| 𝘾𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙨𝙪𝙗𝙪𝙧𝙗𝙨, 2012 |

It was a peaceful night of Autumn in the Canadian suburbs: the air was fresh, there was a light and likable breeze that made every orange, yellow and red leaf fall on the side of the road. There were a few puddles on the black street, lit by a few lamp posts' orange-ish light and by the constant passage of a couple of modern and vintage cars, whose noise broke the immense and loud silence that filled the ears of the few people passing through, directed to the only decent bar in that area.

The small building had a big sign, lit by yellow neon lights that drew the image of a goofy cowboy holding his big hat and winking at the folks that were heading towards him, while beside him there was a writing that read "Mic's". This indicating not only that the owner of the place was a certain Mic, but also that his relationship with his usual clients, or even strangers, wasn't so formal like in some fancy restaurant or some expensive hotel, no: it was friendly. Mic was the type of guy you could talk to, you could tell him everything passing through your mind, and you could expect some form of wise advice or even just a pair of ears listening to your problems, all the while you had your drink in peace.

Suddently, a loud and annoying noise could be heard in the far and dark distance, a noise belonging to twelve motorcycles getting near and near to the welcoming place. On each of those vehicles there was a man on his 40s or 50s, some of them sporting a long beard, others bald, each one having a leather jacket and tattoos on their arms, the back of their leather jackets showing a terrifying image: an angry and aggressive wolf showing his sharp teeth. Above and below the canine figure were two patches that formed the writing

𝕯𝖔𝖌𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝕳𝖊𝖑𝖑

𝕮𝖆𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖆

They were a biker gang that stood up above anyone else and took whatever it wanted, stomping and killing any folk that stood in its way. They were currently returning from collecting a bounty for one of their clients, ensuring that way a nice income of money to invest in new weapons, ammo, their pub, overall their activity, and they decided to relax and take a few drinks by Mic's. One by one, each one of them parked his bike one beside the other, forming a line outside of the bar. They turned them off and followed their leader, Frank, inside, then he announced their presence with wide arms and a punchable grin on his face

Frank: "Hey everyone, folks!"

The once laughs-filled bar was silenced with a single sentence, one second, one instant and all the joy was replaced by fear. Truth was that Frank and his goons were used to terrorize the entire area near that bar, going from place to place to force people to accept their "protection", a pathetic excuse to empty everybody's pockets everytime they came back for the amount of money per month that they imposed every owner, or any person actually, to pay. Even Mic's face got pale when he saw them enter his bar from behind the counter.

The place was well kept, mainly made out of wooden plates, with a couple of wooden tables here and there and a series of small wooden logs used as stools to sit by the counter. On the walls were all kinds of objects and trophies connected to the world of hunting, like the head of a bear, a shotgun, etc., and a jukebox was playing old country music. The whole place had a very western type of vibe. Behind the counter a whole wall filled with shelves, on top of which there were all kinds of liquors and beverages.

Frank lowered his hands and started to walk forward, tailed by his lackies, towards the counter, while also throwing daggers at everyone sitting in the tables. Every person that met his gaze stood up quickly and ran away outside the bar, fearing what was to come if they challenged him even with just a mere gaze directed at his eyes. Frank was indeed one of the craziest and more instable members of the gang: everyone knew that the man was ready to kill whoever he, for some unknown and crazy reason, believed deserved death. Maybe the poor bastard disagreed with him on something, or held his stare with a fearless expression, or maybe he just had an ugly face. This explained and justified the fleeing of everyone in that bar. Everyone...except one man.

He stayed on his stool, peacefully sipping his whiskey on the rocks. He had a red plaid shirt whose sleeves were rolled up on his forearms, a pair of jeans slightly consumed from their frequent usage over time, he had a broken brown leather watch on his left wrist that had a golden dial, under which were engraved the words

𝙏𝙤 𝙢𝙮 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚
𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨, 𝙔.𝙊.

