**08.30 something, 21 March 1996, Undisclosed location aka Wade can't read the fucking map he is not fucking Rainbolt.**
LOGAN
The service door hissed shut behind them, sealing out the cold winter wind and sealing in the stench. Logan's nostrils flared, sorting through the olfactory chaos. Beneath the sharp tang of spilled disinfectant and ozone from sparking wires, he found it. The musky, rotten-meat scent of the Wendigos. Dozens of them. The hair on his arms stood up.
"Home sweet home," Wade chirped, his voice echoing slightly in the sterile, dimly lit corridor. He took an exaggerated sniff and immediately gagged. "Ugh. This smell always gives me the heebie-jeebies."
"Focus, kid," Logan growled, his voice barely a whisper.
He moved forward in a low crouch. The emergency lights cast long, dancing shadows, making every shape a potential threat. To their left, a window looked into a lab that had been utterly ravaged, glass and papers scattered everywhere, dark brown stains smeared across the floor.
They were halfway to a T-junction when a guttural snarl ripped through the silence. Not from ahead, but from a ventilation shaft above them.
A pale, gaunt figure dropped down, blocking their path. Then another. And another, until five of the skeletal Wendigos had them surrounded, their glowing eyes full of mindless hunger.
"Showtime! LFG!" Wade yelled, his twin pistols appearing in his hands as he started shooting..
Logan didn't waste breath and put out his own claws..
Shink.
The first Wendigo lunged.
Logan met it head-on, ducking under its swiping claws and driving his own up through its jaw.
The creature gurgled, collapsing.
He yanked his claws free in a spray of black blood.
"Eww! That is gnarly! Do it again! Do it again!"
Two more came at him from either side.
He took a raking blow to his ribs, gritting his teeth against the flash of pain that instantly began to fade, and spun, severing the arm of the one on his left before kicking it back into its companion.
Bang! Bang-bang!
Wade was busy shooting the other one.
He backflipped off a wall to avoid a lunge, firing two rounds point-blank into a Wendigo's face.
"Headshot! Booyah!"
It staggered, and Logan finished it with a swift decapitation.
"Keep it down kid!" Logan snarled, parrying another set of claws.
"Can't help it! It's in my DNA! The author already coded it in right next to the crippling depression and awesome hair! WHICH I THANKFUL FOR!!! DONT YOU DARE TAKE IT AWAY!!! I DON'T WANT TO WEAR A FUCKING HORRENDOUS TOUPE!" He dove into a roll, coming up firing under the legs of a charging Wendigo. "C'mon, you overgrown Q-tip! Time to make the chimi-fuckin'-changas!"
"I told you to keep it down!!!"
"The Lion did not concern himself with his father's stupid order."
"Fuck you!"
"I love you too Pops!"
The last Wendigo fell to a coordinated strike–Wade's bullet to its knee slowed it down just enough for Logan to plunge his claws deep into its chest. From the depths of the facility, answering roars began to sound, drawing closer.
"Great," Logan muttered, shaking gore from his claws. "You just had to ring the dinner bell."
"Hey! It's not my fault that I am highly sought after! Thor once cried for me in the future, I'll have you know!"
"Server room should be down this hall," Logan said, wiping black blood from his claws on his pants. "And keep your damn voice down this time."
"Hey, my voice is a national treasure!" Wade protested, though he did lower it to a dramatic whisper. "It's been scientifically proven to increase combat effectiveness by at least... Okay, I made that up. But I think it is gotta be at least true if people commit suicide so they don't want to hear you talk ever again!"
"Somehow I agreed with your bullshit this time, Wade."
They moved quickly down the corridor. The server room's reinforced door was slightly ajar. Logan shoved it open, revealing a scene of total destruction. Server racks were toppled, wires snaked across the floor, and the central processing unit had a massive dent in it, sparks fizzing from a crack.
"Ooh, we're gonna be here for a long time," Wade quipped, darting to the one console that still had a flicker of power. His fingers flew across the keyboard. "Okay, okay, accessing the primary data cache... This is giving me serious flashbacks to dial-up wait, actually this is the dial up era, FUCK. The struggle is real, people!"
Logan peered over his shoulder, his brow furrowed. "The backup partition. Try to bypass the main OS. It's a military-grade system, probably has a failsafe."
Wade stopped typing and stared at him. "Since when do you hack? I thought your idea of tech support was stabbing it until it worked."
"Just because I prefer the direct approach doesn't mean I don't know how it works, kid," Logan grunted, nudging Wade aside. His own fingers, calloused and thick, began typing with surprising speed and precision. "You're going too slow; the corruption is spreading."
"Whoa, okay, Mr. 1337 H4x0r," Wade said, a grin in his voice. He moved to a secondary terminal, his own hands flying again. "Alright, new plan! I'll create a partition bridge from here to isolate the data stream. You force a hard dump from the core. Maybe we can salvage the raw data before the whole thing cascades."
