FIC: Beast (Chapter 1 of 8)
Title: Beast (Chapter 1 of 8)
Author: jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: Mild PG, for angst and adult situations.
Characters: Emphasis on Beast, with support from various other characters.
Setting: Mainly mid- to post-X2.
Summary: The personal journey of Henry McCoy-as a mutant, and as a man.
Disclaimer: Marvel and Fox create the characters that sell. Nora is mine, and so is Kristen, who has appeared in several of my stories.
Notes: In X2, there is a brief cameo by a non-furry character who is identified as being Hank McCoy. This seems to support the novelization by Chris Claremont, in which Hank’s bestial mutation is caused by Professor X’s psychic attack on mutantkind. That concept has always intrigued me, especially after I saw and loved Kelsey Grammer’s portrayal of Beast in X3. It lurked in the back of my mind for a long time-until my friend Wabbitseason gave me the idea that Hank’s blue fur might really have been a secondary development. After a few weeks in which I was unable to shake the thought, I finally sat down and began to write. Five months later, this is the result.
If you tilt this story at a slight angle, you can easily fit it in with the events of X3. For the record, I personally do not. I acknowledge nothing of that misbegotten film except Hank himself.
PROLOGUE
When he stood in the bright morning light of Charles Xavier’s office and waited, nervously studying a painting through his reading glasses, no one knew what he felt; or at least, no one would have expected it of him. Not from the colleague who, with the possible past exception of Erik Lehnsherr, was the closest in the world to Charles. Not from the dedicated mutant-rights advocate who knew as well as anyone the acceptance and tolerance built into the Xavier School with every brick.
Yet before one can believe that others will accept a great change, one must come to terms with the change for one’s self.
But then the door opened, and Ororo came in, and she rushed to throw her arms around him in joyous welcome… and suddenly, nothing had changed at all.
“I love what you’ve done with your hair,” she said-and only someone who had known them both for many years would understand how perfect and right the words were, when they might have seemed a cruel joke from anyone else. How the warmth of the tease and the twinkle in her eye had not sharpened his self-consciousness, but instead had swept it away, and made him feel that he was home in a way he never had before.
It made him feel glad to be one of them.
CHAPTER I
Henry McCoy was a mutant.
It was hardly anything to speak of, really. His mutation manifested itself as nothing more than an enhanced physical strength, and even that was not overly impressive by mutant standards. The trait had almost no effect on his life-except that it made him even more sensitive to the cause he had already devoted his life to. It was Charles Xavier’s teaching and friendship that had instilled a passion for mutant rights in him, long before he ever imagined just how personal the subject would become.
In fact, it was in saving Charles’ life that he found out.
The mountain-climbing trip had been Charles’ idea. He was an experienced old hand at the sport, eager to share an adventure with his student and friend. Hank was nothing more than an unskilled and reluctant young amateur, who resisted the better judgment that quietly urged him to back out of the whole affair.
The mistake that nearly cost them both their lives, and did cost Charles the use of his legs… that was his contribution.
But so was the new and frightening strength that had enabled him to dig Charles out from beneath several feet of snow, and free him from the fallen tree that pinned him, and carry him back down to their base camp-all on his own.
That was many years ago now. Charles had forgiven him with his first words after the accident, but Hank had never completely divested himself of the guilt he felt. He knew it drove him to work harder, fighting to bring about Charles’ idealistic dreams for the world. It was a strange quest for redemption from a sin that only he counted against himself.
Affectionately they called him Beast. It was due in part to his strength, but more for his work ethic-the fierce and inexhaustible way he threw himself into every task he took on. He accepted the nickname with a sort of embarrassed flattery, for it could not have been less appropriate to his outward appearance: that of a robust and broad-shouldered but entirely unassuming gentleman, just settling into urbane middle age. His mutation had not altered him visibly.
