Un-Invincible

Wolverine stared at the corpse, who’s head he’d just crunched his boot into. The body trembled a little, gargling as it shut down.
He blinked slowly. Ran his tongue on his teeth, tasting copper. Put a burnt hand to his forehead, roughly rubbing his burning temples with his forefinger and thumb. Shoulders slumped with a grunt and he put his other hand on his hip. His eyes felt like they were shrivelled and dried-out like fish out of water.
A groan escaped him as he assessed his physical appearance. His uniform - the attire that labelled him as an X-Man - was completely charred; his left glove’s fingertips had fused to his nails, the metal tubes for his claws had melted slightly - only just losing their form - whilst the rest of the fabric had either burnt away or left a deep blue stain on the skin.
He peeled off the glove’s remnants as he walked away from the damned building with the damned corpse, grinding his teeth together and squeezing his eyes shut. Dropping the useless gauntlet to the ground, a question slammed right into his squamosal suture.

‘Where...’ he thought, head ringing ‘...Where the hell am I?’

Wolverine dizzily glanced around, stumbling slightly.
The sun was slowly sinking beyond the sandy-dirt-sprinkled horizon, its glow coating the warm, dry air with a faint, warm yellow hue. A waft of dust was ingrained into the plain. Far off, fifty-three-or-so miles South-West from where he stood, painted a slate grey line across the granular land.

‘Road.’ He realised after a long pause. His skull suddenly pounded again, and his hands went to his head. God, he could feel the scabby, inflamed flesh flaking off as his fingers dug into his scalp.

He swallowed, the vile taste of bile and blood sticking to his tongue, and started to shakily stagger towards the roadway. His left foot - barefoot, the boot that covered it having been lost - was irritatingly sore, the tiny stones of the desert digging into the swollen blotches that were still healing. But he kept walking.

He wouldn’t stop.

He didn’t need help.

“I’ll do it.” Logan said, tapping his fingers against the cold grey table, plastering a mask of apathy onto his face. The meeting room was silent, except for the quiet hum of the air conditioner. Everybody stared at him.

“...this is not the time for jokes, Wolverine.” warned Scott, eventually. His red visor glinted.

Logan reclined in his chair, avoiding the wide eyes of the X-Men, and grunted “Who the hell said I was jokin’, Cyke?” he scratched the back of his neck with his left hand “Look, bub, I’ll go to the ‘central-power-generator’-thing or whatever the hell it was, with that bomb, turn it on, all that shit. Sentinel Factory goes ‘boom’. What’s there to joke about?”

He leant forward, glaring intimidatingly at Scott - hands uneasily fiddling with his dog tags, completely hidden under his jacket. Grinding his teeth as he held the stare, as if he were daring Scott into disagreeing.

‘Come on, pretty boy, take your shot.’ he thought, almost pleadingly ‘You know you want to.’

“Fine, Logan…” Summers sighed, turning to Mccoy as if he hadn’t just sentenced Logan to a painful ‘death’ “Hank, how long w-”

Remy, who’d been quietly standing in the corner of the room, stepped forward and put up his hands in a ‘stop everything’ motion.
“With you still inside?” he exclaimed in disbelief, switching his glare from Scott to Logan, arms crossed in an X shape before he let them fall to his sides - in a gesture that could be simply put as ‘no way in hell are you doing that’ “Pshaw!Bon ami, you can’t be serious.”

“What’s it to you, Gumbo?” Logan scoffed, his ticker suddenly skipping beats.

‘Please shut up, LeBeau, don’t make this harder.’

Remy scowled, and Logan almost flinched.
He could smell...desperation. It was coming off him in waves, mingled with...another feeling, that Logan was sure he’d misinterpreted.

“Gambit’s just saying there must be a better way, one that doesn’t involve…” he rubbed his throat and licked his dry lips “...martyrdom.” Remy murmured the last word, and turned his head towards Scott.

Logan swore he noticed his face go a shade redder than before.

“Gambit, unless you want to take Wolverine’s place-” Summers ordered sharply “-then I’d suggest you be quiet while I discuss plans with Beast.”