"On it," Logan said, his focus intense. For a moment, the only sounds were the frantic clacking of keys and the ominous, growing roars from the halls. "70%... 75% transfer..."
The screen flickered violently. Lines of download dissolved into static. "No, no, no!" Wade shouted. "The core is fried! We're losing it!"
Logan slammed a fist on the console. "Damn it! We got about three-quarters, but the synthesis matrix is gone. It's a bust. I hope they didn't back out of our agreement because of this."
"We are not getting paid are we?"
The frustration in the room was a physical weight. All this risk, for a corrupted file.
"Hey! Maybe if we–"
Before Wade could finish his sentence, the wall opposite them vaporized in a storm of concrete dust and screaming rebar. Standing in the new, giant doorway, chest heaving and eyes burning with pure, undiluted rage, was the Hulk dragging a wendigo's body.
"Ruh, roh!"
"STUPID CLAW MAN! STUPID TALKING BOY!" the Hulk bellowed, the force of his voice shaking the room. "HULK REMEMBER YOU! HULK SMASH!"
"I'm Marvel Jesus, you dull creature, and I will not—"
Hulk took a thunderous step forward, the floor groaning under his weight, and backhanded Wade with the wendigo's body. The impact sent the boy flying across the room like a ragdoll, crashing through the one intact server rack with the sound of screeching metal and sparking components.
"Ugh, my back… why is it always my back!"
"Wade!" Logan roared, his gut clenching.
He dropped into a slide, dodging a massive swipe from Hulk, and drove his adamantium claws upward, deep into the Hulk's thigh.
It was like trying to pierce a mountain, but adamantium was the one thing on Earth that could pierce anything.
This was not an exception to that rule.
The claws sank in several inches.
A roar, not just of anger but of genuine, sharp pain, erupted from the Hulk.
A single drop of shockingly red blood welled around the wounds, which immediately began to steam and close, pushing the metal claws out.
"Claw man hurt Hulk... HULK RIP OFF CLAW MAN'S HEAD!" With a grunt of contempt, Hulk's other hand shot out and closed like a hydraulic press around Logan's head, lifting him completely off the ground.
Pressure. Immense, crushing pressure. Logan's skull, reinforced with adamantium, wouldn't break, but the muscles in his neck screamed.
His vision swam at the edges.
He clawed desperately at the massive green fingers, but it was useless.
The Hulk won't budge and even increase the pressure.
"ARRRGHH!"
From the corner of his eye, he saw Wade pushing himself out of the wreckage, one arm dangling at a sickening angle and his spine not doing so much better either.
"POPS!"
"Stand down, Wade!" Logan gritted out, his voice choked.
He knew more taunts would only get the kid killed and cause more destruction around the data they need to retrieve.
Brute force was fucking suicide at this moment.
He had to outthink the beast.
"STUPID CLAW MAN! HULK IS THE STRONGEST!"
Well, it's better than nothing.
Logan stopped struggling. "We'll surrender!" he grunted, the words fighting their way past the constriction in his throat. "We yield! We won't fight you! You won!"
Hulk paused, his grip loosening a fraction. He pull Logan to his eye level. "NO MORE FIGHT?"
"No more fight," Logan gasped, going completely limp in his grasp. He met the Hulk's raging eyes. "You win. You're the strongest."
A slow, triumphant grin spread across Hulk's face. The anger bled away, replaced by simple, smug satisfaction. "HULK STRONGEST." He opened his hand, letting Logan drop to the floor in a heap. "CLAW MAN NOT SO STUPID."
As the immediate threat and the thrill of the fight vanished, so did the rage that fueled him. The Hulk grunted, looking down at his own shrinking hands with a puzzled expression. His form began to shudder and shrink. The vibrant green faded, the massive muscles receded, and where the unstoppable monster had stood, a shivering, naked, and utterly bewildered Bruce Banner now stood, blinking in the dust-filled air.
"What... where..." Banner stammered, wrapping his arms around himself against the cold. His eyes darted from the giant hole in the wall, to Logan getting shakily to his feet while casting a worried glance at the sparking servers, to Wade, whose arm and spine was now fully functional again as he brushed dust off his suit.
"Welcome back, Doc," Wade said, giving a little wave.
"You sure know how to make an entrance. And an exit. Mostly an entrance. A really loud, wall-shattering one. Literally!"
"Banner," Logan said, his voice rough but lacking its earlier aggression. "You with us?"
Bruce Banner hugged himself tighter, his eyes wide with disorientation and a familiar, deep-seated horror. "I... I am. What happened? The other guy… I don't remember…"
"You don't say," Wade chimed in, slapping dust from his suit. "We noticed. Your green side has a real flair for dramatic demolition. And a very childish personality. Which is something when I said it as I was both childish and a child."
"Wade…"