Notes: Lol yeah we all love seeing JJJ meet his match. And whatchu talkin' 'bout, griezz? This child is a Hawk-child. There is no such thing as too much coffee for this family :P

Chapter 4:"Reality Check"

As soon as K stepped through the doors of the mansion after her interview with JJ, she was all but attacked by a cackling Spiderman.

"I got the whole thing on tape!" he told her as he spun her around in a hug. "And I'm going to play it on loop on rainy days. Brilliant!"

"That was why I went after all," K said, watching him bounce in place after the hug. "To make sure you had something cheerful on your sad Spidey days."

"Well, your plan worked perfectly," Kate said as she too darted in for a hug, looking just as pleased as Spidey — though somehow not nearly as bouncy.

"Which part of it? Throwing him off to start, giving him something to sniff around at, or the part where I tried to get him off of Noh's ass?"

"All of it!" Peter declared with a wide grin.

"Though I bet your sparkly moon man appreciates your efforts to let him safely walk the streets," Kate added with a small smirk. "His undercover efforts include sunglasses and a trenchcoat. Poor thing."

"Honestly, that part was bugging me more than anything. I don't give a damn what they say about me ... but that kid …" She shook her head and let out a sigh.

"Don't think Johnny-boy was quite expecting the mama bear reaction," Peter said with a very loud and obvious snicker. "That was my favorite part, by the way. The John-ing."

"Oh, if I end up having to go back, that is the only thing I shall ever call him," K promised. "I don't think he cares for his given name, but I'd like to remind him he's not a frat boy anymore."

"Even if he acts like it sometimes," Kate said, rolling her eyes. She adjusted little Krissy in her arms as Kurt switched off his inducer and came around behind her, wrapping his arms around both of the girls in his life. Krissy seemed to be happy as a clam with all the people and excitement around.

"Either he'll remember that he's not a teenager or you'll make him feel like he's a kid," Logan said as he stepped into the room with Elin snuggled into his shoulder. "Either way, he didn't like it." He gave K a tiny frown before leaning in for a more welcomed kiss. "So much for trying to go under the radar with Weapon X."

"You certainly gave Jameson plenty to hook his interest. I doubt he'll let that story go now," Kurt said, though he was glancing at Logan with a slightly raised eyebrow.

"If he's as nosy as he seems, it'll irritate the crap out of him," K said. "And I already heard from Kitty that Weapon X has been gearing up to make a move anyhow. She's got the intel from her program set up to alert her when there's increased activity from them — and they've been chattering since that stupid Ronan thing. Apparently. Might just throw a monkey wrench at them if they have to play a little defense too." She let out a little sigh and kissed Logan again. "They aren't very happy that another weapon they lost is now in the public eye."

"That doesn't surprise me," Noh said. He had slipped into the room a little after Logan and had a warm, almost grateful smile on his face directed K's way. "After all, that broadcast went to nearly every corner of this planet. If they didn't want you to become a public figure, their plans were greatly upset." He slipped over to K and wrapped her in a quick and one-armed hug as he spoke.

"That's two highly expensive weapons wrecked for them," Logan said with a little smirk.

K looked up at Noh and gave him a bear hug — if nothing else because he looked like he wanted it. "Just because I said that stuff doesn't mean it's going to work. People as a unit are stupid, senseless animals that don't think for themselves."

"And mob mentality is difficult to fight, though easy to harness," Noh agreed, pulling her a bit tighter for a second before he finally released her. "Still ... thank you."

"Any time, my moon-dusted, sparkle-encrusted angel face," she replied with a little smile before she patted his arm. "You deserve better than how you've been treated."

"As do you," he told her warmly. "And as do the rest of our friends. I heard about what happened with some of our younger members recently. Jubilee wanted to go give the ruffians responsible a piece of her mind, but thankfully, she was unable to stand at that moment," he added with a small smirk. "Or we would all be in trouble with our local law enforcement."

"Well, seeing as she is indisposed," Logan said, "I guess K will have to keep pickin' up the slack for her. Though if it was Jubes on JJ, we'd probably have Scott tryin' to defuse the mob."

