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Chapter 16.
(Logan)
Could this mission be any more fucked up? It was supposed to be a simple sweep and clear, get everyone in this little outpost dead and get out, twenty minutes tops between you and Hellcat. Blow the thing to shit and get out of there. In all fairness, it's not like anyone knew that a war between drug gangs was going to go down at the same time, so it's not like you had any way of knowing this was going to happen tonight. Just try to get out in one piece.
You hear a shot and you grunt as you take another bullet in the back. Hellcat's been lucky so far, the only gunshot she has right now is a minor flesh wound to her left arm. A few passed so close to your face you could feel the heat as they went by, hear them hissing in the air. You can't help but admire her, though. She heals so much slower than you, yet she has no fear about throwing herself in the line of danger. However, you still feel a great swell of pity for her, wondering if she has a death wish. You also remember the look she gave you before leaving for this mission, when Stryker said they were moving up your program. If you didn't know any better, you'd say it was pity.
You hear a loud crashing and pause for a split second to look behind you. A couple of guys come out of nowhere and catch you off-balance enough to knock you to the ground. You feel something crack in your chest as a heavy pipe is brought down on your ribs and you let go a primal scream. But even as they beat you, you smirk; beating you will just make you angry. You pop your claws and spring to your feet, facing these new adversaries with a feral grin. As you're ripping the throat out of the last one, you hear Hellcat gasp "Wolverine!" and you turn to face her, then growl low in your throat at what you see. A very large, very ugly thug has her in an iron grip, a knife poised at her throat.
"Let her go." You snarl, blood dripping from your claws and from a small wound on your forehead that was probably much larger a second ago.
"Fuck you, freak." The thug says. "Come any closer and I'll gut her like a fish." She swallows hard and you know why; you hate getting gut stabbed, too.
"You so much as twitch a muscle and it's your guts that'll spill, bub." You snarl.
"Oh yeah?" A look of malicious delight comes over his face and you scowl at him even harder. With an almost imperceptible nod, you signal Hellcat and she reacts, throwing her elbow back in an attempt to knock the wind out of the thug, but he seemed to be expecting that and moves back, taking only a fraction of the blow. In the same movement, he spins her around, thrusts the knife into her gut and jerks it upwards. Her eyes widen in shock and he throws her to the ground where she falls on her side. You utter a strangled "no" and watch as her hands go to the wound and blood quickly covers them, surrounding her in an ever-widening puddle.
"BASTARD!" You growl, crouched low like an animal on the prowl. You realize that's just what you are right now, an animal stalking his prey. You move faster than you ever thought you could, your hands a blur as you slash and jab your claws. "FUCKIN' BASTARD! You wanna know what it's like to die slow? I'll take you apart piece by piece motherfucker and make you watch."
Things aren't going well for the thug. He's bleeding from countless slashes, his own knife sticking out of his thigh. You rush forward and the thug falls. With another primal scream, you shove all six of your claws in the thug's stomach and rip them in opposite directions, eviscerating him. You throw your head back and scream your fury before dropping to your knees. You stay that way for a moment, calming yourself, then shake your head and stand. You look around and spot Hellcat lying a few feet away and rush to her side.
Your claws slide away as you gently turn her over. You look in horror at the severity of the wound and then look into her eyes. You grab her gently by the chin and shake her head a little. "Hey 'Cat. C'mon, talk to me. Stay with me."
There's blood on her lips as she smiles at you. "Wolverine. You were great." She says weakly.
"No, I wasn't. You're dyin'. I failed."
"No, you didn't. Or maybe we both did. We'll talk about it later, ok?"
You don't understand what she's talking about. If she's dying, how can you talk about it later? "No, 'Cat. I did, I failed. It should be me dyin', not you. It should be me."
"Wolverine, don't worry. I'll be back. I always come back. You'll see." She lifts a hand and places it gently on your cheek. For some reason, you take it and kiss the palm, then hold it to your cheek. Her eyes seem to unfocus and unexpected tears spring to your eyes.
