Time: 3:32 AM
Date: March 29, 2011

---

He didn't know why, but he had a few feelings about him as he made his way towards the Gym. a couple of feelings really, not like a lot. Only two really weird ones. But they were really weird. The first one was that he felt like he hadn't really been here in some time. He knew that a few years back he'd returned to the X-Men from a stint in a couple of prisons. Not exactly the hiatus he'd been looking for, but still, he'd learned some stuff about himself. No, this feeling was more like, since the break out, since the returning to the X-Men, he'd felt as if he'd been gone after all that happened too. Not sure what that meant, he accepted that if he tried to look back at the events over the last few years and months, everything was this blankish blur.

Secondly, Peter felt a renewed urge to hurt something. All the pain of his entire family dying, then being held prisoner by the FSB, of being labled a Russian fugitive, or how SHIELD picked him up and made him a prisoner of the CAGE, it all was rushing back at him at once. And while he'd been sure that he'd gotten over it all, something inside him made it feel as if it had all happened not only in just one day, but that that day had been yesterday.

So here he was now, trudging along in the dark, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and his black cowboy boots, his gloves sticking out of his back pocket, heading for the gym to take out his pain on something that can't get hurt. Like, the door, for starters.

Kicking the door open felt good, a little, but he wanted to feel good a lot, so he also Slammed it back closed and walked straight to the heavybag. slipping on his fingerless gloves took no moment's time, and as he got them to set just right, he noticed it was very quiet in his vicinity at this time of day. Huffing, he walked over to a stereo and turned it on, passing along stations of rap, country, talk radio, static, jesus talk radio, and kinds of latin stations, until he heard a wonderful face melting guitar riff. He stopped there and let some band called NAzareth do their job while he returned to the bag.

He knew that he could have easily destroyed this bag in one punch should he but turn metal, but he didn't feel like tonight was a night for destroying any old something else... no, he was gonna destroy himself a little and get his mind off of the past. So without any ado, he let his fists fly into the bag, punching in that way that only a heavy hitter can swing a fist: hard, and only halfway uncaring where it landed. He didn't worry about form for the moment, he just wanted to hit the bag so hard that even in his fleshy body it'd burst from the chain holding it. And he was definitely trying to do that.

"Grahh!! Ahh!! Raaaahhr!" His fists swung wildly, the pain inside him leaking out through his eyes as Nazareth's Hair Of The Dog turned into Hells Bells by AC/DC. He screamed and swung, swung and screamed, oblivious to the fact that his hands were bleeding at the intensity of the pounding they were contributing to. His hands weren't numb, they were on fire, but still he pounded at the bag, painting it red with his blood. With yet another abused wail of agression, Piotr slammed a left hook into the heavy bag, senting it rocking way out from it's center, and it's strapps holding the chain aloft broke just as he swung a right at the bag, missing it as it fell to the floor.

"Son of a Mother-Fucking BITCH!!" He yelled, anger at missing the bag adding to the frustration of everything else this night. Spinning, he slammed his fists into the brick wall near him, hearing bones crack in his hands, but uncaring. He had no desire to end his pain just yet. Again and again he struck the wall, the bones in his hands practically shattered, and began to crack the wall, pieces coming loose and landing on the floor. Another wild left embedded his arm into the bricks, and his mind began to focus, seeing an objecting: Extend the hole. More and more he hit, the hole growing even as his anger fled.

"Raahhhr!! Gahhh! Mother-Fuck!" With a final strike that didn't barely scrape against the edge of the hole he'd made in the wall, Peter stood there, hands drip drip dripping blood onto the floor, breathing heavily as his adrenaline continued to pump through his body. He didn't even notice that the stereo was off, it didn't really matter at all. Just so long as he had handled his pain.

Sometimes, Rahne Sinclair had no trouble sleeping. More often than not, really. Usually, her days were so busy that she was asleep shortly after her head hit the pillow.

Some nights, though she just needed to feed a nocturnal lupine urge. She knew Jack understood it, the need to just go out in varying levels of wolfness (she was only half of the way through her wolf transformation on this particular night), roam the outdoors, revel in the night air, maybe even catch a meal or a late-night snack.

She had just managed to catch a decently sized wild hare and snap its neck with a quick shake of her head when her superhuman hearing caught the faint echoes of screaming, shouting, and something slamming into a wall repeatedly.

"Bloody drama..." she muttered, and prey dangling by its ears in her right hand, proceeded to walk over to the gymnasium. Surely some student out way past his curfew, taking out his particular issues in a terribly unconstructive manner and...

