Curate, connect, and discover
Just, giving him a forced break. He’s a teacher/maybe still an X man, and Charles Makes him take a break. He spends the first few days wallowing, scowling and grumbling (pouting). But then his friends visit him. They get to know each other without the stress of battle.
And he realizes…he’s not a ‘person’. No hobbies, so interests. Just… violence. So his friends teach him their hobbies, knitting and cooking and chatting, surfing the Internet and taking naps. And he begins to heal.
another un-edited chunk, definitely gonna be a few more chapters into the fic but here yall go!
Feral Baby Logan AU
The first time they spar, though, it triggers a memory (and a subsequent panic attack). The Beast just holds his wrists, murmurs reassurances, and rubs his thumbs against the outside of Loans knuckles, uncaring of his claws. After that, they really do start to bond. So much so that it causes…some codependency issues in Logan when he has to be apart from His Person. But, that all comes later.
Wolverine manages to hound the Beast into (play) fighting with him. He’s been at the Institute for all of a week and already feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin from boredom.
Everyones treating him like he’ll break if he does any fighting at all, which is boring, and he has to eat all of his meat medium or more because everyone keeps staring at him and watching what he eats,which is annoying, and there's no one else in the building that's his age or anything to do, which is infuriating.
On top of all that, he’s been forced to meet with Jean Grey and Charlie every day for at least an hour. His head always hurts after, and the last few days have just been with Charle’s after Jean ran out to throw up in the hall bathroom. And that’s not mentioning the weird nightmares he’s been having these past few days, of people he doesn’t know holding him down, the loud cracking of the collar ringing in his ears even after he wakes.
All to say, if he doesn’t get this tension out soon, he's going to explode. Beast must have seen some of his distress on his face, because he sighs, takes off his reading classes, and nods.
“Alright boy, but you must remember some rules. One,” he holds up a large blue finger.
“If I say stop, we stop. Secondly, you may not use your claws. I know you like using them, but this is a spar, not a fight, and I do not heal as quickly as you do.” He grins. “But biting and your normal claws is allowed.”
Logan doesn’t waste a minute. The moment Beast steps into the ring, Wolverine pounces, a Feral grin in place as he jumps to climb the much larger man. He’s surprised when his weight topples the man, both of them sprawling into the mat. Beast huffs out a laugh, and then grabs him by his shirt and -gently- throws him over his shoulder onto the mat. Logan wheezes, but scrambles up, a grin on his face. This is going to be fun
It’s on their fourth round that it happens: Beast surprises him. He does something to quiet his steps enough for Logan to lose him as he jumps away to get some distance. He’s trying to locate him before he closes his eyes, and realizes the man is somehow behind-
Before he even finishes his though, he sees something blue and lashes out, claws immediately extended, managing to scratch Beasts shirt before-
Beast grabs him by the front of his shirt, lifting him from the ground. There’s a dangerous glint in his eyes, a rage. It’s now that Logan remembers how much larger and stronger this man is.
“Boy-”
A dozen voices overlap.
He’s not a boy, but everyone insists on calling him one. They love it in the lab, like he’s to stupid to understand what they're doing to him. Like he can’t understand when they rip his teeth out for attacking an essential catch, or fighting the doctors when they cut off his fingers and carve out his joints ‘for research’.
The man in front of him flicks through forms, brown hair then black then blond, hand growing larger and smaller, clawed-
And all Logan knows
Is a feeling of dread.
So he runs.
Claws retracted, he blindly swipes his arms, hearing a grunt of surprise as he's dropped like a sack of potatoes, and he's running off at a sprint before he can think.
He hears speech, more shouting, but it doesn’t matter. He has to get out.
His ears ring as he runs towards the only thing he can locate: his room.
He slams into door frames, shoves past a few taller kids, and launches himself into the most protected part of his room: the corner between his bed and his bedside table.
It's not until he's huddled in between them that he realizes he forgot to close the door
Fuck.
He’s dry heaving, trying to prevent himself from vomiting when he realizes it is his shirt that's choking him. He rips it off, the fabric feeling just like the collar-
no no he promised he could behave- they promised- please- he was sorry-
and gasps through flashes of pain, pressing his hands against his neck to prove it’s not there anymore, they didn't like to punish animals, weapons like that here.
“Logan?” Beast is standing in his open door
He wants to scream at him to go away, to leave, to get out of his room; this is the only place he’s safe. But all that comes out is a crackling whimper.
Hank sighs, and walks in.
