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“Ya used me.”

Logan’s voice was hard, sentencing Erik to an untold fate as blood dripped from his hands. Erik’s eyes never left his as he rose. Beside him, Kitty supported his daughter as she attempted to pull herself in check, but she had little success.

“Dad,” she pleaded, “why? How could you do that!”

“Ya hated what happened to ya during the war, and ya preach about mutant freedoms. But ya had no trouble usin’ me as a puppet. Again.” Logan’s jaw worked with his struggle to hold it together.

“You were mere seconds from killing him. We all saw you. Heard you. You can really stand there, like a hypocrite, and tell me you wouldn’t have taken Gyrich down for the greater good?”

“Me killin’ him wasn’t up to YOU ta decide, asshole!”

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way, Wolverine. Those are the costs of war.” He watched Logan warily, but he didn’t back down. “You know what genocide looks like. Feels like. And how it feels to be forced to fight someone else’s battles using your gifts…”

“Like ya made me do just now.”

“He was our common enemy. You would have watched him destroy everyone you cared about instead. Everyone around you.” He motioned to Piotr and Kitty and played his trump card. “Even Storm.”

“Leave her out of this.” His claws itched to tear through his flesh. Hearing her name from Erik’s lips was a sacrilege. Burning need to return to the Blackbird and carry her home warred with his craving for Erik’s head rolling across the floor. His breathing sounded harsh within the confines of the bunker. His eyes slowly scanned its interior.

It was too much like Weapon X. All it needed was a tank and leads snaking into his flesh, filling him with scalding poison. Unfeeling doctors heedless of his suffering, interested only in empirical, clinical findings of their pet project.

“I wasn’t going to risk what I cared for,” Erik continued grimly, gathering Lorna close. But Logan smelled something calculating in him, a confidence that he wouldn’t retaliate against him in front of his daughter.

Reason won out. Lorna and Kitten both had seen enough horrors that day. SNAKT.

He flicked his attention toward the two men watching them, faces still bearing a mixture of relief and nausea at the sight of Gyrich’s lifeless body. “What about you?” Logan asked. “Where are you gonna go?”

“Not back home,” one of them said. “My family thinks I’m dead. That happened to most of us when we were processed. Those of us that survived it, anyway. We were reported as receiving treatment for rehabilitation, then told that they ‘did all they could,’ but we didn’t make it. Dozens of us. They used fake records, different hospitals, false IDs for surgeons, you name it. We lost our names, our lives, and our whole purpose for living. Just because we were mutants. And they made us soldiers again.”

“Some recruitment,” his companion said bitterly. “But here we are.”

“You could start fresh. You’re stronger now. More capable of ruling your own destiny, your futures.” Erik spread his arms wide. “Once you leave this place, the world is your playground.”

“We just want a place in it. I just want a name, not a serial number.”

“What was it before?” Kitty said softly, walking forward to take his hand, the first gentle contact he’d had in months.

“I think it was Frank.”

“Nice to meet you, Frank.” She pondered his face, which seemed to relax and lose its hardness, the blank look in his eyes completely gone. The red glow had also dissipated, evidence that the programming was offline. “What kind of powers do you have?”

“Nothing flashy. Unbreakable bones, but I went into the program to treat radiation poisoning that was killing my organs.”

Logan grunted. “Damned if ya do, damned if ya don’t. They let ya live so ya can kill.”

“You could come to the school,” Kitty offered, hope coloring her voice.

“I want to learn how to live again on my own,” he murmured, patting her awkwardly but offering a smile that he hadn’t been capable of that morning. “Thanks, kid, but no thanks.”

~0~


The air was too still outside when they emerged from the facility. Logan’s lungs burned from his sprint to the Blackbird. His healing factor had already dealt with his injuries, but Ororo and Forge’s lives were at stake.

There was no life without her.

His boots banged up the ramp and his eyes fell on Henry, who was monitoring her progress. Her beautiful face was partially hidden behind an oxygen mask. Her scent was marred by blood and the smoke and grime from the complex, and he heard her weak heartbeat.

