A/N: New story! Yay! I´m already curious what you will think about this :D The first chapter is a bit heavy on some rather free form 'science', please bear with me… I´ll update the next one soon, promise!

I´m still not an English native and the story is not beta'ed. So feel free to ignore any spelling errors you might come across. I hope I didn´t make to many ^^°

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

"Sir." The soldier standing in the lab saluted sharply as Stryker entered the room.

Today was quickly turning into another dreaded day full of bad news.

Ever since Weapon X ran away and Creed gave them the slip as well…. It was taking more and more effort to convince the right people to grand their project the much needed funding.

Wolverine's genetic makeup had been a key in their research. Sure, they had managed to document most of it. But there were quite a few side projects in dire need of tests and this simply couldn´t be done without samples.

They might have been able to cover some of the test with using Creeds blood. They knew the mutants were related and therefore, some similarities were a given. After all, the same mutated gene was responsible for the unbelievable healing factor both mutants had.

But… Creed was nowhere to be found. Bastard probably knew he was the next in line when his brother escaped.

"What is so urgent, Doctor?" The disapproval was clear in Stryker´s cold voice. The scientist was quite daring to call for him instead of coming to him. And he obviously knew it, but apparently still thought his actions justified.

"Sir, you have to see this!" The man nearly fell out of his chair to allow Stryker access to the monitors.

Looking at the screens, he saw the same thing he saw each time he looked at the screens of one of the scientists.

Scientific terms and parameters and curves as well as a lot of colors. After all these years, Stryker had gained some knowledge and could recognize a few basic diagrams. So he at least had clue that there was some kind of genetic makeup compared with another one. But the rest was lost to him.

"And what exactly do I see here?" If the man didn´t provide any good news and do it quickly, then he would dearly regret ever having called for Stryker.

It was almost amusing' to see scientist realize that not every human being instantly knew what the diagrams they showed around meant. It happed all the time and if Stryker hat a sense of humor, it would have stopped to be amusing after one year, because it happened so often.

Since he didn´t have a sense of humor, the 'amusing' stage was skipped and situations like these turned annoying quite fast. Or maybe it was just his increasingly sour mood reducing his tolerance for any man with a white lab coat.

Bunch of high graduated over paid idiots.

"This – " the man pointed to two similar charts. "- are the genetic markups of both Wolverine and Creed. As you can see, they are very similar."

"You´re wasting resources on something we already know?" Stryker interrupted, causing the scientist to cringe.

"They are brothers, of course." The man started to talk faster, probably sensing the approaching end of Stryker patience. "So far, we first assumed the mother, Maria Howlett, cheated twice on her husband James with Jeremiah Whitaker. Since the mutant gene is passed down through the male part of the genetics. Then we assumed that the children had to be both from James´ and the first son – Creed – was falsely assumed to be Jeremiah´s child. But… that is not the case either. Creed and Wolverine are only half-brothers."

Stryker rolled his eyes. Idiot. "So she cheated only once and-" he stopped immediately. This didn´t make any sense. The mutation came from the male side. They had to have the same father. Or did they?

"Either Creed lied to us about sharing the same mother or the woman got knocked up with two men with the same ability." He speculated. This was starting to get interesting. If there was another line with such abilities… but what where the chances of Maria Howlett sleeping with two men who had the same mutation but stood in no relation to each other?

"I thought so as well at first. But…" The scientist reached out and opened another file on one of the monitors. "I´ve looked through the ancestry research team beta-75 conducted. We are positive Jeremiah Whitaker was no mutant."

Stryker frowned and looked at the family tree they had conducted. They had employed specialist in the area of ancestory who had spent many hours digging through historical documents of all male lines. They had found out who the woman in question was along the way, as they ran through all the male relatives of the brothers. It took quite a lot of digging, but they were positive Maria Howlett had been the mother. They had not been sure about the father at first. Looking at the chart, he saw the lines of ancestry slowly changing as the scientist opened new, altered versions of the family tree. In the center stood five names.

Maria Howlett nee Brightman -married- James Howlett

Elizabeth Whitaker nee Brunner -married- Jeremiah Whitaker-affair-Sally Everett

James and Maria´s lines were connected through a line with the marriage symbol as were the lines of Elizabeth and Jeremiah.

Since both Creed and Wolverine carried the same mutation and the mutant gene traveled through the male side of the family, they had to have the same father. So in the first version of the document, it had been assumed that Wolverine and Creed both were the children of an affair between Jeremiah and Maria.

