Chapter 2
Logan slammed the steel door behind him, the echo rattling down the sterile corridor of Department H headquarters. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, cold and clinical, as if the place had been designed to suffocate. He didn't need to see the scowls on the brass waiting for him in the debrief room — he could smell their nerves before he even opened the door. Sweat, stale coffee, aftershave sharp as a blade.
The director, a tall man with the stiff posture of someone who'd never thrown a real punch, wasted no time.
"You failed your primary objective, Weapon X. The Hulk is still at large. We spent resources, men, and money to put you in the field, and all we have to show for it is—"
Logan cut him off with a low growl rumbling in his throat. He stepped closer, not fast, not threatening, but just enough that the scent of his breath — whiskey and cigar ash — carried across the table. "Careful," he rasped. "Say one more word like that, and you're liable to see what your men saw out there."
Silence. For a long moment no one dared speak. The air conditioner hummed. One of the junior operatives shuffled papers just to break the tension. Logan's amber eyes swept across the room, pinning them in place like animals that had just realized the cage door was open. Finally, the director swallowed and looked down at his notes. The scolding was over.
Logan turned on his heel and left before they dismissed him.
---
The next few days blurred into routine. He spent hours in the gym hammering the heavy bag, or in the training yard running drills against drones. Every time he struck, he felt something different. His claws slid out with the familiar snikt, but there was more weight to them now, like they weren't just meant to stab but to tear. His nose caught details he shouldn't have — the guard three halls over chewing peppermint gum, the faint trace of motor oil clinging to a mechanic's coveralls.
Something had changed. He healed faster, too — small cuts closed before he even noticed them. Reflexes? They fired like live wires under his skin. Twice during training, he dodged paint-rounds he never should've seen coming.
Logan didn't know if it was permanent or some one-time fluke from that scrap with Hulk and Wendigo. But he knew his body better than anyone alive — he'd lived with its pain, its limits, its betrayals. And this wasn't the same old Logan anymore.
---
When the mission came down, he didn't argue. Department H had reports of a mercenary tearing up the northern wilderness — a man called Iron Talon, ex-special forces gone rogue, armed with prototype gauntlets stolen from some military cache. Logan only half-listened as they detailed the sabotage, the villages threatened, the communications towers wrecked. None of that mattered. What mattered was he was being sent back into the only place that still felt like home: the woods.
On the way to the helipad, Logan snatched a cigar from one of the operatives' breast pockets. The man opened his mouth to protest, but one look at Logan's scarred face shut him right up. Logan clamped the cigar between his teeth, lit it with a match he struck against the wall, and drew in a long drag. Smoke filled his lungs, burning sharp, familiar.
By the time the helicopter blades were chopping the cold night air, Logan leaned out the open door, eyes narrowed at the snowy expanse below. The wilderness stretched endless — black pine forests, rivers cutting silver under the moonlight, mountains hunched like sleeping giants. He spat the cigar out into the night and ground the last ember under his boot when he landed. "Smoke screws the nose," he muttered.
---
The woods welcomed him like an old scar. Every sound meant something: the rustle of branches, the distant call of an owl, the crunch of snow under his boots. He crouched low, dragging his fingers across the powder. A trail — boot prints, wide and heavy. Iron Talon's men, probably scouting the perimeter. He inhaled deep. Oil, gunpowder, steel. And beneath it all, a faint tang of ozone, electric and unnatural.
"Got fancy toys, huh?" Logan whispered to himself, a smirk tugging at his lip. "Let's see if they save your hide."
He padded silently between the trees, every sense alive. His nose locked onto the mercenary's trail like it was etched in neon. The man was close. Too close. Logan's claws itched in his hands, his muscles coiled tight. His reflexes fired before thought, little twitches like his body already knew where the next move would come from.
For the first time since Wendigo, he wondered if these changes weren't just useful — but dangerous.
---
Hours passed like minutes. Snow fell heavier now, blanketing the ground, muffling sound. Logan crept up to a ridge and froze, crouching low. Below, a crude camp flickered with firelight. Four men, bundled in combat gear, stood guard. And at the center, sitting on a log with gauntlets glowing faintly blue, was Iron Talon himself.
Logan drew in a breath, let the scents wash over him. Sweat. Metal. Fear masked under bravado. He could almost taste the man's heartbeat hammering from up here.
"Gotcha, bub," Logan muttered, lips curling into a grin.
And then he slipped into the shadows, ready to strike.