Forge was much, much worse. His face was waxy and pale, also slumbering beneath an oxygen mask. A portable blood pressure monitor displayed his weakened condition with ticks and beeps. Only now did Logan pity him. Blood stained the floor of the jet. He braced himself when he heard Piotr and Kitty’s foot steps enter the jet.

“Oh, God, Ororo!” Kitty cried, sobbing instantly and rushing back to the cots. Henry held her back and urged her to go with Piotr, just as distraught and fraying around the edges. Everyone on the jet was on a short tether.

The ride home was sober and silent except for the sounds of Henry’s equipment and the wind whipping against the hull of the jet. The blue-furred physicist occasionally stared at Erik and Lorna as they huddled in their seats.

Logan just held Ororo’s hand. He removed both their gloves and gently traced the veins and her knuckles. Her skin was satiny but too cold.

She stirred, shifting slightly on the cot and creasing the blankets.

“Baby?” Logan choked. Her moan was raspy; her face twisted in pain, making her writhe on the cot. “Blue!”

“It’s all right, I know what to do,” he assured him, urging him to step back. Henry dug into his bag of instruments and took out a small syringe and a glass bottle of clear fluid. “Painkiller. She’ll need it.” He injected it into the port of her IV; Logan’s body stayed tense and trembling until it took effective several minutes later. He smelled the change in her the way he would sense the plight and suffering of any wounded animal. It didn’t come close to describing how it felt when it was his mate. This time Henry got out of his way as he resumed his perch. She stared drowsily up at him, shivering.

“She’s cold.”

“There are extra blankets in that cupboard,” he nodded. Logan took one and draped it around her, tucking it in to the best extent that the cot would allow. She still shivered, lips quivering and huddling beneath the covers. Her uniform had been unzipped to allow Henry access to place the IV, and the tank top she wore underneath provided scant protection.

“S-still c-cold,” she stammered. “Can’t…get warm.”

“I know darlin’, it’s all right, we’ll get ya home and ““

“N-no. Don’t under-s-stand, Logan. Don’t…get cold.” Someone might as well have dashed a bucket of icy water in his face. Fingers of cold dread crept over his flesh.

“Her powers regulate her body temperature. She’s never had to worry about being overheated or too chilled, no matter how extreme the conditions of weather. Not just because she can control it.” Henry reached out to stroke her hair, despite Logan’s protective growl. “There hasn’t been any change in the weather since she was struck.”

“What the fuck did they hit her with, Blue?!”

“A weapon that was derived from Forge’s technology, in this case, the disruptor. Except this one was keyed to detect mutant signatures and to affect their biological tissue. It disrupts the neural connection to their brain stem that allows them to access their abilities. It’s an advanced form of the Cure.”

“Logan…” Ororo’s voice was plaintive. “Logan!”

“Baby?” Her eyes filled with tears, wrenching his heart and making his own eyes sting.

“They’ve ruined me.”

Erik hung back in his seat, listening to their quiet conversation. He heard the agony in the Wolverine’s voice as he broke down. He knew his pain first hand.

They were more alike than either of them wanted to admit.

Lorna slumbered against his shoulder, her face devoid of the horrible things she’d witnessed; the cost was impossible to tell yet.

He’d take her away. Show her things she’d need to know to protect herself.

To fight.

He couldn’t allow her to stay in Charles’ school. His old friend and colleague’s vision was too limited in its scope, and it left too broad a margin for his belief that humankind was basically good and worth protecting. He loved Magda, but he cursed her for denying him a life with his child after they’d already lost so much. She didn’t understand. Years. It had been years.

He was thoughtful and quiet on their journey home. He held his daughter’s hand and wrapped himself in a bubble of energy. Piotr barely noticed the change in the pressure in the cabin as he navigated them home.

Several miles behind them, the facility caved in on itself, burying everyone and everything inside.


~0~

They were haggard when they arrived home. Sean greeted them in the hangar and helped them to disembark. He was nauseated by the sight and smell of so much blood, but he stoically help Henry moved Ororo and Forge into the infirmary. Erik assisted a groggy Lorna upstairs and encouraged her to go to bed. His plans to depart could wait until Lorna had a chance to defuse. He didn’t plan on making elaborate goodbyes.

