Chapter Six: The Grandfather Paradox

Max groaned softly and kept his eyes screwed shut against the intrusive light of morning, his mind still foggy from the haze of half-remembered dreams. He rolled over in bed, trying to stave off the wakeful rays, only to shoot up with a yelp when his weight pressed into the bruise on his right side.

There was a split second in which he looked around in confusion at the familiar let distinctly off surroundings of his grandparents' spare bedroom. It passed when he remembered that it was the spare bedroom of their old house, and that he was sleeping there and then for the same reason that he had the bruise. He groaned again and let himself fall back onto the bed, careful to actually stay on his back this time.

"So much for all of that being one big nightmare," he muttered to himself.

Max closed his eyes and tried to see if he could get a little more sleep, but the attempt only lasted a minute or two before an enticing scent from down the hall stole his attention. No way he was getting any more shut-eye with hunger distracting him.

First things first, though. Sitting up again with a stretch, he looked over at where his shirt was hanging in the doorway between his temporary room and the spare bathroom. Its integrated tech was subtle, mostly geared towards defense from energy weapons and the like, although he still didn't want to think about how much worse his bruise would've been without it. But, for all the tweaks and advancements Wade had made over the years, he still had yet to figure out how to make such gear machine washable.

Max pulled the shirt off the hanger for closer inspection. He'd managed to get it cleaned up all right in the sink, but it was still a little damp. He took a moment to consider this, glanding down at the too-large clothes his grandfather had had to lend him while his own were being washed.

Meh, dry enough.

By the time he made his way to the kitchen, he was dressed halfway decently and his gran– Kim's mother had piled up a small stack of pancakes on a serving plate and was working on the next batch.

"Oh, good morning Max," she said pleasantly. "Everyone else should be up and about soon. I just thought I'd get a head start on breakfast."

Max responded with little more than a vague nod and a mumbled thanks and sat down at the table in the breakfast nook. He wasn't sure what to actually say to the woman, and so he just sat awkwardly for several seconds and finally found himself absently drumming his fingers on the table.

Anne glanced over at him for a moment, frowned, and then turned back to switch off the burner and move her pan off the stove.

"Oh, honey," she said, sweeping over to sit down next to him. "Don't worry. Your family's going to be okay, I'm sure of it. You've got the best people you could ask for to help with this."

Max bit back a low sigh and glanced up at her. "Oh… I know that."

"Mm-hmm." Anne eyed him for a moment. "I'm sure you do, but then that doesn't explain why you have the same look on your face that Kim gets when she's trying to convince herself she can take care of everything on her own. Mind sharing why?"

Max winced. "The answer to that question is so much more complicated than you can imagine."

"Try me. I know Kim said there are secrets you need to keep, but are you sure there aren't any little details that are safe to share? I'm the matriarch of a family of overachievers, so I know what I mean when I say it helps a lot to talk about it."

Max looked down at the tabletop and chewed his bottom lip. It would be nice to get his worries off his chest – he felt tied up in a knot right now – but how much could he share? And would a vague half-explanation really help?

What if he just… told her? Like, actually told her?

That last thought was sudden and unbidden, and he almost dismissed it out of hand. But… it wasn't as if she had to fall for the right person at the right time, or keep young Hana just out of Monkey Fist's reach until it was time for her to achieve her destiny or whatever. And it was a little too late to avoid messing with the past at all. If Monkey Fist could run around in the past, causing trouble and busting half his minions out of prison, then maybe –

"I'm your grandson."

The admission burst out of him so suddenly that, for a moment, he wasn't sure he'd actually gone and said it. He hadn't entirely lifted his head since his future grandmother had sat down beside him, but now he looked up to see her scrutinizing him with a single raised eyebrow.

"Well then," she said, "considering my eldest child can't be more than a few years older than you, there must be an interesting story behind that."

Max blinked and sat up straighter. "That – that's it? You actually believe me?"

