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It’s going to rain today.
Logan knows this. His hands are already throbbing when he wakes up. By the time he drags himself out of bed and into the kitchen of the mansion, his knees have started to complain as well. The funny thing is that the adamantium that makes his bones unbreakable also makes the rest of his body really fucking ache.
But the worst of it is his hands. The human bone structure wasn’t meant to accommodate three large claws, much less ones coated in indestructible metal. All over his body, metal is grinding against his ligaments, tendons, and cartilage. Due to his body’s healing factor, Logan’s body is in a constant cycle of injury and healing. Day in, day out.
Thank God for coffee, he thinks, clicking on the stove burner and placing a kettle on top. Even if it’s instant coffee.
“Oh perfect timing!” Logan chuckles when he hears the characteristic accent behind him.
“You are way too happy, way too early in the morning,” Logan turns to face Charles, leaning against the counter to take some pressure off of his knees.
“On the contrary,” Charles hums, opening one of the lower kitchen cabinets and retrieving a mug. “I am the perfect amount of happy for a man who is about to have a cup of coffee with a friend.”
Logan raises an eyebrow, taking the mug from Charles. “Coffee for you today? Not tea?”
“On a day like today, I am going to need something a bit stronger to get through grading these papers.” The kettle whistled and Logan pulled it off the burner, adding coffee grounds to his and Charles’ mugs, then the boiling water.
“A day like today?” Logan asks, grimacing as he sips the steaming coffee. God, it’s terrible. But today he needs it.
Charles wheels over to the kitchen table, careful not to set his mug on the puzzle Hank had set up there. “It’s going to rain today.” He gestures to the seat across from him. “But I think you knew that already as well.”
Logan sits, eyeing Charles warily. “What do you mean?”
Charles takes a sip from his coffee, fiddling with a few puzzle pieces. “I can see how gingerly you’re moving, Logan. Reminds me of myself when my back locks up.” He tests a puzzle piece, and it clicks into place. “I think if you look hard enough, you’ll find that everyone here has ways they cope with their pain, mutation or otherwise.”
Logan keeps his face guarded. “Thanks Professor, but I don’t need a lecture. I’ve been doing this for two-hundred years, I think I know what I’m doing.”
Charles smiles knowingly at him. “Of course, Logan. Just know that if you ever need it, you have a mansion full of friends ready to help.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Professor.” Logan purposely changes the subject. “Did Hank pick this out?” He gestures towards the puzzle on the table. It was 500 pieces of cuteness, showing a bunch of kittens in a garden. “Maybe he’s trying to drop a hint that we should get an X-Cat.”
Charles laughs. “Ah, no, this was Peter’s doing. I am sure he would no doubt love it if the mansion had a cat, but I think he mostly picked it up for the humor of it.”
The two of them sit and sip their coffee, enjoying the quiet of the mansion before its younger inhabitants wake. Logan tries to ignore the way his hands protest as he lifts the coffee mug, the little shockwaves of pain that shoot up his arm when he presses a puzzle piece into place. He can handle it. He has to.
***
During the school day, he’s able to put the pain out of his mind for the most part.
But at night, with nothing to occupy his mind, all Logan can feel is the ache in his joints and the burning in his hands.
Adjusting after his foray into the past had taken some time. The mansion, which was so empty to him only days before, was now bustling with students and teachers, faces new and old. What also came as a surprise to him was that he teaches history. The man who for so long couldn’t remember his own past, and who was now trying to learn a new timeline, teaches kids about the Defenestration of Prague and the Revolutionary War and all that shit.
He loves the teaching, but it still all feels a little – odd.
He’s on dish duty after dinner tonight with Storm. The hot water feels nice on his hands, but Storm notices the way he’s shifting his weight back and forth.
“You okay, Logan?”
“Hm? Oh, yeah – this just happens whenever the weather shifts. Old knees, you know.”
Storm stares him down but decides not to push. She knew her own mutation was unique in that it really didn’t have any physical drawbacks – most of her students had to manage both a mutation and at least one kind of side effect. Both Bobby and John had trouble regulating their body temperatures. Scott was prone to migraines and ocular neuropathy, especially after using his powers extensively. Both Charles and Jean were prone to sensory overload due to their telepathy. And then there were students like Rogue – sweet Rogue – whose mutation seemed to be more of a curse than a gift. So Storm leaves it be, figuring Logan will deal with his mutation – and the results of his experimentation and torture – in his own way.
Logan appreciates that she doesn’t push, and they finish the dishes in silence, before saying their goodnights and heading to their rooms.
Most of the teachers’ rooms are on the first floor, which Logan appreciates at the end of the day. He’s still too proud to take the elevator, unless he’s walking with Charles. His door clicks shut behind him, and he almost immediately sinks onto his bed. He’d started the day with pain in his hands and knees, but now, every damn joint in his body aches. It takes a solid thirty minutes of staring at the ceiling before he can muster the energy to shower. He sets the water as hot as it will go and stares at the tiled wall, letting the heat sink beneath his skin and settle into his joints.
Only once the water runs cold does Logan leave the shower, throwing on a t-shirt and some flannel pants. Climbing into bed as gingerly as he can, he waits for sleep to take over, focusing on breathing evenly.
Sleep doesn’t come.
