Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or X-Men. A fan of the story, KhemAnialator1000, made some fan art of Bellamy, straight out of what his own brain projected as he read the story. I can't link it anywhere, because , but he gave me permission to use one as the story cover, which you can see now at the top.

Giving a shout to the man – thanks again, Khem. Hope you keep on digging the story.

Chapter 45: Finger-Painting With Fire

As hard as it might be to believe, freeing Deadpool from the brig had not been the worst decision of the day. Once he was loose, he hadn't tried to make good on claiming my bounty, even when Logan had re-armed him.

"Why'd you give him his swords back?" I asked.

Logan didn't seem to find much of an issue with it, "If he was still planning to kill you, he'd find a weapon to try it with anyway. This just makes the method obvious so we can kick his ass if he does," With that, he meandered off to get the jet ready.

I wasn't sure how I felt about his line of logic, but what did I know? After all, Logan had known Deadpool for years. I'd only met him that morning. Not that I was otherwise particularly concerned. Laura would probably see anything coming before I did, and she would cut him in half the moment he made a move.

And no, I didn't have a problem with letting my woman fight my battles for me. I was perfectly okay with having her fine ass as my enforcer, just as long as she didn't get hurt. Laura was way tougher than me anyway.

Deadpool didn't look like he was going to be a problem anyway, at least not because of his conduct. Mostly because he couldn't do the one thing we freed him from the brig for.

"You don't even know who hired you to kill Marcher?" Julian asked, sounding just as annoyed as Laura and I felt, "Why did we even bother letting you out?"

By this time, we had made it back to the upper levels of the school and made a stop in the cafeteria kitchen. Deadpool took the liberty of raiding the fridge. His mask was off by this point while he ate, showing off his devastatingly pocked, bald head. It would have been jarring, had we not been a) students at Xavier's where we saw weird-looking people all the time, and b) X-Men, who by now had seen our share of intense crap in the field.

"I don't know how much they teach you brats about the noble profession of mercenary work, but you usually don't meet the people who actually hire you," Deadpool remarked, mouthful of a sandwich crammed with every kind of cold cut we had in stock, "There's usually at least one degree of separation between whoever's pulling the trigger and the guy plopping down the cash for it."

That sounded just fine to Julian, "Okay, so we put the squeeze on whoever put you onto this," He said, punching into his own palm for emphasis, "Easy."

Deadpool was far less enthusiastic with this approach, "Yeah... I like having steady work, so no. Daddy's got bills to pay."

So, he had nothing, which meant he was useless to us, "Cool. Hope you enjoyed lunch. Back to the brig," I said before turning to call out, "Saberwolf!"

Deadpool dropped his sandwich on the floor to wave his hands frantically, "No-no-no-no-no!" Someone clearly wanted no more of the school's resident hall monitor, "I said I wasn't going to drag my fixer into it. That doesn't mean I still can't find where the hit came from."

"And how are you going to make that happen?" I skeptically asked.

"Because, boy wonder-," Deadpool snapped back, "-I'm supposed to deliver your carcass to a drop-off spot to secure payment."

Well, that certainly changed things. An opportunity looked to be afoot, just as long as I was willing to take a risk.

XxX

There was no time to waste as we flew to the coordinates gave us. It turned out his drop off point was supposed to be some middle school in New Jersey, out for the holidays. Mister Logan manned the controls while I divulged my brilliant plan to the others.

We didn't know who would be waiting in the wings, but we knew what they wanted – me. So, we would give them me. All the me they could handle. Me, and my running crew, ready to pounce, hopefully on the poor, unfortunate benefactor paying for my bounty.

"This is a shit-tier idea, Marcher."

I rolled my eyes. Of course, Julian had been the first to dump on my brainchild, though I could tell he had beaten Logan to the punch in doing the same, only by a split-second, "And yet, you're still here."

True enough, I had not invited him. He just never left after we had confronted Deadpool. An extra pair of hands was always welcome, especially when that pair of hands could move things with the power of his brain.

"I could do with less attitude," I said, "With Hisako still on vacation, I was kind of expecting my authoritah to be properly respected for the time being."

"Exactly. Armor isn't here to pull 'bail-your-ass-out' duty, so someone has to do it," Julian shot back.

"I mean, Laura's here too. She knows the drill," I tried to joke, giving the girl in question a playful nudge. She was not much in the mood to joke around, not that she was very often, "What's wrong, Buzzsaw?"

