Chapter Ten: Time and Time Again

For several seconds, nobody was entirely sure what to say. They all knew more or less what they were thinking, but the recent revelations and the still ebbing tide of adrenaline did not exactly make it easy to put into words.

Max drummed his fingers nervously against the Tempus Simia and cleared his throat. That seemed to finally break the spell, as all of his companions' gazes snapped to him.

With a weak smile and a little wave, he said, "Uh, hi there. I'm your kid from the future."

Kim nodded and folded her arms uneasily. Her voice squeaked a little as she replied, "Uh-huh, so you are."

Ron rubbed the back of his neck. "So, uh… Just to be, like, 500 percent clear, when you say 'your' you mean…"

Max nodded back with a wince. "Yes, both of yours."

Ron shared another look with Kim. "Right. Okay."

Kim rubbed at her arm. Her eyes were still on her partner, but for all the awkward tension in the air, something in her gaze was starting to turn thoughtful.

"I just… I – I mean, I never really thought of us like… or never seriously, but maybe…"

Ron blushed and let out a weak laugh. "Yeah, I – I think I get what you mean. Maybe…"

Were – were they flirting now? Was this flirting? Max had never really been the kind of guy to get grossed out by the idea of his parents' affection for one another, but whatever the heck was starting to unfold in front of him, it was weird. Perhaps a little more forcefully than necessary, he said, "Okay, maybe now's the time to try that memory sealing thing, huh?"

"Ah, I'm glad that feature is intact. That's what I was about to suggest."

All three teens practically jumped out of their skins at the sound of the new voice, and as one, they turned to find the glowy projection man still watching them from his spot above the altar.

Ron spoke up first. "You've been here the whole time?! Why didn't you do anything when Monkey Fist was getting all stab-happy?"

The man shrugged. "I'm just an earthly projection of a long-dead monkey monk's spirit. There isn't much I can do in this form."

Ron raised a finger, opened his mouth, paused, and then put his hand back down with a thoughtful hum. "You know, it probably says something about all the freaky stuff we've faced that I can completely accept that explanation."

The man, or spirit or whatever, nodded in agreement. "Facing worldwide mystical threats does that to you. But returning to our earlier topic of discussion, there is a reason the Tempus Simia was planned with a function to temporarily seal memories. It seems the two of you have learned more about your future than you are yet prepared to deal with, am I correct?"

Kim and Ron shared yet another look. "I mean…" the former ventured. "This is some major weirdness that I don't really think we should know yet, but… it feels kind of wrong to just, you know, forget."

Ron nodded. "Yeeeah, both options are kinda a lot, aren't they?" He looked at Max. "What do you think? You're from the future, you'd know what we're gonna go with."

Max's eyes widened and he held up his hands. "Hey, don't look at me. I definitely never heard of this happening, but for all I know at this point, you guys are just really good at making up epic love stories. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just the guy who ended up stuck in the past for a bit while chasing a supervillain."

Ron raised an eyebrow and glanced back at Kim. "He takes after you," he told her bluntly.

Kim scoffed, but there was a light blush on her cheeks and more than a little affection in her voice as she said, "Ron…"

She trailed off thoughtfully, taking a few moments to consider the situation before she finally took a deep breath and held out a hand to Max.

"I'll do it. I'd rather experience this 'epic love story' of yours properly than start a relationship just because I know how it'll turn out. Even if it means forgetting all of this for a while."

Ron smiled at that. "You know what? Me too."

Rufus clambered up onto Ron's shoulder as Max handed over the Tempus Simia, and the three non-time travelers settled in to work the artifact's magic. While they did so, Max wandered over to where the spirit monk guy was hovering.

"So, you're like some sort of prophet?" he asked.

The monk chuckled. "Close enough. It is my duty to pass on the prophecies of old to those still in the land of the living." He paused for a moment to eye the fallen form of Monkey Fist.

"Though some are less equipped to handle such truths than they would like to believe. I cannot say I understand the full extent of what he came to this period to do, but it does not surprise me that it involved a petty attempt to screw over his enemies, as today's youths put it."

Max let out a noncommittal grunt, grimacing slightly and folding his arms as he glanced toward Monkey Fist.

"Why so dour?" the monk asked. "You have won this day, haven't you?"

