#and I think Scott would not have been there for Bobby anyway

[yakichoufd]

So I've read Children of atom and I really enjoyed it greatly! It my favorite x-men comic read so far!! I really wanted to hug each o5 character at some point! Xavier isn't exactly what I remembered as a kid and I think it fits him better (kid me thought he was very gentle, but he is not really (he's not mean or anything, but he is not the sweet gentle professor kid me imagined). He has a goal in mind and does almost everything he can to get there). I like that each of the kids has different struggle with their mutation while being in highschool and they all survive in different ways (well you don't really see Jean, it is explained why but it was a bit of a bummer). Over all, there is a lot of angst for everyone.

I wanted to tell Bobby that everything would be ok, same for Scotty and Warren. I fell for them the most. I kind of wanted to see the kids bonding together, but I guess, that's never the point in marvel comic? I wanted them to do kids things since they could truly be themselves in the mansion. Scott was so skinny and always with oily long hair, poor bean!His nickname "slim" take a different meaning! It is quite interesting to read about his childhood. How messed up and tragic it was. He kind of has a villain backstory haha!

[kalinara]

(X-Men First Class Finals #2)

One of the many things I hold against Charles Xavier is how little he seems to have tried to prepare his surrogate son for life outside of being a superhero.

I mean presumably, Xavier's school does count as an actual school. The kids do go on to college or university after (though I don't believe Scott actually finished. And Jean, honestly, is questionable). Bobby at least learned enough to become an actual accountant and Warren can run his family businesses well enough.

But like, emotionally, what has Xavier actually done to prepare these kids for adulthood?

And it's particularly notable in Scott's case, because at least the others had their families (awful as they could be at times) to provide some measure of support or direction. Scott had a mad scientist's orphanage/laboratory, and then a petty street criminal wanting to use him as a living cannon. That's it.

(I suppose, eventually, he has Alex. I suppose I should give credit to Xavier there, since in the earliest issues, Scott very explicitly had NO ONE. He spent holidays at the mansion, with nowhere to go and no one to contact. All New X-Men Scott is delighted to reunite with his older-younger brother, but there's no indication there that he'd been having semi-regular contact with him. So we can assume contact was made AFTER issue #8.)

But anyway, Xavier has this kid, who has nothing, dropped in his lap, and the closest thing he does to any kind of guidance counseling is make him team leader and then skip town. (And later fake his death.)

It's just a little horrifying when you think about it. What kind of prospects does Scott actually have, career wise, if he does leave the X-Men. (Maybe piloting? Presumably he does have a license. And if his grandparents are still alive, he might be able to take Madelyne's old job?)

For that matter, how many of the various teachers at either the New-X-Men era Academy, or the Jean Grey School actually have the credentials to teach anyone?! (I'm not really bringing up Scott's post AvX "school" there, because that was less a school and more of a specialized training facility held in a secret bunker. No one was even pretending to learn how to pass the SATs.)

And honestly, it didn't seem like there was ANY organized school structure on Krakoa. I mean, yes, it IS mutant paradise. But still, kids ought to be learning math and shit, right?

And now what do we have? Emma and Kitty's students do still seem to be attending regular school at least. Scott's team are already adults (or maybe emancipated in the case of Idie and Quentin?). I don't know what the fuck is going on for the folks living in the swamp though. Maybe that'll come up after the crossover.

(I also doubt they have any real health insurance or work history that would qualify them for social security later. Being part of a millionaire/billionaire's private child army isn't really great for future prospects, I notice...)

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Just dropping by to give some love and appreciation to one of my favorite writers 💜

I love you too💜

"Touch it, please?" Jubilee begged, holding up one of the nails in the blacksmith's shop.

"Unless you wanna know about the guys divorce, there's probably not much to say... and if it is antique it was probably just in a drawer-"

"Please?"

"No thank you," you snort.

"You're no fun," she pouted.

"Not when I'm chaperoning in hell," you hum, tucking her arm through yours. Kids on the trip have been in and out of in touch with you all day. Logan gave them a list they're supposed to look for- so you help with the list and just generally keep an eye on things. And your hands to yourself.

"I forgot," she said wincing, "God that probably is weird."

"Three layers of ghosts and some of them have Nikes," you hum. "Luckily there's nothing super... interesting here."

"Interesting?" she asked looking up from her paper.

"Sometimes I just really wanna know," you shrug. "It looks like I SHOULD touch it."

She nodded thoughtfully and chewed on her lip, "That stuff is probably locked up, huh?"

"Yeah. Thankfully." Your head was pounding. And you were ready for bed already and it was just after 11. Five more hours. "Your next thing is just up the path- I just helped Bobby find it."

"What'd be ask you to touch?" she asked grinning.

"A salt shaker."

She laughed and let go of your arm scampering up the path and Logan strolled over from checking in with the knot of kids he found, "Stop helping," he grumbled.

"I've been here 12 times- And I don't tell them WHERE it is, just where to go look," you shrug.

Logan mock scowled and handed you your water bottle again, "I'm telling-"

"Oh I'm so scared to never have to be in hell again," you pout, "Please don't tell the professor!"

"Brat."

You grin and shrug, "Your choices were me or Scott-"

"You're nicer to look at," Logan snorted.

"Was that a compliment, Logan?" You blink at him. "What reality is-"

"Brat," he groused. But he pulled you against his side anyway, tucking your arm into his- glad to see that you look better. Even if he can see that you're head is still hurting; probably hurting worse. "I wanted- I've been thinking," he stopped and exhaled sharply. "Can you- If I give you something would you be able to tell me about it? What happened to me?"

You stop walking and look up at him, "Probably. I just don't know how much sense it would make-"

"Anything," he said. "Anything you can give me. I know- Jean told me it hurts if-"

"If something violent happened," you nod. "The wrench of yours- I felt when they shot you while you were holding it."

Logan felt himself frown. What he gave you- anything he gave you that could be connected- it would hurt you, that he knew. "You didn't happen to see a date or anything? Did you?"

"I was too caught off guard to look," you admit. "I wasn't even sure who I was supposed to be until I ran past a mirror."

"Fair," Logan sighed. "Forget it, Princess." He smiled a little, "It's not worth hurting you for."

"It's not permanent. It just-"

Logan shook his head. The nightmares he had were bad enough. He didn't think he could watch someone else- watch you feel that. "I'll figure it out," he said.

"Logan, I'll do it if it'll help-"

He tapped your forehead with his index finger, "Don't want it stuck in there, you see enough bullshit." He smiled just a little, "Besides. We don't know what it would do to you, right?"

"I- sometimes things can be a little much," you sigh, "But if I don't go in totally blind-"

"Not worth it," he repeated, shoulders sagging as he let go of you and started bak up the path.

[positivelybeastly]

Don’t know if you’ve answered this before but what are your unpopular opinions on Beast? I’ll go ahead and make myself look bad to start by admitting that, while I hate how Trish went about it, I honestly don’t know if I would find myself attracted to cat Beast if I had been actively dating him up to that point. It would cross the line for me from “human covered in fur” to “literal anthro animal” and I have never been a furry, personally. It’s don’t know if there’s any “good” way to break up over that, and I’d hate myself, but I can at least relate to Trish on the changeup.

So, here's the thing, Anon - I don't think you look bad by admitting that you don't think you'd be able to handle Hank's change from humanoid to leonine. Hank himself could barely handle it. And it brings to mind a clip from Star Trek: The Next Generation, from an episode called The Host.

Basically, Beverly here has seen a romantic partner, Odan, change bodies twice in a very short space of time due to emergency circumstances, and now Odan is in a female presenting body, which compounds Beverly's confused feelings about how to process a very tricky and complicated situation.

I don't think anyone can really blame her for finding it hard and saying no to the relationship, honestly? She's open and she's honest about her feelings, and Odan is disappointed, but they understand, because this has been hard for Beverly just like it's been hard for them. And that's where Beverly and Trish differ.

Like, the way Trish did it? Over the answering machine? Like, just. No. That's the kicker. That's always been the kicker. And the way that she said it? Like, you had every opportunity in the world to delete that message, stop halfway through what you were saying and start again, say it in a way that didn't hurt Hank's feelings - and you chose not to. That's always been the part that's hurt the most.

This woman has presented live news coverage. She knows the importance of choosing her words carefully. She should know better. Which implies that this is just the best way she could see how to handle it, and that is a bad look. It speaks to a lack of empathy and a lack of emotional intelligence, which is on brand for Trish, given how she treated Warren after his wings were damaged by Harpoon, but it's still very, very disappointing to me.

There's never an obligation to love someone after they change. There is an obligation to treat them with kindness and respect, especially when they're struggling with the change, too.

Anyway! You wanted some unpopular opinions?

The X-Men use Beast and don't provide him with adequate emotional support afterwards, in part because they're all too wrapped up in their own problems, and in part because Hank does too good of a job of pretending that he's all right when he's really not. This is compounded by the fact that Hank's closest bonds are with the O5 and not the second generation team (Logan, Ororo, Piotr, etc), so the instant he's on a team that doesn't possess an O5 member, or it possesses an O5 member that he's on bad terms with, things go sour for his mental health, especially if he's expected to do something morally unscrupulous. There is intense significance to the fact that Hank left Utopia after Warren shut him out of his life, Bobby failed to provide emotional support after his torture, and Scott continued to change into a man Hank didn't recognise or approve of.

2. Beast's moral decline was not inevitable and it could have been completely avoided if only the X-Men would stop dragging him into their bullshit and pressuring him to do things he doesn't want to do. Furthermore, the complete lack of taking responsibility by Cyclops, Xavier, Storm, Rogue, Wolverine, or any of the other team leaders who asked Hank to compromise his morals upon seeing where he ended up in X-Force is disappointing, but not unexpected. No, Domino, he was not "always like this."

3. The 'lack of consequences' that Hank suffered as a result of his mistakes and errors in judgement prior to X-Force are not his fault, and are an indictment of poor story handling from 2012 onwards rather than him trying to avoid responsibility for those actions. Hank is, when properly characterised, a person who believes in personal responsibility and owning his decisions.

4. Hank is blatantly obviously bisexual and/or gay. If you ever say that he is the 'straightest X-Man' as a pejorative, I will immediately, and without hesitation, block you.

5. Ben Percy is a fatphobic hack and wanted to write furry blue Mr. Sinister. His characterisation of Beast is, without qualification, embarrassingly bad, and it's clear that everything he knows about the character has been gleamed from Wiki skims. Jordan D. White also holds some of the blame here for not putting his foot down and saying, no, that's not how Beast would act, but frankly, I'm not surprised a modern Marvel editor was failing to do his job on both a micro or macro level.

6. Beast's physical strength has largely been forgotten about by many modern Marvel writers, and further exemplifies how little they care about leveraging what is unique about the character. He was the original X-Men's Big Guy. He is strong. He is fast. He is nimble. He is a threat on the battlefield and can go toe to toe with Captain America. Stop making him job like he's Worf and reducing him down to his intellectual capabilities only, I'm tired of it.

7. The idea that a two dimensional war criminal (no, the idea that you're doing something bad for good reasons is NOT a nuanced one) is somehow more 'interesting' than a intellectual character being forced to battle his morality, bestial instincts, pessimism, and existential dread, is insulting, and betrays an immature approach to characterisation that I can only hope people grow out of.

Characters should grow and change, absolutely. But if that change is making the character worse, stripping him of everything that makes him unique, and shitting on years of better stories? Then it's a bad change. That's not my nostalgia talking, that's my storytelling instincts alerting me to the fact that you're an edgy 14 year old, in mind if not in actuality.

8. Cat Beast is fucking hot, I don't give a fuck if that makes me a furry. Give me his phone number right now, I'll do what Trish Tilby was too cowardly to do. (No judgement on you, Anon, I'm just an unrepentant monster fucker.)

9. S.W.O.R.D Hank is cute as fuck and I absolutely love him in this art style, y'all just need to be more open minded about artists who exaggerate for effect and believe in good expression work at the expense of realism. It's comic books. Let characters look goofy.

10. Beast wasn't being an obstinate bitch on Utopia because he didn't like Scott, he was being an obstinate bitch because he was heavily depressed, morally and emotionally compromised, and regularly having chunks taken out of him physically. He made the correct, healthy decision to remove himself from a situation that was destroying him by inches.

Cyclops was correct to make the calls that got mutantkind through, but Beast was just as correct that a lot of what they were doing was morally abhorrent, and someone had to remember that and remind everyone what they were losing by doing these things, because if you don't, that's how you end up with supervillains. It's not a random coincidence that Cyclops ended up disbanding his version of X-Force later on, because he knew it went too far.

11. Hank is not a traitor to mutantkind. No, he did not 'side' with the Inhumans with Inhumans vs. X-Men, he wanted to abide by the treaty that they had established, work to maintain a peace, and, when that wasn't viable, he didn't want to be part of a pre-emptive strike against an allied power that broke rules of engagement in order to inflict cruel and unusual punishments on people, including sensory deprivation, mental hijacking, and imprisoning people in fucking Limbo.

If you want to blame Hank for 'betraying' mutantkind, are you also going to hold Emma accountable for trying to commit genocide with Sentinels, or Storm for being a fucking idiot and starting a conflict over nothing, when she could have just let Hank go and tell the Inhumans what he'd found out, and the entire conflict could have been avoided? Either IvX is non-canon garbage or it isn't, but own your fucking decisions. Don't pick and choose so you can shit on Hank. This applies just as much to the fandom as it does the writers.

12. Beast is underutilised in fan works because a lot of writers don't feel comfortable writing his unique dialogue style and artists struggle with his myriad mutations (which I don't blame them for, professional artists struggle just as much, if not more so). He is a friend to everyone in the X-Men, someone that they would feel comfortable talking to about their problems with, and every time you reduce him down to just being a plot device, you do your story a disservice.

Yes, this may or may not be influenced by the AO3 Hank McCoy tag 70% stories where he delivers medical/science exposition, 20% First Class AUs, and 10% fics that dive into Hank as a character. 5% of which are probably written by me, because I have a problem.

Those unpopular enough for ya, anon? :P

[mattzerella-sticks]

My Idea for a Live-Action X-Men Movie...

Thinking... how can we introduce the X-Men into live action, whether through movie, tv show, limited series, etc. ... and I have an idea.

Let's start in media res.

Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted has been active for the past few years, however with a small class size of seven. Scott. Jean. Bobby. Hank. Warren. Alex. Lorna. Despite only consisting of seven students, due to Xavier's wealth he has been able to keep his school open and thriving since the beginning.

However that has changed as the size of his class has dropped from seven to one after a botched mission led to the capture of his students save one, Scott Summers.

And the opening scene is Xavier sitting in his mansion, worried, waiting, until Scott kicks his door down, tells them his team is gone, and passes out due to exhaustion.

We then pick up on our narrator for the movie, the character whose eyes we will be seeing the entire movie take place through, stepping off a plane and into JFK airport...

Ororo Munroe. Storm.

She had travelled from her home in Africa seemingly on a whim, as if drawn there by fate, and - unsure where to go or what to do next - she goes to a nearby bar to make her next plan.

Who should happen to sit next to her but a short, hairy man in a cowboy hat and a thick, Canadian accent?

Ororo, meet Logan. They do not hit it off.

She does happen to hit it off with the soft spoken Russian man who is reading poetry at the other end of the bar - Piotr Rasputin - and the bartender, a Native American man - James Proudstar - who wasn't supposed to be working that day but traded shifts with his roommate.