"Yeah, but we'd have even more material for Spidey here to autotune," Kate teased.

At that, Logan turned toward Noh. "How's the security lookin'? Backlash is gonna happen sooner rather'n later, pokin' that particular dragon."

"Our security measures are stronger than they were our last home," Noh assured him, then shrugged up one shoulder to his ear in a move that looked like he'd picked it up from Jubilee. "Since, for the moment, it hasn't been the best of ideas for me to be out and about, I've been tinkering with it and improving it to pass the time."

Logan nodded his head and passed Elin to K — both of whom looked happy to have each other. Elin gave her mother a snuggle and tried to chew on her cheekbone. "If you need anything, say the word," he said.

"I'll let you know. Though for now, just keep coming by to visit Jubilee. She appreciates it," Noh said with a little smile. "You seem to be the proper antidote when she is upset with me for, as I understand it, being the reason for her misery and inability to do those things she wants to do," he added in a low undertone.

"It's temporary," Logan promised.

"Yes, but in the meantime, thank you for helping," Noh said with a nod.

As the little group was entertained by Peter gleefully recounting the exact shades of red JJ had turned during the television spot, Scott arrived as well, looking for Logan and K for a Danger Room session with the younger team.

When he saw K, he gave her a kind of smirk. "So... Lilja, huh?"

"Hey. If there was a reasonable way to avoid it, I would have. But I figured he'd need it when he went digging for Weapon X, and the positives outweighed the negatives."

"That's true," he said, tipping his head to one side before he broke into an even wider smirk for a moment. "I kinda like the name, though, to be honest."

"Yeah? Well I'm glad to hear it. Now you have a good name to give your next daughter, don't you?" K replied with a sweet smile.

Scott rolled his eyes at her. "Right."

"Brown eyes, you are smart enough to have dug that up on your own if you could find the files and go through them," K said, pointing her finger at him. "JJ isn't."

He held up both hands with a grin on his face. "Hey, I stopped prying into that after Fury brought your file and you joined the team."

"Really?" K asked with a little frown. "I wouldn't have."

"Well, at the time I was more concerned with keeping my team alive and out of reach of people like Hill and Sinister."

"If you want full disclosure, Logan can give you the rest of it later," K told him before glancing at Logan, who nodded once. "He's known since nearly the beginning."

"And I'll probably take you up on that," Scott said. "After we put the junior X-Men to the test." He broke into an actual grin at that. "You two still ready to run the sim with those kids?"

"Yep." K handed Elin to Noh and gave them both a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, in advance," K said.

"It's always fun to be with my little sister — no thanks required," he replied, already half melting over Elin as he bounced her a bit.

With that, the three of them headed out with a little wave, though Scott looked a little antsy. Maybe because this particular session was almost a punishment at this point for the junior team — a reality check in the very least. But also because he hoped it wasn't a scenario they'd have to actually run in the real world, even if that was looking more and more likely.

When they got to the Danger Room, the kids were a bit tired still — a few days of early-morning runs on top of their studies and training had at the very least made them quieter — but joking around like they usually did.

"I'm still not calling you that," Brye was insisting, making a face at Rico. "It's stupid."

"Is not," Rico replied. "I'm not going by Scorpion Boy my whole life."

"What aren't you calling him?" K asked as she and Logan stepped out into the center of the room, clearly waiting for them. "And why?"

"They have this fight every, oh, five minutes or so," Tommy said, looking bored as he waved his hand. "Codenames."

"I'm seventeen. I'm not going by Scorpion Boy," Rico insisted. "It's The Scorpion or bust."

"Careful," Hisako said over his shoulder. "You can end up with a lot worse than that."

"I still think it sounds like a supervillain name," Brye said with her arms crossed before she adjusted the strap of her quiver.

"Why don't you not worry about codenames after you figure out if you make the cut?" Logan suggested.

"I… thought we already did? I mean, we're on the team, right?" Rico asked, suddenly a lot less confident.

"Training team," Logan clarified with a wicked sort of smirk. "First step toward earning a codename."

