Chapter Seven: Fate
Logan handed her a steaming cup of coffee as they awaited news in the kitchen. The children had scattered throughout the home, most of them opting to remain indoors while Piotr and Bobby did security checks.
Forge would be along in the morning to upgrade security throughout the grounds, turning the mansion into a veritable Fort Knox should the need arise. Ororo knew he would ask a million questions about their visitor and how much they could tell him was up to the man currently fighting for his life.
Angel had gone down with Hank, offering his field medic skills. Everyone else had been shoved out of the med-lab, ordered to get the hell out of his way. Bishop’s wounds were heavy, his blood loss massive. Ororo had already phoned ahead to the nearby hospital, in case a trauma team was needed.
The Brotherhood was going to answer to her for this.
She curled her fingers around the steaming mug, her jaw aching with the force of her clenching. How could he have been so stupid as to take on the Brotherhood without backup? What was that man thinking? Why had the Brotherhood returned him instead of killing him outright?
Logan stared at the small television screen on the kitchen counter, absorbed in the midday news while she fought her inner turmoil. She glanced at his rugged profile, trying to ignore the way her mouth was suddenly dry and her heart skipped several beats.
Not wanting him to notice her careful study of his face, Ororo swept her gaze back down to her paper. Her body was still blissfully sore from Logan’s aggressive attentions from the previous night. He’d taken and taken from her until she felt there was nothing left to hide. The experience of being really and truly possessed by a man left her with the tingle of feminine pride. It left her inside out, exposed.
That wasn’t a feeling she cared for.
Ororo knew she was fighting a losing battle, but so much of her sanity depended on keeping her life neat and orderly. Just as her emotions kept the weather bright and clear, she buttoned up all personal entanglements and tucked them away. Logan was difficult to resist, but she would have to find a way to do it, lest she lose everything she worked so hard to achieve.
When he turned to glance at her, smiling slightly, her heart dropped to her feet. Oh, hell. She was in for it.
Logan sat up a moment later, his ears twitching. Reacting to his enhanced senses out of pure instinct, Ororo set her coffee down.
“What is it?” She asked as Logan turned toward the door.
“Furball,” he answered. “He’s comin’ up in a hurry.”
“Ororo, Logan!” Hank said before he raced into the kitchen a scant ten seconds later.
Her blue friend had blood smears on his lab coat and fear in his eyes. In his hands was a set of tubing and what looked to be a needle. Ororo jumped up, staring at him in surprise.
“What are your blood types?” Her friend demanded. “Quickly!”
“O neg,” Logan responded as he stood.
“AB negative,” Ororo supplied.
“Come with me, my dear,” Hank jerked his head toward the hall.
Ororo glanced at Logan, then gave chase, following the blue doctor down into the sublevels of the mansion. She had to run to keep up with his hurried pace. He led her into the med-lab, ushering her onto the bed beside the battered Bishop.
“He needs blood,” Hank explained. “Badly. Angel?”
“We’re losing him,” the blonde man answered, pain etched into his features.
Ororo ripped the sleeve of her shirt, taking the elastic from Hank as he checked Bishop’s vitals. She yanked the slender elastic over her bicep, pumping her fist several times to raise her veins.
“This is a needle, not a catheter,” he explained. “Do not move your arm.”
She nodded, holding her arm still. Wincing as the needle bit into her flesh, Ororo closed her eyes while Hank taped the apparatus to her arm. She watched, mildly fascinated, as sticky red blood was pulled from her body. It snaked through the clear tubing, slipping like silent salvation into the man lying beside her.
Ororo felt something nudge at the back of her mind as she looked at the young man so beaten by their enemies. Something like recognition slipped into her heart. Her blood type was not common and if Hank preferred her over Logan’s universal donor…
She thought, perhaps, they were related in some way. Was that why Bishop stared at her sometimes? Why he seemed taken aback by the differences between her now and the future persona?
“He has a rare blood type,” Hank murmured.
“So I see,” she agreed. “We’ve had that problem with me before.”
