Chapter 12
XII
“Cuh-Cunningham?” Wade said, his eyes on the man who had just introduced himself as William Cunningham.
He nodded, his face a mask of harsh joy. “Oh, so you do remember my brother. That’s a surprise.”
Yukio’s hand was on her chain-whip, and she was about to pull it out when she saw Wade flexing his left hand, motioning her to pause. She stared at his eyes, looking down at the bloodied rug, and noticed a barely perceptible shake of the head.
He said, “I didn’t kill him.”
William stood up and aimed another kick at his stomach. “I’ve seen the recorded footage. I’ve had the place analyzed. I know you caused the explosion that started the fire. I know you and Ajax were the only people who left that place alive.” He straightened up. “Nobody knew, not even Rice, who was aware of everything that went on, but I kept this little secret close to myself. Made them think I stumbled onto the files of that Weapon Plus program by accident. Couldn’t have them thinking I had any other purpose for storming this place except for their precious goal of mutant eradication.” He looked around at the soldiers. “Which, of course, remains primary, but this,” He hit him once more on the head with the rifle’s barrel and handed it back to the guard. “Our little chat, and then,” He smiled. “Your death. That was what it was all for. For you.”
Wade coughed and spoke, with effort, “I didn’t k-kill Cunningham. He was my fruh—” His words were drowned by another series of coughs.
William frowned. “Your what? Friend?” He scoffed. “Separated by screens and machines, not even visible to each other, and you were friends?” Wade whispered something. “What?”
After a second, he raised his voice. “Sound carries through screens, genius.”
A small cough, clearly beginning as a chuckle, came from the direction of the group of soldiers standing outside, near the mansion door. William’s jaws clenched. He surveyed the room. Yukio and Colossus were in the middle, and Wade near them, on the floor. There were two soldiers standing before the second couch in the room, directly behind the girl and the unconscious piece of metal, with their guns trained on them, and three more behind Wade, closer to the door leading deeper into the mansion, one holding his swords, another his guns, and the third one from whom Cunningham had taken the rifle. With some control, he said, “Your lies don’t matter, now. You’re going to die, but first, I want you to know,” He placed his shoe under Wade’s chin and lifted it, almost choking him. “About the hurt you’ve caused, by killing my brother,” His pulled his leg up with a jerk, leaving the mutant gasping. “By killing a father.”
“…making banana pancakes for my kids…” Cunningham’s voice echoed in Wade’s head.
“Did you know he was a father? He loved his children. And his children loved him.” William said, his eyes going soft for the first time. He lowered his shoulders, looking at the floor, and his aura of aggressive power dissipated a little. In a low voice, he said, “Do you know how it feels to see your brother become a father, and not be like the man who raised you? How it feels to watch him not make the mistakes he made? To witness him be there for his children, loving them, and telling them how proud he was of them?” He let out a shaky sigh. “How it feels to see your brother become a father…a good father.” His eyes found Wade again. “And then to see such a man die such a death.”
“I’m sorry.” Wade croaked out. His throat was hurting, and his lungs burned as the cancer did years’ work in minutes.
“His children loved him. Couldn’t spend a day without him.” William ignored him. “Do you know how long it’s been since he died? Since he lost his life and you gained this immortality? Since his children have had to live without him?” With each word, he kicked him in the side with force: “Eight…fucking…years.”
Wade gasped for breath as William panted with the effort and anger. Yukio was screaming at him to stop, tears streaming down her cheeks. But he ignored them both.
“It was for them that he joined that fucking program after he was diagnosed,” He spoke through clenched teeth, the rise and fall of his shoulders slowing down. “They promised that he would get better, that he would be there for his children. And he believed those fucking mutants, trying to turn him into creatures like themselves.” He moved back, placing a hand on the couch.
