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Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, they belong to Marvel. I am using them not for gain but for joy.
Title: Deception: prt5 Revelations
Rating: NC-17
Author’s Notes: Is Logan really paralyzed? What secrets is Ororo keeping from them? And who the heck is that new gorgeous man in her life????
Dedications: I wanted to send this long over due chapter out to Xmenloganfan, toughspirit, Sandra, Ororo and all the rest of you who make this fic worth writing. Reviews will be greatly appreciated, good and bad. Only way I’ll grow! Thanks.



“How is she?” Charles Xavier asked. As deeply worried lines grooved their way across his forehead.
“She had three broken ribs, shattered left arm, extensive bruising on her face, chest.” Answered the furry blue doctor as he leaned over an enhance version of the microscope used for examining blood work. Hank McCoy leaned back. Temporarily forgetting Charlie’s was waiting for him to continue. He raised his thick glasses and rubbed tired fingers across the bridge of his nose, deep in thought.
Becoming impatient, Xavier moved forward until he was looking at Hank across a long metal table loaded with scientific instruments.
“And?”
Hank looked up as if he had just realized he’d been talking to someone. “She’ll be fine. I expect her to have a full recovery. The puncture to her lung and the location of the hemorrhaging had me worried but I have repaired the damage and she seems to be holding her own.”
Xavier nodded, relieved that Ororo would live. He would have expressed that joy if he did not sense that Hank had something else he was not telling him.
“What is it?”
“A peculiarity. I have been running further tests on Logan’s blood and cannot understand why his healing factor has healed all his other injuries including the new ones caused by his encounter with the door but his paralysis continues. I have also ascertained where the damaged should be, but the x-rays that were taken show no apparent trauma to the C10 vertebrae. The neurotransmitters are just not reaching the cerebra cortex.”
“Was the damaged tissues around the vertebrae healed but not the nerves?” Charles asked.
“That’s another perplexing problem. The spinal nerve, branches, surrounding tissues healed so well theres no trace of there ever had been an injury.”
“What! How is that possible? With his healing factor not functioning properly I’d assume some part of his injuries would be evident.”
“Even more puzzling is that I compared his previous scans with the ones I took the day of the accident and they are exactly the same. Minus the closing gap in his chest of course.”
Xavier sat silently for a few minutes trying to process this new information. Scientifically, what Hank was saying was not possible. He knew first hand the debilitating damage a spinal trauma could cause. His own injury similar to Logan’s had kept him tied to his chair for thirty years. Despite innovative techniques like electromagnetic stimulation to the surrounding muscles, physical therapy and S’hklar intervention. The difference though was that his nerves were permanently destroyed.
“ Perhaps some aide from our outside sources will help.”
“I have already sent a few sample to my esteemed colleague Reed Richards. Other then myself he is the only other person who has done research with genetics and mutations. He was instrumental in helping me with discovering the cure for the legacy virus and I trust him.”
“Good. It’s also important that Logan’s condition remain a secret. If any of his enemies learned of his disability, God knows what would happen.”
“ I will await Richard’s findings before I consider any other steps. It would help immensely if our feral friend would willingly consent to a few experiments I have been working on.”
Xavier almost physically cringed at the word ‘experiment’ and Logan in the same sentence. Unless they forcefully dragged him, bound in chains, Logan would not return to the Med-lab. Not that Xavier blamed him after what’s happened in the last couple months and his past. It was just difficult to help a patient not willing to summit to testing of his injuries. Then a thought came to him.
“What if the reasons for his injuries are not physical?”
Hank stared at the professor. He knew he was relatively new to the school and barely knew the man in question but he had treated his injuries. Had seen him through months of excruciatingly painful rehabilitation and had come to a similar conclusion. There was a strong possibility the X-man’s paralysis was not physical. Still, he had refrained from voicing his suspicions until he had eliminated all other avenues. He still was not ready to accept or deny this new theory.
“ What else could it be?”
Xavier tapped the side of his hairless scalp. “Psychological. The last time he had such a traumatic experience his mind shut those memories away. Even now he struggles with the resulting nightmare but can never fully capture the memories of who he was. What if the combination of the blast, the events leading to his break up with Ororo and the subsequent loss triggered a similar reaction? “
Enlightenment shone in Beasts eyes. He knew the jagged edge that could stab a heart from the lost promise of love. Including the mysterious and fascinating maze that was the human mind.