While they are all gathered there they hear a voice in their heads and turn around to see Charles Xavier, a man they all recognize and all soon realize is the reason they are now gathered together in this bar. At first they all want to leave but Xavier implores them to at least first hear him out, which they agree to do, but he tells them he won't start until the final member of their group is here.

Cue shouts and gunfire as Kurt - Nightcrawler - runs, leaps, and teleports across the airport in all his blueness.

Xavier manages to calm the crowd however not before one of the security guards manages to call in that the threat is a mutant and it's a race to grab Kurt before reinformcements arrive. But wouldn't you know it the group is not the best team yet and the reinforcements do arrive in the form of Sentinels.

It seems like all hope is lost when, out of nowhere, a stray quartz-colored beam blows one of the Sentinels apart and allows the group a moment to escape. They regroup in Xavier's car, which had been where Scott was waiting while Xavier gathered the others.

They return to the mansion where Xavier explains what happens to his team, that they were responding to a mutant in distress on an island that had ultimately been a trap - with only Scott escaping. The group has been gathered together to help Xavier and Scott rescue their teammates.

It's mostly a resounding no. Piotr would rather be at home on the farm. James has to go searching for a new job since he undoubtedly got fired from the bar for leaving during shift hours. Logan is "not a team player" and believes that the team is most likely dead anyway. Kurt is game but he is also "not the best fighter".

Ororo also agrees to help.

That surprises everyone. She says that while the circumstances that brought them together were underhanded, she cannot sit idly by while innocent people, people like her with a mutant gene, are in danger. Not just those on the island, who they are tasked with rescuing, but around the world especially since Sentinels have become standard issue around the world. While she does not see herself being a full-time member, she knows that the team Xavier had protected mutants like them from these threats and, with them gone, who will protect their community now?

Xavier tells them that, after they help rescue his original team, they would be free to leave and do what they want with their lives as they please.

Piotr is in. So is James. Logan sighs and agrees, "Since I don't want to be the odd one out." They agree to go save the others. Scott says, however, that before they can mount the rescue mission, they need to become a team first - referencing their battle at the airport and how they need to improve.

They agree to train.

Meanwhile, on the island, we see that there is a Master Mold along with Trask and scientists working on creating the next model of Sentinels in their ongoing war against mutants using the captured mutants from Xavier's Academy as test subjects. The scientists are just as much as prisoners as the X-Men, however, as they were led to the island on false pretenses and forced to work for Master Mold who had, unbenknownst to everyone until the final act, had taken over Trask and controls him as a puppet.

A few of these scientists came with their families. One of these families were the Prydes. Katherine Anne Pryde is seen as a non-threat by both Master Mold and Trask, and is able to freely wander the island as well as speak with the prisoners because, since everything is monitored and she is twelve, she cannot do anything to disrupt the mission. We learn from this scene that Master Mold is on the cusp of unveiling a new breed of Sentinel that, using the schematics pulled from Jean's mind, would be able to track mutants anywhere without needing to be called in. It was luck that the X-Men arrived on their island, fell into their trap.

Meanwhile back in Westchester, NY, this new team of X-Men are having a hard time at coming together to work as a team, which is making Scott mad. He and Logan almost come to blows if not for Piotr stepping between them to break things up. They both step away to cool off.

Ororo decides to speak with both of them. First, she goes to Scott, and tells him that he is not being a good leader. They have a heart to heart where he confesses that his friends are his family, and Jean... he has a lot riding on this being a success, and this is as new to him as it is new to them. He is not used to working with people he hasn't grown up with. Ororo tells him that he needs to lead from a place of love and courage, and not fear. Then, she goes to find Logan to see that he is brushing off Kurt rather coldly and Ororo does not wait to take him to task on his loner attitude. They clash a bit before Ororo tells him to get his act together or just leave, as it shouldn't matter to him what they think if he really doesn't care.

They all agree to do another training session, only they never get the chance as Xavier tells them it is now or never as there was a spike of pain from the same island his first team was lost, and that cannot mean anything good. The heroes go to get suited up and fly to the island base.

Master Mold is ready to create his new breed of Sentinels and it looks like they are a success, as they have been fitted with new upgrades. He activates a few and they immediately power online with the alert that there is a mutant among them.

All eyes turn to Katherine Anne Pryde. Kitty.

Her father and mother object but are restrained as the Sentinels begin to pursue her, only able to tell her to run before they are knocked out. Kitty runs and manages to escape the Sentinels after discovering her ability to phase through solid matter. The escape is not fullproof as they burst out the bunker in full pursuit. When she reaches the beaches with what looks like no place left to go, the clouds part and reveal the Blackbird jet which Ororo had just exited from and is now flying down to confront the Sentinels she spotted chasing the little girl. The Sentinels sense her power and lock onto her, only to get blasted by lightning and turret fire.

The X-Men land and confront the Sentinels but, unlike at JFK, they are able to work together and take them down. Even Logan finds himself being a team player. They rescue Kitty and she tells them where the prisoners are and also what Master Mold is planning.

The team decides to split up - Scott, Piotr, and James will confront Master Mold while Ororo, Logan, and Kurt follow Kitty to the prison area.

Of course we stay with Ororo because, again, she is who we are relying to guide us through this story.

We get to the prison area and it's Ororo, Logan, and Kurt going HAM on these guards taking them down while Kitty uses her powers to free the X-Men. She manages to get to the main control room and hits the button that releases all the prisoners who do their best to help, despite being weakened from experiments and torture.

We learn from Kitty that there's a prisoner missing, and they admit that it's Jean. She was taken by Trask.

So the group races to the main room where Scott, Piotr, and James are and see a BUNCH of Sentinels on the loose and pure pandemonium. Piotr and James are on the ropes and Scott is putting up his best fight, however just as the group arrives the Sentinels converge and blast him, with a woman across the room watching calling out his name as he 'perishes' (we'll circle back on this later).

Without their leader and shocked, Ororo steps up and takes command, leading the group into battle like she's been doing it all her life against the Sentinels while Kitty and Kurt evacuate the scientists. She cuts across the room almost instantly to get to Trask and Jean where we finally learn that the former has been completely taken over by Master Mold and is now a Sentinel cyborg. They battle it out but it's a tough battle given the numbers they're against until there's a moment where Ororo and Jean are tucked away, shielded from incoming blaster fire from Trask and the Sentinels, when Jean places her hands to the ground and closes her eyes. Ororo asks what she's doing and Jean tells her she's asking for help.

"From who? Xavier only sent us?"

"From the mutant we came here to help in the first place. From the island."

BOOM! We get the reveal that the island. Krakoa, is a mutant and has been weakened by the experiments run on it by Master Mold and the Sentinel. Jean tells the group that they need to let Krakoa 'feed' on a piece of their energy to recupe its strength for it to help them and they all look to Ororo as it's her call, and she says they should do it. They do and the ground rumbles and shakes and we can see the island begin to terraform as it fights back against Master Mold and the Sentinels. It takes out MANY of them while the X-Men pick up the slack on the rest.

Ororo takes on Master Mold/Trask hybrid as the island begins to sink back into the ocean, with Trask, damaged, spouting nonsense. That he is there to save the world, that he is the FUTURE, the INEVITABLE, that the X-Men cannot prevent the world falling apart in the future, that they will be responsible for the apocalypse. However, with a lightning zap and some timely telekinesis, the group escapes back to the Blackbird as the rest of the island has already been evacuated.

The X-Men return to Westchester without Scott and inform Xavier of what happened.

Time moves on. They recover. They mourn. A memorial service is held for Scott. Xavier's original students, Warren, Bobby, Alex, Hank, and Lorna, decide to leave the school afterwards as they believe they need to come at the Sentinel problem another way. They form X-Force.

Xavier comes up to Ororo after the service and asks her to stay on, despite her having no obligation to do so. She watches Logan and Kurt keeping Kitty entertained while Piotr and James speak with her parents, about Kitty staying on at the school and learning from Professor Xavier, and decides that she would like to stay and lead the X-Men. Jean joins them and says that she'd be happy to be on any team Storm is leading, revealing that -of the original students - she is the only one who is staying with the X-Men. The three look out onto the horizon as there are endless possibilities for the X-Men now *play the theme song*

END CREDIT SCENE NUMBER ONE - Magneto watches Xavier's new team of X-Men in action and converses with Mystique, saying that, "If Charles has put together a new team of recruits, we should, too."

END CREDIT SCENE NUMBER TWO - A blonde woman in all white speaks with a raven-haird men with red eyes and a crimson diamond embedded in his head. "You pulled a lot of favors to get him, are you sure he's worth it?" "Believe me. He is." The duo, Emma Frost and Dr. Sinister are looking over the body of Scott Summers, very much NOT DEAD, held in stasis as the camera pans out and reveals the Hellfire Club.

And that would be how we introduce the X-Men, and mutants, into live action movies.

[bigskydreaming]

Jokes aside, I actually do have a lot of thoughts about how Bobby's decades of repression are ultimately due to time travel paradox and the fact that circumstances contrived to have him come out as a kid when he was out of his normal time and space. Meaning he never got a chance to find out when he might have decided to try and come out on his own if NOT for those circumstances, like in his college years perhaps. Because of the need to make sure the original X-Men's actions 'matched' the blueprint of stuff they'd already done once they were returned to their normal time, their memories of the future and everything they'd done while there had to be locked away and they had to be 'locked in' to repeating the exact same course of history the original timeline had already followed....meaning specifically BECAUSE teen Bobby had come out while during their time travel trip, he now COULDN'T be 'allowed' to ever come out until history caught up with the events of that time travel trip, or risk a universe-destroying paradox.

....People really don't talk about that part enough, which I get, but I mean, it was NOT as simple as "Bobby - the dude whose literal every action since he caused a town riot when first revealing himself as a mutant has been about spiting his bigoted father and proving he's nothing like him - was just super repressed."

Anyway, point of this is, given the also rarely talked about fact that Bobby was the member of original X-Factor that their teen wards most looked up to and were closest with (due to Scott and Jean being focused on Christopher and everything to do with Madelyne and Jean's resurrection, Warren being caught up in his Apocalypse storyline and aftermath and Hank dealing with his regression/devolution storyline)....

Like, I think a lot about what a timeline might look like where the 05's time travel trip DIDN'T happen meaning Bobby came out on his own later than sixteen but still early on, like during his Defenders days - you know, when he was dating gender fluid Cloud who literally turned into a guy right after kissing him, for instance - and thus he was already out and leading by example when the 05 reunited as X-Factor.

What kind of ripple effects would that have produced? For instance, just looking at Julio alone....how much different could his life have gone if one of his earliest role models was an out and proud gay man back before Julio even MET Shatterstar....let alone found himself falling for him?

[stars-and-birds]

okay so i actually know very little about the x men but what roles are u thinking of for the party?

OKAY. you have awakened nerd esme. prepare urself. this will be long. sooooo long.

so for context the x men— created in 1963 by stan lee and jack kirby and fictionally brought together by professor x, a wheelchaired mutant with telepathic abilities, were/are mutants. mutants are a different species than humans and are as such treated terribly by them. they have “mutations” which give them powers and shit. they were basically created as parallels to real life bigotry and are hated by the general public (in the marvel verse everyone irl loves them. or i do. )

anyway, the original five were—

angel aka warren worthington III (yes that is his actual name) who had wings on his back. now they’re metal. it’s complicated but not important. he’s basically the token rich boy, blond hair, blue eyes, yeah. total knockout in canon too apparently. cyclops aka scott summers who had a red laser beam that continuously comes out of his eyes and as such he wears/wore a special visor made out of special ruby glass professor x found for him. quick fun fact he had so low self esteem and was so depressed professor x made him leader out of fear he would fucking kill himself. which is very dark. a bit stoic and pretty much an old man (he canonically watched seinfield). and he’s transmasc to ME. beast aka hank mccoy who is basically a genius and really strong and stuff. eventually he turns into a literal beast but i’m too sleep deprived to remember how that happened lolol marvel girl aka jean grey who was the token Girl™️ of the group and who possessed too many abilities to keep track of, and when she has them. she gets fucked up at some point in the chris claremont x men run (which is truly iconic) and becomes possessed by the phoenix force(specifically in issue #134, the issue will wanted in episode one) and becomes like evil and shit. the phoenix force is a cosmic evil being and she becomes *dark* phoenix and it’s a whole thing. also pour one fucking out for her imagine being surrounded by teenage boys and hormones most of whom have a crush on you and being able to read their minds. jean babe i’m so sorry for everything you’ve been through. and bobby drake aka iceman who has *gasp* ice powers. he’s a bit of the goofball of the group and can turn basically turn himself into ice which is explored more in more recent comics. he’s also been revealed as gay. one small step for mutants i suppose they’re all queer but nobody tell them.

wow that was long! sorry. anyway onto the actual au stuff. my original plan was to make each member of the part correspond to a o5 x men member, but since there are six i thought i’d add one more for max.

mike is cyclops! i think it fits in a special sort of way that i can’t really articulate since they have such different personalities. but just trust me.

el is jean, in the telepathic sense and being surrounded by boys most of the time sense. rip.

dustin is beast. tech savvy, smart, tested different bc of how he looks— it fits. so so well.

again the personalities may not fit on the surface but i think will is iceman. they’re both sort of softer than everyone else, and whole will is quieter it just makes sense to me haha.

uhh so i don’t actually think lucas would be warren… mayhaps i’m still considering… which means i wrote that whole description for basically nothing but i think it’s funny so i’m keeping it there. anyway i think lucas would be… idk. i’m still thinking it over but maybe gambit.

so for max @hellmo suggested rogue who would be great but i’m also still mulling it over. maybe kitty pryde! idk.

technically i think brenner would work as prof x but obviously that’s a no-go so it’s gonna be mr clarke which i like more as concept actually. again, different personalities but i think that’s okay, because the general roles fit. plus i jsut think that dynamic would be fun to explore more.

so sorry this was long and doesn’t really have much au it’s more me seeing x men and going brrr… haha. thanks for the ask tho!!! i enjoyed talking about them :]

[chellerbelles]

Rogue & Gambit Week 2023: Rogue messing with friends after she got her powers under control, but they don’t know it yet

In the scene preceding this one, it’s established that Rogue is wearing a bikini & sarong, and Gambit is in swim briefs.

Their section of the beach was comfortably crowded when Rogue and Gambit arrived. Most were mingling on the beach itself, but there were some already in the water.

Rogue and Gambit’s towels were slung over their shoulders, Rogue with a cooler bag, and Gambit with his hand carefully placed on the top of Rogue’s sarong at her back. They walked casually across the sand towards Rogue’s friends.

At first everyone was too ingrained in their conversations to noticed, but then a couple people looked over, did double-takes, and nudged people around them.

“Rogue, hi,” Scott said, as they approached. “A little under dressed?”

Rogue raised an eyebrow, then looked at Madelyne standing next to him. “Does he police what you wear too?”

“Uh, no…” Madelyne replied, with a nervous glance at Scott.

“Well, I think you should have a word with him about lusting after other women and trying to police what they wear,” Rogue said, and turned back to Scott. “You’re married, Scott, and have a child to think of. Don’t be a creep.”

“I am not—” Scott began.

“Also, I’m taken. This is my boyfriend, Remy,” Rogue went on blithely. “Remy, this is Scott, and Madelyne.”

“You know, if you’re going to check out other women,” Gambit said, merrily leaning into the fun, “you should probably have the decency not to do it right in front of your wife.”

“I wasn’t—” Scott tried again.

“Anyway, I should get our food to the grill,” Rogue said, and patted her cooler bag. “Come on, Remy.”

