling flew across the room and hovered in midair between them and the doorway to the chamber as a makeshift shield.
Scott heard the surprised shouts of the soldiers an instant before the tremendous series of blasts. Fire lit up the hallway. The ground beneath Scott shook. Mystique, on top of him, grinned and ground herself against him. Her form shifted again. For the briefest instant, Scott found himself pinned beneath his slain rapist, Jordan, before Mystique shifted back into her usual blue self.
"Get the hell off of him." A familiar low growl. Scott saw Wolverine standing in the doorway, claws extended. He was smudged with soot from the blast, and his jacket was scorched and tattered, but he was undamaged. His eyes were their normal shade of brown. He looked himself again. Pissed off and grumpy beyond belief. Like usual.
Mystique raised a cool eyebrow, then rolled off of Scott and rose to her feet. Magneto tossed his improvised shield aside with an elegant flick of his hand. "Ah, Wolverine. It's good to see you back to your usual charming self." He looked down at Scott, who was slowly getting to his feet. "You boys put on quite the show for the security cameras."
Scott froze. He felt a sudden burst of rage, which was replaced with a bone-deep weariness. After all that had happened, it was ridiculous to let Magneto's taunts get to him.
Mystique brushed herself off. "If I'd known the way your interests were running, I would have changed into someone else for you in your tent last night, Wolverine." She shot a quick look over at Scott.
Wolverine was silent, glowering at her. Scott glanced at him. The look Wolverine gave him was equal parts guilt and anger. With a twist in his heart, he thought he had a pretty good idea of who Mystique had changed into for Wolverine. Rotten to think of Jean being used in that way, even if she knew nothing about it.
Magneto smiled. "Seeing that we can count Cyclops among the rescued, Mystique and I are going to look for Charles. Coming?" He arched an elegant brow.
"Not with you," Wolverine said. Scott kept silent.
"There's gratitude for you." Magneto extended a hand to Mystique. "Shall we?"
Mystique linked her arm in Magneto's. With a final smirk at Scott and Logan, she gracefully walked with Magneto down the hallway. They both moved at an unhurried, unruffled pace, as if they were taking a stroll through a park on a balmy evening. Magneto leaned his head toward hers and murmured something inaudible. Mystique giggled.
Wolverine had disappeared. Scott followed him into the chamber and instantly regretted it. The room had been blown apart by the grenades. Worse, the owners of the grenades had been blown apart as well. Scott avoided looking too closely at anything as he walked toward Wolverine.
Logan picked something off the floor. He turned around and extended it toward Scott. A pistol. "Take it," he said. He wasn't looking at Scott. "If I flip out on you again, aim for the head. It'll slow me down the longest."
Scott took it. He tucked it into the waistband of his pants, oddly touched by the gesture. "Tell me there's a good reason why we've teamed up with Magneto," he said, mostly to break the moment.
"Wasn't my idea." Wolverine started walking toward the far end of the corridor, in the opposite direction from where Magneto and Mystique had headed.
"Are Jean and Storm here?" Scott asked. He was amazed at how normal his voice sounded.
Wolverine seemed to be very busy looking anywhere but at him. "Yeah. They must be looking for the kids and Xavier. Don't know how we're going to find them in this place, though."
For the first time, Scott let his mental barriers down and tentatively started searching for some sign of Jean. It worked. Scott felt the glorious light, questioning touch in his head, felt the outpouring of information in response to his quick query about her location and situation. Hard to hold back from breaking down entirely under the quiet assurances of her love, but he lightly assured her he was all right, that Wolverine was with him, and severed the connection as gently as possible. He found Wolverine looking at him, puzzled by his sudden stillness.
"They're not far," he said. "Jean and Storm. They have the professor and the kids with them." He nodded toward the hall. "This way. They're going to meet us by the place you came in."
Wolverine didn't say anything. He looked both skeptical and impressed, as if he hadn't known of the mental bond Scott and Jean shared. Scott felt a fierce stab of petty triumph. Anything that damaged Wolverine's assumption that Jean would someday be his was good news for Scott.
