The XXX-Gene Ch. 72 (Marvel)

A/N: We get more info about Jean's death from a regretful source.

-x-X-x-

“Alright Laura, once we get in there, let me do the talking yeah?”

Laura frowns slightly but Cessily just gives her a look.

“I’m serious. You’re the foot in the door. We both know Logan can’t ignore you. But you’re also… well, you. If we don’t approach this with some tact, who knows how he’s going to react alright?”

The other female mutant just grunts at that, which Cessily chooses to take as agreement. The two of them are walking down one of the Institute’s many corridors, specifically the one that leads to the campus’ large garage. There, they’re sure to find Logan, aka Wolverine, working on one of his bikes. Not just because that was pretty much where he always was when he wasn’t roped into an X-Men mission or teaching a class, but also because they’d asked around and that was where he’d been seen last.

Having left Thaddeus behind after receiving a good, hard railing from him atop Storm’s desk, Cessily was more motivated than ever to succeed on this self-imposed mission. She needed to prove to Thaddeus that out of all of his allies, she was the most useful. She needed to cement her place at his side, no matter what.

Of course, one might think it weird that she was using her so-called ‘competition’ to help her on that front, given how close Laura and Thaddeus already were. But Cessily didn’t truly see Laura as a rival for Thaddeus’ attention or affection. In the end, Laura just wasn’t that kind of gal, and frankly Cessily was more than happy to share Thaddeus with her best friend.

That said, depending on what they found out from Logan… well, it would really influence what they were going to do next. There was no official information on what exactly went down that day when Jean died and Magneto went to prison. Cessily knew about as much as Thaddeus did at this point, maybe even less.

But Logan was there. Logan would know everything, hopefully.

Finally arriving, the two female mutants step into the garage practically hand in hand. Fortunately for their purposes, the garage is almost entirely empty… and indeed, the only person in it at the moment is the Wolverine himself. Down in a crouch working on a motorcycle, Logan is currently wearing a wife beater and blue jeans and if Cessily didn’t have Thaddeus to compare him to, she’d probably be enjoying the show more.

But the truth was, as hunky as Logan was, Thaddeus had him beat in pretty much every category. Height, age, looks, and even personality. That last part was why they had to tread very carefully here.

“Professor Logan! Fancy running into you here!”

Stiffening up, Logan glances over his shoulder at the two of them for a moment before grunting and going back to his work. But Cessily isn’t so easily dissuaded, especially not when she has questions she needs the answers to. Walking forward with Laura, she nudges the other woman pointedly, causing Laura to finally break her silence.

“Hey asshole. We want to talk.”

Cessily’s palm meets her currently silver face as she lets out a low sigh. She hasn’t let on to the rest of the Institute’s population that she’s ‘cured’ yet, truth be told. They don’t know that she can actually look and feel as human as she wants these days. Why is she keeping it a secret from all of them? Honestly, she’s not sure. It just doesn’t feel right to tell them.

Still, Laura’s blunt words were definitely not what they’d discussed ahead of arriving here. If they weren’t careful, Logan would shut down entirely!

“Yeah? Then talk.”

Orrrr he might respond to Laura’s bluntness positively! Cessily perks up, reaching out to place a hand on Laura’s arm to let her know to be quiet as she opens her mouth to begin easing Logan into the beginning of what will hopefully be such a gentle interrogation that he doesn’t even-

“We want to know how Jean Grey died.”

… Or not. Cessily glares daggers at Laura, but her closest friend is largely unbothered by the look that she’s drilling into the side of her head. Meanwhile, Logan has frozen up entirely. After a moment of silence, he lets out a long sigh before finally rising and turning to face them. Wiping his hands off with a rag, he narrows his eyes thoughtfully as he regards the both of them.

“Now why would you want to know something like that?”

Okay, this was still salvageable. Cessily just needed to get ahead of things and reframe the conversation as one of simple curiosity and they could still-

“Because there’s a chance she might still be alive.”

DAMN IT LAURA! Why had she thought it was a good idea to bring the other woman along on this venture?! Oh yeah, because Logan wasn’t likely to just give Cessily the time of day. Still…

“… Excuse me?”

Despite having nothing to really fear from the man given his firepower was literally just claws and she was kind of immune to slashing and piercing damage, Cessily nevertheless feels her nonexistent blood freezing in her nonexistent veins as the Wolverine goes deathly still and his voice takes on a low, low pitch.