Except for that nagging ghost of guilt he carried, Hank was a happy man. He was ridiculously well educated: medicine, science, psychology, and literature were all fields in which he excelled. His sophisticated charm and dry sense of humor appealed to people of every age and class, serving him equally well as a bedside manner or public-relations weapon. His days at the Lefkowitz Institute for Mutant Health were pleasantly torn between research and the day-to-day work of helping newly manifested mutants adjust, both physically and mentally. His achievements were well recognized, and he was now being consulted often as an expert on both the medical and political ramifications of mutation.
…And then there was Nora.
“You’ve been quiet,” she murmured softly in the dark, brushing her slim fingers across his chest.
With a contented sigh, Hank captured her hand in his, turning slightly to face her impish smile. “I was just thinking.”
In the two years since she had entered his life as a nurse and laboratory assistant, Nora Tanner had been a partner to him in every possible sense of the word. She kept pace with the leaps and bounds of his professional mind, without ever losing herself in scientific minutiae as he occasionally did-and when those leaps briefly got ahead of his own compassion, her gentleness took up the slack. When he became so intent on his work that he forgot to eat, she spent almost as much time looking after him as she did assisting him. He could pour out before her all his ideas, for everything from a new gene-therapy treatment to a mutant-rights speech; she would listen with attentive interest, and then give him honest, insightful feedback.
It didn’t matter that she was quite conclusively a non-mutant, with no trace of the X-gene in her. Mutants were simply fellow human beings to her, and that was all that mattered. That was the kind of person she was.
Hank remembered the night they had spent in the laboratory, waiting to see how a bacterial culture would react to a certain protein compound. The experiment was ultimately forgotten and spoiled; they had discovered far more interesting reactions to explore that night.
“What did you ever see in me, Nora?” he asked lazily, drawing her closer.
“Nothing much.” Nora smiled playfully and planted a kiss on his bare shoulder. “But I couldn’t stop myself-you’re habit-forming. I think it must be part of your mutation.”
His lips twitched as he raised an eyebrow. “That might be an interesting area of research.”
“Mm-hmm…”
At that moment, Hank’s cellphone trilled from the floor somewhere beside the bed. He stifled a protesting groan as he leaned over and felt for it. Frantic calls in the dead hours before dawn were nothing new to him, but he had hoped that for at least one night…
“McCoy speaking,” he answered in his most professional tone, after locating the phone at last.
To his surprise, a young girl’s trembling voice responded. “Doctor McCoy, it’s-it’s Kitty. Kitty Pryde.” She paused for an audibly shaking breath. “Soldiers came to the school-there was shooting-I think they caught some of the others-”
“What?” Swallowing back a string of expletives, Hank reached for his shirt. “Where are your teachers?”
“The Professor and Mr. Summers went to visit Magneto… Doctor Grey and Miss Munroe left yesterday in the jet. I don’t know where they were going.”
“Alright.” Hank took a deep breath, forcing a calm he did not feel into his voice. “Where are you?”
“All of us that got out are at the safe house on Old Garden Road.” This was a modest house, two miles from the school, prepared by Xavier as a refuge in case of just such a situation. Still in the process of pulling his clothes on with one hand, Hank nodded as he mentally calculated the directions for getting there.
“I can be there in forty minutes. Is anyone hurt?”
There was a brief pause, as if Kitty was taking stock of the others. “No-I don’t think so. Just cuts and scrapes. I think they shot Jones with some kinda tranquilizer, but he’s coming to.”
That was a relief, at least. Hank shifted the phone to his other hand, reaching for his shoes. “That’s good. I’ll be there as fast as I can, Kitty-just sit tight. Keep everyone calm. Alright?”
A tremor crept back into Kitty’s voice. “Alright.”
Hank shoved the phone into his pocket, and turned to find Nora standing on the other side of the bed, already dressed.
“It’s happened?” she asked tersely.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he nodded.
Hank sped all the way to Westchester, defying the possibility of traffic cops roaming the highways at two o’clock in the morning, but somehow they arrived at the nondescript suburban house without being pulled over. They hurried up to the porch, and Hank’s knock at the door was delivered in code: two quick taps, then two longer ones.
There was a brief silence from within, and then the sound of bolts being drawn back. At last the door was thrown open-and Hank and Nora were engulfed in a quivering flood of frightened adolescence as they stepped inside. The younger children flung themselves forward to cling to the two adults, shaking and tearful, while the older teenagers pressed forward with anxious exclamations.