"Yeah, but half the team has names already," Brye pointed out.

"Then I guess the other half has some catching up to do," Logan replied. "Start by payin' attention to what Slim is gonna tell you to do next."

When the kids looked to Scott expectantly, he barely hid the smirk. "We're running a tag and bag," he said as the smirk stretched a bit wider. "Your targets are Logan and K, and you only meet your goal if you can capture and incapacitate both of them." He gestured at the two ferals beside him. "They won't stab or cut you, but that doesn't mean they won't use their claws to defend themselves. Other than that, this is your sim. I want to see how you handle it as a team." He tipped his head at Logan as he turned to head up to the booth and didn't bother to stow the smirk.

"So, do they get a head start?" Sophia asked before Scott could clear the door.

Scott paused and looked Logan's way. "You want a head start?" he asked, and there was no mistaking the teasing tone.

"Nope," Logan said with a shake of his head. "I think we'll be fine."

Scott grinned and looked back toward Sophia. "No head start," he told her. "Just be ready to go as soon as the sim goes up." He paused, allowed the smirk to widen, and then added, "Oh, and if they rest a closed fist over your heart or anywhere on your head — you're out."

The kids all glanced at each other and fell into their best ready stances before the hard-light simulation started up, and the cityscape blinked into existence around them.

Tommy hardly waited long enough for the sim to start before he simply took off at a full run straight for Logan, clearly intending to show off and take down at least one of their targets on his own, though Logan held out an arm, and Tommy let out a very loud oof as he was simply clotheslined and fell back — still grinning.

"Didn't work for your uncle either," Logan told him before he and K simply started to walk away from the group. "But you know. Keep trying."

"Sophia, do you think you could…?" Brye tipped her head at Logan and K, and the younger girl nodded and cleared her throat.

"Come back and stay here with us," Sophia sang out in a made-up melody, and even though it was directed at the ferals, even the rest of her teammates could feel a bit of the pull, since she didn't have it fully tuned and focused yet.

The two of them paused, turned, and frowned — almost matching their expressions to each other before K nodded once, and they both made a charge for the kids.

"Ooh boy," Rico muttered as he scurried over to meet their rush with Hisako, Tyler, and Brye, who was already shooting arrows. Cassie grew to her giant size as well and very simply moved to kick K across the street like a football, while Tommy hopped back to his feet and ran over to help.

K waited until the timing was just right and grabbed onto Cassie's leg — simply to climb her. K's intention, of course, was to tag her once she got close to her.

"Rico!" Cassie called out for help, and the six-legged boy very quickly started to scurry up Cassie's other side while Cassie tried in vain to swat at K and knock her back down. He couldn't quite fly, but his light wings gave him a significant boost to his jump as he tackled K and tried to get his stinger between them.

But, disturbing Rico entirely, K actually giggled at that and tagged him with a fist over the heart and a whispered out 'snikt'.

Rico let out a very loud "hey!" and a dramatic groan as Scott called him 'out'. He settled into a very disappointed, arms-crossed slouch as he headed to the sidelines.

In the meantime, Hisako had created a large, reddish armor around herself that was almost matching Cassie's size. Cassie high-fived the armor before they both started after K, while Tommy tried for a rematch with Logan, dodging out of the way of Brye's arrows.

"Just stop fighting!" Sophia sang out, half hiding behind Tyler, though it wasn't exactly helping her case when that had everyone slowing to a stop. "Umm." She glanced around at her team. "Only stop fighting if you're older than… thirty."

At that, her teammates started up again. Tommy shook his head hard and zipped over to grab Logan by the arms — and Tammy flung out a hand to pick K up out of the air telekinetically.

"I've got this one!" Tammy announced as she picked K up higher to keep her clear of any buildings that she could grab onto — and Tyler stepped in front of her in a protective stance so that she'd be able to keep it up.

Logan looked up and took a more solid stance as Tommy tried to pull him back a few paces. "Just a sec, darlin'," Logan called out before he threw Tommy over his head toward Tyler — which started a chain reaction of kids crashing into each other that ended with Logan rushing to catch K as she fell.