"Hellcat, no. Don't go. Don't leave me here alone. Please, don't do this." You're not sure if she heard you or not, she seems to be fading so fast. She goes limp and her hand slides from your face. You gather her into your arms and hold her close until the last breath leaves her. No one should have to die alone.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
If anyone knew exactly what went down with us that day in the Danger Room, they at least had the brains not to mention it. Everyone knew something happened, but only Angela and I had the entire picture. I'd be willing to bet that Chuck knew, but he's the very soul of discretion and as long as we didn't mention it, neither would he.
A weird side effect of the whole thing was between me and One-Eye. I don't know if it had anything to do with the conversations he'd had with Angela or if it was because I worked something out of me during the fight, but it seemed like we were almost getting along. We weren't friends, I don't know that we'll ever BE friends, but he didn't jump to disagree with everything I said just because I was saying it and I just didn't get as much satisfaction out of getting his goat like I used to. It doesn't mean I didn't try, it just wasn't as much fun as it used to be. The universe is a damn strange place.
Over the next few weeks, the kids made some real progress in the defense classes. The one who surprised me the most was Kitty. To look at her, you'd think she'd blow away in a slight breeze, but inside that tiny frame hid a tiger. I'd personally been worried about her the most because she's so small, but when she successfully threw Piotr five times in a row, I stopped. I think she worked harder because she felt she had something to prove. At any rate, she set the bar high for the rest of the class.
The other major accomplishment in those weeks was the design and installation of the new security system. We now had motion sensors around the entire perimeter, hooked into a camera array that sent real-time images to a new security room in the lower level. All of the secure areas down there now required both voice and retinal authorization, which wouldn't stop Mystique but would easily defeat anyone else trying to invade based on their old intelligence. All the windows were now made out of glass so bulletproof it would take better than a fifty caliber round to break them. Doors were now made of reinforced steel with a veneer over them to match the rest of the house. We had thermal sensors in every room and security cameras in all public areas. I suggested hiding some surface to air missile launchers in the rosebushes, but Xavier was not amused by the idea. Hey, I liked it.
By the time all that was done, summer vacation had started in earnest. Most of the kids stayed, having no other home to go to, and those who did have family still tended to come back early. Fortunately, we had enough older ones around to keep the security room manned around the clock. We had to choose them carefully, since Kitty and Jubilee tended to make electronics go to shit if they were around them too long. But between Bobby, Rogue and Piotr along with the adult staff, no one had to spend too many all-nighters keeping an eye on things. And Jubilee could fill in for half shifts, if we were stretched thin for any reason.
It was about three weeks into vacation when Angela brought up the underground railroad idea to Xavier. She and Buzz had kept in contact since her arrival and he'd already taken the initiative to put out some feelers among the hacker community to see if there was any interest. Even I was surprised by how much support the idea had, so any thoughts I'd had before about it being an impossible thing to pull off were put to rest. We expected there to be resistance from Scott at the very least and we weren't disappointed.
"I just don't like the idea of trusting a bunch of kids, much less kids who are also hackers, with this kind of task." He said after we pitched the idea. "Don't get me wrong, the idea is a sound one. I just don't feel comfortable trusting all the logistics to these people."
"Scott, someday you really are going to have to crawl out from under that rock and see that the world has changed a hell of a lot." Angela replied, clearly frustrated. "Buzz saved my ass. I don't think there's a computer he can't hack into. Hell, if hacking could be a mutation, he'd be the most powerful one of his kind. He can change school records, hospital records; he can get them new identities, the whole nine yards. Just think, we can utilize the skills of hackers all over the world to save mutants everywhere, get them erased from public record, make them essentially invisible."
"How do we know they won't collect all this information and sell it to some government?"
"Scott, I think you're missing the point." Xavier said mildly. "Hackers are not exactly the kind of people who want to be helpful to government agencies."
"But we already know they can be bought. Angela even told us she always paid Buzz for his help."
"I paid him because if he got caught in any of those systems, he'd need the money to get himself bailed out of jail and pay for legal stuff." She snapped. "Most hackers don't work for anyone but themselves. I just happened to be lucky enough to find one I could put on retainer."
