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ephemeral-afterlight · 4 years

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Clearly I desire suffering by asking this but... want to elaborate on the Logan accidentally killed a bunch of people except possibly he didn't, but he definitely thinks he did, thing?

logan backstory time? am i hearing some Logan Backstory Time?

tw for mild descriptions/mentions of torture, murder, child abuse/off-screen child death, human experimenting, drugging/needles, and homelessness, (most only mentioned, not heavily described) so please stay safe!

so logan obviously hasn't had the best home life. his mother died a few years after he was born, so he doesn't really remember her that well, but he sure does remember his father.

although he didn't understand it very well in the beginning, especially since it started when he was six years old, his father was the head of a team of assassins working to a larger political revolution. recruiting people to their cause proved difficult because of the high security networks in the city, so he decided to start training logan to be his subordinate from a young age.

the main goals were to teach logan about their world leaders and their governmental systems, teach him how to withstand being tortured for information, and show him how to execute the perfect kill and get away without leaving any tracks.

logan was only six when he went down into that basement for the first and last time. he doesn't remember a lot of it, but he can recall the way he was thrown down the stairs, immediately starting him off with a sprained ankle. that injury is nothing compared to what he had to live through for the next seven years.

there were others there, other children logan had never seen before who all were kept drugged so that they couldn't relay any information about their past lives. logan was drugged too, sometimes, but his fear surmounted any kind of bravery he could muster up in opposition of his father, so he never said anything just to keep himself as lucid as he could possibly be.

there were other people who worked with his father, scientists and doctors and other assassins who would be frequently going in and out of the basement for some reason or another. despite him being held prisoner, logan was never alone, so he at least has that.

logan is still unsure what the scientists did there (at least he assumes they were scientists—they had lab coats), but they seemed to be there the most out of everyone else. the other assassins would come down and teach them "lessons" on how to live through certain kinds of torture, how to properly kill someone, how to clean the scene up, how to stage it as a suicide or burglary-turned-murder—if you can think of it, logan probably can do it. logan knows how to stab someone in the throat and still keep them alive to spill secrets, he can be electrocuted and stand back up immediately, he can create a long line of red herrings and diversions to throw police off of his path.

he shouldn't have had to undergo waterboarding and branding at nine years old, but his father wanted to make him into the perfect criminal. and although that experience was traumatic, it was one he shared with the other children, the other kids that were being held down there. there was a girl and a boy who logan didn't talk to much, but then the boy died in one of the trials they put the kids through when logan was eight years old, so logan doesn't really remember him well.

that boy was replaced by another boy, some kid who was always fidgeting and tapping on the wall beside his shackle bracket. logan felt guilty for not knowing the other kid, so he started talking to the new guy, and learned that he was four years younger than logan himself, that he was only four years old and was barely able to hold a full conversation with him. the kid doesn't remember his own name, doesn't know where he came from, so logan just talks to him about mundane things to get his mind off the terror he's going to come to know down here.

the kid only gets worse and worse the longer he's down there, the more he's subjected to awful things. for all of a year, he gets quieter and quieter, doesn't say a word when someone comes down to "teach" them, to treat their wounds so they can do it all over again. he still talks to logan, though, so he doesn't really mention it.

when the weird kid is five, logan is nine, and the other girl (who they've learned is named emily, after lots of coaxing and uncomfortable silence) is ten, the scientists come down all at once. there's usually never more than three adults down here at once, so seeing six scary people in lab coats and weird dark glasses come down the stairs all stepping at the same time is overwhelming. they unhook the kids' shackles from the wall, push them toward the door in the corner that's never been opened since logan has been there, and they learn just what the scientists really do.

the tests and experiments are excruciating. they always fail, and the scientists always looks disappointed when they're finished for the day. they inject all three of them with needles, faces blank through their screams, and then the rest is fuzzy and swimming until the effects of the weird dark liquids fade. for a very long time, nothing happens.

and then, two years later, when logan is eleven years old, something does happen.

it feels like just the same as any other day. they're back in that white room, eyes squinting under the harsh lights, all three of them being stuck with that liquid. the weird kid gasps for air as he writhes on a cold metal table, and emily just cries and cries in the corner. logan is injected, and it's the same, for a moment. it's that familiar searing pain, that acute ache deep in his bones. but then the feeling starts to take on a different buzz, turns into numbers and equations and he can feel the air, can feel every single particle and atom around him.