However, further research had shown that Jeremiah had a mistress. And while Elizabeth had not been able to bear any children, his affair – one Sally Everett – had given birth to twins shortly after Jeremiah was killed. They had followed the lines further down but not a single descendant had shown any mutation. It soon became clear that Jeremiah couldn´t possibly be the source of the mutation. Having two mutated children but no other mutated descendants for generations to come was just too unlikely. The mutation would have come through by now, after so many decades. They even tracked down a number of people who were descendants of the children between Jeremiah and Sally. Blood samples were easily accessed, but tested negatively on the x-gene.

So in the second version of the family tree, they assumed that, despite living with Jeremiah as his son, Victor Creed had in fact been James´ son and Wolverines brother. Since James didn´t have any more children, that line had been lost.

"This makes no sense." Stryker muttered. "Jeremiah Whitaker couldn´t be Creeds father if he was no mutant. It had to be James. If they are only half-brothers, the mother of either Wolverine or Creed was not Maria Howlett."

Which meant James Howlett too had some Mistress or at least visited other women.

"Maybe James did have more children." Silently cursing the team who conducted the research, Stryker took out his mobile. How could they have overlooked this? The teams usually were very through when conducting research.

Even before he could press the call-button, Stryker was interrupted.

"There is another possibility, Sir." The man said. Stryker finally deemed him worthy enough to read his name plate. Which was of no use. "A587-G". There were no names used here.

"According to their mDNA, we are positive, Wolverine and Creed are related through their mothers side. And even if there was the slightest possibility of the mDNA not being accurate – Maria Howlett moved with her husband before either Creed or Wolverine where born, she didn´t have any family at all in the area. And their mDNA is almost identical. The mother is the same.

This leads us to a highly unlikely possibility which we so far had not considered. But following the logic of Sherlock Holmes-" the man paused for a moment when he saw the look Stryker gave him at that and swallowed loudly. "If we eliminate all likely causes…."

The man walked over to a chart and wrote down a list of points.

"They are only half-brothers. We know that for sure. Which gives us only two options: The same mother or the same father. But not both." The man explained.

"Creed claimed that both he and Wolverine are Maria´s children. And according to their mitochondrial DNA they are related on their mother's side. Their mitochondrial DNA is literally the same, so the possibility of Maria being Wolverines and Creeds mother is a given."

After writing "half-brothers" And "Same mother" on one side of the board, he moved to the other side and wrote down "same father", but scratched it out immediately.

"They couldn´t have the same father. Half-brothers." He switched to the "fact" side again and scribble down "mutation", before moving to the middle between the boards.

There, in capital letters, he wrote the words "X-Gen from father." Before turning around to face Stryker.

"And this "fact", Sir." He pointed to the words in the middle. "Is the only part that make no sense in here." Moving again to the middle, he scratched out "father" and wrote the word "mother" below the words "X-Gen from".

Stryker blinked.

"You´re shitting me." He said, no longer caring about how he sounded. For years all the scientist have claimed the X-gene came from the father. "Either all the scientists in the world are full of shit – or you." The General said and sneered. He was going to kill this idiot for wasting his time.

"Or – we are both right." The man said and lifted his chin in an attempt to appear confident.

"That´s not possible." Stryker claimed, but the man was not backing down.

"We know for a fact, the testosterone levels of both Creed and Wolverine are very high." The man said and walked over to his desk. While looking through a few folders on his desk, he continued. "And till now, we assumed it was due to the feral mutation. But…" Finally finding the file, he handed it to Stryker. Immediately after opening, Stryker resisted the urge to sigh. More lines. It didn´t matter. As "A587-G" pointed on the lines and diagrams, he at least explained whatever he saw there. "There is a high possibility that Maria Howlett was intersexed. She – And I´m just using this pronoun since she lived as a woman – was born with both female and male reproductive organs. I can´t say how functional the male parts were, but since she gave birth, we don´t need to make any assumptions on the female part. Fact is … and this is going to sound really strange… she was man enough to be the source of the genetic mutation and the one to pass it further down the line. Her testosterone level must have been abnormally high for a woman."

Striker´s eyebrows rose in rarely shown surprise. But this…. This was a whole new line of freak mutation. He stared at the lines, even without being able to read them.

"Sir." Scientist A587-G waited, till Stryker looked up to him. "She remarried. With children."

Tbc.

Hope, you liked it :D

Yanwa