A/N: Hi, life is crazy but I haven't forgotten about this story, promise! ;)

Chapter 10: X v. A

The X-Men and the Avengers had, of course, been looking for Bruce and K and the Barton boys the whole time they were missing. Logan himself already had a few good ideas of where they'd gone, but he didn't have it narrowed down just yet. He had about six places on his list, and he was seriously thinking about just hitting them all one after the other when one of them finally pinged — the Hulk's escape had tripped multiple surveillance codes in Tony's system.

Of course, they weren't sure if the others had escaped with the Hulk — and they didn't know where Hulk was headed, either — but that was enough information to Logan, who simply handed James to Jean and told Kurt to take the girls to Matt's place as he slipped out of there.

The Avengers took a bit longer to get in gear, purely because they wanted to get a firmer location. Tony kept an eye on Hulk's trajectory, but it was Steve who found the radio signaling SOS. They didn't know which of their friends was transmitting it, but it was coming from the busted-up facility. That meant someone was still inside.

So, both teams geared up to go — which meant Kurt needed to take the Bishop girls to Matt Murdock's place. Jean had James as well as the twins and Rachel, and with everyone chomping at the bit to go get their too-often-kidnapped friends, pulling in backup for the kids' care wasn't a bad idea.

Besides, Kurt wanted to get after his best friend — and quickly. This all had the makings of a trap, and he knew Logan knew that, too; he just also knew that his friend wasn't going to see sense until his family was safe and accounted for.

And now that Kurt was himself a father, well, he understood that only too well.

When he showed up at Matt's place, Foggy was the one to answer the door — and then simply raise an eyebrow when he saw Kurt standing there with the girls. Then, Foggy stepped back and called into the house, "Matt, your godkids are here. Better break out those Disney movies I bought you!"

Matt was already shaking his head at Foggy as he came out of the living room, where it looked like he and Foggy had been drinking and relaxing after a case. "Heard the teleport," he told Kurt, then had to laugh when Katie and Susie both launched themselves at him. He crouched down so he could catch them, but they still toppled him nearly backwards.

"Daddy has to go get Mom and Clint and Barney," Katie told him, her eyes wide.

"What happened?" Matt asked, already crouching down to Katie's level. "Are they alright?"

Katie shrugged. "I dunno yet, but the 'Vengers say that the Hulk's missin', too, so probably they're okay, cause of how the Hulk likes my Clint so much."

"Well that's the hope," Kurt said. "Clint was good with the Hulk. I'm not sure about the other two."

"Oh, yeah, totally normal," Foggy said, shaking his head as he leaned against the table near the front entrance. "One hundred percent something you just shrug off when a kid makes friends with the biggest, greenest cause of property damage this side of anywhere."

"Those are very good modifiers," Kurt teased, then gave Katie a kiss on top of her head. "Will you girls be alright keeping watch over these two?"

"I'll take real good care of 'em," Katie promised.

"Yeah, I'll make sure they get sleep and stuff," Susie added — smiling a little more with a job to do. "Matt needs it sometimes."

"He certainly does," Kurt agreed, then made a point to smile Susie's way before he turned his attention to Matt. "If you feel you need backup, you'll need to look toward the Four. The Avengers are mobilizing as well."

Both of Matt's eyebrows shot up. "Sounds serious."

"It's an international incident already," Kurt said, knowing that Matt would get the hints and keep them in mind when it came to being prepared with backup.

Thankfully, Matt seemed to get it, and he nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'll make sure a few others are in the loop."

"We'll be in touch as soon as we can," Kurt promised before he winked at the girls and disappeared in a poof.

Meanwhile, Logan had already made his way toward what he was sure was the most likely spot for the department and the joint military at large to have taken his family. He didn't wait for the teams. Didn't have the patience or the time to sit around and strategize when the push at the moment had to be action. He knew the kind of crap that they'd try to pull. He'd lived enough of it to remember what kinds of tricks would be at the top of the list, and he didn't want to get there to find that his wife had been through a mind wipe or something worse.

And he knew damn well that would be at the top of the list of things that needed to be done to her so they could use her. He had no idea what that might do to Clint, but it would be akin to a death sentence for Barney. None of it was something he was able to just … wait and see.

So, he was long gone by the time the Avengers or the X-Men could even load up their jets. He'd stolen a mini jet to get there first, knowing that they'd likely catch up eventually. And they were welcome to bat clean-up as far as Logan was concerned. He really didn't need either group to play Jiminy Cricket for him anyhow. Not when these creeps had a whole world of hurt coming for them.