Laura on the other hand… seems completely unbothered as she shrugs.

“Just answer the question old man. How did she die? Any chance of her surviving whatever did her in?”

Walking away from the motorcycle and right up to them both, Logan looks Laura in the eye and then glances up at Cessily.

“… No. No chance. We buried her. She was very much dead.”

And yet… there’s something in his voice that Cessily can’t help picking up on, maybe due to her unique physiology. What’s surprising is that Laura picks up on it too, crossing her arms over her chest and scoffing.

“You don’t fully believe that.”

It’s one thing for Laura to hear something in Logan’s voice… it’s another for her to actually be able to read what that something is. She’s really grown as a person ever since she met Thaddeus, hasn’t she?

“What killed her, old man? And how might she come back from it?”

At the same time, she’s still so painfully Laura in a lot of ways that it hurts. Cessily valiantly holds in the urge to groan, even as Logan remains quiet for a long moment before finally speaking.

“I did. I killed Jean.”

Okay… that was not what Cessily was expecting to hear. Her eyes are wide at this revelation, and Laura is as surprised as she is for a moment before frowning most severely.

“You had a good reason.”

It’s not a question, but a statement of fact. Laura is defending Logan’s actions without knowing anything more. Logan, meanwhile, looks like he’s not entirely sure he agrees with her.

“Heh, sure. I guess. Did it to save everyone else from her. So maybe I did have a good reason. Still find myself wondering sometimes though.”

That’s not something Cessily can just let slide.

“What do you mean by that? Why did you have to save everyone else from her in the first place? Wasn’t she on our side?”

Jean Grey was one of the original X-Men. She was Professor X’s right hand woman, his protégé and colleague in all things psychic. She was one of their best, one of their brightest. What the hell would cause her to turn on all of them? Why would she need to be put down by the Wolverine of all people?

Logan hesitates for a moment before his own eyes narrow. He looks between the two of them and crosses his arms over his chest. Him and Laura are heavily mirroring one another’s body language at the moment, but Cessily isn’t sure if the two shorties even realize it.

“Why are you both asking about this? What did you mean about there being a chance that she might still be alive?”

Damn it, the last thing they needed was for Logan to flip this interrogation around on them. Cessily definitely wasn’t giving up Thaddeus, and that meant not giving up Pryor either at the moment. At this point, she’s almost grateful for Laura stepping in again.

“Why? You scared of the thought, old man? You killed her once didn’t you? Can’t you just do it again?”

Logan snarls at that, taking a step forward and poking Laura hard enough in the chest to rock her back on her heels.

“That thing I put down wasn’t Jean by the end! I wouldn’t-!”

He cuts himself off, seeming to realize he’s said more than he should. Trying to capitalize on their sudden lead, Cessily makes a noise akin to clearing her nonexistent throat.

“Professor, what do you mean ‘that thing’? Just what had Jean become?”

For a moment, Logan looks like he’s not going to be put on the backfoot so easily. And then almost like someone cut his strings, he slumps and turns away, moving back over to the motorcycle.

“You girls are playing with fire here. So I’m only going to tell you what I’m going to tell you so you know not to fuck around any further, got it?”

Neither of them says a word one way or the other. Foolishly, Logan takes that silence as agreement.

“… Jean was powerful. Really powerful. According to the Professor, she was even stronger than him. But when they first met, she was younger and couldn’t control her power… so he put up mental blocks in her mind to help her learn to draw on only a small portion of said power.”

Cessily blinks, barely following along with all of this. Luckily Logan isn’t done explaining.

“Only, Charles didn’t fully understand what he was dealing with. Jean wasn’t just the strongest psychic he’d ever met; she was connected to something more powerful than anyone could have imagined. Something called the Phoenix Force. Don’t know much about the nitty gritty, but I do know one thing… it didn’t like being caged.”

Logan lets out a huff of laughter, even as he leans on the motorcycle in front of him for a moment before continuing on.

“When Magneto and his Brotherhood tried their bullshit, something went wrong. I dunno what exactly, but something knocked the Professor’s mental blocks loose and let the Phoenix out to play. Shit got bad fast. We all almost died. Would have, if not for Jean’s resistance. But Jean fought it. Jean fought hard enough to let me get close… and asked me to stop her. So I did. The fucking End.”