Rogue led Gambit away before Scott could get another word in. She then introduced Gambit to Logan and Bobby who were already at work getting the food cooking. Rogue pulled the meat out of her cooler bag and set it on the bench.

“So, uh, you’re looking good, Rogue,” Bobby said.

“Why thank you, but I believe I literally just introduced you to my boyfriend,” Rogue replied. “Why everyone feels the need to comment on what I’m wearing today…”

“You do look exceptionally hot,” Gambit said.

“Aww, thank you, sugar.” Rogue smiled at him, then looked at Logan. “Where’s Storm and Kendall?”

Logan gestured with his tongs. “Over there, building sandcastles.”

Rogue looked over to see Storm and Jubilee watching over while Kendall, along with Scott and Madelyne’s son, Nate, and Jubilee’s son Shogo, built a sandcastle together.

“Aww, cute,” Rogue said. “I hope someone’s taking photos. Oh, hey, there’s Sage and Bishop. ‘Scuse us.”

Gambit gave Logan and Bobby a wave, and they headed over to Sage and Bishop. They passed by Kurt and Wanda on the way, along with Talia, and a white haired man that Gambit hadn’t been introduced to yet.

“Remy, this is Sage, Bishop, and Vange,” Rogue said, introducing him to each of her friends in turn.

“Rogue, hi,” Vange said and gave Gambit a tense smile, while shifting back from Rogue every so slightly. “Hi Remy. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Gambit replied with a nod.

“So you’re the boyfriend,” Bishop said, looking him over with his usual stoic expression.

“I am.”

Sage looked them both over and then said to Rogue: “Congratulations.”

Rogue grinned while Bishop frowned. She had a feeling Sage would be the one person here she wouldn’t be able to unnerve.

“Thanks,” Rogue said the same time Bishop said: “You’re congratulating her on having a boyfriend?”

“Oh, I’m a first class boyfriend,” Gambit replied cheerfully. “I recently won the ‘boyfriend of the year’ award.”

“Up against how much competition though?” said a male voice behind them, and Gambit turned to see the white haired man he noticed earlier standing there.

“All of it. I was completing against all the boyfriends everywhere,” Gambit said. “I won the hotness category by a landslide, but where I really shone was sense of humour. I’m Remy,” he held out his hand. “And you are?”

“Pietro.”

“This is my ex,” Rogue said. “He’s also Wanda’s twin brother.”

Gambit paused for a second while Pietro zipped around him.

“Brother and sister dated brother and sister?” Gambit asked Rogue.

“Yes, but not at the same time,” Rogue replied. “We dated first. Kurt and Wanda got together later.”

“Yes, it was a surprise to all of us,” Pietro said as he stopped back in front of Gambit. “Especially when they got engaged. I still can’t believe they’re happily married and with a child. They seem like they should be so incompatible.” He smiled at Rogue. “Not like us.”

“And yet, didn’t last five seconds,” Rogue said. “A common problem for you.”

“So, how long you been dating this guy for? Five minutes?”

“Five months!”

“I don’t believe it.”

Rogue smiled. “I don’t care what you believe.”

She grabbed Gambit. Bishop and Vange made strangled noises as if to object, and then Rogue’s lips met Gambit’s. Gambit kissed her thoroughly, making sure to run his bare hands over her bare skin. The entire party fell silent except for the odd exclamation and the chatter of the children on the beach.

“Woooo!” Kitty called from the shoreline

Rogue kissed Gambit a little more then pulled away slightly with a grin on her face. Gambit loved seeing how happy she looked.

“So, I’m guessing the congratulations was for you having your powers under control now,” Bishop said.

“Yep,” Rogue said smugly, turning slightly to look at him. “But the whole ‘boyfriend of the year’ thing is still valid.”

Gambit chuckled as he rearranged his arms around her and kissed her neck.

“I’m really happy for you, Rogue,” said Vange. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks!”

“Yeah, congrats,” Pietro added, and then zipped off.

“Come on,” Rogue said, taking Gambit’s hand. “I should introduce you to Kitty and Pete.”

Kitty was giggling as they approached.

“Congratulations, Rogue,” Piotr said.

“Thanks, Pete.”

“I never knew you could be such a troll, Rogue,” Kitty said.

“I have my moments,” Rogue replied with a grin. “Congratulations you two. This is Remy. Remy, this is Kitty and Pete, the bride and groom.”

Gambit held out his hand first to Kitty, then Piotr. “Nice to meet you, and congratulations.”

“Thanks! Nice to finally meet you.” Kitty beamed at him. “I’ve heard so little about you. What do you do?”

“I’m a security consultant.”

“Oh, interesting.”

“Rogue!” Jubilee exclaimed.

Rogue turned to see her friend, her legs covered in a fine layer of sand. “Hi sugar!”

“You got control!”

“Yes I did!”

Jubilee squealed and threw her arms around Rogue in a huge hug. “Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!”

“Oooh thank you.”

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Watched the Cold Comfort Iceman episode of TAS series, and I can't get over the giant hate boner that Cyclops has for Bobby. Like, why? What did he do?

Cyclops literally stands over unconscious Iceman and says "You have no right to wear that uniform!" Because he left the team? Big deal, people do that all the time. Because he joked around a lot and didn't take things seriously? Morph did that during the first two episodes and Cyclops didn't seem to care. Because he wouldn't follow orders and pushed back against Xavier's authority? Maybe, but we don't actually SEE a lot of that happening in the past. In the present, Bobby is an adult who voluntarily left the team, and is understandably upset at the X-Men trying to give him orders again.

I mean, I think I can see what the writers were going for. Cyclops is the good soldier boy who always follows orders, and he gets angry at those who don't. And his comment to Xavier about Xavier letting Bobby "get away" with stuff sounds like an older brother who has a lot of responsibility heaped on his shoulders, feeling resentful towards a younger brother who is shown far more leniency. Also, to be fair to Scott, I would also be constantly pissed off if I'm the main field leader, and half the team frequently runs off to do own thing, and one angry little Canadian keeps talking shit to me and flirting with my girlfriend.

But if I'm being really fair to Scott, I have to notice that this episode takes place somewhere between the Phoenix and Dark Phoenix saga in the show's continuity. Jean is not there, so either she's still believed to be dead, or she's been found, but is nearly comatose on Muir Island. I think the strain of losing Jean has made Scott angrier in this episode, because here comes this blast from the past, one of the original X-Men, and it's just a reminder that Jean, who was also there from the very beginning, is gone. And Scott is trying his best to carry on and still do his duty as an X-Men, and he can't stand to see Bobby being (in Scott's mind) reckless and irresponsible.

I don't know if that's what the writers intended, but that's what I was getting. I also agree with @katatonicimpression's analysis of the episode that you can read an underlying "Bobby is gay" theme in all his rebellion against authority, and not wanting to be what other people tell him to be. I know he wasn't officially gay yet in the comics, but still.

Anyway, I hope Bobby gets to show up sometime in the revival, and I hope they let him be gay.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Hey Ariel!

Since you know a lot about X-Men ships and romance, I figured you could help me out with this.

So I'm currently working on another fanfiction titled "Spider-Man: Family Values".

The series focused on the adventures of the friendly neighborhood wall crawler as literally what everyone on the planet has been asking for him to be: a husband and a father.

Accompanied by his 5-year old daughter Mayday, along with Shadow Spider (Miles), Venom, Agent Anti-Venom, Silk and Black Cat, Spidey finds him going on all kinds of adventures with the faces of the much greater Marvel Universe.

Basically, it's kinda like Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

And among his most recurring allies, would be none other than The X-Men.

As for their status in this world, they've actually made progress in furthering human-mutant relations.

And they've even made the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters available for human students now.

But just like Peter, a lot of them have gotten with a special someone, tied the knot, and/or started a family (among their already large family).

As for the team themselves, it consists of….

-Cyclops -Storm -Wolverine -Jean -Beast -Rogue -Gambit -Jubilee -Nightcrawler -Colossus -Iceman -Psylocke -Angel -Emma Frost -Shadowcat -Bishop -Firestar -Morph -Chat (who was an original character from the Marvel Adventures comics)

As for the couples I already have planned, these include: Scott x Jean, Rogue x Remy, and Kitty x Illyana.

Scott and Jean are married and have a son in the form of Nathan.

And I must emphasize this…..

Nathan is Scott and Jean's CHILD!

Not the child between Scott and a clone of Jean.

Also, Nathan will actually get to grow up with his parents instead of being sent to the future.

Rogue and Remy are also married, with Remy expressing interest in having kids.

And Kitty and Illyana are just dating.

As for everyone else….

Ororo would either be with Wren (who just like NM, is a female), Thor or Valkyrie.

As for Wren, besides Ororo, she would be with either Kurt, Betsy or Chat.

And speaking of Thor, besides Ororo, I thought of pairing him with either Jane Foster or Sif.

Logan would be with either Morph or Mariko.

As for Morph, it would have to be Logan.

Henry would either be with Abigail Brand, Cecelia Reyes, Carly Crocker or Emma.

As for Emma, besides Henry, she would be with either Piotr, Betsy or Chat.

As for Piotr, besides Emma, he would be with either Bobby or Lorna.

As for Betsy, besides Emma, she would be with Wren.

Bobby, besides Piotr, would probably be with The Human Torch.

Kurt, besides Wren, would probably be with Cerise or Pietro.

Speaking of Pietro, besides Kurt, he would probably be with Crystal (who I thought of pairing with Torch).

Chat would definitely be with either Wren or Emma.

Angelica would either be with Marvel Boy or Lorna.

And finally for Bishop….I honestly connect think of any love interest for him.

So I may have him be asexual in this series.

But anyway, for the X-Men I gave pairing choices for, who do you think would be the best option for them?

Also, if you have an option for Bishop, let me know.

@s10127470

Please, don't pair poor Pietro with Crystal!

The Inhumans overall are terrible news, but Crystal specially, if you already find the love triangles annoying, Crystal will give you an aneurism: You know the character who can't live with stability and always searches for drama to make their lives more exciting, in the proccess hurting the people around who care about them?

That is Crystal, the poster for that type of character! Her marriage to Pietro (which happened after Crystal cheated on Johnny with a wounded Pietro) was awful, with him constantly trying to impress her family, only for her to cheat on him because "he isn't giving him and her daughter enough attention", and the two getting forced to be together because she is from a royal family that frowns on divorce as scandalous before (finally) getting a divorce.

He was close to Avalanche in some encarnations (mainly Evolution and Wolverine and the X Men), so they have potential as a coupling with a dynamic inspired by the Bishop and Rook of Chess Games: Pietro as the Bishop who can move diagonally, Avalanche as the heavy Tower who has movements limited to horizontal or vertical without jumping.

Since Next Mutation already explores the Wren/Ororo pairing, here in family values you can explore the Wren/Betsy pairing.

In the Exiles, Morph had romantic feelings for a version of Mariko (who was from an alternative timeline where she was a mutant with the powers of her cousin Shiro), so I can see Logan, Mariko and Morph in an open polyamorous relationship, raising Jubilee as their child.

Pyro is the Human Torch of the X-Men, and he can be a great pairing for Iceman (Bobby).

In this continuity, making it more distinctive from the Animated Series/Further Adventures/97, Hank McCoy and Cecília Reyes are great characters to explore as a stable married couple who connected trough their love of science and helping others, with one being an adventurous field hero and the other favoring to stay in guard as a medic (and I also can collaborate with you in helping to create a kid for them).

Ariana DeBose could be a great inspiration for Cecília's design:

I can see Piotr and Lorna having a dynamic where he was her bodyguard and she fell in love with him while showing she could be his equal partner in battle rather than always having to be protected.

Can I also suggest exploring Kurt and Ororo as a couple? Dave Cockrum would surely enjoy the idea...

Bonus: give Nightcrawler a costume inspired by his Uncanny Spider Man uniform.

[positivelybeastly]

Scott calling Hank his oldest friend in that one panel is so funny to me, bc he’s known Bobby and Warren longer. It’s probably not that serious but I can’t help but take it that way.

To be fair though him warming up to Hank fastest makes a lot of sense. They’re both high achievers (but in different ways, so not really in competition with each other), and Hank’s friendly enough to get past Scott’s barriers, I guess. Warren is really understandable bc I can imagine Scott (possibly Hank to a lesser extent) may be alienated by his privilege (and hate him sometimes while vying for Jean).

Bobby’s exclusion kills me bc he and Hank share the “team goofball” role half the time, so it’s like he found Hank amusing but not Bobby. It’s probably bc Bobby’s the youngest (by like. 2 years tops) but still.

Scott: I care about all my teammates equally. Also Scott: I don’t care for Bobby.

"It's not my fault my jokes are funny and Bobby's aren't."

Yeah, it's one of those things where, Hank was the second to last person to get added to the team (technically last, since they retconned it that Jean was Xavier's first student but not the first X-Man, to account for all the telepathic training/psychic coma therapy they had to do), but of the O5, I actually think Hank may well be Scott's best male friend? Or, well, was, anyway.

We obviously have no idea how long it was in between each team member being added, it could have been successive days, weeks apart, maybe even months, but I always got the impression it was relatively rapid fire, so the difference in the amount of time that Scott knew Hank, Bobby and Warren could just be incremental - and like you've mentioned, Hank and Scott have the kind of personality types that gel out of the gate.

They're both deferential to authority (at least to start with); they're both relatively orderly; they both idolise Professor Xavier (again, at least to start with); and while Hank is a joker at times, especially during this time period, he keeps it much less loose than Bobby does, which I think Scott would respond to.

It's something you can see in Parker's First Class - even though Hank will do shit like this

he's also not the kind of person to question the orders of a field team leader, he just does what he's told because he trusts that it's the best course of action. Bobby, meanwhile, can barely take things seriously, because of the immaturity that dogs him for pretty much his entire life, and while I think Scott probably warmed to that as time went on and he learned to loosen up, Hank and Scott just have a great team chemistry - if you think about it, Hank is, most of the time, the McCoy (ironically) to Scott's Kirk.

Keep in mind, of course, that I don't mean the wider public perception of Kirk, I mean the actual, canonical version of Kirk, who was stated to be a walking stack of books at Starfleet Academy and who never settles down with women not because he's a philanderer, but because he's absolutely dedicated to the Enterprise.

Sound familiar?

Hank's emotionally sensitive enough not to push, but friendly and funny enough to get Scott to lighten up - and even as they change, even as time goes on, you can see that they have a really special bond. I really don't think it's a coincidence that if you look at a lot of X-Men teams, going all the way up until the 2010s, Hank and Scott are almost always put together.

Scott just . . . does not talk to a lot of people like this. I miss it.

I really hope we can get some of this back with MacKay's book. I feel like a lot of people are going to suddenly remember that Hank is an amazing character and a beautiful friend to so many X-Men when he's not being written like trash.

[saintcarrionn]

can't explain this but coach finstock and sue sylvester would have been friends

[positivelybeastly]

"Some old habits are like a refreshing cool breeze. Ice puns and being the life of the party, very welcome, they clear the air. Babbling on about things people really don't have the time to hear, well, that has rather the opposite effect . . ." Now that he's made the decision he's not going to be cruel to Bobby, it becomes abundantly clear that Hank's made the decision to be cruel to himself instead, going around and putting the lids on a few plastic tubs of samples so that he didn't have to look at the other man.

He'd once thought it was charming, the way he went on - an affectation of the friendly slightly mad scientist, background burble, a way to warm the room - but as the years had passed and everyone had started telling him to get to the point so they could leave the lab and solve their problem, he'd realised it really . . . wasn't.

