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There is a certain smell inside of all hospitals. It's the unmissable mixture of disease and the chemicals they use to clean up the remaining traces of sickness.
The smell of it is so strong it has a way of making you feel unclean. Inside those white walls you can't help but become acutely aware of all the germs you must be carrying.
You wash your hands quickly. You wouldn't want that filth to rub off on someone who's immune system is already wounded.
Even you smell of chemicals now.
Logan hates it. He hates those buildings. He hates the overpowering scent of rubbing alcohol and disease . He hates the waiting and the anxiety.
He's been in too many hospitals. Rarely for himself, that only ever occurs if he's knocked out. Even then he doesn't need it.
But other people need it.
Normal people need it.
Jean and Scott can get hurt. So can Charles and Hank and Rogue and Kurt. Even Magneto and Mystique can get hurt. Every single human being gets hurt sometimes, mutants and non-mutants alike.
Scrapes get cleaned and bandaged. Cuts get stitched. Broken bones get put back in place and heal over time. Wounds heal, slowly, but during that time they are cared for.
No one takes care of Logan's wounds. They're always gone before anyone gets the chance to see how bad they really were.
Sometimes people worry about him.
Logan tells them to shove off.
When he was in the army there were no hospitals, not really. Only medics and their tents. Those who had sustained serious damage would be sent to hospitals back home.
Logan brought many brothers in arms to those tents. Less of them came out alive. It was gruesome. He still dreams about those men.
Blood gushing out of bullet wounds. Flesh scraped off so deep he could see their bones. Ripped off limbs. Vocal cords torn apart, lungs punctured, faces unrecognizable.
One of the field medics once said to him: “You always bring me more men to take care of but you yourself always seem unharmed, is any of the blood on that uniform even your own?”
He had looked down. His shirt was soaked and nearly black, his hands were red. Was it the blood of the man he had just brought in or had he been shot?
He never answered, he didn't know.
After leaving the army and special forces behind him Logan spends a long time on his own. It’s quiet this way, he doesn’t have to worry so much about other people.
But things happen. Most of which he does not remember for the longest time, or ever. There is a gap in his memory he tries not to think about too much. He was a cage fighter for a while. Most of the money he made went into booze and cigars. It was survival.
And then one day he meets a young girl who ran away from home and somehow that meeting lands them both in the x-mansion. Here Logan and Marie, or ‘Rogue’ as she likes to call herself, are offered a home and a family.
Logan is weary of this change at first. Someone he once knew used to say that family was an f-word. He doesn’t remember for the life of him who that was though. But these people they grow on him and that frightens him.
In the end Logan's fears are proven to be valid. He’s here again. White walls closing in on him and the stench of chemicals making it hard to breathe.
He's in a hospital after the events at the statue of liberty. It's the hospital room inside of the x-mansion. He waits impatiently for someone to finally come and tell him whether Rogue is okay or not. She's just a kid, why couldn't Magneto go after him?
He lights up a cigar to calm his nerves. Scott tells him not to smoke inside the building. He waits outside for another two hours until Rogue finally wakes up.
After Alkali Lake he again spends many hours inside of the hospital room. He has to help patch up all the students. Jean's no longer here to do it for them. Scott's in no state of mind to talk. The professor hasn't completely recovered from being under Jason's influence.
Logan, Storm and Kurt run around hour after hour helping to the best of their abilities with twisted ankles and scrapes and cuts and bruises. A single kid broke an arm during a fall and two suffered concussions.
He doesn't know what he's doing. Jean was the doctor, she knew how to handle these situations. Logan only knows how to cause them.
They're just children, they should have never been involved.
But they’re mutants; they’re never safe.
Logan is there for every x-men that is killed. He’s there when his family gets hurt, he’s there waiting in the hospital and he’s there when the doctors come to tell him that it was too late and there is nothing we could have done, I’m so sorry.
Every single time he is there waiting outside of the hospital doors, smoking his cigars in the hopes of calming himself. It doesn’t work, not enough at least.
Logan leans against the wall and tries not to think about it but still there are tears rolling down his face and he curses himself for ever thinking he could save anyone.
He hates this, god he hates this so much. It’s been years, everyone is gone. There are no more mutants. No more mutants except for Logan, Charles and Caliban.
But Logan’s own body is poisoning him and Charles is having those seizures and for fucks sake Caliban cannot even go out into the sunlight.
He knows he should see a doctor but he can’t do it. He refuses to step another foot inside one of those god awful buildings.
Logan is done. He’s tired. Was there ever a point to all this violence?
In the end he’s almost relieved to be dying. Finally he’s not the one helplessly standing by. He hopes Laura won’t be too mad at him. She’s been through hell already.
But she'll be okay. She's a tough kid.
He imagines there is a universe out there where he gets to watch Laura grow up knowing he'll never have to wait outside of a hospital room to know if she's still alive.
He hopes maybe they'll meet someone else with a mutant ability like theirs. They could live together somewhere quiet and Logan wouldn’t be so worn out because then he would know that his family would always be there when he gets home.
That sounds nice.