But Hisako got there first and reached out with one red-armored hand to catch K in mid-air and close her fist around her. "Tammy, get Logan," Hisako called out as K worked to free herself.

Tammy had to pick herself out of the tangle of arms and legs that was her, Tommy, and Tyler — but when she looked up, Logan was rushing right for them, snarls echoing over the street with a look that had her eyes widening. She reached out a hand but couldn't quite get a lock on him to lift him up before Tyler picked her up and got her out of the way of the rampaging Wolverine.

"No worries — I got this," Tommy said as he put both hands out and simply sent out a wave of energy meant not only to knock Logan over but to demolish the ground he was standing on to keep him from getting back up again. It worked — though it had both Cassie and Hisako stumbling — and Tommy rushed forward to take advantage of Logan being knocked prone with a wide and confident grin that fell when Logan's fist came up under his chin, and Scott shouted 'out'.

While Tommy headed over to join Rico with much grumbling and muttering, Tammy had gotten a little better hold of herself. Tyler set her down, and she once more flung out a hand to pick Logan up this time. She had broken into a wide grin and was about to turn to Tyler to say something about their win when Hisako let out a small cry. "K's slipped out," Hisako called to the others, and Brye rolled her eyes.

"Of course she did," Brye said, glancing around the simulated city for any critters that might be useful in spotting a sneaky feral, sending a few birds out to look.

K had slipped down an alley and was very stealthily making her way around to slip up behind Tyler and Tammy. It was pretty clear that neither of them knew she was there yet, even with Tyler's enhanced senses, and although it would have made more sense to take out Tammy … it was too much to pass up. She licked her lips and let out the lowest growl she could manage before she darted forward and tagged Tyler.

Tyler let out a cry of surprise and then looked upset with himself that he'd let her sneak up on him — while Tammy was much louder about her surprise as she very nearly let Logan fall the full 30 feet she'd been holding him up in the air before she caught him again, all while half scrambling backward.

"Don't tag Tammy," Sophia sang out, rushing over to her friend.

K glared toward Sophia a moment, mid-stalk, and instead of tagging her, simply punched Tammy in the shoulder hard.

Tammy went sprawling as Brye directed a flock of pigeons to get in K's face and harass her so that Cassie could reach out a hand this time to catch Logan, letting out a bit of an oof as she wrapped one giant hand around him and Sophia sang half-pleadingly, "Don't fight Cassie! Stay in her hand!"

Logan didn't wait for Cassie to get him too far up in the air, though, before he worked one arm loose and used a fist to apply pressure at a spot halfway between her forefinger and thumb, and a few moments later, she simply couldn't keep her grip on him.

"Hisako — catch him!" Cassie cried out, trying to work her hand back into something more useful with a frown as the other giant girl — or giant armor — rushed over. But she didn't quite get there in time to keep Logan from hitting the ground.

With one of their quarry now loose, Brye was doing her best to keep K contained, at least, pulling in pigeons and rats and bugs and stray cats and whatever she could to keep K occupied and in the same spot while the other girls worked to try and stop Logan.

"That is just so nasty," K called her way.

"Didn't think you were squeamish!" Brye called back with a smirk.

"Well, I'm not," she replied, as inspiration struck her and she started walking toward Brye with the dirty menagerie around her. "Are you?"

"Not when it comes to animals," Brye replied, letting a few spiders crawl onto her hand to illustrate the point.

"Good to know," K replied before she rushed the last few yards to her to tackle and tag her, despite Brye's best attempts to get out of the way and even sink a few arrows into K in an attempt to slow her down.

The animals started to back off of K — though a few cats got in a couple more snarls before they left — to which K responded with a hiss of her own before she slipped down another alleyway to circle around and find a way to get to Cassie or Hisako.

The two girls were doing their best to pin Logan down, with Cassie one-handedly taking light poles or anything else she could grab to try to hit or pin him, while Hisako seemed to be doing her best to try and step on him to keep him down — all while Sophia desperately tried to come up with more specific directions that wouldn't affect the other two. "Don't fight us," didn't work, and neither did, "Come quietly" or "Just lie down and stay there please."

