The X-Project

Logan catches up on some of the events that transpired during his absence and goes in search of Scott.


Logan knocked - not quietly but not too loudly - on the door to Ororo's attic. He knew the weather-witch was down in her office, which meant the only one who should be in residence was Scott. His free hand was occupied balancing a case of beer against his hip - still cold from Logan's fridge and begging to be consumed. He had an inkling Scott could use a beer. Probably a whole lot of beer.

Scott had staked out a spot for himself on one of the benches. Staying in his suite today, with Jean gone now... it just hadn't been an option. He'd brought a book up with him, but it was lying face-down and open beside him, as he was currently rather occupied in zoning out. The sunlight was direct and strong in this particular spot, and Amelia would approve of him sitting here, he thought dimly. He was still supposed to be getting as much sunlight as possible.

The knock jarred him out of the comfortable haze, and Scott stiffened, his gaze shifting warily to the door. "Ororo?"

Logan set the case of beer down and rather expertly picked the lock on Ororo's door. "Guess again." he said, picking up the case and opening the door. "Brought you a present. Thought you could use it." he said with a grin.

Scott just stared at him, his expression almost composed but screaming tension written in every line of his posture. "Logan," he finally said, his voice incongruously calm. "Hey. Was wondering when I'd actually see you."

"Blew back into town yesterday. Said hello to some new folks, got Kuk to clear the new bike, the usual bullshit." he said with a small chuckle. "Apparently Marie's got a bug up her ass about something, so I may blow back out for a few days. Nothing major. Anyway - I talked to 'Ro about what happened." he said, putting the case of beer down next to Scott and sitting down so that the case was between them. "Hence the beer."

Scott mustered up a ghost of a smile. It lasted for roughly a millisecond. "I had been thinking about going down to Harry's and ordering a bottle of scotch," he said, almost lightly, "but for some reason I thought that might lead to actually drinking the entire bottle of scotch. By myself."

Logan shrugged. "Can get it for you if you want." he offered, snagging a beer out of the case and offering it to Scott. "Next time I'll know." he added.

"Worries people, though," Scott said more softly, and after a brief pause, took the beer. "I think they're worried enough."

"Fuck 'em." he said in a friendly voice, grabbing a beer for himself and twisting it open. "They got no idea what you've been through. I do." he said, then took a deep swallow of his beer. Ahhh. Good stuff.

"Some of them do, too," Scott pointed out, thinking about just how many people did. "That's a little twisted, isn't it?" he asked and opened his beer. "That there'd be more than one person in this house who's..." It was the funniest thing, but he couldn't actually say it. "Just funny," he muttered, and took a sip of the beer.

Logan looked around the loft. "Don't see any of 'em here." he pointed out, then polished off his beer. "You know - I don't remember much of what was done to me. Mostly it shows up in my nightmares." he said conversationally. "But they always involve water. You might have seen the tank in Alkali Lake - I can't remember if you made it to that room or not."

Someone could have replaced the Scott sitting there on the bench with a stone statue at that moment, and an objective observer wouldn't have known the difference. His breathing was shallow enough all of a sudden that even the rise and fall of his chest was barely noticeable.

His mind just wouldn't process Logan's words properly. Nightmares about water alone... the mention of the tank just made it worse.

Logan nodded as his nose and ears told him everything he needed to know. "They worked you over good, didn't they.' he said, not making it a question at all. "Not gonna ask you to talk about it, and I'm not gonna push. Just ... I've been there, OK? Spent my time in the tank when they destroyed whoever I was before and replaced him with the me you know now." he said. "So if you want to talk, I've always got beer and for this I'll always have the time."

Scott closed his eyes, his breathing more labored and rapid, but somehow easier, as if some inner tension had just relaxed. Calm down. The warmth of the sunlight finally began to register again.

"I'm not doing very well with it," he finally said, his voice only a little uneven. "Not really."

"No shit." Logan said. "Took me years before I could even go out in public without trying to kill someone." he noted. He really needed to make a phone call. Hopefully Heather or Mac would be home. They'd know what to do with Scott. "Takes time. Might never heal." he pointed out. "That part's up to you and the help that you get. You try to beat this alone, you will stay a cripple for the rest of your life."

"I know that." Scott's reply was almost impassive, but there was a strange, distracted anger in his expression. Distant, as if he wasn't quite connecting with it, but definitely there. "I haven't decided what to do yet."

"No rush." he said, then snagged another beer. "Where's Jeannie?" he asked. "Thought she'd be doing her mothering thing."

Scott could almost feel the knots multiplying in the muscles of his shoulders at the question. Mothering thing... you son of a bitch. "I'd buy that question more if I thought you actually hadn't seen her post about leaving," Scott said tightly.

Logan was playing a dangerous game, but it was one that never failed to bring a big ol' smile to his face. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." he equivocated. "She picked a helluva time to go on Walkabout." he noted. "Gotta burn you up inside, knowing that she walked when you're trying to put yourself back together."

