A/N - Hello! And welcome back to yet another edition of robbiepoo2341 and my 714 Universe. This time out, we're starting up Volume 23! YIKES. But there are stories to be told here and we're not gonna stop until we reach the end.

Chapter 1: Tony Stark Is (Not So Secretly) A Sweetie

It had been exactly a year since the MRD kidnapping that had launched the Leslie Initiative, so of course, that's all anyone was talking about on the news that morning as the X-Men trickled in for coffee.

Which was also exactly why the Wright family hadn't been seen around the mansion much — at least not in any room that had the news on. Leslie Ann hated the reminders.

The news was running an overview of everything that had happened in the past year concerning mutant rights — from the overturning the Initiative to the attempt by the Senate to try to push better legislation that got killed in committee to The Response Division to the rallies and rise in hate crimes. It was all pretty standard "year in review" fare until one of the anchors picked up a thread that had Scott listening a little closer.

"And of course, I doubt this was purposeful, considering the long road to get here, but the court fight against the registration laws has made it to the Supreme Court after years of appeals," the anchor said.

Her partner nodded. "It's been a quiet fight, with lawyers declining to comment in an attempt to stay out of the public eye — and as you can see from the response to the more public attempts to push back against mutant control, that was probably a good idea."

The first anchor nodded her agreement. "It's a story years in the making, with dozens of the country's top lawyers involved. The Court is expected to hear the case starting later this week, and a spokesperson for the White House declined to comment on whether the timing was purposeful or not."

"It's unlikely that they'll make a decision immediately, but the rumors on the Hill are that some senators and representatives are already prepared to push another bill forward if this one is struck down."

"They'll face some stiff opposition," the anchor said. "Midterm primaries are starting up around the country, and a bill this controversial could make or break a politician's career."

The conversation shifted from there to talking about the legacy of the Leslie Initiative and what that kind of political stormcloud could do to hinder the efforts of any politician supporting a registration bill, though Scott was frowning over the fact that the registration bill was even up in the air. He'd thought that fight was already over.

He didn't say anything about it over breakfast that morning — since the whole day was a little touch and go for Leslie Ann when she came down for scrambled eggs and toast — but when Steve and Carol arrived later that day for a scheduled teammate swap, Scott took the opportunity to pull Steve aside and ask for a private word.

"Did you know about this?" he asked as he closed the door behind them and gestured to the newspaper he'd brought — with an article on the registration fight.

"I thought it was dead," Steve said with a little frown "But that ... " He let out an irritated noise. "I don't understand why they won't drop it. Public opinion is against it."

"Public opinion doesn't mean much to the Court," Scott pointed out. "It's a legality argument." He paused. "I've looked into the lawyers on this case, and they're top-notch. Really. It's a solid shot, the best we've had in years."

"Well at least there's that going for you," Steve said, though he didn't look very happy about the situation as a whole. "I don't want to see it get as far as it did last time, Scott."

"That's why I wanted to ask you about it," Scott said. "If it took you by surprise as much as it did me, we're playing catch-up already, which will give any opponents a real leg up."

"No kidding," he agreed. "So what do you have in mind at this point?"

Scott let out a sigh as he sat down and gestured for Steve to join him. "There's a few options," he admitted. "Obviously, if things get as bad as they were before, we have contingency plans, but I'd like to start with a solid showing of unity. Everyone we can get — any chance we can get — coming out hard against that thing." He leaned back. "I know a PR campaign isn't what you had in mind, but it's step one on getting ahead of this when it's already public knowledge before we had the intel."

Steve gave Scott a rueful smile. "It's how I got started, isn't it? At least, as far as the public is concerned."

Scott smirked at that. "Yeah, well, then you'd think we'd be used to it for as long as this has been going on, huh?"

"I think you only get used to it if you're born to it. Look at Tony. That's a guy that knows how to make them pay attention effortlessly."

"That … was the other thing I wanted to ask you about, actually," Scott said. "I thought for sure you would have known about this; the little research I've been able to dig up on the lawyers who aren't Jenny Walters? Puts them on Tony Stark's payroll."

Steve looked honestly shocked. "What?"

"You didn't know?" Scott asked, looking just as surprised. "Apparently, it's been going on pretty much since the thing passed."

"He never said a word," Steve replied, before he paused and frowned to himself. "Are you sure it's Tony?"

"I wouldn't bring you anything I hadn't checked myself," Scott said. "Yeah, I'm sure. And you can bet if I can figure it out, the press can. So you're going to want to talk to your team if they don't know either."

