Mercy had never been a hero built for solo duels.
Genji and Tracer were probably better suited to that sort of thing; Soldier: 76 and Reaper might manage too.
For years Angela had trained hard to make up for that weakness, finally pulling herself out of the bind of dying the instant someone slipped behind her.
In front of Wolverine, though, the fruits of that training clearly didn’t count for much.
Without a teammate, Angela couldn’t use Guardian Angel to fly across distances, and that directly hampered her mobility.
Strength, speed, hand-to-hand skill—Angela fell short of Logan in all of them.
The only reason she could keep going was that Logan wasn’t fighting in earnest.
This wasn’t a fight to the death, just a spar to let each gauge the other’s strength.
A little over ten minutes later, they stopped.
Angela put away the Caduceus Blaster and raised her hands in surrender.
“All right, I’ve got a full read on your strength now, Logan.”
Logan smiled and retracted his claws.
“And I can rest a little easier—most punks won’t get the better of you.”
“So can we drop the whole curfew thing?” Angela asked offhandedly.
“Then you’d better stay in touch.” Logan narrowed his eyes.
“Especially when you run into certain very troublesome types.”
“Deal.” Angela walked over and pulled her brand-new big brother into a hug.
“Then I’ll be counting on you from now on, big brother Logan.”
Logan returned it with a careful, gentle embrace, patting her twice on the shoulder.
“Don’t mention it.”
Angela rubbed her shoulder, working out the ache from the overexertion.
“So what should we talk about next? History? Or fighting? Maybe you’d be willing to spend some time teaching me close-quarters combat—my grade in that subject has been stuck for ages.”
Logan didn’t sugarcoat it.
If you want to train, best to start from the ground up.”
“Assuming you mean speed, stamina, explosive power, raw strength, all that…”
Angela gave a wry smile and shook her head.
“I’ve tried. It didn’t do much.”
To be precise, it did almost nothing.
Her stats were as if locked in place—they wouldn’t get better and wouldn’t get worse—because that was exactly how Mercy’s numbers had been set in the game Overwatch.
Logan was quiet for a few seconds before saying, “We’ll see.”
The two left the training room and headed back toward the school infirmary.
Logan kept insisting that mutants weren’t so fragile—a whole week might pass without anyone coming in, so there was no need to sit in the infirmary all day.
Angela countered that since she was drawing a salary, she ought to be at least a little conscientious.
Logan curled his lip.
“You actually care about that kind of money?
At your rates, casually treating a few people would earn you decades of salary.”
“My rates?” Angela said idly.
“You know them?”
Logan grunted.
“Of course. A million per treatment, five million per resurrection—ha, wonder if Magneto’s got the payment ready.”
At the mention of Magneto, Angela naturally assumed Hank had told Charles, and Charles had then passed it to Logan by telepathy.
“My guess is Magneto probably won’t pay—he was even willing to change his tune and come see Charles just to get out of it. So I’d still better work hard, or Charles will feel he’s hired me for nothing.”
Logan snorted.
“Charles couldn’t care less about that kind of money. You know this school was originally his family estate? This whole stretch of land is his. Oh—maybe he’ll even foot Magneto’s medical bill himself.”
That, Angela found a bit hard to believe.
“Twelve million—that’s no small sum. I know Charles and Magneto are good friends, but surely even Magneto wouldn’t accept Charles paying that much on his behalf?”
Another snort from Logan.
“Magneto—you think that guy gets embarrassed?”
“Hmm…” Angela mused for a moment.
“The way I see it, Magneto is a man of bearing and taste, and men like that usually care about their pride too—they won’t take a handout for no reason.”
Logan said dismissively, “Talk to me once he can actually produce that kind of cash.”
Angela just smiled, not taking it to heart.
As far as she was concerned, she and Magneto had already swapped the payment for “coming to Xavier’s School”; Magneto owed her nothing more.
Charles Xavier was deeply grateful that Angela had worked to bring Magneto back to the United States—even though Magneto and his family left Xavier’s School the very next day—and so, just as she’d hoped, he gave her a raise, indirectly confirming Logan’s line about Charles not being short on money.
Scott and Jean Grey were full of goodwill toward Angela after their earlier mission together, and with Logan looking out for her on top of that, she quickly fell in with the staff and students of Xavier’s School, finding her place there.
Just as Logan had said, mutant students rarely fell ill, and the infirmary’s workload was light; patching up minor scrapes for these mischievous kids was almost too easy for Angela.
More often than not, the infirmary became the place where certain students slipped off to skip class and rest—faking sick is a talent every student masters on their own.
As a veteran long tormented by school herself, Angela, the school doctor, was understanding enough never to expose the kids’ little illness lies.
Everyone who came in got a single vitamin C tablet and was packed off to lie down on one of the nearby cots to rest, or to just mess around on their phones.
School doctor Angela quickly became wildly popular with the students; a few bold boys even asked her out—after which every one of them received Wolverine Logan’s special attention in combat class.
And so everyone learned just how terrifying a strict, peerlessly powerful older brother could be.
After surveying the “carnage” left in the wake of combat class, Angela told Logan, torn between amusement and despair, “Wonderful.
You’ve successfully helped me avoid going down the illegal road of ‘teacher-student romance,’ big brother Logan.”
Logan rolled his wrist and pinned a none-too-convinced little brat under one foot, answering breezily, “Don’t mention it.
Just doing my job.”
Scott walked up just in time to catch the scene and tossed out a joke.
“What, has Wolverine finally beaten a student to the point of needing on-the-spot emergency care from a doctor?”
“Saying that really undersells Logan’s skill, Scott.”
Angela stepped in to smooth things over for Logan.
Cyclops and Wolverine didn’t get along—this was a “secret” certain students had let slip to her over the past while.
From what she’d observed, the air between the two really was less than harmonious, and it stiffened even further whenever a certain other person joined in.
“Did you need something? By the timing, your class just let out—coming over here isn’t exactly on your way.”