“It would explain….” Hank stopped and gazed over the professor’s shoulder.
“Charles.”
Murmured a weaken voice behind him. He turned the metallic hover chair and smiled. Ororo, using the doorframe of one of the patient cubicles, recently added to the lab, to support her slight form, tried to stand on her own.
“Ororo! I am so glad to see you have awaken but should you be on your feet so soon?”
“No” murmured Beast as he rushed towards the stunning woman and helped her to a chair. She smiled gratefully up at him. His breath caught and he discovered an unfamiliar tingle where his hands had grazed her skin through the thin gown.
Face haggard from the days of not being outside, hair lack luster and frame a few pounds lighter then before, Ororo Munroe was one of the most extraordinarily beautiful women he had ever seen. And now that he was finally looking into her eyes, Hank found himself in the awkward position of falling into the blue gaze! He was aware he stood near her longer then necessary but could not force himself to move.
“Dr. McCoy?” Beauty said as white brows rose up questioningly. The figuratively spoken question jarred him from his salivating pose of worship and he felt the rare sensation of blood rushing to his cheeks. Gracious! Thank goodness for his blue fur! Quickly he padded away from her bemused features and returned to less stimulating musings.
She focused her attention on the professor. “Charles, what has happen in my absence?”
Xavier signed but did not look away from her searching gaze. “Scott has left the school.”
“When.”
“Soon after Logan’s accident.”
Ororo wanted to ask but saw the truth on Xavier’s face. The Phoenix had told her the truth. “He did go after Logan.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes. I refuse to believe it was with the intent to kill him.” He firmly stated. His troubled features said it all.
“What is happening to Jean? Has she become the dark Phoenix again?”
“I do not know. We both know since her return, Jean has not been the same. After you left, then Scott and Logan refused to have anything to do with her she became irrational. Behaving oddly. I had not realize how lost she was until her attack on you.”
“We have to find and stop her.”
Sadly Xavier agreed.
“Shadow Cat, Iceman and Rogue are looking for her.”
“They can not handle Jean alone!” she cried incredulously almost standing up in her agitation. She moaned in pain and clutched her side. Beast again hurried around to help her and check the bandages with a stern admonishment ready on his lips. It died at her breathless gasps of pain.
“You must remain calm or I will have to send you back to bed.” Another blush colored below the surface of his cheeks.
“Thank you, Dr. McCoy.”
“I would be honored if you would call me Hank or as my students have affectionately started calling me, Beast.” He asked.
“Hank.” She said with a smile. Bewitched by an enchantress’s heavenly smile! He silently mused while returning back to his tubes and slides. Xavier noting the worried frown on her face reached out to pat her hand.
“Do not distress yourself. They are far more capable then you remembered. Angel and Banshee have done a wonder job of continuing their training. Cerebral and I are also monitoring the situation. And when they find her, Angel, Psylock and Hank will be there.”
Still she did not like the children being out there alone. Jean was too unstable. Goddess only knew what she was capable of now. The last time she was like this, they had barely made it alive. She also knew the professor would not send the younger X-men into danger if they were not ready but would feel better if she or Scott where with them.
“Where did Scott go? We have to find him and bring him back.”
Xavier’s eyes fleeted away from her for a brief moment. Her stomach muscles clinched. Whatever he was going to say was worst then she thought. He confirmed it when he turned back to her with pain etched in every part of his body.
“His joined Magneto.”
“No! Scott would never betray us that way!” she exclaimed, shocked more then she could have imagined.
“I agree. Pain and guilt have clouded his thinking. He does not believe he still has the right to wear the uniform, much less lead the team.”
“That is ridiculous!”
“I know but Scott must realize that for himself. I know he will return to us when his ready.” He tried to convince her or was it himself he was trying to convince?
She had purposely left the next question last because it was harder to ask and even harder to know the answer.
“Do you really think I am the reason Logan has remained in that chair?”
Xavier was not surprise she had overheard their earlier discussion and had no doubt she was as worried about Logan as he was.
“Maybe a contributing factor. That was only a theory, Ororo. Hank is still running tests.” She slowly nodded.
