InsaneJournal

There was a certain kind of tension crawling across the surface of X-23's brain even after whatever the redhead had done to her. She felt strange and dull, like overcooked vegetables, or when they tried to drug her and found a dose that was strong enough to stop her from being a threat but too weak to really keep her from being upset.

She didn't understand any of this. What she was doing here. Why so many people knew who she was. Why they kept calling her Laura, a name only her aunt Deborah or Megan had ever used. What they meant by saying she'd been… de-aged. Back in time. A younger self. She wanted to demand a better explanation, but her throat was locked tight around the words and anyway she'd never demanded anything in her life, far too dangerous.

She'd attacked Weapon X, she understood that much. Wolverine. She'd smelled him and… it wasn't quite like her trigger scent, more like something she felt she should do, like acting on instinct to dodge something thrown at her. That part made sense. What didn't was the way he hadn't fought back no matter how she cut him, or that the others had clearly tried to protect him but they hadn't really done anything to her other than the mind thing. If she was supposed to attack him, why stop her? But if she wasn't, why wasn't anyone punishing her? She knew punishment wasn't a Facility-only thing, like the missions were, or the surgery room, or the automatic lights that turned on and off at exactly the same time every day and night. Deborah had shouted at Megan. The school had suspended them. SHIELD had arrested her. Zebra Daddy was harder to predict, more like Kimura, but his very unpredictability had made him familiar. Here, though? No one had even touched her more than they had to, and most confusingly it almost seemed as though they intended that to be more for her comfort than theirs.

Without even noticing, she realised, she'd begun running the sharp edges of her claws across the inside of her arm. The routine was comforting, sharp pain not much more than another sensation and the red lines of blood bubbling up from her skin something to focus on to distract from the fact that everything was so incomprehensible. There wasn't much space between the wall and the couch she'd crawled behind and there was dust on the floor where she lay, but she was at least accustomed to small spaces. Maybe she could just stay here until everyone forgot about her. She wouldn't mind being forgotten.