Secret Burdens
Chapter Fifteen: Personal, Part One
“Somehow, without their knowing it, it all came back to Alcatraz. Every secret burden was rooted in that day of pain and regret.”
* * *
Hank sighed as he dropped his briefcase on the wood floor at his feet, shutting the mansion door behind him. He could hear the sound of the cab pulling away from the driveway out front of the Xavier Institute.
“Hank!”
He turned at the sound of his name and saw Ororo striding toward him, arms open and a blinding smile across her face. He embraced her warmly, greeting her as well and then holding her at arms length to level a heavy gaze on her. He noticed the X-men suit she had already adorned, her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
Her smile was gone, a determined look to her eyes. “Your room is ready for you, friend. Just bring up your belongings and meet us in the conference room. The others are already suited up and waiting.”
Nodding, Hank picked his briefcase back up and headed toward the stairs. “Let’s hope we are not all needed.”
Ororo watched him head up the staircase and then headed to the underground base herself. She had changed into her X-men garment as soon as her history class had ended and pulled Kitty, Peter and Bobby out of their classes then, ending third period for all the students and sending them to lunch. As soon as the children let out, Ororo briefed the other teachers to continue classes in her absence. She would return to schedule as soon as the mission was resolved. How soon that meant she truly had no idea.
Ororo set her jaw in frustration as she walked the halls heading toward the conference room. Hank hadn’t given her any good news about this General Shrap and his plans for a militarized mutant unit. And there was little else to go on from Kitty’s hacking. She hated going in uninformed. There were lives under her care now and she’d be damned if she threw them into a blind fight. She had no doubt about their abilities. They had proven themselves to her long ago on Alcatraz. But that was different. Here, they were unaware of the extent of their opponent’s abilities. Back at Alcatraz, they were fighting enemies they knew. People they knew. Magneto and Jean.
Jean.
Yes, she knew Jean. She knew her weaknesses, her past, knew how to fight Jean. And if she had to, she knew how to kill Jean.
She shook the thought from her head. No point in wondering about it now. No point in wondering if she could have done it if Logan had failed.
Ororo stopped. She blinked at her sudden realization, licked her lips. If not for Logan, what would she have become?
There was a sudden and unwelcome knot in her throat as she tried to swallow down the ‘what if’s. The unspokens. The almosts. The barely there shadow of the person she could have been. The flipside of the coin that Logan himself had been living on this entire time.
She was the almost guilty. She was the almost killer. She was the almost hated. Not quite. But almost. And it made her wonder if all this time that they had been secretly and silently blaming Logan, laying the hate and accusations on him because it was easier to blame someone who wasn’t dead, if all this time, really she was happy it wasn’t her. All this time, was she grateful to use Logan as the excuse?
He hadn’t been the almost guilty, the almost killer, the almost hated. He was. He is. He has always been the outsider, the alienated. Kept at arms length. Never invite him in, never let him wipe his feet on your doorstep. Always at a distance. Never invite him.
Her heart ached at the thought. And not because she had wanted to let him in. But because he let himself into her life without her watching, without her even opening the door. It was as though she woke up one day and found him sitting in her living room. And he still hasn’t let himself out.
This whole mess. This whole stupid mess of pride and duty and longing and wanting. And all because he heard a break in her voice. All because he heard that silent note of yearning in her unknowing confession that day he touched her in anger. All because of this stupid damn mess of grief and unrequited love. All because she couldn’t help but want to share the pain.
Well, she thought, I guess I really did open the door to that one.
Ororo put a hand to her chest, felt the rapid beating beneath her palm and wondered, if Logan were with her there, would he hear it too? Would he hear, just like that break in her voice that first day of unleashing, all the little things she wished him never to hear? All the little secrets that scared her to realize she couldn’t stop thinking of him. Couldn’t stop seeing him. Couldn’t stop wanting him.
Would he know? Did he know? Just how much she laid awake at night wondering if he could hear her thundering heartbeat through the walls?