Scott picked his way gingerly across the horror-strewn room, regretting his bare feet. Now that the immediate danger seemed to be past, he was more aware than ever of his damaged physical condition. Moving was a challenge; moving quickly was not a possibility. While stepping to avoid a patch of gore, Scott's knee buckled, and he surged forward.
A firm hand on his waist prevented him from hitting the ground. Wolverine used his free hand to lift Scott's arm and hang it around his shoulders. "Faster this way," he said.
They made their way slowly through the building, exchanging words only when Wolverine wanted confirmation on their route of travel. Scott could feel Jean tickling around the back of his mind now, guiding him toward her, asking the occasional question, but he refrained from broadcasting anything more than love and reassurance to her. The professor was in his mind too, exhausted and sad, but alive and okay. When Scott didn't respond to his tentative queries, the professor slipped out of his head without argument.
Almost there. They met no more soldiers. The compound seemed empty. Jordan had said there were fifty of them; Wolverine had taken out thirty or more by himself, and who knew how many Jean and Storm had neutralized. There was no sign of Yuriko Oyama, and Scott, with an irked memory of how easily she had subdued him, hoped that would continue to be the case. Maybe, free of the serum, she'd revert back to normal like Wolverine, though there was no telling what her normal state was like.
They were close now. Scott thought he could hear noises up ahead. Wolverine twitched his nose, wrinkled his forehead in annoyance.
"Just down the hall," Wolverine said. "Damn kids. Making sixty kinds of rackets."
Scott closed his eyes. All of a sudden, he didn't think he could go any further. It was the thought of facing the kids, facing Jean, facing the professor, that made something in his soul crumble. They'd look to him to be their leader, be their Cyclops, and all he wanted to do was lie down in a corner somewhere and die.
He'd stopped moving. Wolverine glanced over at him, then released his hold on him. "Hey," he said. "Hey."
Scott looked at him. He didn't know what Logan could see in his face, but he thought he saw something very similar reflected in Logan's own eyes. Gently, carefully, Wolverine lifted his hands to Scott's shoulders. He brought Scott against him in a quick, hard embrace. Scott was too stunned to react, so he simply stood, rigid.
Just as quickly, Wolverine released him. There had been a strange transference of strength in the embrace, as though Logan had given him the ability to make it through the million obstacles and irritations, large and petty, that lay between this hell and home. Wolverine crooked a weary half-smile at him.
"Lead us home, Cyclops," was all he said.
Author: Marvelous
Chapter Summary: All hell breaks loose. Gleefully nasty cameo appearance by Magneto & Mystique.
Chapter Six
The hallway outside the door was chaos. A red light flashed in counterpoint to the screech of the alarm. Scott felt instantly disoriented. A slew of armed guards surrounded both ends of the corridor. He couldn't count how many. All of them had guns pointed at him and Wolverine; one soldier, who was apparently in charge, shouted something at them. Scott could only guess it was an order to freeze, but he could hear nothing over the sound of the siren. Wolverine shoved Scott back, then released him and charged into the nearest group of soldiers.
Madness reigned after that. There was an explosion of gunfire, audible even over the siren. Scott flattened himself against the wall and dropped to a crouch. He was utterly defenseless in the hallway, but he refused to go back into the relative protection of the cell.
He was mostly ignored in the resulting tumult. The soldiers had more than they could handle with Wolverine. Scott had never before seen Wolverine in a full-out berserker rage. Fervently, he hoped he never would again. Wolverine ripped through the soldiers, claws shredding armor and flesh. Scott was thankful to the siren for blocking the shouts of the dying soldiers.
And then Wolverine's hand was locked around his wrist again. He dragged Scott down the now-deserted hallway. Scott couldn't tell what was going on. Wolverine still wasn't himself, yet the serum wasn't having the right effect on him anymore. At least he seemed to have a vested interest in keeping Scott alive.
They were out of the hallway now and in the enormous chamber, the one Scott had passed through on the way to the interrogation chamber. It seemed like a lifetime ago; Scott realized it had just been yesterday.
The chamber was vast, filled with a great deal of abandoned machinery. The alarm was still blaring, but it was quieter here than in the hallway. Scott could hear Wolverine's low growl as he looked around the room. Wolverine dragged Scott to a corner, behind a stack of culvert pipes.