Laura shook her head, "Hellion is not wrong, Bellamy. I do not like this plan."

"See?" Julian said, "I'm the kind of guy who likes to play with fire too, but you're damn near finger-painting with it here."

I didn't necessarily either, even if it did come from my own mind. But if you wanted to catch a big fish, you needed the right kind of bait, "Guys, it's a textbook Trojan horse play," I said trying to make my bare bones plan sound the slightest bit better, "A straight up classic."

"You just made that up to sound cool," Julian accused.

I most certainly did not. I was not blowing my free time getting hands-on instruction in strategy and other leader crap from Mister Summers only to have my concepts questioned, "-I didn't make up jack shit. It's a feint to get me into where the bad guys are," Dump on the validity of my plans all you want, there was always a reason I did something, even if I wasn't consciously aware of it in the moment, "I literally watched Cyclops do this on Breakworld."

I omitted that he kind of had to temporarily die for that plan to work. At least one person onboard would have been very adverse had I let that bit of unnecessary information slip. Unnecessary, because I certainly didn't plan on dying, temporarily or otherwise.

Julian scowled and folded his arms, looking impatient, "Okay, so explain it to me again."

I frowned, but did as he asked. It was all simple enough, "They want my body for a reason, so Deadpool will dump me at the bad guys' feet and they take me to wherever they're holed up-."

The man in question interrupted to interject, "-At which point Deadpool will get paid and make himself scarce."

"Yeah-yeah, whatever," I waved the red-clad merc off to keep on-track, "From there, Saberwolf can lock in on me anywhere on the goddamn eastern seaboard, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep track of me when I'm playing dead."

Julian looked to the back where Saberwolf sat patiently on his metal haunches, then back to me, "And if he can't?"

"He will," I said with complete confidence in my buddy.

This time the dissent came from Laura, "If he cannot?"

"I will," Saberwolf insisted more firmly than I did.

Despite reassurance from me and my A.I. with an ego, it was rough going trying to convince Laura and Julian that things would work. Contingencies were few and far between for the time being, "If everything goes sideways, go grab the Cuckoos or something and fire up Cerebra. I don't fucking know. I had twenty minutes to slap this whole deal together."

I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants. My team was scattered for the rest of the term break and most of the other fully-fledged teams were busy. Besides, the last thing I wanted was for word to get to the people in charge of me until things were resolved. If Miss Frost or Mister Summers heard there was a bounty on me that people already took a shot at, they would lock me down on campus so fast my head would spin.

Deadpool slapped me on the shoulder and gave me a thumbs up, "You're doing a great job, champ," he loudly whispered, "Really. I'm so proud of you."

"Shut up, Wade. Let the kid work," Mister Logan turned his head to bark from the controls, "It's your show, Glowstick."

I nodded back to him before regarding Julian again, "There's you, Wolf, Laura, and Mister Logan. Between the four of you, there should be enough resources there to get me out of wherever I end up. Plus, I'll hopefully be able to get myself loose and raise hell from the inside."

There was a lot of 'if', 'should', and 'hopefully' doing the heavy lifting in this explanation. Every time another one came out of my mouth, Laura seemed to be less of a fan of letting me put myself out there. That was just how it had to be here.

You couldn't always account for every possibility. If you wanted to get things done, sometimes you had to rely more on the capability of your personnel than on plugging up any and all holes in your approach. Even if I did know just what I was getting myself into, whatever plan anyone came up with still wouldn't be airtight. That was just how it was. You tried to get things in your own favor as much as possible given what you knew and what you had to work with, but the perfect scenario never existed.

With the Blackbird cloaked, Logan dropped the rest of us off and found a spot to touch down while we moved to get into position. From personal experience, Laura and Saberwolf were great at stealth, so they could drag Julian through their part of the plan well enough. He was the sledgehammer in reserve, just in case we needed that much brute force to get the job done.

In the meantime, Deadpool and I were busy making it look like he had caught me. You know... arms bound... gun pointed at me. The standard stuff, really.

"Alright, we're just about ready," Deadpool said before suddenly thumping me hard in the forehead with the barrel of his handgun, "There. That should do it."

My head snapped back. I saw stars as I stumbled a few steps. It took me a second to shake it off, "Ow! You bag of dicks!"

"Sorry," He didn't sound very sorry at all, "Gotta make it look good enough to sell it. Can't just bring you in completely unmarked."