"I told her to go. She needed to go," Scott said in what could only be described as an aggressively neutral tone. "She's got her own recovery to work on. Charles sent her to some people who could help. And stop trying to get a raise out of me," he said just as flatly. "It's not going to work."

"Sure." Logan said agreeably. "You might even believe that." he said conpanionably, taking another pull from his beer. "Bottom line - you and Jeannie ..." and he sighed then, but rallied gamely. "You got something. And now, when you need her the most, she's broken. Again."

"And I was much better, when we first got her back?" was Scott's reply to that. "So obsessed with everything I'd been through while she was gone... she's better off away from me. Not having to deal with my problems on top of hers. I'm a stupidly high-maintenance husband."

"And she needs no maintenance whatsoever." he sniped back, then sighed. "Forget it. Not my place." He growled to himself in frustration and spent a couple of moments trying to compose himself.

There was a crack in what passed for Scott's composure as he stared straight ahead, a tremor crossing his features. His hands were white-knuckled around the beer. "It's not that I don't miss her," he said almost inaudibly. "But maybe it's better for me, too."

"Heather used to tell me no man was an island. I thought she was full of shit." he said, somewhat cryptically.

Scott's gaze dropped, abruptly. "I don't want to be an island. This isn't about pride. Don't... really have any of that left. It's hard to pretend you do when you know you broke."

Logan barked out a laugh. "Don't have to explain that one to me." he said roughly.

"... I would have told them everything," Scott said after a moment. "If Charles hadn't found me when he did. If they'd come back in to get me, before he did... I would have told them everything. I gave up." His breathing was harsh-sounding again, and the pressure behind his eyes had nothing to do with his powers, Scott knew. "I'd lost track of time, that was the problem. It felt like I'd been there for so long."

Logan just nodded. "Even the strongest men can break. You did. I did." he said quietly. It wasn't something he liked to dwell on. "They destroyed anything human in me. Brought out the animal, then they tried to collar it, to leash it. That's when I busted out. More animal than man, living on instinct and unbreakable razor-sharp claws. You don't have to justify yourself to me."

"Just to everyone else?" Scott set the beer down - he hadn't taken another sip after the first - and ran shaking hands through his hair, then rubbed at the scars on the side of his face. "Just five days. But they kept me in the dark, too... sunlight deprivation, the whole time. My system can't handle that. Amelia says I was on the verge of a coma when they brought me back."

Logan nodded and wisely, for once, said nothing. Scott wanted to talk, then it was Logan's job to let him talk.

"I kept seeing people. From here. Sometimes they were telling me it was going to be all right. Sometimes they were them, pretending to be the team... and I got it all confused, I didn't know what was real and what wasn't." Scott's face was ashen beneath the fading bruises, and although his voice was level, almost conversational, the look in his eyes was distant.

Logan nodded again and snagged another beer. Shame to let it go to waste - it was cold and tasted good. "It's amazing how Bill can reach out from whatever Hell he's burning in to fuck up more lives."

"Talent." Scott's hand crept around to the back of his neck, to the faded circular scar there. He was shaking again suddenly, and it was hard to focus, his mind jumping back and forth erratically from the missile silo to Alkali Lake. "I lost Jean both times," he said, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. "Kind of ironic..."

Logan didn't say anything - he didn't trust himself to. Instead, he focused on staying rational, staying calm. To distract himself he swallowed another pull of beer.

"I don't feel like I'm all here." To call the look in Scott's eye a thousand-yard stare would have been putting it mildly. "I can't sleep very well. I can't stand the dark." He was shutting down again and part of him knew it, but he couldn't hold it together.

Logan nodded. "I'm not surprised." he said calmly.

"Marie told me I couldn't reason this away. I know she's right, I just..." Scott rubbed at the back of his neck and leaned forward a little, breathing more slowly. Caught himself. There. "I feel like I'm going to fall to pieces the first time someone hits me." Scott stared at the flowers across from them, his expression faintly perturbed. "I keep expecting someone to hit me. Even here."

Logan brutally suppressed an urge to do just that. Instead, he just shrugged.

"Can't quite explain to people that I can't quite trust them because I hallucinated them cooperating with the people torturing me, can I?" Oh, look, Scott thought wildly - he'd gotten the t-word out.

"Then don't. Fuck 'em." he said easily. "Only one you owe anyone to is you. Maybe Jeannie." he said.

"Like hell I don't. My friends? My teammates? The people who came for me?" Scott looked away sharply as part of him hissed The people who came for you eventually , you mean.

"Part of the job." Logan countered, somewhat cruelly. "But with this bunch they'd follow you into Hell - and respect that you might not want to talk about it afterwords." he pointed out.

