Chapter 66: The Doctor from Hell

On their way back through the corridors, they encountered Dr. Henry McCoy emerging from his laboratory. The scientist looked up from his tablet, and Jay had to do a double-take. The guy was human now, sporting this wild blue mane that flowed like water when he moved his head. When he saw them, his face lit up with genuine warmth.

Hank grinned, extending a massive hand that still moved with careful precision. "Well, I'll be a monkey's... ah, poor choice of words. Jay, isn't it? Good to see you again."

Jay returned to his normal form and shook hands. "Hey, Doc. Rocking the new look?"

He gestured at his reflection in a nearby monitor, chuckling. "Three weeks human and I still reach for things expecting these massive paws. Yesterday I tried to pick up a test tube and nearly crushed it—forgot I don't have that strength anymore."

The lying to the X-Men about his true identity still stung, as did the theft of Sage's powers. But Hank couldn't deny that Jay had kept his word about giving him his human form back when he needed it most.

Hank's expression grew thoughtful. "The strangest part? I actually miss some of it. But being able to blend in again, to walk down a street without stares..." He shrugged, the gesture carrying years of complicated feelings. "It's worth the trade-off."

"Good to hear."

As they walked back toward the main levels, Jay could hear voices from the mansion's main hall—the low rumble of serious conversation punctuated by Steve's distinctive Brooklyn accent.

In the main hall, an unlikely gathering had formed around the mansion's central fireplace. Fury sat in a wingback chair, a cup of coffee growing cold in his hands. Steve stood by the tall windows, looking out at the grounds. The remaining X-Men clustered nearby—Scott and Jean whispering together, Ororo perched gracefully on the arm of a sofa, Kurt walking nervously from spot to spot.

Jay entered quietly, reading the room's tension like a roadmap. "How'd the deal go?"

Fury's slight nod carried the weight of difficult negotiations. "Xavier and I have reached an understanding. Cerebro will help us identify whose allegiance lies with Hydra."

But Steve's attention was elsewhere. He kept glancing at Logan, who was sprawled in a chair by the fire, apparently oblivious to everything around him. The weight of recognition without reciprocation was written across Steve's features like a slow-bleeding wound.

Jay studied Steve's face—saw the loneliness there, the desperate need for connection to something, anything, from his past. "What's eating you so much?"

Steve's voice carried the exhaustion of a man who'd outlived his entire world. "It's hard, thinking about everyone you've lost. Peggy's on her deathbed in a hospital in DC. Bucky's been turned into a brainwashed assassin for Hydra. And now James..." He gestured helplessly at Logan, pain evident in every line of his body. "It's like they took away everything that proved I existed before the ice."

Jay felt an unexpected pang of sympathy. For all his power and knowledge, he'd never lost an entire lifetime of connections. He'd never woken up to find everyone he loved either dead or transformed beyond recognition.

The silence stretched until Jay finally broke it. "Professor, why haven't you tried to restore Logan's memories? Psychic surgery should be well within your capabilities."

Xavier's expression remained neutral, but Jay caught the careful non-answer. The old man was still keeping his distance—hard to blame him when it had only been three days since Doom's broadcast. Three days since the world learned Jay was the Power Broker. Three days since Xavier realized how completely he'd been lied to.

The Professor's hands stayed perfectly still on his desk instead of their usual gestures. His eyes didn't quite meet Jay's directly.

Hank spoke up, his scientific mind overriding political considerations. "We would need to remove the adamantium bullet first. But Logan's adamantium skull has grown around it completely. The indestructibility of the material makes surgical extraction impossible."

Jay tilted his head, considering the problem from multiple angles. "Why haven't you asked Kitty to phase the bullet out?"

Scott's voice was ice-cold steel, each word precise and cutting. "You stay out of this. Your actions have already put the mutant community's image back by decades."

Jay shot back, taking a step forward, his own anger finally surfacing. "I'm the one who put a positive light on mutants in the first place."

Scott moved to match him, hands tensing at his sides, ruby visor gleaming with barely restrained power. "By lying to everyone. By making deals in shadows while we fought for acceptance in the open. You made us all look like fools."

