Random X-Men Introspective Ficlet
Feb. 20th, 2012 03:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dethoratsTitle: An Exercise in Futility
Rating: G
Pairing: None, gen
Word Count: 827
A/N: Written after about the first 4-5 issues of Wolverine and the X-Men came out
"Hypocrisy, thy face is blue and thy smile toothsome." Hank sighs, puts down the mug and steps away from the sight of his expression, twisted and distorted in the polished stainless steel. The coffee sits in his stomach far too solidly to be liquid, the taste as much as he had tried to bury it beneath sugar and milk bitterly dark at the back of his throat. It's not enough and too much at once and the gleaming lab around him is more cage than home sweet home. He can feel his eyelids sagging, the drug long out of his system but the pull of sleep still heavy in his limbs. Hank gives in, closes his eyes, but all he can see is Logan's set jaw, the glint in his eyes cold and sharp and what Hank can only helplessly call adamant in a way that makes his mouth want to twitch into the only real sort of smile he can summon any more.
"I'll do what it takes to protect the school." That determined growl and he should have been agreeing, should have been offering his help instead of being a self-righteous prick especially given his own activities, but he was too tired for that. He's too tired for real honesty anymore and yet sleep only comes when he delivers himself into Selene's arms via carefully concocted narcotic, a formula that he's had to recalculate far too many times in the course of his life. He wonders if Rogers knows and has to assume that he does. Not much gets by the man any longer, not since he's been back from the dead yet again. Peas in a pod, Logan and Steve, and Hank lets himself smile and tries to ignore the way his lips curl over his fangs, the bite of pain not enough, never enough any more. Boy scouts, the both of them, even if Logan had called Scott that for far too many years until it was clear that Scott wasn't, not any more.
The thought aches and Hank forces his eyes to open, forces himself to sit down at the computer and read the data he's getting from Krakoa. Possibilities flicker through his mind and he lets the idea of another laundry room, hot water provided by the school's newest student, percolate for a while before he dismisses it. Later, maybe, when things are stable and he's taken care of the Bamf infestation and once Krakoa has had a chance to settle in. Rachel's doing a good job but he has a suspicion Quire's had a bit of a go as well and that makes him reluctant to push the living landmass into anything too complicated. They need an interface, something that doesn't require telepathy, and that'll be up to him of course because that's how this works.
Inside his head he hears laughter, bright and alive and delightfully puncturing his self-pity and deflating his ego in one go. He misses Jean desperately and while he knows precisely why Logan chose to honor her name with the school, it still hurts to see it blazoned across uniforms and on the sign at the gate. What would she say, what would she think if she could see them now? He wonders about it, wonders too what Xavier thinks but he doesn't have the nerve to ask, suspects he won't like the truth at the heart of whatever Charles would say. She'd be here, though, with them and not out in Utopia with Scott and the harsh pragmatism that comes far too easily when one has spent too long in Magneto's company. It's seductive but it's also the choice without hope and that's something that Hank can't quite give up no matter how much he's tried. It's why he's here, why he's stayed even though Abby has indicated more than once that they can leave, that she can take him anywhere in the galaxy he'd like to go.
The line of inquiry goes round in a spiral and Hank makes himself stop, take a long mental stride out of the circle. There are more concrete problems to be solved, things he should be doing and if he falls back on the old habit of losing himself in work and being the maniacal scientist in the underground lab, well, Logan will forgive him and Bobby knows just when to pry him out. He can do this, be in the here and now, and getting rid of the Bamf plague that was his fault in the first place isn't going to be a piece of cake. He recalibrates the alarm on his computer, sets it for forty-five hours in the future. In an ideal world he'll have slept before then. The reality is that he'll probably hit fifty before he finds a pillow, sixty if he's unlucky. But he's used to that and he has his pills and his coffee and plenty on his plate.
Rating: G
Pairing: None, gen
Word Count: 827
A/N: Written after about the first 4-5 issues of Wolverine and the X-Men came out
"Hypocrisy, thy face is blue and thy smile toothsome." Hank sighs, puts down the mug and steps away from the sight of his expression, twisted and distorted in the polished stainless steel. The coffee sits in his stomach far too solidly to be liquid, the taste as much as he had tried to bury it beneath sugar and milk bitterly dark at the back of his throat. It's not enough and too much at once and the gleaming lab around him is more cage than home sweet home. He can feel his eyelids sagging, the drug long out of his system but the pull of sleep still heavy in his limbs. Hank gives in, closes his eyes, but all he can see is Logan's set jaw, the glint in his eyes cold and sharp and what Hank can only helplessly call adamant in a way that makes his mouth want to twitch into the only real sort of smile he can summon any more.
"I'll do what it takes to protect the school." That determined growl and he should have been agreeing, should have been offering his help instead of being a self-righteous prick especially given his own activities, but he was too tired for that. He's too tired for real honesty anymore and yet sleep only comes when he delivers himself into Selene's arms via carefully concocted narcotic, a formula that he's had to recalculate far too many times in the course of his life. He wonders if Rogers knows and has to assume that he does. Not much gets by the man any longer, not since he's been back from the dead yet again. Peas in a pod, Logan and Steve, and Hank lets himself smile and tries to ignore the way his lips curl over his fangs, the bite of pain not enough, never enough any more. Boy scouts, the both of them, even if Logan had called Scott that for far too many years until it was clear that Scott wasn't, not any more.
The thought aches and Hank forces his eyes to open, forces himself to sit down at the computer and read the data he's getting from Krakoa. Possibilities flicker through his mind and he lets the idea of another laundry room, hot water provided by the school's newest student, percolate for a while before he dismisses it. Later, maybe, when things are stable and he's taken care of the Bamf infestation and once Krakoa has had a chance to settle in. Rachel's doing a good job but he has a suspicion Quire's had a bit of a go as well and that makes him reluctant to push the living landmass into anything too complicated. They need an interface, something that doesn't require telepathy, and that'll be up to him of course because that's how this works.
Inside his head he hears laughter, bright and alive and delightfully puncturing his self-pity and deflating his ego in one go. He misses Jean desperately and while he knows precisely why Logan chose to honor her name with the school, it still hurts to see it blazoned across uniforms and on the sign at the gate. What would she say, what would she think if she could see them now? He wonders about it, wonders too what Xavier thinks but he doesn't have the nerve to ask, suspects he won't like the truth at the heart of whatever Charles would say. She'd be here, though, with them and not out in Utopia with Scott and the harsh pragmatism that comes far too easily when one has spent too long in Magneto's company. It's seductive but it's also the choice without hope and that's something that Hank can't quite give up no matter how much he's tried. It's why he's here, why he's stayed even though Abby has indicated more than once that they can leave, that she can take him anywhere in the galaxy he'd like to go.
The line of inquiry goes round in a spiral and Hank makes himself stop, take a long mental stride out of the circle. There are more concrete problems to be solved, things he should be doing and if he falls back on the old habit of losing himself in work and being the maniacal scientist in the underground lab, well, Logan will forgive him and Bobby knows just when to pry him out. He can do this, be in the here and now, and getting rid of the Bamf plague that was his fault in the first place isn't going to be a piece of cake. He recalibrates the alarm on his computer, sets it for forty-five hours in the future. In an ideal world he'll have slept before then. The reality is that he'll probably hit fifty before he finds a pillow, sixty if he's unlucky. But he's used to that and he has his pills and his coffee and plenty on his plate.
