Notes: *Phew* Can you believe we're at twelve volumes? That's just nuts! CC and I are particularly excited about this one (she loves it a lot), but of course, if you haven't read Volume 11, make sure to go back to her profile to read "The Traitor, the Avenger, and the Killer" before you come here, because this volume leads directly on from the consequences of that one.
Anyway, here we are … and here we go!
Chapter 1: "New Beginnings But Also New Problems"
When the new school year had started up at the freshly rebuilt institute, there was plenty of excitement not only over the new place but over the new faces — particularly little Krissy Wagner. None of the kids called her Kristina, not once they'd heard the nickname Logan had given her.
Of course, little Krissy loved the attention — and with parents like Kate and Kurt, it was pretty much a given that she would, really. Even tiny as she was, it was clear that she simply adored being around as many people as possible, smoky yellow eyes wide and trying to take everything in at once every time she met someone new.
She was a little flirt, too, snuggling into anybody who wanted to hold her, though of course, the students and teachers who tried had to put up with the fact that Krissy had zero control of her tail and kept hitting people with it… or hitting objects with it… or hitting bamfs with it.
The bamfs were fairly protective of their new little purple friend, too — and anyone who was holding Krissy had to put up with at least three of them hovering nearby at any given time. It was clear they had their own ideas about just what it was that the little one needed, too, because Logan often found himself teleported right to wherever Krissy was the second she got upset if Kate and Kurt weren't immediately available — and sometimes even if they were and the bamfs just thought their purple friend needed a cuddle.
It was still the first week of school, and Krissy still had the large gaggle of admirers that came with something so brand new. Tyler was holding her very carefully as one bamf was seated on his shoulder and giving him a side-eye as if he was worried Krissy might be nervous, but Krissy had snuggled right into him — until she decided that she had had enough and very loudly made it known.
In a heartbeat, the bamfs disappeared to go get Logan, reappearing with him in tow — even though he was already holding Elin, who gave the crying, half-squeaking little one her best 'what are you doing' expression.
"You guys are gonna have to stop this," Logan said, addressing the bamfs with a frown before he took the handful of steps closer to Krissy and Tyler. "Give her to me," he told Tyler, one arm extended.
"Do you want to switch?" Tyler offered. "You've already got your hands full…"
"They're little. She'll settle right out," he replied. "And Elin will help."
"Alright." Tyler shifted Krissy a bit so that Logan could take her, then had to smirk when the still fussy baby's tail hit Logan in the arm repeatedly. "Watch the tail."
"Yeah yeah," Logan replied as he gave Krissy a little look and Elin giggled. "Knock it off, Squeaky."
Tyler raised both eyebrows as he watched Krissy try to fuss for a little bit longer before she did, in fact, settle out, snuggling into Logan's side. Elin giggled when Krissy's tail moved on from hitting Logan to dancing in the air between the two baby girls — a clear sign that Krissy was happy to be where she was.
"Squeaky?" Tyler repeated.
"You heard her," Logan said with his brows drawn together a bit. "Not rocket science."
"How long did K wait before she gave her that name?" Tyler asked with a little laugh.
Logan just looked at him for a moment before glancing back down at Krissy. "She didn't. That's mine."
"Really?" Tyler looked genuinely surprised. "I thought… I mean, it's a bit—"
"What."
"Nothing." Tyler just grinned at Logan and the two very little girls. "It fits her. The squeaking."
"All my nicknames fit. That's why they stick," Logan told him before he headed back to where he'd been before the bamfs intervened — which happened to be chatting with Kurt in one of the ready rooms.
Kurt looked up with a little laugh when he saw Logan come in with both little ones. "So that's where you went," he teased.
"You gotta do something about that," Logan told him as he handed Krissy to Kurt. "There was no damn reason they couldn't have gotten you for your own daughter."
Kurt grinned down at the little purple ball of fluff as she curled into her dad. "I don't know what to tell you, Logan. I have tried to talk to them. But they seem to think you are the solution to… everything." He couldn't quite hide the look of pure amusement on his face.
"Must be hitting the whiskey harder than I thought, then," Logan countered.
"Or perhaps they just see how good you are with her," Kurt replied, tipping his head down at the perfectly content little one in his arms.
"Squeaky only settles down for me because she knows I'm gonna hand her to you," Logan said with a shake of his head.
"And she knows there is the possibility you've got Elin with you," Kurt teased lightly.
"Yep. that's got to be the better part of it," Logan agreed.
Kurt shook his head and had to chuckle. "That and she knows her godfather," he pointed out.
Logan shifted a little and gave Kurt a look. "When is Strange supposed to be here again?"
"Any minute now," Kurt said, the smile slipping the slightest as he looked down at the snuggly purple girl. "He said he might be a bit late."
"They're always a bit late," Logan muttered.