She stopped for a moment when she caught wind of Colossus's scent. This was indeed unexpected. Sure, she hardly knew the man. He was imprisoned by the time she had first arrived at the school approximately three years ago, and upon coming back, he had not yet taken up a particularly active role on the team. But this? She certainly wasn't expecting this.

"I hope ye've got that out of yuir system," she said as she stepped into the gymnasium, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded at her chest, tail idly swaying back and forth, observing the chaos with some level of surprise. He had actually punched a hole in the wall - without activating his organic steel.

"So... shall I call Dr. McCoy or Nurse Doyle for ye, or would ye rather do that yuirself?"

Colossus turned, seeing the half wolf form of a woman he worked along side. Or at least, they were technically on the same team. "Out of my system? Da, I too hope that the problem is gone. There's no room for problems in my life right now. I need to start pulling my, substantial, weight around here. And this is just in my way." He finished, indiscriminately gesturing towards the hole in the wall with a sweep of his arm.

Turning his entire body toward her, Colossus walked a little closer to Rhane and smiled. "It is good to see Rhane out today, even if isn't really the ideal situation for it. How are you this early morning?"

 Leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded at her chest, and that tail idly swaying back and forth just so made her look, to his imagination, much like those mother wolves in that one cartoon he remembered as  child waiting for their children to realize that what they had done was very stupi- wait a minute... Hey! She didn't just remind him of that, she looked exactly like that...'which meant she must think he'd just been childish and ignorant? Well damn, now that his hands' painful throbbing was registering, yeah he could understand where she was coming from.

"Nyet, my friend." He said, powering up and towering over her by another foot. Now metal, the pain was subsided and he popped his knuckles, the metallic sound ringing through the gym. "There is no need to wake the good Doctor or his assistant for something I've done. Especially when I can fix it myself. Er... Um..." 

He looked at his hands, noticing that they weren't exactly right, and groaned that when he returned to his normal state that his hands were going to look as if the bones had all set and healed slightly wrong. "At least the pain's gone...?" he said kind of sheepishly.

"The wall was in the way?" Rahne asked, eyebrows lifted, head tilted to her left. She didn't really understand the need to punish inanimate objects for whatever problems one was suffering. The wall hadn't done anything wrong, and now would need repairs before this room was fully usable again.

"Dinnae ye try to change the subject here, Mister Rasputin," she said, eyes narrowing some. He had just beaten the unliving hell out of a poor, innocent gymnasium wall at an ungodly hour in the morning, and he was going to greet her as if nothing at all had happened? As if it was just an ordinary, everyday average thing to do?

"Ye're aware that there are better ways to deal with yuir anger than to mangle yuirself, right?" she asked, gesturing with the hand that had her prey clutched by the ears to the trail of blood he had left behind on the floor.

"Talk to Jean about gettin' yuirself some counseling, aye? 'Cause this? This isn't doin' you a bit of good a' tall an' I can guarantee ye that a few certain someones are going to take exception to the wall bein' destroyed like that."

She blinked her eyes a few times, took a deep breath and let it out slowly through her nostrils.

Powering down, Peter stood there, listening to this little woman giving him advice that he knew would be helpful to him later on when he calmed down and had time to mull over her words, but right now, he wasn't feeling the love.

Staring at the dead rabbit in her hand, Peter couldn't stop himself from blurting out a retort that he didn't really want to make. "Da, there are many better ways to manage anger than mangling myself. Such as, take another living creature's life from it." He said, slumping to the ground and resting his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Comrade Rahne. But the things I would tell to Jean, or anyone else, are of things that only a select few would be able to relate to in parts, and nobody would understand the whole. Rahne, you might think that this is a very childish scene you're witnessing, but in truth, it's only the scene of a man who it at the end of his rope and has never been taught how to cope with everything."

He sat there, breathing in and out, listening to her as she filled emptied and refilled her own body with air as well, and thought that maybe, if Wolverine was one to express feelings, maybe he could ask his former teacher for advice. But he quickly discarded that idea, thinking it too fanciful for reality.

Finally, he stood up. "Don't worry about the wall Comrade. Either I will pay to have it fixed, or I shall fix it my own self. But there is nothing to really worry about for it. All will be well." He said, his face now gone of emotion. He had done his release, it had felt good, and while the pressure was no lighter in his mind and upon his shoulders, at least he had tried. Now he would once more hide the destroyed man behind a mask of strength and content.

