Chapter One: Rough Beginnings
If had to run
If I had to crawl
If I had to swim a hundred rivers
Just to climb a thousand walls
Always know that I would find a way
To get to where you are
There's no place that far
~Sara Evans
“Look out!”
On the battle heavy street, Ororo Munroe turned. Her glowing white eyes caught a glimpse of a man hurling toward her in time to brace her body for the impact. She was grabbed about the waist and tossed onto the pavement, a massive hand cradling her head from injury.
Looking up, she found her face inches from the one that belonged to her flying ball of slashing adamantium and snarling curses.
“When ya gonna learn to watch your back?” Wolverine shook his head, his body shielding her from Pyro’s flame.
“I have you for that,” she retorted, kissing his cheek.
“Yeah, yeah,” he teased lightly.
They both looked up, waiting for an opening so they could stand without becoming human pot roast. Jean Grey-Summers had turned a few hubcaps into dangerous flying objects, with her husband beside her shooting white-hot beams from his protective visor.
“On three?” Wolverine growled.
Storm nodded, shifting under the impossible weight of his body. She knew him, knew his fighting style. His quick reflexes would leave her only moments with which to make her move. The heel of her thick combat boots ground pebbles and shattered glass into the blacktop, making her wince at the sound.
“Ready?” She questioned when the heat of her former student’s beams faded away.
“Just hang on,” Wolverine flashed her a smile filled with sharp canines. “Its not often I get you under me, after all.”
“Wolverine,” she chided, the word softened by the amused smile curving her lips.
He winked at her playfully. It always amazed her how calm and lighthearted he seemed when surrounded by the horrible sounds of battle. She guessed it called to him, churning his primitive nature in a way very few people would ever understand.
“One. Two. Three!” Wolverine said in quick succession.
He rolled off of her, springing to his feet with a deceptive agility given his size. Storm rolled in the opposite direction, gathering the winds around her as she moved.
“I see him!” Wolverine shouted to her as she took to the air. “I’m goin’ high so watch my six.”
“Always,” Storm called over her shoulder, her body suspended high above by a warm air stream.
She could see the entire battlefield from her perch in the clouds. Bringing her hands together, a massive clap of thunder shook the buildings surrounding the mêlée. Magneto had attacked a biochemical lab just before dawn and while he destroyed decades of careful work and killed various homo sapien-scientists, the X-Men went into immediate action.
There were rumors, as always, of what was going on in Cadmi Labs. Some claimed they were working to produce mutants from “normal humans”. Others were certain the biologists needed just a few more months before they found a way to cure mutation. And there was a certain group that assumed they were creating clones of the President.
No matter which theory she believed, Storm’s orders were to stop Magneto and protect the lab. Bringing her hands up again, the skies broke with bolts of blinding lightning and rain that stung when it met flesh.
Wolverine was moving over several cars, making his way toward the floating mutant currently amusing himself by tossing police officers about. Storm managed to catch a few of them with carefully controlled winds, depositing them on a grassy knoll where they could regroup.
Her eyes remained on the burly, adamantium-laced mutant, watching for any threat that might harm him. As a foursome, the X-Men usually paired off. Jean and Cyclops were evacuating the lab while Storm and Wolverine played crowd control.
Steeling her spine, she noticed that Magneto’s malevolent stare had come to rest on her. Swirling winds around her, she created a small tornado in front of her, ensuring it would not reach the ground. Magneto seemed amused by the threat, using his magnetic field to propel a little higher in the air.
“Are you really stupid enough to take me on one by one, little girl?”
At his words, Storm merely raised a brow. A white-hot slash of electricity jolted the air directly in front of him. Magneto retreated a few feet, leaving Wolverine poised behind him.
The X-Men had a standing order to not kill their benefactor’s friend unless it was truly necessary. She wondered if that played into Logan’s mind at all as he inched closer and closer still. Storm held her breath, knowing what a particular danger Magneto was to her friend.
Without warning, Ororo felt her arms and legs fill with unnatural cold. She knew, unquestionably that it was Magneto. Normal effects of cold never bothered her, but she could tell when he was manipulating the iron in her blood.
Her throat constricted as blood boiled in her veins. She retained enough of her mind to flick her wrist, sending a stealthy Pyro flying across the street and into the bay. Though her head felt as though it would explode, she would not allow her teammate to be injured. Magneto took the option from her a beat later, gaining control over her limbs easily.
Unable to move, every breath a struggle, Storm did not see Wolverine launch himself back into the air.
“Let ‘er go, bub!”
A sharp gasp left Magneto’s throat when Wolverine’s deadly claws sank into the older mutant’s back. The shock released Storm from his grasp, but she tumbled to the ground, unable to regain enough control over her mutation to cushion her fall.
Storm’s body slammed into the pavement with a sickening crack. Momentarily dazed, she dimly heard Wolverine shouting her name. The pain wracking every inch of her body, she tried to respond to his strangled calls twice before successfully finding her voice.