Between loud, awful gasps, Wade managed to spit out, “Guhh… Govuhh… Government… fuh—”
Cunningham moved behind the couch and nodded. “Government funded? I know.” When, down on the floor, a puzzled frown covered the mutant’s face, he added, “Surprised it’s not news to me?” His lips curled in disgust. “I know how much your pest of a species has invaded our world. Of course it was partly funded by the government. To create more monsters like you. To destroy innocent lives.” He added, “Like what you did to Robert Kelly.”
He placed both his hands on top of the couch and said nothing for a while. Gradually, Wade’s gasps subsided into small wheezes, and the only other sound was Yukio’s sobbing. In a barely audible voice, Cunningham said, “He never told them about it. About where he was going. He just said…that he’d be back. And when he didn’t return…when they asked me…what was I supposed to say?” His voice was just above a whisper when he said, “That he was…dead? That they would never hug him again? That he would never make those pancakes for them? WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO SAY??” He yelled and flipped the couch over Wade, who barely pulled himself away in time to prevent his head from getting crushed under it. Instead, it hit his shoulder, pushing him off to the side, by the feet of the soldier who was holding his scabbard. Yukio tried to get up to help him, but the guard behind her struck his gun hard into her back, making her fall over Colossus, who was unconscious by now.
William fumed with anger. “I swore to find the ones who did this, and kill them. All of them.” He looked at Yukio with distaste. “It was just convenient that you all were mutants. I get my revenge, and humanity gets rid of you pests.”
“You’re the monster.” She met his eyes, her voice broken and jarring – something that shattered Wade’s heart. “All this for revenge? For something he didn’t even do?”
He stared at her, and said after a moment, “The world can burn for all I care. I want to see him feel the pain I saw those children feel, and I want to see him feel much more than that. He killed my brother. He robbed two children of their father. This,” He tilted his head towards the overturned couch and the man covered in blood, curled and panting on the floor. “This is nothing for what he did.”
“I—” Wade tried, but got choked, then vomited blood. The soldier behind him took a few steps back, disgusted. “I didn’t kill Cun…your brother. I didn’t kill him.” He pushed against the floor, lifting his head and right shoulder. His left leg was under the couch, and the other was against it. Yukio saw him moving the foot slowly, bending his knee. She looked at his right hand. He was lifting his index finger slowly. It trembled. “I’m sorry…about his kids,” he said, straining against his own lungs. “About what happened to him. But he was my friend. And he wouldn’t want this.”
William shouted, “He can’t want anything because of you! It’s what I want. And I—”
Before he could finish, Wade lowered his finger. Instantly, Yukio pulled out her chain-whip. She aimed it at the two guns held by the soldiers behind her, and pulled it to her side, making them shoot by reflex at two of the guards standing behind Wade. The instant he had lowered his finger, Wade had kicked the overturned couch with as much force as he could. It slid back, making Cunningham stumble and fall. He elbowed the soldier behind him in the legs, and as he fell, pulled out one of the swords from the scabbard in his hands. Everything in his body burning with pain, and his left palm broken and useless, but having no other choice and only this one chance, he stabbed the sword into the guard’s side, and pulled himself up by it, also picking up the holster-belt that was in the hands of one of the shot-down soldiers, by tangling his broken hand in it. Yukio dived to grab the guns that the surprised guards had dropped, and heard shots being fired over her head. The two soldiers fell dead beside her. She quickly took cover behind the upright couch as the soldiers outside the room started firing, and looked up to see Wade holding the gun that had killed the guards behind her. He was covered in blood, bent awkwardly, two swords under his left arm, leaning against the wall (and slipping), and his right hand pointed at the door and firing shot after shot. Once the gun was empty, he nodded at her and threw the holster-belt towards her. Puzzled, she caught it, and found him turning away to go into the mansion. She understood what he was planning to do, but before she could stop him, he dragged himself out of view. And then the shooting got closer, driving out all other worries from her head. A movement in the corner of her eye made her alert to Cunningham, who was on all fours, trying to escape the bullets flying all over the room, appearing nowhere near as formidable as when he had entered the mansion. With her left hand, she shot randomly in the direction of the door, making the shooters falter, and with the right, she threw the chain-whip at him.