"Yeah, I'll do that," he agreed, then paused. "Who's going that way on rotation?"

"I sent Remy with one of our junior squad, Jana. The girls need to get out more, and with the news today, I thought it might be easier if they got a little time outside the mansion in case things get bad and we need to hunker down for a while, so I've got all of them on the rotations the next few weeks."

"Keeping Logan close, are you?" Steve asked low.

"You really think with the MRD trying to make a comeback, not to mention the rest of the political atmosphere and Sabretooth…" Scott shook his head. "No, it's a better idea to keep both Logan and K here in case something like this morning surprises us."

"Are you protecting them or keeping them around in case of attack?" Steve asked with a smirk.

Scott let out a breath of a laugh. "Yes," he said, matching his smirk.

Steve scrunched up his face and shook his head with a wince. "Oooh, yeah. Might want to keep that first part to yourself."

"I have been doing this for a little while. I think I've figured that much out for myself."

"Alright, just ... I know how he is, and she might be worse," Steve said with a laugh.

"Don't worry about it; I've already talked with him about sticking close — we do have a few families here, you know," Scott pointed out. "Right now, between our security expert and our resident technopath, this is one of the safest places I can think of."

"Good. I'm really glad to hear it," Steve replied. "So. Politics aside, what are we up against for the next week or so?"

Scott straightened up and grinned. "I was hoping to run a few sims with the team on the MRD — and a few heavier hitters. Not Sabretooth, obviously, not for the junior squad, but I'd love to see you and Captain Marvel put them through their paces." He shrugged. "And if a call comes in, don't be surprised if that all gets derailed. We're dealing with a lot of hate crimes right now, and the team has been busy. You may get to see them in the field."

Steve frowned at that but nodded. "That's not something I want to hear, but … I know it's an issue."

"It's been an issue since I was a kid," Scott said. "That's why the X-Men exist."

"I know," he replied. "I just … was hoping that this stupidity would be behind all of us by now."

"You and me both," Scott agreed before he got to his feet. "In the meantime, let's just focus on making sure these kids know how to defend themselves. I'm sure a lesson from Captain America won't have any trouble getting high attendance."

"And then I'll get picked apart by Logan right behind me," Steve said with a smirk.

Scott just chuckled. "Welcome to the X-Men."

Neil somehow wasn't surprised to find Leslie Ann in the greenhouse.

He didn't think she'd be out in the woods, which was where she usually hid when she was having a hard time with school or with the team or anything like that. Not today, at least. It had been a year, and she didn't have a problem being in the trees anymore, but on the anniversary… yeah, there was just no way.

"Knock, knock," he called out to her when he spotted her gently tending to a few berry bushes, and she startled, which surprised Neil, because he hadn't exactly been quiet on his way over. He blushed a brilliant neon blue, and she quickly made a shushing motion with her hands to tell him to bring the light level down.

"Don't kill the plants," she said, turning her attention back to the bushes she was tending.

Neil sat down, criss-cross, beside Leslie Ann but didn't say anything for a long while as he watched her with the berry bushes. She'd told him once that she liked doing this kind of work, where she was helping living things to grow and flourish. It was something that she could see the positive results of almost immediately — and plants, she maintained, were so much nicer than people.

"Can I eat any of the berries?" he asked after a long period of silence.

Leslie Ann glanced up at him and then gave him a little smile and a nod. "Sure," she said. "They should be perfectly ripe."

"They always are," he assured her as he popped one of the blackberries in his mouth. He tipped his head to the side as he watched her for a while. "Wanna go somewhere?"

She glanced up at him. "Where?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Definitely nowhere with people."

"Definitely not," she agreed.

At her expression, he reached over and covered his hand with hers. "Hey," he said quietly. "Remember how it's not your fault?"

"Yeah, I remember," she said. "Everyone keeps reminding me."

"Only 'cause you look so wilted," he pointed out.

The smallest of smiles touched her expression as she glanced up at him. "Was that… was that a flower joke?"

"Maybe," he said with a casual shrug, though he grinned outright when he saw that her smile was widening, even if she clearly didn't mean it to. "But it's also an accurate description."

She shrugged as she ran her hands over some of the leaves of the bush, and a few more berries grew exactly where he had just picked them to eat. "It's also a really bad pun."

"Got you to smile, though," Neil pointed out.

She let out a breath and shook her head at him. "You always get me to smile, scale breath."

"Flower child," he shot back with an affectionate grin as he bumped her shoulder with his.

She finally let out a real laugh, even if it was quiet. "You're ridiculous."