Ignoring the fact that I could just bend light around myself to make myself look like I had been through the wringer...

I let it slide. After all, I had shot him, cut his head off, and had Wolf use him as a chew toy, all just in that day. I could eat one hit in return. I could feel blood slowly start to trickle down my face from where he pistol-whipped me.

Now all that was left was for the rendezvous with the clients. Speaking of which, I was curious. After we'd put Deadpool in the brig, we backtracked over his infiltration. There hadn't been any vehicles hidden around Xavier's. Security cameras also hadn't picked up anyone dropping him off either.

"How did you plan on getting me here by yourself?" I eventually asked.

Even with the mask, I could see Deadpool's face brighten up. The eyes of his mask were crazy-expressive, "Well, when I had you good and beaten, I'd just planned on grabbing you and-."

He reached out for my shoulder. When he did, he pulled back a sleeve to show some kind of watch, hitting a button on it. One moment we were standing in an empty baseball field, the next, I found myself staring at the dingy interior of a derelict warehouse.

It took a moment for me to adjust to the sudden change in perspective, but I just as quickly realized what had happened, "No..." I said.

"Yeah..." Deadpool replied, patronizingly.

"Tell me that wasn't a goddamn-!"

"Teleporter! Surprise!"

I went to lash out, but was met with tug of my shoulder a swift knee to the balls that took my strength. Arms still bound, I sank to the floor, fighting the urge to vomit, "Teleportation is bullshit!" I managed to squeak out.

Seriously. It seemed like every time I turned around, I had to deal with someone who either had direct teleportation powers, had some kind of technology that let them teleport, or could make portals that let them jump from place-to-place. My goddamn ex learned how to teleport! The odds were absurd. I promised myself from that point on that I would go into every situation with the assumption that a new enemy secretly had the ability to teleport until proven otherwise.

"This is the actual drop-off spot," Deadpool said.

"So, what were those other coordinates even supposed to be?"

"I 'unno," Deadpool shrugged, "I just rattled off some decent-sounding numbers and hoped that'd give me enough time to come up with something," At that, he let out a sigh and drew his swords, "Welp, guess I won't get to collect without, you know, finishing the job," he clicked his tongue at me.

I stood back up and cut through my bonds with light blades, "Fine. Round two then," I said, squaring up with him, "Just so you know, Nobody I've fought's ever seen a round three with me."

"Ooh... ominous," Deadpool taunted, "Boxing metaphors? I like painting metaphors myself. You like Bob Ross?"

From there, it was on.

For as much as Deadpool was a complete pain, as much as he came off as the goofiest son of a bitch on the planet, he was anything but once a fight started. He was as bad as they came. I talked tough, but there was a reason I made sure I shot first back when we first met in NYC – because I didn't want to get into a straight-up fight with him. At least when Mister Logan gave him back his weapons, he didn't give him a gun with any bullets in the magazine.

The way he used his pair of swords, expert level didn't seem to do the kind of skill he displayed justice. The unwritten rule of dual wielding was one for offense, the other for defense; a rule he seemed to both follow and break at the same time, switching which sword was meant for attack and which one was for defense all in the same movement. His swords seemed like an extension of his arms more than some tools he just so happened to favor using. My light blades held up against real steel, but forget attacking; it took everything I had to keep him from slicing me to ribbons.

My experience with enemies wielding sharp weapons in both hands began and ended with training against Laura and Logan. Given that they had claws and not swords, they didn't fight anything like Deadpool – hell, they didn't fight anything like each other – but they had tells and patterns that you could pick up on once you knew what you were looking for. Just about everyone does, really. In fighting Deadpool though, I was just as lost three minutes in as I was three seconds in.

Deadpool kicked me against an empty industrial shelf. I sidestepped when he went to stab me, the blade sliding through the opening. When I went to try and counterattack, it turned out to be nothing but bait. Instead of me slashing him, he got me, once across my arm, the other across my back.

Deadpool let out a whistle and let me stagger away, "Ooh, big mistake kid. Or should I call that a 'happy little accident'?" he joked, twirling his swords in his hands, "Nah, but seriously, that was one hundred percent on purpose."

I grit my teeth through the pain. He was screwing with me. Those cuts had been clean, but they had been shallow. If he had wanted to kill me then and there, he could have. I didn't have the luxury of playing with my food though.

