Author's note: Thank you to Annastesia LaFayette and kmj1989 for the reviews! Great to "see" you both again! Annastesia, we will find out the paternity question very soon. As in, today! Thank you to everyone who gives this a read. Enjoy!
Testing a Hypothesis
"We missed you at dinner last night, Roxanne," Charles notes genially as the four of them- Charles, Hank, Roxanne, and Logan- head down to the basement some time later.
The girl flushes almost as red as her hair. "Yeah," she mutters. "Sorry about that. It was a long day, and I fell asleep."
Logan's eyes narrow in suspicion. Why is she embarrassed about just being asleep?
"And you, Hank? I didn't see you, either."
"I was also sleeping," Hank replies. He tries to maintain a dignified manner, but it's ruined by the faint reddening in his cheeks.
Logan snorts. The kids aren't fooling anyone, that's for sure.
He's not sure how to feel about this. Is he supposed to feel protective of the girl's honor or something? He doesn't see why he should, considering she's a full-grown adult. She can do as she pleases. But Charles mentioned that Hank was his friend, both in the mysterious apocalyptic future he apparently played a large part in averting and when his future self was here (what a mind fuck all this time travel shit is, he can barely wrap his head around it). But it's bound to be weird, his buddy fucking his daughter.
If she's his daughter. And if he actually ends up liking this kid- Hank seems kinda like an awkward dork and it's hard to imagine being his friend, no matter what his future or past or future-past self felt.
"So what exactly are you gonna do to figure this out?" Logan asks gruffly.
Hank clears his throat. "I'll take cheek swabs and a blood sample from each of you and use them to run both blood typing as well as polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism tests. I think to provide a clearer picture I'll also sequence your X-genes and-"
"Speak English, bub," Logan interjects impatiently. "Why're you making this so complicated?"
"Because it is a little complicated," the younger man replies. "We don't have a sample from Roxanne's mother to compare to, and that makes this tricky. There won't be a clear cut 'yes' or 'no' answer here, Logan. I have to determine the weight of evidence and draw conclusions from there."
Logan snorts. "That seems like a whole lotta work for a half-assed answer," he says.
"Science is like that sometimes," Roxanne tells him. "A lot of the time, actually. It's not having definitive proof and having to draw your conclusions from the evidence you can get."
Hank gives her an adoring look that he probably thinks no one else notices. Well, Logan does. The kid's definitely got it bad for her.
"Roxanne has a Master's degree in biochemistry from an Ivy League university, Logan," Charles chimes in.
"Good for her," the crusty feral mutters. He only realizes how bad that sounded when Roxanne lets out a heavy, long-suffering sigh and Charles gives him a disapproving look. Even Hank, who seems to be a pretty patient guy, gives him a sideways glance. Logan grunts. "Let's just get this over with."
Hank leads them down a hallway of off-white paneling into a large room full of science-type equipment that immediately gives Logan the creeps. Maybe it's a form of deja vu, but this shit freaks him out a bit.
Roxanne, on the other hand, is clearly thrilled to be in here. She gasps in delight and starts to explore with the enthusiasm of a kid in a candy store.
"I guess I'll collect your samples first, Logan," Hank says cheerfully.
He tells Logan how to collect the stupid cheek swab, and then draws a couple tubes of blood. The doctor has a piece of gauze ready for the needlestick, but it's obviously unnecessary. The tiny puncture heals almost instantaneously.
"Your turn, Roxanne."
Hank repeats the same procedures on the girl, with identical results. Her wound also heals immediately, as if it had never been.
"H-have you always been able to heal that quickly, Roxanne?" Charles asks, eyebrows raised. Even Hank seems surprised by the strength of the feral girl's healing factor.
She shakes her head, staring down at her arm in bemusement. "That started yesterday, along with these," she explains. She holds up her hand, and a second later three bone claws shoot out from between her knuckles. When she retracts them the holes left behind heal right away.
Just like Logan's.
Hank begins the testing procedures, getting the PCR going and the sequencing computer crunching. This process will take much longer than his field gene sequencer because it's going through each nucleotide pair one-by-one rather than piecemeal.
He feels Roxanne's gaze on him, her eager eyes watching his every move. He looks forward to her being in here with him, running experiments right along side his. He looks forward to it very much.
"Would you like me to show you how to run a blood typing test?" he asks her.
"Yes, please," she replies, with a beatific smile.
He's not at all surprised that she picks up the procedure quite quickly. They have that particular test complete in no time.
"You're both O negative," Hank announces.
"Meaning what, exactly?" Logan demands.
Hank bites back a sarcastic reply. He doesn't appreciate the older feral's dismissive attitude towards his beloved science. "Well, less than seven percent of the world's population is O negative," he explains. "So it's something to consider, but not definitive."
After that there's a bit of down time while the other tests run. Hank spends the time rather blissfully showing Roxanne around, asking her opinion on this or that.
It's probably to no one's surprise that in no time at all they're both in lab coats happily working on an experiment together while the other two look on. Hank barely spares them a glance, though he notices that Charles looks incredibly amused and Logan seems to be getting increasingly impatient.
The older feral even pulls out a cigar and lights up.