. . . Although, Bobby's smile, when he says it, makes him think that maybe at least Bobby doesn't mind. Maybe Bobby doesn't find it charming, but maybe he at least doesn't find it tiresome like everyone else.

"Yes . . . it's been a busy, busy, busy time for us all. I don't think I've even seen Scott or Warren around in a week, they've just been in non-stop meetings, it feels like." He'd delivered on his end, creating the flowers that would form the pharmacological backbone of this new island nation, and once they'd taken delivery, it was a whirlwind of branding, making deals, corporate sponsorships, exclusivity rights - words that Hank understood, but none that he wished to understand, so he'd stayed right out of it. Granted, that now left him with his samples and not much else. Isolated, again. "Hopefully you get a chance to settle, like you mentioned. You deserve it."

Then there's the question, about what Hank's version of settling in looks like, and he stops.

"I . . . don't really . . . I have a habitat, of my own. It's established, I've started growing some fruits and vegetables of my own design, from home. From the farm. Other than that . . ." He shrugged. He could do worse than plant watching for the rest of his life. Less chance of hurting people that way. Less chance of bumbling his way through another time travel debacle, or being on the wrong side of history. Holmes had retired to his bees and apiaries, why not him?

When did things get to be so tense between them, so awkward? Was it Bobby just pole vaulting his foot into his mouth on the Utopia beach? Was it Hank filling him with laser beams during the Phoenix Five debacle? Or was it him storming out on everyone, during the intervention? Take your pick, Henry, will isolating the exact time and date make you feel better about the fact that you can barely talk to your best friend anymore?

"Ah, well. I - don't know, I would think, a fair amount of 'I'm sorrys' work before you hit the limit, whatever the limit is . . ." Does Hank even want an apology? Maybe? It's patently obvious it won't fix what's happened just like that, but would it make him feel better? He doesn't even know. He makes a stab at humour, the old stand-by for whenever they were at an odd emotional place in their conversations and needed something to break the ice (ba-dum-tsh).

"Thinking? Robert Louis Drake, thinking? Oh, this is how I know the world has changed." It could've been so much crueller, so much more stinging, but instead, there's just a pained, fond little smile on Hank's face, one that just seems to say, I'm trying too, Bobby. There's no manual on how we deal with this, so let's just see what happens.

Bobby's not wrong, he's never been great at dealing with things. That's part of the reason they get along so well - or did, anyway - Hank would hide his feelings away under piles of stuffy intellectualism and a pun, Bobby would deflect it away with an unaffected smile and another pun. Nothing could hurt the Beast and the Iceman! Except for all of the things that could, of course. Except for each other. Except for . . .

The beach.

Hank inhales sharply at the mention, and he immediately looks away, his jaw tense as he thinks about it. The suck in of breath is cold, thanks to Bobby's presence, but it does nothing to assuage the sudden bubbling rage that comes to him so easily. It's been years, but the fury is still there, the betrayal, the hurt, it all just surges like molten lava.

". . . I don't, want, to be angry with you, Robert. I really don't." But I am. "I'm not an angry man by nature, you've known me long enough that you know that's true about me, but." Up comes a big blue hand, rubbing at his chin, tugging compulsively at the strands of blue fur that almost look like a beard when the light catches them right.

"Warren changed into Archangel in front of me, a few days before we talked. Did you know that? He'd been hiding it from me. I thought, I tried to think, well, that's painful for him, maybe there's a reason - maybe he doesn't want to burden me. It can't be that he doesn't trust me. But I still felt alone. Jean was gone, Scott had changed into the general, but I thought I still had you. I thought you'd get it." His jaw was as tight as steel wire, so that he didn't have to feel it wobble, because fuck you, Bobby, I needed you and you just - !

"All I needed was for someone to tell me I wasn't going crazy. That I was going to be all right, that yes, Hank, you have every right to feel hurt, and angry, and I just - " His lips wavered, and he looked away, rubbing angrily at his cheek. There were no tears, none had fallen, he refused to cry over something this stupid and meaningless and this long ago. It didn't matter, did it? How could it? It was years ago.

So why did he feel so angry about Bobby just telling him he needed to be the rock? Telling him he just needed to keep taking it? That that sucks for you, Hank, but don't we all have it bad?

Maybe, Bobby. Maybe we do. But I needed someone to validate that I had it bad without making me sound like I was being a whiny little beast about it.

". . . It doesn't matter. It's fine. It's ancient history by this point," Hank lied, sipping at his smoothie with artificial calm.

ㅤㅤBobby silently makes a note to comment on the singing when he can work it into the conversation. The moment Hank starts going on about things Bobby does not understand, well that's not true. He knows enough that Hanks talking about the plant life & pictures? Catalogue! Bird watching but when it's plants & not birds, whatever the name for that was. He really doesn't have enough attention span to keep up with it without his old visits with Hank. He'd just accepted the fact he's not that smart, that he isn't the type to think that hard about how things work on a molecular level when it's not water, ice or the ability his mind has to turn one into the other. Hank is.

ㅤㅤHe misses those random facts that Bobby has to literally be a student whenever he sits in the lab. The way Hank goes on about such things is refreshing. He's so vividly passionate about it like Bobby's passionate about ice puns.

ㅤㅤHe's definitely not this passionate about accounting, helping people work the system with numbers yes. That's easy to him. Once he figured out how to do it.

ㅤㅤ" Have you heard? Old habits are a refreshing cool breeze. " It's a light pun, punning in it's relaxed form if you will. He gives his friend a smile, it's a little bigger than it was before. Okay, not all of them are but this old habit is. He'll be oblivious about seventy percent of the time but it's surprising how much it brightens up Hank's face just going on about plant watching.

ㅤㅤGlancing down Bobby stirs his smoothie once more. " I'm not, " a pause, "...settled on Krakoa that is. Been too busy. " He is settling on the boat definitely. It's more of a pit stop than an actual settling depending on how long the team lasts & how long Chri stays in his life. Hopefully long term. He takes a sip of his smoothie to stop himself from talking about everything going on, from the feel of things that'll have to be something for later. His eyes do brighten as he peeks up at his long time friend. " Are your plans for plant watching a bonus to settling in? " If it isn't, it should be. It sounds like Hank would love every second of it.

ㅤㅤThere's so much tension in those moments, ice sickles could hit mass & fill it with holes. He goes back to focusing on his smoothie. Using it to distract himself from opening his mouth as he waits for Hank's decision. He even puts the straw into his mouth for a tiny sip, suddenly wishing he'd brought a larger container. He's going to run out of distractions for his mouth before they finish.

ㅤㅤ It does feel like Hank needs a vacation from the lab already, with just how deflated he looks, that exhale alone is enough for those blue eyes to travel upwards. No one should look like they're a gramps at Hank's age. It almost makes Bobby feel old himself.

ㅤㅤOh, the Iceman really shouldn't do the talking right now.

ㅤㅤ" Depends how many 'I'm sorry's can I fit into a conversation before they lose meaning? " His eyes twinkle up at his friend, making his completely serious question seem more light hearted.

ㅤㅤHe shifts back into his chair as his mind tries to grasp what to say that aren't jokes before shifting forward & resting his elbows on his thighs. " There is a lot to cover, Hank. Not sure where to start. I've thought about it for awhile. " Maybe putting more effort into not thinking about things than thinking about things. " Dealing with.... things isn't my strong suit. It's new for me... I've spent years packing it away just to be what other's needed me to be.

ㅤㅤIt's easier... Keeping it in a nice neat ice cube package. " A pile of ice cubes. That turn into a frozen layer covering the Earth but who stresses the small things. " I've done it for years... At a time.... it got to a point where I thought that's how everyone dealt with their issues. " Make yourself buy it first? He has no idea. " So when you came to me on the beach..." he pushes out a breath & looks up, blue eyes meeting Hanks as a small apologetic smile curves over his lips. " I tried-- I thought I was helping, but I failed you as a friend instead... So, do you think we can... talk about..." His hand waves to indicate everything, trying to silently indicate other things he hasn't mention too. " & get to a point where we feel close again? "

[bigskydreaming]

I actually can not believe I've never posted this X-Men headcanon (that turned into a whole treatment/thesis) here on this blog, but for those few followers who know who Dallas Gibson aka Specter is, or Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar, or just anything about Academy X in general.....enjoy!

(Mostly because I don't trust the random PDF hosting site I've got it stored on and I like to keep stuff backed up online and not just in my files so posting it for posterity here anyway.)

Anyway, I give you:

THE GREAT MANIFESTO OF WHAT IF DALLAS GIBSON WAS THE SECRET LOVE CHILD ONE NIGHT STAND CHILD OF BOBBY DRAKE AND LAYNIA PETROVNA: A CRACK FIC THEORY OUTLINE SOMETHING IN THREE PARTS

(Relax. Its actually only about 10,000 words long. That's like, barely ANYTHING when its me. Its a itty bitty teeny tiny nothing of a thing. Hardly even counts).

So, okay. I have approximately 80 different pitches for what to do with Iceman at any given time, but here's one that I know would never in a million years happen purely because the X-Office will never let the 05 be the ages I perceive them as which is mid to late thirties at this point. Like I picture Bobby as around thirty-six or so, though for him it actually makes sense for him to be eternally portrayed as LOOKING like he's in his early 20s, since that was the age he first transmuted to his ice form and so makes sense to be his default template/molecular blueprint his power resets him to every time he has to make a new body from scratch. BUT I DIGRESS.

Anyway, wildly self-indulgent pitch ahead, which ties into a cracky headcanon I've had since Academy X, includes a couple OCs, and explores his past history with Laynia, long before he was out, as well as his connections to other heroes beyond the X-Men like Laynia and her brother, Black Widow, etc. And then it combines my ideas for giving Bobby an antagonist of his own, more characters to interact with other than major X-Men so his story beats aren't reliant on whatever's going on with other X-Men and who's available, and gives him concrete reasons to want to level up quickly in terms of how much social influence he wields among mutantkind, take more prominent/proactive stances on things, etc. While still leaving room for him to be goofy and always trying to use humor to seem more relatable, less threatening, etc.

So. I'm picturing this as a triptych like Sabretooth, three interlocked minis of five issues each that form a trilogy by the end.

First mini:

ICEMAN AND DARKSTAR: SHADOW GAMES

ISSUE ONE:

First issue opens with Bobby in his apartment in LA, sometime after he's left the most recent X-Men lineup and is back to living off of Krakoa. He's just gotten in and is going through his mail where he comes across a card with no return address. Opening it, he finds its a condolence card that says "Thinking of you on this anniversary of such a tragic day." His internal monologue, conveyed in caption boxes and a key element of this whole mini, shows he's totally confused by this. He has no idea why this date would hold any special significance, or who would have sent the card or why. (The specific date would just be somewhere around the date of publication, in a world where this actually got published, lol. Let's go with April 27th, for instance).

Deciding to just shrug it off as some weird thing, Bobby's basically just being moody for a page or two of reflection before Scott calls. They're trying to do better about keeping in touch even when they're not on the same team. Some generic catching up, and Bobby eventually mentions he's just been in a weird mood all day, to which Scott says he's not surprised. Turns out Scott's noticed that for as long as he can remember now, Bobby's ALWAYS in a shitty mood every time April 27th rolls around. Yes, Scott is anal enough that after years of Bobby being weird around the same time every year, he eventually narrowed it down to its epicenter. This very day. Bobby is both weirded out and touched by Scott's attention to something so specific about Bobby...more attentive than even Bobby himself. When they hang up, he's still clueless about why today would be such a big deal to him, but apparently there's a pattern. That card might not have been so random after all.

Confused & uncomfortable now, Bobby decides to get out of the house & just do hero stuff. That always makes him feel better. He helps put out some fires, divert a tidal wave, gating back and forth across the planet, restless. The whole issue, even as he uses his usual banter to make the people he helps feel at ease in the wake of whatever catastrophe they were just saved from, his internal monologue shows he's second-guessing himself constantly, being his own worst enemy, criticizing every choice he makes about his saves, how he could've done things better, etc. Things come to a head when he intervenes at a protest - I don't have a specific cause in mind but ideally something non mutant related - as a group attacks the protesters until Bobby drops in to protect them.

The protesters thank him but are pretty cynical about the whole thing. They note that this happens constantly and most of those same people will be back stirring up trouble and violence at another event like this down the line. They hope for change for the better but point out that some people never will, because they're not interested in better. They're happy with their hate. Bobby reflects on what they said, and here's where his thoughts start to take a particularly dark turn. He thinks of some of the ways his powers could be used to ensure those ppl never hurt anyone again, how the full potential of his powers include a lot of lethal options, and why shouldn't he use them when its true most of these ppl will just commit heinous acts in the future, and he might not be around to protect their victims next time. He even reflects on how he's used some of those darker options in the past, so its not like it'd be crossing a line he hasn't already....

Disturbed by the fact that the only reason he can think of not to go there is he's a hero and heroes don't do that, he just wants to be anywhere else in a hurry so he skips heading for a gate and does something he does only rarely....turns himself into mist and starts to disperse, to teleport somewhere far away, but as he does he gets the weirdest feeling, like his spread out consciousness is brushing up against someone else's. He's not alone he realizes. And he stops and recoalesces right there and talking to the empty air he demands that someone show themselves. A man appears out of nowhere, laughing.

Stranger: Your observational skills are a lot sharper than they used to be, Drake. Back in the day, you had no idea when I was around.

Bobby: Who are you and why are you talking like I'm supposed to know who you are? I've never seen you before in my life.

Stranger: Wow, it sucks to realize you left way less of an impression on someone than they left on you. I guess it makes sense though. I mean, when you KILLED me almost twenty years ago, this very day - that was obviously a big deal for me, but hey, I've been out of the loop awhile so what do I know? Maybe it was just another Tuesday for you.

Bobby: Are you the one who sent me that card earlier? Who the hell are you and what kind of game are you playing?

Stranger: Same one we were playing all those years ago, Bob. Before you got all pissy and flipped the board before I got a chance to make my next move. But thanks to the wonders of Krakoan resurrection, now we can pick up right where we left off. It really is a miracle, isn't it?

Bobby: Well maybe you should check with the Five and make sure they didn't bring you back with a few screws loose, because I'm pretty sure I'd remember this if it was actually me you were playing this game with.

Stranger: Maybe you just forgot. Or who knows? Maybe someone made you forget.

Bobby: Okay, yeah, I'm bored now. Time to put you on ice.

He starts icing the area around the stranger, intending to trap him in a block of ice, but the stranger just laughs and turns incorporeal, becoming a transparent outline hovering above the street....so to anyone who hadn't been watching their conversation - like the very protesters Bobby had saved earlier - it looked like Bobby was just furiously creating some kind of ice attack that didn't seem to be aimed at anyone...other than them. The now ghost-like stranger zips over to the crowd and starts weaving among them, seeming to whisper in a bunch of peoples' ears....and before long, the crowd that had just been saved from one attack and were primed not to just sit down and take another, were ready to choose fight over flight, becoming a mob headed for Bobby.

He constructs some ice barriers to just keep them at bay, not really worried they'll hurt him and more concerned about not hurting them, when the stranger's ghost form swirls around Bobby, hovering above his shoulder and now whispering in his ear. But there's no dialogue in the stranger's speech bubble....just caption boxes displaying Bobby's internal monologue....and now calling into question every single box earlier in the issue.

Caption box: Isn't it surreal how the right words whispered in the right ears can dramatically change a person's perception of something....or someone? How easy it is to change peoples' courses....even the course of their entire life?

Caption box: And fear, well, fear's one of the best motivators there is. So much easier to get someone to listen to you when they're afraid of something else.