Rahne narrowed her eyes, and tilted her head to the right.

"Anger issues?" she asked, not quite getting what he was insinuating. And then she followed his gaze to her prey. "Oh. Ohhhhh, you think..."

She trailed off, and a light laugh escaped from her mouth.
"No, no, this is just a late-night snack," she shrugged her shoulders, and lifted the rabbit up just a little bit.

"I mean, I am part wolf, after all. Really. This whole thing," she gestured to herself from head on down to toes - the russet brown fur, the elongated, pointed ears, the clawed fingertips, the pawlike feet. "Isn't just for show."

Rahne frowned slightly as Piotr made his excuses, that his problems were too much, that they were too deep, too horrible, too awful to speak with to anyone. Quite frankly, she'd heard it all before. Most of the Institute staff had at some point. Nobody's problems were so terribly unique that they couldn't go to others for support.

"And Jean is a licensed therapist, after all. If there's anyone you can talk to here, it's her. I highly recommend ye do so," she shrugged her shoulders.

"I'm not worried about the wall. Yuir hands are broken and bloodied, an' clearly, ye've got problems yuir nae dealin' with in a healthy manner. Get yuirself some help. If not f'r yuir own sake, then for the sake of the kids who are under our protection, aye?"

He nodded nas she talked. His little snip at her had gone misunderstood, which was good, because it gave Piotr enough time to realize the pettiness of his plan. He'd wanted her to get mad and fight with him. He felt terrible about that. She hadn't done anything to earn that kind of mistreatment, nothing except show concern for someone who had problems that he couldn't handle alone.

"Da. Jean is very good with understanding. But. But I just don't think I'm comfortable with talking to her, you know? I'm... She is a great friend, but..." He honestly didn't have an excuse as to why he didn't want to talk to Jean. Maybe simply the fact that she could read his mind was what made him wary? No, no because He'd always been able to confide in Xavier when he was a student and a recently inducted X-Man.

"I just don't think I can talk to her about it. And I know that even if I could, I probably would just close up and nothing would be accomplished." It also wasn;t that she was a woman. He was somewhat halfway openening up to Rahne.

Maybe he simply didn't want to talk to Jean. Jean had enough problems what with all her other patients and her job as an X-Man and her being part of the staff at the school. He didn't need to be another burden on her.

"No, no... maybe someone else, maybe. But I just can't talk to her." He looked up at the wolf woman. Here was someone who had been minding her own business, and now here she was talking to someone who not only had anger issues, but had damaged public property and destroyed hiomself to do so. Maybe she was the person he was supposed to talk to. He wasn't sure, but he figured it wouldn't hurt. She was right, he had to talk to somebody, and if he didn't want to talk to anyone else, might as well ask her.

"Maybe you, but not her."

"She's more 'n a good friend, Piotr," Rahne insisted, strolling over to a nearby weight bench and sitting down, setting her prey carefully down across her lap.

"She's trained in this stuff, she's licensed, an' if anyone here knows how to help ye deal with whatever yuir going through, it's her," he was stubborn, she had to give him that much. But that may not have been such a good thing in this case. His stubbornness was preventing him from getting help, and whether he believed it or not, breaking his hands against a wall would not resolve his issues. Far from it, to tell the truth.

"Maybe me, aye? Alright," she nodded her head sharply, and tilted her head slightly to the left. She may not have been the most qualified person to hear what he had to say, but she'd listen anyway. And if that could help, then... well, that could help. Helping was what she wanted to do here, after all. It was what she was aiming for.

"So then let's get down to it, right? Let's hear what it is," she gestured to the weight bench across the way, indicating for him to take a seat. She tended to be like that - very direct, very straightforward. She saw no sense in waiting, no sense in dragging things out.

Piotr was shocked as she gestured to the bench across from her own, Doing as she was indicating for him to do, He stood and took a seat , looking at her in a little bit of a wary, nervous way.

"Here? Now? Are you sure that you even want to do this?" He said, his eyes staring into hers as he asked. He felt it a sign of respect to look someone in the eyes when he talked to them, and once more he felt a little ashamed and immature at his most recent actions.

How was this woman doing this? Making him feel bad about finally letting out a little frustration. Had it been Logan, or Kurt, or even Jean or Scott, he'd have just shrugged and told them to bill him. But no, no, she made him feel ashamed at finally expressing a negative emotion in relative public.

