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Chapter 9: The Value Of Pounding
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"You've got potential," Wolverine stated, walking over and looking down at the panting young man. "No technique to speak of. But your power… It's a hell of a force multiplier. You come here every other day. Train with the other newbies. We'll beat some skill into that thick skull of yours."
Adam, still trying to catch his breath, looked up and managed a tired but genuine smile. "I'd… like that. Thank you."
Jean approached as Wolverine stalked off, a look of quiet satisfaction on his face.
She knelt beside Adam, her expression warm. "How did it feel?"
Adam let out a breathless laugh, lying back on the cool floor and staring at the cavernous ceiling. "It was… fun. A new experience."
The adrenaline, the focus, the sheer physicality of it; it was a brutal, painful kind of fun, but it was a feeling he had never truly known.
"Maybe Hydra had turned me into a masochist?" He would chuckle, his way of dark jokes leaving Jean speechless yet again.
"Ok, just joking. I think they created a villain. I may be a sadist because god did punching things feel so good," He laughed in amusement.
Jean couldn't help but giggle. She could feel it. The chaotic storm within him had subsided, replaced by a clean, post-exertion exhaustion.
The anxiety and stress that perpetually coiled in his gut had been, for a moment, burned away in the fire of the fight.
He seemed… lighter, "I'm glad."
[He's actually happy. After all that, a spar with Wolverine is what makes him smile.]
[This is his version of therapy. Getting the shit kicked out of him by a friendly Canadian.]
[Jean's mom-energy is off the charts right now.]
After a long shower that washed away the sweat and grime, and a few hours of rest to replenish his energy, Adam was directed to another part of the mansion.
It was Forge's domain.
The workshop was a chaotic symphony of invention. It was less a room and more a technological ecosystem.
Workbenches were buried under tangles of wires, disassembled energy cores, and circuit boards that glowed with soft, inner light.
Half-built exoskeletons hung from chains, and schematics were holographically projected in the air, rotating slowly.
The smell of ozone, hot metal, and coffee hung thick in the air. Adam's eyes widened slightly. Some of the technology here was years, if not decades, ahead of what he knew from his past life.
It was early 2008, but in the Marvel Universe, that was clearly just a number.
Forge stood at a central console, his back to the door. He was a tall, well-built man with a stern, focused expression and a mechanical right hand and leg, artifacts of the Vietnam War.
He didn't turn around as Adam entered.
"Professor X sent word," Forge said, his voice a low baritone. "Said I had a student. I'm not a teacher. I don't have the patience for it, and I don't like wasting my time."
He finally turned, his dark eyes appraising Adam with a cool, clinical detachment.
"But Charles doesn't make requests like this lightly. It means he owes you, or he thinks I do. So, what are your qualifications? Convince me not to send you back to the library."
Adam met his gaze, the initial intensity in his own eyes softening into a bright, earnest expression.
He wasn't offended by the bluntness; he was blunt himself.
"My qualifications are a decade of theoretical study stolen from my captors' databases and a deep, abiding passion,"
Adam said, his smile not faltering. "I've always dreamt of being an engineer. I've read everything I could and learned a lot. But I am acutely aware that reading and doing are worlds apart. There is still an immense amount I need to learn."
He took a step forward, his shameless ambition clear in his eyes. "The Professor said you're the best. So, please, take care of me from now on."
He had no shame, and his explanation wasn't much of an explanation. His qualifications are theoretical, so he brought the Professor's name.
He did, after all, promise him, and Adam knows that the information he provided is worth a lot.
Forge stared at him for a long, silent moment. He can tell this kid is gonna be hella annoying.
"Theoretical study, huh?" Forge gestured to a messy workbench covered in the components of a malfunctioning wide-band sensor array. "That thing's been on the fritz for a week. The damping field is unstable, and it keeps overloading the tertiary couplers. The schematics are in the terminal. Tell me what's wrong with it. You have one hour before I lose interest."
