Chapter 7 - Some Kind of Psychosis

Scott wasted no time in sending Jana to Joulie to look deeper into her powers. When that happened, James took a moment to play intermediary, since Joulie had in fact recognized the girl from the Apocalypse broadcasts.

She was wary on meeting her, but shocking Jana, James assured her that Jana was on the side of the angels — and gracefully explained how Jana had found herself at Apocalypse's side. It was enough that Jana didn't know quite how to react as James let them both in to his father's office so they could sit down and talk for a moment.

But eventually, Jana simply nodded and took Joulia's hand, focusing not on the complicated emotions around everything about Apocalypse but on what she could do, which was read Joulie's powers.

"Okay, wow, that's … that's different than anyone I've seen so far," Jana admitted once she had truly assessed Joulie. "You have incredible potential — though I'd stop just short of saying that it's magic. You can manipulate luck — which has to be even less scientific than magic. If you hone your abilities, you could turn the tide of entire battles before a shot was fired." Jana stared at her for a moment. "It could be positively devastating if you wanted it to be."

"God don't like ugly," Joulie said in a perfectly reasonable tone. "And I ain't 'bout to be like that."

"You can turn a person's intentions against them or amplify the positivity around them to make it work in their favor." Jana let out a breath. "I am so glad you weren't found before now."

Joulie raised an eyebrow at that and turned toward James. "That's a compliment, right?"

James nodded and met Jana's gaze for a moment then let out a breath. "Yeah. Big compliment. Means she thinks you're a lot more powerful than you give yourself credit for."

"That's always the case with a pretty girl," Joulie said with a playful sort of smile.

"Yeah, it is," James laughed before she took a few steps closer so James could put his arm around her waist. "Thanks, Jana. How does this usually work now? Scott come in next? Or does she go to him…?"

Jana smirked. "Leave him a little dignity and go to him, huh?" she said in a low almost-whisper that had a spark of a tease behind it.

"Lead the way," James said. "Seeing as you're the one with all the statistics now."

Jana got to her feet and gave Joulie an encouraging kind of smile. "I bet you'd get along with Wiccan," she said. "You actually have kind of similar power sets. His mutation isn't magic, even though he can use magic."

Joulie looked a little confused at that but tipped her head and let out a little 'huh' as they followed Jana.

"I'm entirely sure this is where I bow out," James said. "Seeing as it's between you and Scott, and you're not eight years old."

Jana snorted under her breath at that before she dropped them by Scott's office and waved. "If he gets his way, I'll see you at team practices soon enough," Jana said, then smirked at James and tapped the side of her head. "He may have some good psychic defenses, but he's so excited."

"Yeah, that was pretty clear already," James said, shaking his head at her before he gestured to the door. "Good luck. He's not hard to deal with, I promise."

She slipped inside, and even from the hall it was easy to hear from the tone in Scott's voice that he was optimistic — and excited to see a new face that wasn't already coming in expecting a free pass onto the team. Which was what most of the kids did.

"You okay?" James asked Jana before she could take off.

Jana paused and then nodded. "Yeah, getting better all the time," she said with a small smile. "It's nice to be on the team again."

"I'm just glad you're not harboring any more parasites."

"Believe me: I absolutely agree with you on that count," she said, pulling a face and shaking her head. She paused and looked toward the closed door. "Your friend is very smart; a lot of people can't see past the blue hair and the tattoos to recognize me. Which, you know, was the point."

"She's a genius," James said. "And she has a great eye for faces."

"Well…" She let out a breath. "Thanks for clearing things up for her."

"Just told the truth," James said with a shrug.

Jana shook her head. "Just accept the thanks, will you?"

"Thought I did," James replied, making a face at her.

"No, you went all 'aww, shucks, ma'am, just doing what I was raised to' on me," she shot back with a smirk.

James stared at her for a moment. "Do you want me to hit you again?"

"Can't take it as much as you dish it out?" she shot back, the smirk stretching into an outright grin.