Anne chuckled and shrugged. "Well, it seems like an odd thing to lie about, and between having a teenager who regularly goes toe to toe with supervillains and two preteens who build working rockets as a hobby, I'd be in trouble if I hadn't learned to take these things in stride."

She cupped a hand under his chin and tilted his face up just a little to study it more closely. "Actually, this would explain why you keep reminding me of Kimmie. And…" Her face lit up in recognition. "Ron, if I'm not fooling myself?"

Max felt himself flush deep red, and he pulled his hair over his ears as if hiding them could somehow undo her quick guesswork. "Please don't tell them," he muttered.

Anne was wearing the most delighted grin now, but she said, "Don't worry, I have an excellent poker face. Once you go, it will be like this conversation never happened." She paused for just a second. "But, until then…"

And so Max found himself telling her… well, not everything exactly. There was no point in spoiling the whole future for her, so he left out any explanation for just why Hana was so important to the family or what exactly had Monkey Fist resorting to time travel for revenge. But he told her about how an odd but seemingly straightforward museum robbery had suddenly turned into a race for his mother's team to stop a ritual that they didn't even know the purpose of, a race they ultimately lost. He relayed how he'd been slapped through a giant glowing portal and woken up decades in his past. He confessed his error in dealing with the younger Team Possible by trying to pull a fast one on them with a 'cover story.'

And he confided in her all of his fears and frustrations – how before this mission he had thought he was finally ready for anything the supervillains threw at him, and his current concerns of just what failing this mission could mean, and his strange sense of loneliness even when surrounded by people that – to an extent – he'd known all his life.

"And you know what the completely stupid part is?" he ranted, stabbing a fork into a hunk of pancake and shoving it gracelessly into his mouth. He couldn't quite recall when his grandmother had prepared the plate for him, but she was waiting and listening patiently and the food did help calm his nerves a little.

After taking a moment to chew and swallow his bite, he went on, "All this crazy time travel stuff, all the things I have a legit reason to worry about, and now all of a sudden I'm starting to kinda freak out about the fact that my parents aren't, like, dating or anything. I mean, I knew this time was before they get together like that, but… I dunno, it somehow just feels wrong. Are they seriously this blind to the fact that the people they're supposed to be with are each other? Or have I somehow managed to interfere with all that and now I've already erased my own existence?"

Anne smiled gently and placed a reassuring hand over his. "Oh, honey, I'm sure it isn't nearly as bad as that. You have to remember that Kim and Ron have been best friends for almost twelve years now. They're just not used to seeing each other like that yet. If it's meant to be – and it seems to me like you being here is more than enough evidence that it is – then it will happen."

Max nodded weakly in response. He took another bite of pancake, forcing himself to just think of breakfast for a moment in lieu of finding something else to panic about.

"And if you ask me," Anne went on, "I think you're doing a much better job than you're giving yourself credit for. I may not be an expert on this… this time travel business, but if I had to wager a guess, the fact that you're still here and still doing what you set out to do means that you're on the right track."

The sound of footsteps made her glance up toward the hall for a moment, and she stood up and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Just remember that your family's in good hands," she said with a wink just as Kim entered the kitchen.

"Morning, Mom! Breakfast smells delish," Kim said in greeting. "Oh, hey Max. You sleep okay?"

Max nodded around a mouthful of food while Anne prepared another plate for her daughter.

"That's good," Kim went on. "I know it can be hard to try and get sleep in the middle of a…"

Her attention drew away from him as she trailed off, a confused and slightly concerned expression shadowing her face. Max followed her gaze to see Anne giving her an adoring smile, her eyes shining with unshed happy tears.

"Uhh…" Kim tilted her head and folded her arms uncertainly. "Mom? Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine dear!" Her mother set the plate she was holding onto the table and sniffled. "Just thinking about how proud I am of you. You and Ron both. Just… you know, taking in this nice young man and… Oh, come here you!"

