(Sorry I haven't posted in a while—if you care, that is—I've been busy with my other stories and haven't gotten any inspiration for this story for quite a while. Mostly I was stuck on this upcoming scene I'm planning. It's too far in the future though and I was having trouble filling the timeline gap. Thank you to people who post reviews, each time a new one shows up it makes my day. Really though I'm thankful that anyone reads my fanfics at all.)

Steve paced towards me with his usual confident military gait, but his expression was uneasy. "Reverie, suit up. There's been a small scale breakout of a super-villain prison and we located one of the escapees. They're a mutant so you should be a big help."

"Finally a mission...there are seriously 'super-villain prisons', that sounds like comic-book nonsense, you'd think someone would come up with a more professional term," I exclaimed, rambling out of sheer giddiness, and then I noticed the worried look. "Oh...you doubt me, well...how reassuring."

I was a connoisseur of facial expressions and the thousand-and-one nuances of emotion, not without practice of course. And the look on his face was uncertain. Unthinkingly I tampered with illusion to make the air feel icy. Captain America shivered minutely.

"You still have stitches Reverie, are you sure you're ready to go out there?"

"I am. So who's this escaped mutant?"

The captain handed me a glass tablet, screen alight with information. The picture made me cringe, but I had given my word that I was ready and I was not about to take it back from unease about who the mutant was.

Quicksilver, one of the Brotherhood's own, no doubt he would have back-up.

Cap addressed me again when the time he'd given me to read the file was up. "We do not know who facilitated his escape. Do you know any of his allies?"

"Where to start…Avalanche, Blob, Domino, Toad, possibly BamBam, and others, I don't know who all are low enough ranks in the Brotherhood to help Quicksilver. He's only a nuisance in the grand scale of things. Why aren't the X-men handling it? Is something more pressing occupying their attention?"

Usually we X-Men kept to our own kind. Other teams were never as fair and unbiased towards mutants. And the professor believed in giving everyone a chance. His belief of the ability to change was why I roamed free instead of being locked in a super-villain prison or a solitary psych ward cell. Why the Avengers were being called on for something so petty and involving mutants was a mystery. Paranoia reared its ugly head.

"No, they sent someone but we're going to get there first before the…Brotherhood…causes too much mayhem. Ready soldier?"

"Ready for anything…except Mystique." I shuddered and made the air waver like heat over asphalt to further convey the opinion. Then I swept the illusionary clothes I had been keeping over my uniform away and smiled, giving Captain America a two-fingered salute, "Suited up sir."

Toad kicked my face, forcing me to the ground as he jumped to a wall, crouching there and sticking his tongue out at me and grinning like he had won.

Quicksilver wriggled on the ground, struggling against the cuffs that connected his hands to his feet like a trussed deer. "Hey!" he called to Toad, "Get me out of these things!"

I had made an enticing alleyway appear where there wasn't one and the mutant gifted with super-speed had fallen for it and crashed into a solid brick wall at hundreds of miles per hour. It was a mean trick but I was offended that when Toad stole Captain America's shield and gave it to Quicksilver he had zipped by and bashed him with it hard enough that Cap was knocked out. Also it was really easy to fool Quicksilver. While he had flopped about on the ground holding his bruised face, broken nose, and fractured arms I had slipped the thin titanium cuffs on his wrists and ankles.

"I save you and still you boss me around like you're better than me," Toad said in a rather 'hipster' dialect. Resignedly he jumped back to the ground, stole my remaining knife with his tongue and kicked me in the side.

Lashing back I shared the feeling of the pain with him. Toad yelped and dropped my knife, which he had been about to use to free Quicksilver. Like a simpleton he kicked me again in the face which burned yet fiercer. He fell to his knees when I made him feel it too. We both uselessly buried our faces in our hands when I heard him scream. I heard the distinct sound of scissoring metal, like retractable blades emerging. The sound of Toad muttering apologies to fast to make out and the thumps of him jumping away quickly.

"HEY! Hey Toad get back here and help me!" Quicksilver yelled after him in very high-pitched tone.

The newcomer nudged him with a boot and the captured mutant was silent.

I peeked through my hands and saw a face I knew well.

Instantly I was transported into a memory, unintentionally bringing up a copy and making my rescuer see it too.

Rain pattered on the rooftops of the warehouses by the docks. Faded spray-paint logos and words colored the dingy bricks of the slumped buildings. A form was curled in an upright fetal position in the corner of a small alley. The face and any other identifiable features were covered by a tan newsboy cap and ugly olive green trench-coat. The person was crying and rocking back and forth. Flamingos in colorful neckties were trying to comfort her, offering silver trays of teacups filled with butterflies and butterscotch candies. A turtle grimaced imploringly at the girl, prodding her feet with its little wizened head.

Footsteps echoing across the formerly empty road nearby caused the form to wave a hand cloaked in a grey glove with black designs like tattoos to dismiss the visions. A huge figure loomed in the opening of the alley. He did not move on, instead staring at the figure.

"Hey kid, what are you doing here?" a gruff voice demanded shortly, as though he considered stopping to ask was a poor use of his time. The rain could not have been much incentive to stop there either.

Drops of rain dripped off the rim of the messenger cap, landing on the girl's knees. "Hiding from police and psychologists, they want to ask us questions. They'll tell them what I am, what I did. I know they'll betray me. If you're one I'll do it to you too."

The man laughed a quick chortle. "I ain't either, kid."