Logan maintained his vigil over Ororo, who refused to wake up. He felt her retreat into herself before she gave in to sleep. He kept her piled in blankets and took up temporary residence beside her, making use of the spare cot. But most of the time, he just held her, stroked her, and talked to her in the hopes that she’d hear him.

“I don’t remember much about when they took me into the project. Weapon X,” he murmured the following afternoon. He was using a warm, damp rag to sponge off her face and neck, clearing it of the offensive grime and sweat. Her hair still smelled like smoke. He knew she’d crave a shower when she woke “

It bit into him that she’d never create rain again, and he finally crumpled, letting his head fall against his arms, folded over the bed rails. He wept raggedly, long and hard.

“Shoulda been me, darlin’! Damn it, shoulda been me! How…how could anyone hurt ya! How could they do that to you!” He sagged against the rails, not feeling the cold metal against his skin, not feeling anything but anguish. “They almost took ya away from me, ‘Ro.” Tears dripped down his neck and stained his track pants. “I knew it was life or death, walkin’ into that damned building. I wanted ta keep ya safe.” He gasped and choked over the words. “Ya took years off of my life, baby. Everything just stopped, and my fuckin’ heart just stopped when ya threw yerself in front of the kid! Damn it, ‘Ro!” His fist banged against the rails. Anger poured out of him along with grief. His fingers dug into his hair, nearly tearing it out. “Damn it, ‘Ro!” he yelped. “I was supposed ta keep ya safe. Shoulda been me.”

“Thank heaven that it wasn’t. Forge and I had a long, serious talk before we left the school, Logan.” Logan never paid heed to Henry’s scent or footfalls as he entered the infirmary. “You wouldn’t have survived.”

“What the fuck are ya talkin’ about, Blue!”

“Your healing factor. The nullifier stripped Ororo of her gifts, breaking her control of the weather, but it didn’t shut down her body’s ability to function and sustain life. For you, that wouldn’t have been the outcome. Your healing factor saved you from perishing when the adamantium was fed into your body. You never would have lived through that if not for your body’s capabilities to protect you from metal poisoning. Imagine dying from gangrene, but ten times worse. You would have developed cancer. You would have suffered massive organ failure and died a painful death.”

“Wouldn’t have made any damn difference if I’d lost her, Hank!”

“But you haven’t.”

“Ya heard her on the jet. She’s pullin’ away from all of us. She thinks everything’s ruined and that she might as well give up.”

“Then don’t let her, man! I won’t,” Henry shot back, nostrils flaring and eyes dilating with his sudden anger. He threw aside his clipboard and approached the bed, hands flying. “We won’t let her go out like this! Whether we have to drag her out of bed and shout at her until she listens to us, we won’t let her go out like this! She’s been the life of this school. She’s given us so much and been there when anyone else would have quit! I won’t let her go! Do you hear me, damn it! And neither will you, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, you selfish sonofabitch!” Henry mastered himself and turned away from the bed as silvery tears tunneled through his fur. “And don’t let her know that you feel sorry for her. She’d hate that.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, furball.” Logan dried his tears and sat back as Henry checked her IVs.


~0~

Henry excused himself from the lab, leaving Ororo in Logan’s capable hands. Sean had Piotr had helped to clean out the jet and replenish the medical supplies. He had them retrieve Forge’s equipment as well, storing it in his guest room while he recovered downstairs.

The inventor had slipped into a coma. Kitty fretted over him until Henry explained that his body was trying to heal itself, and that his vital signs were still strong.

“He’s trying to rally back from this, Kitten. We’ll do what we can to bring him through this.”

“He’s missing a Star Trek marathon today,” she cried, her voice cracking before Piotr led her away.

“I know you heard that, Forge. Hurry back to us,” Henry mused, ruffling Forge’s black hair.

“Nnnnnhhhh,” he groaned from the bed, startling Henry.

“Sean! Get down here, Forge is coming out of it!”