Logan hisses, looking very frightening in the corner of his room. His hair is falling into his face, eyes flicking around the room, but only locking onto Hank as he crosses the threshold of the door. There’s dried blood on his neck, on his hands, on his chest. He hurt himself trying to get away.
Hank pauses, and then kneels. He crawls the rest of the room until he’s in front of Logan, who’s biting his lip so hard it keeps bleeding enough to drip down his chin.
Beast reaches a hand out slowly but steadily. He smells bloody. And nervous. But he doesn't smell mad. It doesn’t make sense.
Logan whines, eyes slamming shut as he feels his claws slowly pop out, trying to defend him despite his knowledge it would be useless. They scrape his neck, but he keeps his hands close to his ears.
Beast grabs his wrists firmly, and his blinks as he just
“C'mon son, you have to stop scratching, you’re just scaring yourself more” He guides his hands down. Once there in his lap, Hank scruffs him gently, one firm hand on his neck as the other one remains in Logan’s, thumb rubbing the edge of his claws.
It’s familiar.
Another memory, a breath whispered along the shell of his ear. A feeling of comfort
"C'mon runt, breathe.”
Hank echoes it, calling him son and counting out how long he's supposed to hold and then release.
He breathes
Hank's hand guides his face into the crook of his shoulder and something about the security, the safety of his room, the calm response of the doctor… the warmth of someone else cradling him.
Logan breaks.
His calmed breaths abruptly turn to sobs, and when Hank attempts to gently dislodge him (to see what he did wrong) he’s surprised by Logan clinging to him, hands shakily fisted in hims shirt, face smooshed into his neck, hard enough that Hank can feel the tears on his shirt.
And he does what no one else has done for him in years…
He stays.
He tells comforting lies, tells Logan he won’t be punished for hurting him, says they're never gonna put the collar on him again, that he’s safe, not just in his room, but in the whole mansion.
Even as Logan shakes apart, Hank's hands and breath stay constant, a lighthouse to Logan's hurricane.
When he's done crying, he pulls away, staring at the ground. He pretends like his nose isn’t dripping, and sighs.
“…Sorry.”
“It's alright, child. You are new here, and I know it is difficult to believe, but you are welcome to lean on any of us if you require assistance and support.”
In some part of his brain, Logan is screaming at himself
Child is even more infantilizing than a boy…there's no way he's going to let him call that.
But…
He noticed. He’s the first person to have noticed. And He’s the only person who hasn’t been scared of Wolverine the entire time he’s been here. So.. Beast gets a pass.
It takes a month or two for Logan to become attached to Beast. He’s a Doctor, and Logan Does Not like doctors. Seeing anyone in a lab coat means Experiments and Pain and Magnets. But when he sees the Beast destroying Sentinels to protects his students, roaring and baring his teeth and using all of himself to fight, well. Like recognizes Like.
Better yet, Hank is much more patient than any Doctor he’s had before. He asks before jabbing him with needles and cold metal stethoscopes and doesn’t even use the Collar to drag him around!
The first time they spar, though, it triggers a memory (and a subsequent panic attack). The Beast just holds his wrists, murmurs reassurances, and rubs his thumbs against the outside of Loans knuckles, uncaring of his claws. After that, they really do start to bond. So much so that it causes…some codependency issues in Logan when he has to be apart from His Person. But, that all comes later.
Another repost, planning to re-edit this and post it once I finish a few more chapters of my Feral Baby Logan AU, but here ya'll go! I'll be uploading what I have un-edited of this AU within the next few hours i think.
FBL: Logan reflects. (Angst, self hatred)
Here’s the thing about being a Feral child soldier:
Sometimes people don’t get it. They all look at him and pity him. He sees it in their eyes, smells it, sweating like they’re still teenagers, all waiting to see how the loner kid is gonna react.
Logan went to high school for a total of one week before the Weapon X scientists decided he was too wild to pretend and swapped him out for Victor
The thing is… he enjoyed it. Not all of it, obviously, thank fuck they got that collar off of him, and the tests he could do without. But… he misses the energy. He misses the violence. Hunting humans isn’t that different from hunting a moose. They can both kill you, but at the end of the day, they’re both easily trackable when they don’t know they're being hunted. And they always get tired first.
…
He’s killed a lot of people.
He’s felt their flesh give under his hands, tender stomachs give under the sharpness of his claws. He’s felt their sticky brain matter and fluids on his fingertips as he’s bashed their heads into walls. Moments, ragdolls, animals. That’s all they feel like in the moment. Prey he caught and slaughtered, as all prey is.