"Even if we did decide to go along with this, where would we put them all? The mansion isn't THAT big." I could feel a growl building up in my chest. As agreeable as things had gotten in the past few weeks, One-Eye still had a habit of being resistant to anything that didn't fit into his idea of the perfect world. To say it was annoying was a major understatement.
"Scott, with the contacts that I have in other parts of the world, I'm sure it would be fairly simple to establish safe houses all over." Xavier replied sensibly. "Think of all the people we could help with this kind of talent at our disposal."
Scott threw his hands up. "You're going to do this whether I approve or not, so what's the difference?" He said with a sneer, then turned and stormed out of the office. We all sat there, staring at each other in confusion, then Angela stood and crossed to the door to follow him.
"Where you goin'?" I asked, not liking the thought of her going after him one bit.
"I'm going to go beat some sense into his head. It seems to be the only way to get a clue into most of the men around here." She replied with a hard stare. I stared back for a long moment, shocked that she'd said that. I watched as she left the room.
"Well, that could have gone better." Chuck said dryly.
"You're tellin' me. Think she's really gonna beat him?"
"It was the loudest thought in her mind."
"Good."
"Logan, I know that the two of you getting along is a new thing and it will be easy to fall back into familiar patterns. But you must understand that he's not being contrary for the sake of doing so. He has real concerns."
"But they're stupid, Chuck! Does Angela seem like the kinda woman who'd trust just anyone? She put our LIVES in that kids' hands and he came through for us. As far as I can tell, he's the best example of humanity I've met in a damn long time."
"You don't have to explain anything to me. I'm going ahead with this idea, no matter what Scott says."
I smiled. "Good call, Chuck. I'm sure he won't let you down." I stood up and made my way to the door. "Now I have to find them before one of them does something One-Eye will regret."
"Such as?"
"She might actually kill him and that'll piss you off. Or he might try somethin' on her, which will only get him killed. Either way, it's not lookin' too good for him right now." Xavier laughed and I left his office with that smile still on my face. I found her scent among the others and followed it downstairs and…yep, that's the Danger Room all right. Instead of entering the room itself, I made my way to the observation room that's situated above it. I looked through the glass, but she was alone in there, fighting a series of holographic opponents that all looked just like Scott. I laughed and made my way back down and into the room.
She'd just executed a beautiful roundhouse kick to one of the many Cyclops' heads before spinning to face her new opponent, which was really just me. I grabbed her fist as it came up. "I take it the beatin' didn't go very well." I said dryly.
"He has to be the stupidest man on the planet!" She said heatedly. "I swear, he could challenge you for the crown as the 'King of Stubbornness'."
"Hey now. No one challenges me for anythin'. I'm still 'King of the Cage' in parts of Canada."
She glared at me. "This is no time to be funny. I thought things were getting better between him and us, but damn it! It's like every word I've said was just purged from his memory and he's back to being Anal-Retentive Boy."
"Look, I've had to put up with his shit a lot longer than you. I'm surprised he ever relaxed enough around you to act like somethin' almost human."
"Once I stopped acting like I was going to tear his face off, he was actually kind of nice. Almost respectful, even." She ran her fingers through her hair. "I suppose maiming him is right out?"
"Pretty much."
"Can I wound him? Just a little?"
I smiled. "No, darlin'. If it was up to me, I'd hold him down for ya. But Chuck wouldn't like it."
"Crap." She sighed and shook the rest of the tension from her body. "Well, I'm all sweaty now. I'm gonna get a shower." She took a few steps toward the door, and then looked at me over her shoulder. "You know, I could use a hand scrubbing my back." She said with a wicked gleam in her eye.
"Oh, far be it from me to say no to a lady in distress." I replied as I joined her. She took my hand and we made our way back to our room, just in time I might add.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
A couple hours later, we were sitting in the lounge watching movies with some of the kids. One-Eye had been off somewhere pouting all day, which was fine with me. It was still hard for me to accept that he wasn't interested in Angela. I wished like hell that I could see his eyes so I would know for sure, but he gave off this vibe that his intentions were a little beyond "friendly". Maybe I was still jealous or something, but it sure seemed like he was trying to find a way to get around me and get into her life. It was pissing me off.