It took several hours for him to be coherent enough to respond to questions with looks and gestures. His voice was hoarse and cracked from disuse over the past three days. His eyes followed Henry as he examined him and set about changing the bed clothes.

“Ororo,” he rasped.

“She’s fine. She’s…coping.”

“W-what…hap…?”

“Don’t dwell on it now.”

“All…here?” Henry leaned closer to hear his words. “We…all home?”

“Yes. We made it home.” Forge managed a low nod.

“Blue…gun. Get…gun.” Henry scowled.

“The disruptor?” Forge winced.

“Need it. Fix…it.”

“That can wait.”

“Can’t.” He was insistent, even though his eyes were drowsy.

“It can wait.” He backed off, checking Forge’s IVs one last time before he headed toward the door. “And I kept it charged on the flight back. It should still work, for whatever you think we need it for.” Forge was unresponsive; he slipped back into sleep.


~0~

“So what do we do with it?” Sean asked him as he searched for something to eat in the kitchen.

“That’s up to Forge. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. We keep the gun for research purposes, in case we meet other mutants whose gifts are more harmful to themselves or others than can be controlled, and we end up as bad as the people who invented the Cure. Or we destroy it before it can fall into the wrong hands again, and risk losing any potential benefits. Forge just wanted to help people.”

“Aye, lad, I kinna argue that point. I’ve been meanin’ tae talk wi’ ye about our other guests.” Henry paused in pouring himself a glass of iced tea.

“Lorna and Erik?”

“Aye. I get the feeling that the lass wants tae stay wi’ us. I know about yuir involvement wi’ Erik before. Saw the school files and talked wi’ Charley before we lost him.”

“So you know he’s a threat to the school.”

“Aye.” His voice was grim. “I ken the folks who were on the Golden Gate bridge when he twisted it up might agree wi’ me.”

“Then you know what we have to do.”


~0~

The day was arid and still. Ororo’s plants suffered from her absence and lack of special care. Kitty and Jubilee occupied themselves with watering the plants in the greenhouse while she was still recuperating in her loft. Logan moved her upstairs, knowing she craved the open space over the claustrophobic lab. But she refused to open the large bay windows, shunning the grounds and sky outside.

She was still reticent, only speaking when spoken to. The students were on tenterhooks, missing her familiar smile and easygoing affection, almost yearning for her lectures on the Civil War and societal norms.

Forge continued his own recovery, and Henry called in two of his colleagues, Anthony Stark and Reed Richards to assist him with rebuilding Forge’s prosthetic. He had a long way to go before his shoulder healed; Moira MacTaggert was flown in from Scotland to assist with the pending surgery.

Sean found Henry once more in Ororo’s office, cleaning up files on her hard drive and neatening the space for her return, depending on her decision.

“Tell me something, Sean,” Henry rumbled, “if you couldn’t fly, how would you cope with it?” Sean was surprised, and raked his hand through his strawberry blond hair thoughtfully.

“I could na’ always fly. I supposed I’d learn tae deal wi’ losin’ that skill. I had a long career wi’ Interpol, Hank, and I fared just fine wi’ me own two arms and legs. Me sonic scream left too many questions, would have compromised me identity an’ the agency’s need tae be covert when I was out in the field. Besides, me scream isn’t the easiest thing tae maintain. M’gettin’ older, lad. Won’t have such a melodious voice in me head forever, eh?”

“I wish we could convince Ororo that there’s more to life than making it rain.”

“The lass is faring poorly right now, aye. Moira said she’d try to pry her out of that attic even if she has tae kick her bum.”

“Bless her little heart,” Henry chuckled. He sighed deeply and asked “Where is Erik?”

“That’s what I meant tae come an’ tell ye. He’s down in the Danger Room.”

“What on earth for?”

“Said he wanted tae show his daughter some of the tricks of the trade.”

“Then come with me.” His voice was grave. Sean followed him into the elevator and they went to the sub-level.

The corridor was quiet; they saw the status light above the Danger Room door indicating that it was occupied, and that a session was in progress. Henry spoke into the intercom.

“Erik. It’s Henry and Sean. We’d like to speak with you.’

Erik’s voice boomed back confidently, “Feel free to join us, then.”