Caption box: But maybe you can't really relate to that. A guy as powerful as you, you're probably not afraid of much these days.

Caption box: That wasn't always true though, was it? This take you back at all? Remind you of when you were just a kid, and there was a mob gunning for you just for the crime of being mutant and vulnerable? I bet you were scared then.

Caption box: Considering what a guy like you could do if he were scared enough, if the right person used the right words as the spark to ignite all that fear....the world's probably pretty lucky that Saint Xavier was there to be the voice you listened to back then, huh. Y'know, instead of someone like Magneto or Apocalypse being the ones to tell traumatized, impressionable little you what to do with all that fear and anger you felt....

Caption box: Do you ever think about that, Drake? Wonder if all that separates you from the worst of the worst is you had the right voice in your ear at the right time? That maybe there's nothing special about you at all, nothing innately noble, heroic.

Caption box: That you were just....lucky?

Caption box: Food for thought. Anyway, I gotta run for now, but I'll be seeing you, Bob.

Caption box: We have so much to catch up on.

Then its just Bobby left keeping the mob at bay with his ice structures, him visibly shutting down, trying not to think too much and just running on instinct, until a hand reaches down from above and snatches him up into the air, until the streets are just a speck below them. Bobby looks up and to his shock its Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar, his old friend and teammate from back when he was on the Champions as a teenager. The issue closes with her saying: "Hello, Bobby. I'd say its nice to see you and all the usual pleasantries, but we don't have much time. And we need to talk about our son."

ISSUE TWO

This issue switches to Laynia's POV with her internal monologue in caption boxes, and picks up with them having teleported somewhere secluded via Laynia's powers (she's much more practiced using hers to teleport than Bobby is using his that way). This issue goes back and forth between past and present, as during Laynia's narration of past events they're shown as if they're happening in real time.

Bobby's pointing out that they were never together, and considering she was the one who turned him down, you'd think she'd be aware of that. Laynia responds that no, they were never a couple, but they did sleep together once and once only....she'd been feeling particularly down about her ex-boyfriend Yuri after running into him, it was a rebound thing for her and she never hid that but Bobby took it to mean more than it did anyway and acted a fool about it, aligning with their canon interactions at the very end of their Champions run, before getting on the same page and they went back to just being friends.

Except, Laynia says, then she found out she was pregnant, and he flew to Russia to join her and decide what to do together, while everyone else thought he was still at UCLA. He doesn't remember any of this, because blocks were put in their memories, hiding everything related to this. But it did happen, and they do have a son. She'll explain everything, but they need to keep moving around, as she doesn't want the man who just confronted Bobby to overhear any of this and its very hard to detect when he's around. Their best option is to keep on the move, teleporting frequently and not staying anywhere long enough for him to track where they are.

Bobby: Oh crap. HE'S not our son, is he?

Laynia: Hell no.

Bobby: Phew, I was worried we had a Stryfe situation for a second there. I am barely holding it together as is and I am NOT equipped to handle an evil Bobby Jr. from the future.

Laynia reaffirms that he is definitely not their son, but he is the reason for much of what happened back when they were eighteen. They only ever knew him by his moniker, 'Doubting Thomas' and honestly were never sure when exactly he started watching them and messing with their heads. That's his MO. His power lets him turn from flesh and blood into a form made solely of psychic energy...an astral ghost that's invisible, immaterial and can travel via the astral plane. But his only power to affect the material world in that form lies in telepathy. He can project thoughts into someone's mind and its almost impossible to keep him out or tell his intrusions from ordinary thoughts.

She's not sure how he'd fare against other telepaths, but at least with non-psychics, even the best psychic shielding or anti-telepath technology isn't a guarantee against him. Because doesn't try to break into minds, or even sneak past mental defenses. He just surveils his targets, watching them invisibly, learning all he can about them, and then he looks for cracks in whatever mental shields they have. Tiny gaps here and there that he can just whisper into, slipping a thought in amongst the chaos and chatter generated by someone's own mind.

All of which means they never were sure where their own natural fears and paranoia ended, and his whispering began. They were eighteen, she reminds Bobby, already freaking out about this giant life change neither were sure they were ready for, even if they did keep the baby...and neither of them was an ordinary civilian. They were powerful mutants with lots of enemies....from day one, they were concerned that their child would be born with a target on their back just from that. And then there was the fact that one of the things they'd always bonded over was resentment for how early they felt their childhoods ended.

Laynia and her twin brother Nikolai were taken from their parents at birth, and raised separately with government agents for foster parents. They were always intended to be mutant operatives for their government, their lives scripted out for them, and their training began in their early teens. Laynia didn't even know she had a twin brother until she was in her twenties.

And Bobby had always quietly nursed resentment for being put out into the field at the same time as the rest of the 05, all years older than him and with a lot more focus from the Professor. Scott was his protege, a tactical genius, Jean was his preferred pupil in terms of power development, Hank was a bonafide genius, and Warren was a millionaire playboy, a natural spokesman and inevitable future celebrity. Bobby was just Bobby though, with no awareness of his full potential, and the only one the Professor didn't seem to have any real purpose for or interest in. Like he was tacked on as a spare, his presence more of an afterthought than intentional.

So especially in his late teens, after the 05 went their separate ways, Bobby had always been bothered by the fact that he'd gone through all the same traumas and hardships as the rest on their various missions, but always wondering what he was even doing there when it didn't even seem like there was any reason he was supposed to be. Privately he'd always wanted someone - his parents, the Professor, even the older 05 - to question whether there was really nobody else Xavier could have been sending out to fight Magneto, than a fifteen year old too afraid of being abandoned to say no on his own behalf. After all, the issue was complicated by the fact that when his parents weren't fully on board with Bobby going to the Institute, Xavier mindwiped them into thinking he was just at boarding school, and it was only when Bobby was eighteen that the Professor restored their full awareness of what Bobby had been doing for years.

All of which played into why Bobby and Laynia didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy, even their closest friends. It started out as them just putting it off, wanting to be more sure of their own thoughts on this before someone else tried to make the decision what to do for them, but by the time Laynia gave birth, they'd fully isolated themselves, paranoid that Xavier or the Red Room would take the baby and just make them forget all about it. And problem is, as Laynia put it, they couldn't tell how much of that was Doubting Thomas whispering all the right things to ramp up their anxieties and specific fears.

And obviously someone did mess with their memories anyway, Bobby points out crankily. This all is partly meant to seed two ongoing character arcs for Bobby in the future....the first, his awareness of how often his mind and memories have been messed with over the years, by enemies and allies alike, to the point he's honestly not sure how much of 'him' is really even him, and how much he's just the end result of people just editing his mind whenever he started heading in a direction they didn't want him to. With how long the memories of their time travel trip were hidden, now these missing memories, what other holes could exist in his memories without him ever having a clue?

And the second character arc is his misgivings about Xavier and the role he played in Bobby's childhood. Knowing what he knows now of his omega potential, aware that all the biggest developments and learning curves with his powers happened when Bobby WASN'T Xavier's student, Bobby's increasingly convinced that Xavier never trusted Bobby with his own power, and while he might not have actively stunted his growth, he certainly didn't help or encourage it the way he did his other students. The foundation is there for Bobby to wonder if the only reason Xavier ever even recruited him was to keep him from falling into anyone else's hands and becoming a threat.

As Laynia reminds him of what they were like back then and how they viewed things, things fall into place for Bobby and its very easy for him to see how they could have ended up hiding this from anyone in Xavier's orbit, etc...and this starts to become less abstract for him. It wasn't that he thought she was lying at any point, but its hitting him now....he has a son, and someone made him forget. He's someone who has always yearned for family that won't judge or condemn him, leave him, always been determined to be everything his own father wasn't and nothing like him, and yet he has a son who's grown up without him. Whose name he doesn't even know.

He does know his son though, it turns out. At least somewhat. Its one of Bobby's former students before M-Day. Dallas Gibson aka Specter. He has no idea who he really is, Laynia says, but the parents who died when Dallas was ten were his adoptive parents. But he was born Dallas Drake, as Petrovna wasn't even Laynia's real last name and she had no idea what it originally was. Heir to the merged powersets of both his biological parents, with his father's elemental form but made from his mother's signature Darkforce energies.

As for why Laynia remembers when Bobby doesn't....she didn't originally. But then years ago (during the Morrison run), she was possessed by one of Weapon X's most dangerous creations, the Huntsman. However, thanks to how her powers were designed to let her mind travel through the Darkforce Dimension to do things like teleport, when she was possessed, her mind tried to flee into that dimension. When Fantomex killed her, he only killed her body, and her mental tether to it. The shock and trauma of her physical death broke down the barriers around her memories, and they all came flooding back. Problem was, she only existed as a consciousness drifting aimlessly in the Darkforce Dimension.

But then Dallas started learning more about his powers and growing them during his time at the Academy. And his powerset also includes the ability to make shadow golems similar to the ice golems his father makes. But he didn't realize this as the first time he made one, with Darkforce energy being the clay his golem was sculpted from...Laynia was able to use that as a doorway into the physical world. She inhabited his shadow golem as her vessel, the way a future Iceman's golem once split off from him and became a separate entity. So Dallas never realized his newfound shadow friend started out as something he made unconsciously...he just knew that it seemed to have its own sentience from the jump, was a friend and protector who'd show up whenever he needed them. That friend and protector just happened to be his biological mother, watching over him the only way she could.

Until M-Day. When Dallas was depowered, Laynia lost her connection to the physical world and was stuck again in the Darkforce Dimension....until her brother Nikolai made a bargain with Immortus that led to her full resurrection. Finally she was back, and she remembered everything. But also knew Bobby remembered none of this. And so for the next couple years she just checked in on Dallas periodically but kept her distance, because she not only remembered her son...she also remembered why they were so desperate to hide his connection to them that they covered up their own memories of him ever existing.

At the end of the issue, they arrive at the hideout of the Russian mutant underground, a community of mutants who mistrust Krakoa and its leaders, but aren't on board with Mikhail Rasputin and his faction either. Laynia brought Bobby to the person who originally hid their memories and locked them away - at their own request....Bobby's idea, in fact - Alexi Garnoff aka Blind Faith, a telepath Bobby first met in his X-Factor days. But who was so quick to trust Bobby, because turns out that wasn't actually the first time Alexi remembered meeting him.

As Bobby reels from the reveal that this particular manipulation of his mind had been something he himself asked for, Alexi says he can erase all his work and return his own memories of all this, and Laynia warns him that remembering it all will hurt. Because they have a son, yes, Dallas Gibson aka Dallas Drake aka Specter. But twins run in her family.

And for a brief - too brief - window of time, they had not one son, but two.

ISSUE THREE

This issue returns to Bobby's POV and internal monologue, and takes place almost entirely in the past, or in Bobby's mindscape. He tells Alexi to do his thing, he wants to know, NEEDS to know everything. The walls come down and in his mind, Bobby finds himself standing at the start of a giant labyrinth made of ice. He sees a little boy running through it and gives chase, needing to catch up to him, desperate even as he's aware he's running on autopilot, more instinct than knowledge. He's never seen this boy before - he's not even a real memory himself. But he knows what an older Dallas looks like, at least. And he's sure this is what his mind imagines a Dmitri older than what he actually remembers might look like, and he desperately wants a closer look. But this Dima stays forever just out of range because his mind doesn't actually have a clear image of an older Dmitri to conjure, and up close, the illusion would be too obvious, and the loss all the more real for that.

Following the boy through the labyrinth, he sees memories unveil themselves on the ice walls around them. He remembers Laynia telling him she was pregnant, their agitated debates over the months that followed as they agonized over what to do, how to keep the baby safe - babies, once they found out it was twins. He sees the day the twins were born, relives them deciding to name the elder twin Dallas, after the city where they first met, before Laynia even joined the Champions, and the younger they named Dmitri, or Dima for short....after the only teacher Laynia ever felt actually valued her for herself instead of seeing her as a weapon being honed.

He remembers them leaving the hospital and hiding for a few weeks at a secluded cabin their old teammate the Black Widow found for them....she was the only one they told, figuring nobody could keep a secret better than her, and how they wavered and grew closer to caving and letting their closest friends and teammates help them figure out how to keep the twins safe. Sees flashbacks of him playing with the boys while Laynia watches fondly, and vice versa. Relives as he - still little older than a child himself - puts them in their crib and tells them not to be scared, talks about how his grandfather used to have a saying: "all Drakes are dragons," and making a dragon sculpture that catches the light to act as their nightlight.

And then he relives the day they woke up to find the crib empty and the twins missing. The first time they met Doubting Thomas, who left them an easy trail to follow because he wanted them to find him, wanted a confrontation. Bobby and Laynia had descended on the facility they tracked him to with the full fury of midnight and winter at their most destructive, and once inside they separated as they found the twins had been split up and taken in different directions. Laynia went after Dallas, who she could feel faintly, an early sign of his link to the Darkforce Dimension that she shares - second generation mutants always tend to manifest early - and Bobby went after Dmitri.

Doubting Thomas was waiting though, and the villain backstory reveal unfolded. The Professor, the Hellfire Club, etc....they weren't the only people who went around looking for young mutants to mold, seeing their potential. He grew up under the thumb of a woman even he only knows as Mother Nurture, a sadist with unguessable motivations even to her lackeys that she raised from childhood....to be their worst selves. Apparently she claims to be a precog, who knew what mutant children would grow up to be great heroes or positive influences on the world....which appears to be contrary to her agenda, whatever that is....as she targets kids who COULD grow up to be great forces for change, change for the better, and picks the ones with the brightest potential to stamp out and corrupt, turn to darkness. Her obsession with proving that there are no real heroes, that anyone can be twisted into the villain was apparently a recurring theme of Doubting Thomas' childhood, so when she assigned him the task of abducting the Drake twins when they were still months away from even being born, Thomas fixated on Bobby and Laynia during his surveillance of them, and developed an obsession of his own.

It was the first time he'd ever targeted superhero parents, let alone ones close enough in age to him that he could project onto them, see them as an inverted reflection of his own life. And even as he prepared to take the Drake twins at the earliest opportunity, that was just his assignment. His obsession with Bobby and Laynia was wholly personal, as he clearly became consumed with a need to prove to himself that they weren't better than him, that he could have BEEN them in another life, with better influences....that they would have been no different than he if they'd been in his shoes.

In fact, he was convinced there was such a slim margin of difference between them that he could topple Iceman from his heroic perch with just the slightest push. Bobby refutes this, saying he's nothing like him, but that's when Thomas says he lied. Mother Nurture actually only sent him after one Drake boy. She wasn't expecting two. Apparently, one of them was never destined to live all that long to begin with.

The issue never actually shows Dmitri, just Bobby breaking down, cradling the swaddled figure to his chest. He's dead-eyed when he looks up, frozen tear tracks on his cheeks as one icy drop falls to the ground and shatters.

Bobby: Guess you were right about me. Congrats. You win.

And then over the next two panels, Thomas flash-freezes before he can react, his entire body frozen on a cellular level...and then he shatters.

We only see glimpses of Laynia's horrified reaction when she arrives with Dallas in her arms, as Bobby hurries past those memories, he has them back but he doesn't want to relive those moments at all...and there are more snapshots of barely glimpsed memories of Bobby and Laynia reducing the entire facility to nothing but an empty crater. Bobby arrives at the memory of Laynia and Bobby, fueled by trauma and desperation, panicking about this Mother Nurture sending someone else after Dallas, their original fears reignite, the list of people who might want a baby like Dallas for their own agendas seems endless....culminating in them giving Dallas to Black Widow to place with a family she trusts to raise him safely. But Bobby notes despondently that even with all that, it'd take someone like Xavier or with similar resources all of five minutes to find a powerful mutant that young, if they ever got so much as a hint about him from Bobby or Laynia's minds.