"Logan, what's going on?" Scott asked.
Wolverine snarled in reply. He didn't seem capable of speech in his present state. He shoved Scott against the wall, then threw him to the ground. Before Scott could react, Wolverine grabbed his hair and forced him up on his knees. He crouched down behind him.
"Logan, what--?" Scott's question was cut off by Wolverine's hand clapped across his mouth and a warning growl in his ear. Wolverine's breath quickened. Once again, Scott felt Wolverine's erection pressed against him.
Pain and fear gave way to panic. Scott surged forward. The hand on his mouth dropped to his throat and squeezed. Scott gasped for air. He brought up his hands to try to pull Wolverine away, but the adamantium-enhanced arms didn't budge.
"Please," Scott gasped out. "Logan, stop." He went limp in Wolverine's grasp. Instantly, the hand on his neck relaxed its grip.
Helpless, hurt, and terrorized beyond comprehension, Scott began to shake uncontrollably. Unable to find any way to protest against what was happening to him, he stopped resisting.
Wolverine's position shifted. The hand at Scott's throat moved to his hair. With a gentle, uncertain motion, Wolverine began to stroke Scott's hair. Scott didn't move, though he couldn't stop trembling. Hysteria threatened to overtake him. Was Wolverine trying to comfort him? Scott was being held gently now, but firmly, and he had no doubt the arms would tighten around him if he tried to move away.
Wolverine was smelling his hair now, then the back of his neck, across the collar, then burrowing his face into Scott's back. His hand went to Scott's face, stroked his cheek, his neck. Scott was being petted, reassured, like one would reassure a frightened animal.
Wolverine sniffed him again, deeper. His limbs tensed against Scott; Scott's heart jumped as he felt the change. Wolverine growled again, sniffed once more, and released Scott. He rose to his feet. The claws popped out.
In the next moment, Scott picked up on what Wolverine's heightened senses had alerted him to. More soldiers were entering the room. Abandoning Scott, Wolverine gave a howl of fury and launched himself out from around the culvert pipes.
Once more, chaos erupted. In his present position, Scott was hidden from sight, but he couldn't stay there. He was wounded and defenseless. As much as he hated to abandon Wolverine, even temporarily, he'd be no use in the fight. If Wolverine had to protect him, he'd be a hindrance. And once Wolverine took care of this current batch of attackers, he'd probably attack Scott again. Putting some distance between them was the best option.
First, he had to get out of the room undetected. Luckily, the chamber was so cluttered with equipment that it was an easy thing to slide along the wall, ducking behind objects and crouching low to keep from being spotted. He was limping badly, and he couldn't run, or fight, but he could move, and that was the important thing.
A few feet away from the open door that led into the corridor, Scott paused behind the protection of a stack of wooden pallets. He couldn't see into the hallway; he had no idea if more soldiers were hiding in reserve. He'd have to chance it. Keeping low, Scott slipped out the door and into the darkened hall.
There was someone there, a lone individual crouched in the shadows beside the door. The figure turned around and looked at Scott. Scott caught the flash of black leather, the swirl of shoulder-length auburn hair.
And then he was in Jean's arms, in a tangle of arms, both of them pulling each other into the shadowy alcove beside the door.
"Jean," he whispered, pressing her as tightly to him as he dared. "Jean."
She was holding him tightly too, in a way that hurt all of his strained joints and pulled muscles, but it was a good kind of hurt. He was a little surprised he hadn't sensed her in the hallway through their ever-present mental link, but it was something of a relief that Jean wasn't reading his thoughts. He'd let her know everything soon enough, but first they needed to get out of there.
For the moment, however, it was enough to just hold onto her. Jean had somehow maneuvered him so his back was against the wall. She kissed him now, roughly and with more intensity than usual. Her grip around his waist was starting to cause him real pain; when she bit down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, Scott pulled back in shock.
