Disclaimer: Marvel characters do not belong to me.
Ororo took a deep breath, closing her eyes and praying to the Bright Lady for strength. She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, feet coming to rest on the carpeted floor. She looked at the Spartan room: not a single photo adorned the walls, not a plant in sight. Over a year ago, she'd asked to move to a different room in a different part of the mansion, not taking any of her previous belongings with her. For a while, students and friends took turns to water and care for her leafy companions, but as the months went by, caretakers became fewer, until eventually no one ventured into the attic room. She herself had not been inside since. Even proximity to it sent painful memories flooding back. Though the professor told her that time would heal her wounds, she believed it less as time passed. She made her way to basin in the far corner of her room, turning on the light above the medicine cabinet and opening it to get her toothbrush.
She thought back to her second encounter with Logan somedays back. He'd seemingly passed out on the grounds, Scott and Warren bringing him into one of the guest rooms, where he'd been lying, unconscious but stable, according to Henry. The professor had suggested more comfortable accommodation for Logan, saying it would only be a matter of time before he woke again.
She wasn't sure if she wanted him to. The whole situation had been so strange, unbelievable. Her thoughts and feelings were still tangled and in disarray. Even if her attacker was an impostor, her senses refused to listen to the reasoning of her mind. The previous night, she'd gone past the guest room where Logan still slept, watching him for almost twenty minutes. It had done nothing to ease her pain. She gargled and spat, placing her toothbrush back in its place and closing the cabinet door. She searched her reflection, noticing that her blue eyes had become more dull than she could remember. Warm water dripped from her face as she finished washing it, grabbing the small hand-towel to her side and tossing it on the single bed when she was done.
She grabbed a pair of black jeans from the back of her chair, tightening the belt that held them up, now three sizes too big. A white tee-shirt followed, and finally a pair of casual sandals. Just one day. She thought, holding back the torrent of emotion that would turn the calm air wild and force the sunlight from the sky. Free my mind of it for just one day.
As usual, she greeted students on her way to the kitchen, decidedly missing the morning breakfast crowd and opting to get her cup of tea in peace. She walked to the kitchen, shocked for an instant upon meeting the professor and Logan. The professor threw a dishcloth over his shoulder and brought himself over to the large counter in the center of the room. He began chopping green pepper on the board, drawing her attention to the claw marks in the granite.
“You're awake.” She said, trying hard to muster a genuine smile but failing.
Logan's eyes took her in for a moment before he spoke. “Yeah. Since early this morning.”
“Logan and I have been trying to make sense of his situation. It's a bit of a brainteaser to be honest.” The professor informed her, finely dicing.
The longer she stood in Logan's presence, the harder she felt it was to breath. She felt conflicted, like she had when she'd faced him in the war room days before. A part of her wanted to leave, to get away from him as quickly as possible. But another ordered her to stay. Ororo Munroe did not turn tail and run. She entered the kitchen and made her way to the counter. “Any new developments?” she asked.
“Yeah. I met my twin... and he put a bullet in my head.” Logan said, putting something in his pocket. “Seems I ain't the only one jumpin' between this world an' the other.”
He made a move to the counter, Ororo flinching back for a fraction of a second, enough for both of them to notice. “I'm sorry.” She said, shaking her head to try and remove the silliness of such an action. “I... It's just strange, having you here.” The professor began whisking the eggs he'd just broken into a glass bowel. The sound seemed distant to her. Her mouth was dry, cheeks felt flush.
“I can tell I'm makin' ya uncomfortable darlin'. I'll get outta yer hair.” he caught himself, realising that he was the only person in the room with any. “Well, ya get what I mean.” Both she and the professor smiled at the remark. “I'll talk to ya later Chuck.” Logan left the kitchen, careful not to come too close to Ororo.
“It's natural.” The professor said after a while, Ororo heading to the kettle and starting the water. “It's been a long time since you've seen him, or even heard his name. Every sensory cue tells you that it's him. You're allowed to feel threatened.”
She dropped a tea bag into her mug. “Charles please, let's not discuss this.” As she waited for the water to boil, she nipped an apple from the fruit bowl and took her first bite, watching the professor empty the contents of the glass bowl into a frying pan. “I know that there's an upcoming mission, I'd like to be involved in it.”
“I'm not sure that this is a good time for you, Ororo.” He trusted her skills and abilities, but with the sudden reminder of her extremely traumatic past, he did not trust her emotions to quite the same effect.