Which is when Bobby decides: "In a world of telepaths, Cerebros and Wolverines, the only foolproof way to keep a secret...is to not even know it yourself.

They both agree, and seek out a telepath unaffiliated with any team or organization: Alexi Garnoff. Which brings us back to the present.

April 27th. The anniversary of the day one son died, and they made the decision to give up the other for his own safety.

ISSUE FOUR

With both of their memories fully restored, they're on the same page about what happens now: They have to find a way to keep the resurrected Doubting Thomas from figuring out who and where Dallas is. If he truly wants revenge, or if he still just feels compelled to fulfill his original assignment, Dallas is his real target. But they're fairly certain the extreme lengths they went to all those years ago at least did their job. Even with Bobby unaware of Thomas' existence, let alone vendetta against him, the latter was able to stalk him ever since his resurrection without finding even a hint of Dallas' location or identity...he would have had better luck stalking Laynia probably, but they assumed his fixation on Bobby for killing him, along with Laynia steering clear of Krakoa (ironically because she was worried about the many telepaths there picking up on her secret), Thomas concentrated his efforts on following Bobby and might not have even realized that unlike him, Laynia DID already know who and where Dallas was.

Thomas must have come out into the open in the way he did specifically to push Bobby to regain his memories, figuring then it would only be a matter of time before Bobby slipped up enough for Thomas to zero in on his target....so now they had to figure out how to keep that from happening, while now having a whole new host of reasons not to want to advertise they had a son. The last thing they want is to keep him out of Thomas' clutches just to put him on Sinister's radar, especially now that they know Bobby's an omega and how 'highly prized' they are as resources....which would no doubt make his offspring of interest to various villains.

Not to mention, Laynia's got her own misgivings about Krakoa. She's FURIOUS about the Crucible - Dallas was among the earliest to sign up and go through it, desperate to get his powers back and return to his place among his former classmates. Not only does she consider it needless trauma of the very sort they sacrificed so much to protect their son from, Laynia is territorial. Dallas' name and powers were pretty much the only thing he got from his biological parents, that they were able to give him as his birthright, the upside to all the downs that came with being their kid, and Laynia's pissed as hell that Bobby's new government had the gall to demand their son EARN BACK what was always his and that losing had ALREADY been a trauma all its own.

This in turn sows the seeds for Bobby's development into a more proactive role in mutant society, as well as future conflict with a lot of the personalities that put the Crucible in place initially, as he's forced to confront why he didn't have more problems with it in the first place, or at least not enough that he wasn't able to justify its existence. Has he gotten so used to assuming others know better than him, that he no longer bothers trying to weigh the morality of things himself? Is he comfortable with what it says about him that it took having a personal stake - his son having gone through it - to make him sit up and think hey, that was fucked up?

Meanwhile, Thomas has not been idle, and is using reports of Bobby seemingly attacking innocent protesters the other day to stir up doubts in him among any influential mutants or X-Men he can whisper suspicions to, without them being aware of his presence/influence. Bobby is 'strongly encouraged' by Xavier to return to Krakoa to clear up the confusion, and when he refuses, that just adds more fuel for Thomas to work with. Plus he uses all the paranoia Beast has drummed up over the past couple years to cast suspicion on Bobby suddenly being inseparable from Laynia, a known Russian operative who has no allegiances to Krakoa, while also stirring mutants in Mikhail's camp to view Laynia's choice of companions as suspicious, which threatens her work with the Russian mutant underground and her efforts to keep them safe and hidden as well.

Finally they decide the best way to deal with Thomas is to lure him in and get Alexi to do to him what he did to Bobby and Laynia years ago. Hide away all Thomas' memories of things related to them and give him a tailored memory of how he died and why.

ISSUE FIVE

Most of this issue is just Thomas, Laynia and Bobby all playing cat and mouse with each other...Thomas having his own schemes even as the other two try to implement theirs, until its hard to tell who is the hunter and who is the hunted. Bobby and Laynia are still teleporting as often as they can, both to keep him from sneaking up on them and poisoning their thoughts or manipulating their plans, as well as to evade various friends and teammates who are now seeking them out, concerned by their behavior and increasingly susceptible to distrusting them as they refuse to give any hints as to what the hell they're doing.

It should be very clear that Bobby and Laynia are NOT acting wholly rationally here, and they're both aware of it. Doubting Thomas is GOOD at what he does, and he's familiar enough with them and their sore spots, from intel he gained long ago still being relevant here and now, particularly with how recently their memories were refocused on those days....that they're sure even the tiniest or briefest amounts of access to them is enough for him to skew their own paranoia in extreme ways. Not to mention.....they're much older now than they were when they made the choice to hide Dallas in the way they did, and they made that decision at the absolute height of their grief, fear and anxiety. They're second-guessing every choice they made back then, as well as the ones they're making now, and they're NOT sure that staying away, doing this on their own, not confiding in anyone or pulling them in....they're not doing all that because they're convinced its the right move.

They're staying the course because they don't have any idea what the right move is, and until they do, doubling down on their previous choices is because there's no take-backs, no undoing things once the secret is out. They can't afford to decide that was the wrong move after they've done it, when that will do them no good.

So they stick to their plan and try to get Thomas in Alexi's range, but with his guard down enough for the other telepath to act. The POV shifts back and forth between Bobby and Laynia's, with a lot of their internal doubts about everything they've done, the thoughts Thomas raised in Bobby back in Issue #1, the ideological battle Thomas imagines exists between him and the heroes he resents so much - this back-and-forth spans most of the issue and keeps these themes front and center, until ultimately Bobby and Thomas face off again.

Bobby surprises Thomas by using his powers in an unexpected way....he makes dozens of golems spread out all over the place and then shuffles his actual consciousness through them one at a time, 'possessing' one golem as his vessel, his ice form before leaping into another one. Thomas can't get a bead on him, keeps chasing his own tail trying to keep up with Bobby's constant shell game in an attempt to find the 'real one,' where Bobby's actually vulnerable.

Finally, Bobby makes it clear he's not going to be playing this game with Thomas anymore, because thing is, the point Thomas is so obsessed with proving, wanting Bobby to know he's no better than him, is capable of terrible things....Bobby flat out just doesn't care.

Bobby: I remember everything now, Thomas. That's what you wanted, right? For me to relive all that, make sure I can't hide from it? That I have to feel every bit of pain I shut away back then because I couldn't deal? Because the truth is, as much as that was to protect my son it was also to protect me from everything I WANTED to forget? I remember. I remember my kids, losing them....I remember killing you. But I also remembered something else, that you probably didn't factor in.

Thomas: And what's that?

Bobby: I remembered that I'm not sorry.

He goes on the attack, just destruction every which way you look so that Thomas is forced to stay on the defensive, keeping himself immaterial and jaunting around because there's no safe space for him to land, so to speak.

Bobby: The Five can bring you back a thousand times and I'll kill you a thousand and one, if that's what it takes to keep my son safe from you. Here's what you never got. The whole hero vs villain, right or wrong, good or evil thing you're so obsessed with? I just don't care, man. That's never been why I do any of this. I know I'm flawed, too flawed to ever be 'truly good' but by the same token, I know there's enough good in me I'm not truly bad either. I've done terrible things before and I'll do them again, because at the end of the day, I'm not trying to be a hero. I'm just trying to save people where I can.

Bobby: Its about priorities, see. Its people that matter to me, if I'm helping or hurting. And I'll hurt someone to help someone I think deserves it more and maybe that's wrong but thing is I'm not making that choice based on if its right or wrong. I'm making it based on who I think needs help and what do I have to do to help them. Let someone else figure out the scorecard, I'm just trying to make sure the person I'm protecting makes it home safe.

Bobby: And you? You don't matter. My son matters to me. That's all that matters here. I choose him, no matter what, every time, and whatever that means, whatever I have to do to choose him, or because I choose him? I'll deal with it. If I make the wrong choices, if they backfire and get him hurt or they're not what he would want - that's the stuff that can keep me up at night. But if choosing him means killing an asshole like you to keep him safe?

Bobby: Don't worry about my virtue. I'll cope.

With that, Thomas makes his retreat, tail between his legs. They weren't able to implement their plan to have Alexi erase his memories, but they don't consider this to be over. He'll be back, they'll have more opportunities to make that happen. At least this time he was the one doing the running.

But as the finale of the issue, Thomas adapts and changes the game. He waits until Bobby's back on Krakoa, meeting with Xavier and other X-Men about recent events and trying to say as little as possible...and then Thomas picks that place and time to make his first public appearance on Krakoa since he was resurrected as just another name on the resurrection queue. Nobody knew who he was then or cared that he didn't seem interested in staying on the island, claiming amnesty and official Krakoan citizenship....but he does that now in the most dramatic way possible....as he turns to Bobby and blatantly advertises they have history.

Thomas: And in the spirit of new beginnings, I just want to say I forgive you for killing me eighteen years ago. Fresh starts for everyone, right?

And with that bombshell - and the fact that one look at Bobby tells everyone present that he's not denying it - he saunters off, leaving Bobby with more questions to answer but no closer to being able to fully disclose what he's keeping hidden....which Thomas can still reveal to anyone at any time. What he did reveal was enough to ensure there was no chance now of changing his memories of their shared past....not after he dragged them both into the spotlight and made sure they were linked so if anything did happen to Thomas or seem awry with him....there'd be no doubt who was Suspect Number One. And that was always going to come with the question of why.

The mini ends with a final page where Bobby's finally done talking w/the QC for now, and he's just standing on the beach far enough away from where a bunch of the Academy X kids are having a bonfire - with Dallas right in the thick of them - that it wouldn't be obvious that his sole reason for being out there was to catch a glimpse of him, even if only from a distance. Elsewhere, Laynia is browsing through a shop and notices a stuffed dragon similar to one flashbacks showed Dmitri cuddling with as a baby. She picks it up, hesitating as if debating whether to purchase it, with the final panel being of her back as she walks out of the shop, the stuffed animal still sitting where she'd found it.

ICEMAN: A HOUSE OF DRAGONS

The second mini of three, this one introduces Dallas as a POV character, still oblivious of everything readers learned in the first mini. It explores his feelings about being depowered on M-Day and his survivor's guilt from having left the Institute and been relatively safe compared to those who stayed, when other depowered mutants like David still stayed and fought for mutants. His best friends, Julian and Brian Cruz, insist that nobody thinks less of him for it and he was a minor, it wasn't like anybody was really consulting him on whether he wanted to stay or go at the time, but he can't shake the feeling he should have done more. Its what drove him to go through the Crucible so early on, and its what drives his determination to make it onto the X-Men team.

Seeds are also planted for later, via some brief scenes that reveal that while depowered and living away from the Institute, Dallas started exploring magic as an alternative to his powers, since there are various arts that access the same Darkforce Dimension his powers connected him to. He's no longer pursuing it as feverishly as he did while depowered, but it remains an interest as he's determined to never be powerless again, whether he has his mutant abilities or not.

He also has several chance encounters with Iceman, who he really only knows as his old math teacher, and no idea they're not so chance encounters at all.

Meanwhile, Bobby and Laynia are meeting more regularly off the island as they argue about whether or not they should tell Dallas the truth - he has a right to know and he's old enough to make his own choices about what he wants or doesn't want done in the name of keeping him safe. Their various rationales are undercut by the underlying awareness that both of them are afraid of his reaction and worried he won't understand why they did it and might even hate them for the choices they made.

At the same time, they're trying to figure out how to even go about resurrecting Dmitri. They know from Joanna Beaubier-Jinadu's example that despite his young age, Dima could still theoretically be resurrected....they just have no idea how to ask the Five or X-Factor to look for him in the Waiting Room without disclosing everything about Dallas at the same time...which brings them back to how do we tell Dallas.

Ultimately, they wait too long and Thomas takes the choice out of their hands. While Dallas is in the Mojoverse along with various other Academy X kids who have been regular presences there while taking advantage of the treaty between Krakoa and Mojo to try and get some Krakoan media entertainment off the ground,

It turns out that while Bobby was worried about Doubting Thomas approaching Sinister, Shaw or one of the other notorious mutants on Krakoa as part of his schemes, he went a different direction entirely. He approached Mojo with his proposal for a must-see show that would have all of Krakoa glued to the nearest TV screen.

And so what was supposed to be just a random trip to the Mojoverse leads to Dallas being trapped as the very confused and unwilling star of what Mojo describes as the ultimate reality show: DALLAS GIBSON, THIS IS YOUR LIFE.

The show proceeds to take viewers - and Dallas - through a recreation of his entire life, including all the parts he didn’t know about. Starting before his birth even, with Krakoans flocking to their TVs just as Thomas promised, as soon the bombshell claim of who his biological parents are drops and word spreads throughout the island. Even X-Men close to Bobby have no idea what to make of this at first and they start trying to figure out how to shut it down and figure things out from there, but it’s a futile effort, honestly.

Even if they could get Mojo to shut it down right away, the damage was already done - and its clear that nobody is more interested in seeing what comes next than Dallas himself. Seemingly having forgotten that everyone is watching this, he’s half in denial, half captivated by what he’s watching. It seems impossible but that doesn’t stop him from having a lot of confused and conflicting feelings as he watches literal surveillance footage Thomas had installed to spy on the much younger Bobby and Laynia as they interacted with their newborn sons.

Much of this is used to flesh out flashback scenes from the first mini, where Bobby and Laynia’s POVs of these early days were shown, stringing together a timeline without reproducing the same scenes exactly. In contrast, some of these scenes do directly recreate scenes seen previously in Bobby and Laynia’s memories….but now reproduced for Dallas’ viewing by objective technology devoid of the emotions layered around his parents’ actual memories of that time.

The video retelling includes footage from security cameras at the facility Thomas had retreated to for their final fateful confrontation years ago, similarly providing a stark and explicit view of Bobby and Laynia’s rampage through the facility and Bobby’s unapologetic killing of Thomas. It’s a side of Bobby few had ever seen before and raises more than a few eyebrows while answering the questions many of them had had ever since Thomas made his dramatic entrance to Krakoan society at the end of the first mini.

Bobby meanwhile started racing for Mojoworld the second Rogue called him and told him to get there fast and laid out what was going on. But it still took long enough for him to navigate Mojoworld’s confusing layout that he only smashed his way onto the ‘set’ Dallas was trapped on in time to see his eighteen year old self hand an infant Dallas over to the Black Widow onscreen.

One look at Bobby, not hiding behind his ice form and with pain and remorse writ large all over his face, told Dallas (and everyone else) everything they needed to know about how true or not all this was.

But before Bobby can even attempt to figure out what to say, Mojo calls everyone’s attention back to the screens, as he announces there’s a plot twist featuring never-before-seen-footage from that first tragic April 27th.

The screen jumps to more security camera footage from Thomas’ facility….but the time stamp puts this at just before Bobby & Laynia’s arrival. Bobby (and Laynia who has arrived on Krakoa for the first time, as soon as she learned what was happening) watch in shock as Thomas hands Dmitri off to a lackey and instructs him to get offsite before the two arrive. Onscreen, Thomas says if he’s there’s one thing he’s figured out about Bobby & Laynia, its that they’ll never stop searching for one of their babies so long as they’re still alive….so if they’re convinced this one is dead and the other one is taken to Mother Nurture as she instructed him, they’ll focus all their efforts on trying to reclaim that one. Let her deal with that Thomas sniffs derisively. I have different plans for this one.