"Jean..." he said, then stopped as Jean seemed to ripple in the dim light. Pale skin and black leather shifted into a seamless mass of midnight blue. Scott stared in shock at Mystique. At their last meeting, during the fight at Liberty Island, she had tried to stick her claws into his back while in the guise of Wolverine. It didn't seem like her intentions had significantly changed.
"Not quite, Cyclops," she said. She smirked at him and pushed him back against the wall. "I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
She leaned in until her mouth was almost touching his. He twisted his head to the side; her tongue flicked out and licked his cheek. With revulsion, Scott realized she was licking off the blood and semen Jordan had smeared on him. "I like you better this way," she said, her voice low. "Torn and bleeding and filled with Wolverine's come."
He shoved her away, no longer caring about attracting the attention of the soldiers in the adjoining chamber. "Get off of me."
"Now, now." Scott straightened up at the sound of a new visitor to their little party. He couldn't make out the features of the cloaked and helmeted figure approaching them, but he knew the voice. Magneto. "Mystique, my dear, why don't you let go of the poor boy? He's having a terribly rough day."
"What are you doing here?" Scott asked.
Magneto smiled at him, crinkling his eyes, looking every bit like someone's kindly uncle. "Why, rescuing you and Charles, of course."
"Why do I find that hard to believe?" Scott focused his attention on Magneto and tried to ignore Mystique, who was standing mere centimeters away from him.
"My dear Cyclops." Magneto's voice held nothing but exasperated affection. "If we meant you any harm, would we go to such lengths to protect you from this?" Magneto raised a hand in the air. Scott looked at him, not understanding, until he saw a handful of small metal rings float through the open doorway into his hand. Grenade pins.
And then Mystique was on him again, dragging him to the floor, covering him with her naked body. Magneto crouched as well, his elegant crimson cape pulled around him. He held up both hands. There was a tearing of metal, then one of the panels lining the ceiling flew across the room and hovered in midair between them and the doorway to the chamber as a makeshift shield.
Scott heard the surprised shouts of the soldiers an instant before the tremendous series of blasts. Fire lit up the hallway. The ground beneath Scott shook. Mystique, on top of him, grinned and ground herself against him. Her form shifted again. For the briefest instant, Scott found himself pinned beneath his slain rapist, Jordan, before Mystique shifted back into her usual blue self.
"Get the hell off of him." A familiar low growl. Scott saw Wolverine standing in the doorway, claws extended. He was smudged with soot from the blast, and his jacket was scorched and tattered, but he was undamaged. His eyes were their normal shade of brown. He looked himself again. Pissed off and grumpy beyond belief. Like usual.
Mystique raised a cool eyebrow, then rolled off of Scott and rose to her feet. Magneto tossed his improvised shield aside with an elegant flick of his hand. "Ah, Wolverine. It's good to see you back to your usual charming self." He looked down at Scott, who was slowly getting to his feet. "You boys put on quite the show for the security cameras."
Scott froze. He felt a sudden burst of rage, which was replaced with a bone-deep weariness. After all that had happened, it was ridiculous to let Magneto's taunts get to him.
Mystique brushed herself off. "If I'd known the way your interests were running, I would have changed into someone else for you in your tent last night, Wolverine." She shot a quick look over at Scott.
Wolverine was silent, glowering at her. Scott glanced at him. The look Wolverine gave him was equal parts guilt and anger. With a twist in his heart, he thought he had a pretty good idea of who Mystique had changed into for Wolverine. Rotten to think of Jean being used in that way, even if she knew nothing about it.
Magneto smiled. "Seeing that we can count Cyclops among the rescued, Mystique and I are going to look for Charles. Coming?" He arched an elegant brow.
"Not with you," Wolverine said. Scott kept silent.
"There's gratitude for you." Magneto extended a hand to Mystique. "Shall we?"
Mystique linked her arm in Magneto's. With a final smirk at Scott and Logan, she gracefully walked with Magneto down the hallway. They both moved at an unhurried, unruffled pace, as if they were taking a stroll through a park on a balmy evening. Magneto leaned his head toward hers and murmured something inaudible. Mystique giggled.
Wolverine had disappeared. Scott followed him into the chamber and instantly regretted it. The room had been blown apart by the grenades. Worse, the owners of the grenades had been blown apart as well. Scott avoided looking too closely at anything as he walked toward Wolverine.