LeBeau’s shoulders slumped. He opened his mouth as if to respond, before closing it with a grunt and storming out of the room.

Logan stifled a relieved sigh and closed his eyes. All he had to do was go in with the bomb, turn it on, and just persevere through the pain of the explosion itself, and the consequential healing. Then he’d go back to the mansion, and pretend like nothing ever happened.

If he were to pinpoint when everything had begun to go to shit, he’d choose his birth if he remembered when that was.
If he were to pinpoint when everything had begun to go to shit - when limited to the past few months - it’d be when Remy had decided to stay behind to convince Logan to escape with him.

“What are you doing here?!” Wolverine glared at him, holding the heavy bomb in his shaky hands. The hallway to the central power generator was thin and cold, and Gambit - like an idiot - had followed him down there.

“I’m not leaving you!” Gambit’s face was white, his expression one of raging desperation, teeth gritted “Wolverine - I don’t care what Cyclops says, you aren’t trappin’ yerself here while the factory explodes!”

“Just run, LeBeau, we don’t have time for this!” He snarled, waving him away with his left hand “Get the hell outta’ here!”

“No! Just leave the bomb here and come with Gambit, please! Stop doin’ this to yerself, Logan!”

Wolverine could feel that all-too-familiar rage building up again “Go…” he bit out “...now.”

He stepped towards him, offering his hand “Let Gambit help you!”

“I SAID GET OUTTA’ HERE CAJUN!” Wolverine roared, jerkily snapping Gambit’s outstretched limb away “I DON’T NEED HELP!”

A horrible second or two passed, as Gambit stood, trembling, cradling the arm that he’d offered in aid as if it hurt. It probably did - in more ways than just physical.

Then, he sharply turned and sprinted down the hall.
Wolverine ignored the growing hole of guilt in his stomach as he darted in the opposite direction.

‘I can make it up to him when this whole thing’s over,’ he hoped as he punched in the bomb’s activation code on the keypad ‘Everything’ll go back to normal, like it always does.’

Wolverine’s heart sank as a horrible question unravelled and presented itself; a possibility he’d been avoiding like the plague in between bouts of being so high off his ass that he’d thought spitting at his captor was a wonderful idea:

‘Did Gambit make it out okay?’

His walking speed quickened.

‘Did he make it out alive?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Does he know I’m alive?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Do any of them know I’m alive?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Did they replace me? How long was I gone? What day is it? What year is it?’

‘Did Gambit make it out alive?’

Wolverine whimpered, and he grimaced at the pathetic noise.

The wine-dyed night was embroidered with stars, and the waxing-crescent moon hung limply in the heavens, almost mocking him with its lazed demeanour as he dragged himself across the chilled asphalt that pricked unhealed wounds on his feet. A stench of sand intermingled with old blood clung to his nose. Through the agonising headache, he could hear the soft wind, his annoyingly slow footsteps, and car engines.
Wait, what?

Wolverine spun around, swearing under his breath, half out of surprise and half out of pain. Two lights, awfully bright, were speedily approaching from the horizon.
He waved - he didn’t think they’d stop, but it was worth a shot; he didn’t really care at this point, he just wanted to go home - he wanted to know if Gambit was okay-that he was alive, he wanted to let him know he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant to hurt him, that he appreciated his want to help, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry-

A merlot-painted truck squeaked as it stopped in front of him. Wolverine blinked. They...actually stopped. Now it was just a matter of convincing them to give him a ride.

The driver rolled the window down, an East-Asian man in his early twenties, and stared at him in concerned shock. Wolverine offered the guy a forced smile, before remembering that people usually were scared shitless of him when he did that - in no small part to the fact that he had metal teeth that were dangerously sharp, and he dropped the grin. The driver frowned, his grip tightened on the wheel. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the rearview mirror, and he cringed - he looked like the decaying corpse of Teen Wolf’s Scott Howard if the guy ended up homeless and chargrilled like an amatuer chef’s first attempt at a burger.
Wolverine cleared his throat, and attempted a smile again.

“How much would I haveta’ pay you to drive a guy to New York?”