He had dark brown leather boots under his jeans, and a dark brown leather belt with, at its center, an oval metal buckle, and on his head he was wearing a large white cowboy hat.

Once Frank saw that he didn't move an inch by his spot, he smirked devilishly and started walking towards the stool next to his. Mic was dead pale in the face, almost shitting in his pants. He wanted to run away, but he knew that Frank wanted his scotch, so despite his fear he stayed at his spot, not daring to move, apart from glancing a couple of times at the stranger that was sitting peacefully on his stool, sipping his drink. Frank sat down beside the man, leaning his elbow on the counter and looking at him. Now that he had a clear view, Frank could clearly see the face of the man, and noticed the peculiar beard he sported, he also noticed that he just refused to even aknowledge his presence. Frank merely chuckled at this and glanced at Mic, saying to him

Frank: "Bring me a scotch, and bring him another glass of whatever he's drinking, it's on me."

Then he shifted again his gaze at the man beside him and, while Mic was pouring the glass of scotch and the glass of whiskey on the rocks for them, he asked with a smirk on his face

Frank: "You're not from around here, pal, are you?"

The man drank another little sip of his drink and answered simply

???: "Just passing through."

Frank chuckled at this, then he took the new drink with his right hand and neared it by his lips, and before drinking it he answered

Frank: "Yeah, figured..."

He, then, downed the whole glass in one go and put it back on the counter with a thud, then he looked again at him and said

Frank: "Since you're new here, I want to be generous: if you kiss my boots I will let you walk away freely. Seems pretty generous to me, right guys?"

The last part directed to his goons, who chuckled and answered with a couple of 'Yes' and 'Aye aye'. But the man didn't budge at all, and, before he finished his first drink, he merely answered

???: "Go fuck yourself."

At that Frank took out his gun and pointed it at the temple of the man and, with anger in his voice and his expression, said

Frank: "I think you don't quite understand your situation, asshole! Kiss my boots or you'll fucking die!"

Even his goons took out their guns and got ready to shoot, but the huge man merely put down his empty glass and took off his hat, placing it on the counter, also revealing his peculiar hairstyle. Then he turned his head to look at Frank and said

???: "It's you that don't understand this situation, bub: take away your fucking gun from my face, or you'll never use that hand ever again."

Frank and his goons laughed at this, and he said

Frank: "There are twelve of us here, and you're on your own, locked in here with us, how the fuck do you plan to get out?"

The man smirked at this and said

???: "You're wrong: it's not me locked in here with you..."

Then he acted fast: from his right hand, still on the counter, erupted three metal claws from in-between his knuckles, and with them he sliced Frank's hand off, making it fall on the ground. The place was engulfed in Frank's cries of pain, while his lackies were petrified by fear and horror towards the scene in front of them. And while Frank slided down on the floor holding his bloody arm and yelling and screaming for the immense pain he was feeling, the man with the claws got up from his stool and slowly turned around, facing the rest of the gang. Then he unsheated his other claws from his left hand and, with a wild look on his face, screamed at them

???: "YOU'RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!"

Then Frank managed to wrap his arm tight with a towel on the counter. Mic, at this point, ran away from the back and went to call for the authorities. Frank, then, screamed at his goons

Frank: "KILL THIS MOTHERFUCKER!"

And so they all started shooting at the mistery man, who took every single bullet and with each shot he painfully walked back because of the huge amount of recoil until he hit the counter with his lower back. Then a fat guy with a grey beard shot him with his shotgun, and the man fell behind the counter.

Frank slowly got up, still grunting in pain for the wound he recieved, and walked to his group, then he chuckled and said

Frank: "I guess the monster is not so tough after all!"

