Chapter 12 - Reliving Your Childhood


It didn't take Stark too long to hone in on the group that had taken Elin and Chance. He knew the location where the van was ditched as well as the timeframe, so the rest of it was a matter of following surveillance and facial recognition on a few soldiers until he found the problem. And once he had a solid line on them, he went into motion.

"I've got your coordinates — and I'm meeting you there," Tony told James over the phone in his armor. "Don't want any of them to slip out the back door."

"You don't have to do that," James said as he scribbled down the coordinates and handed them to Kurt.

"Well, I'm doing it anyhow," Tony said. "See you there. I'll just circle overhead until I get screaming on my sensors … then I'll just … blow up whatever vehicles they have. Put the fear of God into them."

James let out a breath and turned off the phone before he stepped over to Kurt and his father. "This group is based out of the Ukraine, though they have a little financial help from other interested parties. Or they did. I kind of locked their accounts while Tony was searching."

"Kind of," Kurt said with the ghost of a smirk.

James met his gaze and nodded lightly before the three of them disappeared and reappeared just outside of the building Tony'd found.

"Don't care who they are," Logan said. "They're not going to see any kind of court." Logan looked at the other two for just a moment and then pulled his cowl down — just because he knew it was an instantly recognizable thing and he wanted the guys who had kidnapped his kids to be scared when they saw him coming. He broke into an easy jog in the shadows, leading the charge ahead of the other two. When the first guard stepped out, there was only an instant where James heard the snikt before the guy hit the ground — and Logan hadn't broken his stride in the least.

"So we're batting clean-up, then," James said, nodding. "I'll just … take the right side." He shook his head and put on a little more speed to catch up. As soon as there was a fork in the road, so to speak, he took the rightmost path and pointed to indicate where Logan had gone for Kurt. There were a few guards — that turned into a lot more than a few — and then James caught the scent of antiseptic a few doors before he saw the first lab coat.

And that was more than he was willing to put up with. He let out a snarl and drove forward, tearing into anyone in front of him but not wasting a cut. He had cleared out better than half of the room before the rest of them took off running — likely right toward Logan.

But that wasn't really his concern — not when he saw Elin was strapped down and sliced up, if the pattern of blood was anything to go by. He didn't say a word as he cut the restraints off of her and then did the same with the gloves before he held up a hand for her to wait. "I need to make sure you're healed enough."

"I think I'd know—"

"Shut up and wait," James growled out. "I'm not alone. Dad, Kurt, and Tony are covering us. Just … wait." He looked almost as ticked off as when he was running around as Death, so she frowned at him as he gathered up some supplies for her to clean up the worst of the blood.

"They've been killing Chance," she said as James switched to dousing the room with bleach. "It's screwing with his memory. Badly."

"Makes sense," James said, though he stood there with his arms crossed until she could prove to him that she wasn't still torn up. "Do you know where he is?"

Elin tipped her chin toward one of the halls — and naturally, it was the one that had the sounds of gunfire and screams echoing back to them.

"You up to helping?" James asked, and Elin answered with a little warning growl as she got to her feet. Once James knew for sure that Elin wasn't going to have any issues keeping up, they both started down the hall where they could hear Logan was in an absolute rage. And once they arrived to see their father tearing through the soldiers who had been in the cell block, the two Howlett siblings shared a look and stepped back, guarding one end of the hallway while Kurt stood at the other end, keeping the soldiers from escaping.

By the time Logan was done, most of the soldiers were dead, and those that weren't wished they were. But Elin didn't pay the survivors or even give her father any kind of heed when she saw that Chance was curled up in a ball on the far side of his cell. Her heart dropped, and she slipped by James and Logan to open the cell — though she did need Logan's help with the lock, since her claws weren't adamantium and she was too worried to fool around with trying to pick the lock or waste time looking for a key.

"Are you alright?" she asked Chance when she crouched dow next to him.

Chance looked up at Elin with an unmistakable set to his jaw as he nodded. "Uh-huh," he said quietly, his knees drawn up underneath him.

Elin let out a breath of relief. She had no idea when Chance had woken up, so she didn't know what he'd seen — or what the soldiers had done to him in the meantime. But she also had no idea when he thought he was, either. So instead of trying to talk to him or reassure him, she could only trust herself to take his hands — gently — and try to set him loose.

But when it was clear that Elin couldn't get the restraints off of him, James came in to help too, popping one metal-covered claw to cut loose the chains and gloves. "Don't move," he told Chance.

As soon as he was free, though, Chance halfway melted into Elin, hanging onto her arm probably a bit more heavily than he realized he was doing. "I'm really, really tired," he told her.

