Kurt was frightened to get out of the car when it stopped. He wanted to stay inside the vehicle, to just keep holding Amanda's hand and staring forward. He didn't want to have to think about his mother inside that cabin, think about why she was there, about the years and unanswered questions which lay between them.
But he knew he couldn't. He wasn't allowed to hide away, even after everything that had happened. Besides, they were all waiting for him, his uncle included. He'd seen the questioning look he gave Kurt as the car stopped, the way he seemed to be waiting for something.
He wasn't going to disappoint. So, with great concentration, he unbuckled and opened the car door. Amanda unbuckled and slid out behind him. She gave his hand a light squeeze, but he didn't squeeze back. He didn't have it in him to pretend everything was fine.
Hank got out of the driver's side and walked over to the passenger's side. Kurt watched as he helped his uncle out, even unfolding his wheelchair. Again, Kurt felt like he should be helping, but he had no idea what to do or how to go about it.
Again, Amanda squeezed his hand. He felt grateful for how she seemed to be able to read his mind, but some part of him just wanted to be left alone. It felt like, everywhere he went, someone was ready with a new weight to place on his shoulders.
And, as that realization sunk in, Kurt realized something else.
"I'm not ready to see her," he said.
Hank stopped helping his uncle and turned to look at him. His uncle's eyes were wide and, perhaps, a little sad. Kurt swallowed.
"It is not zat I do not vant to see her," Kurt said slowly, "But it is...vith everyzing zat has happened..."
He licked his lips.
"I need to know vhy now," Kurt said, "I need to know vhy, after leafing me all zhoze years ago, she is back now."
"Your life was in danger," whispered Amanda.
"I know," Kurt said, "I know...but I..."
He ran a hand through his hair. It was turning out to be more difficult than he thought to articulate his feelings, and that was saying something.
"I just zink zat, after all of zis, I need to..." Kurt said.
He swallowed. Kurt was so tired of being lost, of being confused, of having his life spiral rapidly out of his control.
"I need to know vhat is going on," he said.
Charles looked at him for a moment, and then sighed.
"You have every right to know," he said, "But I have no answers for you."
"I know zat," Kurt said, "But...I just need to know."
Charles nodded, his lips pursed and his eyes looking at some point Kurt couldn't see. He wondered what was going through his head, if he thought Kurt was cowardly or smart. Kurt honestly didn't feel like he was either.
He just felt lost.
"It's going to be alright," said Charles, "We'll figure something out."
When Charles wheeled into the room, followed closely by Hank, Mystique felt her throat constrict. She hadn't seen Charles in years, not since D.C. All of his hair was gone now, and a kind of serenity shown out from his eyes.
There was a slight crack in it though, and she knew he was concerned. Mystique fought the urge to begin fiddling with her hands or the chair.
"Raven," he said softly.
"Charles," she said.
She could hear the low murmuring from the teenagers, but Alex held up his hand. The murmuring stopped immediately. It looked like Alex had given them a healthy respect for authority, even if they did technically disobey it on what was probably a daily basis as X-men.
She swallowed again and looked past Charles, watching for when her son came into the room.
"Kurt won't be joining us for a little bit," Charles said, his voice soft, "It's...been a difficult time for him."
Mystique nodded, although she felt a slight pang in her heart. She wasn't sure why that was. Her best case scenario for this whole ordeal was her not even having to talk to her son. It wasn't an option any more, but she'd hoped it could be when she joined Logan.
Now she saw how wrong she was to hope.
"But," he said, "We need to find out what's going on."
His voice suddenly became businesslike, and Mystique rubbed her temples. She knew then that she wasn't talking to her brother. She was talking to the leader of the X-man and the headmaster for Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters.
Perhaps it was his way to try and establish some sort of normalcy with so many of his students in the room.
"Think maybe you should tell this one," Logan rumbled.
Mystique shot him a look.
"Why?" she asked coldly, "You know more about it than I do."
Logan shifted from one foot to the other, but Mystique crossed her arms. It was bad enough that they had had to come to Charles. Having to explain this mess was another can of worms entirely, one she honestly didn't want to deal with. She hadn't been given a choice in the matter, but she'd be damned if she would be the one to explain Logan's mistakes.
He huffed and stopped moving.
"Coupla years back me an my brother joined a project called Weapon X," Logan said.
Good. At least he was being honest.
"You have a brother?" Charles asked, blinking.
"Yeah," said Logan, "We don't really...talk anymore, but that's another story."
"Not really," Mystique said.
Logan shot her a look, but she wasn't going to let him leave out key facts.
"Me an my brother got similar abilities," Logan said, "My brother always let his instincts rule im though. We parted ways after things went too far."
Mystique wondered if she should demand Logan elaborate, demand he talk about the people who had ben callously murdered by his brother. However, this time she decided not to have Logan give more details.
As painful as she wanted this recitation to be for him, she didn't want him to get any ideas about what she should talk about concerning her brother.
"But...there was this one time," said Logan, the words forced, "He uh, he went on a solo mission. Came back bragging about...being with some girl."
Mystique raised her eyebrows. That was a very censored version of what she'd thought Logan would say, given his past uses of the English language. However, it was probably strange for him to get too profane with this, for several reasons.
"Oh-kay," Alex said, "That's not something I needed to know."
"It is though, unfortunately," said Mystique.
