Take off all of your skin
And breathe when you are free
Shake off all of your sins
And give them to me
Close up, let me back in
I wanna be yours wanna be your
Hero
--Shakira
Westchester, New York
2023
He could hardly breathe. Before him stood a man he had never seen before, though so achingly familiar it made his heart clench in his chest. For thirty years, he had followed this one man’s every wish, following a dream he had adopted as his own, a dream that gave him a reason for living, a reason to fight.
But he was so changed. The mutant known as Wolverine could see it in the kindness of those startling blue eyes. Gone were the dark, heavy depths of despair. Here, he could see, there had not been the horrors of war. He hadn’t watched them all fall, like so many snowflakes to melt into the pavement.
Jean. Cyclops. Beast. Forge. Rogue. Nightcrawler.
There were countless others, millions. All of them were gone, each of the deaths taking more of the kindness, more of the warmth from his friend’s gaze. It was something so subtle that not until he had taken that last, harrowing mission, did Wolverine really see it.
Mind a muddle of the future, the past, Wolverine found his favorite chair in the Professor’s office. It hadn’t looked this way in over ten years. When the Sentinels came crashing through the night in 2014, they destroyed the only home Wolverine had ever known. Here, in this antique and teenage mutant-filled mansion he had set aside the beast to become the man known only as Logan.
Now, he could see no evidence of war, devastation. Sensitive ears picked up the sound of children laughing, sneakers squeaking on the polished wood floors. Sunlight beamed in brightly from the uncovered windows, beckoning to come outside and enjoy the chilled autumn air.
And the man before him…
“I’ve waited fifty years for this moment.” Charles Xavier said in that soft, warm tone Logan had not heard for decades.
“Welcome home.”
