“What do you feel,” Hank’s cultured tones held the barest trace of uncertainty and it made Logan edgy. It was all well and good that the furball and the Professor’s computer had ‘crunched’ the numbers, but they weren’t the one sucking the psyche of some unspecified lifeform.
“It’s cold,” she shivered in distaste, “clammy-like, but alive, cogent…I can feel it…It knows what I want from it and…” Marie stared off into the middle distance but she was only seeing her own mind. “It was so simple,” she whispered, awe and understanding trembling from her lips. “Logan,” his name was uttered in a laughing breath as she jerked her gloves off and held up her hands on either side of Logan’s face.
“Marie,” he answered gruffly, his eyes searching her face for mere seconds before he tilted his head and butted her naked palm with his stubbled cheek.
“Lo-Logan,” she gasped, her breathing halted as her fingers and palm cupped his cheek. Stepping closer Marie pressed her second hand to his chin the fingers stroking the side of his throat. She stroked the rough stubble and the supple leathery skin of his face and neck, laughing until she cried.
When the happy tears turned to great racking sobs Logan let the fingers of his left hand slide to the nape of her neck and pulled her face into the crook of his shoulder. “Quiet! Be quiet! I don’t want ya in mah head…Logan, help! They-,” the pleading tone of her voice scared him and he wrapped his free arm more tightly around her.
“Shh, Darlin’, I got you.” No sooner had he spoken than Marie’s body arched away from him and began to tremble and shake. “Marie!”
“Logan,” Hank’s alarmed voice and nearness ripped a growl from Wolverine’s throat even as he gathered her close to him protectively. “Logan, this was expected; we spoke about this. You must place Rogue onto the bio-bed so that we can monitor her condition.” The blue-furred doctor indicated the bed to their left.
Nodding, Logan quickly swept Marie up in his arms and deposited her tenderly onto the hard cushions of the stainless steel table. Hank worked swiftly attaching wires to the leads that he’d placed across her forehead and behind her ears. Within minutes of the seizure beginning it was finished and her body lay unnaturally still.
“Amazing,” the astonishment in Hank’s voice didn’t sit well with Logan; especially when the mutant began scribbling into a nearby notebook.
“What,” Logan growled, seconds from popping claw and wiping the look of scientific discovery of the blue furred face.
“The integration of the alien psyche and Rogue’s has had an unexpected effect,” Hank explained. “The Psyche did not only subtly change her mutation, allowing her to control her skin, but also her base-human DNA.”
“Are you sayin’ it is making her less human,” Logan growled, his claws slide free of his hands as he turned on the doctor.
“No,” Hank looked startled for a moment at the sight of Logan’s claws, but ignored them. “I am saying that not only did the experiment…”
“Procedure,” Logan roared. He didn’t like the thought that they had been experimenting on his Marie, like those bastards had done to him. “It was a medical procedure, furball!”
“Very well,” Hank rolled his eyes, “the medical procedure not only initiated the next phase of her mutation, but it is actively evolving her base-human DNA. I think it is safe to say that when Rogue wakes up she will be one of the most powerful mutants in recorded history.”
Logan retracted his claws; his mind was racing a mile a minute. If what Hank said was true it would put Rogue in even more danger. Every faction and no-name cadre would want a piece of her. The notation in her file about the X-Protocols came to mind and Logan felt every protective instinct in his body come to the fore. “Stop writing,” he demanded.
“Logan I must docu-,” He’d moved so quickly, even Hank’s normally agile reflexes could not counter him.
“You won’t write a fucking thing,” he growled. “You won’t type it in a computer, data-pad or phone. If I so much as get a whiff of anyone outside of this room finding out about Marie I will make it my life’s goal to make you hurt.” Wolverine laid the flat of his blades against
Hank’s throat; he was slightly surprised that the Beast wasn’t putting up a struggle. The good doctor wasn’t frightened of him, he supposed. Baring his teeth he flicked the tip of a blade at the crest of the doctor’s cheek bone. “Believe me when I say I am the best at what I do, and what I do isn’t very nice!”
“Well,” Hank asked, his voice bored and mildly amused. “That was thoroughly unnecessary, Logan. All you had to do was say please.”
Logan growled, “Really, then pretty-fucking-please!”
Hank sighed, before he shoved Logan away. He ended up with his back against the wall across the lab. “Do you think me heartless of an imbecile?” Logan shoved himself away from the wall ready and waiting for the next attack, which never came. “Logan, I understand why you do not want this documented and distributed outside the school, but there is a very necessary need for such information.”
“You mean the Professor’s X-Protocols right,” he noted the shock on the doctor’s face. “A little sinister if you ask me, not to mention it ain’t too smart. The anti-mutant regimes of the world would sell their souls for information like that and I bet you know where to find it…I bet Jeanie knows more than that…You think the Professor told his precious Jean how to access the files?”
“You were never supposed to find out about the Xavier Protocols,” Hank sighed.
“Yeah, it’s a bitch when the secret gets out and people don’t know who to trust anymore,” Logan sneered. “You aren’t telling shit about this; you got me? I bet the Professor never outlined how to kill Jeanie when she’s like she is now. I just fuckin’ bet he thought that sweet little Jeanie would never be Phoenix again.”
“Logan…”
“I won’t let you put nails in her coffin; that list should never have been compiled and you damn well know it!”
“I do understand,” Hank muttered. “I will not add this ‘experiment’ to her file, but I am going to annotate that she has at long last become able to control her mutation.”
Logan didn’t like it, but if Marie could now touch it was a given that she’d be seen taking advantage of her newly found freedom. Sheathing his claws he moved back to Marie’s bedside; frowning he sniffed the air around her. Her scent was altering; had altered significantly in just the last few minutes. It was light and fresh cloaked by her spiced lotion, but now there was the faintest hint of something…animal. As he watched she grew restless, “Marie,” he soothed, letting his fingers card through her silky hair.
Her movements became more disturbed and when she opened her eyes Logan was shocked at the bright red of the irises and to his observant gaze her flesh was tinged the faintest of faint pale greens. “Logan,” she gasped as she began to seize, her back arching unnaturally off the table as she keened is name again, “LOGAN!”
Her tiny hands clenched and she pulled her arms inward and suddenly Logan was wrenched to her side along with every other piece of metal in the room not battened down.
Pain, the likes of which he could not remember having felt before seared through him. His pained whimper must have penetrated Marie’s mind because immediately the pull against his metallic skeleton ended and the crescendo of metal dropping to the lab’s metal floor was deafening.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, her eyes frightened. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, baby!” Logan assured her, forcing his shaking hands to cup her cheeks. “It’s fine. You got it under control; I’m fine.”
“I’m hot,” she whimpered, and then her eyes widened and she shoved Logan away from her seconds before fire shot from fire flared on her fingertips. Unlike the magnetic pull the fire was weak and quickly flickered out to be replaced by ice flakes fluttering to the floor.
Breathing as though she’d run a marathon Marie clenched her fingers into fists and the ice soon disappeared and three bone claws slide from each hand.
“Ah, baby,” Logan murmured as he scooped her into his arms and held her close, the sharp edges of her claws tearing his shirt to shreds. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
“What for, Sugah?” her quietly murmured question, preceded her drop into a deep sleep.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Control and a tempest in a teapot.