"She said WHAT?"

I had found Jamie curled in a hammock at the far edge of the estate. Students rarely hung out there because of the poison ivy and deer ticks creeping along the start of the surrounding forests. I tended to feel similarly, but I eventually realized it was where the crybaby would have gone to seek solace. I scooched him over to make room, and we sat with our butts squeezed together by the itchy fabric and dangled our bare feet over the edge.

"They can help us," I mumbled, rocking us back and forth.

"If we help them," Jamie added, to prove he'd been listening.

"Yeah."

"Do what?

"Dunno."

We were quiet for a moment, watching small figures in the distance kick a soccer ball. It was too normal a scene to be talking about something so doom-laden.

"Whatever it is," I said. "It probably isn't legal."

"Neither should the cure requirement, but here we are," Jamie sighed, reaching his arm around me."

"I know it's not fair, but…"

"But what?" He cut me off. "Sometimes you have to fight 'not-fair' with 'not-fair'."

"What are you saying?" I tilted my head back to look at him, but couldn't make out his expression.

"It's just…I know everyone here says they're villains," He said. "Still, I'm in no position to turn down the one offer we've gotten for salvation."

"Professor X-"

"Won't do a damn thing if it makes his school look bad. You heard him."

"They took us in." My throat felt tight, like I was fighting a losing battle. "Or did you forget?"

"Of course not! But there's a time for good manners and there's a time for surviving. As much as they say they care, I've got a feeling they'd be just as happy making martyrs out of us."

I thought back to what Dr. McCoy had said about how our story could spark revolution. We didn't have to be acquitted for that to happen. In fact, a communal outrage at a cruel prison sentence would be more beneficial to the cause than getting our asses off the line. We'd make headlines. Incite riots.

"And there's one little detail we keep avoiding," Jamie dropped his voice, even though there was no one close enough to hear. "Someone turned us in."

"You still think it was one of the X-Men?" He hadn't said it outright, but I knew it had been on his mind since our location became mass-media fodder. "Look, I love being skeptical as much as the next person, but these are the good guys."

"Right," Jamie shook his head. "And that used to mean something to me. Now, I'm not sure."

I fell silent and tried to relish in our tiny patch of calm before the storm.

We didn't talk about it for the rest of the day. The rest of two days, in fact. We had the week to think about our decision, and Jamie and I had our own moral high grounds to wrestle with. That didn't mean I wasn't thinking about it. Constantly. I dialed the number Hank had given me no more than 24 hours after I'd last seen him. He was reassuring, like he said he would be.

"I have another question," I asked into the kitchen phone receiver, after he gave me a rundown of what he knew about the trial.

"Ask away," said the tempered voice.

"It's about me."

He chuckled warmly.

"I've known you for a day, Miss Addams, I'm not sure I'm an expert in that area."

"I meant my mutation," I said.

"Ah."

There was an uncomfortable pause while I swallowed dryly.

"If…if I'm given the serum. If it all goes wrong, we lose the trial. What happens to me? I mean, is it like depression and anxiety where the symptoms don't completely go away, or will I feel none of it after-? Because," I took a breath. "It's not just one part of me. It's not like a forked tongue or super strength. It's so much of my mind and body that I don't know what will be left of me."

"What happened to having hope?" He said too quickly.

"Please," I whispered. "Just tell me."

His sigh crackled the connection.

"The serum…in theory, reformats the mutated DNA. Any traits related to the affected strands would disappear. That is, if it works perfectly. Which, I have my doubts."

"But it's already worked," I said, thinking back to the first release of the serum in back when I was just a kid.

"It's eliminated domineering characteristics in test subjects thus far, yes," He replied. "But no one knows how long this streamlined version lasts. It was a very short trial period. It could be permanent…it could not."

"Well," I bit the inside of my cheek. "Sorry if I can't help looking at this like a glass-half-empty"

"Not that I blame you," the Doc said with a sigh. "From what I've heard from Charles, though, your variations are highly complex. When this is all over and you're cleared, I'd be grateful for the opportunity to learn more."

I appreciated that he said when instead of if.

"I'm all for being studied," I forced a little laugh. "Thanks."

That night, I told Jamie that I wanted to trust the X-Men for a little longer. He seemed dubious, but agreed not to jump to any conclusions. We lay in bed awake without speaking. It wasn't the first night we'd spent that way, but I felt his fear through the sheets.

The next evening, we had a surprise visitor.

Kitty and I were flipping through trash TV channels when I was once again summoned to the Professor's office, this time by Headmaster Frost since Xavier was away. She was nowhere near as warm as the professor, but for that I felt it was easier to know where I stood with her. Not that I had seen much of her since my first week. Jamie was already inside, seated across from Frost, who looked off-putting at Xavier's desk. In the chair beside him, I could make out the back of a brown-haired head and a support cane draped over the edge. Whoever our guest was, he must have been visually impaired.

"Maggie, pull up that extra chair," Emma Frost commanded, gesturing to the wooden seat by the door as I walked in. I scooted it over to the others and got a good look at the mystery man. He had Stevie Wonder-like rose tinted sunglasses and a stubbly chin. Even with his eyes hidden, he looked worn, but alert. He turned in my direction at the sound of my approach and gave a nod and a smile.

"Matthew Murdock, Maggie Addams," Emma introduced with an airy wave of her hand. "I'll let the three of you talk in private in a minute, but first I want to make our stance clear. The school took you in out of duty, not charity. We were protecting the world from you, not the other way around. We were not harboring fugitives, but acting as an intermediate correctional facility. That's the story we are presenting, for both your sake and ours."

Jamie and I looked at each other.

"Ms. Frost," Murdock spoke in a surprisingly silky voice. "If I could just explain to my clients why—"

"Clients?" I interrupted without thinking.