I fired a shot over my shoulder that had no prayer of hitting its target. While it would have been nice if I could have, I just needed to buy some time and put some space between Deadpool and I. If we kept fighting up close, the only result would have been him slicing more chunks off of me.

To that end, I started blasting. Deadpool had insane reflexes, maybe as good as mine. It took a few tries to get a proper bead on him, and I blew a few holes in the warehouse walls, and portion of the shelves and pallets laying around, but I finally caught him in the leg mid-stride.

"Fuck!" With the limb temporarily useless as he tried to take a step with it, Deadpool face-planted on the concrete floor, "What's with kids these days? So violent!"

As he went to push himself up, I took aim at his left arm, the one with the teleporter strapped onto it. I hurled a light blade at it, intent on securing a quick way out of there, but he must have figured that was what I had been after. He shifted position in an instant and stabbed the katana in his left hand into the floor. It didn't help much, but it did enough to deflect my attack.

I grumbled under my breath and used the opportunity to take my thumb and middle finger to pinch the wound on my bicep shut. I used my index finger to cauterize it shut. There was nothing I could do about the one on my back, seeing as how I couldn't reach it.

The short lull in the fight was broken when the phone in my pocket started going off. I eyed Deadpool warily, even when he gestured at me with his swords, "Well? You gonna answer that?"

I held up a finger, signaling to give me a second. As I reached for my phone, that finger turned to a glowing palm aimed his way – just in case, "Hello?"

"Bellamy?"

Circumstances notwithstanding, I couldn't help but smile at the sound of Laura's voice, "Yeah, Buzzsaw. I'm here."

"Ooh, is that Logan's clone?" Deadpool asked excitedly, "Tell her I said hi."

I ignored him in lieu of listening to Laura, "You were nowhere in sight when we took our positions. Saberwolf says your signature is now 217 miles south-southeast of our position. Are you alright?"

"Uh..." I looked down at my own bloody form and then around the ruined warehouse - scattered debris, missing segments of wall, burning wooden pallets, "...Could be worse, I guess."

I heard words from the background that I couldn't quite make out, "Is Deadpool responsible for this?" Laura eventually asked.

"Yeah," I admitted, "I'm kinda in a fight to the death with him as we speak."

"Is she asking about me?" Deadpool said, waving to get my attention, "Hey. Hey. Tell her I said hi."

"Deadpool says hi," I deadpanned.

"I see. Is he in possession of his swords?"

"Yes. Why?" I didn't get an immediate response. In fact, it sounded as though the call had dropped, "Laura? Hello?"

*BOOM!*

I flinched at the sound of an explosion from Deadpool. When I looked his way, he was holding up bloody, mangled masses of flesh that most people would have once identified as hands. His swords (as well as a few fingers) were on the ground, the hilts of them destroyed.

A bomb. Either Logan or Laura had planted a bomb in Deadpool's swords. No wonder Logan had been okay with giving them back. If he turned them against any of us, a quick signal would have blown his hands off.

"Mother! Fucker!" Deadpool shouted, "You booby-trapped my girls? Who does that?" Just as he looked back up at me, I shot him in the head, dropping him to the floor.

"I dunno," I said to my now unconscious enemy as I tucked my phone away, "I didn't even know we kept explosives."

Idly, I realized that the explosion had probably ruined Deadpool's teleporter. As much as I could have used that to go home once I figured out how it worked, my friends were probably less than fifteen minutes away in the Blackbird. In the meantime, I could find something heavy to trap Deadpool under before he woke up again.

Even if I were inclined to kill him, fifteen minutes probably wasn't enough time to come up with a good enough idea to do it properly.

XxX

It was a quiet plane ride back to Xavier's, mostly because we had gagged Deadpool this time around. Still, in the twenty minutes I sat filthy and bleeding in the co-pilot chair, it was enough time for the lack of any conversation at all to get awkward.

"Did you know he was going to do that?" I eventually asked Logan. He had been way too calm upon picking me up. Actually, everyone had been. As if everything had been under control, or at least expected.

Logan didn't bother looking away from the windshield as he addressed me, "Not that exactly, but yeah. Figured he'd pull something."

I felt my mouth fall open. He knew that was going to happen? "...Why?" I said, "Dude, why did you let me do this then?"

At that, Mister Logan breathed out a sigh through his nose. Turning the autopilot on, he turned in his seat to face me directly, "Glowstick... you've got a nasty habit of sticking your neck out on gambles."