"Has anyone seen K?" Tammy called out to the other three girls as she picked herself up to float somewhere less dangerous than on the ground.

Sophia picked her head up at that and quickly frowned. "K, come out and don't touch anybody," she called out.

They all seemed a bit on edge until Sophia let out a little scream when K rushed her and wrapped a curtain around her that she'd taken from a building — then tagged her out.

"Oh ... there you are," Tammy said with a bit of a shaky smile in what was probably an attempt at mid-battle snark. She threw out a hand to attempt to pick K up again, but K was faster than she was and simply shimmied up a light post to throw herself at Tammy and tag her out, too.

K helped Tammy to her feet before she looked up between the two very tall girls and nodded to herself. The fight to stop Logan had resulted in quite a bit of downed and dead electrical wires, and she let out a shrill whistle to catch Logan's attention. He didn't even look her way before he darted off into a narrow alley where the two girls couldn't follow and slipped out of their sight. By the time they looked toward where K was, she was gone too, leaving the girls searching for the two of them.

"This ... is not going well," Cassie said with a small frown Hisako's way.

"If we can just find them, I'm sure we can pin them," Hisako said, though she didn't quite sound like she believed it herself.

There was a long, almost whirring sound that neither of them could place until they looked down to see the two ferals running around them both with long, cables — clearly wrapping them up. Logan had pulled one end around a cornerstone of a nearby brownstone and pulled hard, leaving the two of them a bit too tangled to do more than just stand there as K climbed her way up a telephone pole — intending to leap the distance and tag Cassie out.

But Cassie very quickly shrank down from her giant size - and kept right on shrinking until she was small enough to slip between the cables, though Hisako was still pretty tangled up. She pulled down her armor for just a moment to try and untangle herself, but that only got her tagged when Logan darted forward faster than she could pull it back up.

Which left Cassie, who had shrunk down to bug-size, to face the two ferals. She tried to size up the situation and come up with some way to take them both down and finally decided that her best bet was to run toward the nearest opponent — Logan — and just… fall on him.

She took a deep breath and waited until she was right beside Logan to very suddenly start up her growth spurt until she was properly huge and then more or less fall to her knees on top of him to pin him in place.

It was a pretty short-lived victory, though, as predictably, K made her way up Cassie's back to rest her fist at the base of her skull. "Nice work," K told her. "For the first time out."

"It's not actually my first time out," Cassie pointed out as she offered her hand to K to jump on so she could lower her to the ground before she shrank back down.

"Against us, it is," K replied, then walked over to pull Logan to his feet and steal a somewhat involved kiss, while Scott called out for the others to gather up.

Most of the team was grumbling about their poor performance and complaining about having been tagged out as Scott came down to join them, but Tyler had a pensieve sort of look on his face.

"That really wasn't too bad for your first time on this exercise," Scott said to the kids.

K and Logan moved to stand near Scott, arm in arm as they watched the kids' reactions. The boys in particular looked a bit annoyed at having been tagged out so quickly, though to be fair, they were the ones who had to do more hand-to-hand and couldn't get as much distance as the girls.

"Tyler, you gotta get more aggressive when the time comes up," Logan said with a shake of his head. "I know you were trying to watch out for them — but freakin' hit something now and again."

"Less defense, more offense?" Tyler asked.

"Best defense is a good offense," Logan replied. "Keep it up and I'll turn you over to her for hand-to-hand." He tipped his head K's way, and she smirked up at him. "You'll either learn to fight or get your ass handed to you until she's tired of beating on you."

"I'll try and step it up more, then," Tyler said quickly, and K smirked hard at that.

"And Rico — you've got to get less aggressive. Think before you act," Scott said, turning to the young man, whose wings fluttered a bit at being addressed. "I know you're strong and fast, but there's always someone out there who's faster and stronger."

"More specific on your vocal commands, Siren," K said as she turned toward Sophia. "Unless … you prefer the little mermaid?"