“Shh, it’s alright, you’re safe now-we won’t let anything happen to you-” Hank soothingly rubbed the shoulders of the two students who held onto him. He took a head count, at the same time looking around for Kitty, who he presumed to be nominally in charge. “Kitty?”
“Here.” The girl edged forward, with Peter Rasputin towering almost protectively beside her.
“Alright.” Hank nodded at her in reassurance. “I want you to tell us the whole story in a minute… Does anyone need first aid?”
A few students came forward with scratches and scrapes, and Jones looked up groggily from the couch. Hank confirmed that the boy seemed to be suffering no ill effects from a dose of sedative, then turned to help Nora with minor tasks of gauze and antiseptic. As they worked, Kitty recounted the full story of the siege on the Xavier School, with further details haltingly supplied by several other children.
“Why did they do it?” Nora questioned in baffled anger when the tale had been told.
“I don’t know-but I’m going to find out. I’ll have to start making some calls.” Hank sighed and raked his fingers through his thinning ginger hair, as his eyes gravely met Nora’s. “For the moment, we have to assume Professor Xavier and the other teachers have all been taken as well.”
A ripple of terrified murmurs passed among the children, but Hank turned to them with a calming gesture. “You’re all going to be alright. No one knows about this place. Nora and I will look after you until we get all this sorted out… Kitty, would you see if you can fix some hot soup or something? It might help everyone’s nerves.”
With a shaky nod, Kitty shuffled off toward the kitchen, and Hank reached for his cellphone.
The small hours slowly brightened into morning, then dragged sluggishly on toward afternoon. Hank spent that time calling every professional and personal contact he had, searching for answers that were almost nonexistent. Miniscule clues and hastily whispered inferences pointed to a suspect whose identity did not surprise him-but there was something terribly disquieting in the unanswered question of motive.
The rest of the X-Men remained unaccounted for, including Charles. That disturbed Hank most of all.
One bright spot finally emerged in the form of a too-brief call from Bobby Drake, who had somehow ended up at his parents’ house with John and Rogue. At that time he could add nothing to the facts at hand, but at least it meant three more students were safe. Hank clung to a hope that the six missing children had also fled into the night, and simply become lost on their way to the safe house-but knowing how firmly their teachers had drilled the escape route into their heads, he had a terrible feeling they were gone.
Mere children, carried off by the invaders… for what reason?
Bobby explained how the man called Logan had saved them from the same fate, and Hank met that news with mixed feelings. It was a name he knew, a name that had come up more than once in the most private and serious of conversations with Charles. They had disagreed on very few things in their long acquaintance; but the Wolverine was one of them.
He deserves to know the truth, Charles.
Now Hank could only wonder how the presence of William Stryker’s failed experiment fitted into the puzzle, when the only other piece he could see-the central piece-was Stryker himself.
In frustration, Hank turned to the news networks, where his sensibility and wit had made him a perennially welcome guest. Without being too probing, he tried to learn more about the powers behind the assault, but he met with little success. As a last resort, he even committed himself to joining a few expert panels discussing the recent White House attack; perhaps a face-to-face encounter with other sources might prove more fruitful. It meant leaving Nora and the children for several hours, but they would be safe enough for now.
By the time he pushed away his cellphone with a weary sigh, many of the children had lapsed into an uneasy sleep from sheer exhaustion. He crossed the room to Nora, who sat with a blonde-headed little girl resting fitfully on her lap.
“I have to go back into the City for a while.” Hank leaned down to give Nora a desultory kiss. “I’m going on the news later, to see what breaks. While I’m out, I’ll try to pick up a few things for the children, and some other clothes from my apartment. Give me your keys, and I’ll stop by your place too.”
“As far as I know, my keys are still on your coffee table.” Nora smiled thinly, but it did not touch her eyes, and there was a quiet note of strain in her voice. “Please, Hank-hurry back.”
“I’ll try.”