Max frowned. "I mean… We have, and I am happy about it, but…"

He searched his thoughts for the best way to explain himself. "I mean, these last few days have been the most stressed I've ever been in my life, because I didn't know what disaster would happen if Monkey Fist managed to change the past. And then all of a sudden it turns out he couldn't change the past anyway. Even with that last stunt where he went after me, even though neither of us knew what would happen, it was still something that had kind of… already happened, in a way.

"And all that is a relief, but at the same time, I feel like I finally did something I could be proud of, but at the same time I can't really because it was basically destined to happen that way anyway. You get what I mean? I just want to know that I really, honestly can keep up with the rest of the team."

The monk remained quiet for a moment. "You know," he finally said, "the funny thing about destiny is that it does not hold those in its grasp as tightly as they often think. Monkey Fist may not have been able to change his past with the Tempus Simia, but the fact that he could even attempt an alternate use still speaks to its power to influence time. He may have become a great force, for good or ill, if he applied that thinking to more than just attempting to weaponize everything at his disposal."

The monk nodded toward the Tempus Simia, which was pulsing with a soft light as its three users sat around it in some kind of trance. "And just because the Tempus Simia has toyed with the order of cause and effect does not mean they no longer matter. You believe that Monkey Fist would have failed in his plot against this aunt of yours even if you had not intervened. Perhaps that is indeed the case. But perhaps instead, his unopposed actions would have made it so that the future you first came from did not include your aunt at all. Your actions still have meaning, even if the circumstances have muddied it somewhat."

Max grimaced at the mind-bending thought. "…You know what? I don't know if that makes me hate time travel less or more."

The monk chuckled dryly. "There is a reason my order abandoned the project. But that reminds me of one last word of advice: when you have returned to your proper time, you should separate the Tempus Simia into its component pieces but keep them intact. Even as dangerous as that artifact is, there is no telling what strange effects its destruction would have on the timeline."

Max blinked. "Wait, what's that supposed to –"

The projection disappeared before he could finish his question. Rude. Still, he supposed he got the message.

"Umm, excuse me?"

Max turned back from the now empty altar to see Kim waving him over. The Tempus Simia had finished its light show, and Ron and Rufus were both shaking their heads and rubbing their eyes as they stood up.

"Okay," Kim said, "this is going to sound completely whack, but you're, um… the time traveler, right?"

Max's eyebrows shot up at the uncertainty in her voice. "Yeah, Max." He eyed the artifact still resting on the ground. "That thing must have really done a number on your memories."

Kim rubbed her head and gave him a sheepish smile. "Max, right, sorry. I think I remember most of the past few days, but a lot of the details surrounding you are… fuzzy. I guess that means we're going to meet some time in the future?"

Max couldn't help letting out a good-natured snort. "You could say that."

Kim nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, guess I shouldn't pry too much then. Still…"

She took a moment to cast her gaze around the room – at the unconscious Monkey Fist and his pinned and unmoving stone gorilla, at the pile of rubble that had been the other gorilla, at the last of the monkey ninjas that Max was just now realizing had been taking advantage of the heroes' distraction to make a discreet escape. She didn't bother going after them, and instead turned back toward him with a broad gesture to the room at a whole.

"What… happened here? I mean, I think we can safely assume that it turned out well for us, but the memories kind of cut off with all of us getting captured."

Max considered his answer for a moment. He smirked. Might as well have fun with it. "Monkey Fist said too much and ticked you off, so you kicked his butt hard."

Ron raised an eyebrow and glanced at Kim. "Really? That sounds kinda extreme."

Max shrugged. He was enjoying this way more than he should have. "You wouldn't be thinking that if you knew exactly what it was he said. Also, you helped."

Max was getting good at this veiled truth stuff. His parents were not going to like that when he got back to his proper time.

Neither Kim nor Ron looked any less bewildered than they were when this conversation had first started, but the former finally sighed in resignation. "Okay, you win. I guess telling us any more would defeat the whole purpose of forgetting… whatever it was we had to forget in the first place. We'll just have to wait until we catch up to your own time."

Kim knelt down to pick up the Tempus Simia and hand it back to Max, but then Ron's eyes widened and he raised his hand. "Wait!" he shouted, and everyone turned to him.

"So if this was actually a time loop all along… Does that change whether this is the past or the present?"

Kim raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Ron, at this point I'm even less sure time works that way."