Logan spends a solid two hours tossing and turning, trying to find a good position that doesn’t press on his joints. Even when he does, he still can’t ignore the burning in his hands. Maybe it feels worse because he’s just come the past when he didn’t have this damned adamantium – or maybe in this new timeline, Stryker’s methods are shittier – but ever since his trip to the past, his pain has been worse. Sure, there’d been an adjustment period the first time he’d gotten the adamantium, but he doesn’t remember it keeping him up at night like this.
Granted, maybe he just doesn’t remember at all.
Around midnight, Logan decides he’s had enough, and heads to the mansion’s common space. If he can’t sleep, maybe he can do some catching up on everything he’s missed – read, watch the news, anything but sit in silence with his pain. As he pads softly through the hallway, he’s relieved that he seems to be the only one awake. He doesn’t want his students – or God forbid, the other teachers – seeing him like this.
He stops in the kitchen, wondering if the beer Bobby had shown him was still in the same place. He smirks when he discovers that it is. Cracking open the bottle, he walks into the common room, surprised to see a fire still going in the fireplace. In an overstuffed armchair pulled close to the fire, sits Rogue, doing…something that involves a ball of yarn and a metal hook.
“You’re up late,” Logan observes aloud, putting one hand on his hip and gesturing towards the fire with the other. “Did you start the fire, too?”
Rogue gives him a half smile. “John started it, and I said I’d sit here until it died.” She gestures towards another armchair with her strange metal hook. “Wanna join me?”
Logan obliges her, pulling the armchair close to the fire, wincing a little bit at the way his hands protest the grip. He settles into the chair with his beer. “What are you doing?”
Rogue looks confused for a second, then looks down at her hands. “Oh!” She holds out what she’s been working on – a square of neat clusters of yarn, the color changing every row. “This is crochet. You’ve never seen this before?”
Logan shakes his head. It looks like the sort of thing his mother might have done, before she had hidden herself away for the rest of his childhood.
“Well, it’s kind of like knitting, except you only use one hook to make the stitches instead of two needles.” She proceeds to wrap the yarn around her hook, twisting it a few times, and then – a new stitch appears on her square. To Logan, it may as well be magic.
“Looks like you’re pretty good at that.”
Logan could swear her face flushes in the dim light from the fireplace. “Thanks,” she murmurs, her eyes settling back on the yarn in her lap. “The Professor said it would be good for me, to have something creative to do. And I’ve never really been good at drawing or painting, so Jean suggested I try a fiber art.”
“Can’t sleep?” Logan asks, though he already knows the answer. Every mutant in this building has trouble sleeping at some point.
Rogue looks into the flames. “Nightmares, sometimes. You might not remember, but I’ve almost killed quite a few people with my powers.” She looks pointedly at Logan. “Yourself included.”
A vague memory flits across Logan’s mind. A nightmare of his own. Waking up, finding his claws in Rogue. Her using his healing factor to save herself. “Got plenty of nightmares myself.”
“Is that why you’re awake at 1:00am, drinking beer in front of a fire?”
Logan snorts, taking another sip of his beer. It’s lukewarm now from the warmth of the fire, but he doesn’t care. “Not tonight.” He takes a moment to appreciate how the heat from the fire has permeated his body. “I’m not – not quite used to this body anymore.”
Rogue looks like she wants to ask a question, but she waits, her hands moving silently and adding more stitches to her square. Logan swallows and continues. “A week ago, I didn’t have all this damn metal in my body.” He takes a sharp inhale, feels his ribs twinge at the expansion. “Now, every time I move, it’s like I can feel the metal shredding my body. The tendons, ligaments, whatever the fuck – they’re just constantly being damaged and then having to heal, every time I move.” He rubs absently at his knuckles, where his claws rest when they’re retracted. “The hands are the worst though, they were never meant to accommodate my claws.”
There’s a moment of silence between them, before Rogue says: “I’m sorry. That sounds like a lot.”
Logan huffs, a humorless laugh. “I guess it is.”
Looking down at her hands again, Rogue has an idea. “Have you ever tried compression garments?”
“Come again?”
Rogue holds out her hand, and Logan can see in the dim light that she’s not wearing her usual leather gloves. Instead, her gloves are grey and fingerless. “I wear these gloves when I crochet to minimize pain from crocheting for long periods of time. They’re supposed to help with inflammation. Maybe something like that could work for you? If you could stabilize your joints, you might be in less pain.”
Logan stares at her outstretched hand. Could it really be that easy? “You really think that would work?”
She smiles softly. “I’m sure Hank would be delighted to have a project to work on.” She tugs the gloves off her hands and holds them out to Logan. “Try it.”
Logan takes them gingerly and tugs them on. They’re probably technically too small for him, but the pressure they exert on his hands is damn near divine. He flexes his right hand slowly, and though there’s still some pain, it’s significantly less.
“Keep them,” Logan looks up to see Rogue grinning. “Take them and talk to Hank in the morning.”
“What about you?”
Rogue shrugs, glancing at the dying embers of the fire. “I was about done crocheting for the night anyway.” She looks back at Logan. “And I think you need them more than I do.”
She moves to leave, and Logan catches her gently, tugging on the long sleeve of her pajamas. “Thank you.”
“Of course,” she whispers. “You saved my life, Logan. I’m just returning the favor.”