The Blackbird landed in the expansive parking lot at the prison facility and the X-men poured out. It was obvious that they were too late. Magneto was just stepping into the helicopter with his mutant brothers, finally free of his plastic prison cell.

Cyclops put his hand up to his visor, intent on stopping Magneto's escape, but as he triggered it, the metal surrounding the ruby quartz crystal melted, covering the mechanism and rendering it useless.

The winds were starting to pick up, but on a cloudless, clear day, Storm would not be able to build up a sufficient storm to ground the helicopter in time.

Rogue worked best in hand-to-hand combat, and Jean's still didn't have enough control over her powers to halt the escape.

The battle fell to Wolverine, who had run since the jet had hit the ground, straight to the helicopter, and was now clinging to one of the runners.

Magneto leaned out and looked at him, struggling to pull himself up. The roaring of the helicopter blades prevented the other X-Men from hearing Magneto's voice, but Logan's superior hearing was able to catch the words.

"You. You're responsible for my imprisonment. If it hadn't been for you, I would have succeeded two years ago and mutants everywhere would be better off. For that, you must pay."

Logan saw the distortions of Magneto's power flow from his hands. The power surrounded his body, causing a deep ache to spread through his skeleton. He lost his grip and fell to the ground. He didn't fall far, though, so he wasn't badly injured.

"Logan!" It was Rogue's voice, filled with worry.

He sat up to see his teammates running towards him. All the metal objects they had on them reached him before they did. Cyclop's visor was attached firmly to his chest with Ororo's X-necklace close beside it. Luckily, Cyclops had felt the tugging on his visor and had closed his eyes in time.

The dogtags that Rogue still wore were cemented to his forehead, the chain splayed across his face. He grabbed the dogtags and pulled them away from his face, only to find that they were now stuck to his hand. He tried shaking his hand to get them off, but the dogtags remained.

It was Jean who realized what had happened. "Logan, he's magnetized your skeleton!"

The trip back in the jet was a nightmare. As soon as he got close enough to the metal, his body was pulled helplessly towards it and he ended up attached to the undercarriage. With effort, he'd been able to drag his way along the skin of the plane to the door.

He'd had to sit in the very back because his presence in the cockpit would mess up the instruments. There were no seats back there, and he had spent the trip slouched uncomfortably against the curved shape of the plane's interior.

The lower levels of the mansion hadn't been fun either. Everything down there was metal. When he'd tried to walk through the sliding doors to leave the hangar, they'd pulled closed on him. It had taken Ororo and Marie pushing and Jean and Scott pulling to get him through.

His only saving grace was that Cyke didn't have his metal visor on and couldn't see Logan's humiliation. He couldn't see Logan's struggles as he walked stiffly down the hallway, dragging his feet along the metal floor and trying to stay perfectly in the center so the metal in the walls didn't pull him up against them. Logan was sure that at any moment, he would trip and end up stuck to the floor.

Jean wanted to take him to the med lab. She wanted to run tests to see if there was some way to reverse the process. Logan just wanted to go to his room and wake up from this crazy dream.

The med lab doors opened, and as Jean telekinetically held the doors open and Rogue and Ororo pushed, Logan struggled to lift his feet and walk through. The med lab was sleekly designed with compartments, cabinets, even medical beds, hidden away in the walls and floor.

Upon Logan's entry, the metal cabinets flew open and stethoscopes, needles, blood pressure cuffs, every metal medical instrument you could think of, flew towards his body.

"Oh crap."

Rogue and Ororo winced as Jean Grey, in an admittedly unprofessional move, put her foot on Logan's chest and ~pulled~ as hard as she could on one of the several needles stuck in Logan. The needle came free only reluctantly and tried very hard to find its way back to Logan's skeleton when it was out.

Ororo found a plastic case to hold the medical equipment in and was handed the needle.

"One down, three more to go." Jean tried to smile at Logan reassuringly.

Logan simply growled.