Of course, those plans never came to fruition, Mojo narrates. He underestimated just how….fatally Bobby would react to the simulacrum he believed to be his now dead son. He was never able to follow up with the lackey who took the real Dmitri, and his hired hand - who had not signed up for any of this and was freaking out once he saw what was left of the facility he’d last seen his boss in - well, he basically said fuck this and anonymously dropped Dmitri off at the nearest hospital.

Given the lengths Bobby & Laynia had gone to make sure their kids’ information WASN’T readily available anywhere when they were born, there was no indication of Dmitri’s real identity or where he came from, so he went into the system where he grew up in a series of homes that left him not especially traumatized, but at least distrustful of authority. Then Thomas revealed that when he’d first been resurrected, he’d tracked down Dmitri by finding his lackey and figuring out where he’d left the baby, retracing Dmitri’s path from there. Unlike Dallas, Thomas had always known exactly where to find Dmitri….but felt that particular reveal really needed the RIGHT moment.

And that moment apparently was now. Taking over narrator duties from Mojo, Thomas now speaks into the cameras, directly addressing Bobby and Laynia as he tells them Dmitri too manifested powers early and has had years to learn to make the most of his powerset. He apparently can access a mirror dimension that lets him teleport via reflective surfaces, use them as scrying portals by which he can see anything within visual range of that surface….and there’s one particularly interesting twist to his power. When Dmitri’s in the mirror dimension and watching events play out in the real world via a mirror or other surface….those events don’t just have to be in the present.

Time is wonky in the mirror dimension, as is often true of extradimensional spaces. Dmitri has limited precognitive abilities as he can use the mirror dimension to peer out of mirrors and watch what’ll happen in view of them at some point in various possible future timelines.

Apparently its tricky and unreliable, but its at least effective enough that Dmitri counts as a precog by anyone’s standard. And in the early days of Krakoa, when deciding whether to go there himself, he apparently glimpsed enough clandestine conversations to know that at that point, at least…..Krakoa was not a safe place to be a precog.

Onscreen, Thomas claps his hands energetically and addresses the entire audience now:

Thomas: So, to recap, somewhere out there is the teleporting precog son of an omega level mutant who’s already proven he’s willing to cross just about any line for this son’s sake. Said son is also primed to be extremely distrustful of Krakoa….and anyone who might be seen as an emissary of it. Like, oh say, X-Men. And to top it all off….he has absolutely no idea where he comes from nor does he have any reason to believe anyone who comes out of nowhere claiming to be his longlost parents or friends of theirs.

Thomas: Now I don’t know about all of you, but I think whomever were to find him first, and gain his trust, well - they could probably figure out any number of ways those combined factors could be useful.

The screen flashes to a generic street camera view of a Dmitri Drake that looks a lot like his brother, just with brown hair instead of blond. There’s little to distinguish either his surroundings or Dmitri himself, but its clearly being presented as a starting point for potential searchers.

The final pages show an array of panels showing notorious mutant villains all leaning forward and studying the screen with interest. Sinister, Shaw, Selene (if she’s back yet), Abigail Brand, MLF members, Stryfe, Mystique and Destiny, the Fenris twins, etc.

The second mini concludes with Doubting Thomas winking into the camera, essentially staring straight at the reader.

Thomas: May the best influence win!

DARKSTAR: SONS OF SNOW AND SHADOW

Subtitled: “Run, Dima, Run!”

The third and final mini of the triptych is a chaotic free for all as basically everyone is hunting for Dmitri Drake, who has absolutely no idea why people are suddenly coming out of the woodwork looking for him but quickly decides he doesn’t want to be found.

Dallas is aggressively putting off dealing with how he feels about any of this and flat out shuts down any attempts Bobby or Laynia make to approach him. He’s totally fixated on being the one to find basically the only person in the universe who could understand how he’s feeling right now, and they can figure it out together then. He’s blatantly underestimating how much his longlost twin actually might NOT be able to relate to his specific perspective here, and vice versa. Something his friends and Academy X classmates try to caution him about while helping him on his search.

Surge: Oh shut up, dumbass. I don’t have to like you for you to be one of us, and any twin of yours is basically a two-for-one deal, so of course we’re going to do whatever it takes to keep your longlost brother from being exploited and used by adults who suck. I would include your parents in that but I actually think them hiding you from that musty bald bitch Xavier was probably the smartest thing any X-parent has done for their kid so I’m fighting down the impulse to be impressed.

Dallas: …thank you? I think?

Thus the Academy X kids actually take one of the most prominent roles in the mini as Dallas and his classmates’ search is heavily prioritized. There’s a strong focus on various kids who have history being exploited by older mutants and are now projecting heavily. Brian and Julian are of course Dallas’ closest confidantes through this, maybe Brian a little more than Julian as the latter flip-flops back and forth between calling Dallas a legacy and a nepo baby at different intervals. He can’t seem to decide if he thinks it’s something to be envied or not. Anole is unrepentant about ranking Dallas’ dad’s most infamous costumes and how hot or not he looked in each of them. He and Dallas never got along in school. Icarus absently notes that he’s pretty sure his brother and Dallas’ dad had a thing going on at one point.

They’re not quite all as helpful as they could be, is the takeaway. But they do feel the stakes and if any generation of mutants is prone to embracing gallows humor to cope, it’s the Academy X kids.

Elsewhere Bobby is conducting his own search with the help of numerous X-Men and friends, who are all trying to process everything they just learned and saw. Most of them are supportive and understanding, though a few are more abrasive about the sheer amount of stuff they didn’t know about him or even suspect.

Xavier tries to lecture Bobby about how they wouldn’t be in this situation if he had trusted them with this at any point in the past. Bobby shuts that down with gusto, emphasizing that Xavier was one of the people they were most concerned about hiding the twins from - and a good thing too, he points out, given what could have happened to Dallas if Onslaught had known about him when Dallas was still just a kid.

But then he gets downright chilly and makes it clear how and why his dynamic with many of them will be at least somewhat different from this point on…..Xavier especially.

He brings attention back to the not so minor detail of Xavier, Moira and Magneto apparently originally declaring Krakoa to be for all mutants….except for precogs.

Bobby: You keep saying this place is the culmination of everything we’ve fought for from the first day we put on an X-Men uniform, so I just wanna know, Professor. Why the HELL did I spend my whole life fighting for you to create your own personal vision of paradise….which apparently was meant to exclude one of my children, just because of what freaking power he was born with?

Xavier: Compromises had to be made in order to -

Bobby: Y’know, you’ve been using that line since I was fifteen and its tired, X. Every time we asked why you couldn’t just use your powers in ways you insisted would ethically compromise you - except for whenever you decided it was okay because it made things more convenient for you specifically.

Bobby: From day one you’ve kept your secrets from us, for a lot shadier reasons than I’ve ever had for keeping one, so you don’t need to be telling me I’m not entitled to my secrets. You have all these contingencies for if any of us go bad, while telling us nobody’s beyond redemption except for those times you decide Magneto is, or the Shadow King is.

Bobby: You know what the real problem with your dream has always been, Professor? It asks for a leap of faith that you’ve never been prepared to make yourself. You’re always asking us to line up and put it all on the line for the chance at a better world, no matter how realistic it is….but you’ve never actually put down your own cynicism or pragmatism or whatever you want to call it….and just….dreamed. How does that even work, huh?

Bobby: Just….what the hell would you have even done, Professor, if I had raised my kids at the mansion all this time? What spin would you have given me when you finally embarked on this grand Krakoan experiment you’ve been planning for years….and needed to tell me one of my sons wasn’t allowed to come with? That if he died, you had no intention of resurrecting him and his politically inconvenient power?

Xavier: *keeps silent*

Bobby: Yeah, y’know what, on second thought I don’t think I actually want to know the answer to that. Stay away from me and my kids, X. You and I are done.

Finally, last but not least, Laynia will be running her own search for Dima with the help of her brother, the Black Widow, and Warren, who wanted to make sure she knew that he’s her friend too, not just Bobby’s. Despite the lack of detail here, she’d actually have the most prominent role in this mini - being associated publicly with Krakoa is actually an obstacle for Bobby gaining Dmitri’s trust. Laynia’s lack of affiliation with it or Russia’s government or any other organization, is what lets her convince Dmitri to give her a chance and hear her out when she does find him.

(Something she’s ultimately able to do by going to Arakko and asking Storm if she can get her an audience with Lactuca, who should know exactly where to find him. In exchange, Lactuca will ask a favor of Laynia at some point in the future, which plants some seeds to bring Laynia more into X-books without just being an extension of Bobby).

There will be a final reckoning between Laynia and Thomas this time, and the mini will end with things still messy as hell, as the newfound family of four (plus Uncle Nikolai, standing awkwardly off to the side) basically stand there staring at each other and wondering what next. But even with them all as relative strangers now, there’s a wealth of possibilities now that everything’s out in the open.

This mysterious Mother Nurture still lingers offscreen as a potential future threat, especially as they still don’t know what they intended with Dallas - if he was even the twin she was after in the first place. Iceman’s poised to be launched in any number of directions as he’s now essentially reinventing himself while everyone is paying more attention to him than ever before, all while he’s trying to fall back on comfortable, familiar habits of joking and pranks to try and bond with the sons who are grown up and don’t really know what - if any - dynamic they even need or want with him. Laynia’s reluctantly taken Krakoan citizenship to be closer to her sons, but finds she prefers staying on Arakko and grows closer to mutants she meets there, with Dima joining her more often than not, as he’ll never be fully comfortable with Krakoa even if precogs are ‘allowed’ now. Dallas is more determined than ever to be an X-Man but he’s worried that now he’ll never make it on his own merits and it’ll always be more about him being a legacy, a founding X-Man’s kid.

Etc, etc.

[n00dl3gal]

Like Old Times (Father-Son Bonding AU)

A direct sequel to the “Expiration Date” fic, which I’ll link in a reblog. I’ve also posted all my fics in this AU to AO3!! Thanks again to @thetriggeredhappy for their help and just generally being a cool dude, and the Scoutsune Discord server for indulging my brainrot

No warnings beyond family schmoop!

Less than an hour after the bread monster incident, the Administrator called for a ceasefire. “Only while your base is repaired,” she said over the TV screen. “BLU is quite disappointed in this negligence- as am I. Regardless, you may use these three days as you see fit. Go home, stay here- whatever you do, no more bread monsters.” The screen turned off with a click. 

Scout exhaled through his nose. He was thankful there was no mention of him or Miss Pauling’s woodchipper. 

Spy decloaked behind him. “Less time than I wanted, but c’est la vie.” Scout looked at him over his shoulder. “I’m meeting with an old contact during our break,” Spy said in Italian. “Would you like to come along? It’ll be like old times.” 

Scout’s brow furrowed, but he nodded. At least this way, he’d get out of helping Engie and Heavy with repairs. And possibly meeting Miss Pauling’s woodchipper. 

“Excellent. Our flight is at 7 AM tomorrow.” 

“We’re flying commercial?” Scout asked, also in (more hesitant) Italian. 

“Our destination is continental. We’ll leave the base by 5:30.” Scout groaned as Spy started to leave. But- wait, he hadn’t- 

“Oi, where are we going, anyway?” he called back in English. 

Spy paused to look at him and smile. “Boston.” 

“Why do we always get the ass-crack-of-dawn flights?” Jeremy asked groggily, reclining his seat.

“They are the ones with first-class seats available,” Raphael replied. He took a sip from his mimosa. 

“Yeah, cuz God forbid you fly coach for once.” Jeremy shifted, trying to get comfortable. “Hey. Have I ever been to Boston before?”

Raphael didn’t answer immediately. His lip sucked in, as if in thought. “Yes. When you were very, very young. You wouldn’t remember.” 

Jeremy nodded. He wanted to ask more, there was something Raphael wasn’t saying but… well, he was never a morning person. He fell asleep before the plane even took off. 

. . .

It was mid-afternoon by the time they landed in Boston. Jeremy was never fond of long flights; having his legs cramped like that for extended periods of time was murder. He was half tempted to take a jog around Logan International. Raphael, on the other hand, was ushering them both to the car rental. “Can’t even get a stretch in, huh?”

“Unfortunately, we are expected by 4, and I would hate to keep my contact waiting,” Raphael explained in French, accepting the keys from the girl at the counter. “She’s not a very patient woman, in some regards.” 

Jeremy huffed but didn’t argue. He just followed his father to the rental, tossing his suitcase in the backseat. “Y’know, the girl at the counter-” 

“We will not have time for you to go out on a date, Jeremy.” 

“No! No, it was- her accent’s kinda like mine, it’s weird,” Jeremy said. Raphael started the car. “Cuz I’ve only been here as a baby, and I got mine from TV and shit. It’s just… really strange, is all.” 

Raphael made a quiet noise of agreement. “Some of the shows you watched as a child were filmed here. It’s not as complex as you think it is.” 

“Yeah, probably not…” 

The pair lapsed into silence as Raphael drove. Storefronts and high rises morphed into houses. It had been a while since they were in a residential area. RED, for understandable reasons, kept away from civilians. 

Raphael took the roads with practiced experience. Sure, it had been implied he knew the area. If he had a contact here- one with a house, presumably- he must’ve spent time here. But this- this was far too familiar. A bit suspicious, actually. 

Eventually, Raphael slowed in front of a more rundown Brownstone. Still quite nice, just needed a little work. It felt… welcoming, in a way Jeremy couldn’t name.

“Lotta cars,” he observed as Raphael parallel parked. “Must be a party going on somewhere.” 

“Hmm, perhaps,” Raphael said, turning the car off. “Would you mind ringing the doorbell for me? I need to grab something from the trunk. Ask for Sara Jane.” 

OK, now Jeremy knew something was up. He was never the one to make the first contact, that was always Dad’s job. Jeremy might be a full-grown adult, but there were some things that didn’t change. This was one of them. 

Still, he nodded. He climbed up the front steps and ringed the doorbell. He heard- multiple voices from inside, predominantly male, but they quickly silenced themselves. A TV, perhaps? They really ought to get that flower box on the second story window fixed- 

The woman who opened the door was a bit shorter than him, though not by much. She was wearing a simple dress, hoop earrings, and flats. Her hair was dark, curved to her chin. But her nose and earlobes felt… achingly familiar. Like Jeremy saw them all the time. 

“Um, hi, I’m looking for Sara Jane? My name’s-” The rest of his speech was knocked out of him as the woman launched herself at him. Jeremy braced for an attack, but quickly realized she was… hugging him. 

She was hugging him, sobbing, and choked out the word “Jeremy.” 

Wait. He knew that voice. He had only heard it a few times in his life, few enough he could count them on one hand, but he knew it. “M-Ma?” he whispered. 

The woman- Sara Jane- Ma looked up at him, still crying. Her hands found his face as she observed him. “Y-yeah, sweetie, it’s me, it’s-it’s your ma,” she said. 

“Ma!” he laughed, tears of his own dancing down his cheeks. He hugged her back, practically lifting her off her feet. “Oh my God, Ma! I-I never thought I’d-” 

“Oh Jeremy, sweetie, look how tall you’ve gotten! Last I saw you, you fit in my arms! My baby, my handsome baby,” she spoke over him. She rubbed circles into his back as they embraced. It felt so, so right. 

Jeremy laughed even harder. “Are you kiddin’? I got it from you, you’re beautiful, Ma!” He stared at her, trying to commit every mole and wrinkle and perfect flaw to memory. “I can’t believe- oh my God, I’m actually meeting you!” 