"I'll bet," Elin said, pushing his hair back and trying to figure out how old he thought he was. He didn't sound like himself at all. "Probably starving half to death too."

"Yeah," he said, nodding into her arm before he looked up at her again. "I bet Mom'll have lots of food, though."

James frowned deeply at the display before he moved away from both of them to stand watch at the door while Logan and Kurt teleported off to clear out the building — though the sounds of munitions outside were starting to reach their ears as the reinforcements came closer to the center of destruction.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Elin said, still watching him carefully.

"We're going to wait right here until they get back," James said, crossing his arms.

Chance frowned at James for a long moment before he tugged on Elin's sleeve and leaned over to whisper, "Is that Daken? I thought Noh said he had funny hair."

She blinked at him. "It's … hard to keep up short hair with a healing ability," Elin said quietly, though she would have been lying if she'd said she wasn't freaking out. The fact that Chance didn't even recognize his childhood best friend… that was very bad.

"Oh, okay," Chance said, though he was still frowning at where James was keeping watch for them, itching for a fight.

James turned to look over his shoulder at Chance — though when he did, looking murderous like that, Elin almost saw it. Not that she would say anything out loud to her brother about it. She couldn't find words even to joke and instead she simply sat with an obviously scared, traumatized, and young-minded Chance.

It was another twenty minutes before James got the call from Tony, and Elin spent the whole time quietly and inwardly freaking out.

"Sensors are reading that there are exactly five people alive in the building," Tony told James. "Do you want me to stick around or can you guys get out now?"

"We've got it," James replied. "And thank you."

A short while later, Logan and Kurt appeared in a plume of smoke, and James turned to Logan to tell him what he knew — though he kept it in Japanese to keep from confusing Chance worse, even if it really just cemented Chances' … error in thinking he knew who James was.

Chance seemed to be watching the whole exchange with a frown before he turned to Elin. "K, can we go now?" he asked.

All of them stopped what they were doing, and Elin stared for an instant before she wordlessly nodded. James turned to Elin and tipped his head. "Walk with me," he said, and she very slowly stood up. Though as soon as she was upright, Chance let go of her and switched off — instead going right for Logan and all but attaching himself to Logan's arm.

Logan took a moment to weigh it out before he looked over to Kurt — who shrugged — and then let out a breath. "Take it easy, kiddo," he said, shifting to hug him tightly and then help him to his feet.

"I didn't know where anybody was," Chance said in a very small voice, still hanging on like his life depended on it.

"Got here as quick as we could," Logan said, starting to walk out slowly, though that had to be sped up when James stuck his head around the corner at the end of the hall.

"Stark is going to blow the building once we're out," he told them. "So we should go sooner rather than later. He's getting old."

Kurt nodded at that and simply put a hand on Logan's shoulder to teleport him and Chance to the medical wing of the institute — though he let James and Elin have a moment before he went back for them, just because it was clear Elin needed to take a breath with her brother.

Before Hank could say a word, Logan held up a hand as he and Chance made their way over. "I forget," Logan said. "How old are you again?"

Chance rolled his eyes. "Eight," he said in all of the bluster a little kid used for that kind of question.

"You look five," Logan deadpanned.

"Well, I'm not," Chance said, seemingly oblivious to the looks the others were giving him as he sat down and then looked up at Hank. "Can I have a Twinkie?"

"As soon as we've finished," Hank promised. "Your parents are out of town, though," he said, looking over to Kurt, who quickly nodded and disappeared in a poof to make sure Annie and Scott knew what their cover story was and why it was necessary, considering how drastically different they both looked from how they had looked when Chance was eight. "So you'll have to stay with Logan for a bit."

"Can we have a sleepover? Can Elin come?" Chance asked, grinning widely.

"Elin's staying at Mac's," Logan said.

"Oh." Chance's shoulders fell, and he stopped moving in his seat. "Oh, okay."

"You can stay with us," Logan said, gesturing to James when he and Elin came in. "We'll go camping."

Chance frowned over at James. "I guess we can go camping, but do we gotta bring Daken?" he whispered.

Logan smirked and looked down at the floor to temper his reaction so Chance didn't think he was being laughed at. "Yeah. We do."

Chance let out a sigh that moved all the way through him. "Fine."

James let out a breath at that. "Or … you can go with K. That would probably be better." Then he smirked as he decided to play along. "I'm not interested in babysitting."

"That could be fun too," Chance said as Logan gave him a dry look.

