The remnants of the Phoenix power still clung to Jack like a dying fire. The tips of his long hair were still a smoldering, fiery red, and a single, scarlet feather remained on the crown of his head. His skin was a roadmap of glowing, molten cracks. He was carrying an unconscious Tenzin in one arm.
"Hold on, kid," he grunted, his voice a raw, exhausted thing. He pushed the last of his divine energy into Zephyr, not to fly, but to tear. A hexagonal, shimmering crack, just like the ones Hermes made, appeared in the sky above the peaceful, green lawns of Westchester County, New York.
He shot through it, a black and gold meteor, and crash-landed.
…
Several seconds before Jack's crash:
Colossus was humming a cheerful Russian folk tune as he watered the meticulously kept flowerbeds of the Xavier Mansion. He smiled, a rare, gentle expression on his massive, metallic face. "They all look so happy," he said to himself in his thick accent.
Then, the sky tore open.
A hexagonal crack appeared above the mansion. Colossus squinted, and then he saw him. A figure, wreathed in a faint, dying fire, shot out of the crack. The figure then, with a surprising amount of care, threw the small bundle he was carrying directly into the mansion's swimming pool, while he himself plummeted into the very flowerbeds Colossus had just watered.
Colossus ran toward the pool, his massive feet leaving deep impressions in the perfect lawn. "Tenzin!" he shouted. "Are you alright, kid?!"
Jack Hou, meanwhile, was a broken, smoking heap in a crater of ruined petunias. The last of the Phoenix energy dissipated from his body, leaving him looking just… wrecked.
From the mansion, Jean Grey, her own powers sensing the familiar, chaotic energy signature, arrived first, followed by the rest of the X-Men.
Jack groaned from the ground. "Aagghh… these flowers…"
Jean and the others rushed to his side.
Jack, seeing his audience, immediately struck a pose. He lay down sensually amidst the crushed blossoms, one hand behind his head. "Do these flowers make me look more handsome?"
Scott and Alex both took a step forward. "Are you good?" Scott asked. "Can you stand up?"
"I don't know, guys," Jack said, his voice a weak, tragic thing. "I don't think I can do any comedy at this moment."
Scott facepalmed. "Stand up literally."
"Oh, no, I can't," Jack moaned. "I think I've broken every single bone in my body."
The younger kids had already fished a sputtering but otherwise unharmed Tenzin out of the pool and were wrapping him in towels. Just then, Ororo, Logan, and Xavier arrived.
"What happened, Jack?" Xavier asked, his voice full of a deep, paternal concern. "You've been gone for nine months after taking Tenzin, and now you arrive like this."
Jack ignored him completely and looked up at Logan. "Logan, pick me up, please. I can't get up right now." He paused, then looked at Ororo and winked. "But I'm not talking about my dick."
Logan looked at Xavier, then at the ridiculous, broken man in the flowerbed, and let out a long, weary sigh. He walked over and unceremoniously picked Jack up, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
"Hey!" Jack shouted, his voice a weak, indignant thing. "Pick me up like I'm a princess, you dunce!"
A rare smirk touched Logan's lips. "Be grateful I'm carrying you at all, bub."
They began to carry both Jack and Tenzin toward the medbay, Jack's voice a stream of protests echoing across the lawn, a series of unhinged accusations about Logan being a sexist who didn't know how to properly carry a beautiful, wounded god.
In the sterile, white medbay, Moira was running diagnostics on a perfectly healthy, if slightly waterlogged, Tenzin. Across the room, Hank McCoy was trying, and failing, to get a reading on Jack.
"Hey, Hank," Jack said from the bed, his voice still a little weak. "Just as an icebreaker, how does it feel to be a real-life Cookie Monster?"
Hank paused, a scanner in his hand, then continued his work without looking up. "I have gotten used to it by now," he said, his deep voice a calm, academic rumble. "It did feel strange at first, but with a lot of proper hair routine, it has become easier."
"Does it leave blue marks on your white bedsheets?"
Hank paused again, his face a mask of profound, unimpressed patience. "I do not dye my hair blue, Jack."
