Hated Hating You
The next day, he stumbles from Charles’ office trying to shove memories back into their preordered, neat rows. Charles had said there was something there that would help him with this rivalry thing, so he’d agreed, if only to get his friend back. But once the professor chip, chip, chipped away at the walls, sections came tumbling down.
He crashes into a wall, barely manages to avoid falling down a stairway, pukes up his guts in an empty classroom, and clumsily runs away from the school like he could outrun his life. He ends up a mile away fighting down a panic attack and cursing his trembling limbs.
Stryker. Alkali Lake. It was Logan that got them all out of there. Strangely, he doesn’t feel any better. The lockboxes of his mind are emptying themselves, regurgitating their sludge and not caring about the mess left behind. Weak. He can’t lead the X-Men if he can’t lead himself. He’s nothing more than a blind kid fumbling around in the dark hoping that he miraculously flips a light switch. Maybe he should pull an Oedipus Rex and stab out his own eyes. Maybe he should try to find a mirror strong enough to bounce back the red until it melts his brain.
He’s stumbling around, trying to hold onto because he’s sure as hell not opening his eyes. His foot catches on what feels like a rabbit hole, and he pitches forward, only to be caught by steely-strong arms. The scent he missed before now crashes over him like the surface of a lake, and he curses, trying to extract himself.
“Hey, hold on, Slim. Don’t panic. You’re fine.”
No, he wants to shout. I’m not fine and it’s not fine and it’s never going to be fine again. But he doesn’t. What he does instead is breathe shakily and let his knees fold the way they’ve been wanting to. Logan lets them drift to the forest floor, still holding him like a goddamn child.
What he does is start up something he doesn’t really want to, but really, really does. “Stryker.” He grits out.
The arms tense. “Whatabout him?”
Scott laughs tonelessly, twisting his head to rest on his shoulder. “You were there.”
“I guess so.”
“How much did you see?” Control snaps apart like a badly-tied knot. “Did you see how we were all kept in cages like pets? How they kept me blind and shoved me around to keep me subdued? Hard to escape if you can’t fucking see the door.” He laughs again, hating that he can still see red behind his eyelids. “Did you see them transplanting my eyes to see if my mutation would work? Did you see a scared kid too scared of his own vision to even try to do something?”
“What I saw was a bunch of kids fighting to keep their heads above water. Nothing went on in there that was okay, and none of you gave them the okay.”
“Why were you there, anyway? Stryker pick up a friend? Or did you just decide to stroll in and play the hero?” Poke, poke, poke the bear.
“You’re not the only one Stryker fucked with.” There’s a growl and a shake that could’ve – should’ve – been harder. “I was s’posed to be Weapon X, Stryker’s golden ticket to military funding and mutant extinction. Gave me metal bones and enough torture to stop my heart. I escaped, and then there was a whole lotta killing. When I got sick of it, I went back for some more. Ended up with a bullet in my brain and a whole lotta empty space rattlin’ ‘round my head. You think Stryker took a lot from you? I lost the only people I cared about and then some. I lost my fuckin’ mind in more ways than one. But we’re both still here, still kickin’, There’s still stuff he hasn’t touched.”
Scott swallows. That’s the most he’s heard him speak at once. “Fucker.”
“Brat.”
“Asshole.”
“Dick.”
Strangely, Scott’s calmer than before. Still not opening his eyes, but settled down enough to chain down the filing cabinets and patch up the cracks. “What’s up with the Wolverine shtick?”
“Got claws and a nasty attitude. What’s up with the twenty questions shtick?”
“Same deal.”
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Things are okay after that. Not great, but better. Charles apologizes for the unintentional mental fallout. Jean helps him put back together the pieces. Logan’s, well, Logan. Still smoking pungent cigars where he’s not supposed to, mucking up the local wildlife, teaching the students to skive off and rebel, and generally driving Scott out of his barely-held together mind. But, what insults they trade back and forth are more like banter than intended for actual harm. It’s like Logan finally noticed that Scott has claws of his own and is amused that he can use them.
The Alpha finally stakes out a room in the school. Scott tries very hard not to pinpoint where it is (top floor, the one farthest from the emergency exit, what does that say about him) and miserably fails. He shows up for meals, sometimes not eating but drinking cheap beer instead. Rogue is ecstatic, and takes to following him around, chatting off his ear while Bobby broadcasts his jealousy subtly. Scott smells him all over and it’s genuinely annoying. How did he get his scent on the staff-only lounge ceiling? It bugs him to no end. The scent even follows him up to the roof and into the garage.
And it’s in the garage when he gets cornered, under his bike and covered in splotches of grease and motor oil.
“Hey.”
