Chapter Text

1.

The X-ray comes back normal. Two-hundred and six bones, completely intact and in perfect place and alignment. Ten toes, ten fingers, two tibias, two fibulas, two femurs, two radii, two ulnas, twenty-four ribs, thirty-three vertebrae, and the list goes on. Scott compulsively counts and recounts, not quite believing his eyes. The X-ray is normal. 

“It appears Magneto was able to liquefy the adamantium bound to Logan’s skeleton, destabilizing it on a molecular level. Once destabilized, the adamantium was…,” Professor Charles Xavier trails off, shifting in his wheelchair before clearing his throat. “Ripped from his skeleton and pulled not only through the wounds on body but through every single pore.”

The medbay is silent except for the faint hum of the X-ray projector and the paper crinkling and tearing in Hank McCoy’s hands. 

Scott starts his count again. Ten toes, ten fingers, two tibias, two fibulas—

“The physical trauma from such an event is, of course, incomprehensible,” Charles continues. “If Logan were anyone else, he would have been…” Charles trails off once again, at a loss for words. Charles is rarely at loss for words. 

“Torn to shreds?” Hank offers. His talons have all but shredded the stack of papers in his hands. 

Charles shakes his head. “The process did threaten to physically—” A pause. “— destroy Logan’s body, but Jean was able to telekinetically keep his body from falling apart. That combined with Logan’s healing factor was able to keep him alive.”

Everyone in the room turns to glance at Jean Gray. She doesn’t meet anyone’s gaze, not even Scott’s. Her eyes are turned towards her right, through the reinforced fiberglass wall that separates them from Logan. His body is laid across the hospital bed there, unmoving, almost deathly still. 

Storm, standing behind where Jean is seated, squeezes her shoulder. Scott doesn’t miss the subtle flinch of Jean’s body, the way her fingers twitch before clenching tightly into fists. 

They all saw Magneto rip the adamantium from Logan’s body, saw the way Logan’s body contorted and arched in pain, saw his muscles spasm and seize, saw his eyes bulge with pain and fear as that silver, glowing adamantium was leached from his body.

They all saw it. 

Jean felt it. 

Jean’s green eyes briefly flit over to Logan’s X-ray, then to Scott, and then back over to Logan. 

“He’ll be kept in a medically-induced coma for at least two weeks to give his body enough time to heal the rest of his wounds.”

It’s Rogue who speaks next. “Heal?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Charles nods. “That’s right. Heal. We won’t have an explanation until Hank is able to conduct further tests, but his other wounds that would have naturally healed within a blink of an eye for him continue to need medical treatment. I suspect that the sheer amount of trauma caused his healing factor to burn out in an effort to keep him alive. Temporarily.”

“Temporarily,” Storm repeats, incredulously. 

“We won’t know for certain until we are able to conduct further tests, but that will have to wait until we are sure Logan’s body will be able to withstand it. We will make such assessments at a later time. Such an event will no doubt have an impact on Logan’s psychologically as well. We ought to be careful.”

Scott clenches his jaw, red hot anger surging through his veins. He told Logan—that fucking idiot— to hold back. The Wolverine is notoriously vulnerable when it comes to Magneto, but Logan is also notoriously stubborn and prone to not listening to Scott.

Now, look at him. 

Another emotion washes over Scott. Guilt . It claws down his throat and sinks like a rock in the pit of his stomach. The battle didn’t have to end like this, but it did, and Scott still holds that responsibility. He has to fix this, somehow. 

“Where’s Magneto?” Scott asks. It’s the first time he's spoken since the entirety of the X-Men filed into the medbay for the mission debrief and the update on Logan. “Do we have any leads?” 

He’s met with silence and mostly blank, destitute stares. Perfect. 

“We’ll have time to rest and regroup before he strikes next, I suspect. Logan got a pretty good hit on him, and he’ll have to take time and recover.”

Pretty good hit was putting it lightly if Magneto’s bloody and shredded torso was anything to go by. He’ll be out of commission for a good while, which is good because they desperately need the time. To track him down and to allow Logan to heal. 

Scott’s eyes scan over the X-ray once more. Ten toes, ten fingers, two tibias, two fibulas…

He asks the question that he’s sure is on everyone’s mind. 

“Is there any way of undoing this?”

Charles lets out a heavy exhale, leaning back in his chair. “The only conceivable way of undoing what Magento has done is to put Logan back through the same brutal experiments that the Weapon X program forced him through. Even if I were to allow it—which I won’t—and even if Logan was willing, the details of such experiments are currently unavailable to us, nor do we have any access to adamantium.” Another heavy sigh. “The program doesn’t even formally exist according to the American and Canadian governments.”