"And why's that?" asked Alex.
"Because a couple years later, Logan here learns he's an uncle," Mystique said.
She didn't have to turn around to know Logan was glaring at her again. She made a vague gesture with her hand.
"Now, tell them how you found out you were an uncle," she said.
"Do you wanna tell this?" Logan snapped.
"I've already made it clear that I didn't," she said, "I just want to make sure you give as many facts as possible because, unfortunately, we're stuck with this right now."
She could still feel Logan's eyes burning into the back of her skull when he resumed talking.
"My nephew sent a strike team ta try an kill me when I went out huntin in Canada," he said, "They failed, obviously, but one of em talked."
Mystique saw her brother's brow furrow, obviously deep in thought. Alex decided to interject again though.
"Why did your nephew want you dead?" he asked.
"Cause I'm proof he's got mutants for relatives," Logan snapped, "He's not a mutant, not as far as I can tell, but he hates em pretty damn bad. He's..."
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I'm guessin ya all know about the Friends of Humanity," he said.
"Unfortunately," Charles said.
"Well, my nephew is..."
Logan pinched the bridge of his nose tighter.
"My nephew's Graydon Creed."
Mystique saw the teens' eyes go wide. Alex's face scrunched up in fury and Hank looked like he was about to be sick.
"Your nephew is the goddamn leader of the goddamn FOH?" Alex demanded.
"Trust me, I wasn't too happy about that either," said Logan dryly.
"He's the son of a mutant?" asked the teen with goggles disbelievingly, "Why-?"
"Vic's not exactly gonna win father o the year any time soon," Logan said, "As for Graydon's motivations, he's tryin ta do a little bit of cleansing here."
"And he was being really thorough," said Chris, glancing around the room, "He doesn't just want his mutant relatives dead. He wants anyone who might know he's related to a mutant dead."
"Which is where we come in," Wade said, "Coz, thing is, usually if people decided they want to kill me, I'd be like, Good luck!"
He threw up his hands and grinned. Mystique rolled her eyes.
"But Graydon is one sick sonuvabitch, and he likes ta target family members and shit ta draw people outta hiding," Wade said, "And he is totally okay with killing all of them, or torturing them, so, with a sentiment Uncle Alex here will approve of, I figured I needed to find him and stick a katana through his head before he tried that shit with me."
Alex turned a shade paler and his jaw tightened. Mystique wondered what was up with that as Wade grinned under his mask.
"Golly gee it was tough bein quiet for so long," he said.
"Shut up," Logan snapped.
Wade pouted, but Logan didn't wait for a response.
"He's already killed a couple people on the Weapon X team, as well as one of the scientists," Logan said, "He's not taking any chances. But we figured out what was happening pretty fast, even if we weren't sure about who it was at first. But..."
He rubbed the back of his neck. Yes, this was where she figured the story would get difficult to tell.
"But we found out he was still lookin for any potential relatives," Logan said, "He...he'd heard, not sure where, that his mother was one o the members o the Brotherhood. The original members."
Charles blinked rapidly, and she wondered what he must be thinking. Mystique gave him a look, urging him to clarify that, but Logan ignored her.
"See, all three of em had DNA samples tucked away from when they were experimented on or when people got lucky," he said, "So, my nephew figured he could go into the archives and find a match. Make sure no one else was related to him."
Chris cleared his throat.
"We um, we ran a scan remotely at the same time he did in an attempt to intercept Graydon's program," he said, "And it wasn't that difficult to find and overtake the program, especially when Wade was at his facility as a distraction, fighting some of his guards."
"And killing them. Don't forget that," Wade said helpfully.
"From our location, we figured out his mother's name was Emma Frost," Chris said, ignoring Wade.
Good. At least someone had cleared that one up.
"She had a son?" asked Hank.
Mystique shifted. She always felt a little uncomfortable around Hank. A great deal of history existed there, as much as she might wish it didn't.
"Yes," Chris said, "Now, we knew one of those three women had died without any relatives. But, because of her last name, she was listed last on the list. So, we had to wait until it actually moved down the list to falsify the match. That way, any relatives wouldn't be in any danger."
"But somethin went wrong," said Logan, "And it didn't work."
Enough was enough.
"You know what?" asked Mystique, "I should've told this story, even if I wasn't there at the beginning. At least I would've gotten the facts straight."
She didn't wait for a response.
"Logan's been seeing some Canadian schoolteacher for the past two years, and her younger sister is adopted," Mystique said, "Her name's Emma, and as soon as dipshit over here sees Emma Frost's pictures, sees her mutation is exactly like his girlfriend's sister, he loses his shit."
"That's not-" Logan said.
"No, that is exactly what happened and you know it," snapped Mystique, "So, instead of waiting for the right moment to activate Chris's program, he does it early just to make sure, which screws it up, and sends it right back to the beginning of the list."
Charles closed his eyes. At least he understood.
"Which means Graydon thinks your his mother," he said.
"And that Kurt's his brother," Mystique said, "And he is willing to move heaven and earth to make sure we die before anyone else finds out."
A/N: I know that, in the comics, Graydon is actually Mystique's son. However, I tried to do the math with this, and it just didn't work. By my calculations she would've had to have had Graydon before she became a member of the Brotherhood for him to be old enough to have the level of power he does in the FOH in this fic, which just seemed downright impossible to me.