He landed just a few miles out, under cover and under radar, but he figured it was going to be a hard, slow trek to the facility. He just hadn't really expected them to be quite so populated at the site. There were more soldiers and security there, patrolling, recovering, and starting cleanup after the Hulk's hasty exit, so he had to go incredibly slowly to avoid detection. What's more, the mess that the Hulk had made also made it hard to scent out where he was going or where his people were. But he still worked his way into the building, avoiding the guards and soldiers. He had to stop himself from outright killing a doctor or three as he passed them by just for the way they were talking, and instead of acting, he cataloged their scents away to maybe find later if he couldn't get who all he'd come for.

He was several levels down before he caught a somewhat fresh marker that belonged to Barney, though it wasn't flowing the way it should have. Scent trails were supposed to be in a line. Any line. Anything following the path of who or what he was tracking. But this … it was just hanging in the air with no direction, no points of contact. And for the first few rooms, it bugged the hell out of him trying to figure out how and why he was finding that scent so … dispersed.

Until he realized why that was. He'd taken a step to leave the room he was in, then paused and stepped back, looking around the room at large to find … yep. Central ductwork. He started for the grate high on the wall and pulled himself up to get an idea of where the kid was. He could find the others once he checked in with Barney. Chances were good Barney had a solid idea of what might have happened and where the others might be anyhow.

He double-checked that no one was around and that there were no cameras before he pulled himself into the ductwork and closed the grate behind himself, half scrunched up just to fit and hoping like hell he found the kid before he found a weak point in the ducts.

But even with the enclosed space, it was no easy thing to find the kid. The scent was blowing though the ducts, after all. All Logan knew was that the boy was upstream somewhere.

And then, Barney let him know where he was by calling out, "Come any closer and you'll get shot."

"Go ahead if you need to," Logan called back quietly. "Won't bug me much."

"Logan?" Barney's relief was palpable, and Logan could hear him scooting through the ductwork. "Man, am I glad to hear you."

"Keep quiet, kiddo," Logan advised. "Still got plenty of those morons wandering around. You got any idea where your brother and K are?"

Barney's head appeared around a corner, and he looked wide-eyed. "No idea where Clint is, but I followed K as far as I could," he whispered low. "Clint was down toward where the Hulk was."

"You got a locator on you?" Logan asked, already pulling his off of his belt to hand over.

Barney shook his head as he took Logan's. "They searched us."

"Keep that one on you then," he said. "And point me to where I'm headed. The others're probably on the way now. That'll bring them right to you."

"Okay, perfect," Barney said, gripping the locator tighter, then scooting around so he could reposition and show Logan where he'd lost track of K — where the ductwork took a dive and then a turn Barney had obviously decided he couldn't navigate. But he did show Logan the closest vent to where he's lost track of K with a whispered, "Can you track her from here?"

"If I can get a scent, I can find her," Logan promised. "Hell, even if I can't, I've got a direction. I'm on it."

"She said they wanted her for babies," Barney whispered as he backed up to give Logan room to get out.

Logan stiffened up on hearing it, but nodded curtly to confirm that … he was probably right. "Not letting that happen." He slipped past Barney and rushed off, a little too keyed up to try and say anything else with that on his mind now, too.

The trail from where Barney had pointed him really wasn't' that hard to track, though there was a pretty heavy note of blood in the scents, and it just … it felt too easy, if he was being honest. But he wasn't focused enough to really care much about that when he knew Barney wasn't wrong.

Especially with how little she would be cooperating.

The soldiers that were in his way when the scent started to concentrate gave him a fight, sure. But after he'd killed a few, it was almost lIke they wanted him to keep going forward. But again, he was so close to where she was and was worried enough that he really didn't care what the deal was. Not when he could get to her, get her moving, and get her out.

When he did find her, seeing her still on a cot in a tiny cell did nothing to help his focus, and anyone between them wasn't breathing for very long as he cut his way to her.

He just hadn't realized how little time they'd needed to screw with her, and the look she gave him when he got her to face him after cutting into her cell was one that held no recognition at all. "Come on, sweetheart, time to get movin'."

But K pulled her arm away from him and backed toward the wall. "Don't touch me."

"Is this man bothering you?" asked a man as he stepped into the confrontation, smirking as he tipped his head Logan's way.

"I … maybe," she said, though she looked confused as she put more distance between herself and Logan.

"Don't worry; I'll take care of it."

Once Logan's locator beacon went off, the heroes coming to get their friends knew exactly where to go — which meant that, once they landed, they had an exact location, and they could save time on the search.