It’s well-known amongst the X-Men and a poorly kept secret at the Xavier Institute that Wolverine’s adamantium claws aren’t a natural byproduct of his mutation, and that years ago, Logan had been kidnapped by Colonel Stryker’s Weapon X program and had adamantium forcibly and tortuously grafted onto his entire skeletal structure. 

He knows Logan has scant memories from this time, if any at all, as the Weapon X program also conveniently wiped all memories of Logan’s previous life, but what Scott doesn’t know is if Logan has any sort of attachment to his adamantium claws, the claws responsible for making him into the mutant—and hero —he is now. 

Scott crosses his arms over his chest, and takes one good luck at his X-Men: the sag of their shoulders, the tiredness in their eyes, the purse of their lips. They’ve taken harder hits than this. They will get through this. 

Logan will get through this. 

“I think that’s enough for tonight.”

His words are understood clearly, and Charles voices his agreement. Dismissed. 

They quietly file out. Rogue lingers, pressing one ungloved hand against the fiberglass, big brown eyes wide and filled with emotion. Scott isn’t quite sure if he sees a tear escape before she’s turning away and is gone, the heels of her yellow boots echoing across the white tiled flooring. 

Only he and Jean remain.  

“Jean—”

She abruptly stands up, chair screeching back. Flame-red hair flickering in her wake, Jean storms over towards Logan’s room. She quickly punches in the code on the keypad, and the door buzzes and slides open. Scott follows her, cautiously.

It’s strange to see Logan’s face so relaxed. That man walks around with a permanent scowl, his body so tense as if he’s posed and ready to attack at any given moment. Now, his face almost appears soft, if that’s even possible. 

Scott takes a quick once-over the rest of Logan. Blood-stained patches of gauze are wrapped tightly over sections of his biceps, forearms, and wrists. The top of his bare chest peeks out barely from the blue cotton blanket covering the rest of his body. A long series of stitches span over his left pec. He’s attached to a ventilator, tubes jammed down his nose and mouth to artificially pump oxygen into his lungs. 

So strange. Logan isn’t meant to have stitches. His worse injuries take a day— maybe two—to heal. It deeply unnerves Scott. 

Jean stops at his bedside, cherry red lips pulled into a grimace and brows narrowed in concentration. A tentative hand reaches out, a slight tremor in her fingers as she presses the pads of her fingers to Logan’s temple. Her eyelids flutter shut. 

She stands there for a long moment, and Scott allows her, standing back and waiting. 

The ventilator rattles obnoxiously, in a discordant symphony with the periodic beeping of the heart rate monitor. 

Minutes later, Jean huffs out an angry breath, wrenching her hand back from Logan. 

“I can’t feel anything.”

Her voice is tight, almost distraught. 

“He’s not really asleep. There’s no subconscious thoughts—”

“I know . I know. I just thought— ugh. I don’t know what I thought.” Jean finally turns around to face Scott. Her lower lip wobbles, but her eyes remain dry. “ God, Scott. I wish I could explain it to you, but there are no words. It was awful. ”

Scott approaches her finally. He wraps a tentative arm around Jean’s waist, pulling her flush to him. Jean melts, tucking her head into the crook of Scott’s neck, eyelashes tickling the sensitive skin there. Her arms come up and around his neck, her hands clasping together at his nape. 

“I know,” he whispers into her hair. He breathes in deeply, taking in a lungful of her rose-scented shampoo. “I know.”

“He didn’t even scream.”

Jean pulls him even tighter to her. 

“He couldn’t even scream.” 

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

Logan wakes up two-weeks later, three days after being taken off the ventilator. His bruises have faded to an ugly but softer yellow and his cuts healed up to thin, pink lines. His face is a little gaunt, having lost quite a few pounds since his stay in the medbay. 

Other than that, Logan’s oddly normal. 

Oddly. 

Scott watches from across the room as Rogue launches herself—carefully—-onto Logan, who grumpily but just as enthusiastically hugs her back. Rogue sniffles and hiccups. “I was so scared,” Rogue wails, her Mississippi-accent thick with emotion. “Don’t ever, ever, ever scare me like that again!”

Logan humphs , but then a smirk—no, a smile —works his way across his lips. “Sorry, kiddo.” His voice is gravely, more strained than normal, but the fondness is still evident in his voice. He’s always had a soft spot for the young girl. 

Rogue steps back, tucking a stray lock of white hair back behind her ear. Her smile is blinding. 

“Okay, me next!” Morph exclaims, jumping into Logan’s embrace, bubbling with excitement. Logan rolls his eyes but doesn’t resist the hug. Morph giggles happily. 