“Fine,” she called back, flattening her palms on the ground to push herself up. “I am all right.”
Her weak arms could not support her fully, so she turned her head.
Ice covered her heart when she spotted Wolverine hovering above her. Magneto, though injured, held a single hand up, controlling her friend’s body through his mutation. Their adversary’s face was clouded by rage and pain.
Storm’s arms gave out, flattening her to the blacktop again. She struggled to regain some control, her mind whirling as Wolverine’s limbs were splayed even as Magneto bled.
“I’ve had about enough of you, Wolverine,” Magneto snarled nastily. “I have always wondered what would happen if I peeled that marvelous metal from your unworthy frame.”
“NO!”
Storm pushed herself up with the aid of a fresh surge of adrenaline. She stumbled, swayed on her feet, trying in vain to reach her friend. She tripped in a chipped section of the pavement, falling back to the ground with a nauseating thud.
Wolverine was screaming. The heart wrenching, soul-shattering sound was forever burned into her memory. She watched, in mute horror, all pain forgotten, as Magneto pulled his hand backward.
Blood splashed onto the war-torn street as her beloved friend’s flesh ripped to release the adamantium sheathing from Wolverine’s bones. His screams intensified when his scalp broke to allow the metal free from his skull.
Choking on the bile gathering in her throat, Ororo watched with horrified eyes as all the indestructible metal landed on the pavement with a harsh clang. Magneto had left it in the likeness of Wolverine’s skeleton.
The screaming stopped. So, then, did Storm’s heart. Where were Jean and Cyclops? Had they not heard those terrible screams?
“Die.” Magneto whispered softly, thrusting his fingers to full extension.
Wolverine’s tattered and shredded body was thrown back several yards where it connected with an already demolished car. Storm could scarcely breathe through the despair in her heart when Wolverine’s form slid onto the hot tarry street and, at last, was still.
Several seconds passed before she was able to move or even think. Pain, in her body and heart, tore at her, making the weary skies weep the tears her eyes refused to produce.
“L-Logan?” her voice was choked, an unanswered plea.
The battle had halted around them when Magneto’s Brotherhood departed. Even the policemen lowered their weapons now, many of them muttering that the injured mutants had been attempting to help. She was grateful for their forethought, even as she struggled to stand.
None of the police surrounding her moved to offer help, but they did clear the way when she stumbled toward Logan’s lifeless body.
“Logan?” she repeated his name, tripping over a heavy piece of metallic debris.
The sight of him turned her stomach inside out. She halted in progression, holding onto the open door of the squashed automobile to empty the roiling contents of her belly on the rain and blood slicked street.
When she regained control of her stomach, Storm moved as swiftly as her injured body would allow. Rounding the demolished car, she found Logan. All of his flesh was torn, blood covering every inch of his skin. She fell to her knees, reaching with shaking hands to grasp his shoulders.
“Logan,” she pleaded, shaking him gently. “Logan, this is not funny. Wake.”
She glanced down his body, trying to not look into the deep cuts revealed by his destroyed leather uniform. Her hands were soon covered in his blood, but she slapped his injured cheek as hard as she dared.
“Logan! Logan, I mean it!”
Storm slapped each of his cheeks again, panic and pain warring in her heart. Agony, so acute it felt as though her veins had caught fire, swept through her with dizzying speed.
“Logan, wake up. WAKE UP!”
Dissolving into tears, Ororo continued shaking his prone form, poking and prodding him in hopes that he would open those feral dark eyes and tell her to stop going girly on him. She noted, with more than a little terror in her heart, that none of his wounds had begun to heal nor stopped bleeding.
The ground was stained with crimson even her heavy rains could not wash away. Weeping, broken, clinging to Wolverine’s body was how Jean and Cyclops found her. Her tears mingled with the blood and rain on her cheeks. Snow-white hair was streaked with blood as she lay her head to Logan’s open chest, frantically searching for the dull thud of his heart.
“Storm…what the fuck happened?” Cyclops shouted, vaulting over the car to her side.
Storm pushed him away with blood-soaked hands. “You were not here! We were alone!”
“Ororo…” Jean began. Storm brushed off her attempt at soothing.
“Where were you?” she demanded, her body still in contact with Wolverine’s. “Magneto…he took the adamantium from Logan’s bones. He is not healing.”
Twin gasps of shock reached her ringing ears as her friends digested what she’d just said. Storm looked up in time to see Jean collect a piece of the discarded metal, awestruck horror written clearly on her delicate features. Rage filtered in through her fear and pain.
“Put it down!” she screamed, her words echoing on a clap of thunder that surely shattered someone’s eardrums. “It belongs in here.”
Just as she touched Logan’s arm, the man’s eyes snapped open. With an enraged and feral scream, he struggled to sit up while spewing blood and spittle from his bruised lips.
Storm clasped her hands over her mouth, then reached for his shoulders, trying to force him back down. His eyes met hers and for the first time since they’d met, he seemed to not recognize her.