Sophia's eyes widened, and her scales turned the slightest pink. "Oh, no .. no, I like Siren much better," she said quietly as Tammy snagged a water bottle out of the air to hand to the younger girl to keep her hydrated.

"Ooh, yeah, it totally suits you, Soph," Brye agreed with a crooked grin. "Siren. I like it."

"And you need to focus more on hand-to-hand," Scott said, tipping his head at Brye. "You're good with that bow, but you can't rely on always having distance and on letting your weapon and your animal friends do the fighting for you."

Brye lost the crooked smirk for a second but nodded her agreement as Scott turned his gaze to Hisako. "Same goes for you — as soon as you let your powers down, you were instantly vulnerable. You need to know how to fight as well with your armor as without it."

Hisako nodded and looked very determined to get it right the next time.

Scott turned to Tommy next. "And Tommy, I know you've been a civilian and on your own for a while now, but you need to be smarter with your powers. Be aware of what your teammates are doing — you nearly knocked Hisako and Cassie down back there." Scott crossed his arms. "You can't do it on your own."

Tommy let out a huff and rolled his eyes, which got Cassie to smack him in the back of the head. "Fine," he muttered. "I'll play with the kiddies."

"Aww, you love us anyway," Sophia teased, which got a bit of a sideways smirk from Tommy as the much shorter and smaller girl lightly punched him in the arm.

"Tammy, you did well out there — you had them both incapacitated a few times, but you lost focus, and you didn't keep an eye on your surroundings," Scott said, turning to the last member of the team. "Don't let your fear get in the way of a good plan."

As the kids seemed a bit quieter after their pretty sound loss, Tyler spoke up with a small frown. "This… was more than just an exercise, wasn't it?"

"It's a possible scenario," Scott replied. "And one that I think would be best run against the actual people rather than sims of them."

"It's more than just a possibility, isn't it?" Tyler asked carefully. "You wouldn't have us running this right now, with things the way they are, if it wasn't."

"The rest of the team more or less knows how to stop us," Logan replied.

"You might need to know how to stop them — in case everything goes south," Scott finished.

The kids on the team all looked much more nervous at that and exchanged a few glances. "Yeah, but you kicked our butts," Rico muttered quietly. "And this stuff's happening right now with all the crap on the news."

"Listen, this … is not anything that you should have to worry about any time soon," Scott said in a calming tone. "This is one of those worst-case scenarios that you need to be prepared for if you want to be a part of the team. It's also something that the main team has done for years. Eventually, we will go through all of the team's members. For now, this is what we're starting with."

With that, the junior team dispersed to shower off, though they were all a bit quieter as they considered the exercise. Tammy was one of the first to get cleaned up, but she waited until she saw Tyler and then rushed to catch up with him, chewing on her bottom lip before she reached out to touch his shoulder to get his attention.

Tyler turned her way and then broke into a smile that he probably didn't realize was as wide as it was when he saw her. "Hey, Tammy."

She couldn't help but match his smile, even with everything weighing on her mind. "Hey, Tyler," she replied, though she had her arms wrapped around herself as she looked up at him. "I wanted to ask you… I mean, you were the one who brought it up…"

"You want to know if I think we'll really have to fight them," Tyler surmised.

Tammy nodded. "We can't win if we do," she said softly.

Tyler stopped to turn toward her and tried to chose his words carefully as he thought it over. Finally, he nodded to himself and took a deep breath. "Well, we know more of what we're doing wrong, so that'll help," he said. "And that was just our team. You're forgetting the rest of the X-Men. We'd have some firepower on our side if it happened."

Tammy nodded, though she didn't look to comforted by the thought.

Tyler blew out another breath and decided to take a different approach. "Hey, let's not worry about it right now, huh?" he said. "Why don't we grab a bite to eat?"

Tammy raised an eyebrow at him, and then her expression turned more troublemaking. "If that's what you need as an excuse to ask me on a date…"

Tyler blinked at her for a second before he burst into a laugh and offered her his arm. "Nah. I don't need an excuse."

"Oh good," Tammy said, taking his arm and grinning at him — and feeling a lot better about the whole thing.