“Please be careful,” Hank grumbles from his computer. 

Scott assesses from across the lab, silent and calculative. Logan is perched on Hank’s cold, metal assessment table, shirtless and a black pair of X-Men-branded sweatpants slung low on his hips, a dozen electrodes taped to his chest, torso, and back. 

Rogue, Morph, and Jubilee too surround Logan, buzzing and chatting up a storm, catching Logan back up on everything he missed during the past two-weeks. 

For all intents and purposes, Logan–while definitely worse for wear— looks normal: signature scowl, same scruffy sideburns, and same, stupid black hair coiffed up to almost resemble animal ears (Scott still can’t quite believe that his hair naturally does that). Scott doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for…perhaps some outward sign or evidence of the fact that Logan nearly had his body torn cell by cell as adamantium was quite literally liquefied within his body and ripped from the surface of his bones? Logan has scarcely made one complaint of discomfort, even though Scott can tell he’s feeling antsy from both all the attention and having to undergo Hank’s assessments. 

Soon after Logan awoke, he and Hank had gingerly disclosed to Logan what had happened to him—the loss of the adamantium, the burnt-out healing factor, the near death experience. Logan had merely nodded his head in understanding, occasionally scrunching his nose in what Scott assumed was annoyance or frustration. No questions. No complaints. 

Hank shoos Rogue, Morph, and Jubilee to the side. He motions for Logan to hold out his arm and clench his fist before wrapping a plastic tie securely around his bicep. As Hank is feeling for a vein, the lab door buzzes open, revealing the professor and Jean at his side. 

“Logan,” Charles says cheerfully as he enters the room. 

Jean floats over towards Scott. Logan’s eyes follow her. 

“Professor,” Logan greets, curtly but politely. 

“Hank tells me that all your assessments are coming back normal.”

“Appears so.” Logan fiddles with one of the electrodes. Hank bats his hand away, chastising him. 

“How do you feel?”

Logan is quiet for a long moment, long enough that Scott makes note of it. 

“Lighter,” he finally answers. 

Hank nods. “Comparing your current weight to your weight during your last physical, I surmise that the adamantium weighed somewhere near a hundred pounds, which probably aided in reinforcing your musculature but also put quite a strain on your bones. Walking and running might feel different before your body adjusts.”

Logan hums. Jean squeezes Scott’s hand. 

“Any pain?” 

Logan shrugs. “Sore. Maybe. Nothing really else.”

Charles smiles. “Good, good. Oxygen levels look normal. MRI came back normal.” The professor glances at the echocardiogram. “Cardiac rhythm looks normal as well. This is better than we could have hoped for.” 

Normal. Normal. Normal. Scott holds back a scoff. After all he and the X-Men saw, how can things just so easily go back to normal? 

Hank finally pricks Logan’s elbow with the syringe, and blood dribbles into the vial. 

“Still no healing factor,” Logan mumbles bitterly. 

“I’m sure that will resolve itself on its own. Hank and I will take a look at your blood samples and determine the appropriate course from there.” 

Logan’s single raised eyebrow is evidence enough of his skepticism towards Charles’ optimism. “Okay, professor,” he acquiesces. Logan’s eyes trail over back towards Jean before jumping to Scott. Scott raises his own eyebrow in return. The corner of Logan’s mouth twitches. 

“So does this mean that I’m released from lab and medical?” 

“Not quite yet. You’ll stay one more day in medical, just in case there are any surprise complications.”

Logan bristles but doesn’t push back, probably too exhausted to put up a fight. “Fine,” he grumbles. Vial filled, Hank finally removes the syringe and plastic tie from Logan’s bicep before dabbing the insertion site with a cotton ball. Snickering, Morph plucks a Hello Kitty bandaid from the medkit and sticks it on Logan, who narrows his eyes warningly. Morph winks. 

“One more thing, Logan.”

“Of course.”

Charles gestures to Logan’s hands, which rest in his lap, clenched tightly. “I know you have an audience currently, but would you mind showing us?”

Scott stands up straighter. The whole room stands still, in rapt attention. Logan once again bristles at the amount of eyes on him, but nonetheless lifts up a single hand, knuckles white. Three bone claws shoot out from his fist, sharp, white, and deadly. 

Oh. 

Well, they had already technically seen the proof with the X-Ray, but seeing the Wolverine’s claws, lacking their classic adamantium, is nothing short of disconcerting, and it’s the only evidence that things are decidedly not normal. 

Logan’s expression is unreadable. Scott glances at Jean and wonders if she’s picking up on anything. 

He doesn’t know what to feel , Jean’s voice echoes in his mind. It doesn’t feel like his body. 