"You do pull this kind of crap a lot," Julian said from the back, only to be met with glares from both me and Logan, "I'm just saying!"

Regardless, Logan quickly focused back onto me, "Slim made you team leader for a reason. You can't just go all maverick whenever it suits you. You're responsible for more than just yourself."

"But that's why I try to take the most dangerous stuff myself," I tried to defend myself. It was my job to look after everyone under me. And how could I order any of the team to do anything that I wasn't willing to do myself? "Are you telling me it's a bad thing I'd rather I get hurt myself than let anybody else take the bullet?"

"You do it even when you don't need to," Logan pointed out, "Look at today. Did you really need to do this today? To the point where you ran off half-cocked without a second thought? You didn't bide your time for a minute. And why? It's not like you were striking while the iron was hot. There wasn't even an iron to strike with."

If you only took Mister Logan by what you saw on the surface, you would think he was just heat, anger, and instinct all the time. But the guy had been alive for over damn century. He'd seen it all. That aside, he actually was a damn smart guy well worth listening to. I had no tangible intelligence to work with, and wound up operating on the word of a headcase that had ostensibly tried to murder me three times in less than twelve hours. It wasn't a good look, no matter how I might have thought to spin it.

For Wolverine of all people telling me I needed to check myself for being out of pocket, that was saying something.

He continued, "As a guy who has had many a bounty on his head, trust me. This ain't getting solved in a day. It might never get solved. You may never know who posted it. You may never know why," At that, he grinned, "Hell, twenty years from now, you might still be walking around with a big, fat target on your back in the shape of a dollar sign," It felt like he wanted me to ask him how he knew.

That was all well and good, but it sounded like his way of getting me to slow down and take better care of myself was to let me run headlong into a minefield, "So, the answer to me being reckless was to let me be reckless and get bamboozled by the killer mercenary after my balls?" I gestured to Deadpool, bound and gagged in the very back, being sat on by Saberwolf.

"Just sitting you down wouldn't do anything, 'cuz I know you've heard this before," Logan replied, "From experience, I know you learn best in the processing stage after getting your ass kicked. So, I let you get your ass kicked. But it was controlled. Mostly, anyway."

"Wasn't exactly a Danger Room session," I muttered, nursing my various injuries.

"And it all could have been avoided if you literally did nothing," Logan said, clearly amused, "Don't turn into an adrenaline-fueled busybody. Not everything is a race against time. Sometimes, you've gotta play the long game."

"Move not unless you see an advantage," Laura said quietly, "Use not your troops unless there is something to be gained. Fight not unless the position is critical."

I turned and stared at her, "Girl, I know you're not about to sit there and start quoting Sun Tzu at me."

She raised a challenging eyebrow and got up from her seat, walking directly over to me to sit in my lap, "I could sit here and quote Sun Tzu to you, if you prefer."

"Hmm," I wrapped my arms around her waist as she put hers around my neck, pulling my head against her chest, "I do prefer."

Mister Logan had no time for the two of us getting comfortable mere feet away from him. He was not pleased at playing audience to me and Laura getting familiar, "Every-fucking-body, get the fuck back in your own fucking seat!"

I didn't put it past him to crash the plane, given that just about everyone onboard except for me would probably walk away from it.

XxX

School settled back to normal with the start of the semester, with students populating the grounds again and full staff making the rounds. The odds of any hard-up solo bounty hunters attacking Xavier's had been low during the off-season. With everyone there, the chances were nearly nonexistent. The risk and number of resources that would have to go into an attempt while I was on campus outweighed the rewards by far.

It didn't stop Saberwolf from damn near sticking to my hip whenever I ventured outside of my dorm. It was kind of heartwarming. After all, his job was to serve as security for the whole school, not just me. When I brought it up, he said, "Until a more obvious concern presents itself, your security is the most pressing threat at the institute."

He could try to church it up to be professional all he wanted. For an AI with a sharp, metal chassis, he was a big softie.

That being said, the news didn't take long to get to my superiors. The first day classes started back up, I wound up being called from one of my classes for a quick word. Miss Frost greeted me in her office, swirling a glass of brandy in her hand at 11 in the morning. Day drinking – rarely a good sign.

"An honest-to-goodness bounty," Miss Frost commented, shaking her head, "I couldn't tell you why, but I can't say I'm surprised."