“Yes,” he continued, speaking as though to himself. “It was fortuitous.”
Ororo couldn’t stop herself. Henry knew something, as he tended to. She swallowed hard and nudged him lightly with her foot.
“Good thing he had a blood relative around.”
“Quite,” Hank answered without thinking. “A parent is usually the donor of choice.”
Time, quite simply, stopped.
Blinking rapidly, Ororo grabbed Hank’s sleeve, yanking him until he stumbled back to stare at her. Realization flooded his kind blue eyes as she gripped the sleeve of his lab coat, shaking her head repeatedly. She could hear the machines monitoring Bishop’s status slow, alerting the other mutants that he was stabilizing.
“Henry. What?” She breathed, paying no mind to Bishop or Angel.
Her friend swallowed audibly, glancing at the dark man lying on the medical bed. He seemed at odds with himself, warring with his confidentiality clause and friendship. Ororo tugged on his sleeve again, forcing him to look at her.
“Tell me, damn you,” she insisted.
Hank exhaled slowly. “He’s your son, Ororo. Bishop is your son.”
It took all of one second for the weight of his words to sink in. Ororo reached up, yanking the needle from her arm and jumping from the bed. Shaking Hank off of her, she ran from the med-lab, racing through the metallic halls and into the elevator.
Smacking the up button repeatedly, she was raging by the time she reached the mansion’s main level. Thunder slammed against the windows, wind howling with her internal hell. Oh, by the Goddess, she was going to murder that man.
She all but flew into the kitchen, rounding on Logan the moment she saw him. Unable to speak as he continued to idly stare at the television, she kicked her leg out, knocking his feet from their placement on the table.
He startled, looking up at her as coffee sloshed down his shirt.
“What the flamin’ hell is your problem?”
Ororo jabbed a finger at him. “You! Come with me! NOW!”
Thunder boomed in the heavens. Logan immediately stood.
She turned on her heel, knowing he was following as she stomped back into the lower levels. No one stopped her, nor dared question as the skies cracked and the weather took a definite turn for the worse.
Logan didn’t speak as they entered the med-lab, Ororo slamming the door so that it swung violently on its hinges.
“SIT!” She commanded Logan.
He watched her cautiously as he lowered his coffee-stained form into a nearby chair. Hank came around the bed where Bishop lay, Angel exiting the lab swiftly. Ororo rummaged through the counter, muttering to herself as her heart ached in her chest.
Once she located several sterile swabs, she shoved them at a wincing Henry. “Do it.”
“I already did,” Hank tried to calm her. “When he claimed…”
“I don’t care, Henry Peter McCoy. DO IT!”
Another massive clap of thunder echoed through the mansion at her words, startling even Logan. The two men stared at her, but she only had eyes for Hank.
The blue mutant unwrapped a sterile swab and immediately Ororo opened her mouth. He gently scraped the inside of her cheek before covering the sample and marking it with her name.
When he turned to Logan, the feral obediently allowed Hank to do the same, his eyes on Ororo the entire time. She wasn’t sure how much he had guessed, but an eyebrow went up when Hank swabbed Bishop though the younger man was unconscious.
“This will only take a moment.”
Hank ducked into his office, leaving Ororo and Logan alone. She didn’t spare a word for him, staring instead at the prone form of the man claiming to be her son. It couldn’t be true. How could she have a child? Oh, God. Did she already carry him?
“Wanna explain?”
“Logan,” Ororo closed her eyes, shaking her head. “You don’t want to talk to me right now.”
“Fine.”
They looked away from one another, waiting on Hank as the monitors beeped steadily to break the oppressing silence.
~**~
Another Time, Another Place
Lucas slipped into his family’s quiet home long after they were all asleep. He knew that when Father got a hold of him, his hide was going to be tanned. Repeatedly. The only defense he could muster was that he knew it was the right thing to do. They would understand that. He hoped, anyway.
Setting his laser rifle down by the back door, Lucas took a step into the tidy kitchen and froze.
“Welcome home, son.”