Adam's smile didn't fade as he approached the terminal, his fingers already itching to dive into those juicy pieces of metal and code.
There is a reason he awakened Cyberpathy, his deep love for Engineering and machines. You can even say that he's Cybersexual.
[Wait, what?]
[Tf is this narrator on about?]
Time waited for no one, but if it taught Adam one thing, It was that violence is fun.
That was the singular, unsettling truth Adam had settled into after a month at the Xavier Institute.
His overarching goal; to become Absolute, an entity beyond suffering; was the engine that drove him forward, a cold star of purpose in the void of his existence.
Without it, he would have long since concluded that the game wasn't worth the candle.
But the world itself was a source of constant, low-grade terror.
Superheroes. Villains. Vampires and werewolves hiding in the shadows. Mutants who could rewrite reality with a stray thought.
And above it all, the whispered concepts of cosmic entities and organizations like the Time Variance Authority.
They could, on a whim, snap a divergent timeline; and him with it; out of existence like a gardener pruning an errant branch.
He was a speck, a fragile, biological glitch in a universe of gods and monsters.
The feeling of powerlessness was a poison in his veins.
So, he worked. He threw himself into the only things that offered a semblance of control: knowledge and violence.
His days were a brutal cycle. Mornings began with grueling physical conditioning.
Then, hours in Forge's workshop, his mind absorbing advanced engineering principles like a sponge, his hands learning the feel of technology that bordered on magic.
Evenings were spent in the library, devouring texts on physics, metaphysics, and history.
He slept in short, fitful bursts, his body pushed to its absolute limit.
Anything less felt like a betrayal of his goal, a slide back into the passive suffering of his captivity.
It was an obsession, and he knew it. But he couldn't stop.
First, he genuinely loved the intricate puzzle of technology.
Second, a deep-seated, clinical OCD refused to let him rest until a project reached a state of satisfactory completion.
He needed to feel he was pushing himself harder than anyone else, because that was the only path to Absolute.
But the pressure was immense, a constant, screaming weight on his psyche.
He had lived two lives, yet one could argue he had lived none; from a hospital bed to a lab rat's cage.
What was the point of it all if not for some form of happiness?
He had found his answer in the Danger Room. In the controlled, cathartic release of violence.
The feeling of his fists connecting, the strain of his muscles, the hyper-focused state of a fight; it burned away his anxiety and stress.
If there is something he still fears in this godforsaken world, it would be the inability to kill himself when necessary.
There are, unfortunately, too many broken entities that can deprive him of the ability to end his own existence if he faces capture or imprisonment.
That's the only flaw that preserved a little fear in his otherwise fearless heart.
Professor X, sensing his need for a controlled outlet, had been accommodating.
This is why Adam is in his room, first thing in the morning, wrecking a heavy-duty punching bag suspended from his ceiling.
THUMP. THUMP-THUMP. CRACK.
The rhythm was relentless. Each strike was a release, a physical manifestation of his will.
The impact traveled up his arms, a satisfying jolt that grounded him in his body.
Punch after punch, kick after kick, he poured all his stress into the synthetic leather. God, it felt good.
The circumstances of this life and his previous left him, unfortunately, a virgin, but he was more certain that this was just as fun as the other type of pounding.
[Okay, but the sheer rage in those punches. What did that bag do to him?]
[It existed. That's enough for our boy.]
[Why is he so horney? His thoughts are literally an encyclopedia of sexual sayings.]
[Yeah, noticed that too. But I think it's more so weird and dark humor, no? It's fitting, I'd say.]
Adam's mouth couldn't help but twitch. The fuck are they talking about?
He might as well have erectile dysfunction because sex is the last thing on his mind in this fucked up world.
He really believes that in... Well, the penetration process, he'd go soft just imagining his partner as the corpse she will be in the future, because everyone fucking dies here.
It would remind him that he doesn't have time to pound something other than a punching bag. At least the latter makes him stronger.