So, we were halfway through some action movie starring some Australian guy and a lot of explosions, which I think was the entire plot. Angela and I kept pointing out the flaws in the tactics the bad guys were using, much to the annoyance of the kids. She'd just explained in great detail why a rocket launcher wouldn't actually blow up an entire floor of a building when Scott walked in. I tensed immediately, just knowing he was gonna want to talk to Angela alone. I don't know why he never wanted to talk to her in front of me, which was another point in the "after my woman" column. Right on cue, he cleared his throat and asked to talk to her…alone. She rolled her eyes and then leaned over and gave me a quick kiss before leaving the room with him.
I turned back to the television, scowling. A few seconds later, I felt someone looking at me and met Rogue's eyes. "What?" I snapped.
"You know there's nothin' goin' on there, right?" She asked. I just grunted. "Angela wouldn't do that to you."
"Look kid, just don't worry about it, all right? I know she'd never do that."
"So why do ya always get so mad whenever he's around her? Can't they be just friends?"
"I'm sure she's capable of doin' that. It's him that worries me."
"Logan, that's just silly." Jubilee piped in. "She'd kick his ass from one end of the mansion to the other if he tried anything stupid. And then you'd kick it right back to where they started. He's not an idiot, you know."
"Sure coulda fooled me."
The girls rolled their eyes at me, muttering something about "stupid men" under their breath and went back to the movie. I tried to get back into it, but every minute they were gone just increased my irritation. After about twenty minutes, I went in search of them. I followed their scents out to the reflecting pool, but the only person there was Scott. "Where's Angela?" He just shrugged. "What happened?"
"Nothing, Logan." He said, sighing. "We didn't fight, I didn't touch her and there's nothing sneaky going on, ok?"
"Why so defensive, Cyke? Somethin' on your mind?"
He didn't say anything for a long time, just stood there looking at the sky. When he turned to face me, his expression was more unreadable than usual. "I don't get it, Logan. I thought I had everything under control, that I knew how things were going to play out in this whole mess. Then you came along and Liberty Island then Stryker…it was too much. Now Angela's here too and every time I turn around, she's telling me that it's a losing battle. We'll have to fight, really fight, just to have the same rights as people who aren't mutants. She's telling me there's a war in front of us and I don't want to hear it!"
I let out a low growl of frustration. I so did not want to have a heart-to-heart with this guy. "Look, just because you don't wanna hear it don't mean it ain't gonna happen. It's a bad world full of bad people and there's a lot more of them than us."
He chuckled bitterly. "Yeah, she said the same thing to me a few weeks ago."
"That's because my woman is wise. She's actually LIVED in that world for the past fifteen years. She wasn't movin' around to keep ahead of somethin' she couldn't see and she wasn't livin' in some mansion tryin' to fool herself into believin' that the human race would wake up one day and realize we ain't all bad. She knows what people are capable of and she's not gonna sugar-coat anythin' just to make people feel better. This is LIFE, Cyke. You better get used to it."
I turned to walk away, but he stopped me. "Logan, wait a minute." I turned back to him and didn't bother to keep the irritation off my face. "How do you do it? How do you get yourself ready to just…kill people?"
"You don't." I snapped. "You just do it."
"How do you live with it?" Why the hell was he getting all philosophical on me now?
"You just do." I said with a shrug and walked away, following Angela's scent. I found her by the stream, tossing pebbles into the flow. As I got closer, I could smell the salty tang of tears. Why was she crying? "Darlin'? You all right?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." I walked up behind her and put my arms around her waist. She sighed and leaned into my chest. "I almost hated to burst his bubble."
"What happened?"
"At first, he just wanted to apologize. He does a lot of that lately. But then we got to talking about the situation for us out there in the real world and he just refused to believe it could be that bad."
"What changed his mind?"