Everyone of his guys laughed hard at this and, for a few moments, there was silence, until a noise was heard from behind the counter. Everybody turned to look at it, a cold shiver ran down their spine while the noise of the broken glass and pieces of bottles on the floor behind the counter could be heard, then they heard a grunt. Pure horror flashed in their eyes as they watched the man they thought they shot dead slowly and struggly standing up. He had half of his face missing as his shiny skull was visible, he was covered in blood and bullet wounds and you could see his entrails through the hole he had in his stomach. But what horrified and terrified the bikers the most was to see all of this wounds slowly healing: his missing stomach growing back, the skin on his face regenerating completely, along with his hair and beard growing back. When he was fully healed, he cracked his neck, popped out his claws and, snarling in an animalistic way, he said

???: "Nice try, but now it's my turn...AAAAAHHHHH!!!"

He screamed furiously at them while he jumped over the counter, lunging for the shotgun guy, who tried to shoot him, but the man ducked down and with a rapid motion he sliced first the weapon, then he sliced his face one, two, three times, and kicked him away. Panicked, Frank yelled in fright

Frank: "Oh my God...SHOOT! SHOOT!"

Everyone started to shoot again, but the man was relentless, unstoppable: his adrenaline kicked in hard as he took the shots like they were nothing and started to slash left and right. He sliced the arm of a guy with a rifle, then he plunged his claws in his face, after that he sliced the leg of a guy with a gun and planted his claws in his chest. Frank tried desperately to get away from the bloody mess that place was turning rapidly into, but the man sliced his tendin in his leg, making him fall down with a scream of pain. He did this routine of ducking, slicing, dismembering and killing for the following two minutes. In the end only Frank was left. He was looking at the man with horror and pure terror while he was trying to drag himself away backwards, towards the door, but the mystery man walked in front of him and took him by his collar 'till he was on his knees. Then Frank said

Frank: "You monster...who are you? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

The man then popped out the claws from the right hand and, with a stoic look on his face, replied

???: "I'm the Wolverine."

Then he swiftly decapitated Frank.

The man stood tall above all the corpses of the dead bikers. Frightened, horrifying and pained expressions forever frozen in time on their lifeless faces. The mystery man closed his eyes and sighed as he brought his head back, facing the ceiling, and slowly retracted his claws. He took a deep breath, seeing that everyone was dead. He lowered his head to glance briefly at corpses again, before mumbling to himself with closed eyes

???: "Goddamnit..."

Not having much to do before abandoning the place, he went back towards the counter and sat down on the wooden stool. He leaned his arms on the counter as he picked up his drink which, miraculously, was still intact. He looked to his right, spotting also his white hat that, unfortunately, didn't have the same luck as the drink in his hand. Noticing all the bullet holes in it, he mumbled to himself sarcastically

???: "Great..."

After that he downed half of his whiskey in a swig, the ice cubes producing a clinking sound as they came in contact with each other and with the glass. After the man made the first swig, a pair of dog tags were seen dangling from his neck, showing the mystery man's true name:

𝗟𝗢𝗚𝗔𝗡
𝟰𝟱𝟴𝟮𝟱𝟮𝟰𝟯 𝗧𝟳𝟴 𝗔

And, also dangling on the same chain, there was another tag that read

𝗪𝗢𝗟𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗘
𝟰𝟱𝟴𝟮𝟱𝟮𝟰𝟯 𝗧𝟳𝟴 𝗔

The following morning Mic's was surrounded by black vehicles and men in suits, everyone of them talking with one another, two of them talking to Mic to get his witnessing about what happened in the bar, along with the other people who were present in the bar before the massacre. Another black SUV arrived at the scene, from it two people came out, a man and a woman. He was dressed in a suit, he had a white and orange badge on his jacket's pocket, he rocked a pair of sunglasses and a metal watch on his left wrist, he had a receiding hairline, short dark hair. She had a combat suit on with the symbol of an eagle on her left shoulder, a gun holstered on her right thigh, a digital notepad in her hands, an earphone connected to a secure communication channel, she had long brown hair kept up in a bun, with a few strands descending and framing her face. She looked at the place with a puzzled look, then asked him

???: "What exactly are we searching for, Phil?"

The man took away his sunglasses and inserted them in his jacket's inner pocket, then he turned around to look at her over the SUV, and said

Phil: "A new asset, Maria, we hope."