He knows the feeling of human blood, viscera in his mouth, the iron tang familiar on his tongue as he and Victor clear out rooms, entire bases of foreign militaries. When time stops moving, no sound besides the rhythmic dripping of blood from the body stuck in the ceiling. Nothing besides their panting, as they wait for the rest of their team.
He doesn’t realize how strange it is to feel that way until he hears the doctors. And then his Boss. And then the X-men. They all point it out as something wrong. And sure, he knows he has things to make up for, but really, This is what they get hung up on?
It’s like none of them have read his rap sheet.
(None of them have, except Xavier. They wanted to give him time to tell them. He will not know this until it is too late.)
He only really regrets two people he’s ever killed. Two children, belonging to an american politician.
(It’s what started the brainwashing, what motivated them to isolate him. If he didn’t remember, he wouldn’t worry about it. He didn’t need to doubt them. He didn’t need to think. All he had to do was fight for them.)
But now, with his feelings and his mind unlocked now he can’t help but feel sick when he thinks of them. Their little chubby faces, unblemished by time. Their thin, baby hair just growing out, the older ones quiet snores. They had slept together that night. It reminded him of his friends.
So he gets it a little, the way they look at him. The way Xaviers face goes gray whenever he tries to read Logan's mind. Pity and shame and disgust.
He gets it more when he has to hold Kurt after his first kill.
He understands it most when he has to face Victor again, when Victor has been stripped of himself and, like him Before, all that is left is Sabretooth.
The X-Men Adults in this Universe are: Beast, Cyclops, Jean, Storm, Colossus, and Young X-Men (still older than Logan) are: Iceman, Angel, and Kitty Pryde. Kurt and Logan are the same age, but Kurt has been at the Institute for around,,,, 3 or four years now.
We’re going to do this in the Angstiest way possible: The Original Canon.
Xavier finds out about a Mutant: Weapon X. Part of a strange project being conducted in Canada. What he doesn’t know until he gets there is that Weapon X is a 16 year old boy.
It goes a little like this:
Charles meets with the Canadian President and military after finding out about a program involving Mutants. Specifically, the experimentation and use of mutants as weapons of war. In exchange for not doing anything… too severe, they have to allow him to offer sanctuary to Weapon X himself. He is ‘invited’ into the facility in Quebec, and waits in the Conference room for the head of the program to arrive with the mutant.
And waits.
And waits.
The sun moves across the sky, beams unfettered by the whisps of clouds tht remain after last week's rain.
…
He’s debating calling in Scott by the time he hears footsteps outside the room.
Stryker goes white. Still, he’s remarkably composed for someone who has been experimenting on mutants, and is currently being faced with The Representative for Mutants.
“My apologies Professor”, he holds out his hand, “Ha, got a little held up there, but I’m here!” He grins, a wabbly, fluttering thing that turns into a tight lipped smile. ‘Cmon, talk so I can go before the brats' plane arrives.’
Silence.
Stryker puts his hand down, but remains standing, his feelings only only given away by the first beads of sweat dripping down his temple. “Well, ahem, we had some issues getting everything in order, but I am proud to meet you.”
Xavier sighs. “And where-”
The sound of thundering footsteps rapidly approaching. It almost sounds like a stampede. If possible, Stryker’s face goes more white as he whips around to slam the door shut. ‘No-’
He just gets his hand on the handle when it slams open, pushing him into the wall with so much force he topples over.
“Who’s the bigwig you’re talking to without me, old man?!”
… It’s the voice of a young man. A boy.
He’s in a thick suit, similar to Xavier’s X-Men, but more militaristic, with a … a collar. A very thick, seamless metal collar. His hair is plastered to his forehead, like he was just hosed down, with a snarl on his face showing off sharp, animalistic teeth.
The child thinks, ‘Thank fuck I made it.’
Charles feels nausea swirl in his gut, a phantom taste of vomit already in his mouth.
“I am the 'Bigwig’. Wolverine, correct? I am Professor Charles Xavier, at your service.” He smiles genially, hoping to let the boy know that he is safe from these monsters.
Wolverine sneers uncaringly. “Obviously it’s me.”
He looks at Stryker. “Am I supposed to be impressed by some Professor?”
Stryker finishes straightening his suit and puts a heavy hand on Wolverine’s shoulder. Xavier can see Wolverine tense, but he doesn’t pull away.
“Apparently, the brass is impressed. All I know is that he’s here to make you some sort of offer.” He better not take it if he knows what’s good for him.
Wolverine’s eye’s glint, and he leans closer to the Professor.