Kurt chuckled and nodded his agreement before the two men fell into a bit of silence, each wrapped up in their little girls. It was another few minutes before the last of their group did arrive, as Strange entered the room.
"My apologies," Strange said as he seated himself. He placed his hands in front of him on the table, looked over the two men and their little girls, and had to crack a smile as he saw the scene before him. "What can I do for the… four of you?"
"A little peace of mind would be much appreciated," Kurt said as he fell into a small frown and shifted Krissy a little closer to himself. "You know when Kate was expecting, my father helped us to rescue her and some of our other friends from Sinister — and while he was there, he placed a spell on Kate and the little one." He glanced down at Krissy and then back up at Strange with a perfectly open expression. "Please tell me this ... this demonic spell isn't going to affect her salvation. I was hoping to have her baptized…."
Strange took a moment to weigh the question before he asked to hold the baby, studying her and muttering odd words quietly. After a moment, Krissy herself began to glow, and when he was finished, he simply smiled at the still sleeping infant before he handed her back to her father. "While there is a protection, and it's true that your father gains some strength from his descendants, the fact remains that this child is less connected to him than you are." Strange looked at Kurt with a bit of a twinkle in his eyes. "Do you have any aversion to holy water?"
Kurt shook his head. "No, I keep a vial of it in the blackbird."
"If you're concerned, I'd suggest trying a bit of holy water on her," Strange said with a little smile growing at the corner of his mouth. "After all, an evil spell has no foothold against the grace of God." With a true grin now in place, Strange continued with Kurt's own favorite phrase. "Have a little faith."
Kurt couldn't help but smile and nod his agreement at the familiar refrain before he leaned back and looked down at Krissy.
"I think you give your father a bit too much credit, Kurt," Strange said.
"I... " Kurt laughed and shook his head lightly. "You're right, of course. I just … wanted to be sure. She is my daughter… I just want to keep her safe."
"I understand," Strange replied with a soothing tone. "Truly I do. But if anything, it seems that a baptism may remove the effects of whatever he's done."
Kurt looked all the more relieved to hear it. "Danke," he whispered over Krissy's head. "That was exactly what I hoped to hear."
The pews in the Catholic church had been fairly full that Sunday. It seemed every X-Man who could attend little Krissy's baptism had turned out for it. Even Erik was there with Lorna, Alex, and their own little girl — though the four of them were planning to disappear for a while after the event. Alex wanted to track down his dad so he could force him to meet his new granddaughter, and Erik was a little wary of letting the new little one travel in space without him after the recent invasions. But they had postponed the trip until they could see Krissy's baptism, and it was plain to see from the look on Erik's face that he was loving every minute of the pure family bliss.
As for Krissy, the little purple princess was an angel for Father Murray, and by the time the little Wagner family was headed home from the church, Krissy was completely asleep, little squeaky snores sounding out on occasion from the backseat of the car.
Kurt seemed to be significantly more relaxed now and positively beaming as he hummed the hymns from the service to himself, occasionally glancing up in the rearview mirror as little Krissy slept peacefully on. Kate couldn't help but to keep grinning over at him out of the corner of her gaze as well, laughing quietly at how over the moon he was.
She really should have seen this coming since Jubilee showed her that picture of Kurt with a four-year-old Katie. He was positively glowing.
And of course, he wasn't the only one. Kate hadn't been able to stop smiling through the whole service. And Kurt wasn't alone in turning a little bit overprotective, either. Kate had finally sold that purple car of hers. She didn't want to drive her precious little princess around in the most recognizable car in New York. So, she traded out the purple bug for a deep blue Mazda.
She'd never seen Scott look so relieved.
Kate glanced over at Kurt for a moment and couldn't help but smile when she realized she'd caught him looking her way as well. She smiled softly as she reached over, took his hand in one of her own, and squeezed it. "What're you thinking about, cutie?" she asked him with a teasing smile, and he grinned back at her.
"I was thinking that I have been blessed beyond measure," he told her and gently raised her hand to his lips.
"Good answer," she teased as she lazily pulled the car to a stop at a red light and glanced once more back at the sleeping little one. "And you know — I think you're probably right."
He smiled contentedly as they let their hands fall in the space between their seats, the quiet song playing over the radio the only sound in the car for a while before the song ended and the "on the hour" news overview started up.
Even riding the high with their little family all settled into their new lives, Kate and Kurt couldn't help but glance at each other with a bit of a frown on hearing the radio broadcast about the continuing investigation as to the beginnings of the Kree invasion. In particular, it seemed there was a lot of interest around Noh and K — since they were publicly seen in the broadcast with Ronan. Clint was an Avenger, so the public could wrap their minds around him, but the other two ... a Kree and a feral… they were under serious suspicion.