"You're makin' me out to sound like Clint. Stop it."

"Then stop acting like a Barton," she teased. "All 'just doin' my job' and can't think a positive thing about himself he hasn't seen concrete proof of... At least Daken has an ego."

"Daken's full of himself," James pointed out, then stopped and made a face. "Oh. No. Wait…. No." He stared at her for a long moment. "Oh my God."

"What now? Did you realize you're secretly a Hawkeye? Because I have to tell you…"

"No, I realized you have a crush on my half-brother." James grinned. "What happened? Bond over tattoo patterns?"

That got Jana to stop teasing as she nearly froze, staring at James wide-eyed before she caught herself and waved her hand. "He's the one who knows how to get in touch with the guy who does it. We spend a lot of time together."

"Yeah, he's the one alright." James chuckled. "The nose knows, my friend." He scrunched up his nose at her. "So when do I start calling you 'sis'?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, about three days after never," she said. "He's dating a detective, you know."

"They dated before. It didn't work. That's on borrowed time already."

Jana shook her head. "I have time anyway. I can focus on being with Remy and Marie. Not like I'm going to get too much older in the interim."

"Perfect for him, then," James said, nodding. "He has attachment issues, in case you missed the billboard. He's afraid of losing people he loves."

"I did actually put that together," Jana said.

"But … if it was just a favor to someone else when he initially took you for a tattoo … he would have quit after the first one."

"Well, he must be more of a masochist than I thought, because I was under the impression he hated every second of it," Jana said with a sniff.

"He absolutely is," James agreed. "Sickest little puppy you'll ever meet."

"I have horrible taste, don't I?" Jana said with a sigh, leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed. "Tell me this isn't some psychosis or something."

"I'm … the wrong one to ask," James said with a shrug. "But yeah, pining for Akihiro is definitely a psychosis."

"Careful, the genetic apple doesn't fall far, and you're dangerously close to saying girls around you have the same problem."

James grinned crookedly. "Good thing I take more after Mom."

"Oh yeah, I can see it," she said with a smirk. "The nose, the shoulders, the whole shabang."

He had to laugh. "Didn't mean looks, smartass."

"You should be more specific," Jana said, grinning at him outright.

"Specifically, I am the best-looking of the boys so far … but with my mother's wit. How's that?"

"Specific, but debatable factually."

"Only because you're hooked on him. Which … seriously. I think — all joking aside — that could work."

Jana dropped the teasing smile and raised her eyebrows at him. "Weren't you just saying I have a brain issue or something?"

"Hey. You can't possibly have hosted Sinister for that long and not have some kind of psychosis. I'm just saying your crazy matches up right with his crazy. And I think you could stop him from manipulating you. Which is a huge bonus."

"Oh, I absolutely could," Jana agreed. "That much I do still know how to do; Apocalypse didn't take that little trick away."

"Good," James said, letting the smile slip. "If you are going to play around with him — even only as friends — you're going to need to stay on your toes. He can't help himself sometimes."

"I like to think I keep him on his toes," she said with a smirk.

"I'm sure you do," James agreed.

"It's like a twitch — can't help but dig a little deeper, see how far I can go… I guess it's a little bit leftover from what he used to do, but much more … pedantic."

"And yet, my brother keeps coming back," James said, tipping his head to the side. "I'll bet someone that did more than the required psychology courses could get more in depth about this."

"That's alright. The last thing I want to do is talk to Charlie about Sinister. That's weird," Jana said, making a face.

"How's that coming with the Summers kids, anyhow? I know Elin's going to bat for you."

"Well, Chance was mentally screaming discomfort for the first little while on the team, but we're past that stage now, thankfully," Jana said, letting her shoulders drop. "And Cody's with the Avengers, which has helped immensely. Charlie… thankfully, she's got that 'song' thing, so she's been the easiest, really. And Chloe adores Charlie, so she's followed her lead."

James smirked, entirely amused at that. "Yeah. Yeah, that … helps."