The two of them started walking side by side towards the bar, while eyeing and checking every possible detail in the scene, then she asked

Maria: "For the Initiative?"

The man nodded at her and, when they reached the owner of the place, who was talking to other men in suits, he greeted him

Phil: "Mic Douglas?"

Mic then turned around and noticed the man and the woman standing by him and confirmed his identity, then Phil picked something from the inside pocket of his jacket, a wallet, and opened it, making Mic see the eagle badge inside of it

Phil: "Phil Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D., we'd like to ask you a few questions."

Phil, then, dismissed his collegues, and Mic nodded at his question

Phil: "Could you tell us what happened?"

Mic nodded again and started to remember what occured the night before, then he started

Mic: "It was a normal night like always: people came in, sat down by their tables, ordered something to drink or to eat and just, you know, enjoyed their stay. Then this man came in, I never saw him before but he seemed a normal dude that wanted to drink...but he wasn't."

Maria was typing the informations Mic was telling them without missing a single thing, while Phil nodded and asked

Phil: "Can you describe him to us?"

Mic nodded

Mic: "Okay, yeah, uhm...he was tall and huge, I think he had a muscular body. He had a red plaid shirt, a pair of jeans, a big, white cowboy hat and he had long sideburns."

Phil continued

Phil: "Did he say his name?"

Mic shook his head and, despite his disappointment, Phil continued regardless

Phil: "And what did he do?"

Mic: "He just sat down on a stool and ordered a drink. He seemed nice, I asked him if he was drinking to forget something, since I had a certain vibe about him, but he said something strange..."

Phil was visibly interested, he folded his arms and asked

Phil: "What did he say?"

And Mic answered

Mic: "He said he was drinking to remember...in my experience I've seen a lot of folks that drank for many reasons: to numb the pain, to just let loose, to forget something they regretted doing...but I've never seen a man drinking because he wanted to remember something."

Phil and Maria looked briefly at eachother, then they looked again at Mic, and Phil asked

Phil: "What happened then?"

Mic: "The Dogs of Hell came: they're a biker gang that terrorizes the suburbs, I was afraid. They came every week to collect their money, so my clients knew what was going to happen when they entered my place, and they fled away. Everyone fled, except for him. I was about to warn him, but they already saw him, and their leader started to make his way towards us. The situation escalated quickly, the leader pointed a gun at his temple and before I knew what was happening he...he..."

Phil: "What did he do?"

Mic looked at Phil with fear and shock and said

Mic: "He cut the leader's arm off...with metal claws that came out from his hand!"

Phil and Maria shared a look, silently deciding to investigate personally the scene and then inform the director. Phil looked at Mic and said

Phil: "Thank you for you collaboration, one of our agents will escort you home."

Mic said 'bye' to them and walked away, while Phil and Maria, after sharing another look, pushed open the door of the bar and entered to see a creepy and horrifying scene: everywhere they looked there were corpses, limbs and dried blood. The veteran agents saw a lot of horrible scenes in their carreer, but never had they seen something so horrific and disgusting. Maria couldn't handle the disturbing view and the revolting smell, so she went outside. In the meantime Phil took out his phone from his pants' pocket and, as he turned around, dialed a number. After a few rings, the one on the other line picked up, and Phil said

Phil: "Sir, we found him."

Logan was sitting by the counter of a bar, smoking his cigar and downing his drinks one by one. He was wearing his boots, his jeans, his belt, his leather watch, he had a white t-shirt under a dark shirt. He took the glass in his hand and was about to down it too when he heard a voice behind him

???: "Thirsty much?"

Logan stopped what he was doing and sniffed something in the air: the smell of leather, the material of which the guy's clothes were made of, he sniffed the smell of a parfume that screamed 'I'm the boss around here' that, mixed with the nonchalance he showed when he asked that question, made Logan realize that behind him there was a governative, a person high in command of some kind of organization. And Logan, pointless to say, definetely had a problem with authority. So he, without turning, answered before downing his drink

Logan: "Who the fuck are you?"