On immediate alert at seeing his father’s unmistakable silhouette leaning in the doorway to the living room, Lucas swallowed thickly. Damn. He’d wanted a little time for them to cool down, to think over what he’d done. An ambush hadn’t been on his list of things to do today.
“Father.” He replied at last, proud when his voice did not waver.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?” The elder mutant snarled, moving from his lounging position to stalk toward his wayward offspring.
Lucas tilted his chin out defiantly. “I did what I had to.”
“Lucas,” Mother’s voice came from the foyer as she stepped up beside her husband. “What have you done?”
Unable to fight them both, Lucas sighed before turning his eyes away. His arms ached terribly, the force of the blast having sent him sprawling into a nearby concrete median. The leather of his militia uniform was shredded in places, which he knew his mother was mentally cataloguing as he thought it over.
“You know what he did, darlin’,” Father growled. “He went on that fuckin’ mission we told him he couldn’t.”
“Lucas?” Mother’s tone was neutral; the calm before the storm.
“I had to,” the seventeen-year-old defended. “They were short handed!”
“It was suicide!” Mother’s shout resembled the clap of thunder behind it. “By the Bright Lady, how many did you lose?”
He felt the blow to his heart again, remembering the feel of blood on his hands. “Thirty.”
“Flamin’ Christ,” Wolverine roared. His adamantium-laced fist socked a hole in a nearby wall, to which his wife raised a solitary brow over glowing eyes.
“Just because you were too goddamn afraid to go on that mission doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten our responsibilities!” Lucas shouted, suddenly enraged. “You two could have turned the mission around, made it a victory for the Rebellion!”
Before he could process that Father had moved, Lucas was flattened against the wall. He gulped against his will as lethal adamantium claws erupted from his father’s hands, coming within centimeters of his face.
“Watch who you’re callin’ a coward, boy,” Father snarled, heedless to Mother’s plea for them to act like adults.
Lucas could hear the muffled weeping coming from his little sister and felt shame fill his heart. But he glared defiantly at his father, wanting to tell the old man that he wasn’t some boy anymore. He was a valued member of the militia, a part of the mutant Rebellion.
“The mission was foolhardy and solved nothing,” Mother said from behind her men. “We did not participate because we did not believe it right to attack a human power base without provocation.”
“We told you not to go,” Father continued, finishing her thought. “Cause you’re toein’ a fine line, son. Between right an’ wrong.”
“You can’t keep me locked up like this,” Lucas thundered, heedless to the claws. “I’m not a child!”
“You’re my son,” Father countered with raw emotion in his voice. “An’ yer slippin’ away a little more every day. You’re listenin’ to the ravings of a madman instead of your family.”
His father’s claws retracted, the vice grip loosening so quickly that Lucas stumbled. He glanced to Mother, whom cradled Lizzie in her arms, running a hand through her the soft flax of her hair. Both girls had tears in their eyes, Lizzie clutching her beloved teddy bear with all the strength she could get in her ten-year-old body.
“You deal with him!” Father snapped to Mother. “Jesus H. Christ, he’s fucking stubborn.”
Mother sighed, handing the whimpering Lizzie over to Father. The white haired woman came to her son, whom ducked his head. Mother had the rare ability to make him feel five years old, no matter how right he thought he was.
She grasped his chin in her hand and yanked his eyes to meet hers. “Do you honestly believe us to be cowards?”
Lucas shook his head as much as he could. Of course he didn’t think they were cowards. His parents had fought impossible odds before, gone charging into battle broken and bleeding.
“My son, Magneto is leading you down the wrong path,” she said with quiet intensity. “You must choose, in this moment. Him or us.”
Without thinking, Lucas swallowed over the lump of pure emotion in his throat and embraced his mother. “You, of course. I’m sorry.”
“If you ever disobey the orders of your commander again, I will have you kicked from the militia,” she said, though her arms came around him soothingly. “And if you refer to me as a coward just once more…”
“Electrocution, I know, I know.”