Her jaw clenched. “I can't be in this mansion right now. I need to focus my mind on something else, and I need to do it somewhere else.” The kettle popped as the water came to the boil. She discarded her apple in the trash can, less than half eaten.
“You need to eat more than that.” he said, having caught the action in his peripheral vision as he monitored his omelette. “You're welcome to share this.”
“I'm fine.” She countered, her tone slightly harsh.
“Ororo...”
“I said, I'm fine.” she snapped.
He closed the omelette with the last of his ingredients inside and took the pan from the hot plate. Even without his abilities, even with her back turned, he sensed her pain. “Ororo, you are one of the closest people to me. You know that I am here for you.”
“Now, but where were you when my need was greatest?” she asked, slamming the kettle on the kitchen counter. “Charles Xavier, the most powerful telepath in the world, couldn't hear me. “ Her words spat like venom.
“Ororo, I wasn't here. I was miles away.” he argued calmly. “I am not permanently tapped into the minds of everybody here. It would be wrong of me to do so.”
“You should have known. You should have recognized something different in him, even before you left!” She didn't want to turn and face him.
Xavier bit his knuckle, a quirk of his when he was in thought. Even the most eloquent speech would do nothing to quell her anger. “I love you Ororo. What happened to you, is one of my greatest regrets.”
“We regret the things we could have done, or should have done,” she said as she took her cup and walked to the door, “or should have prevented.” With a look of both anger and sadness: “I'm on the mission Charles, you owe me that much.”
Before even opening her eyes, she felt the aches and pains of her body. Ororo found it difficult to so much as move a finger. The last thing she remembered was resting peacefully in the bathtub. Tucked away in soapy white mountains of pine scented bubbles, she'd all but completely drifted off to sleep. She'd managed to dig out one of her favourite CDs, a gift from Jean that she'd received some years back, which held the harmonious sounds of various animals within different environments. “It's not the real thing, but I guess it's as close as you'll come to it in the Xavier mansion.” had been her redheaded friend's words.
There was definite surrealism in the events that followed. Having just felt so safe and removed from the world, having it all come crashing down around her, in her own home, was something that she would never have expected. She'd fought him, but in the midst of such confusion, she'd barely gotten a bolt of lightning or gust of wind up before being knocked out. She tried, with slightly more strength, to move herself, wincing at the pain it caused.
“I'd take it easy, darlin'” Logan's voice advised.
Ororo opened her eyes finally, slightly shocked by the sight she saw. No longer at the mansion, she was now planted on a sofa, in the lounge portion of a different loft. Directly across from where she lay, Logan stood in the kitchen, opening a pack of steaks with a claw. The loft was simply decorated, but even that was to an extent that seemed uncharacteristic of Logan. White cabinets, wooden floors, bright red sofa couch and chair, electric blue bean bag. Arb ornaments were here and there throughout the place. The light of a fading day streamed in through the large windows behind her, casting long shadows along the floor and through the glass coffee table.
“What's happening here?” Her voice was soft, still too sleepy to be at peak performance.
“I'm cooking.” The steaks hit the pan, the familiar sound lasting for no more than thirty seconds before he slid them onto a plate. He grabbed his beer from the counter and made his way to sit in the chair across the coffee table from her. “I knocked you out pretty good, you'll be in pain for a while.”
She realised, after a time, that her arm couldn't move. She pulled, craning her neck upward to see that she was cable-tied to the radiator at the head of the couch. The fact that he even thought such a thing would hold her was preposterous. Willing her mind, she directed a surge of lightning through her wrist to melt the object. Only, nothing happened. Again she tried, and again nothing. Feeling a restriction around her neck, she brought her hand to it, and felt a device so painfully familiar. “No.” she whispered.
“Yes.” he countered. “Ya didn't really think I'd have ya over an' not take any precautions?” He ate the steaks with his hands, licking the blood from his fingers between every few bites. “I'm not an idiot 'Ro.”
She silently queried that. Only fools bottle lightning. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
Glaring: “You are not Wolverine.”
“No, not anymore.” He swallowed the chunk of meat in his mouth and washed it down with a swig of beer. “I got outta the hero business a long time ago.”
Ororo observed him, trying to sum up her captor, mildly distracted by the sound of him chewing the barely cooked flesh. Casual grey sweats, close cropped hair, a few faint scars on his face that she did not remember Logan having.
“Why have you brought me here?”
“It ain't a tough guess, Weather Witch.” he said as he chewed the last piece, setting the plate down on the table and dusting his hands. “I want ya t' fix what ya broke.”
