April 4th, 2022

Time: 01:21

It's past midnight, and I can't sleep. Yesterday… yesterday was supposed to be like any other day. It was a mission, me and the rest of the Fantastic Five. Problems with a species that didn't want to stay contained in the N-Zone. We were there, holding them, then there was an explosion, and suddenly I'm freezing my spidey-ass off in the forests of the Canadian wilderness. Radio was working, so rescue was on it's way, but I was found by something else first.

The beast came at me from behind, howling something unintelligible and inhuman. I ducked, but couldn't completely avoid him, and he ripped my costume with his damn bone-claws. As he turned around to come at me again, I pulled myself together and webbed him to the tree he had used to stop. He cried again. I said some choice words, which I don't think need to be repeated here, and he started quieting.

"Look, pal, you are going to be all sorts of dead if you don't calm the hell down and tell me what you're doing here," I said after it seemed that he was actually listening. Breathing deeply, he told me, curtly, that I was the one on his territory and I should back off or I was going to be in some serious hurting. He was already working on the webbing with his claws, but I just reinforced them, and he wasn't going anywhere.

He growled and, god help me, I actually felt some pity for the creature.

"How long have you been out here?" I asked, calmer. He glared, but replied.

"Don't know. Don't care."

"You live anywhere around here?"

"I live here! It's my damn territory!"

He had obviously been abandoned by someone, and reduced to living like an animal in the snow. Taking a closer look, I saw he was unkempt: long, shaggy hair, long fingernails, torn clothes. He had a black eye too, something he definitely didn't get from me. I gave him time to calm down again before continuing.

"I can take the webs off, if you promise not to fight me. I'm leaving, I promise. Some people are going to come get me, and I'll be gone. Do I have your permission to stay here? Will you not kill me if I free you?"

He looked off to the distance, obviously waging an inner battle. I could tell he wasn't used to being beaten by anyone, mush less a scrawny little thing like me. "I'll let you be," he said finally, and, taking out my knife, I cut him free. Finally unrestrained, he circled me, sniffing the air. He walked hunched over, like an animal. He was short, too; probably only a little over five feet.

"What's your name?" he snarled.

"Peter Parker. Yours?"

"Logan."

"… no last name?"

He laughed a little at this. "Not that I know of, no."

"How would you not know…?"

"I don't know," he said, a little maniacally. "You tell me, bub. All I know is I wake up one day out here, and there are some wolves sniffin' my balls."

I stood there, stunned for a moment, before answering. "There is some precedence of the military brain-wiping subjects. But… that was outlawed. Years ago. It's considered a war crime by the world courts!"

He laughed again. "You think that'll keep people from doing it? I don't think so."

At that point I was indignant. I wanted whoever had done the brain-wiping to this man to be punished. But I couldn't. The only thing I could do was bring this man back into the real world. "I… um, here," I said, pulling out the plastic bottle that fit neatly into one of the pockets on my vest. I pulled out one of the vitamins. Reed swears by those things; he says that the vitamins and complex-carbohydrates stored in those things are enough to save a life, and is constantly amazed that they're government-issue to all earth citizens. His charts show people living longer and healthier. The ones in the back show an increase in insanity, but lately even he has been one for censorship…

Logan reached out and took the vitamin, held it up to his nose, sniffed, grinned maliciously, then threw it at my feet. "You give me another one of those damn things, and I'll shove it up your ass instead."

"It's, um, it's not a suppository," I replied, a little shaken by the hostility in his voice.

"With enough pressure it can be, bub," he said, turning to walk away.

"Wait!" I called out, and he turned. "I can, I can take you back to the real world. I can fix whatever has been done to your mind."

"I'm fine. I got all I need here," he looked down at his bone claws, which he then sheathed in his forearm.

"You…" I hadn't really taken a good look at the claws. "Where did you get them?" I asked. They were obviously some time of mutation, caused by something.

"Don't know. I think I was born with them."

"No one is born with a mutation. There are no mutants, just mutates. You know that, don't you?"

"I don't, bub. All I know is it wasn't radiation or any of that bullshit. I been this way since before the tests. Only thing I am sure of." He then looked up, and I heard the rotors of helicopter. It was still a ways away, but it would be there soon.

"You're rides coming," he growled. "So get one thing straight: I ain't gonna live in no world where I have to take a toxic vitamin. I'm happy out here, bone-claws and all. An' if I were you, bub, I'd look more into those damn pills. They're more than you think they are, assuming' you're as naïve as you seem. So forget me, forget what you've seen… but call me for the revolution."

"Revolution?… wait a minute here!" But he was walking steadily away, and helicopter was lowering it's ladder. Grabbing the lowest rung, I looked back, and saw that he had been joined by a tall blonde woman in a white fur jacket. She looked over her shoulder at me, and I heard it. And the proletariat shall rise to defeat the oppressors. The world revolution is at hand.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I swear I heard it. It makes no sense. Oppressor? The days of oppression are long past. But the charts? About the vitamins. They were unveiled almost 50 years ago… a cure to world hunger and vitamin deficiency. Even obesity has gone down since "Hope" (as the vitamin is called) was issued to everyone. "Hope" has done nothing but good.

They were probably just enemies of Richards or something. Fuck it all, I'm going to bed.

Time: 02:54

You're friendly neighborhood Spiderman


A/N: I love Astonishing X-Men