Max accepted the artifact from her with a shrug. "Ditto." With that, he looked around the room and took a deep breath.

"So, I guess this is it. I should be able to take Monkey Fist and that one statue thing with me, but I don't know if I'll be able to do much with the broken one. Think you guys can take care of it?"

Ron was busy staring wide-eyed at the remains of the statue in question – apparently he'd only just noticed it – but Kim nodded. "We'll figure out something."

Max offered her a small smile, then turned his attention to the intact statue and willed. The Tempus Simia thrummed to life, and a deep red portal appeared right beneath the stone beast.

The archway fell the rest of the way to the ground with a crash as the construct slipped away from under it. Its frame straddled about half of the portal, but there was still enough space for a couple of humans to slip through.

Kim and Ron got on either side of Monkey Fist's prone form and hefted him up by the shoulders. "Look out below!" Ron called out with a snicker as they heaved him through the portal.

Max walked up to the swirling red edge before looking back to the teenage forms of his parents and the young Rufus one last time. It was strange, really. He knew he would be seeing them all again in just a few moments, but he also knew that it wouldn't be quite the same.

"Well," he said, "see you guys on the other side."

Kim raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean that literally?"

Max gave her his best enigmatic smile. "You know, answering that question would be kind of a spoiler."

Kim playfully rolled her eyes and folded her arms. "Fair enough. See you… someday, Max."

Max was just about to step into the portal when Ron hummed in thought and glanced at Kim. "You know, I really like that name. It's kind of inherently badical."

Max tried very, very hard not to think about that as he dropped into the timestream. He'd dealt with too much time travel weirdness already to start wondering if he had, in fact, been named after himself.

Twenty-Six Years Later

"Max!"

Kim would never really understand just how her parents had managed to act so calm when she first went into crime fighting as a teenager. Now that she had children of her own, it was hard to shake the instinctive urge to protect them at all costs – and she had personally trained them in self-defense. Few aside from her husband knew it, but a significant part of her was relieved that only one of the kids had shown interest in the "family trade" as it were.

Monkey Fist had affected her a brief glance before stepping into the strange portal, but it didn't look like he'd even noticed Max falling through. Kim's boots pounded against the stone floor of the jungle temple, and in seconds she shot past the still dizzy Hana and surged up the stairway in the middle of the room. Ron kept pace beside her, but by the time they reached the top platform, the portal had swallowed up the second stone gorilla and winked out of existence.

"M-Max?!" Tim yelped as Kim skidded to a halt and started searching frantically for any sign of where everyone had gone. "I-I'm sorry, I should have kept a better eye on him, but I thought he was doing fine and then the portal showed up out of nowhere and –"

A sudden tingle in the back of her mind, like a thought that was just out of reach, drew her attention away from her brother's guilt-ridden ramblings. She clutched the side of her head as a wave of deja vu rushed over her, and then…

…She caught up.

Kim gasped, a sound that she heard echoed beside her. She turned slowly to meet the wide-eyed gaze of Ron – her husband, her partner, her second-in-command, her beau, her sidekick, her best friend. She could tell just by that look on his face that he remembered too, but something still needed to be said.

"That was Max?!" she shrieked.

"Max was our kid?!" Ron screeched.

"Well of course he's our kid, we've had him for fourteen years now!"

Kim started pacing, her fear for her son's safety relieved for the moment and replaced by an overwhelming crush of information. Monkey Fist's return, his promises of revenge, the gorilla statues, the little stone idol – the Tempus Simia. That memory spell must have been potent to keep her from connecting the dots until now.

"Well, I don't know," Ron continued shouting, "it's like there's this sixteen-year-old version of me in my head that's going through a huge freakout right now!"

Kim sighed, forced herself to stand still, and rubbed a hand over her face. "Okay, yeah, I get what you mean."

"Uh, guys?"

Kim's attention jerked to Han, who was standing at the foot of the stairway with Tim and a jittery Rufus. The two humans looked incredibly confused.

"Two questions," Han asked. "What the actual frig are you guys talking about, and does it mean my nephew is okay?"

Before either Kim or Ron could answer her, another crimson portal sprang to life and one of the animated statues fell through it. Though, it didn't seem to be animated anymore – it just tumbled down the other end of the raised platform with a series of crashes before coming to rest on the ground below.