"It doesn't work that way!" Scott said, frustration and something else bubbling over all at once. He didn't consciously send the beer flying, but it was rolling under some of the flowerboxes anyway, and Scott pushed himself back to his feet, the cracked rib twinging. "I can't expect them to just deal with it," he snapped at Logan.

"Why not?" Logan asked peacefully. "Why can't you ask them to just deal with it?"

"Because!" was the only response he could come up with, which only frustrated him more. Scott gritted his teeth, rubbing at his forehead for a moment, and forced himself to be coherent. "Because I owe them more than that. Because it's my problem. And because it wasn't really them!"

Logan snorted at that logic, and snagged another beer from the case. If Scotty wasn't going to drink them, he may as well. Shame to waste good beer. "Do you? Owe them more than that? Or is that Summers Guilt I hear coming out of your mouth?"

"... what the hell are you talking about?" Scott demanded, almost more bewildered than angry now. "Guilt about what? I didn't do anything, no one got hurt coming to get me - that was one of the hallucinations." Calm down. Why was he angry? Scott grimaced, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead with a shaky sigh.

"So for once you're not actually blaming yourself?" Logan said curiously. "I'm amazed. Now all you need to do is keep your eye on your little brother."

"You leave Alex out of this!" The anger flared back up erratically. "This is not his fault."

"How do you figure that?" Logan asked incredulously. "Quickest and easiest way to get Scott Summers to be your bitch is to squeeze Alex Summers. It's obvious. The boy has all the self-defense skills of a wet noodle and every time he fucks himself up in rides Scotty on his white horse to save the day."

The words washed over him like a tide of ice water, blanking out anything approaching coherent thought. The next thing he knew, he was struggling in someone's iron grip, and everything was too bright, too loud. Disjointed. The someone was behind him where his optic blast was no good, and Scott could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, and realized that he was breathing like he'd just run a mile with his leathers on. "Let go," he rasped shakily in a voice that didn't sound quite right, and panic bubbled up inside him. "Let me GO!"

"You ready to start dealing with reality now?" Logan asked, not relaxing his grip or his preparation to drive claw through Scott's brain if he had to. "Because it's time for you to start doing that again."

"Fuck reality and fuck you!" Scott snarled - but almost brokenly, even as he kept struggling, trying to break Logan's grip. His heart was racing erratically, fear or anger or both sending adrenalin coursing through his system. Fight and flight were duking it out, and he wasn't sure who was winning. Not that it mattered, he couldn't do either... "Real, what's fucking real about any of this?"

"What's real about this? I'll tell you. What's real is that you arranged a swap for your useless waste of space little brother and got your brain thoroughly picked by professionals before the rest of your team could locate and exfiltrate you." he said into Scott's ear harshly. "The reality is that Uncle Sam is in the process of doing to Mr Lyman what he did to you." he hissed.

Lyman's name sent a jolt through Scott, as if Logan had actually hit him. He went still in Logan's grip, but it wasn't a safe sort of stillness. It was a rigid, frozen stillness, the first moment of an explosion stopped in its tracks. "Let go of me," he repeated, his voice soft, but a spiraling sort of hysteria underlying it.

Logan did as asked, but didn't back off much. "Since the government seems to like us this week, hopefully this won't mean that anyone else will wind up like me." he said, voice dripping sarcasm. "And shit. I wasn't coming up here to poke at you." he said, now backing off and returning to the bench to get another beer. "Fuck."

They wouldn't. They wouldn't. But... what had he told Lyman? He couldn't remember. Just that there had been something, maybe more than one something, and if they could get that from Lyman, if they.... had it all been for nothing? The part of Scott that remembered that McKenna's administration had been shutting down programs like Mistra and Weapon X and the other like it was somewhere the rest of him couldn't hear it, and everything else was just. Too much.

Scott's knees buckled and he sat down hard, his head hitting the flower boxes behind him with an audible thud. He didn't feel it. "I didn't mean to." The words sounded like they had been torn out of his chest. "I didn't... I didn't mean to." What little color had been in his face was gone entirely now.

Logan crouched down next to Scott and looked at him. "Of course you didn't." he said as reassuringly as he could. What he did NOT say was that if Logan thought that Scott had let info on Weapon-X go voluntarily there would be no force on Earth that would save Scott from Logan's wrath. From Wolverine's wrath. "They want the bonding process, Scott. They want it bad." he said sadly, then hoisted Scott back up to the bench and slapped him on the back. "Beer?" he asked, reaching down to the case and offering Scott a fresh one.

Scott managed to shake his head, just fractionally. "I think," he managed to say, pushing himself back to his feet, "I need to... go, now. Downstairs." Away. Somewhere he could shut the door and shut everything out. He didn't want to be here anymore. Didn't want to be anywhere. Didn't want to think.

"Suit yourself." he said, and cracked the bottle for a nice big swallow. He very deliberately didn't offer to help and didn't give any indicating of catering to Scott's needs. If the man needed help, he'd ask for it. Logan wouldn't insult him by pretending otherwise.