"I only mean, Comrade, that this isn't going to be a nice little conversation where I whine about some girl not liking me this week. I guess it would seem quite obvious that I've got something substantial inside if I let myself do this," He raised his hands, "to myself, don't you think?"

He didn't start right away. He just breathed in and out, filling his lungs full of air through his nose and holding it, before letting it all out towards the floor in one huff.

:I only say that to make sure you really want to talk, because I don;t want to waste your time Comrade Rahne."

"Aye. Here. Now. 'No time like the present', as they say, an' I'm hardly one for beatin' around the bush," she glanced down at the rabbit in her lap. "Clearly, I prefer to get right to the thick of things and get them done. So let's get this done, aye?"

Instead, it seemed Piotr preferred to beat around the bush. He was delaying. He was holding it off, and that meant that he was not at all comfortable with what he had to say, but surely, he knew that he had to say it. He knew that much for sure. He did, right?

"Piotr - Pete, may I call ye Pete? If'n ye dinnae mind, of course. If ye prefer Piotr, 'tis just as well. Do I strike you as a dainty flower? Do I somehow, despite the fangs and the claws and the whole lupine package, come across as soft, as someone what needs to be sheltered from the nitty gritty?"

She glanced down at her impromptu meal, waiting to be skinned and devoured. It would simply have to wait a bit longer, is all. Oh well.

"So go ahead. Spare me nothin'. If by my listenin', I can help, then I'll be glad to. Really. I'm no psychologist, I'm no therapist, I'm not even a leader of a twelve-step program, but I do know that talking helps. Especially when there's an audience willing to listen."

"Well, ok then. As long as you're sure." he breathed in and out once more, and began to speak slowly at first.

"As you probably know, what with being an X-Man and all, a few years back I left the X-Men go return home to Russia. I did that because I had been told my family was, all of them, dead. My parents and my four siblings were all dead, all at once. Someone might have said I spent a couple of days in my room alone before I left, and it's true. I spent three days in my room listening to a few cd's of music one of the students had lent to me by a band called Metallica, before heading home to bury my family. Not one tear was shed for them. Not even when I arrived and identified their bodies." he paused, taking another breath. He stood up, and began pacing as he continued. The words were coming easier now, as if he no longer had to force them out.

"Papa, Mama, three brothers and my little Snowflake, my sister Illyana. Not one tear was shed. Not even after I learned that they didn't die. They had been murdered. Murdered because I was a mutant. So I stayed there, living in my home until the day they would return. I was going to make the men who had done it pay." he tuned to her then, looking into her eyes.

"They came at night, and filled my home with a gas that knocked me out. I woke up in the hands of the Russian government, in a facility that did tests on me that would haunt your dreams forever. I know, because they still do. I remember one or two tests vividly. You know that smelting pot that the Terminator drops himself into in the second Terminator movie? Well they wanted to re-enact that scene. Had it not been for the fact that I started melting before I got too close, we wouldn't be able to be having this conversation. And another time, they hooked me to an electromagnet and placed me in front of Another electromagnet to see if they could turn up enough power to stretch my body across the distance. And every time I would refuse to cooperate with them, they would electrocute me until I complied."

He was on a roll. This was the first person he truly talked to since his return about what happened, and he was on a roll, everything was coming out as if someone had popped open a fire hydrant. "The moment someone slipped, I took my chance and escaped. I killed fourty-six men, all torturers who had delighted in my pain, and leveled their building to the ground."

"I tried to escape my country and return, but I was caught by SHIELD and put in the CAGE for two years. Fighting is prominent in there. Fighting in the arena, Fighting to keep your food and your stuff, even Fighting of those who would kill you or worse... Nobody came to my rescue save one group. The brotherhood broke us out. The Brotherhood! People who I've fought against came to save me. And then to top it all off, someone whom I thought I began to love left me behind after the escape. She had said she simply was using me."

He was still pacing after he'd stopped, slowly crossing the floor back and forth, reliving all he said as he spoke. He returned to his seat across from Rahne and looked a her again.

"The time wife I've returned has been a blur of menial missions, painting, and the occasional conversation with someone checking on mento see if I'm still alive in this metal shell," he powered up for effect at this, "until this morning when I simply could take it anymore. I broke a wall, and I broke my hands."

"So yes, it might seem like my actions are childish, but I did not know anything else to do to release my stress and pain, and there were no bad guys around.... I'm sorry I was so long winded. I just couldn't stop when I started." he finished lamely before dropping his gaze to the floor.