"Logan, I don't mind if you do that upstairs, but there's no smoking in the lab," Charles tells the man firmly.
He lets out a disgruntled grunt and looks around for an ashtray, though of course there's nothing of the sort in Hank's lab. Failing anything else, Logan puts out his cigar on his own palm. He grimaces as the stench of burning flesh floats in the air, but the wound heals over within seconds.
"Can you heal from anything, Logan?" Roxanne asks curiously.
"Pretty much, yeah," Logan replies, rather grimly. "I also can only get drunk for a few minutes, which is a damn shame."
She looks faintly amused. "No hangovers, then?"
"Nope. Can't be poisoned, either."
Her expression is pensive for a moment, and then, to Hank's horror, Roxanne sticks her hand in the flame of the Bunsen burner on the lab bench in front of her.
"Roxanne!" Hank cries out as she hisses in pain. He snatches her hand back instinctively, thoroughly alarmed and his mind already automatically racing with thoughts of first aid at the sight of the ugly, angry black and red patch on her palm.
The Beast inside him, usually somnolent and under control, is suddenly alert and anxiously trying to break free at the thought of the feral woman being hurt. It makes it harder to focus, to organize his thoughts so he can-
But the burn begins to heal before he can make any further moves.
Roxanne stares down at her hand in fascination as the skin of her palm regenerates within seconds, leaving it unblemished and perfect.
Hank exhales in relief. "Please don't do that again," he pleads, holding her freshly healed hand between both of his.
"Or at least give us a warning next time," Charles adds, slumping back in his wheelchair. His clear blue eyes can't mask his distress- Hank can imagine how helpless he felt just now, immobile as he is. "You gave us all a fright, Roxanne."
Not all, Hank amends silently. Logan just looks amused, rather than upset at the sight of the young woman purposely trying to burn a hole in her hand.
"Sorry," Roxanne apologizes sheepishly. She gives Hank's hands a remorseful squeeze. "I was testing a hypothesis."
"Uh huh."
At this point Hank privately feels that the genetic tests are more of a formality than anything else- between the healing factor, the claws, and their eyes, it would be an incredible coincidence if Roxanne and Logan aren't related- but when the remaining tests are complete he still takes the time to examine everything carefully.
Roxanne observes quietly during his perusal, but Logan quickly begins to grow impatient again. He shifts his weight from foot to foot and chews on his cigar, a rather disgusting habit, in Hank's opinion.
After a few minutes Charles edges his wheelchair closer to the computer console. "Walk us through what you're looking at, Hank," he says, with a meaningful look towards the older feral man.
Hank makes a thoughtful sound. "This is a standard paternity test. This set," he says, pointing at the computer screen, "is Roxanne's sample, and this one is Logan's."
"Your conclusion?"
"The number of alleles in common seems to indicate a very strong degree of relatedness," Hank replies. "But again, without a maternal sample I can't be completely certain." He flips to another computer window. "This one is more promising. It's a map of their X-genes."
Rather than just two columns on the screen, this time there are five. "Who are the others?" Roxanne wonders aloud.
"I ran a few other ferals for comparison," Hank explains. "This one is mine, for example, and these other two are from Rahne and Maria, a couple of feral students here. As you can see, the highest degree of homology in these controls with Roxanne's is about forty-eight percent. But between the two of you..."
"Eighty-five percent," Charles murmurs. "That seems rather definitive, doesn't it?"
"Yes," Hank agrees. "Given the evidence, I'd say there's about a ninety-nine percent certainty that you are father and daughter."
Charles turns to the newly discovered family members. "Congratulations to you both," he says warmly.
Roxanne gives the telepath a small smile to acknowledge the sentiment, but on the inside she's reeling.
Logan is her biological father.
Her father is a mutant, just like herself.
It turns everything she believed about her own history on its head. Gramps always told Roxanne that he found her and Robert alone in the snow, and they'd always assumed that they were abandoned for being mutants. But if their father was a mutant as well, why leave them to die like that? Unless their mother didn't know Logan was-?
"So... what happens now?" Logan asks bluntly, interrupting her thoughts.
Roxanne ponders this for a moment. She's never felt any interest in her biological parents because of their abandonment, but these new developments have changed her mind. Her curiosity has been kindled about where she came from and how exactly she and Robert were left at the age of four months. But will Logan be able to shed light on her past? She doubts it. "You mentioned not having many memories," she observes aloud.
He shakes his head, confirming her hunch. "I don't remember anything before a year ago, when I'm pretty sure this happened." He unsheathes his adamantium claws for a moment, and then allows them to retract. "I'm sorry to be a disappointment, princess, but if you're looking for some kind of answers from me, I don't got 'em."
She grins ruefully, rather touched by his genuine apology. "Relax, Logan. Up until yesterday I thought my brother and I were left in the woods to die for being mutants," she tells him. "That sets a pretty low bar. I doubt you could disappoint me, all things considered. It's not like I expect you to wait by the door with a shotgun for me to come home from dates or anything fatherly like that."
I already had that from another man, she think sadly. And he's dead.
Logan looks a little relieved, which makes her warm to him even more. He may be a little rough around the edges, but the older feral really does have a good heart underneath it all.