The Wages of Sin

Posted on Wed Oct 9th, 2024 @ 7:03pm by Hank McCoy

962 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 5: Days of Fortune Past
Location: X-Mansion | Hank's Lab
Timeline: November 6th, 1990

Hank sat alone in the lab, his usual neat desk now a cluttered mess of papers, vials, and disassembled tech components. His hands shook as he examined the dart he’d recovered from the Arlington Bridge, the metallic sheen of the Omega Sentinel’s weapon catching the cold light from overhead. He should have felt triumphant—this was a breakthrough, a solid lead. But instead, his chest tightened with a growing sense of dread. The nanotech inside the dart was all too familiar. It was his research.

Hank closed his eyes, his grip tightening on the dart as the memories swirled—days spent in one cold, sterile lab after another, where unknown sinister figures in Eastern Europe, US government officials from DARPA, and even Reverend Stryker and his zealots all manipulated him to create the various mechanisms that could annihilate his own kind. He’d been powerless, forced to watch as his life's work was twisted into weapons of genocide. The rescue from the Alternate Class had come just in time, but the damage was done—his research, his name, his mind, had been sullied. And now, seeing the fruits of his work in the Omega Sentinel dart, Hank felt that familiar despair creeping in. This was all his fault. Warren, Mara, the Sentinels… they were all casualties of his research, his own undoing.

My God... Warren...

His blue-furred fingers traced the intricate web of circuits embedded within the dart, the technology far more advanced than anything he had ever hoped—or feared—to create. He recognized the precision, the complexity of the design. It wasn’t just any nanotech. It was his work, the very project he’d led in Latveria. But the horror of it all was that Warren had been transformed into that monstrosity because of it—because of him.

I did this... I made this possible. The wages of sin, indeed.

The realization hit Hank like a sledgehammer, knocking the air from his lungs, though not for the first time. It was a truth with which he had bludgeoned himself for days. He hadn’t just failed Warren; he had betrayed him. His hands, once steady in pursuit of scientific discovery, now felt stained with the weight of his guilt.

He slammed a fist down onto the table, sending a stack of notes fluttering to the floor. His mind raced back to his bondage in Latveria, to the research he had conducted while under Trask’s influence. His memories were hazy at best—compelled by the collar they’d forced on him—but the nagging feeling wouldn’t let him rest. He had done more than he realized, and now, Warren had been turned into... that.

And then there was Mara. The thought of her filled him with fresh panic. The Prime Sentinels had her, and her technopathic abilities... if they could manipulate that, control it—he didn’t even want to imagine the horrors they could unleash. The very thing that made her special, that had drawn her to the X-Men, was now her prison. The possibility gnawed at his sanity.

Hank let out a low growl, raking his hands through his fur. The dart in front of him held the key to undoing it all. But he was missing something—one final piece that evaded him. He knew every circuit, every molecule of this cursed tech, except for the final addition... and that part wasn’t his. It was Victor’s. His lab partner had completed a section of the research that Hank had never seen. Of course it had been Victor.

His frustration boiled over as he tore the dart from the table and hurled it against the wall, the clang of metal reverberating through the lab. "Damn it! Why can’t I figure this out?" He shouted, his voice hoarse from the days of sleeplessness. His pulse pounded in his temples as he stood there, panting, the weight of it all crashing down on him. Warren. Mara. The Sentinels. They were all connected, and the only thing stopping him from fixing it was this one missing link.

He leaned heavily against the table, staring at the broken dart on the floor. He knew what he had to do, even if the thought of it made him feel like he was sinking further into quicksand. They had to go back. Back to Latveria, back to the lab. Victor’s work held the key to unraveling the nightmare they were trapped in.

But that meant convincing Charles Xavier. Hank’s bloodshot eyes darted to the door as his mind churned with doubt. Could he even do it? Could he persuade the Professor to send the X-Men on a mission like this when everything felt so uncertain? Hank’s lips curled into a bitter smile. The truth was, he didn’t have a choice.

"I did this..." he muttered to himself, as if saying it aloud would somehow lessen the burden. "And I’m the only one who can fix it."

His anger had cooled, replaced by a grim, steely determination. He knew he was on the edge of something dangerous, that the desperation might lead him somewhere he couldn’t return from. But it didn’t matter. He had to see this through, even if it consumed him.

With a slow, shaky breath, Hank gathered his scattered papers and the remains of the dart. "Victor’s work will have the answer," he whispered, almost as if to reassure himself. "We just have to get there before it’s too late."

Standing up, his broad shoulders sagging under the weight of his own guilt and exhaustion, Hank resolved to face Xavier. One last mission to save Warren. To save Mara. To save himself.

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