"Yeah. Meet our fancy lawyer from New York," Jamie said.

The man didn't look like a bigshot. In fact, he seemed almost humble, a stereotype I hadn't ever associated with attorneys.

Emma was still looking at Mr. Murdock, and I wondered what she was finding in his mind. After a moment, she nodded curtly and stood up.

"Listen to him," She advised us. "He knows what he's doing. Heard of Wilson Fisk?" The name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. "This man put him behind bars, years back. He's here to help."

It sounded like she thought Jamie and I were going to bully this guy we'd just met, but I tried not to seem patronized when I looked her in the eye and smiled. She was satisfied, and left us alone.

The moment she was gone, Mr. Murdock stood up and leaned his back against the desk to face us. Not that he could see, but it did make him look more powerful, somehow.

"So," He dove right in. "Your case files were pretty packed. Weaponized assault, evading arrest, multiple shoplifting charges, a few back robberies…"

"Just…trying to survive," Jamie muttered.

"I know. So are plenty of people who break the law. Unfortunately, it's not a strong enough spin. As much as Frost scares me, she's got a point. If we play it like your months here were comparable to jail time, you're likely to get a reduced sentence."

"A 'reduced sentence' doesn't include avoiding the cure, though, does it?" I asked.

"Well, no, but if we can prove you're no threat, they may be willing to negotiate a continued house arrest here at the mansion. It's a long shot, but worth a try," His tone was neither confident nor unsure.

"How do we do that?" scoffed Jamie. "They thought we were a threat for attending a public protest, you really think their perception's gonna change now?

"Look, you're in deep shit," Murdock stated. "No getting around that. But we have some advantages, here. Sentinel Services isn't very popular yet. There are still a lot of ethical codes they haven't lived up to. The best tactic is to treat this as a case of human indecency, and present your work for the X-Men as a form of community service to alleviate your smaller charges."

He made it sound so easy. Then again, that was his job.

"Dr. McCoy asked you to help us, right?" I said slowly. "Why are you…?"

He smiled for the first time.

"I'm just trying to make things right. The X-Men were left out of the Sokovia accords for good reason. Your kind shouldn't be suffering for the mistakes of other super-humans. I want to help. It's a situation dear to my heart, the superhuman struggle."

"But you can't promise our exoneration, can you?"

"…No."

There was a brief silence in which all of us seemed to hold our breath. Mr. Murdock folded up his walking cane and unfolded it again before he continued.

"If you follow my lead, keep your heads down, and look innocent enough, things can go better than you might expect. The other option…is taking the plea bargain you've been offered."

"What?" My eyes widened.

"7 years in a detention center if you confess."

"That…sucks," Jamie said.

"It's that or 20 to life on a conviction," said Murdock. "It's a pretty big gamble."

"We'll take our chances," growled Jamie.

"I thought you would say that," He replied with a sad smile. "Let's get to work."

It was only a few hours, but it felt like it took us days to go over every last detail of the past year with the perfect stranger. I didn't leave feeling any more hopeful than when we first walked in. If anything, I felt that any objective jury would lock us up in a heartbeat. The things we'd done…they weren't "good".

It was the end of the week before we knew it. Mystique's deadline was about to come crashing down on us, and before bed one night, Jamie took me in his arms with a forcefulness I'd never known from him before.

"Maggie," he whispered. "If hotshot-lawyer thinks we're a lost cause, we're done for."

"But—"

"I've made my choice. I'd take the brotherhood over losing my powers any day."

"I know you're scared. I get it," I gripped his shoulders.

"Are you not? What about our kid? You think they'll show her any mercy? Inject her with the cure the moment she's born?"

In the midst of all the uncertainty, we'd learned that I was without a doubt having a girl. I'd gotten to see a real doctor, too, out in Westchester. It was the first time we'd left campus, and I felt like a bear leaving a cave after a long winter. I'd seen her, in pixelated black and white. She was strange and unknown, but she was there. I hadn't even thought about her future yet.

"Maybe she'll be human," I suggested weakly.

"Don't say that."

I blinked and pulled back to look him in his frenzied blue eyes.

"What, are we against humans now?"

"They're against us," He said, a darkness crossing over his features.

"Stop it," I snapped. "You're not a bigot. You're not thinking straight."

"Maybe you should stop thinking straight! God, Maggie, this is war! We need to stop pretending it isn't if we want to survive," He was pleading with me now.

"We don't know what the brotherhood wants with us," I said. "We could be at just as much risk running with that crowd over this one!"

"But we'd be free."

Free did sound good. I wasn't sure I knew what the word really felt like anymore, but I was convinced we hadn't reached it yet. We were still running, after all, even in our comfy room in a lofty mansion. I sucked in a breath and cupped his face in both my hands.

"I know it's our best shot. I know that. But, can you blame me for wanting to believe in the heroes?" I said softly.

"Mystique promised us a win," He replied flatly. "The Professor promised a chance."

"Jamie, we don't even know what she's planning-"

"And I'd rather not know."

Jamie pulled me closer again, leaving just enough space for him to place his palm on the flat of my stomach.

"I want a better future for her. I can't make that happen behind bars."

He didn't need to say more. The schism within me was thinning, and I knew that even though I had a choice…I really didn't. I kissed him hard and we held each other while we didn't sleep.

The next morning, I found her in the form of the gardener. Her flash of golden eyes among the weeds were my signal. I stood a decent distance away, leaning into a hydrangea bush to smell the blooms.

"Okay," I whispered into the flower. I knew she could hear me. "Okay. Do whatever you need to do. Just get us out."

Mystique tipped the gardener's cap down further, but smiled a smile that didn't look right on the old man's face.