"Tony," Steve started to say as Jan landed the Quinjet.

"Already tracking the Hulk's gamma signature," Tony said over the comma. "I can scout it … see what kind of trouble we're looking at there, because I can tell you already … it's not the same spot."

"Of course it isn't," Steve said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Never is," Scott said over the comms from the blackbird.

"Um, am I the only one that expected a much more distinct trail of destruction if it was the same location?" Tony asked. "Think about it … those two do not play well."

"Depends on if he's still big and green," Jan pointed out.

"Pretty sure they still don't like each other too much," Tony countered.

"Fair point, handsome," Jan said, just because he sounded stressed out even if he was playing it cool over comms.

"Tell you what," Tony said. "Scanners are good enough that I won't approach unless there's no sign of unnaturally green drama. Tiny Banner drama … I'm there for it."

"Good luck," Jan said.

"You too," Tony said before he signed off, leaving the teams to deal with whatever mess they were walking into.

Both the blackbird and the Quinjet landed with enough space from the facility that they were reasonably sure they wouldn't get blasted in the air, but from there, as soon as the team hit the ground — they were off.

"Pietro, you've got the location," Steve said. "Think you can—"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely," Pietro said before Steve could finish and zipped off.

Scott let out a sigh and tipped his head toward Kurt. "Make sure he doesn't die," he said, and Kurt smirked and disappeared as well.

They hadn't even gotten close enough to the facility to blast their way in before Pietro came back, too — with Barney on his shoulders. "Found a kid," he said and set Barney down, since the kid was already protesting being carried like he was younger than he was. "But no one else was around. Oh, and also? It looks like everyone's packing up to leave. Might want to check in with our Wolverine, because it sure didn't seem like everyone was running screaming."

"Where are they positioned to evac?"

"Looked like they were headed sublevel, so I'm guessing tunnels to an exterior point," Pietro said.

"Oh, of course," Scott muttered, his eyes glowing slightly brighter. "Alright. We need a couple people topside to look for the exterior extraction and make sure we don't get boxed in. Everyone else—" He glanced toward Steve. "Sounds like Wolverine's sprung the trap already. Let's see how prepared they are for the rest of us."

Pietro stayed topside and was already trying to run a search to see if he could spot where the tunnels led out, and Jan stuck with Barney, already fussing over him despite his protests. But that meant that everyone else ran in, following a red blast that knocked down the double doors of the entrance and part of the wall.

As Pietro had said, most of the people there were evacuating, since they had Logan and presumably everyone else but Hulk. So they weren't prepared for the backup force, and they especially weren't prepared for both the Avengers and the X-Men.

The soldiers closest to topside weren't nearly as concentrated as they should have been, so they went down fast to a combination of blasts, shield strikes, teleports, and ice, as well as a few solid punches. But once the teams got moving deeper into the facility, there were more soldiers.

And then, Kitty glanced over to where Scott had been and stopped, grinned, and put her hand on Piotr's arm to direct his gaze. "Ohmigosh," she squeaked delightedly.

It was clear Scott and Steve weren't even aware that they'd synced up with each other so effortlessly, but Kitty couldn't stop giggling over it. As soon as it became clear that the soldiers had rallied enough to be an actual obstacle to getting to Logan and K and Clint, it was like a switch went off. The two team leaders were nearly back to back, and they didn't say a word between them as they took down the soldiers. Wherever Scott focused his beams, Steve was bouncing his shield off of soldiers in the opposite direction; and when Steve would point a new way, they would effortlessly redirect so that there was no one group of soldiers able to regroup fast enough.

"Jean's gonna be so jealous she missed this," Kitty said, grinning delightedly. "I don't think Scott even knows he's doing that."

"He is very determined to find Wolverine," Piotr said, though he was smirking hard.

"Oh, very," Kitty said, which got Bobby snickering nearby.

But between Scott and Steve, the soldiers were on the run fast, so after that brief moment of levity, they had to redirect, rushing down the entrance to the tunnels that had just opened up. And when Kurt saw Logan, he let out a cry of anger and teleported right to where Logan was, running his sword through the guards around Logan before teleporting his friend away — not that Logan could do much to help them when he had a helmet on, chains, and a muzzle.

"Kitty!" Scott called out when he saw Logan — and saw that Logan was swaying and looking ill from the teleport. "Get those things off."

"Got it, got it," Kitty said as half the heroes closed ranks around her and Logan and the rest kept pushing the soldiers, trying to find Clint and K.