“We have never held the truth from each other, professor. Let’s not start now. Do you believe his paralysis is not physical?”
Xavier glanced up at Hank before answer. “Yes, I do believe Logan is the only thing preventing himself from walking.”
”You are both certain any further tests will only confirm this?” The two men mutely nodded. “Then it is now up to me to help him find a reason to rise from that chair!” she said. A fiercely determined light glossed over her eyes as thunderous cracks of lightening suddenly roared over their heads. For now she could not help Scott or Jean but this was in her power to do something!
“My word!” mumbled Hank. He had only briefly raised his head from the floating images in front of him and witnessed the purposeful glare in the enchantress’s face. If that had not gotten his attention the sudden clap of lightening certainly would have. Xavier had given him brief Bios of all the occupants of the mansion and he had scoffed at hers. Yes, there were mutants with extraordinary gifts but to control the weather? Never! To believe such a thing would negate most of his scientific beliefs. Now with the evidence loudly plundering his eardrums he was forced to conclude Ororo Munroe was as rare and exquisite as her appearance dictated. Suddenly feeling sorry and slight pangs of envy towards the self-secluded wolverine, he refocused on his work
Xavier stared at her and in the glint of an eye knew what she planned to do. He hoped it worked because he also glimpsed in her mind a firmly routed suspicion that had started to grow recently. It started like a slow humming vibration he had been picking up. Until it was a fully-grown dark cloud that shrouded over his mind. Now he knew for a fact from the person who knew him best. Logan was running out of time.
*Do what you must as long as you are not hurt in the process.*
*It is too late for that, Charles. But if this fails………*
*It won’t. We will not let it.*


“You have chosen well.”
Logan froze at the softly spoken words as a debilitating scrawl appeared on his face. For a brief moment it transpired into a heart pulsing look of mindless joy, relief and ….love. He realized that voice could only belong to only one person. It was the same voice that has kept him staring into the deep dark waters of the lake for countless hours plagued by doubts. The same voice that has prevented him from doing the only thing that would bring him freedom from his fucking prison!
“Why aren’t you in the Medlab?” he demanded, gazing across at the vast denseness of the trees below them.
“Some disturbing thoughts prevented me from remaining there any longer.” She answered the back of his head.
She omitted telling him of the urgent need to locate him that has pushed her since the early hours. As a man used to movement, action, independence to come and go as he pleased, she knew it was only a matter of time before Logan took matters into his own hands in regards to his condition. The same measures she would take if she were in his place. That is why she had the professor keep close tabs on him while allowing her more time to regain her strength. Then this morning he had woken her with the dreaded message that Logan had left the mansion. It had not taken her long to realize where he would go in his limited state. The same place she would always find him, the ridge overlooking a vast and green valley. Now she had to figure out a way to stop him before it was too late.
“You need to get back there.” He said, pulling her away from her dreary thoughts.
“You are correct. I do need to go back but not without you.”
He heard the fierce tone in her voice and knew she meant what she said. She would not leave unless he followed. His heart skipped a beat at the notion that she still cared then hardens as a glimpse back into the hard months after she left him wiped away the useless feeling. Memories starting with the drilled holes to his head for retraction tests, knives cutting into his flesh, endless needles being pumped into veins screaming to be left alone and the extreme pain that followed before what was left of his healing powers kicked in assaulted him. Around the pain, only two things had stayed in his mind. Her image willing him to fight battled with the dark hope that they would finally leave him alone to die in peace.
For weeks after all that he’d lay sprawled on a narrow bed waiting for her to appear. Waiting for her to come tell him she forgave him and wanted him back. It took time but he’d finally resigned himself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. Now she dared stand there as arrogant as ever telling him what to do! Where the fuck had she been when he needed her most! Fucking, running away, that’s where! Well she could go back to where she came from. It was too late for her words to ever matter to him.
Rage colored his vision and he jerked the wheels around. Mindful, not to back up too closely to the edge of the mountain and it’s jagged rocks directly below. “I told you before, to leave me alone and I meant it!”
Her eyes narrowed. “As soon as you get up out of that chair and come back to the mansion with me.”