He grinned in triumph at finally getting the laugh he was aiming for and then leaned forward to kiss her. He'd finally stopped glowing bright blue when they did that, which he thought was a serious achievement, and when they broke apart, she was outright smiling again.

"So," he said. "We could go… I don't know. Put a big, floppy hat on you and some sunglasses or something so we could go into town?"

She shook her head, though she was still smiling. "No," she said. "I really don't feel like going anywhere with people, like I said."

"Well, you've got to get out of the greenhouse or you'll start to become one with the plants."

"I will not," she laughed.

"It's a real concern!" he insisted. "You practically live here already, and seeing as plants are less evil than people, frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if you just moved in, and that would be the end of it. We'd never see you again."

She laughed. "That's not true," she teased. "How could I be an X-Man if I was hidden away in the greenhouse all the time?"

"I don't know; that's why I'm so concerned about it," he shot back, grinning. "And what would the X-Men be without our favorite Amazon? Boring, that's what," he finished for her, since for just a moment, it looked like she might say something else.

"Safer," she said.

"Yeah right." He shook his head. "You've got to stop hanging out with Wolverine and Cyclops. That is just... messing with your worldview."

"It is not!" she countered, sounding perfectly insulted.

"Oh, it so, so is," he said. "You just can't hear it from the other side." He grabbed another few berries and popped them in his mouth before he broke into a grin. "Perfect, as usual."

She grinned at him and hit him in the arm. "Stop being so nice to me."

"Never," he countered, grinning wider.

She rolled her eyes at him, but she didn't have an argument, and he knew it, so she just got to her feet and dusted off her knees. "So," she said slowly, "you said something about a big, floppy hat?"

He laughed outright and grabbed her hand. "Oh yeah. Master of disguise. We'll be unrecognizable."

Tony had the music cranked up in his workshop, as usual, and was positively enjoying himself, actually taking a small break for coffee as Boston cranked up in the background. It was rare to catch him at this point, but the guitar solo was always one that he seemed to think required attention that wasn't centered on tools and tinkering.

But the mood was very quickly shattered when he turned halfway through the guitar solo in time to see Steve push through the door with a look that Tony was intimately familiar with.

"Don't touch my music!" Tony shouted.

Steve went to the wall panel where the songs were queued up and did just that, cutting the song off mid-solo as he turned back to glare at Tony. "Were you ever planning on telling the rest of us what you were doing?" he demanded.

"What am I doing?" Tony asked, frowning at him.

Steve tossed him the newspaper that Scott had shown him earlier that day. "How long have you had your legal team on this registration business?"

"Oh, that," Tony said, tossing his rag down on the counter and taking a seat on one of the stools. "It's … been a little while now."

"Practically since the law was passed," Steve said with a little frown. "Why didn't you tell the team? After everything that happened when they first proposed the thing, don't you think we'd have liked to know?"

"I didn't think it was going to go this far, honestly," Tony replied. "And if it did, then … the best counsel possible was already in place. How is this a problem?"

"Because we were blindsided by the news, Tony!" Steve said, exasperated.

"I didn't realize I had to notify you of my legal enterprises, Cap."

"I didn't realize I had to ask to be notified when it's something this important," Steve shot back.

Tony tossed his hands up for a moment. "How did I screw this one up, exactly? I think I'm going to need cliffnotes — and that's impressive on its own, really."

"Well for one thing, I don't need to tell you that having this kind of surprise today of all days isn't doing any favors for the Wright family," Steve pointed out.

"In my defense, I didn't pick the date," Tony said in a low, metered tone. "That was on the courts."

"But you knew it was coming up," Steve said.

"In a vague … eventuality kind of way. Last I heard, it was going through review — which can take years."

Steve frowned at Tony for a good, long moment before he finally nodded once. "Congress is already talking about a replacement, Tony. It would have been better to be prepared for this fight," he said at last. "I know I don't need to remind you how badly the last one went."

Tony got up and clapped a hand on Steve's shoulder. "And you should know that it's handled as well as it can be, legally speaking."

"Oh, I know that much," Steve said with a little smirk. "I saw the list. And I read Jenny's arguments."

"Then what are you mad about?" Tony asked, blinking a few times.

"I'd just appreciate a little heads up if we're going to have this fight all over again," Steve said.

"Right. Well, should I let you know that I hired one of those dangerous mutants as a consultant, too? Is that going to come up sometime soon? Or … hey. I'm going to have Pepper order a pizza …"

Steve rolled his eyes. "You're a grown man, Tony. I don't care what you're having on your pizza."