Hank clasped her shoulder, and gently placed his hand on the head of the child in her arms; and then he was gone.
Author: jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: Mild PG, for angst and adult situations.
Characters: Emphasis on Beast, with support from various other characters.
Setting: Mainly mid- to post-X2.
Summary: The personal journey of Henry McCoy-as a mutant, and as a man.
Disclaimer: Marvel and Fox create the characters that sell. Nora is mine, and so is Kristen, who has appeared in several of my stories.
Notes: In X2, there is a brief cameo by a non-furry character who is identified as being Hank McCoy. This seems to support the novelization by Chris Claremont, in which Hank’s bestial mutation is caused by Professor X’s psychic attack on mutantkind. That concept has always intrigued me, especially after I saw and loved Kelsey Grammer’s portrayal of Beast in X3. It lurked in the back of my mind for a long time-until my friend Wabbitseason gave me the idea that Hank’s blue fur might really have been a secondary development. After a few weeks in which I was unable to shake the thought, I finally sat down and began to write. Five months later, this is the result.
If you tilt this story at a slight angle, you can easily fit it in with the events of X3. For the record, I personally do not. I acknowledge nothing of that misbegotten film except Hank himself.
PROLOGUE
When he stood in the bright morning light of Charles Xavier’s office and waited, nervously studying a painting through his reading glasses, no one knew what he felt; or at least, no one would have expected it of him. Not from the colleague who, with the possible past exception of Erik Lehnsherr, was the closest in the world to Charles. Not from the dedicated mutant-rights advocate who knew as well as anyone the acceptance and tolerance built into the Xavier School with every brick.
Yet before one can believe that others will accept a great change, one must come to terms with the change for one’s self.
But then the door opened, and Ororo came in, and she rushed to throw her arms around him in joyous welcome… and suddenly, nothing had changed at all.
“I love what you’ve done with your hair,” she said-and only someone who had known them both for many years would understand how perfect and right the words were, when they might have seemed a cruel joke from anyone else. How the warmth of the tease and the twinkle in her eye had not sharpened his self-consciousness, but instead had swept it away, and made him feel that he was home in a way he never had before.
It made him feel glad to be one of them.
CHAPTER I
Henry McCoy was a mutant.
It was hardly anything to speak of, really. His mutation manifested itself as nothing more than an enhanced physical strength, and even that was not overly impressive by mutant standards. The trait had almost no effect on his life-except that it made him even more sensitive to the cause he had already devoted his life to. It was Charles Xavier’s teaching and friendship that had instilled a passion for mutant rights in him, long before he ever imagined just how personal the subject would become.
In fact, it was in saving Charles’ life that he found out.
The mountain-climbing trip had been Charles’ idea. He was an experienced old hand at the sport, eager to share an adventure with his student and friend. Hank was nothing more than an unskilled and reluctant young amateur, who resisted the better judgment that quietly urged him to back out of the whole affair.
The mistake that nearly cost them both their lives, and did cost Charles the use of his legs… that was his contribution.
But so was the new and frightening strength that had enabled him to dig Charles out from beneath several feet of snow, and free him from the fallen tree that pinned him, and carry him back down to their base camp-all on his own.
That was many years ago now. Charles had forgiven him with his first words after the accident, but Hank had never completely divested himself of the guilt he felt. He knew it drove him to work harder, fighting to bring about Charles’ idealistic dreams for the world. It was a strange quest for redemption from a sin that only he counted against himself.
Affectionately they called him Beast. It was due in part to his strength, but more for his work ethic-the fierce and inexhaustible way he threw himself into every task he took on. He accepted the nickname with a sort of embarrassed flattery, for it could not have been less appropriate to his outward appearance: that of a robust and broad-shouldered but entirely unassuming gentleman, just settling into urbane middle age. His mutation had not altered him visibly.
Except for that nagging ghost of guilt he carried, Hank was a happy man. He was ridiculously well educated: medicine, science, psychology, and literature were all fields in which he excelled. His sophisticated charm and dry sense of humor appealed to people of every age and class, serving him equally well as a bedside manner or public-relations weapon. His days at the Lefkowitz Institute for Mutant Health were pleasantly torn between research and the day-to-day work of helping newly manifested mutants adjust, both physically and mentally. His achievements were well recognized, and he was now being consulted often as an expert on both the medical and political ramifications of mutation.