The man walked forward and sat down beside him on a stool. Logan looked at his left and saw the man: he was a black, bald man with a leather eyepatch, he was indeed dressed in leather, and Logan had to admit that that leather coat wasn't bad at all. The man looked at him with seriousness and answered

Nick: "I'm Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Logan."

The sarcasm evident in his last statement. Logan turned to face him and asked with squinted eyes

Logan: "How the hell do you know my name, bub?"

Then Nick picked something from the pocket inside of his coat and placed it on the counter in front of Logan. It was a photo of the massacre at Mic's. Logan looked at the picture and, thinking he would've had to endure another fight, he prepared himself to pop out his claws. Nick didn't lose his calmness as he then said to the Canadian

Nick: "You tend to leave a nice trail wherever you go. S.H.I.E.L.D. has been keeping tabs of these particularly gruesome massacres for months, trying to find out who was the responsible. And yesterday, thanks to the video footages we found, we were able to track your movements and locate your position, while also learn your name thanks to the dog tags you have there. Through the video footages we thought we could finally find out more about you. Do you wanna know what did we find after hours and hours of searching?"

Logan stared right back at him and, with a challenging tone and a raised eyebrow, answered

Logan: "Enlighten me."

Nick then answered

Nick: "Nothing. No identity, no record, no documents. Nothing. You're a mystery, Logan, and I don't like mysteries."

Logan then turned back to the counter and signaled the barman for another drink as he said

Logan: "Well, too bad for you, now leave me alone."

The drink arrived and Logan took it in his hands, while Nick, despite being annoyed at his behaviour, stayed calm and collected as always, and answered

Nick: "Believe me, I would gladly do it. But the thing is that I can't let a dangerous enhanced wander around and brutally kill anyone who passes by."

Logan then asked with annoyance evident in his voice

Logan: "Then what the fuck do you want, Fury?"

He downed his drink in a couple of gulps, as Nick answered with a serious tone

Nick: "I wanna give you a job."

Logan chuckled at this, thinking that the man was probably crazy. He brought his cigar, which was being held between his pointer and middle finger, to his mouth. The smoke travelled through his esophagus and arrived in his lungs as he aspired, and then it flew out when he blew a huge puff. After that, he asked sarcastically, with a smirk on his face

Logan: "Yeah? Which one? The butcher?"

Then Nick, without losing his serious expression, replied right after

Nick: "Something like that."

He then revealed a folder in his hand, that he placed on the counter. On it was written

𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗧𝗜𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘

𝗣𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗔𝗥𝗬
𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧

Logan eyed the folder and turned his head to look at Nick, then asked

Logan: "What is this, you want me in a band or something?"

And Nick, looking at him dead in the eye, said

Nick: "This is your chance to do something good, to be more than a savage killer. Be a part of something bigger than you. So, what do you say? Interested?"

Logan looked at Nick for a couple of seconds, reflecting on the alternatives he had: did he want to be some kind of hero? No, he had better things to do than saving ungrateful people that hated him for what he was. Did he have a choice? No: Fury explicitly said that he knew what he did, and that he couldn't let him go wander around, free to kill whoever he wanted. That meant that, in case he didn't accept, this man would have hunted him down 'till his departure. And the fact that from a simple footage he was able to locate and identify him, made it clear that the man could indeed make his life a living hell if he wanted, unless he listened to him and accepted the offer. So, in other words, what Fury was offering to him was not a choice: he was forced to accept. Logan smoked again his cigar and then, after ordering another drink, answered

Logan: "Alright, Fury, I'm listening..."

| 𝐗 |

𝐀/𝐍: 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬, 𝐠𝐮𝐲𝐬! 𝐈 𝐚𝐦 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫! 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬. 𝐃𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐭? 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐝? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧? 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 "𝐘.𝐎"? 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝐠𝐮𝐲𝐬, 𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 ❤️