"Elin said something similar about the scent, too. Actually, your family has been the best help on the team. I'm really glad I've got them," Jana admitted.

"My family has had their brains hijacked more than everyone else," James said flatly. "To us, it sounds perfectly normal."

"And Scott's been working with me a lot," she admitted. "He and Remy both — they don't want me to be any worse off than I already am because of him."

"Such a chore for you," he teased. "To hang out with your favorite X-Men."

"I know. It's a real bore," she said loftily. "When clearly, I'd much rather be hanging out with a self-absorbed narcissist with tattoos."

"You would. And you forgot some of his other, more charming personality traits. Like the sadism."

"And masochism. Don't forget that part."

"Hand in hand," James agreed.

"And the automatic 'humph' when I point out any similarity to his father," Jana said, starting to grin wider.

"Oh, that's just asking for a glare and a badly-timed mohawk toss." He drew in a quick breath. "Oh! You do that just to watch him walk away, you pervert."

Jana burst out laughing. "No, I do it for the glare," she said. "It's hilarious."

"Just do me a favor," James said, grinning outright. "Have a song cued up on your phone ready to play when he struts off. I used 'Right Said Fred' once and he hasn't talked to me since."

"Ah, but I want him to talk to me, remember?" Jana pointed out.

"So try something less in your face," James said.

"But all I can picture right now is him strutting to 'walk, walk, fashion, baby' and this won't go away, James," she laughed.

"Well …" James said, shrugging openly. "I do take requests to irritate him. I can do it next time if you're around … and if you're not, I can probably get it on film so you can watch it over and over again."

"Yes, please," she laughed. She was still grinning as she headed down the hall. "See you later, James. Try not to call me 'sis' if you can help it!" she called over her shoulder.

"I'll wait until after the elopement," he promised, chuckling to himself as he headed the other direction, sure that Scott would take Joulie to the crowd when they were through.

Tyler and his entire family came down to Westchester that weekend — with Tristan leading the way and clutching a letter tightly to his chest, practically bouncing with excitement. He hadn't wanted to open his mission letter until he had the whole family together, and that included his grandfather as well as the Wagners, who had been nothing but supportive of him.

He didn't know where he was going to be sent, and that just made the whole thing that much more exciting.

Jayce had even come, and for once, Tristan was using his telepathy without being prompted. Maybe that was because he was already so excited that he was projecting, but the other part of it was that Jayce spent a lot of time in Celeste's head, so Jayce himself was a comfortable mind for a telepath.

Either way, the two of them were completely immersed in catching up with each other … and it was literally the only thing keeping Tristan from bursting with anticipation.

But finally, everyone was gathered up, and Tristan wound up in the center of a circle of incredibly supportive people — all of whom were holding their breaths as they waited for him to open the letter.

Some people, when they got their mission call, read the whole letter out loud. But not Tristan. He was literally breathless with excitement, and he ended up reading the whole thing without saying a word — at least until Tammy couldn't wait anymore and asked, "Well?"

Tristan glanced up at his mom, his eyes shining with excitement. "Samoa," he said.

"Oh, you're going to get so tan," Jayce said — which immediately had Tristan laughing. And that was all the prompting everyone else needed before they all dove in to give him hugs and congratulations.

And Kurt pulled Tyler aside, knowing that this had been a rite of passage denied to him when he was Tristan's age. "You must be proud," he said under his breath.

"More than I can say," Tyler said.

"And you must be sad as well," Kurt said, watching Tyler carefully.

At that, and at the permission to be sad, Tyler let his shoulders drop, and he nodded, stiffly. He couldn't quite articulate what it was like to watch his son get what he hadn't been able to have. He was so proud and so pleased and so relieved that Tristan wouldn't have to deal with what he'd been through. And yet… there was a part of him that couldn't help but mourn what he'd lost as well.

And Kurt didn't need Tyler to explain himself. Instead, he simply stood beside Tyler and then, after a moment, pulled him into a long, tight hug.