Lex and Hank | Thursday Afternoon

[x-lexington.livejournal.com]

Lex heads to the medlab to see if Hank can figure out why his powers aren't coming back properly.


Lex walked into the Medlab with grim determination. He'd been doing everything he could to avoid the place since his release, but the way his powers failed to come back had convinced him that he needed an expert opinion. Looking around, Lex tried to find Hank. There was no one in the lab. It was barren and sterile, giving Lex the sensation that he was in some quasi-dreamlike state. "Dr. McCoy?" He walked around towards the back offices, hoping that Hank wouldn't be too preoccupied. If he was with another patient Lex knew he'd just cover his ass by asking for some muscle relaxants.

Meanwhile, Hank was preoccupied with the mountain of paperwork he'd finally managed to make a dent in after the team's recent excursion to India. Reports had to be filed about the reports he'd already filed and some of those in triplicate. With a sigh he moved his glasses up to his forehead and rubbed his eyes when there was a knock on his door. "Please come in," Hank said, sliding his glasses back down over his bloodshot eyes.

"Hey, Doc, it's Lex." He said as he stepped inside the office. "You got a moment?" He looked at the piles of paperwork and tried to decide whether or not his problem was worth wasting the doctor's time. In the end he decided that brief conversation wouldn't kill anyone.

"For you, mister Lexington, I have two, what's on your mind?" Hank took off his glasses and set them on the desk with a toothy smile. He was fairly certain he knew what this visit was about, but it would be better for Lex to say it.

"A lot of things, actually." Lex tried to smile as he spoke, a difficult feat considering how heavy his thoughts were. The past week had been hell for him, alone in his room with the thoughts of being hollow. "I've been trying to feel the electricity around me and I can't seem to do it."

"Hrmm, yes, I seem to recall your having some difficulty with that during your last check-up. I take it that things have not improved since then." Hank fished an old cellular phone out of his desk drawer and set it on top of the mountain of paperwork. "Give this one a try, it should be fully charged- or at least it was before I put it in the used electronics drawer."

Lex looked at the cell phone with grim determination. He tried to feel the internal electrical system that it contained and found that he could not tell whether or not it had one. He sighed and looked at Hank skeptically. "Are you sure it's charged? I can't see anything inside of it."

Hank picked up the small handset and turned it on, a small blast of fanfare coming from its speakers as the power in the battery brought it to life. "It would appear to be fully functional." The blue doctor set the device back down on his desk and sighed, "Would you be adverse to a quick Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scan? We could pop over to the lab and get you in and out in about five minutes. I want to make sure you didn't suffer any nerve damage as a result of your time in India or the overexertion you suffered after."

"As long as you don't think that I'll make the machine explode." He didn't really like machines, or doctors, but he trusted Hank more than any other doctor he'd ever met. "I've got all the time in the world, I can't begin training with the others till my powers come back."

*****

As the machine powered down and the slab slid out of the tunnel with Alexander Lexington on it, Hank carefully reviewed the results on his touch pad. "Mister Lexington, I have good news- which, as usual, comes with the inverse as well." Sliding the device into his coat pocket, Hank continued, "The good news is that you don't have any nerve or brain damage. The bad news is that these results point toward a mental blockage of your abilities."

The look of confusion on Lex's face said a great deal. Mainly, it asked how the hell a machine could tell him that the block on his powers was mental. He never really did understand the principles behind science, just how to operate the systems of electricity. "So, that means I can just think my way past this problem?" The question was stated with utter disbelief, as if the answer might somehow diminish his trials to days wasted alone.

"Not quite, though there will be some taxing mental work involved in the solution. I'll schedule you an appointment with Professor Xavier to have him take a look at your psychic landscape to see if he can't break up some of this blockage with telepathy. There's no guarantee that your powers won't simply self-correct and return to normal levels in time, but this way will be faster and I think you'd prefer that, yes?"

"Most definitely. The faster I am back to normal the better I'll feel about everything." He laughed despite himself, Hank had just told him the best news of the past few months. But then the laughter past and he tried to think through everything reasonably. What if the Professor wasn't able to do anything, or if it was a permanent safety feature to keep him from frying his brain. Lex's smile turned to a flat grimace. "As soon as you can make that appointment. Please."

Pulling out his touch pad, Hank pulled up Charles' schedule and looked for open times, "Let's say, three o'clock tomorrow then." He put the computer away, "It's probably nothing, Lex, I've seen this sort of thing time and time again. Mental blocks are pretty common when it comes to our abilities."