The doors slid open, and Henry was relieved to see Lorna looking in better condition since their return. She had better color and her eyes didn’t bear such prominent dark circles, thanks in part to her time with her peers. Erik was still vigilant and stayed in close contact, watching her from hallways when she was in class.

“To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“We’d like to discuss your plans, Erik.”

“Our stay is dwindling to an end.” Lorna blanched. “I think our purpose in coming here has already expired, and it’s time to leave.”

“Daddy,” she interrupted, but he held up his hand to silence her.

“Don’t argue with me over this, child. I know what’s best.”

“Do you?” Henry inquired smoothly. Erik’s face hardened, and his lips settled into a thin line.

“Lorna, lass, why don’t ye come wi’ me upstairs?”

“I don’t want to.” Her face was mulish. “Every time you take me away from my dad, it’s to lock him up.” Henry felt pangs of guilt.”

“You’re both free to come and go as you choose. Both of you.” Henry gave his words emphasis. “We hope that you’ll consider staying. Lorna, I meant to tell you, we’ve contacted your parents.”

“So?” she muttered sullenly.

“Your mother wanted to speak with you. She’s been concerned about your whereabouts. She misses you.”

“I don’t have a mother anymore.”

“Yes, you do.”

“She lost her true mother. Don’t feed her lies about who her family really is, Henry.”

“Then don’t try to convince her that her life with her adoptive family no longer exists and that there are people aside from you who care about her.” Erik’s stance changed. He stifled a chuckle before waving Sean away.

“Lorna, go on upstairs.” She tried to protest. “I’ll be fine. Go on.”

“I hate it when you do this,” she hissed, stomping heavily away from Sean, who followed her with a roll of his eyes.

“Och, it’s like Theresa all over again!” he huffed as they exited the suite.

“Charles and I built Cerebro. You know that, McCoy?”

“I know. It’s an amazing machine. Years ahead of anything else like it. No wonder the Council coveted it. And Stryker.” Henry knew he had his attention. “Even you.”

“It’s moot. It needs a competent telepath to operate it and put it to proper use.”

“We found out in recent weeks that it doesn’t, but ‘proper use’ has also become a gray area.” Henry stared at the environment Erik had chosen for his training with Lorna and shook his head. “Even now, you won’t let go of the past, Erik.” The scene was dark, shrouded in fog. Buildings lay in ruins and swastikas scarred brick walls and broken windows. “This is the legacy you want to hand down to her.”

“This is the kind of thing I want to prevent from becoming her future. How many times have you seen ‘mutie’ spray painted on someone’s house, McCoy? Or screaming from the headlines? We’re headed down the same road of hate and persecution. You’d have me be a spectator. Or worse, a custodian of the dead.”

“You love your daughter.” Erik’s eyes widened.

“You would ask that question? Now that I’ve found her, I won’t let her leave me.” He clenched his fist at his side. Measuring Henry. “And you don’t keep her from me.”

“The decision is hers to make, Erik. Do you want a daughter, or a follower?”

“You could ask the same thing of Charles. You were like his children. Yet you wear uniforms.”

“He gave us a choice, Erik. Loyalty can’t be forced.”

“Henry,” he tsked, shaking his head sadly. “You’ve been brainwashed. I hardly think you know the difference.”

“And you my friend, do not give me enough credit.” He removed a small module from his pocket and aimed it at Erik, who instinctively stepped back.

“McCoy!”

“I’m sorry.” A tiny light glowed red before the module emitted a beam that bathed Erik in energy. The artificial surroundings of the Danger Room flickered and twisted, flashes of the walls of the suite becoming visible as Erik fought to contain his energy.

His cries echoed through the suite. Henry braced himself, steeling himself against the older man’s agony until he collapsed to his knees.

“What…have you done?”

“I’ve allowed the future to determine itself, and your daughter to make up her own mind. The disruptor merely needed to be charged. Forge ensured that it could be done portably from the school or in the Blackbird without difficulty. He has a loving touch with his tools.”

“You’ve ruined me,” Erik groaned hoarsely.

“I’ve saved you.”





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