He was panting in his rage, the pain obviously sending him beyond the barrier he kept between man and beast.
“Logan, it’s ‘Ro,” she tried in a low tone. “It’s me.”
“’Ro?” the growl of her name was almost unrecognizable.
When she reached to touch his face, he snarled again. A grating sound filled her ears, familiar and yet wholly alien at the same time. She drew in a sharp breath, glancing down when she felt the pinprick sensation of long claws biting her flesh through the material of her uniform.
“What…?”
Scott was cut off when the strange claws slid back into Logan’s hands. He’d lost consciousness again. Storm wiped at the tears on her face, then turned to the policemen surrounding the X-Men.
“Do not just stand there,” she ordered briskly. “Get medical attention for the civilians. Magneto will not be returning any time soon.”
The gathered police dispersed, reminded of the jobs by Ororo’s words. By the time they returned to the demolished car, the mutant saviors were gone with all trace of the metal pulled from Wolverine’s body.
~**~
Arriving at the mansion was a blur to Ororo. She ran alongside of the stretcher they used to cart Logan’s bandaged body into the med-lab. Her fingers threaded with that of her best friend’s, clinging to him as though she could keep him alive through sheer force of will.
Jean ensured Rogue and Jubilee came down with Scott as she worked on Logan with the aid of Beast. The big, blue mutant arrived only minutes before the jet, having been alerted by Charles that they would need his help.
Ororo, still covered in Logan’s blood, pressed her hands to the glass of the observation window. She could not take her eyes from his tattered form. Though Jean never said it, she knew that Logan had not begun to heal himself.
Over the last few years, Wolverine had often joked about testing the limits of his healing abilities. She always brushed the idea off as ridiculous. Now, however, she wondered if Magneto had pushed it beyond that tenuous limit. Praying was always something Logan scoffed at, but her mind tumbled over a dozen chants in native Swahili as she watched Jean and Henry fight for Logan’s life.
Charles Xavier, the wheel chair bound benefactor of the X-Men appeared at some point during the long, storm-tossed night. When he tried to question Storm about the incident and the extent of Magneto’s injuries, her cold stare was enough to turn him away. She kept vigil by herself, struggling with fatigue and pain. No one bothered to ask if she needed medical attention, they knew her too well for that.
Hours later, when Jean and Henry had done all they could, they persuaded Storm to get her cuts cleaned, and a twisted ankle wrapped. Jean’s tender hands wiped away blood and washed the distraught woman’s hair in the med-lab sink. Once her friends managed to get her into a clean sweat suit, they closed up the med-lab, leaving Storm to keep her silent vigil at Wolverine’s bedside.
In the quiet of night, every light save one doused in the room, Storm took up Jean’s stool and sat beside Logan’s bed. His breathing was short and shallow, blood seeping slowly into his bandages. She could tell from the monitors that his heart was beating, though irregularly.
His hands were clammy and cold, but she clasped one firmly. Leaning an elbow on the edge of his bed, she dropped her head into her palm, watching him carefully.
It was no secret that Logan and Ororo were close. After their adventures in New York and Alkali Lake, the gruff mutant joined the X-Men on a permanent basis. As Jean and Scott prepared to marry, the two left out banded together. Many nights they could be found sitting on the rooftop of Storm’s boathouse, talking and sipping beer into the wee hours of the morning.
Five years had passed and every day they reaffirmed their friendship. She gave him someone to tease mercilessly and he became the devil on her shoulder, often getting them both into trouble. Pranks were pulled and laughter shared, giving way for long, heartfelt talks that were never repeated to others.
When he’d learned his real name, sending him on a trip through Japan and Canada, Ororo had gone with him. For eight months, they traveled as a solitary duo, content to need no one else’s help in their search. Returning to the mansion armed with more of Logan’s stolen memory, exactly no one was surprised when they’d gone from close to joined at the proverbial hip.
Storm treasured the friendship more than any other. While many believed he would stab Cyclops in the back for a shot at Jean, only Ororo knew how false that was. His love for Jean faded over the years, as the beach relents to the daily tide. He merely enjoyed raising Scott’s blood pressure, so the taunting innuendo continued.
They never breached the line between friendship and more, Storm believed their love was above all of that. Oh, she did love him. Her best friend, the keeper of all her secrets…and here she had allowed Magneto to destroy him.
Hot, silent tears trailed down her face as she stared at his bandaged face. There was nothing she would not do for him. She knew, without his ever saying, that the same sentiment was shared on his side. It was, after all, thanks to him that she still lived. Magneto was out for blood.
By stabbing their enemy and thereby invoking his wrath, Logan had saved her life. Perhaps even at the cost of his own.
Ororo reached up, drawing her finger lightly over her friend’s eyebrow. If she had to stay awake for the next two years, she would be here when his eyes opened. She would be the first thing he saw. She had to believe he would wake; the very thought otherwise nearly tore the heart from her chest.
So she stayed. Her tears dried and her hand went numb, but she waited.
