winds of change ~ wolverine

three

The alarm and the backup alarm were both screeching in my ear. They were then joined by an insistent, angry sounding bang on the wall I shared with my roommate. I quickly turned them both off and groaned out. "Sorry Hanna."

A pounding headache followed me all the way to the bathroom and the whole time I was getting ready. I tried to think about everything that happened yesterday, but that only made it worse so I stopped trying and tabled it for when my skull didn't feel like it was imploding.

I locked the front door behind me, stomach growling and swallowed a scream as Logan stood waiting opposite me. "Aren't you leaving a little late for a 9am?"

I paused, so many questions crowding my head. "Those fuckers are lucky I'm going in at all." I started walking towards the elevator groggily. "How do you even know I have a 9am?"

"It was the last thing you told me before slamming the door in my face last night." He replied unphased, pressing the elevator button for me.

I hummed. "Right, okay." I mumbled, not 100% awake yet. "And why are you here?"

"Because you and I are due a serious, sober, conversation... and I don't really trust you to make it to uni this early and this hungover." He looked at me sideways, kind of judging for not being able to hold my liquor. 

"I'm not that hungover, I didn't even drink that much." I defended, clearing my throat of the morning rasp as I stepped in the elevator and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. There were a few people inside already so I squeezed in as Logan insistently stepped in beside me. 

"No, you didn't, which is even worse."

"Oh bite me, Logan... don't you have anything better to do than bother me right now?" I said quietly, mindful of the company we had.

"Until we can talk about yesterday, unfortunately, no. I have nothing better to do. Believe me, I'm just as happy about it as you are."

I frowned, thinking I can't have been the annoying one between us. He was the one following me around, if he didn't like it, he was welcome to leave me alone. "Well, then I hope you like Maths." I grumbled vitriolically. 

Twenty minutes later, Logan sat beside me in a two hundred person Mathematics lecture. He stuck out like a sore thumb among the students furiously taking notes and struggling to keep up with the professor, but to his credit, he stuck it out for the full hour. Walking out behind me, he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder when I turned away from the entrance. "What?" 

He raised a brow. "Did you forget about our date?" He drawled sarcastically.

I rolled my eyes, clutching my temple when it aggravated my headache. "Yeah, yeah. Just give me a minute to vomit out all that beer and we can go get breakfast."

I ducked into the bathroom down the hall without another word. Logan watched the clock warily, only easing up a bit when he finally saw me coming out of the bathroom and walking toward him. "You okay?" He broached carefully.

I waved off his question. "Fine." I clutched my stomach as it rumbled painfully. "Starving though."

"You were just sick." He pointed out.

"Exactly, and now my stomach's empty and I'm starving... like I said?" I looked at him in confusion, too hungry and too dehydrated to understand what he was getting at.

We walked out of the grounds and into the city, grabbing a table at a sandwich place nearby. I quickly placed a food and drink order since they had a student discount, Logan only ordering a coffee, and settled down at a table. 

Slinging my bag off my sore shoulder, I gestured to him tiredly. "Well? You wanted your serious, grown-up conversation, you have it. Now what do you want?"

He sighed, leaning forward with his elbows on the small table and his hands clasped together. "What you did yesterday saved a lot of lives," He began. I quickly opened my mouth to deny it and he beat me too it before I could let out a sound. "And don't even think about saying it wasn't you. I know it was and I'm not interested in playing games here."

I snapped my lips shut and crossed my arms, but listened to what he had to say anyway.

"The mutant who attacked you and those other students, his name is Magneto and we'd been after him a long time, until you helped us take him down." He leaned back a bit, watching me carefully like he had last night, like he was wondering how I would take the information. 

"Who's we?" I finally said. 

Logan smiled slightly, waiting to respond as the waiter approached and put a sandwich and two coffees down on the table. I thanked him quietly and turned back to the man across from me, digging into my breakfast as I listened warily.

"We're a group of mutants, we fight to protect our kind from humans... and sometimes, we have to protect the humans from our kind. We're called the X-Men."

I started to smile at the name, ready to say something childish about how stupid that was when I saw how serious he was, how... proud. I nodded. "Okay."

He took that as his cue to continue, just a bit of surprise in his eyes that I wasn't being as difficult as he expected. "That wall you made yesterday. It was strong enough to stop those projectiles and it was up in the blink of an eye. You're obviously strong, we want to know what else you can do."

I used the food I was chewing to put off giving a response for a moment. Then I said, "Why's it any of you or your... X-Men's business what I can do?"

Logan leaned forward again, a firm look on his face. "Because you could be making a real difference with that power, for people a lot less fortunate then yourself. And because if you ever find yourself in our brand of trouble, you can think of us like... a union."

"A union?" I echoed, earning a nod. I laughed quietly. "That all sounds very noble, but I have a degree to finish, it's not like I can just bunk off to go and fight crime."

"When's your last class today?" He asked in response. 

I frowned at the change of subject, but answered nonetheless. "11-1 then I'm done... why?"

He took a slow drink from his coffee. "Because I'd like to take you to meet the rest of the team. You'll find they're much better at selling this job than I am."

I put my hands up, wiping the crumbs of my finished sandwich from my fingers with a napkin. "Woah, woah. I did not sign up for that." I gestured between us. "This isn't a job interview, hun. This is me humoring you so you'll get off my ass and let me get back to my life."

He shrugged. "And if you want to do that, you can... after you meet the team."

"You can't be serious." All I got was a blank look that plainly said otherwise. I laughed a little stupefied. "I can't just pack up and go with some guy I just met to God knows where to meet a bunch of random people."

He leaned forward slightly, his voice rumbling across the table at me. "You're the one who helped us take down Magneto, and I don't just mean a little push. Without you there's a good chance he would have gotten away at best, at worst he could have gotten someone killed. Did you really think you could do what you did yesterday, no questions asked?"

I leaned forward as well, looking him in the eye. "Well excuse me for trying to do a good thing and then get on with my life."

Logan sighed, rubbing his brow. "Look, I'm not trying to ruin what you got going on, okay? I'm just asking you to give me a chance to show you something." I was caught off guard quite suddenly by how sincerely he spoke compared to seconds ago. Slumping back in my seat, I regarded him carefully for a long moment. That genuine look never faded.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hands. "Does it have to be today?"

"It's the weekend isn't it?" He retorted.

I scoffed, grabbing my coffee and clutching the warm cup between my cold fingers. "It didn't occur to you that I might have weekend plans?"

"Do you?"

I narrowed my eyes, looking away from him and on the street instead as I answered. "No..."