"We'll see," Logan told them both before he tipped his chin up at James and Elin. "You should both go clean up." He turned to Hank. "Anything you can do to … I dunno. Jumpstart him?"

"Not without impeding his progress otherwise," Hank said over the top of his glasses. "We can ask the other Dr. McCoy his opinion on the matter or see if he could expedite things … but that's about all."

Logan let out a sigh and crossed his arms, though he was sure that Scott had come close to having another heart attack when Rachel showed up next, looking outright concerned.

"Dad said Chance lost his memory?" she said, already unconsciously rolling up her sleeves as she met up with Logan.

"He says he's eight. And he thinks James is Daken."

Despite the severity of the situation, Rachel couldn't help but let out a little snerk. "Kids say the funniest truth bombs out of nowhere, huh?" she said, just because she couldn't quite help it.

"I fear for your sake when Ivy starts spilling secrets," Logan said quietly.

Rachel gave him a dry look before she turned to where Chance was being entertained by Hank and let her shoulders drop, reaching out to do a quick scan to see just where he was as she sat down next to him. "Is it alright if I look in your head? I'm just going to check and make sure it's okay in there," she said in as gentle a tone as she could manage.

Chance nodded. "Okay, but then can we go camping?"

Rachel looked over at Logan. "Probably," she said before she simply dove into Chance's mind, frowning to herself when it was almost immediately clear what the issue was.

It wasn't that the memories were lost, per se, but the connections between them had been completely repurposed, and by the time she got back out of Chance's mind, she was shaking her head. She took just a moment to send Chance off to where Hank kept the games so they could talk more plainly without traumatizing him.

"You're looking at this all wrong," she told Hank. "You're treating it like it's a brain injury - but that's only part of it."

Hank frowned but gestured for her to continue. "Please, Rachel. Enlighten me."

She let out a breath and then looked toward Logan. "Part of your mutation is that it's hard for telepaths to read you — and it looks like Essex might have tapped into part of that mutation of yours trying to recreate the healing without losing his subjects to insanity," she explained. She tapped the side of her head. "When you go through trauma, your mind protects itself. Sometimes to the point of amnesia. Which I'm sure you know," she said, giving him a raised eyebrow look.

"Don't sound familiar," Logan deadpanned, holding her gaze with a deadly serious expression.

Rachel let out a breath and then nodded to herself. "The point is - you have the advantage of mental, telepathic protections. That's why you don't go insane from the healing. And that's why, thus far, neither has Chance," she said. "But… Essex didn't do a complete transfer. So now, instead of using those kind of amnesiac mental blocks only for massive torture, Chance's mind thinks that anytime he dies, or comes close to it, that's cause for the overload. It's trauma prevention, basically."

"Only he's overshooting," Logan said, nodding.

"Right," Rachel said. "I don't know if that's because this is a new mutation for him or if it will always be that much of an overshoot. But… the connections haven't been severed, so he can and will get it back," she added, looking between the two men. "But only after his mind relinquishes its hold on the connections. Right now, it's using them as a shield, and I can't guarantee that if I tried to get it to let go it wouldn't drive him insane making him relive dying that many times over."

"So in the meantime, the best thing to do is just act as if things are normal for him," Logan guessed.

Rachel nodded. "I honestly don't know how long it'll take," she warned him.

Logan tipped his head to the side. "Depends on what they did to him — and how well he can refuel to heal from it, likely."

Rachel nodded. "I can help a little, try to coax his mind into letting go without forcing it, but I can only get the ball rolling. His mind has to do the rest."

"I'll take him up to the cottage," Logan said.

"Alright. You know my number if you need me," Rachel told him. "I'm going to stop and talk to Elin, too."

"Think your folks could handle John and the girls?" Logan asked. "Pretty sure Billy can take Lily."

Rachel turned toward him with a smirk. "Oh no, my dad? With a little kid? He'll have such a hard time."

"Take a penny, leave a penny," Logan said. "But with boys."

Rachel just waved him off with a smile. "Good luck."


Before the rescue team had returned, Annie had her full focus on Alyssa, since it was clear the young woman was badly shaken from everything that had happened. Annie didn't even say anything to her at first, simply letting her sit in front of the fire with a cup of hot cocoa until she could get a handle on it enough to even begin to express what had happened — all while Annie simply waited patiently.

"Thank you," Alyssa said finally, though it was pretty clear the girl was still in shock.

Annie smiled at her and reached over to rest her hand on Alyssa's arm. "Everyone needs a moment or two every once in a while. I know I had a hard time when I moved here with Scott."