…And then there was Nora.
“You’ve been quiet,” she murmured softly in the dark, brushing her slim fingers across his chest.
With a contented sigh, Hank captured her hand in his, turning slightly to face her impish smile. “I was just thinking.”
In the two years since she had entered his life as a nurse and laboratory assistant, Nora Tanner had been a partner to him in every possible sense of the word. She kept pace with the leaps and bounds of his professional mind, without ever losing herself in scientific minutiae as he occasionally did-and when those leaps briefly got ahead of his own compassion, her gentleness took up the slack. When he became so intent on his work that he forgot to eat, she spent almost as much time looking after him as she did assisting him. He could pour out before her all his ideas, for everything from a new gene-therapy treatment to a mutant-rights speech; she would listen with attentive interest, and then give him honest, insightful feedback.
It didn’t matter that she was quite conclusively a non-mutant, with no trace of the X-gene in her. Mutants were simply fellow human beings to her, and that was all that mattered. That was the kind of person she was.
Hank remembered the night they had spent in the laboratory, waiting to see how a bacterial culture would react to a certain protein compound. The experiment was ultimately forgotten and spoiled; they had discovered far more interesting reactions to explore that night.
“What did you ever see in me, Nora?” he asked lazily, drawing her closer.
“Nothing much.” Nora smiled playfully and planted a kiss on his bare shoulder. “But I couldn’t stop myself-you’re habit-forming. I think it must be part of your mutation.”
His lips twitched as he raised an eyebrow. “That might be an interesting area of research.”
“Mm-hmm…”
At that moment, Hank’s cellphone trilled from the floor somewhere beside the bed. He stifled a protesting groan as he leaned over and felt for it. Frantic calls in the dead hours before dawn were nothing new to him, but he had hoped that for at least one night…
“McCoy speaking,” he answered in his most professional tone, after locating the phone at last.
To his surprise, a young girl’s trembling voice responded. “Doctor McCoy, it’s-it’s Kitty. Kitty Pryde.” She paused for an audibly shaking breath. “Soldiers came to the school-there was shooting-I think they caught some of the others-”
“What?” Swallowing back a string of expletives, Hank reached for his shirt. “Where are your teachers?”
“The Professor and Mr. Summers went to visit Magneto… Doctor Grey and Miss Munroe left yesterday in the jet. I don’t know where they were going.”
“Alright.” Hank took a deep breath, forcing a calm he did not feel into his voice. “Where are you?”
“All of us that got out are at the safe house on Old Garden Road.” This was a modest house, two miles from the school, prepared by Xavier as a refuge in case of just such a situation. Still in the process of pulling his clothes on with one hand, Hank nodded as he mentally calculated the directions for getting there.
“I can be there in forty minutes. Is anyone hurt?”
There was a brief pause, as if Kitty was taking stock of the others. “No-I don’t think so. Just cuts and scrapes. I think they shot Jones with some kinda tranquilizer, but he’s coming to.”
That was a relief, at least. Hank shifted the phone to his other hand, reaching for his shoes. “That’s good. I’ll be there as fast as I can, Kitty-just sit tight. Keep everyone calm. Alright?”
A tremor crept back into Kitty’s voice. “Alright.”
Hank shoved the phone into his pocket, and turned to find Nora standing on the other side of the bed, already dressed.
“It’s happened?” she asked tersely.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he nodded.
Hank sped all the way to Westchester, defying the possibility of traffic cops roaming the highways at two o’clock in the morning, but somehow they arrived at the nondescript suburban house without being pulled over. They hurried up to the porch, and Hank’s knock at the door was delivered in code: two quick taps, then two longer ones.
There was a brief silence from within, and then the sound of bolts being drawn back. At last the door was thrown open-and Hank and Nora were engulfed in a quivering flood of frightened adolescence as they stepped inside. The younger children flung themselves forward to cling to the two adults, shaking and tearful, while the older teenagers pressed forward with anxious exclamations.