“An offer? Okay, what’s your deal?”
One chance Charles. He swallows. “I know of your recent battles. And more, I know of your powers. You, child, are a Mutant. And I have a need of mutants-”
“Hey! I’m not some fucking ki-”
“-I am offering you a chance to become an X-Man!” Then, he speaks directly into Wolverine’s mind.
‘I am offering you a chance to become free!’
Wolverine pauses. His eyes widen and flick between Stryker and the Professor. He lets out a long, slow breath, sets his jaw and nods.
“What the hell, I’ll do it.” His posture is carefully casual, juxtaposed by Stryker’s meaty hands grabbing his shoulders to spin him around.
“Not so fast! The government has invested a great deal of time and money into i-him” He looks down at the boy, who’s eyes stay locked with Xavier’s.
“If you try walking out on us, I’ll have you locked up!”
“Well this is a free country, isn’t it? Besides, you’re not my legal guardian, the government is, and they said I could!” At this, Wolverine pops his infamous claws. As blood trickles down his knuckles, Stryker’s hand flies to his pocket, and they both freeze. C'mon kid, try it! There’s a reason we put that damn thing on you!
Xavier holds up a finger, and the metaphorical standstill becomes much more real.
“I believe Wolverine has made his choice. I shall take him with me, and any of his belongings will be sent to my school by next week, is that alright with you, Commander?”
Stryker and Wolverine continue there stare-off, before the Colonel grunts out an affirmative. Xavier retracts his powers from their minds. Logan steps back, suddenly looking slightly nervous.
“...Well. You’re going to need this.” Stryker hands Xavier a remote from his pocket. “He’s violent sometimes.” He laughs, loud, chest heaving things
“He’s more of a beast than that blue doctor of yours!” He’s still chuckling to himself when the door closes.
Wolverine doesn’t look at him or at the remote. He breathes, and nods.
“Okay, so how are we leavin’?”
* * * * * * * *
It takes them some time to actually get out of the building. Wolverine stops by his room and fills up a small bag with items, and Charle’s is given a thick folder on information on Wolverines mutations as well as how to 'take care of him’.
The team is waiting for them to board. Xavier hasn’t told them of his discovery, deciding that instability would be better handled once they’re on the plane and away from humans. What he doesn’t expect, however, is Wolverine's reactions to the team. He stands as far as he can from both Xavier and the team as they make their introductions
Scott reaches out for a handshake, but it hangs in the air awkwardly as Wolverine scowls at it. After a few uncomfortable seconds, he seems to shake himself and reaches forward to give one stiff shake, and then adjusts his stance to face everyone else.
“I’m Scott Summers, also known as Cyclops. And you are…?”
The boy scoffs. “My name is Wolverine. Shouldn’t you know it, since you all came for me?”
Scott grits his teeth, shock-anger-fear flicking through his mind. ’Seriously professor? A kid?!’
Everyone else is worse at hiding their shock. A thunderous crack is heard as lightning strikes near the entrance of the facility, and the room trembles as Jean’s powers begin to make things float.
'Now, X-Men, I know this is a surprise, but please maintain your composure. Although it may not be visible, it appears he is nervous about meeting other mutants for the first time.’
Things settle, and the thunder quiets.
“It is a pleasure to meet you Wolverine, I am Storm, also known as Ororo Munroe. I will be flying us back.” She nods, and heads to the cockpit.
“I am Colossus, little lad! My real name is Piotr Rasputin!” He steps forward, as though to pull Wolverine to him.
The boy adjusts his stance to be a little further away, and growls, “I am not little! And don’t touch me, fuckwad.”
Colossus coughs awkwardly at the violent response, and then mumbles, “Of-of course. Ah, I believe I shall go see how Storm is doing.”
Charles inclines his head towards Jean, ‘Would you mind looking into his collar? There is no visible seal, and I do not have the knowledge to remove it. You have been spending time with Hank, so I hope you can be of some help.’
'Of course Professor.’
Jean approaches, and gently puts her hand on his bicep. She smiles down at him and says, “I’m sorry about the shaking Wolverine, I tend to have some trouble containing my abilities. My name is Jean Grey. How about you sit in the back with me? I’d like to take a look at that collar, if possible?”
Wolverine looks away, a light pink brushing his cheeks. “Sure. Whatever.”
‘Oh my.’
Scott’s head whips over, and he opens his mouth to say he’ll stay in the back as well, but Xavier steps in. “That sounds great, Jean. Cyclops, let’s go to the front so the plane can take off. I believe it is almost time for dinner.”