The next needle was buried near the first in Logan's shoulder. Unfortunately, a stethoscope was blocking the way. Jean sighed and grabbed the rubber of the instrument, hoping this one would come off easily. It did and was promptly handed to Ororo.

The needle was still buried deeply in the flesh. Why on earth did they all have to go in point first? Jean grabbed the needle and ~pulled~, blithely ignoring Rogue and Ororo's wince and Logan's whimper.

"Only two more, then we can get the less painful equipment." Jean smiled again, hoping for a better reaction.

Logan's lip trembled at her.

The next needle wasn't deep, it was just placed inconveniently. It was actually kind of humorous, if you weren't the one wearing it. Jean reached up and plucked the needle out of Logan's forehead.

"There, that one wasn't so bad." Jean was aware that she was perilously close to treating Logan like one of the smaller children who had gotten an 'owchie'.

Logan's nose had turned a deep shade of red.

The last needle was trying to find the... pelvic bone. 'Oh dear.' Jean sighed deeply and went about as professionally as she could. She braced her foot on Logan's thigh and ~pulled~ on the final needle.

Logan sniffled and hiccuped.

Rogue flared with jealousy.

Jean caught Ororo's 'Logan's magnetizing crotch'-thought as she handed the needle over to the regal looking woman.

Ororo looked suitably chastised by Jean's raised eyebrow.

Inwardly, Jean was laughing.

Jean attended to Logan, working up a sweat while removing the metallic medical instruments from all over his body. Ororo and Rogue had stopped wincing since the needles were out. Still, they felt for Logan.

The metallic doors to the med lab opened, and Professor Charles Xavier entered — or rather, rolled in.

"How are you, Logan?" he inquired, worry on his face.

"Fantastic." he grumbled, trying hard to contain the pain still in his crotch.

"Logan, stay still. I'm almost done." ordered Jean, fighting to get a blood pressure cuff off of Logan's leg.

"At least, you didn't end up like Senator Kelly." added Ororo, trying to smooth the situation.

All instruments now removed, Jean tugged at Logan's uniform. "Remove that. I need to run a few exams."

"And *I* need to run, period." he growled.

Rogue fidgeted. He was running away? Worry clouded her big eyes in a split second.

"Logan, there is no need to run. We will help you." calmly offered Xavier.

"Chuck, I need to *run*" he explained, eying the bathroom.

"Oh, of course."

Worry gave way to a blush on Rogue's face, which matched pretty easily Jean's and Ororo's.

Logan started towards the bathroom, but the medical bed — of course, they had to have metallic ones — forced him back. The situation was getting worse by the second. They were all looking at him with something weird in their eyes. He would have to fix that. But first things first, he needed to get to that &*?%*?(%$? bathroom.

"I'll give you a hand…" started Jean, pulling at his arm. But the look in Logan's eyes, and the double-sided sentence all together, got the best of her. She burst into laughter.

That just made Logan more angry. To help, Ororo and Rogue decided to push Logan, while a gasping Jean still tugged at him. The professor moved closer to the medical bed.

They finally reached the bathroom door and Logan's look made it clear that he wasn't amused at all.

A few seconds later, they heard muffled cuss.

That's when Ororo cracked, "Are you sure you don't need a hand?…"

Louder swearing could be heard in the bathroom. Between them, it was easy to recognize some words like *uniform*, *metal* and *zipper*.

"I'll make sure we use velcro on our uniforms from now on." whispered the professor. He kept playing with his wheelchair's commands, which seemed to be kind of broken.

Between fits of laughter, Jean ordered everyone to leave the medical lab. Distracted as she was by the events — and their humourous side — she didn't notice that the professor's wheelchair rolled dangerously towards the bathroom door.

Before she could stop it telekinetically, the wheelchair had crashed the bathroom door open, revealing a beet red Logan. He had his right hand's claws out, tearing at the pants to get around the zipper.

"*&$@# Chuck!!!!"

Hyenas couldn't have filled the room with more piercing sounds than the three women laughing hysterically at the scene.