~**~
Here and Now
One word that was rarely used to describe Logan was patient. He was known for roaring, snarling, leaping into action without thought to consequences. And yet, here he sat, in the sterile med-lab, patiently waiting to see what she would do next.
He caught the lingering scent of fear and rage on her, wondering how she managed to look that calm when her insides were in hell. Oh, he could tell. He knew without even looking at her that she was coming close to losing her grip. The faint tinge of ozone on the air was enough to send the fine hairs on the nape of his neck to attention.
A natural problem solver, Logan had quickly deduced some of what was happening here. Storm obviously thought there was some kind of genetic connection between Bishop, herself, and Wolverine. He didn’t want to entertain thoughts of the young man being their child, but it kept coming back to him again and again.
That sense of familiarity, the way he reminded Logan of the wintry mutant…it made sense and lacked it at the same time.
Finally, after what seemed to be decades spent in the tense silence, the computer’s printer groaned to life. Ororo was off her chair in an instant, an angry glare ensuring neither conscious man moved to intercept her.
Logan felt his body poise for action again, wondering if whatever she was about to read would effect him. Contrary to popular belief, the feral wasn’t stupid. He knew something huge was about to go down, could feel it in the depths of his soul. Fate was handing him his ass.
Ororo’s expressive eyes darted over the wet ink, her face crumbling for a beat before the rage contorted her delicate features. Logan captured that fleeting moment forever in his mind. Her guard had been down, revealing a chink in that icy armor. Maybe there was hope yet.
Hope for what…Logan couldn’t quite say. He would have to go with his gut for now, no matter what she was about to say.
“By the Goddess,” Ororo shoved the paperwork at him, startling him slightly with her swift movement. “How did I let you get me pregnant?”
Logan felt his eyes widen. “Huh?”
“He’s your son. Our son. Jesus,” Storm rubbed at her temples, her entire body trembling.
Dark eyes darted over the medical jargon marking the warm paper. To an accuracy of 97.98%, Logan and Ororo were the parents of the mutant known as Bishop. Swallowing hard, tasting the ozone on the air, Logan tossed the paper over his shoulder.
“This is your fault,” the beautiful woman rounded on him angrily. “This is completely your fault.”
“My fault?” Logan snarled in response. “I don’t think I forced you onto that pool table. Or my bed. Or the goddamn floor!”
Her eyes snapped with lightning, swirls of milky white threatening to overtake cocoa. “I tried to leave!”
“Not that hard, darlin’,” Logan fired back. “I think the term ‘Fuck me’ left your lips ‘fore mine.”
“Logan, Ororo…” Hank tried to cut in. His words fell on deaf ears.
“God, if you could just keep it tucked away for longer than five minutes…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! It takes two to tango, Storm. I wasn’t alone in this and you’d best remember that, girl.”
“Stop this at once!” Hank snarled as he shoved them apart. “You’re not helping Bishop with your petty arguing.”
“Hank…” Logan attempted.
“Henry…” Ororo tried.
He held up both blue paws to silence them. “I don’t want to hear it. You both made the conscious decision to fornicate on the pool table “ thank you for the warning, by the by “ and you will deal with the consequences.”
Logan glared at the snowy-haired mutant around Beast. It struck him at that moment that their little romp could have already implanted the child inside of her. His rage left in an instant, an alien need to protect what he’d created overwhelming his heart.
“Hank?” He cleared his throat, not looking at Storm now. “Is she…?”
“I am unsure,” the blue doctor shook his head. “We cannot be sure for at least several weeks.”
“But it’s possible,” he glanced to Storm, meeting her guarded gaze. “He could be in there right now.”
She turned her back on him, but Logan caught the subtle shift in her arms as she covered her abdomen with one hand. Putting that safely in his “win” column, Logan shook his head.
“This is fuckin’ unreal.”
“Yes, I know,” Beast clasped his shoulder soothingly.
Ororo slammed out of the med-lab, letting massive thunder crack the heavens as the door swung ominously behind her. Logan swallowed thickly, glancing to his son lying helplessly on the bio-bed only a few feet from where he was standing.
Fate had a twisted sense of humor.