"I just … wasn't expecting … any of that." She looked up at Annie and shook her head slowly. "He was so hurt."

Annie nodded, giving Alyssa's arm a gentle squeeze. "I know," she said. "It's a shock to see them in action the first time, isn't it? Like you all of a sudden realize who you're dating."

Alyssa shook her head. "I didn't even see the action," she told her. "It was … everything got quiet, and I found him all shot up."

Annie winced in sympathy as she nodded. "That's even worse, in my opinion," she said. "No regard for what they look like when they come in all bloody." She gave Alyssa a little smile. "Sadly, I don't think they'll ever stop that particular trend. But sometimes, that family in particular has a tendency to just lose clothes too, if it makes you feel any better to think that way," she said, trying to coax a smile out of the girl.

But Alyssa was already shaking her head in spite of the muted smile. "I don't think he was even breathing when I got there," she said, trying to impress on Annie the scene she walked up on. "We were just going back to the car! One minute he was teasing me about my fans, and the next he was ..."

Annie let her shoulders drop and pulled Alyssa into a hug. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she said softly. "I wish I could tell you it gets easier. It does, but not in the way you expect it to." She dipped her head to catch Alyssa's gaze. "The shock lessens, and it gets easier to jump into action. But it always stresses me out. Why do you think I make so much bread? I punish the dough mercilessly."

Alyssa seemed to realize how she looked quite suddenly. "I need to clean up. I should probably go …"

"Honey, you take your time, and when you're ready, I'll help you clean up and get into some nice clothes. You're my daughter's size anyway, and I won't have you going home in shock like we don't know how to take care of the people we care about," Annie said in a perfectly no-nonsense tone.

Alyssa thought about it for a few moments before she nodded. "I think … I don't know if I can do this."

Annie nodded gently, with a perfectly sympathetic smile. "Not everyone is cut out for it, dear. But why don't you make that decision when you're a little further from the shock?" She leaned forward. "The first time I saw anything nearly this horrible, I couldn't even speak to Scott for hours — and he certainly hadn't died on me. You're entitled to feel overwhelmed." She helped Alyssa to her feet. "Come on. Let me help you clean up. Heaven knows this isn't the first time I've cleaned blood up — and it's not the first time it's been James' either. Though it was more fun when it was skinned knees," she said with a small smile, making sure to keep her arm around Alyssa's shoulders as she guided the young woman up to the Summers' suite so she could get cleaned up where no one would bother her.

The two of them passed Scott as they headed for the bathroom, though before Scott could question them on what had happened, Annie shot him a perfectly businesslike expression. "Could you get Charlie, please? I know she's next door working on homework, but I have a favor to ask of her."

"Of course," Scott said, frowning a little deeper. "Do you need anything else?"

"Just a little privacy," Annie told him, practically standing in front of Alyssa. "It's a little shocking to see someone you care about shot, and I have full faith in the powers of a good scrub, some lavender lotion, and our daughter."

Scott's eyebrows went up for just a moment, but he didn't argue the point with her at all before he headed over to talk to Charlie. Not that she really needed much prompting with the shock and numbness that was rolling off of Alyssa. "If you're not too busy," Scott said when she answered the door, "we have a situation."

Charlie was already nodding her agreement. "Nothing's due tomorrow anyway," she said, letting Scott lead the way back to the suite, where she simply waited until Alyssa was properly cleaned up and Annie had led her to the couch to sit down. Charlie dropped into the seat next to her and simply pulled her into the warmest hug that she could, pouring as much good feeling into it as she could, though with how numb Alyssa sounded, she wasn't sure how effective that was.

And while Charlie was attending to Alyssa, Scott pulled Annie out to find out if she knew more than he did.

"Scott, all I know is that Alyssa saw James not breathing at all. Their double date turned into a disaster, but unless you've heard from Logan or Kurt, that's as far as I know," Annie told him, sparing a worried glance over at the girls.

"James hijacked the signal on his panic button," Scott said. "I thought it might have been a false alarm when he did that — but the three of them are gone." He frowned and turned to head over to James' room. "I'll see what they came up with."

But it wasn't until the rescue team got back that they really knew anything new - when Kurt teleported into the Summers suite, obviously intending to talk to both Annie and Scott.

"Scott's in James' room," Annie said, frowning when she saw the look on his face. "Are you alright? Do you need to sit down?"

Kurt frowned at her, disappeared, and reappeared with Scott a few moments later. "Everyone is safe," Kurt said, first and foremost. "But we've told Chance that you're on vacation. He was injured, repeatedly — and there are some memory issues." He held up both hands. "We're working on it. But it would be a shock to see you two as you are."