He startles, bangs his head on the wrench he was holding, and promptly mentally swears enough to get a psychic jolt of amusement from Jean.
“Whatcha doin’ there, grease monkey?” And there’s more amusement from a different source.
“Working.” He says shortly, not bothering to get out from under his bike.
A booted foot knocks into his sneakers. And when that fails to gain a response, it happens again. And again.
“What?” He snaps, rolling far enough to convey his unimpressed expression.
“You’re tightening the screws too much. Give it ‘bout ten miles and something’ll shake its way off.”
Scott looks at what he’s doing and pinches his lips tightly. “Thanks. I’ve got it from here.”
“Sure ya do, Slim.” A chortle that irks the red out of his lenses.
“What do you want, Wolverine?” He makes sure to keep it professional and curt.
“I’ve been talkin’ to Chuck, and I’ve decided I want to teach a couple o’ classes ‘round here.”
Out of all the things that could’ve been said, it’s the one thing Scott wasn’t expecting. “Huh?”
Uncharacteristically, or maybe just a trick of the red-filtered light, Logan’s face darkens. It’s not a pretty blush, like Jean’s, that lightly dusts her cheekbones; Jean’s sent him enough mental pictures over the years for him to know. It’s a heavy blush, heavy enough for Scott to see it, one that blankets his entire face; it’s strangely endearing. Damnit.
“Uh, yeah. I was thinkin’ maybe some self-defense, maybe combat. Maybe a few survival ones. Heck, if my memory gets knocked into place, I could even teach history.”
“History? Why that?”
“The best me and Chuck can figure, I was born in the 1800s.”
“Oh.” That was also something unexpected. “And, uh, why are you here? Now, I mean, asking me about it? Charles is the one who handles teaching additions.”
“Well, since you’re so uptight that stick in yer ass is keeping your spine straight, I thought you’d wanna know ahead of time.” Logan’s smile is so shit-eating it’s a miracle his mouth isn’t stained brown; and fuck if it isn’t also endearing. Shit. Stop thinking about mouths, Summers.
“Screw you too, Logan.” Hoping his cheeks aren’t lighting up like the inside of his visors, he wheels back under the bike. Not an escape, very much not so, he still has his scraps of dignity.
“Eh. Maybe later.” The asshole disappears before Scott can formulate a proper response instead of the one his Beta throws onto his lips.
----------
It only gets worse from there. Not in terms of their bitching at each other, but in terms of Scott’s control over his libido. He sees Logan at staff meetings, hanging around classrooms, in the staff lounge. His Beta is practically drooling all the time and he’s annoyed at his lack of control more than his reaction.
It also doesn’t help that the rest of the school has the same problem. Students sign up for the new classes in droves; some are there to actually learn, some are there just to get an eyeful and a noseful. Even implacable Storm flirts back a little when Logan tries his luck. Of course, she also manages to slam him with a lightning bolt after, just a small one, but still. Every time Scott sees someone glance at the Alpha with hearts in their eyes, he gets a jealous rush of possessiveness that leaves him breathless and reeling. He shouldn’t be feeling like this over someone he barely knows, who he doesn’t even like all that much, who could be gone the next morning just because. Hell, he doesn’t even know what Logan’s feelings towards him are. This whole situation is one that shouldn’t be happening.
It’s gotten so bad that Kurt, innocent, completely non-sexual Kurt, glances between the two of them like his gaze is a hunk of meat being fought over by two stray dogs. Storm thinks it’s hilarious, and of course she knows because she’s as watchful as a napping jungle cat. Bobby, grinning wildly, lets him know that a few of the students have cottoned on, and that there’s a betting pool being run by Gambit.
And then, Wolverine takes off. He steals Scott’s bike and sets off towards Alkali Lake in search of ghosts. At first, Scott is wildly relieved that the source of his tension has disappeared. But then he finds himself taking walks around the woods instead of doing a Danger Room practice session, hanging around the sanctioned smoking room on his breaks, opening beer bottles just for the smell. He’s moping around like a goddamn puppy and he hates it. Where’s his legendary control? The thought that it’s caput makes him find it again, shacked up with his bodily reactions, and drags it back inch by screaming inch until he’s able to glue it back to his intellect. He’s grimly satisfied with this ending; he’s in control, and there’s no cocky Alpha there to test his patience and the impenetrability of his skin.
So, of course, that’s when Logan crashes back into his life, bearing a small truck-worths of files; his bike is tied in the back of the truck, so thankfully he doesn’t have to shave Wolverine with his eyes.
“Thought these might be useful.” He says to Charles, offering Scott a glance-over and a wink before vanishing into the depths of the forest to ‘get reacquainted with the wildlife’.