"That was actually more of a generous offer to add to the order," Tony pointed out before he turned back to his project.

"Who are you hiring?" Steve asked.

"Someone creative."

"I figured as much if they were getting a consulting job," Steve said with a smirk. "I just wondered if it was anyone we knew."

"It is," Tony replied, smirking to himself.

Steve just chuckled and shook his head. "Alright, I'm sure I'll meet him soon enough."

"So sexist, Cap," Tony muttered. "Thought you left that attitude in the forties."

"You mean you found a woman that's not Pepper willing to be around you?" Steve shot back with a grin.

"Turns out, yes," Tony replied with a proud smirk.

"Well, that's a shock all around," Steve chuckled.

"Not if you think about it a little bit," Tony pointed out. "I do have an eye for talent."

"Amongst other things," Steve said.

"Turn the music back on when you go," Tony called out. "And let Pepper know what you and your new Bucky want for dinner when the little Scanner gets here."

"She's an X-Man, Tony; I don't think she's interested in being anyone's sidekick," Steve said with a smirk.

"Of course she's not," Tony said under his breath. "But when are we going to steal one of theirs?"

"Maybe we should build a school," Steve teased. "They seem to be draining all our staff anyway."

"Or … we could just work out a program with them," Tony pointed out. "As I understand it, there will be three schools for them — with just the one focusing on future heroes. Can't have spots for all of the heroic types on the X-Men."

"Maybe I should do the pitch," Steve laughed. "We send you and we'll only come back with the best-looking, most wide-eyed girls."

He stopped and set his tools down to turn to face him again, looking entirely unamused. "How is this a problem?"

Steve just chuckled and shook his head on the way out the door, hitting the "play" button on Tony's music as he did.

The bar that Azazel found himself in seemed to be fairly typical of the kind of tastes of the man he was looking for, though since the X-Men had seen fit to strip him of his powers, it seemed that he was simply going to have to settle for such alliances for the time being.

He had expected to find Victor Creed a little closer to New York than this, though his own spellwork had come up with several different trails around the country, so this bar in Washington could have simply been a stopover.

But there was no mistaking the huge frame of the man in question, and with a smile that had been won from centuries of deals, Azazel sat down on the stool just to the man's left to order a drink for himself as well.

"I recognize you," Creed said without turning his head. "What do you want?"

"I think you'll find that what I want and what you want are the same thing — for the moment," Azazel said, also without looking Creed's way. "I want revenge on the X-Men."

Creed let out a dark chuckle. "I don't give a damn about that little pack of goodie two shoes."

"You do when Wolverine is with them. And I would like to see him and his little mate gone as well," Azazel said calmly.

"Don't really need your help," Creed said, still not looking his way. "'Specially when you're next to worthless, far as I'm concerned."

Azazel chuckled and shook his head. "I'm not offering my help," he said.

"No, you want mine, and I'm not cheap," Victor said without missing a beat.

"I was a king; influence and money are not an issue," Azazel said, waving his hand.

"Awful lotta 'was' in that," Creed drawled out, irritating the ex-demon.

"I simply thought, since we both would like to see them suffer, a temporary deal might be in both our interests."

"What do I get out of this?" Creed asked.

"You'll be paid handsomely — and of course, you'll get Wolverine," Azazel said with a widening smile. "As for what I want …" He grinned. "I want you to get your hands on my son's children. All of them if possible, the two oldest at the very least."

At that, Creed finally turned his way. "I can't say I've ever been big on kidnappin'."

"Oh, come now," Azazel said with a laugh. "You would do it if it suited your needs, and you and I both know that either one of those children would bring your quarry running. Both — or all three? They'll throw themselves into your clutches just to save them."

Creed seemed to weigh it out for a few moments, returning to his beer as he thought it over. "Why don't you just do it yourself?"

"I could," Azazel said thoughtfully. "But I admit, I would prefer to see the demise of Wolverine and his mate myself — so why not do both at once?"

Victor watched him for a moment. "The two of them together is a problem."

"Then let me deal with her," Azazel said with a wave. "Our recent encounter with the X-Men has given me ample ideas, at any rate, and it would be convenient to have her around to hold the little ones until I am through."

Creed let out a little chuckle. "I doubt you can handle that."

"I've been making deals for centuries. Her cooperation for the lives of the children when I'm through is more than an easy deal. It's practically a third-rate demonic game of boredom."

Finally, Creed smirked at the thought and started to nod his head. "When do we start?"