Scott shivers at both the caress of Jean’s presence against his thoughts and at the disturbing revelation. Logan’s body is often not his own. It wasn’t his own when Colonel Stryker had the adamantium forcibly grafted onto his skeleton to turn him into a living, breathing weapon, and Logan’s body also wasn’t his own when Magneto ripped the adamantium from him. 

The man can’t seem to catch a break. 

Logan inspects the bone claws with a certain level of detachment. Hank frantically scribbles onto a notepad. 

“Hank, conduct additional tests on Logan’s bone density and retrieve a sample of bone tissue, so we can gather additional readings.”

“Of course, professor.” 

Logan’s claws retreat. He relaxes his hand and frowns. 

Blood drips from between his fingers, running down to his wrist and staining his skin red. 

Rogue is the first to jump into action. “I got it!” she exclaims, grabbing a bundle of gauze with her gloved hands and pressing it into Logan’s. Logan makes no comment, his silence cutting. Rogue pats his back, reassuringly. He doesn’t meet her concerned gaze. 

Why has it only occurred to Scott now that every time Logan uses his claws, he’s mutilating himself? His stomach churns, and it looks like Jubilee and Morph are equally troubled. 

Charles clears his throat. “Well, thank you, Logan. The rest of Hank’s assessments shouldn’t last much longer.”

Logan shrugs, obviously checked out. Scott knows it's time to leave and give Logan the space he needs to process. He silently motions for everyone to leave. Rogue once again lingers, running a thumb over Logan’s knuckles. “I’ll bring you something to eat, kay?” she offers. Logan humphs . 

And just like that…things go back normal. Or at least, they all seek out normalcy, Logan included. 

Another week passes, and Logan’s bruises fade completely, and he gains a healthy amount of weight back. Classes at the Xavier Institute continue, and Logan begrudgingly resumes teaching the one history class that took Charles ages to convince him to take up. The X-Men continue their training, keeping their ears and eyes open to any new intelligence pointing to where Magneto has gone and what his Brotherhood of Mutants are planning next.

Late winter slowly gives way to early spring, and the students flee outside to soak up the sun. Scott gets roped into one too many pickup basketball games, which he typically wouldn’t mind if Logan wasn’t a competitive asshole who got a sick kick out of ruthlessly smack-talking him and shoving him around: a shoulder check there, a harsh slap on the back next, usually followed by a body slam, poorly disguised as a completely illegal screen. Hank is an awful ref. 

Logan’s taunting is almost dialed up as if he is making up for time lost during his two weeks in a coma. Scott refuses to entertain his childish games. 

He still flirts with Jean unabashedly, and Jean still politely redirects him. Somehow, Scott has grown accustomed to Logan flirting with his wife. He still levels a harsh glare at the man whenever he is made to witness Logan’s obvious pining towards Jean, but Scott has come to learn that Logan flirts with everyone and everything: Storm, Kurt, Morph, Domino, and—hell—even Professor Xavier once. 

No one is ever safe from Logan’s aggressive moodiness or his occasional horniness romantic charms. The man seems to only have two modes. 

1. Fight
2. Fuck

Three weeks after Logan wakes, his healing factor returns. 

It’s Jubilee’s eighteenth birthday, and Rogue is determined to throw her a surprise birthday party. Scott and Jean have been tasked with baking the birthday cake while Rogue has interestingly tasked Logan with arranging the flowers Rogue picked out for her: yellow tulips, blue hydrangeas, and pink roses, the colors all matching Jubilee’s pyrotechnic energy blasts. Surprisingly, Logan takes the job seriously and without fuss. 

Kitty helps him, cutting and trimming the flowers, idly chatting about classwork while Logan grunts occasionally in acknowledgment. 

Scott is whipping up the frosting and Jean is checking the cake in the oven when Kitty flinches, exclaiming, “Oh no!” Scott glances up. Kitty is cradling Logan’s hand as a bead of blood blossoms on his thumb, pricked by one of the rose thorns. 

“I’ll grab a bandaid,” Kitty says, but Logan shrugs, swipes the blood away, and suddenly the cut is gone. Kitty blinks. “ Oh .” 

Before Scott can even process the discovery, Logan is excusing himself, muttering something about needing a smoke. Kitty looks at Scott and Jean expectantly. Scott tells her to give him space. 

Logan re-emerges later just in time for Jubilee’s surprise party but quickly disappears not too long after. 

The next day Scott learns that Logan convinced Morph to punch him in the face, breaking his nose. Well, his nose stayed broken for all of two seconds before fixing itself. The return of Logan’s healing factor had been confirmed. 

That’s when things start to go sideways.