“Ororo?”
Ororo whipped around to find Hank heading toward her from the elevator. How long had she been standing there, she wondered.
Swallowing thickly, Ororo drew a slight breath and shifted her shoulders around. “Hank,” she greeted. “I did not believe it would be so difficult to enter that conference room once more.” She lowered her gaze to the floor, hoping he didn’t catch the lie in her features.
Sighing, he came up behind her and rested a large blue paw on her shoulder. “Everything is different now. Without Charles things seem…somehow…”
“Incomplete?” she answered hesitantly, looking up at him now that she had a second to school her face back to impassiveness.
There was a reluctant smile to his lips as he continued, “In a way, yes. As though I half expect his voice to burst into my head, asking me why I haven’t made it to the conference room yet. And yet, this is a mission in which we do not have his voice to guide us.”
Ororo put a hand to his touch on her shoulder. “I have lead before. The team listens to me. They depend on me. I know I have their trust. However…,” she looked back to the doors before her, where behind them sat all her teammates and colleagues, waiting on a single word from her to throw their lives to the slaughter.
She closed her eyes and Logan’s face passed before her lids. There was a tightness to her chest she didn’t expect. She flashed her eyes open, setting a regretful smile to her features and reaching a hand back to her chest to brace against her heart. “I had Charles’s voice with me at Alcatraz. Did you know?”
As she glanced at Hank she saw him shake his head, his brow furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”
She looked back to the doors before them. “It was still…so fresh after his death. It was as though his conscience lingered with me, helped to steer me in that final fight. I was not alone. Not even when I had thought I lost for a moment there. Now though…now I am alone in leading these men and women. My decisions may cost them their lives. My judgment may be the death or life of them. And there are some things in this fight I am not willing to give up. Some things are more precious than before. Some people are more important now than I had once thought.”
Hank cocked his head at that last part, blinking at her. Slowly he turned her shoulder so that she had to look at him once more and he was caught by a guarded expression she had never shown in his presence before. “Ororo, what are you…?” He stopped, furrowing his brows at her averted gaze. “Are you saying-“
“Ask me again some day,” she interrupted, dropping her hand from his at her shoulder and heading toward the conference room doors already sliding open before her. “Maybe I will tell you.”
Watching her stride into the room, Hank sighed and pulled his shoulders back. That woman was going to be the death of him, he was sure of it. But now, she needed his support, needed his unwavering presence at her side. Right now she needed Beast. And once he entered that room, with all his comrades lining the chairs before him, all their faces set grim for the fight ahead, that’s all he was.
Enter the Beast.
* * *
Logan was leaning with his back against the far wall when he first saw Ororo walk in through the sliding doors of the wide grey room. All the conversations around the large round table ceased as she made her way around the chairs toward the front of the room. But as soon as Beast walked in after her, the X-men, all in their leathered suits, were out of their seats to greet the blue furball. Bobby, whose seat was closest to the doors, stood to shake hands with him.
“Beast,” he greeted, his somber expression from before only slightly improved by his slowly widening smile. “It’s good to have you back with us…though,” he stopped, gesturing to the room behind him, “I wish it were under different circumstances.”
Beast put a hand to the young man’s shoulder. “It is always good to be back among friends, no matter the circumstances.”
Kitty jumped between the two suddenly, wrapping as much of her arms as she could around the wide-set man and smiling into his fur. “Beastie! You were missed!”
And so the rest of the team greeted Beast as Ororo came around the table, setting her eyes on Kurt as he rose from his seat.
“Nightcrawler,” she said, genuinely smiling at his presence. They exchanged hugs briefly. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
He held her arms as he smiled back at her. “Well, one of the benefits of my mutation,” he chuckled softly.
“You know you are always an X-man, and thus always welcome here. I do wish you would stay on permanently with us,” she impeached him sincerely.
Kurt shrugged nervously. “I do not think the children like me very much. But I am doing well for myself, Storm.” He brushed a hair behind her ear with a tender hand, and his eyes softened on her warm face.
