YOU'RE LOSING ME ✦ WOLVERINE

CHAPTER TWELVE

AFTER THEIR BREAKFAST, Clara led Logan back down into her workshop, and he helped her move her desk and desk chair back into her office.

Man, it is already so much better now that I have a second pair of hands around, Clara thought, amusing herself.

She set a computer up on the desk, and then sat down in her office chair. She inspected the computer for a moment, and then rolled her neck. She tilted her head to the right, and her eyes went silver.

Logan watched her, rapt with curiosity. He couldn't wait to tell Hank that thanks to his studies, Clara had discovered a power. Not a mutation, but an actual power. He'd be so thrilled by this discovery.

He looked at the computer screen, and saw it waking up, unlocking, and opening a webpage. From her mind, she browsed around the internet, looking up random things.

She looked a little eerie, eyes silver and her head tilted and resting on her shoulder like it was. The lights began to flicker, which startled Logan, and he looked up at them as they flickered a couple more times, then went back to normal. He looked back over at her, and she sighed, blinking a couple of times, and then leaning her head back to normal.

She closed her eyes, rubbing them, and then opened them. When the two made eye contact, her eyes were their normal gray.

"So, what'd you think? Did I look as weird as Katie told me I did?" Clara asked, and Logan chuckled.

"I mean, I have to admit. You did look a little eerie with the combination of your tilted head, and silver eyes," He replied, "but that was cool. And I honestly think Hank would be thrilled to meet you."

Clara grinned, and bashfully asked, "You think so?"

"Oh, yeah!" Logan replied. "He'd be fascinated by it."

She blushed, and had a proud-of-herself look on her face that made Logan chuckle to himself. "Alrighty, now that I've shown you that, let me show you the rest of the shop. There's another room you haven't seen, that I don't use."

He followed her out of the office, and down the hall, all the way down to the end, where there was a door. She opened the door, and led him inside. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it. So maybe you can help me with it."

The entire room was basically made out of concrete. She had a trunk alongside the wall nearest them, and Logan asked, "What's in the trunk?"

Clara froze, and then sighed, walking over to it. "I don't allow Jamie in this room, or near this trunk," She said, and then opened it. Logan came up next to her, and peered inside. He understood why she wouldn't let her son near it.

Along the bottom, there were two stacks of clothes, all black and gray colored. But it was the HYDRA sigil on one pair of pants and a shirt that made him swallow hard. A single sword lay on top of the clothes, and Clara picked it up, looking at it. "I got this sword when I was sixteen, from my father." She unsheathed it, looking at it shine under the light. "It was a birthday present, or so he said. I used it on all of those...Missions I did with Win. And it was brought with me when I was in HYDRA. I used it then to fight him."

"Win?" Logan asked quietly, looking at Clara, many emotions on her face. She turned, looking up at him, and replied, "My nickname for him. I came up with it when I was nineteen. The winter soldier doesn't really roll off the tongue."

She looked down again as she sheathed her sword, and looked at the handle, which had been branded by HYDRA with their sigil, as well. "They wanted to ruin me," She said. "Ruin everything I stood for. I like to hope they didn't win."

"That's how it felt with William Stryker," Logan said, looking down at her sword. "He wanted to rewrite me. Ruin everything about me. Make sure I didn't know who I was, and wander for years wondering. I like to say that he didn't end up winning."