...beep...
"...Try and stabilize him..."
...beep...
"...one lung punctured..."
...beep...
"...armor piercing bullets..."
...beep...
Frank slowly felt the world slip back into place...
...beep...
And immediately felt like flatlining...
...beep...
He felt like was he was swimming, he could hear muted voices above his head...
...beep...
He tried to gather some coherent thoughts...
...beep...
But as soon as he pieced more than two thoughts together...
...beep...
They all became a grotesque kaleidoscope of pain and old memories...
...beep...
In an effort of Herculean proportions he slitted his eyes and was greeted by the angry, blaring light of a luminescent lamp being forced into his eyes with roughly the same amount of pain and unwillingness as if it was a dull toothpick.
...beep...
The murky pool inside his head began to solidify; his thoughts fell back into their rightful places...
...beep...
The proverbial gears began turning...
...beep...
"Where am I?" His voice was raspy, making him wonder just for how long he had been out.
Somewhere above him, a gentle, wizened old voice sprang to life
"I'm glad that you're finally awake, I was worried..."
"Just answer the damn question!"
The voice hesitated, probably taken aback at the sudden burst of hostility...
"You're at Xavier's boarding school for gifted youngsters" The voice finally revealed
"Oh"
A beat
"WHAT?"
...beepbeepbeep...
A quick mental calculus: Take one well-respected personage, add one vigilante serial killer. Result: Police arrival imminent.
That realization hit Frank like a point-blank shot at the face, and he franticly clawed the various tubes and needles from his body and dashed for the door, but he only managed two steps before his insides kindly reminded him that he was in no condition for such rash activities, and he fell to the floor with a pained yell.
The voice was calm and kind; "You really shouldn't do that Mr. Castle, it has only been a few hours since our doctor, Mr. Henry McCoy removed the bullets from your body, and they did quite a lot of damage"
Frank looked up at the bald man talking, and recognition came crashing down upon him...
"Charles Xavier"
"Indeed" He smiled warmly, and that set Frank a bit on edge.
Hundreds of questions immediately lined up in his head, tripping over themselves to get out first.
"Why am I here?"
"If you are worrying about the police, then I can assure you that you are completely safe at the moment"
'At the moment' Frank didn't like the sound of that
"Why?"
Xavier seemed taken aback at the question, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world
"You saved the life of one of my students, it would be extremely inappropriate to leave you to the police, especially considering the state you were in. You did take two bullets for her"
When he spoke, he sparked another memory in Franks' foggy mind.
"How's the girl?"
Frank noticed that Xavier's smile tightened, a tiny detail easily overlooked, but on a man so proficient in hiding his emotions as Xavier, it told of anger and frustration. Expertly concealed, but not invisible.
"Under the circumstances she is fine; She has a couple of bruises and is very sore... well you know where, and she has burns from where her jeans were ripped off. But that's just physical, I'm afraid that the whole ordeal has been rather traumatizing for her, she cried uncontrollably when we brought her in, and one of our resident telepaths had to stop her from going into hysteria. But she has fallen asleep now, thank god. She needs all the rest she can get in her current condition."
Frank felt a surge of relief in his stomach, but also a knot of fear. She was a young girl who has had her innocence shattered like a bullet through a mirror, shattering the image forever. That thought made him cringe. Innocence was a rare and beautiful thing. Few people had it, and those who had it would often lose it, deliberately or otherwise, and once they did, there was no going back.
There is no reclaiming innocence. He hoped she would be all right.
In her room, Jubilee tossed and turned in her sleep, as the demons of her nightmare hunted her, howling, drooling, sadistic monsters that knew her every weakness and closed in for the kill.
Her arms flailed around her and she mumbled frightened incoherent sentences. Her face had swollen because of the bruises, and she would be unable to open her left eye for a couple of days.
Next to her bed, a man sat and guarded over her, watching her as she slept, wiping tears off her face and cringing when she moaned in pain.
He was rather short, only five foot five, but he was broad and powerfully built, muscles rippling over every inch of his body, and his hair was pitch black and uncontrolled, almost exploding from his skull and surrounding his sharp-featured face. He had a crooked nose and a mouth that seemed to be made for sneering, and his icy blue eyes were almost... animalistic, burning with an intense anger and need to protect the girl beside him.
Logan was, in many ways, an animal. His fierce temper and brutal demeanour was courtesy to living in the wilderness of Canada for many years, and his predator-like claws and senses were courtesy of his mutation, and lastly, the adamantium in his body was from the Weapon-X project.
But for all his anger, he was deep down a good hearted man who protected those he loved and cared about with unsurpassed passion, and right now he really felt like protecting this young woman...
He hadn't been told what had happened, but there was a scent on her that he had recognized as soon as they brought her in...
Leather, cologne and gun oil...
Frank Castle...
So howdya like where this story is going?
Know that I have planned a lot of conflicts in the future, not only with Wolvie here, but also with all the do-gooders.
Oh, and please R&R. I can't go on without it...