A humorless laugh exploded from his sneering lips. “Didn’t you talk to Chuck? Or the blue fur ball? Am a damned useless cripple! Theses things don’t want to move!”
He pounded on his thighs and grunted in disgust when there was no reaction. He glared up at her. “Satisfied!”
Doubt pounded in her mind at seeing the same lack of movement from his limbs. Where they wrong? No, she would not believe that! Could not believe it.
“I will not be satisfied until you are well.”
“Well that’s not going to happen and I’m not waiting around for maybes or someday!” he growled with helpless rage.
“You are nothing but a coward! Anytime things get difficult you try to find the easy way out! First its always running away on one senseless mission after another then it’s doing everything in your power to sabotage any relationships you develop! Now this! There is no returning from death, Logan. And there will not be anyone left grieving for a coward!” She cried. Knowing what she meant by that cryptic comment caused him to wince but it didn’t change his mind.
“You’re not the one who’s sitting here.” He said harshly.
“No I am not.” She painfully murmured. “Taking your own life is not the way.”
“Spending the rest of my life in this is?” he asked incredulously.
“Xavier believes you can walk. So do I.”
“Thanks for the info.” He snared in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “You can leave now!”
She was getting angry. Goddess knew she was not strong enough to challenge him. Yet he was leaving her no choice. The accident certainly had not damaged his arrogance! Nor his foolish disregard for anyone else’s needs but his own! Let’s see what it did to his instinctive ability to fight! And there was only one way to find out. Send him over the edge.
“Not without you.” She insisted, her hands starting to glow. His eyes skimmed over them then to her face.
“Why the hell did you come back?” he taunted, trying to force her to admit what they both already knew.
“This is my home.”
Logan felt his heart start to pound uncontrollably with an intensity that threatened to consume him.
“Why?” he pushed.
She knew what he was trying to do and refused to give it to him. “I could not stay away any more then you ever could!”
“Say it!” he shouted.
“From you!” she cried, angry with herself and him. “Is that what you want to hear? Despite everything, I could not forget!”
His eyes briefly filled with tenderness too painful for her to look at. “Now you know what I’ve been going though. Wanting, needing something that I could no longer have!”
He spoke of both the loss of his legs and her. She chose to concentrate only on the former.
“It is not to late for your legs.”
Astonishment at her insistent words registered across his face but was covered up by pained hopelessness. “Don’t try to stop me, Ro.”
“I won’t let you do this. I can not.”
“How are you going to stop me?” Logan snapped, lips twisting. “I don’t need legs to keep you out of my way!” His claws pushed out from between his knuckles.
“I will stop you.”
“Screw you! Screw all of you! I wont be some guinea pig for them to experiment on! This is my life and I’ll do with it whatever I want!”
“If I could do anything to change what’s happened, I would. I will do whatever it takes to help you.”
“I don’t need your help. It’s because of you am in this!” he regretted the words the moment they were out but was too angry to take them back. She visibly flinched as anger lashed out at him.
“No, you are responsible. No one else and the sooner you face the truth……..”
“The truth! I’ll give you truth! From that first time I woke up and couldn’t move my legs and they told me I wouldn’t walk again the truth was rammed down my throat! Then the weeks of being prodded, poked, cut up and having shit rammed in every hole in my body continued to punch it home! Still that wasn’t enough cause after that asshole Hank and his friends were done I was left alone in that cold room with the ‘truth’ for company! For one twisted, selfish moment I wrecked the best thing I had going. And worst yet, I fucked my life doing it! That enough truth for you, darling?” he sneered, gaze throwing sharp daggers at her.
Ororo stood speechless for several seconds as his words hit home. Her anger was momentarily forgotten as agony rooted her to the spot. Goddess! I should have been here.
“Logan……”
“Don’t! I don’t need your fucking pity!” he growled out.
Goddess, give me strength. I cannot lose him a second time. She silently pleaded. Not this way. Logan looked away from her in anguish. His mind was a jumble of warring feelings. He wanted nothing more then to reach out to her and erase the hurt, regret he saw crumpling her face at his words. To do that he’d have to be whole again and that would never happen. Better to end her pain now and with some time she would forget….
“I do not waste my emotions on useless sentiments.” She said in a harden, regal voice that held more bravado then she felt. “Or make ideal threats.”