Pushing off of the bike, he turns to face them again.

“She’s gone. We buried her. End of story.”

Cessily half-expects Laura to bite back at that, but to her surprise the other female mutant doesn’t say a word. She just nods. Which is precisely what they needed at this point, because now that they’d gotten everything they wanted out of this conversation, it was time to get away before Logan started asking too many more uncomfortable questions.

Thankfully, he seems more than happy to let them go and stop drudging up the past. As they walk away, he returns to his motorcycle, though clearly with a lot more tension in his shoulders and back than before.

Well aware of the fact that Laura inherited her enhanced senses from the very man they just got done interrogating, Cessily doesn’t say a word until they’re out of the garage and out of the Institute altogether, striding down the campus’ long winding driveway towards the gates. Only once she’s sure they’re far enough away does she break the silence.

“So… he was totally secretly afraid that whatever this Phoenix Force thing was, it might be capable of bringing Jean Grey back to life and puppeting her, yeah?”

Laura just grunts and nods. It was kind of obvious, but asking Logan for clarification would have almost certainly had him continuing that line of thinking in ways that neither of them wanted him to.

“Still… if the Phoenix Force did bring her back, why the hell is she taking up a Professorship at a University of all things? Surely it would be… doing something else or something, I don’t know.”

Grunting again, Laura answers succinctly as they pass through the gates.

“Thaddeus.”

Cessily blanches at that. Fuck, she was right. It all came right back around, didn’t it? All these women slipping into the positions of Professors at the same time… it wasn’t a coincidence. Madelyn Pryor looking exactly like Jean Grey didn’t change the crux of the matter, which was that she was clearly there for Thaddeus for some reason. Whether she was Jean Grey or this Phoenix Force or something else entirely… it was Thaddeus that she truly wanted.

“… Let’s go tell Thaddeus what we learned. Maybe he’ll know where to go from here…”

-x-X-x-

This still felt dumb… and yet she was going to do it anyways. As she approaches the other woman’s office, Storm does her best to calm her emotions… and more importantly, guard her mind. She wasn’t naturally resistant to psychic powers like some mutants unfortunately, but that didn’t mean she was vulnerable either. People thought her mutation only allowed her to control the weather, but it was so much more than that. The power she wielded was down to such a fine level that she could use electrical currents to protect her mind from outside interference.

Of course, it wasn’t easy to keep going at all times, so it wasn’t a perfect defense by any stretch of the imagination. As well, she wasn’t so foolish as to believe that she would really be able to fight the Phoenix Force… if that was what had brought Jean back from the dead and this wasn’t some other kind of trick.

That’s why she had a bit of a backup arranged. If things didn’t go well here, then all of the information on Madelyne Pryor that Storm had gathered up so far would be sent to the Professor and the rest of the X-Men. Of course, if things went VERY poorly, then Storm herself might wind up disabling that contingency after falling under the Phoenix’s control. Which is why this was still a dumb idea.

But… better this than risking the others freaking out and going off the reservation on just a hunch and some suppositions. Storm would find out one way or another what the deal with Madelyne Pryor was… and then they would go from there.

Arriving at the door to the Biology Professor’s office, the weather-controlling mutant reaches out and knocks. After a moment, she hears a soft voice call for her to ‘come in’. Opening the door and stepping inside, Storm’s eyes inevitably land on the woman behind the desk.

She’s immediately struck by the similarities. If she hadn’t seen the woman die with her own eyes, if she hadn’t been at Jean’s funeral when they buried her… then she would truly believe the red head sitting in front of her now was her old friend.

Madelyne Pryor shows no signs of recognition, however, even as she looks up and blinks owlishly.

“… Yes? Can I help you?”

Storm smiles politely as she strides forward with an outstretched hand. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“I’m Professor Ororo Munroe, teaching multicultural studies. I just started this week and I heard you did as well. I thought I’d introduce myself, if you’re not too busy.”

Madelyne Pryor’s eyes light up at that and she rises from her seat to take Storm’s hand.

“Oh! How exciting… and no, I’m not too busy. I’d love to chat with you! Please, have a seat.”

Sitting down in the chair across from the other woman, Storm tries not to let her nerves show. So far so good… but that didn’t mean they were out of the woods. Not yet.