"I made you all look human."

"We are human, you arrogant—"

Xavier's voice carried psychic weight that made both men step back involuntarily. "Gentlemen." He paused, regaining his composure. "More importantly, Kitty's phasing abilities aren't refined enough for such delicate work. She's still young, and the trauma she'd have to deal with if there's an error when dealing with brain tissue, even Logan's..."

But Scott's jaw was still clenched, his visor reflecting Jay's face like he was targeting him. The tension between them crackled like a live wire, years of philosophical differences condensed into mutual distrust.

Jay interrupted, his voice cutting through the political tensions. "Since I can't stand seeing Cap looking like someone kicked his dog, I'll do you all a favor and remove the bullet myself."

Colossus stepped directly into Jay's path, his skin shifting to organic steel with the sound of grinding metal. "You will not steal Kitty's powers. Not while I draw breath."

Jay looked into the young man's protective eyes and grinned with genuine respect. "Aww." He turned to Coulson with mock sentimentality. "Look at young love, Phil. All pure and noble."

Coulson's cheeks reddened slightly. "I'm not sure this is—"

Jay turned back to Colossus, his expression shifting to something more sincere. "I don't need Kitty's powers. Your heart's in the right place, Piotr."

He looked over at Logan, studying the older man's weathered features. "What'll it be, bub? Your call."

Logan studied Jay for a long moment, then glanced at Steve's hopeful face. The old soldier was practically vibrating with the need to connect with someone—anyone—from his past. Logan might not remember their history, but he could recognize pain when he saw it.

Logan growled, taking a long pull from his beer. "Hell. What's the worst that could happen?" He shot a look at Scott with a grin that was all teeth. "Kid starts messin' with anyone's powers, you blast him with those laser eyes."

Scott started automatically. "They're not lasers, they're—"

Logan cut him off with a laugh. "I know what they are."

Twenty minutes later, Logan was seated in Hank's laboratory in a specially reinforced medical chair. The observation deck above was packed with worried faces—X-Men, SHIELD agents, and one very nervous Captain America all watching through reinforced glass.

Hank wheeled a cart of surgical instruments forward, his movements precise despite his unfamiliar human hands. "Now, the procedure will require careful—"

"I don't need them," Jay said, rolling up his sleeves. "Logan, extend your claws."

Logan's voice carried a hint of uncertainty for the first time. "You sure about this, bub?"

"Trust me. I'm The Doctor after all."

Logan's claws slid out with their characteristic snikt, the sound echoing in the sterile laboratory.

Jay reached out and touched the gleaming adamantium.

The change hit him different this time. Where diamond had been cold and crystalline, adamantium was heat—molten metal flowing through his veins like liquid fire. His bones felt like they were melting and reforming, heavier than lead but somehow still flexible.

The weight was incredible. His arm dropped a few inches before his muscles adjusted, and when he flexed his fingers, he could feel the density in every movement. This was unbreakable. Immovable. The metal that could cut through anything.

But then Jay concentrated on his Adaptation perk, remembering Kevin's limb-shaping from Ben 10—how he could precisely mold absorbed materials into exactly what he needed.

His index finger elongated and narrowed into a precision drill bit, while his middle finger flattened into a delicate extraction tool. Years of medical training and nursing experience guided the transformation—he knew exactly what instruments he needed for this kind of procedure. The adamantium responded to his will, forming the perfect surgical implements.

The knowledge came from his medical knowledge. Angles of approach, drilling speed, how to extract foreign objects from brain tissue without causing trauma. His nursing experience had taught him these procedures, and now he had the tools to perform them.

Jay examined his transformed fingers with professional satisfaction. "Well. Guess we found a solution."

He looked up at the observation deck where terrified faces stared down at him. "Everyone might want to look away."

He began to drill.

Logan's screams echoed through the basement laboratory as Jay worked with methodical efficiency. In the observation deck, Steve gripped the railing until his knuckles went white. This was his fault—his desperate need for connection had put Logan through this agony.

Years of medical training kicked in—angle of entry, pressure distribution, avoiding major blood vessels. The adamantium drill spun with inhuman precision.