He stiffened then glared across at her, his face contorting into a feral knot. “Don’t.” he warned again. This time his voice was deeper, guttural.
She schooled her face into a mask of cynical disgust.
“Perhaps you are right. You said it yourself, Wolverine. You are no use to anyone anymore.”
She knew her words had hit home as his hands clutched the arms of the wheelchair and a low rumble rolled from his chest baring his canines. An explosive growl. Good. It was the animal in him she wanted to deal with. The man was too hurt to fight. She remained outwardly calm as she voiced the wounding shot.
“Lets face it Logan. You do not measure up any more.”
The words hung between them for only a second before he savagely and unexpectedly leaped from the backwards-flying chair and towards her. She only had time to let out a startled cry before she was pinned beneath the full force of his crushing weight. He lowered his face until it was inches from hers. Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. She throbbed all over and her head swam aimlessly.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t give you a new hair do” he grounded out as his claws fingered her fanned out mass of hair. She tried to talk but his weight was too much. Tilting her head up, her eyes white with a surge of godly power, she summoned electrical bolts from every pore of her body and slammed them through Wolverine. He was sent flying several feet away. His cry of outraged died as he hit the ground, hard. Gasping for breath, Ororo staggered to her feet and faced him in a fighting stance. She ignored the pulsing pain and rolling wetness sinking into her dark shirt from her side.
He recovered quickly, shaking dizziness, confusion and surprise from his outrageously spiked hair. Red hot, blinding rage followed. He rose up on all four and focused on her.
She gasped at the site of him. Goddess! “Logan! You can…….Stop! Noooooo!”
Her warning scream went unheard as he tackled her again, unaware until it was too late how close to the edge of the ridge she was. The momentum sent them both flying over down the eighty-foot drop in a freefall towards the deep valley and waiting rocks. Panic gripped Ororo as Logan belatedly registered what his anger had caused. Their eyes met and he tightened his arms around her. A wave of dizziness washed across her eyes and she took several breaths to focus on their situation instead of on his punishing arms. She had to try and stop their fall! A sudden swirl of whipping wind enveloped them as she concentrated on slowing their downward descent. Realizing they were not slowing fast enough, she summoned more winds until they were floating several feet from the bottom. She pried her arms from beneath his and spread them out.
“Hold on.”
Like a reversed roller coaster ride, they were lifted back up and gently set on the ledge. He kept his hold of her waist as the wind calmed and the fire died from its mistress’s eyes but missed the rippling pain etched on her face. For long minutes they stood, eyes fixed on each other as both acknowledged what could have happened.
“I’m sorry…..”
“Goddess, Logan you can walk!” she cried as remembrance of what she wanted to tell him before they went over, came to her. He stared dumbly at her for several seconds before her words fully penetrated his mind. A multitude of expressions flitted over his face. Elation, wonder and relief finally lighted his pupils.
“I can walk!” he shouted before picking her up and twirling around and around as she laughingly admonished him to set her down.
“You did it, Logan! Xavier was right, it was all in your mind!” She said as he finally set her down and kept her in the circle of his arms. She winced from the pain and turned her face from him so he would not see.
“It was you. You knew the right buttons to push.” He grinned.
“I do seem to always know the right words to piss you off.” She smiled turning to look at him. Lost in that sweet and vulnerable gesture, he almost forgot who he was. Her rare and expressive smile always had that effect on him. Always would. Dawning of how close they were, how good she felt soon superseded his happiness at being able to walk again. He raised a hand to her face and cupped her silken cheek.
“From day one you’ve always been able to push my buttons like no one else ever could.” He whispered in a tone grown hoarse. All traces of laughter were replaced by the growing heat of desire. Noticing, her laughter faded as she tried to step back without causing herself further injury.
“Logan, a lots happened that I have not……..”
“I hope am not interrupting anything.”
They both turned in the direction of the deeply spoken words. A tall, dark haired man dressed in expensive, charcoal gray suite, polished shoes stood speculatively staring at their intimate stance.
Logan pushed Ororo behind him and whipped his claws out. “How the hell did you….”
“Nathan.”
She murmured as she stepped from behind him and sedately walked towards the stranger. She clasped the outstretched hands and raised her cheek up for his kiss.





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