A genuine look of confusion crossed her beautiful features. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“That's rich.” he said. “I trusted you! You, her, whatever, it's all the same!” Logan shouted. He held his knuckles, in an effort to hold back the claws that were sure to come out. “Tell ya what: the sooner you quit takin' me fer a meathead, the easier you'll make this.”
“I've never underestimated Logan's intelligence. If you believe that to be true, then you must have me confused with someone else.” Ororo said, with one brow raised.
He stood, never breaking eye contact with her as he made his way around the table, and took a seat in the gentle curve her body made. “There is something different.” He said softly, bringing his hand to her cheek, stopping short as she jerked away. He removed a bottle of pills from his faded jean pocket and held it up for her to see. “It's a cocktail I got a friend t' cook up fer me.” As he shook it: “Helps keep my head on straight, fer the most part. Turns out gettin' yer noodle torn between different realities can do a thing or two to a man's mind after a while. But then again, you knew that from the get-go.”
“I still don't know what you're...”
“Cairo!” He shouted. “You used yer magics t' take whatever human part of me I still had left!” Words passed through gritted teeth. “An' I've been bouncin' around like a ping pong ball between worlds ever since. I don't know where the similarities start an' stop, but I can guess ya both have a pretty strong sense of self-preservation.” He left the sofa couch, unzipping his sweatshirt as he crossed to a far section of the loft. “Find a way t' keep me in one world, or I'll make sure y' ain't breathin' in either.”
Cyclops looked out onto the endless desert, Phoenix doing the same, hand shielding the sun from her eyes. Hot wind blew across the sands, warping and shaping the dunes around them. They'd been waiting for the past half hour, now beginning to wonder if their informant was even going to show. Luckily for Cyclops, Wolverine had been discovered in the aft part of the Blackbird near the end of their trip, making for extremely polite conversation.
“I cannot believe you disobeyed a direct order from the professor!” Cyclops fumed.
Wolverine looked out in the other direction. “Now that's a lie... you can believe that. It just gets yer panties in a knot when ya think about it.” He had overheard information about the mission to Cairo, Egypt. There was a chance that he could find answers there, and even if not, he couldn't sit on his hands for another minute with everything going on inside his head.
“You've put this mission in jeopardy. If anything goes wrong with you, I'm leaving your ass to burn out here.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“With your recent bouts of extreme narcolepsy, I highly doubt it.” Cyclops scoffed.
Wolverine rolled his eyes. “You're a dick, whatever reality I'm in.”
“At least that's the only thing I'm guilty of.”
He turned, glaring at his visor covered eyes. “You got a bone t' pick with me, bub?”
“I just wonder when people'll stop making excuses for you. You're a loose canon Logan, insubordinate, unpredictable, dangerous. But it always gets waved away with a: That's the way he is.” Cyclops now faced him. “If I had my way, you'd never be allowed within a mile of the mansion. Even if you're not from our reality, both Logans are better off in the wild where they belong.”
Before either of them could get into the fight they were itching for, Phoenix's voice called out. “Hey! Someone's coming.”
They watched the horse-mounted figure ride toward them, a long beige tunic billowing in the wind. As the rider drew closer, they could see a bourque shielding her from the elements. Within a minute or two, the beautiful brown stallion that had carried its rider so far in the heat of the day galloped to a stop, allowing her to dismount. There was a tense silence, one owed no doubt to her summation of the three before her. Large hazel eyes observed, set against golden skin. “My name is Alima. I spoke with your Charles Xavier.”
“Cyclops.”: he introduced, holding out his hand.
She looked down at it then lowered her bourque before shaking his hand.
“Hello Cyclops.” Introductions followed with the rest of the group. “Mr. Xavier mentioned that there would be a team member who was familiar to Cairo, that she spent some of her younger years here.”
“Storm flew out with us, but had another engagement to attend to first.” Phoenix explained. In truth, they didn't know where Storm was, or why she had left them midair. In some ways, they felt it was better to have her away from the mission, since they were still not completely confident in her state. Fortunately she had left before their discovery of Wolverine, which was something that surely would've put her on edge. “You told the professor there was something of great importance that you needed to show us but as I understand it, you didn't go into much detail.”
“I was afraid you would not come if I did.” she said sadly. “I am a resident doctor of a mental clinic in the city. For a number of years, I have treated patients with varying levels of psychosis. After recently reviewing many of my notes and files, I am finding an increasingly common thread running through them. It has been difficult, but I've managed to find evidence that suggests my patients are victims.” She placed her hand on the ground, closing her eyes. Sand began to fall away from the dune they stood on top of, cascading down and revealing what looked to be an entrance way to a bunker of some sort.