Annie frowned, though her hands were running through her gray hair as Scott narrowed his eyes. "What about Elin?" Annie asked, reaching over unconsciously to hold onto Scott.

"Elin … is healed," Kurt said. "But Chance thought that she was K. And he didn't recognize James at all."

Scott shook his head when he heard it. "That's a more substantial memory loss than we've seen with any of them," he pointed out. "What happened?"

Kurt's shoulders dropped, and he took a step closer to keep their discussion low and quiet. "They were testing his abilities. Pushing him over the brink, then letting him heal — only to do it over again. Logan dealt with them. They are no longer an issue."

Annie's eyes were wide as she covered her mouth, though she looked more angry than anything else after she had a moment to process. And Scott looked like he was ready to tear the world apart again. "Who was it?" he asked Kurt, his tone one that Kurt had heard often enough to know Scott was ready to rain fury on his enemies.

"James tracked them back to the source while Stark found where they took them; it was a small foreign group."

"I'll call Rachel," Scott said after a long pause where it was clear he wanted to do more than that — though Logan had beat him to it. "And I expect to hear as soon as we can see him - whenever that is."

Kurt nodded and stepped back while Scott made his call, and as soon as he hung up the phone, Kurt disappeared to get Rachel without a word exchanged.

The little group was more or less stuck in that holding pattern for a long while until James and Elin came up to see them. "I'll give you everything in the morning," James said, finally looking half as worn out as he felt.

Scott nodded. "Alyssa's in the back with Charlie," he told James, knowing that was at least part of why James had stopped at their suite first.

James, of course, nodded and zipped by him to find her as Elin took a deep breath and looked up at Scott. "It was an ambush. They came from upwind wearing charcoal lined suits."

Scott nodded at that and gestured for Elin to take a seat with him. "Are you alright? Kurt let us know what was happening with Chance, but are you alright?"

She gestured with both hands out as she looked down at herself. "Yeah. I'm fine."

Scott let out a breath through his nose before he simply reached over and pulled her into a long and tight hug without another word spoken.

Elin tensed at first, then snuggled in and stayed right there for a long while. "Dad was going to take him somewhere neutral — so no one can shock his memory the wrong way."

"Are you going with them?" Scott asked.

"It might be better if it was Mom?" she said. "He thought I was Mom … but … it would be simpler, I think."

Scott nodded but seemed to hug her tighter at that. "You can stay with us in the meantime if you don't want to be in your room alone," he said.

"I'll be okay," she said. "If anything, I might go to Mom's room. Keep an eye on my sisters."

"If you need the space instead, you know we'd be more than happy to watch John," Scott said. "And don't tell me you're fine. I can't tell you how many times I went through something like this with Jean; it's not fine."

"But I am. The situation isn't fine," Elin argued. "Though if you want some levity, he thought James was Akihiro."

Scott couldn't stop the smirk at that, despite the otherwise heavy nature of the conversation. "What did James say?" he asked, knowing that the rivalry between the two would have made for an interesting mixup, to say the least.

"He … was kind of … he had just gotten done tearing up a lot of bad guys, so he was pretty ticked off. He didn't really have a response. But he told Dad what was going on in Japanese, so I think he was just playing along."

"Seems to be the running theme," Scott said, then leaned back a bit so he could catch her gaze and smile at her. "He'll get it back, Elin. I'm sure this is temporary."

"We'll find out, won't we? It's all just part of it. It was hard to watch him make leaps back," she said. "When we were in our cells, before anyone showed up, I couldn't even comfort him properly because I didn't want to trigger him wrong…"

Scott frowned. "Kurt left that part out of it," he said.

"That's because I didn't get a chance to tell him," Elin said. "We were around Chance when we were talking about what happened - but I wasn't going to talk about the details regarding him in front of him while his mind is compromised."

Scott nodded at that. "They had no right to do that to either of you," he said, looking angrier the more he thought of it.

"I know," she said, shaking her head. "But when has that ever stopped someone?"

"It will one of these days," Scott said. "You'll be around to see it, I'm sure."

"Only because I'll probably live to be five hundred," she said dryly, though she left out the part about having to see her friends and family age and die, leaving her with only her siblings as a constant.

"I sincerely hope you do," Scott said, looking perfectly serious.

She shook her head at that. "We'll see, won't we?"

Scott watched her for a moment before he leaned over to kiss her forehead. "Join me for some tea," he said. "You could use a break."

"I can bring it up," she offered.

"Sounds perfect," he said.