It didn't help that the Kree had been vocal about placing the blame on K, saying that she had, essentially, fired the first shot of the war when she killed the Accuser that they'd sent with Sinta. Their version of events had the two Accusers painted as simply messengers who had been wronged and mistreated — and for some reason, that's the version of events people believed. Never mind that Sinta had been peacefully released after the invasion or that the Kree had been the ones that had more or less invited war.
There were international investigations being headed up, probes into not only K but the X-Men in general and their involvement in the war. J. Jonah Jameson was on another smear campaign, this time trying to dredge up as much as he could about K, which so far wasn't more than what was already publicly known, but that wouldn't last. As annoying as JJ was, he had a talent for finding the skeletons in people's closets.
For now, though, the focus was simply on the fact that no one knew who she was or where she came from. "All we know is that one day she showed up with these X-Men with an obviously fake name and no records. They claim to be on our side, but here we have right out in the open an unregistered, powerful, unknown mutant declaring war with an entire alien race and letting us take the consequences!" JJ's voice rang out over the radio in the news clip. "What's the point of wasting taxpayer money registering these mutants if they're just going to ignore the laws and keep on exactly the way they were before with no consequences?"
The reporter on the other side of JJ cleared her throat for a moment. "There are reports from non-Kree sources — from Avengers' eyewitness accounts that the Kree declared war first."
"This is what happens when you just read the summary and not the notes themselves," JJ said derisively. "They threatened war, sure, but it was a negotiation — and instead of trying to diffuse the situation and sit down with them, this mutant woman killed the head negotiator and tortured the second, who was a known friendly to these X-Men." Even without seeing JJ's face, they could hear the sneer in his voice. "If this is how they treat their friends…!"
"Would you really characterize that relationship as friendly?" the reporter asked. "They had contact, but—"
"They've had a Kree on their team for years!" JJ pointed out in his usual angry shout. "And it shouldn't come as a surprise that these terrorists recruited for their 'team' a Kree who burned profanity into New York City as a greeting card!" He was really working himself up into a fervor. "At least the Avengers had Captain Mar-Vell — these mutants have an arsonist and a criminal!"
"But we all saw the broadcast — they were prisoners of the Kree, not allies."
"And didn't you pay any attention to what the Kree called them?" JJ asked. "We know this 'K' was the one who started the war in the first place, and this Noh-Varr was a 'traitor.' You can't betray someone you didn't first have their trust! What was he before he was a traitor? Spy? Saboteur? We don't know anything about this alien before he burned a great big hole in our city!"
"So you're saying those two are responsible for all that went down in June's invasion?" the reporter opposite him asked skeptically.
"I'm saying — what else don't we know?" JJ thundered back. "If these powerful players can just waltz onto the stage and act out an entire war of aggression — one, I might add, they could have stopped any time- without us knowing about it; just look at the Shi'ar! — what was the point of all that taxpayer money wasted creating a system that was supposed to keep us from being ignorant of these very things?"
"So what are you suggesting?"
"I'm not suggesting anything!" JJ insisted. "I just want the government to do its job like it's supposed to do and keep the rest of us safe from these superpowered beings running around destroying our lives with no accountability!"
Kate and Kurt glanced at each other as the news overview moved on to other topics of interest — like the laws being bounced around state houses debating how to hold heroes 'accountable,' like they needed that on top of everything else going on.
Kurt let out a sigh. "And so it goes again," he said with a frown, tipping his head at the radio.
"You sure I can't just… shoot JJ?" Kate asked, only half-joking.
"If we did, they'd only blame Logan and K for it," Kurt replied with a smirk.
"Oh yes. Those darn ferals. Drawing back my bowstring. With my hands. Using my arrows. How diabolical." Kate smirked right back at him.
"They'd say that Daken made you do it — and of course, for this hypothetical, they all run in a pack together, of course," Kurt said, half smiling.
"Guess this is a bad time for him to be mending fences with his dad," Kate said, shaking her head before she let out a sigh and glanced once more at Krissy. "Stupid JJ."
"Well, one thing that shall likely remain constant with Logan is that he doesn't put much weight in public opinion. I'm sure K is the same way," Kurt replied.
"Yeah, they're both pretty thick-skinned," Kate agreed with a small smile before she squeezed his hand for a moment. "Still. Last time they were beating the battle drums like this in the news, you had to rescue me out of a castle tower," she added, the smile widening the slightest bit. "I'm just glad Bastion's not around anymore — he'd like half the crap being peddled right now."
"Sadly, even with him gone, someone will try to step forward to take his place."
"Well then. Gimme your shirt and Jubes, and we'll take him down too," she said. "Or her, as the case may be," she added with a small chuckle.
"Of course we will," Kurt agreed, though neither of them addressed the fact that they spent most of the ride back checking frequently on little Krissy in the backseat, wondering just what kind of world they'd just brought their daughter into.
(A/N): As a note, before you ask, yes, JJ is going on the warpath against mutants. Yes, there is a reason for it. No, it isn't just his usual diatribe. Wait and see. ;)