“Neat trick.” Wolverine said, jumping down to the doors
“I discovered this with detective work some months ago.” Alima said. “I believe it was the base of operations for... well, I don't truly know.”
Wolverine's claws unsheathed. “It's been a while since I had t' open a tin can. But hell, it's like ridin' a bike.”
Before he could stake his claws into the space that separated both doors, Alima placed her hand on his forearm. “That will not be necessary.” She placed her other hand on a door, and concentrated again. The doors slid open obediently. “Molecular manipulation has its benefits.” The four of them started down the corridor. “For centuries, my people have told the story of a being of the desert. It walks between worlds, and those unlucky enough to meet it, are sometimes taken along for the journey. To some, it is a demon, to others, a god.”
“You think it's a mutant.” said Phoenix.
“Now, yes. Since many myths and legends are born of reality, maybe once a mutant with the same power did exist. Mutancy is not spoken of in this country. You are shunned, exiled, if you are found to possess such abilities. Many live in fear and so it would be natural to try to make sense of such things.” They stopped at another set of doors, rusted through for the most part. The only light came from the day behind them. Candy wrappers and chip packets littered the floor, interspersed with soda cans. A sharp smell of urine, feces and decay caught them all. “One of my only, vaguely coherent patients, alerted me to this place. Even after gathering information from different sources, it took me months to find.” Again, she opened the doors, removing a wide-beam torch from her tunic.
The room, was less than that, an eight by eight metal box. It was clear now where the smells had originated from. With only a single entrance and no windows, not outlets save for a small grate in one of the walls, this was worse than any prison cell could ever be. The smell of ammonia was overbearing, and Cyclops and Phoenix had to cover their noses to ensure they wouldn't pass out. Wolverine took the torch from Alima, stepping into the box and looking at every detail of it carefully. Fragments of nail could still be seen on the floor, dried blood on one of the walls from what looked like a suicide attempt. But none of what he saw held weight with him... bar one. “You knew all of this, an' you did nothin'.”
“Wolverine.” Cyclops warned.
“I would hardly call what I have done, nothing.” Alima defended. “I unfortunately do not have the will or ability to do more. Asking questions can be dangerous. That is why I called you.”
“Yer a mutant fer cryin' out loud. Ya sure as shit ain't defenseless.”
“Wolverine!” The last thing Cyclops wanted to do was offend her.
Alima folded her arms. “Yes, I am a mutant, but I am also a mother, and a wife. I can defend myself, but my family cannot. And with someone capable of such atrocity on the loose, I am already endangering them by simply being here.” She spun on her heel and made her way out, both Phoenix and Cyclops following. Seemingly agitated, she whistled for her horse. “I hope I did not make a mistake in bringing you.” Her bourque went back across her face. “This will be our first and last meeting or communication, I cannot risk more by continuing in this.” She removed a tightly bound stack of papers from the travel sack attached to the saddle. “Here is a compilation of the similarities I have been able to identify, and anything else I felt worthy of mention. Possible accomplices of this mutant and names of those involved in the criminal activities of my city. If he or she does exist, you will be able to find someone who knows something, in here.”
“Thank you.” Phoenix said, accepting the pack. “And we're sorry for what he said back there.”
“No, he is right.” Alima waved her hand in dismissal. “Even though my patients have beating hearts, and breath in their lungs, they are dead. Empty shells of what they once were. Some are trapped in lifelong nightmares, others drift in and out of comprehension. Three, I have lost to comas: one day, they went to sleep, and just didn't wake up. Of my most recent, though she came to me of her own will, seemingly fine, I witnessed her slowly slip into insanity. This person is a monster, a sociopath distinguishable from a serial killer only by modus operandi. Maybe if I had had the courage, I could've stopped it all.”
Phoenix smiled at her. “You have courage, this meeting is proof of that.”
“Thank you.” She placed her foot in the stirrup and swung her other leg over. “Not every mutant is a crime-fighter, not every human a hero. That's why we are fortunate to have you and those like you. The world may be quick to dismiss us, I pray that you don't. Please... help.” With that, she started a gentle gallop, rounding her horse to go back the way that they had come.
Logan was still in the bunker, looking from wall to ceiling to floor. He couldn't understand any of it, how it could be possible. He extended his claws, running them along a wall until they slid perfectly into a set of identical claw marks. Those same marks littered the metal structure, few areas left free of them. He recognised them, the enraged and desperate attempts of an animal, a Wolverine caged.
To be continued I believe