Meanwhile Wade had managed to reach the elevator. Shivering all over and almost blinded by pain, he entered the pass-code to make it go to the underground facility. His fingers left blood on the panel. When the doors opened, he could see the vault door across the blue hallway. With a hoarse, painful breath, he let out a small “Fuck.” and began limping forwards. Once he had exited the elevator, he turned and planted one of the swords right in the middle of the doors, to prevent it from going back up.
Slowly, leaning against the wall, and with a hand wrapped around himself, he made his way forward. Every breath was painful, and he knew at least half of his ribs were broken. That, added with the cancer still growing in his lungs, made him pause and wheeze for breath every few steps. A trail of blood was behind him, on the floor and on the wall. “Heh, like a snail.” He looks at it and laughs, then grimaces due to the sharp pain. He turns his head towards you, still dragging himself towards the vault, and pants out, “Rem-ow! Remember that rant…about endings and why stories shuh…should end at proper places? This is why.” After a few moments of laboured progress, wherein sweat mixed with the blood on his face and dripped down to the floor, he says, “So…this was a tragedy.” With a small pause, he goes on, “Here I was…thinking this was a nice…rom-com fic, but turns out it was a—” He coughs, harshly. After spitting out some blood, he goes on, “a tragedy all along, all thanks to…” He breathes in as deep as the pain allows, and yells, “THIS FUCKING GOD-AWFUL—Ow!” He doubles over as the shouting adds more pain. Then, in a lower voice, resumes, “Thanks to this awful writer, I’m…in a fucking tragedy…and this is how it’s ending…for me anyway. God’s…” He coughs. “God’s perfect idiot, indeed.”
The mechanism in the vault scanned his eyes, and the door opened. As he moved on, slower now, and more carefully, having to support his weight himself, the lights got turned on. For a moment in the middle, an attack of dizziness came over him, making his vision blurry and then darken, and he was afraid he would give in to the relief from pain that the darkness offered, but then it passed and the pain was there again. He reached the two siphoners and passed them. Closer to the table, he collapsed, his legs no longer able to hold himself up. His left palm was covered with blood, and where the skin was visible, it was blue and black. He couldn’t feel it anymore, much less move it. He spotted the panel behind which Ellie had attached Cable’s X-Wave Simulator and pulled himself closer to it by the elbows, pulling it out with his right hand. He moved the slider to the highest position, and the room started humming.
He looks at you and tries to smile, but fails. “One last time…maximum effort?”
Reaching over, he pulled down the helmet, and looked at it. It was vibrating gently. The three thick wires on top of it were warm. He knew he was probably holding his death in his hands. With effort, he controlled the shaking of his hand. The pit in his stomach was an abyss, and hyperventilation was only a few seconds away. It was now or never, and acting now would most probably bring never anyway. But he had to do this. Cunningham, however righteous his anger, was a threat to every mutant in the world. But more importantly, Yukio and Colossus were above, fighting for their lives, and along with them, everyone he loved was in danger. He had to do this, no matter the cost. And with this understanding came another thought. Of him. Of his face. Of his smile. Of his smell. And it brought a strange kind of relief. For a time, his broken body was healed again. “Logan.” He spoke the name aloud, and felt the knot in his stomach loosen. “Logan.” He whispered once more.
He put the helmet on.
And he knew he wouldn’t survive.
The weight of everything, every mind in the world, returned, but it was worse. Much worse than before. There was no possibility of control, no sliver of order. It was all a mass of chaos, and it was crushing him, obliterating him, eradicating his mind. Right now. And he only had time for one last thought. For one last face. For one last name. And he spoke it with everything he had, with everything he was. And with that name, as every memory, every sense, every awareness was drowned, he said,
“Logan…I love you.”
And all was darkness.