A few feet away, Logan’s arms uncrossed swiftly as he eyed the exchange.
Ororo didn’t notice Logan’s movement, instead lifting her own hand to grip Kurt’s that had brushed her cheek. “I am truly glad, Kurt. You have always been good to me.”
Kurt’s eyes darted to the floor momentarily with that schoolboy nervousness he always possessed around her and he released her hands as soon as he caught sight of Logan walking toward them. There was something dangerous in the other man’s eyes that Kurt wasn’t willing to wait around and discover. Instead, he nodded to Logan just as the man stepped up to them, muttering a low “Logan” as a hello, and moving off toward the small crowd around Hank to give the beast another welcome.
Ororo waved slightly after Kurt and then leaned on one hip to cross her arms and eye Logan beside her. She hadn’t even the energy to say hello just now. She tapped her foot at him expectantly, watching him silently stare her down. “What?” she bit out. Because she was the last one to openly admit he made her insides squirm unexpectedly at the sight of his dark stare. The last one to let on that a rush of memories suddenly assaulted her, all involving his hands and his lips and his tongue.
Oh god, his tongue.
Yeah. She’d rather bite his head off than admit to that.
She cleared her throat and rolled her eyes at him, unconsciously rolling her thighs together as she switched legs to lean on. “You are such a baby,” she finally snapped, uncrossing her arms a little too harshly and turning from him.
“What is it about you that’s got the blue boys so fixed?” His tone was joking, but there was a slight challenge to it that had Ororo stopping and slowly swirling to face him. His arms were crossed again, and that arrogant smirk was lining his lips in a way that made Ororo genuinely angry this time.
“Are you-“ but then she stopped, wiping a hand down her face. “I do not even know how to begin feeling about this.” She dropped her hand and eyed him suspiciously. “Are you kidding me? Is this some testosterone-fest manly mark-your-territory kind of thing? Because if it is, I am walking out that door right now before either one of us has to say that childish word ‘jealous’.”
Logan cocked his head at her, his smirk widening. “Well,” he started lowly, his canines flashing, “I ain’t marked anything. Yet.” His eyes intentionally roved her body slowly, landing on her neck and wondering if under that leather collar he really might have left something.
Ororo’s eyes narrowed at him. “And you are not going to. Are you intentionally trying to piss me off?” She glanced at the others at the end of the room and noticed they were finishing their greetings and some were beginning to find their seats. She looked back to Logan and saw that he had glanced at their team as well, his face sobering somewhat.
“Not now, Logan,” she said lowly. “I have already told you. There are more important things right now. I am too weary to fight with you.” She leaned back slightly, her shoulders losing some of their tension. “I had thought more of you. I had thought you would be in this fight with me, and not rattling the ranks from under me.”
Logan’s eyes flashed angrily for a second. But it was only a second, only when the words ‘more important’ left her mouth. And then he was grabbing her wrist as she tried to leave him, pulling her back to face him, and this time, she was close enough to feel his hot breath against her cheek.
Logan licked his lips subconsciously, his gaze dropping to her full mouth for a moment before he reined himself in, his grip on her wrist loosening into something she might have called tender at another time.
“I am,” he responded firmly, boring into her eyes. “I am with you. I’m…Dammit, Storm, I’m sorry. I’m with you okay, in this fight. I’ve got your back. I have always had your back. That doesn’t change.”
She swallowed her breath, her eyes softening as she gazed into his, suddenly realizing how hard it was not to take his face into her hands and whisper across his skin how much that meant to her. How much she knew that somehow, she had always known, always known he was there. But she didn’t. She nodded, answering softly, “Thank you. I needed to hear that. I need you on my team with this one.”
She went to pull away and saw his eyes dart quickly to the X-men filing around the room to reclaim their seats. He released her wrist, but as he made his way past her he whispered over her shoulder, “But after, we have something to finish.”
She could have sworn she felt his breath ghosting down her spine.