Logan picked something off the floor. He turned around and extended it toward Scott. A pistol. "Take it," he said. He wasn't looking at Scott. "If I flip out on you again, aim for the head. It'll slow me down the longest."
Scott took it. He tucked it into the waistband of his pants, oddly touched by the gesture. "Tell me there's a good reason why we've teamed up with Magneto," he said, mostly to break the moment.
"Wasn't my idea." Wolverine started walking toward the far end of the corridor, in the opposite direction from where Magneto and Mystique had headed.
"Are Jean and Storm here?" Scott asked. He was amazed at how normal his voice sounded.
Wolverine seemed to be very busy looking anywhere but at him. "Yeah. They must be looking for the kids and Xavier. Don't know how we're going to find them in this place, though."
For the first time, Scott let his mental barriers down and tentatively started searching for some sign of Jean. It worked. Scott felt the glorious light, questioning touch in his head, felt the outpouring of information in response to his quick query about her location and situation. Hard to hold back from breaking down entirely under the quiet assurances of her love, but he lightly assured her he was all right, that Wolverine was with him, and severed the connection as gently as possible. He found Wolverine looking at him, puzzled by his sudden stillness.
"They're not far," he said. "Jean and Storm. They have the professor and the kids with them." He nodded toward the hall. "This way. They're going to meet us by the place you came in."
Wolverine didn't say anything. He looked both skeptical and impressed, as if he hadn't known of the mental bond Scott and Jean shared. Scott felt a fierce stab of petty triumph. Anything that damaged Wolverine's assumption that Jean would someday be his was good news for Scott.
Scott picked his way gingerly across the horror-strewn room, regretting his bare feet. Now that the immediate danger seemed to be past, he was more aware than ever of his damaged physical condition. Moving was a challenge; moving quickly was not a possibility. While stepping to avoid a patch of gore, Scott's knee buckled, and he surged forward.
A firm hand on his waist prevented him from hitting the ground. Wolverine used his free hand to lift Scott's arm and hang it around his shoulders. "Faster this way," he said.
They made their way slowly through the building, exchanging words only when Wolverine wanted confirmation on their route of travel. Scott could feel Jean tickling around the back of his mind now, guiding him toward her, asking the occasional question, but he refrained from broadcasting anything more than love and reassurance to her. The professor was in his mind too, exhausted and sad, but alive and okay. When Scott didn't respond to his tentative queries, the professor slipped out of his head without argument.
Almost there. They met no more soldiers. The compound seemed empty. Jordan had said there were fifty of them; Wolverine had taken out thirty or more by himself, and who knew how many Jean and Storm had neutralized. There was no sign of Yuriko Oyama, and Scott, with an irked memory of how easily she had subdued him, hoped that would continue to be the case. Maybe, free of the serum, she'd revert back to normal like Wolverine, though there was no telling what her normal state was like.
They were close now. Scott thought he could hear noises up ahead. Wolverine twitched his nose, wrinkled his forehead in annoyance.
"Just down the hall," Wolverine said. "Damn kids. Making sixty kinds of rackets."
Scott closed his eyes. All of a sudden, he didn't think he could go any further. It was the thought of facing the kids, facing Jean, facing the professor, that made something in his soul crumble. They'd look to him to be their leader, be their Cyclops, and all he wanted to do was lie down in a corner somewhere and die.
He'd stopped moving. Wolverine glanced over at him, then released his hold on him. "Hey," he said. "Hey."
Scott looked at him. He didn't know what Logan could see in his face, but he thought he saw something very similar reflected in Logan's own eyes. Gently, carefully, Wolverine lifted his hands to Scott's shoulders. He brought Scott against him in a quick, hard embrace. Scott was too stunned to react, so he simply stood, rigid.
Just as quickly, Wolverine released him. There had been a strange transference of strength in the embrace, as though Logan had given him the ability to make it through the million obstacles and irritations, large and petty, that lay between this hell and home. Wolverine crooked a weary half-smile at him.
"Lead us home, Cyclops," was all he said.