"I told him about Emma." Oh shit. I didn't think she'd ever share that story with anyone else. We stood there for a moment, and then she turned and buried her face in my chest. I just stroked her hair and let her cry herself out. Finally, she sniffed and gave a little laugh. "I seem to do a lot of this when you're around." She said.
"It's ok, darlin'. At least it wasn't my fault this time." I took her hand and led her to the bank, where we sat down. "Why'd you tell him about her anyway?"
"He wants so much to believe in the inherent goodness of people. But I've seen too much, been around too long to believe that anymore. He needed to know what horror there really is out there and I gave it to him." She shivered even though it was fairly warm out. "I didn't expect it to hit me like this. I mean, I told you and I was fine. I think about her all the time and I don't break down."
"Hey, don't worry about it, ok? It's not your fault he's an idiot. And I'd bet that you were angry when you told him and that probably didn't help. I just hope he appreciates it, that you don't tell that story to just anybody."
"Fat chance on that. Are you absolutely certain I can't wound him?"
I laughed quietly. "Positive." She cursed softly, then lapsed into silence. We just sat there for a long time, listening to the water, the small sounds of animals in the woods behind us, the wind. It was so peaceful I never wanted it to end. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, Angela started cursing again. "What's wrong?"
"Damn mosquitoes think that Hellcat makes for a fine feast." She grumbled, slapping at her arm. "Lets go in before they start evolving."
I stood up and held out my hand to help her up. We walked slowly back to the mansion, the lounge now dark. I shook my head at the mess the girls had left behind and made a mental note to assign them extra laps tomorrow before defense class. We picked up the popcorn bowls and stray candy wrappers and took them to the kitchen before making our way to our room. Before we could enter, One-Eye came out of his.
"Hey, Angela. Can you come here for a second?" He asked, looking uncomfortable. I sighed and she just glared up at me, and then walked over to him. Thanks to my wonderful hearing, I got every word.
"What you need?" She asked, running her hand through her hair.
"Same thing I always seem to do, an apology." He replied. "I don't know what it is about you that makes me say the wrong thing all the time, but I do." He shuffled his feet nervously. "I guess…as long as it was just Logan with the stories of how bad things really are, I could ignore it, tell myself he was just exaggerating since he doesn't remember most of his life. But now you're here and not only do you confirm it all, you remember it all."
"I'd give a kidney to forget, believe me." She said bitterly. "There's so much pain back there…I'm amazed I'm not crazier than I already am."
"Hey, you're not half as crazy as you'd like us to believe." He reached out and took her hand, and I scowled. "I know you said it was all a front, but I don't believe that. You're a strong woman, Angela."
"Yeah well, I should win an Oscar for this performance."
He smiled at her. "I'll see what I can do." He joked, then turned serious again. "But I do want to apologize to you. I didn't mean to upset you."
"It's ok." She replied with a shrug. "I'll survive. It's what I do." He smiled at her again, then reached out and gave her a hug. My scowl deepened and a low growl rose in my throat. He finally released her and she waved to him before coming back down the hall. "Coming in?" She asked, her eyes twinkling.
"Yeah, I'll be right there." I said. She went into our room and I went to Scott's. I stood there for a moment before knocking. I didn't want to harm him (much), but I did want to make myself very clear.
"Logan." He said, his expression blank. "Need something?"
I took another deep breath. "Yeah, I do." I said, leaning against the doorframe. "I know you're startin' to heal, Cyke. I know you're comin' through the other side of all this with Jean. I see your eye wanderin' and I just wanna give you a piece of advice you once gave me."
"And what's that, Logan?"
I leaned in a bit and growled "Stay away from my girl."
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
AN: Has it been three day already? I lost track of time...third shift does that to a person...:) Special thanks, as always, to my beta readers Zac and Turiel Tincdaniel for their tireless devotion to keeping this story reading well...Extra Special thanks to DBK(tm) for his amusing way of keeping me motivated...Super Special thanks to those who have reviewed...my happy dance is improving all the time...:) And last, but not least, Super Swanky thanks to everyone for reading...you may be interested to know that there are only four chapters to go...:) AND, i am already hard at work on a sequel...:)