“It was long overdue,” another voice said, as Raphael joined them on the front stoop. “I had put it off for safety reasons, but considering our current, ah, situation… I felt it was worth the risk.” 

Sara Jane squealed, pulling Raphael into the hug as well. “You’ve been taking good care of my boy, you promise me, Raphael?” 

“Don’t worry Ma, he’s the best dad I could ask for, considering,” Jeremy teased. 

“Oh, don’t I know it. Called me up last night and told me to get the whole motley crew together. Even managed to get Melvin to bring his twin daughters, bless his wife’s heart,” she explained. 

Jeremy blinked. “Uh- Melvin? Daughters?”

Sara Jane laughed. It sounded so much like Jeremy’s it practically hurt. This was his mother. Lord, he’s finally seeing her. “Melvin’s your older brother, sweetie. Eh, sixth oldest. Bobby’s the oldest.” 

“I have a brother?”

“Oh honey, you’re the youngest of eight,” Sara Jane said plainly. 

“...fuck,” Jeremy whispered. 

. . .

He didn’t just have seven brothers. He had seven brothers, four of which brought their wives, one who brought his boyfriend, and three who brought their kids. And the kids totaled to an additional six, counting the babies. 

It was… an admittedly tight squeeze in the living room. 

Sara Jane introduced Jeremy. Jeremy had been expecting to be treated like a stranger. He had vanished when he was a baby, after all, and his younger-older brothers probably wouldn’t remember him at all. 

And yet, it was like he knew them all his life. 

They teased him and punched him playfully and acted so friendly, so familial it nearly made Jeremy break down. He was still crying from meeting Ma, but being dogpiled with so much affection was suffocating. In a good way. He had seen on sitcoms the intrinsic bond between family, and while he felt it with Dad, they also risked their lives nearly daily. But it was real, it was here, and it was wrapping him in a warm blanket. 

Despite the chaos and the sheer number of people, Jeremy didn’t feel overwhelmed. He laughed and played along with their jokes, cracking some back when he could get a word in. Scott ragged on his dog tags, he countered by pointing out the hole in his pants. Michael told him he was still a shortass, he replied with “it takes one to know one.” Elliot and Ricky were the closest to actually getting hurt, and that was only because Jeremy elbowed them both so hard they nearly fell over. 

For the first time in 25 years, Jeremy understood what “home” meant. 

The kids were especially curious, eager to meet their uncle and step-grandfather. Within seconds, young Rebecca- only four years old- was challenging Jeremy to a race around the house. “I’m the fastest kid in the world,” she bragged, puffing out her chest. 

“Oh yeah?” Jeremy asked. “That a fact?”

“You wanna test me? I beat Johnny Three-Legs at running, and he’s got three legs!” Jeremy laughed and stood from the couch, letting her lead him outside. “On the count of three, OK?”

“You’re on, pipsqueak,” Jeremy teased.

“Onetwothree GO!” Rebecca yelled, taking off in a sprint. Jeremy knew that, by all accounts, he should beat her. His legs were longer, she didn’t have the proper running stance, and it was his job to be fast. That’s what he got paid to do. But some small voice was telling him to let her win, so he did. “Ha! I told ya!” 

“Ya sure did,” he replied, mock panting. “Look at you, a freaking blur on the green. You’re goin’ to the Olympics, kid.” 

Rebecca beamed and hugged his leg. “Promise, Uncle Jeremy?” He nodded because, after that display, there was no way he could speak without squeaking like a chew toy. 

Rebecca skipped back inside, past Raphael, who was watching on the stoop. “You’re a natural with children,” he observed. “I used to do the same thing when you were that age.” 

“Wait- wait, really? You sure fooled me,” Jeremy said. 

Raphael rolled his eyes. “What’s my job again, mon lapin?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Jeremy leaned against the railing, watching Raphael’s cigarette smoke in the wind. “Hey. Uh… thanks for arranging all of this. You really didn’t need to.”

“But I did. I meant it when I said this was overdue. I’ve been wanting to introduce you to the rest of the family for a while, but have been unable. Then that whole ordeal with the supposed tumors, and-” Raphael exhaled slowly. “It wouldn’t have been fair to you if you died without knowing them. I would’ve never forgiven myself.” 

Jeremy punched his shoulder lightly. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, pops. It all worked out, we’re still kicking, and that roast chicken Ma’s making smells incredible. Everything’s perfect.” 

Raphael finished his cigarette and smiled. “Oui. It is.” 

. . .

While Sara Jane had been able to get the rest of the family here, it was a school night. Kids needed to be tucked in by 9:30, so most of Jeremy’s brothers were gone by 8. Elliot was staying overnight, as was his boyfriend. Otherwise, the house quickly went from bustling to barren. 

It gave Jeremy a chance to explore his would-be childhood home.

He made his way upstairs, pushing open one of the doors. It led- to little surprise- to a bedroom. It was set up like a nursery, with a crib in one corner and a toddler bed in the other. Toys were scattered about across the floor. 

He heard Sara Jane sigh behind him. “This was your room, you know.” Jeremy turned to look at her as she flipped the light switch. “That crib… I had put you to bed the night your father planned to fake his death. I was in on the whole plan, naturally. He wanted to hold you one last time, so I said OK. When I woke up the next morning… you were both gone.” She exhaled slowly, grabbing onto his shoulder. “I wrote both of you off as dead, but I knew what had happened. Honestly, should’ve figured it out before then. You hadn’t woken me up crying,” she joked. Her eyes were watering. 

Jeremy hugged her, pulling her close. “You never took the crib down?” 

“By the time I was ready, Bobby’s wife was pregnant, so I kept it up for my grandbabies. I knew- I knew you were out there, sweetie. Both of you.” She kissed his cheek, squeezing him.

“I-I never got to be a normal kid, really,” he confessed. “I mean, Dad did his best, gave me comic books and board games and stuff, but-but I never went to school or made friends or anything like that. I-I didn’t even know I had a family. It took me forever to even realize I had a Ma. An-and everything I did-” The tears were flowing again, more freely than earlier. “Ya missed me losing my first tooth, and potty trainin’, and all that stuff parents should know about. I-I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Sara Jane wiped his cheek dry. “Don’t apologize for what your father did, Jeremy. And definitely don’t apologize for me not potty training another kid. Besides… hold on, I’ll be right back.” She made her way down the hallway. Jeremy didn’t follow, instead deciding to examine the crib. This was where he grew up. It was a simple crib, obviously well-used. Not worn-down, mind, just… used. It had a history. A history that Jeremy wanted to decode, but unlike his dad’s ciphers, he didn’t have the key. 

“Took me a second to find it,” Sara Jane said. She handed him what appeared to be a scrapbook. “Raphael- he wrote when he can. Taught me some basic codes, would send out letters whenever you’d leave a town. Never left a return address, but…” Jeremy flipped through the pages, moving to sit on the small bed. The letters were all coded but appeared to be about how much Raphael missed Sara Jane. Updates on Jeremy’s growth. Letters from a father to his lover and son’s mother. 

One page jumped out to him, though. “I remember this,” he said, running his fingers against the paper. It was a simple drawing of a young boy, holding a catcher’s mitt, and a taller man next to him. “I drew this after Dad took me to my first baseball game, for my eighth birthday. I thought I lost the drawing after we skipped town, but- he sent them to you?”

Sara Jane nodded. “And I kept them all. Oh, honey, the day I first heard your voice on the phone- Mikey can tell you, I damn near fell over. You sounded so happy, and even if I couldn’t see you, that’s all a mother wants.” Jeremy leaned against her and she shut the book. “That’s all a mother wants, sweetie. To see her kids be safe and happy.” 

“I am, Ma,” he assured her. “I promise.” 

They sat like that for a while, with Sara Jane commenting on various letters and drawings in the scrapbook. Apparently, Raphael sent her money when he could- more frequently now that Mann Co. paid so well. She also had a rough idea of their current occupations. “I figure, if you and your father are working for the same company- with his skills, there’s gotta be a whole lot of nonsense going on out in that desert.” Jeremy laughed at that because she wasn’t wrong. “But I also figure since he raised you right, he’ll keep the both of you safe.” 

“I keep him safe too, don’t worry,” Jeremy added. “Uh- listen, it’s touching and all you kept the crib, but I don’t have to sleep in it, right?” 

They both had a good chuckle over that. Their laughs were in perfect harmony. 

. . .

The next two days were a mix of learning the family history and exploring Boston. It was the offseason, so there weren’t any games going on at Fenway, but Jeremy still got a picture in front of the park. Sara Jane took the pair to a restaurant that served “the best damn clam chowder in the contiguous United States.” Which, incidentally, led them to discover Jeremy was allergic to clams. Thankfully they didn’t have to go to the hospital- he just sort of immediately got sick before it passed- but it did suck.

It was damn good chowder, though. 

They went down to the harbor where the Boston Tea Party happened. It was crowded with people, resulting in them not staying long. Jeremy was a bit better with crowds than Raphael, but neither was great with them. Came with the job. Getting overpriced memorabilia from a nearby gift shop, though, went over much more smoothly. 

When not out on the town, Sara Jane dug out more scrapbooks and photo albums, catching Raphael up on what his stepsons had been up to. She showed Jeremy pictures from Ricky’s first school play to Scott opening up his butcher shop. Graduation pictures, wedding pictures, baby pictures- it was all there, and Jeremy devoured it. He wanted to know these people. He wanted to know his family. And he did. He learned about Michael’s stint in the Navy, Melvin meeting his wife, how Bobby’s son could dribble a basketball for twenty minutes straight. He learned about how his parents met. How Raphael loved each of Sara Jane’s children, even if they weren’t biologically his. How Jeremy wasn’t planned- few of the kids were - but they were both so, so happy to realize he was coming. 

He also learned that, while diner food would remain the undisputed king, homemade meatloaf came pretty close. 

. . .

The only problem came when it was time to leave. It wasn’t that Jeremy didn’t want to return to work, or leave his Ma behind. Sara Jane wasn’t even torn up over losing her son and lover again. It just felt like there was so much left to say, to do. There was uncertainty as to when they’d be able to return. “We get time off for Smissmas, I know that’s months away but I’ll be here, I promise,” Jeremy swore, hugging Sara Jane for the eighth time. 

“You better,” she said, squeezing him tightly. “You have 25 years worth of gifts to catch up on, not to mention birthday gifts-”

“Ma, you don’t have to go that far,” he whined. He was touched, sure, but the thought of that much luggage was truly frightening. Oh God, he was going to have to get gifts for everybody, wasn’t he? What do kids even want for Smissmas? 

“Hush, let me spoil my baby,” Sara Jane told him, kissing his cheek. “Oh, Jeremy…” 

Jeremy nodded. “I know, but I’ll call. I’ll write, too. Send pictures if I can.” 

“I’ll make sure he does,” Raphael assured her. Sara Jane stood to kiss his lips, with Jeremy looking away pointedly. “You have my word, ma petite chou-fleur.” 

“Alright, alright- now get going, I don’t want you two missing your flight. That boss of yours sounds like she’ll tear you both a new one if you’re late,” Sara Jane said, shooing them away. “Love you boys!” 

“I love you too, Ma!” Jeremy shouted back, for the very first time. 

The drive back to the airport was quiet. Jeremy stared out the window, watching his hometown- he had a hometown- pass by. “Hey, dad?” he asked, still looking outside. Raphael grunted to acknowledge he was listening. “One of these days, our contracts with Mann Co. are gonna expire. We’re gonna have to find new jobs.” 

“Yes, that’s correct,” Raphael said. He tapped a rhythm against the steering wheel. 

“And-and I was thinking when that time comes… maybe we could come back to Boston. Find some gigs out here,” Jeremy suggested. 

Raphael sighed. “Unfortunately, being a spy means that you don’t have the option of retiring, Jeremy. Not until you’re unable to complete your job. At that point, though, you’ve probably died a dozen times over,” he explained. “Even if I could retire, settling down somewhere so close to people I care about- I would still have enemies.” 

“Right. ‘Course,” Jeremy said. “It’s OK.” 

“That being said,” Raphael continued, “you have the luxury of youth and not being tied down to such a career. If you want to find a job in Boston after we finish with RED, there’s nothing stopping you.” 

“But people will still be after me, since I’m your son. And you wouldn’t be around.”

“Every child leaves their parents someday. And you’re strong, Jeremy. You can protect yourself and your family.” Raphael smiled. “I don’t believe Sara Jane needs much protecting, but I do worry.” 

Jeremy laughed. “I mean, did ya see the muscles on Scott and Michael? Guys can probably bench press a tractor!” 

They both chuckled before settling into quietude. Eventually, though, Jeremy had to break the silence. His voice was barely above a whisper. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, mon lapin.”

“...so your nickname for Ma is fucking ‘little cauliflower?’ What the hell, Dad?” 

[bobbimorses]

I think Brevoort or someone said the X-Men (the team) are 10 years old, and that Scott Summers is 27-28 right now (probably his chronological age, since biologically, he has died and been cloned a few times.) So, the twins were supposed to be close in age to the oldest X-Men (Scott, Hank, Warren and Jean) and when they shifted to the Avengers later, now as young adults, they were meant to be the same age as Clint, also a young adult. So, are they also 27-28? If that's the case then Kate (Bishop), a woman in her early twenties, is only a few years younger than Clint. It's very interesting to me 'cause I feel it's the same issue with the X-Men various generations. Kate (Pryde) started as a thirteen year old...

iirc it's been even a few years now from when marvel editorial said the fantastic four first went into space like 11-12yrs ago, so idk how dated that 10 year statement is at this point. anyways...

on the basis of their introductions, i've previously placed clint as about 2 years older than pete and the og x-men. (though i would alter some placements in that chart, like maybe putting tony on the mid-late 20s bracket bc of recent issues' references to tony's age, and bumping down t'challa bc i remembered he referenced being an infant during ww2 in an issue from the 60s).

concerning years passing, people now roughly go with 5 years real-time = 1 year comic-time, just to make things simpler. for instance, if clint joined the avengers aged 19 57yrs ago, it's been 11yrs comic time, and so he'd be 30. but apparently in the 90s, the rough guide was 5-7yrs real-time = 1yr comic-time, which would skew everyone younger.

hell, avengers disassembled, house of m, civil war, and secret invasion all happened within 1 year for clint

but that's not the real problem; it's who gets to reach what age. brevoort and marvel editorial will not budge from peter (and scott and johnny) being 28. if you asked them how old peter was in 2013, they would've said 28. if you ask them right now, they'll say 28. wanda, ostensibly only a year or so older than him, technically has 2 kids aged 20-21 (their souls were sent back in time but The Vibes), pietro has a kid aged ~9, and clint is getting called old by characters under 25.

until the recent fantastic four series, franklin richards remained a little kid stumbling over words for almost the entirety of his existence, while cassie lang aged "regularly" from 8 to 14 over almost 30 years, and luna maximoff went from 0 to 6.

meanwhile, kate was 16 in young avengers v1, but got bumped to 21 in v2, even though it came out less than a decade later. but other characters didn't get a 5 year bump--so if clint was like 13-14 years older than her before, now he was only ~9.

and the various x-men generations seem to have the most problems, in that they kept getting stated ages, and then restated ages that either mesh or don't with both each other and how much time has supposedly passed, and then restated again.

so basically.....everything is up in the air and we are all mercy to the whims of the editorial department decreeing that peter parker doesn't get to be 30. clint is younger than one would probably think from his veteran hero status. bobbi's age was stated to be 30 in new avengers v2 and wouldn't it be cute if they were the same age--except bobbi has infinity formula now so. oops.