"Then I'll do it to you anyway if you don't go away. I don't care if you're some kind of Good Samaritan or one of the crazies' friends who wants answers. I'll attack you."

"And if I'm another mutant?"

The girl went still. "If you come near me and use any powers I'll use mine."

He gave another growling chuckle.

She looked up at him, not bothering to mask her true face. Satin grey skin as smooth as marble except for the tribal-style natural markings. Her eyes were red from crying which added further to the disturbed element of the blue and purple heterochromatic orbs. A perfect poker-face replaced the tortured expression and the girl stared deep into his eyes. A white elephant's head appeared through the wall as though it had phased straight through it. It had spikes attached to its tusks and was wearing a spiked headdress of the traditional war-elephant. Three Rottweiler hounds with crocodile flesh and razors for teeth materialized from the shadow, water and saliva spraying as they bayed at the man. A purple and turquoise tiger with wings and a cobra for a tail stalked into existence and chuffed threateningly, caressing the girls face and glaring at him.

The man did not even take a step back, though he did look uneasy about the strangeness of the summoned creatures. With a scissor-like sounding 'snick' three claws emerged from the gaps between his fingers.

The creatures vanished as the girl's eyes widened in fear. "No, no you know what I did! You're from that school in Westchester New York! An X-Man," Tears mingled with the rain trailing down her grey face, dribbling over her black mouth. "Please don't make it look like I committed suicide, I don't care if you have to mangle me. Just don't leave me looking like I killed myself. They'll know for sure it was me who did it and what I am." She covered her eyes.

"I'm not here to hurt you, kid, just make sure you don't run."

The adamantium claws retracted with the same sound they had emerged with. He came closer with hands open in an unaggressive nature. When he was close enough the girl lunged and grabbed his wrist, jumping up so her feet were up on the wall and her body coiled tense like a spring. Then she pushed off the wall and propelled herself over his shoulder, whipping his arm behind him and dislocating both the shoulder and the elbow. She stood behind him and forced the arm up so his wrist met his shoulder so that his wrist was likewise dislocated. The man cried out a horrible groan of agony.

Suddenly Reverie heard a person's voice in her head. "That is enough Lena. Let him go. We just want to talk to you. I want to help you Lena, help you learn to control your gifts."

A whirring sound like an electric wheelchair rolled across the wet pavement. Reverie released the cursing X-Man and muttered a hasty apology, dampening all feeling in his arm to compensate. If he came at her again she would give the pain back. A bald man in a wheelchair calmly regarded her.

"You can fight, kid," the first man growled, rubbing his arm.

The show of the memory vanished and Wolverine took a step back and shook his head like a wet dog would to get dry.

I knew I would have continued, sharing each therapy session with the professor and the actual events of each of the fourteen. But I had cut him out of the memories before they went too far. I was still caught up in seeing each distorted face babbling nonsense. Seeing scary images of the breakdown: my roommate lunging at me with a knife in broad daylight in the lunchroom, a boy's attempt to claw his own eyes out, orderlies restraining family in the hospital, and the horrific number fourteen blazing like lights.

"What are you doing going after Quicksilver alone?"

Automatically I answered, "He knocked Captain America unconscious."

Wolverine looked surprised, which on his face was identical to an offended expression. Or he could have been ticked off with me and I was misinterpreting. He raised one eyebrow in a questioning fashion.

"Fury captured me and it was join the Avengers or else. I knew the longer I stayed at a SHIELD base the more likely Fury would fluff my profile and find out that I ought to be in prison. Before that I was doing alright. I'm sorry I didn't have the nerve say goodbye to everyone's face." My shoulders slumped and I concentrated on the ground, making a mirage of miniature dinosaurs parade around my feet.

"Run off like that people worry 'bout you, kid," was his response.

"I thought the professor would tell me I wasn't ready."

"Were you?"

I sighed. "No, keeping my head on straight is as difficult as ever." I halfheartedly smiled at him to make it seem like a joke. Not that he believed that. The part about how I still had the dreams was need-to-know. The professor would skim the edges of his thoughts if Wolverine even mentioned he saw me and then Xavier would want me to come back if he knew about the dreams. I was kidding myself if I thought he wouldn't figure out from that brainless remark I had made.

A voice came from where I'd left Steve Rogers. "Reverie? Reverie?"

Reflexively, Wolverine's claws came out. I put a hand on his arm and said, "It's just Cap. Over here, I got him!"

Sprinting feet encased in those ridiculous red pirate boots came around the corner, halting when Cap saw Wolverine. They were old war buddies. Logan had been in just about every war in American history and Steve was a World War II vet, though I was unsure if the first avenger had known at the time that Wolverine was a mutant.

"Nice to see you not on ice, Cap," Wolverine remarked.

"I did not know you visited me. You're still young, but nowadays nothing would surprise me. This is Reverie; she's a new Avengers recruit."

Wolverine rubbed his shoulder, elbow, and wrist in succession, the memory I'd shown him still fresh in his mind, "We know each other."

"He lives at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters part-time. Wolverine teaches the best Danger Room sessions, stuff gets beat apart and blows up more often."

Captain America picked Quicksilver up by the chains of the titanium handcuffs and he and Logan began talking about the 'Good Old Days' like a happy pair of grandpa's and I trailed behind with a grin at hearing all the things they missed about the 1940's and beyond.

(Anyway, I'm sorry about Wolverine being embarrassed in this. Please post all sorts of negative and scathing reviews about it!)