Ororo leaned her hands against the conference room table, looking up at all the faces now turning to her. Her eyes followed Logan as he took his seat next to Warren and then she flicked her gaze to Hank, looking for his nod to begin. When he gave her it, she straightened, her chin lifting and she looked around to the faces peering at her expectantly.
“We have a little recon to do team,” she began, finding the words came easily to her, her settling emotions after Logan released their touch already fleeing to the back of her mind.
“Beast has informed me that a General Shrap, head of the Armed Forces Committee, proposed to the president and subsequent defensive and military officials about three weeks ago, a plan to organize a mutant only special-operations assault task force.”
There was a community of groans and disbelieving faces around the table, and Logan’s distinct “Well, fuck me” as they all looked at each other. Ororo bit her tongue and swallowed back the instinct to scold Logan for his language, instead moving on with the briefing.
“Apparently, he stumbled upon some of Striker’s old research and discovered the substance he had been injecting into mutants to control them.”
At that, Logan’s head snapped to attention, the hairs rising along his neck and arms at the mere mention of Striker. Ororo’s soothing gaze fell on him, but for only a moment, as she finished addressing the X-men. “Combined with a portion of the cure “vaccine”, Shrap claims to have developed a strand for neurological control, that can strip the host mutant of its powers at the discretion of the team leader, who is a trained non-mutant special-operations officer.”
“So basically, they’re creating a brainwashed weapon that they can flip the off switch to any time things get a bit dicey, huh?” Warren scoffed as he leaned back in his rolling chair.
“In effect, yes,” Ororo answered. She could her Hank’s soft muttering and the word “inhumane” pass his lips before Kurt drew her attention.
“Storm?” The teleporter ventured, his hand coming to rise slowly.
Ororo gestured for him to go on. He lowered his arm to grip his hands atop the desk. “Are these willing participants? The mutants, I mean.”
Ororo’s heart wrenched at the painful look in Kurt’s eyes. But Hank answered before she could open her mouth.
“No. Most are recruits from the different branches of military that have no idea what task force they’re getting selected for. Shrap even went so far as to suggest mutant criminals housed in federal prisons. Use them as tools instead of ‘feeding the monsters on our tax dollars’, I believe his exact words were.” Hank bristled at the memory of sitting in that room and listening to this loathsome man talk about him and other mutants in words he wasn’t prepared to repeat in this room.
“And?” Peter began. “Do we know if the Secretary of Defense or President approved his plan? Has he had any more financing other than for the research he’s done so far?”
Hank shook his head. “It was still up for debate but most of us shot him down immediately in that first meeting. But he has supporters, especially those who were in military units during Alcatraz. At even the mention of Alcatraz, Shrap became even more adamant about his proposal and was emphatic in trying to procure more financing for the tests. And then suddenly, three days ago, he went dark.”
Logan growled. “’Went dark’? You mean he’s off the grid?”
Hank nodded. “We know he was conducting research at the USAMRIID. And when we contacted researchers there they said they were under orders to continue their developments but they hadn’t heard from Shrap in four days and he’s had an experimental strand in his possession since the “ “
“Okay, wait,” Kitty broke in, her hands in the air as a time-out sign. “Help me out here guys. 'USAMRIID’?"
“U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.”
At Hanks’ mention of the word “infectious” Kitty’s eyes widened nervously.
Hank caught the meaning and held his hand up to stop her next question. “And the researchers there have confirmed that no air-born, water-contagion or contact strand has been developed. Shrap’s controlling substance still only works as an injection.”
“That’s more than enough to do some serious damage,” Logan growled from his position.
“What disturbs me however,” Storm interrupted as she regained the floor, “is the information Kitty has uncovered for us. It seems the Secretary of Defense was receiving information from Shrap through mutual emails confirming that the general has already obtained five mutant subjects for the project and that tests were going “ how did he say it?” she paused, as she looked to Kitty, her head cocked.
“’Swimmingly’,” Kitty mocked humorlessly.