With that, she crossed the room and swept her now completely baffled daughter into a tight hug. Kim just stood there stiffly for a moment before reaching around to give her mother an awkward pat on the back.

"Uhh… Thanks?" she hazarded. "I mean, it's your and Dad's house, so technically you're the ones taking him in."

"Oh, that was nothing. You're the ones who decided to help him in his time of need." Anne pulled back to rest her hands on Kim's shoulders and study her face, still smiling.

"I am just… so proud of what a remarkable young woman you've grown into. I can't wait to see how you continue to grow and mature. Both of you."

By the look on her face, Kim was no less confused by the turn this conversation had taken than she'd been by the start of it. "Riiight. I'll just… make sure to pass that on to Ron."

Max barely resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. So much for an excellent poker face.

Once that weirdness was settled and the rest of the family had wandered in to join breakfast, Kim spoke up again. "So Ron and I had plans to hang out at his place today. Wanna come with?" she asked Max. "We won't be able to do much else with the mission until Wade finds out where Monkey Fist went, so we might as well stay together and do something fun to keep from stressing over it."

Max shrugged and nodded. "Shway."

Kim raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Oops. Max added slang to his mental list of anachronism minefields. It was getting to be a disconcertingly long list.

"Uh, sure. Sounds cool." He proceeded to down the rest of his milk to excuse himself from any more awkward conversation.

If anyone had asked Max a week ago how he'd be spending this day, playing the original Zombie Mayhem with his father would not have been high on his list of guesses. Granted, this was mostly because Max technically didn't exist a week ago. But even following his personal timeline, while family game nights were far from unheard of in his household, those typically involved party games.

"Gotta hand it to ya, my man, you pick up on this fast," Ron commented as he mashed buttons in an almost wanton manner. "You been playing it a lot at home? This game hasn't even been out long."

Max half-shrugged. "Not really. I guess I'm just really familiar with similar games." Most of them are distant sequels to this one, but no need to worry about that. He'd almost slipped up earlier and called the original a "classic," but in his defense, he suspected that Ron would have appreciated knowing that it was destined to stand the test of time.

The round wrapped up with the two of them close to tied and just holding off the zombie horde. Ron leaned back and craned his head to look at Kim, who was watching from the couch while the two boys sat cross-legged on the floor. "You sure you don't want to join in, KP? We can switch off every round, no problem."

Kim shook her head. "Sorry, but video games are no more my thing now than they were when you asked me ten minutes ago," she said wryly. "I can watch a couple more rounds as long as we try something else afterward. Did you manage to get that new episode of Fearless Ferret Forever recorded the other day?"

"Uhh… No, I already had the DVR recording Agony County." Ron's eyes widened a hair. "For my mom! She's, uh, a big fan."

Kim looked just a little too intrigued by that. "Oh? That's a, uh, shame. I guess we'll just have to catch the rerun later."

Max opted not to contribute to the conversation, instead returning his attention to the game and trying to keep a straight face. He didn't know what was strangest – that Agony County was seriously this old, that his parents were clearly already watching it at this age, or that they were actually trying to hide that second fact from one another. If he made it back home all right, he might have to give that old soap a try out of pure familial intrigue.

It wasn't long before he and Ron started up a new match. Max played somewhat simply, moving and swinging with his fighter but putting little effort into remembering the button combinations for special attacks. Zombie Mayhem wasn't quite as complex as later entries in the series, anyway.

This whole thing was… weirdly nice. He could never quite shake the knowledge of just who these people were, but for once he was actually able to start seeing them, here, now, as kids. Not parents, who'd raised him (would raise him?) with life lessons to absorb and family rules to either accept gracefully or engage in a little teenage rebellion over. Not the leaders and most veteran members of his team, to emulate and try to prove himself to. Just… people.

People who were already renowned international crime-fighters at sixteen, but still.

"Wha-" Ron was starting to mash the buttons of his controller frantically. "Come on, come on, how are you beating me this bad already?"