"To answer your first question," Ron said as a cuffed and unconscious Monkey Fist dropped out next and collapsed onto the platform, "time travel. Time travel is what we're talking about. And I think your second question is about to get answered for us."

Max had made it to the right place and time! The last lingering trace of Kim's worry faded away, and she pushed Monkey Fist aside and took a step back to make space for the last traveler to come through.

Max had barely finished stumbling out of the time portal when he was swept into his mother's embrace. What little teen instinct he had to object was smothered in the sheer relief of getting to see his family as he knew them again, and he didn't hesitate to return the hug.

"So it looks like you were being literal after all," she murmured.

Max blinked and craned his head to look at her. "Huh?"

Kim chuckled and released him, keeping one gentle hand on his shoulder as she tapped the side of her head with a wink. "The memories that the Tempus Simia seals are surprisingly fresh when they come back. You said you'd see us on the other side right before you went through the time portal."

Her expression softened. "I'm proud of you, Max. I can't imagine how overwhelming that must have been, but you handled yourself well."

Max cracked a small smile. "Thanks, Mom."

His mother gave his shoulder a little squeeze before letting him go, and he turned to accept the second hug from his father.

"You did good, kiddo," he said.

Max laughed. "You too, Dad."

Ron pulled back with a grin. "Right?! Man, I wish I could've remembered that move back there with Rocky Number Two years ago. It would have made figuring out this monkey power so much easier."

A low groan interrupted his reverie, and Max looked down to see that Monkey Fist was starting to come to. In an instant, his mother grabbed the criminal by the collar and heaved him up until his feet were dangling over the edge of the platform.

"Ron, dear?" she asked with a sweetness in her voice that belied the sudden cold fury in her eyes. "I know that Monkey Fist has always been a little more your villain than mine, but I just remembered that I wanted to have a good long talk with him on the benefits of serving out his full sentence and not causing any more trouble. Would you mind if I took the initiative?"

There was no good humor in his dad's smirk as he replied, "Go right ahead. You always were the more persuasive one. Just make sure to let me know if you need any help."

"Of course."

Monkey Fist only had time to let out an unintelligible whimper before he was thrown bodily off the platform, Kim jumping down after him a moment later. It was times like this that Max wondered why the supervillains even bothered trying anything with his family around.

Uncle Tim raised a hand. "I'm still confused."

Ron considered his response for a moment while Rufus took his chance to clamber up on Max's shoulder and offer a rodent-sized hug of his own. "Well… Do you remember way back when that mysterious kid who was chasing Monkey Fist had to crash at your house for the night?"

Uncle Tim's eyes widened. "That was you?" he asked, looking at Max.

Max shrugged. "Guilty as charged."

A moment later, he remembered something. "And you tried to ship me with my own mother!"

His dad blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

Uncle Tim's eyes went even wider, but after a moment he started shaking his head vigorously. "Nnnnope, nope, I remember that and that was definitely your uncle Jim."

Max folded his arms. "I think I can tell my own uncles apart."

"Sure, in the now. But we were preteens or something back then! Huge difference."

Aunt Han shook her head. "Yeah, okay, this sounds like a 'before my time' thing and I definitely want to hear it from the beginning."

Max wasn't surprised to hear that, and he couldn't say he minded. He'd grown up hearing stories about his parents' exploits around the world, and now that he was part of their team, he was starting to gather a few of his own. Not all of them were worth telling, but he knew he'd be getting asked about this one for a long time.

It was, after all, a story for the ages.

A/N: No, I'm not sorry for the time pun.

So, that does it for Spoiler Alert! I've been working on this fic for well over a year now, and it feels weird to see it finally complete. But in a good way! It's been an absolute delight to let Max grow from a general next-generation concept in my head to his own fleshed-out character, and a huge honor to see how many of you have become invested in his story. For those of you who want to see more of him and the rest of the family, don't worry; I didn't go to the trouble of giving Max an older sister just to have her never make any actual appearances. Suffice it to say, I have some plans for exploring more of my interpretation of the future Team Possible.

On a different note, I promised a few chapters back to put together a blog post detailing how the time travel seen in A Sitch in Time relates to what we see here. That will be going up within a few days of this chapters' posting (to give my blog followers a chance to read the chapter first and myself a short break from writing), at which point I'll update this note with more information. Until then, thank you all for your support or even just taking the time to read my internet words, and I hope you enjoyed!