"I'd heard bits an' pieces here an' there, aye," Rahne answered with a nod of her head. She knew some of the details, as the X-Men had been at the least partially briefed on his status. It was kept down to the barest essentials, the rest left private because, quite simply, it was private. It was Piotr's prerogative whether or not to inform anyone else, and so that was how it was.

She listened in silence as he told the whole story. The death of his family, a trap, detainment and experimental torture by a shady Russian organization, perhaps even the government itself, only to escape and be detained by SHIELD... fighting to survive within a brutal superhuman prison environment.

The outburst made more sense now. It may not have been the wisest choice, but it was understandable. It was believable. Dealing with emotional turmoil and pain by dealing yourself physical pain in its stead.

"No, no need to apologize, honest. 'Tis good to get these things out in the open, 'tis good to talk about what bothers ye," she couldn't help but wonder what it was with men and internalizing like this. It was Jack's way, too, it seemed. Keep what bothers you inside, push it down, push it down, until eventually - it can't help but pop. In Piotr's case, it meant punching a wall. In Jack's case, it meant a painfully unusual transformation coupled with loss of control.

"I still think it could help to seek therapy, truly, I do. I can listen, but I hardly know what to do to truly help. What to say, what to suggest. I'lll nae force ye to go, but... I highly recommend it either way."

Peter was just expecting for Rahne to go 'aww you poor thing' and other such nonsense and try to colsole him, that weird stuff women did. What was with women and over emotional junk like that?

But he was surprised to find that she didn't do any of that, but calmly told him that she felt it was good he was talking about it. And to be honest, he did feel a little better about it all after saying what was wrong. He felt like the weight was lifting off his shoulders even as he had said the words.

She said something about still wanting him to seek therapy. He didn;t like the idea, but she had a good argument. He couldn't keep relying on destroying stuff, and his hands probably wouldn't be able to take the abuse he would put them through.

"Nyet. Therapy wouldn't help. What can they say? 'It's obvious, Mr. Rasputin, that you have anger issues. Here, take these drugs, they'll help control that anger.' Nyet. I do not need drugs, and I do not need someone telling me that i am angry either. It doesn't cost one hundred dollars an hour to figure that out."

He smirked a little, letting her know that he wasn't bitter against shrinks. He just didn't see how helpful they could be for something that had happened to him, not was happening to him.

"Besides, You've helped me a lot this morning. Just talking to you today has lessened my anger a little. MAybe all i needed was to talk to you. Maybe that's still all I need?"

He sat there for a moment, trying to figure out what he'd just say. "I think I just asked you to be my unofficial shrink. Heh heh."

"I think ye'd be quite surprised," Rahne said with a shrug of her shoulders. Stubborn as a mule. Stubborn as a team of mules. "An' it's different from psychiatry - there's no medicine involved."

With a nod of her head, Rahne stood up, grasping her prey around the ears and allowing it to dangle in her grip. It may have been a bit macabre on some level, but as far as she was concerned, it wasn't so different from carrying around a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken or a bagful of fast food. It was just a snack. Prey, and she the predator.

"An' I hardly think Jean'd be charging you for it," she added, nodding her head softly. "But it's yuir choice. Like I said, I couldn't force yuir hand in the matter."

She glanced to the doorway, and then back to Piotr.
"Well, I think I'd best be movin' along, have muh snack an' get muhself some shuteye. A wee bit, at least."

She offered a short wave, and a close-lipped smile.
"You take care o' yuirself, Pete. An' no more brutalization of poor, innocent walls. They go through enough as it is, aye?"

And with that, she headed back out the way she came in, headed for the relative solitude of the woods where she could enjoy her rabbit without disturbing anyone with the relative goriness of it all.

{Exit}

Peter nodded. She sure was still pushing this head-shrinking bit. Maybe she seriously thought he was messed up in his head, he didn't know, but he nodded his head again and smiled.

Hopefully she didn't mind that he might not ever show up to a session. Because he had sated his desire to release his anger. He had removed enough stress to not worry about the top being blown off of his mind.

"Da, I figured I'd held you a little longer than you wanted to be here. Thanks for your time Comrade Sinclair."

He chuckled a bit as she said the quip about the walls. "I believe the walls are safe from me, for a while now at least."

He turned back to his little mess as she left. Oddly thankful now that he was alone, he picked up the pieces of brick and mortar on the floor, and tossed them into a can. Taking his towel, he began to wipe off what little bit of the blood as he could.