“Yes, that was it.” Ororo breathed in once more, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “He mentioned a facility around New York where he carried out the testing on the mutant subjects but did not identify a particular area.”
“We believe he may be on Montauk Air Force Base.” Hank unlinked his fingers where they had been resting on the tabletop before him to start typing on the laptop he had set up at the beginning of the meeting. A light flickered on the wall behind Ororo and then the image of Montauk Air Force Base emerged across the stretch of wall.
“How?” Bobby asked. “That place was turned tourist attraction years ago.”
“There are still operational parts out of the public’s eye.”
“And when you say ‘we’ you mean…?” Kitty urged Hank on, rolling her hand through the air to urge him forward.
“The military is still looking for Shrap. Montauk was Storm and I’s conclusion.” Hank looked to Ororo and saw her nod in agreement.
“But there are dozens of military bases Shrap could have picked with more advanced technology,” Peter interjected. “Why Montauk? What’s special there?”
Ororo took the reins on this one. “There are a couple reasons actually. Some of which are not apparent to the American government. They know, just as we do, that experiments in psychological warfare were once conducted at Montauk, and research on magnetic field manipulations. The initial researchers were turned down by Congress at first but then bypassed Congress by getting approval from the Department of Defense. They promised the department a weapon to produce psychotic symptoms in victims. So we know they have the technology specific to Shrap’s needs.”
“Nowadays,” Warren broached hesitantly, “that’s about every military base, wouldn’t you say?” He tried not to sound skeptical of his leader but they were grasping at straws here.
Ororo nodded in Warren’s direction. “I will give you that, Angel. However, at one point a certain research project was moved from the Brookhaven National Laboratory to Montauk to continue research.” Here she stopped momentarily, and unbidden, her eyes found Logan’s. “It was called the ‘Phoenix Project’.”
Logan ground his teeth together, his eyes straying from Ororo’s to stare at his tightly clasped hands atop the table. She blinked back the concern and looked to the other members. “And Montauk is only a couple hours away from us. He has placed his test subjects within striking distance of us, and at a place with some kind of connection to us. We must address the danger this project proposes.”
“And the Secretary of Defense, this guy Shrap was speaking to about his proceedings, let him continue?” Peter asked, incredulous. He almost scoffed at the idea.
“Well, apparently, the Secretary of Defense did not take too kindly to Shrap’s siphoning of Armed Forces committee funds to finance his endeavor without the approval of the SecNav, President or himself. He never even drafted a bill so the issue never left committee to go to the House or Congress. The Secretary of Defense was furious with Shrap’s actions and ordered him to report to a briefing with the defense officials the morning Shrap seemingly disappeared.”
“So,” Warren began, as he started knocking numbers off his fingers, “we know he has an experimental strand in his possession. Two: we know he has five mutant subjects in his hand. Three: we know he has a facility to train and experiment on these mutants. What else do we know?”
“That he has a target. Us”
Peter, Bobby and Warren all looked to Ororo at her answer. “Us?” Bobby motioned to himself.
“He is symbolizing a goal with this experiment. He is targeting us, here at the Institute, where there are children.” Ororo’s fists were slowly tightening, her anger seething from her nostrils. “I cannot abide that kind of reckless malice.”
“What goal is he symbolizing by experimenting in a place with a ‘Phoenix’ reputation?” Bobby continued, his brows furrowing in thought. “I mean, why would you think he’s about to attack us?”
“It’s personal.”
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Author's Note: Sorry it's been a while. Just a quick heads-up. This is part one because writing this scene happened quite by accident actually. I wrote these two chapters together in one shot to make a single friggin' scene. And it ended up being close to 7500 words so I broke it up into Part One and Part Two, because there is so much information to explain about X-business. As a side note, all the references to military bases and projects are fact and reality supported to give a sense of realism to the story (yes I did research, that's how much I care) but obviously, any mention of how these researched things pertain to my story are fictional. Please enjoy.
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