Just like that, his heart is once again thumping out triplets and trying to break out from his chest to try for a doomed musical career. He doesn’t even like music. And he sternly does not wonder if Logan likes music or what kind he might. (Jean asks Rogue anyway, who asks Kitty since she’s most likely to be able to wriggle it out of Gambit, and it turns out that the answer is classic rock and, surprisingly, improvisational jazz.)
----------
The files turn out to be a wealth of information, which Scott would know since Charles asked him to sift through the literal mountains of data. It makes sense; he’s the tactician with the near-eidetic memory, but that doesn’t mean he likes slogging through receipts from the cafeteria mixed in with sterile accounts of torture sessions.
It’s grueling work that he’s mostly ambivalent about, at least until he comes across a thick folder simply emblazoned with an X. At first, he thinks nothing of it; he flips it open and starts reading about subject 10, a mutant they tested on for a period of a few years. The reports are clinically sadistic, detailing the subject’s apparently renowned healing factor as they try to find the limits and what they do to break down the mind’s natural barriers. They also talk about harvesting DNA for other projects – clones, temporary injections, splicing it for a future weaponized mutant. It’s not until he finds, intermingled with the progress reports, a memo referring to the subject with a degree of familiarity and gets a name; Logan. Scott freezes’ part of him wants to stop reading, pack up everything he can find about Weapon X, and tell Charles to get Logan out from wherever he’s squirreled away. The other part of him keeps reading.
When he reaches a list of potential victims, the horror rises past where it was manageably writhing in his stomach and turns to bile at the back of his throat. God. Stryker had unspeakable things done to Wolverine, things that formulated him into a killing machine with no morals and no conscience. When the list takes a moment to estimate the number of possible child victims, Scott does exactly as he should have done from the start.
He doesn’t mean to wait outside Charles’ office, but every time he leaves, his feet tap tap tap their way back to the door. For hours, it’s suspiciously quiet, and then the door is flung open and a visibly unhinged and wild-eyed Wolverine rushes past him. Scott meets Charles’ gaze for a split second, Go, and then races after.
Logan is more adept at hiding his trail than Scott had known, but he manages to track him down twenty minutes later wedged into the space between a log and a rock. His expression, Scott doesn’t know how to describe it. It’s strangely and utterly blank but in a way that’s familiar as breathing. A cocktail of self-loathing, anger, injustice, horror. It’s a melting pot of misery. Scott says nothing, but sets himself down out of the reach of claws. For a long time, he listens to the sounds of the forest – the shushing rushing sound of leaves, the patter of paws, the scratching of rabbits and mice – and he watches the helpless trembles slowly fade away.
“Motherfuckin’ Stryker.” Logan’s voice is hoarse, like he’s been shouting, even though Scott knows he hasn’t.
“Amen.”
There’s a dark laugh like the sound a crow would make on its dying breath. “My name’s James Howlett and I killed my father after he killed the man I thought was my dad. The real fuckin’ irony is that Logan’s his name. I took a murderer’s name. And I have a half-brother. Not only is he still alive, but he goes by Sabretooth nowadays. Heard of him yet?” Another rusty, crow-food laugh.
“Me and him, we spent decades fightin’ other people’s wars. ‘Til he because less of an animal and more of a monster. When I wanted out, he knocked me out and took me to Stryker. They took away everything that made me human and stuffed me full of hate. Then they let me out and had me tag along with Stryker’s little band of merry mutants. Only when I regrew a conscience that time, they wiped me clean again and set me loose in Canada with a fake girlfriend and a fake set of memories. They faked her death to get me back under their thumb like a good little wandering puppy. Stryker had me on a string the whole time, watching me jerk and dance like a friggin’ marionette. The adamantium was just for the fuckin’ fun of it, and then when they were pleasantly surprised that I survived, they set up the brainwashers to tumble and dry. You know the rest. Death, more death, innocent death, and a virtuous mutant mutiny. Fuckin’ poetic.”
There’s a pause like Logan expects Scott to say something. “They fucked with my brain so much it’s no wonder Chuck has to navigate it like an effin’ cave-in. Stryker and an adamantium bullet was just the most recent of my delightful history with amnesia. Wonder if it’s just a matter of time before my mind just cracks open like an egg and I get to spend the rest of my long life happily gibbering on a hospital bed.”
“Nah.” Logan shoots a surprised glance at him. “You’d spent it grumpy and griping about the no-smoking sign.” It’s callous, and insensitive, and exactly what Logan needs right now.
Logan laughs; this time, it’s a healthier sound, like the crow’s only fatally sick and not dying. “You’re a right prissy jackass sometimes, aren’t ya, Slim?”
“And you’re the highest-grade asshole to ever grace the pack. Most of the time.”