Blood spattered across Jay's improvised surgical suit. The drill generated sparks and heat, filling the air with the acrid smell of burning metal and organic tissue.

In the observation deck, several X-Men looked away. Jean covered her mouth, psychic empathy making her feel echoes of Logan's pain. Coulson went pale, one hand pressed against the glass. Even Fury's iron composure cracked slightly.

But Jay never wavered. This was surgery, not torture. Every movement calculated, every adjustment based on decades of combined medical experience from minds he'd touched.

Finally, with a wet pop that echoed through the sterile chamber, he extracted the bullet.

Logan's healing factor immediately began closing the wound, but the hole in his adamantium skull remained—a permanent reminder of the procedure.

The lab was a disaster zone. Fire licked at broken equipment, blood splattered the walls like abstract art, and gore dripped from the ceiling where Jay's drilling had sent brain matter flying. Smoke filled the air, mixing the smell of burning electronics with something far worse. What used to be the mansion's pristine medical facility now looked like the aftermath of a massacre.

Jay held up the bloody bullet, his adamantium form splattered with gore and still smoking from friction heat. He flashed a thumbs up at the observation deck, grinning like a maniac through the reinforced glass.

The image was straight out of a horror movie—a metallic figure covered in blood and fire, holding up a bullet like a trophy in what looked like hell's operating room. Several X-Men would need therapy after this.

But Logan wasn't paying attention to the carnage anymore. His eyes were changing—pupils dilating and contracting as if he was seeing light for the first time in years.

It started as a flicker—confusion giving way to something deeper. A name surfaced from nowhere: Sarah. Then another: John. Faces began forming in his mind, voices calling from across decades of stolen time.

The memories didn't come gently. They crashed into his consciousness like a dam breaking, each one carrying the weight of suppressed emotion. His childhood in the Canadian wilderness. The first time his claws emerged. Military service. Betrayal. Pain. Loss. Love found and lost again.

Logan's breathing became ragged as sixty years of experiences flooded back. His hands shook as phantom pains from long-healed wounds made his nervous system fire in sympathy. Every person he'd killed. Every friend who'd died. Every woman he'd loved and lost.

His face cycled through confusion, recognition, joy, grief, and finally... white-hot rage at all the stolen years.

Then he looked up and saw Steve through the observation window.

Recognition hit him like lightning. Not just the face, but the memory of friendship. Of shared foxholes and terrible coffee and watching each other's backs when the world was trying to kill them both.

Logan's voice started as a whisper, thick with decades of suppressed emotion. "Steve." Then louder, a roar that shook the blood-splattered walls and carried seventy years of brotherhood: "STEVE!"

Logan launched himself from the chair, still bleeding, his healing factor working overtime. He caught Steve in a bear hug that would have cracked normal ribs, both men trembling with the weight of recovered connection.

Steve's voice broke with relief and grief and joy all tangled together. "James. God, I missed you. I missed everyone."

Logan pulled back but kept his hands on Steve's shoulders, studying his friend's face like he was memorizing it. "It's Logan now. Been Logan for a long time. But yeah..." His voice grew thick with emotion. "Yeah, I remember. The Commandos. The war. All of it."

But then the weight of all those recovered memories hit him again. Logan's face crumpled as he remembered not just Steve, but everyone else they'd lost. Bucky's fall. Dum Dum's funeral. The way Jim Morita had died calling for his mother.

Steve saw the pain in his old friend's eyes and pulled him close again. "I know. I know it hurts. But you're not alone anymore."

Logan's voice was muffled against Steve's shoulder. "Feels like I buried them all twice now. Once when they died, and again when I forgot."

The observation deck had gone completely silent. Even the X-Men who'd known Logan for years had never seen him this vulnerable, this human. This was a man rediscovering not just his past, but his capacity for grief.

Jay watched the reunion from the laboratory floor, still in adamantium form, still covered in blood. The weight of what he'd just done—giving these two soldiers back their shared past.

His voice was peppier than usual when he spoke. "Well. Anyone else need brain surgery? I'm on a roll here."

The horrified silence from the observation deck was answer enough, but it was broken by something unexpected—Logan's laughter, rough and broken.