"Oh, yeah, I know," Jack said cheerfully. "I read your comic, too, when I was a gangster."
Hank just brushed it off as more of Jack Hou's nonsensical ramblings. He finished his scan, the machine letting out a frustrated beep. "As usual," he announced, "none of my machines can see through your body. Congratulations, Jack. I don't know what's broken inside you, but it's thoroughly broken."
Jack shifted, propping his head up with his hand. "I don't know if I could live with monkey hair all over my body, you know."
Hank, intrigued, set his scanner down. "Where is this talk coming from? Are you saying you know where your tail comes from? Because your sudden growth of a tail still baffles me."
Moira walked over to Jack's bed. "So, how was it, Hank? Did our new X-ray machine see through him?"
"Nothing," Hank said with a shake of his head. He then looked back at Jack. "But go on with what you were talking about. Are you saying you will become a full-blown monkey?"
"Hey, don't say that," Jack shot back with a grin. "Martin Luther King Jr. didn't die for you to be calling me a monkey like that. Kekekeke."
Moira's expression turned serious. "We need your cooperation, Jack."
"Why?" Jack asked, his tone shifting, becoming genuinely curious. "Why do you need my humble monkey ass?"
Moira looked at Hank, who just gave a slight, affirmative nod. She sighed. "We've had a breakthrough on our… Sentinel project. But we've hit a bottleneck. We need to see your X-genes."
Hank added, his voice full of a scientist's desperate hope, "We suspect your mutation is a one-in-a-billion type. We think it could help us leap over this bottleneck."
"Project Sentinel, huh?" Jack mused. "Never heard of it. Though I think you guys' movies had those things in them. Meehh, I never really remember your movies, to be honest, so I don't know how it works."
Hank, still taking this as one of Jack's jokes, pressed on. "Jack, we are serious. Can we at least see a drop of your blood? To see your X-genes?"
"I swear," Moira added, her voice a sincere plea, "we would not do anything other than observe. If that is what you're concerned about."
"I don't know," Jack said with a shrug. "I'm pretty sure I don't even have a mutation."
Hank still believed he had the X-gene. Moira was beginning to question it.
"There are a lot of powers outside the X-gene," Jack pointed out. "Come on, you guys know Captain America. He didn't have an X-gene."
"But the inspiration Erskine got for the super-soldier formula came from the X-gene," Hank countered.
Jack let out a long, weary sigh. He looked at their faces, at their desperate, pleading hope. "This is about Warren Worthington and Lorna Dane, isn't it?"
Moira lowered her head. Hank's eyes were full of a silent, painful confirmation.
Jack waved a dismissive hand. "Okay, okay. But let me rest, will you? I need to hibernate for a bit. Now, shoo, shoo."
He then turned over, presenting them with his back, a clear, undeniable dismissal. Moira and Hank looked at each other, then, with a shared, silent sigh, they left the medbay.
…
At the very southern tip of Greece, on the sun-bleached, windswept rocks of Cape Matapan, a lone lighthouse stood against the endless blue of the Mediterranean. At the very top, two figures sat dangling their feet over the edge, the picture of tropical relaxation. They were Jack's clones, both dressed in loud, floral beach shirts and shorts, their long hair tied up in messy buns. One was happily sipping from a coconut, the other was peeling a banana.
"Hey, don't eat all the bananas, dumbass," the first clone said, his mouth full of coconut meat. "I want some, too."
"I bought them, I eat them," the other clone shot back. "Why don't you just buy your own?"
"I didn't bring any money," the first clone whined. "I forgot to take some when we were at the house."
"Sounds like a you problem."
"Aaggghhh," the first clone groaned, leaning back. "Why can't we just have the power to print money?"
The banana-eating clone stopped, a look of profound, pedagogical annoyance on his face. "Inflation, you fuck-face."
"I don't get it," the first clone said with a shrug. "Just print more money for me to use more. Simple."
"Okay, look," the other clone said, putting down his banana. "You work at this lighthouse for one dollar."
"I don't."
"Just pretend, goddammit! So, you earn one dollar every day. And every day, you spend that one dollar on this one banana."