"Found her!" Warren called out — though no sooner had he said as much than he let out a strangled shout as someone pushed into his head. He toppled out of the sky, gasping in a few breaths — and to the teams' alarm, he then turned back to the others and tackled Bobby off his ice path.

"Augh!" Bobby managed to get out of Warren's grasp by freezing his grip, but that didn't make it any less disconcerting when his friend was attacking him. Even if he was, sadly, used to it.

"What just happened?" Steve asked, his shield out in front of him, though his eyes were narrowed.

"They must have a telepath," Scott said, shaking his head. "Bobby's fine. We need to get K before they get her on a transport."

"You're not concerned about—"

"I'm married to Jean Grey. Why the hell would I be concerned about any other telepath?" Scott shot back, still running down the path Angel had taken.

Sure enough, there was K, muzzled and restrained — but not nearly as much as Logan had been. That was probably because she looked half dazed and sedate next to a smirking man whose eyes were alight with power.

Scott's eyes were bright behind his visor, and he had raised his hand to let this guy have it — only to get hit from behind with a vibranium shield. "What the hell," Scott ground out, seeing stars, but before he could wrap his head around it, he could already hear Steve running his way. He rolled out of the way and then onto one knee, glaring when he saw Steve catch his shield off a rebound.

"Pretty cowardly move hiding behind my teammates," Scott said without taking his eyes off Steve.

"'Coward' is just a word you use when you want someone to relinquish their power and call it a fair fight," the man replied.

Scott narrowed his eyes, but just then, Steve drew back his shield, and Scott reacted on instinct, knowing a department telepath would just as soon order Steve to kill him as capture him. Before Steve could release the shield, Scott opened up his visor and put Steve nearly through a wall with the blast. Halfway through it, Steve managed to get his shield between himself and Scott, but it was obvious Steve was panting and hurt.

Which Scott was sure he'd feel bad about later.

In the meantime, though, he pressed his advantage, opening up the power a little more until Steve had to crouch behind his shield, letting the vibranium take the blast for a good, long while. Scott let up, and Steve jumped to his feet, flinging the shield Scott's way.

Scott took it in the chest, and it just about knocked every bit of air out of him — and probably broke a few ribs or seven — but it also meant that the shield wasn't in Steve's hands anymore. So, all he had to do was open the visor again, and the next second, Steve was laid out on the ground, totally unconscious.

Scott winced and tried to push himself up, already mad at the smug look on the face of the guy next to K. But before he could get up — or try to — he smelled sulfur, and Kurt teleported right to where K and her captor were, using the man's gloating moment of distraction against him to put his sword through the man and then teleport off with K.

"Anyone know where Clint is?" Bobby asked, picking himself up from where Warren had just punched him, though Warren was blinking out of it fast.

"We'll see if he's already been loaded up," Kitty offered, already running ahead with Piotr, though when they opened the door to see that the transports hadn't taken off, Kitty simply started to phase through them one at a time, looking for a hold or any sign of the youngest captive.

Across the way, once K had a handle on the teleport's after-effects, she was pushing Kurt away and trying for distance. "Get away," she hissed, though she was still out of it, all things considered, and lost her balance in her attempt to get back while still dealing with restraints and all that went with them.

"Give her space, Elf," Logan said from not too far away. "They screwed with her head. Didn't recognize me."

"Entschuldigung, fraulein," Kurt said as he stepped back, though he stayed close by. "My friend can help you with those restraints if you will allow him. I'm afraid the girl who helped him out of his is currently looking for an eleven-year-old trouble magnet."

"I'll wait."

"As you like," Kurt said, though he was frowning hard, especially when Kitty and Piotr came back not much later, looking wide-eyed.

"Clint's not on any of the transports," Kitty said.

"No, of course not, because that would make this too easy," Bobby muttered.

"Might be with the Hulk," Warren said as he helped Scott to his feet and put his arm underneath Scott's shoulders, since it was pretty clear Scott was already having a hard time staying upright after that hard blow.

Scott tried to shrug Warren off, but that wasn't happening, so he shook his head and went to his comm instead. "Stark, do you have a visual yet?"

"I was just listening in to your drama. Didn't think it was time to interrupt yet," Tony said. "But yes. Pretty sure I've got them. Headed in to make contact."

"We'll meet you there," Scott said as Bobby got Steve to his feet with a half-muttered joke about being on ice again.

"Coordinates are on your dash now," Tony answered.

"Alright. Keep us in the loop," Scott said as the teams got themselves moving to the jets.