the explosion rocks the basement so hard that the glass separating the white room and observation area shatters. it's not a fiery explosion, but an explosion of energy, bright blue light shooting from logan's whole body to attach itself to whatever it can. the lights flicker wildly, the steel tables buckle, and the equipment in the observation room shorts out. logan's body quivers as he unintentionally propels himself into the air, nearly smacking into the ceiling with how much he wants to get away from this. papers and pencils and electronic parts whips around the room in a whirlwind, converging in on logan to create a shell, a shield to keep the bad people away.

he doesn't hear the panicked and triumpahnt yelling, just the blood rushing in his ears. as his energy starts to dwindle, so does his protective layer, and the various items surrounding him being to fall and clank onto the floor. he floats down again, body weary and begging to rest, and he lands on his own table with a whimper.

but he can't sleep. not when he hears one of the scientists smugly call him a "success", when he reaches for a device that logan just somehow knows will keep him down here, that will suppress his newfound powers. he doesn't know how he knows, but it's like the device is speaking to him, telling him what will happen if he stays compliant. he can't ignore that voice.

so his head whips up, eyes wild, and his hand shoots out on instinct rather than conscious forethought. the device in the scientist's hand sparks once and then crunbles into dust, leaving the group of adults gaping in terror when logan looks straight at them. they scramble over themselves to leave out a back entrance, and they're immediately replaced by very familiar "teachers", the very assassins that tortured logan for years. he wants to return the favor, make them feel what he felt. but if he does that, he's no better than they are, no better than his father, so he doesn't.

instead, he jumps off the table and rushes to pick up the weird kid and emily, helps them over to the door and back into the main part of the basement. they barely make it to the stairs before the weird kid trips and falls flat on his face, and emily immediately turns to help him. they never stood a chance. the assassins have them restrained in less than a second, leave them struggling in strong arms and reaching toward logan for help because of that single second of hesitation.

for a moment, logan turns back and raises his hand to try and help. to try and use those powers, the ones he doesn't understand to save the other kids. but then he thinks of his father, thinks of what'll happen if he fails, and he turns tail and runs. he flicks his hand at the door to the basement, lets it crash down and trap them all down there, and he runs straight out the front door and as far away as he can. his tears choke his lungs for hours after he stops to rest.

he doesn't get very far. of course not, he's eleven, and he doesn't know how to use his powers or what his powers even are. a nice lady finds him and takes him in when he tells her that he has nowhere to go, that his father hurt him, that the police would just make him go back. and the lady is kind. a little too pushy, maybe, but she feeds him and gives him his own room at her weird house that smells like something he can't identify, and she reads him stories when he wakes up screaming.

for a long time, logan considers going back, or telling the police about his father and what he's doing, but ultimately, the fear wins out. so over time, he banishes it. he forces it and all other emotions that could cloud his judgement out, pushes himself into numbness, and as a result, his powers become honed at increasingly rapid rates. but the time he's fifteen, he can control his powers almost completely. they're not at their full potential by any means, but he at least understands them better, and he doesn't accidentally shatter his cereal bowl when he isn't paying attention anymore. he also studies himself to weariness every night, desperately trying to learn about everything he missed out on, leaving him constantly exhausted when combined with training his powers.

eventually, though, logan knows he's burdening the nice lady, that the financial struggle is weighing down on her, so when he's sixteen, he leaves. he manages to get a job at a fast food place, lives on the streets for a few years until he has enough for his own place, and he's lived there ever since. when he managed to get enough rent money backed up, he quit his job and started his teaching, one that pays less frequently, but the money gets better as he does more and more classes.

and then comes the realization that he can change himself. logan finds out one very slow day that if he concentrates really, really hard and combines all of his power-related energy at once, his appearance completely changes into something more fitting for his powers. the circuitry lines are a bit cheesy, but logan adores them, and he eventually gets used to the feeling of not needing glasses when he's transformed. the lab coat is something that at first almost sends him into a full-blown panic attack, fills his mind with memories of that white room, but after a while getting used to it, he starts to like it purely out of spite. he's expected to be scared of that coat. but logan has always been one for defying expectations, and he decided that fear would never rule his mind ever again, so the coat stays.

that same defiance logan holds toward his past and his father is the same thing that motivates him to become a superhero and do good in the world, as a way to reverse the bad karma he's gained, to atone for what he did that day. he has to make up for causing those kids' deaths and prolonged suffering in a way that only he can, so the next time he sees someone on the street getting mugged, he doesn't look the other way. instead, he sends the person flying into a pile of garbage bags, sends the terrified teenager home, and basks in the glowing feeling he gets from having helped someone like that.

it only gets bigger from there.

small taglist: @illogical-anxieties @kazykazu @sharp-as-hyalus @bookwyrminspiration @thekitchenpan @bunny222 @agoddamnrayofsunshine @rizzyluke

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