“Shh, it’s alright, you’re safe now-we won’t let anything happen to you-” Hank soothingly rubbed the shoulders of the two students who held onto him. He took a head count, at the same time looking around for Kitty, who he presumed to be nominally in charge. “Kitty?”
“Here.” The girl edged forward, with Peter Rasputin towering almost protectively beside her.
“Alright.” Hank nodded at her in reassurance. “I want you to tell us the whole story in a minute… Does anyone need first aid?”
A few students came forward with scratches and scrapes, and Jones looked up groggily from the couch. Hank confirmed that the boy seemed to be suffering no ill effects from a dose of sedative, then turned to help Nora with minor tasks of gauze and antiseptic. As they worked, Kitty recounted the full story of the siege on the Xavier School, with further details haltingly supplied by several other children.
“Why did they do it?” Nora questioned in baffled anger when the tale had been told.
“I don’t know-but I’m going to find out. I’ll have to start making some calls.” Hank sighed and raked his fingers through his thinning ginger hair, as his eyes gravely met Nora’s. “For the moment, we have to assume Professor Xavier and the other teachers have all been taken as well.”
A ripple of terrified murmurs passed among the children, but Hank turned to them with a calming gesture. “You’re all going to be alright. No one knows about this place. Nora and I will look after you until we get all this sorted out… Kitty, would you see if you can fix some hot soup or something? It might help everyone’s nerves.”
With a shaky nod, Kitty shuffled off toward the kitchen, and Hank reached for his cellphone.
The small hours slowly brightened into morning, then dragged sluggishly on toward afternoon. Hank spent that time calling every professional and personal contact he had, searching for answers that were almost nonexistent. Miniscule clues and hastily whispered inferences pointed to a suspect whose identity did not surprise him-but there was something terribly disquieting in the unanswered question of motive.
The rest of the X-Men remained unaccounted for, including Charles. That disturbed Hank most of all.
One bright spot finally emerged in the form of a too-brief call from Bobby Drake, who had somehow ended up at his parents’ house with John and Rogue. At that time he could add nothing to the facts at hand, but at least it meant three more students were safe. Hank clung to a hope that the six missing children had also fled into the night, and simply become lost on their way to the safe house-but knowing how firmly their teachers had drilled the escape route into their heads, he had a terrible feeling they were gone.
Mere children, carried off by the invaders… for what reason?
Bobby explained how the man called Logan had saved them from the same fate, and Hank met that news with mixed feelings. It was a name he knew, a name that had come up more than once in the most private and serious of conversations with Charles. They had disagreed on very few things in their long acquaintance; but the Wolverine was one of them.
He deserves to know the truth, Charles.
Now Hank could only wonder how the presence of William Stryker’s failed experiment fitted into the puzzle, when the only other piece he could see-the central piece-was Stryker himself.
In frustration, Hank turned to the news networks, where his sensibility and wit had made him a perennially welcome guest. Without being too probing, he tried to learn more about the powers behind the assault, but he met with little success. As a last resort, he even committed himself to joining a few expert panels discussing the recent White House attack; perhaps a face-to-face encounter with other sources might prove more fruitful. It meant leaving Nora and the children for several hours, but they would be safe enough for now.
By the time he pushed away his cellphone with a weary sigh, many of the children had lapsed into an uneasy sleep from sheer exhaustion. He crossed the room to Nora, who sat with a blonde-headed little girl resting fitfully on her lap.
“I have to go back into the City for a while.” Hank leaned down to give Nora a desultory kiss. “I’m going on the news later, to see what breaks. While I’m out, I’ll try to pick up a few things for the children, and some other clothes from my apartment. Give me your keys, and I’ll stop by your place too.”
“As far as I know, my keys are still on your coffee table.” Nora smiled thinly, but it did not touch her eyes, and there was a quiet note of strain in her voice. “Please, Hank-hurry back.”
“I’ll try.”
Hank clasped her shoulder, and gently placed his hand on the head of the child in her arms; and then he was gone.