"That's a stupid way to spend money, financially speaking," the first clone pointed out.
"PRETEND!" the other clone roared. "So, let's say there are 100 bananas on this island. If you print more money, let's say another 100 dollars, then there are 200 dollars on this island, but still only 100 bananas. So now, each banana is worth two dollars."
The first clone was silent for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. "That's stupid," he finally concluded. "Just print more bananas."
The other clone, so thoroughly defeated by the sheer, unassailable stupidity of his brother's logic, snapped. He lunged, his hands wrapping around the first clone's neck, and began to choke him.
"What… are… we… doing… here… anyway?" the first clone managed to rasp, his face turning a shade of purple.
The other clone paused, his homicidal rage instantly forgotten. He let go. "Oh, right," he said, catching his breath. "We're here to guard this place until our main body gets back to health."
"Are you not interested in the location of the fragment?" the first clone asked, rubbing his throat.
"This is what we're guarding," the other clone said, his gaze sweeping over the rocky cape.
The first clone looked around. "Erlang only said Cape Matapan. That's a pretty big area. Why don't we look around? If we find it, we'll help our main body save a bunch of time. He can just come and grab it directly."
The other clone paused and thought about it. Then, a slow, appreciative grin spread across his face. "Good idea." He then picked up his coconut. "Let me just finish this before we start."
…
The old, familiar scent of stale beer, sawdust, and quiet regret hung in the air of the veteran's pub. Logan parked his motorcycle, the growl of the engine a familiar, comforting sound, and walked inside.
"Logan. The usual?" the bartender asked without even looking up.
Logan just nodded and sat down at his usual spot at the bar. The bartender, a grizzled, friendly man named Mike, slid a lighter across the polished wood. "I'd tell you to stop smoking if you were any other patron," he said as he placed a perfectly poured Guinness in front of him. "But you don't need me to say that."
Logan chuckled, a low, gravelly sound. "Thanks, Mike."
"No problem."
Logan lit a cigar, the smoke a familiar, acrid cloud. He glanced around the room. "Quiet crowd you got today."
"Oh, it's Darren's birthday," Mike explained, wiping down a glass. "Most of the boys are at his apartment, celebrating. He got some luck, that old bastard. Got himself an apartment in the Golden Peach. The others are curious about the place, so here I am, with a little company."
Logan chuckled again, the sound a low rumble. Just then, a soft ding from the front door announced a new arrival. A man walked in. He was young-looking, with a buff, all-American build, his face shadowed by a simple baseball cap. He wore a flannel shirt that looked both old and new at the same time. He sat down at the bar, a few seats away from Logan.
"Any kind of beer, please," he said, his voice quiet but firm.
"New face," Mike commented, his tone friendly. "Never seen you before. What kind you like?"
"Any kind is fine," Steve Rogers replied.
Mike looked at Logan, a small, amused smile on his face. "Bold newcomer. Alright then." He began to pour a drink.
Steve looked around, his gaze taking in the old war memorabilia, the faded photographs, the quiet dignity of the place. But he kept glancing at Logan. It was him. He hadn't aged a day. Though… there was a crease around his eyes, a weariness in his posture that hadn't been there when they met in the mud and blood of the Second World War.
Mike placed a regular beer in front of Steve. "It's a homebrew," he said proudly. "I'm quite proud of that batch. Enjoy."
"Thank you," Steve said. But he kept looking at Logan.
Logan had realized it the moment the man walked in. The scent. It was familiar, a ghost from a past he couldn't quite remember. He finally caught the man's eye.
"Need something from me, bub?" he growled, his voice a low, warning thing.
A small, sad, and deeply nostalgic chuckle escaped Steve's lips. He was still calling people "bub." He raised his glass in a toast. "Just new here," he said. "Cheers."
Logan, intrigued despite himself, raised his own glass in return.
"Which war?" Steve asked, his voice a quiet, direct thing.
Logan paused, his glass halfway to his lips. He looked at the young man, at the old, old eyes that stared back at him. "I don't know…" he answered, his voice a low, honest murmur.
**A/N**
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**A/N**