Chapter 25: Cure for Mutation

By the end of the day, two major accomplishments had occurred at Xavier's. Rogue had regained her sanity, and Hank had proven his serum worked.

"There, now. The claws are still there, but I think you'll find you can't release them if you try," Hang told Logan after the X-ray. "And I wouldn't recommend trying in any case."

"Fair enough," Logan replied. "How we gonna test it, then?" His eyes scanned the med-lab, and he saw it. "Oh." Logan went over to the tray of scalpels that Hank hadn't put away yet, and picked one up.

"No, Logan!" Hank squawked, grabbing it out of his hand. "Those are as sharp as your claws! We can find a less damaging way to test it, I'm sure!"

Mildly panicked, Hank glanced around until he found what he was looking for. "Ah, this will do. I need a blood sample from you anyway." He got the needle and quickly prepped Logan's arm to draw the blood.

When he withdrew the needle, they both bent their heads and stared at the tiny pinprick. A bright drop of blood welled up, and Logan wiped it away impatiently.

Then another drop of blood came to the surface, and he grinned. "If I was still healin', it wouldn't bleed at all," he said.

Hank beamed at him; it was a little disconcerting with his huge mouthful of sharp teeth. Good thing Hank was such a genial guy. "Congratulations, Logan!" he said, clapping Logan on the shoulder heartily.

"Ow! Damn, Hank! You don't know your own strength, pal." Logan grimaced and rubbed his shoulder; then, struck by a sudden thought, he pulled off his shirt over his head and craned his neck to see the shoulder.

There was an immense reddened handprint there.

"Oh, Logan, I'm so sorry. I'm afraid that's going to bruise up," Hank said. Then he stopped in sudden realization and stared at Logan, who grinned back at him. "Logan. That's going to bruise up!"

"I'm going to have a bruise," Logan said, starting to laugh. "I'm going to have a bruise!" The two men laughed together for a minute, and then, still grinning, Logan said, "Congratulations, big guy. You've cured mutancy!"

Struck by a sudden thought, he pulled his shirt back on. "I gotta go find Rogue! How long will this stuff last, doc?"

"It should last twenty-four hours, but as this is the first test of it, I'm really not sure."

"What about her? If I'm okay with it, can she try it next?"

Hank adjusted his glasses on his furry nose and fixed Logan with a look. "If, after twenty-four hours, you have suffered no ill effects and gone back to your normal mutation, then we can see about asking if Rogue is interested. With the proper waivers and all, because she would only be test case number two."

"I'll tell her," Logan called over his shoulder on his way out the door.

A/N: I know it's a short chapter, but that's because the next one will be quite long..

Oh, and one of my delightful reviewers pointed out to me that this story was mistakenly located in the X-Men comics section of FFN, rather than the X-Men: movie section. I hadn't realized there WAS an X-Men: movie section! My apologies—I have now moved it to the proper location.

Thanks for all the reviews! I should have the next chapter up in a couple of days. Cheers!