Max glanced over to find Ron's character on the brink of being overwhelmed by zombies, while his own managed to just stave them off in a steady wave.

He grinned. "I learned from the best." Never mind that the best was sitting right next to him but clearly hadn't earned that title just yet. Or that the other best apparently wasn't into video games in this time and place. He wondered whether Everlot hadn't come out yet, or whether it just took some time to catch his mother's attention.

The round wrapped up with Ron's avatar getting carried off by the undead while Max's struck a triumphant pose. Max set his controller down and leaned back on his hands. "You know, I think you might just be trying to do too much at once," he commented. "It's like… there's no point in trying for a handspring if you haven't mastered the basic handstand, right? Otherwise you just end up hurting yourself."

Kim sat up straighter in her seat. "Okay, I thought I recognized some of the stuff you were doing on the battlefield. You're involved in some kind of tumbling, aren't you?"

Max turned his gaze toward her. "Yeah, gymnastics."

"Nice! I do the same thing with the tumbling I use in cheer routines. Using the moves in combat, I mean."

Max laughed. "Oh, I know. You were actually the one who gave me the idea."

Kim's eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Yeah." Max took a moment to think it over and ensure he wasn't about to say too much. "You know, I almost went into cheerleading too. My parents talked me out of it, though."

Ron scowled. "Aw, that tanks. You should do your thing, be true to your essential… uh, Maxness. Right, Kim?"

Kim raised her hands in surrender. "Hey, don't look at me! I came around to the Mad Dog."

Max just shook his head and settled back against the foot of the couch. "Oh, it's nothing like that. More like… My mom wanted to make sure I was doing something because I really wanted to, not because it was something sh- uh, you did."

He shrugged. "So I put some more thought into it and decided gymnastics looked more my speed, and it turns out I'm pretty good at it! Even helped my team win state last year."

Kim blushed a little at the indirect praise, but she seemed surprised by his last statement. "Oh, wow. I'm flattered that I inspired you, but… Just how long have you been following my freak fighting anyway, that you had the time to learn so much since then?"

…Riiiight. Max had forgotten about the crucial part of the story where he'd been only six at the time. Not exactly something that matched up with however long Kim had been famous for in this day and age.

"Oh, well, to be fair, athletic stuff sort of runs in the family. And… I dunno, I guess I just have an interest in following hero types?"

Ron folded his hands behind his head and leaned back against the couch, a playful little smirk on his face. "Well, I guess that makes one more for the KP fanclub. Joss had better start recruiting if she wants to catch up."

Kim chuckled. "To be fair to her, I think Joss does enough to be your fan club all on her own. How much fan mail have you gotten from her again? Considering it's been like two months?"

Max was reaching for his game remote to prepare another round, but those last couple of comments made him pause. He glanced back curiously at the two of them. This certainly wasn't a story he'd heard before. Didn't his mom have a cousin named Joss?

Before he could think of a way to ask for clarification on the topic without sounding weird, the Kimmunicator rang and derailed all conversation completely. All three teens perked up at the sound, and Kim wasted no time in retrieving the device.

Max couldn't see the screen from where he was sitting, but he could still hear Wade's voice clearly.

"Found him. He's heading for Japan now," he reported.

Kim nodded, already standing up. Max and Ron were only seconds behind her. "Then so are we."

A/N: You guys have no idea how tempted I was to either change this chapter's title to "Grandmother Paradox" or shoehorn in something that would better justify the title, but Anne just fit what I wanted from that scene best and the pun was still too almost-perfect to pass up. Though it would have been hilarious if James was the one to find out that he was talking to his little girl's future child.

Also, yes, I headcanon that Kim eventually becomes a fan of Everlot. Her actually getting into Zombie Mayhem once she knew what she was doing in the episode Steal Wheels was too adorable to not follow up on, and I can see her gradually finding a niche in video games that have an emphasis on strategy and/or exploration.