"I'm surprised you're not mad," I replied.

"At you?" She asked, getting a nod from me in response. She let out a huff before gracing me with her sarcasm, "Yes, darling. I'm absolutely furious with you. How dare you allow some mysterious psychopath to put a price on your head. You really should know better."

I snapped my fingers and pointed at her, "Yeah, that, but unironically," I could swear I caught the slightest hint of a smile.

After that quick moment of levity, Miss Frost appeared to get more serious, "Regardless, it seems we have a problem. We still have no idea who marked you for death."

"Deadpool didn't cough anything up?" I asked. For her to be unable to pull anything of use from someone was a rarity. She was one of the premier telepaths on the planet, after all.

Miss Frost's countenance twisted in annoyance and discomfort, "You try sifting through that mess he calls a mind," She closed her eyes and rubbed her fingertips at her temple, "Ugh. Trying to pinpoint a single thought from that man is like trying to keep track of a single flake in a shaken snow globe."

I gestured to her glass, "Hence the liquor?"

She slightly raised the glass in acknowledgment, "Hence the liquor," she said, taking a small sip, "Regardless, he insists he had not been lying when he said he didn't know anything else."

"You're not restricting me to campus, are you?" I asked. Veritable house arrest was the last thing I wanted, whether there was someone gunning for my head or not.

"No," Miss Frost said, "You already traveled through the heart of New York City when the bounty was at its freshest. Unless it goes up and attracts bigger fish, I don't think that will be necessary."

The thing about bounties was, they only tended to attract attention from a certain level of dangerous people. If a top-tier threat was driven by money, the reward for my bounty wouldn't be high enough to get their attention. If the top-tier threat was driven by ideology or vendetta against me, the money wouldn't have mattered anyway.

It would likely be an annoyance until I could get rid of it, but I was being trusted to be able to handle it – better than I did the other day, hopefully. At least it didn't look like Mister Logan told any of them about that little adventure.

Thanking my lucky stars on that front, I left Miss Frost's office and headed back to class. In the hallways, however, I stopped when I noticed my former advisor heading my way, marching with a purpose. I didn't notice the damn near murderous expression on his face until he was close.

"Mister Rasputin! What's up-?" I tried to greet him, only to have to jump out of the way to keep from getting mowed over. Mister Summers wasn't far behind him, and seeing that he seemed to be in a much better mood, I turned to him, "What's wrong with him?"

"We received some troubling news the other day," Mister Summers said, "Piotr is... not taking it well."

It must have been why there had barely been any staff on-hand during Deadpool's escapades, "Is there anything anyone can do?" I asked, "Wait. What's it even about anyway?" There was a chance that the info was above my paygrade, but the worst he could say was nothing.

Mister Summers frowned in thought, hindsight suggesting that he contemplated telling me what the issue was or not. I could only figure that if I didn't hear it from him, I would have found out some other way, "Ever since the incident on Breakworld where we lost Kitty, we've reached out to any connection we had with the means to track the bullet she's trapped in," "The last time any of them had been able to locate it was a month ago."

I was wrong. The worst thing he could say to answer my question wasn't nothing; it was that. I could feel my heart fall into my stomach. No wonder Mister Rasputin seemed so pissed. I couldn't blame him.

XxX

I couldn't help but pull my old Paladin peeps aside and tell them what I had learned. Laura didn't outwardly react much, not that I expected her to. Hisako sat silently at my desk, trying to follow Laura's example in not showing much emotion, but with her eyes down and fists folded in her lap, the melancholy rolling off of her was palpable. Ruth sat on my bed, knees huddled to her chest, arms wrapped around them. We could hear her quietly sob – the poor thing couldn't even properly shed tears.

Eddie though? He was easily the angriest of the lot of us.

"This is bullshit..." he muttered, pacing around my room, "All this time, and all anyone can say is, 'Oh, sorry, we lost her. Our bad.'"

"It wasn't like that Eddie," Hisako said, trying to calm him down.

Eddie waved her off, too upset to sit down and stew quietly, "Someone should have been chasing that damn thing down when it got shot off!"

"And what could have kept up with it?" Hisako snapped back, "What could have stopped it?"

To that, Eddie had no answer. But that didn't mean no one should have, "All of these big brains on Earth, all of these geniuses, and no one could have come up with something? Fuck! If they were keeping track of it all this time, couldn't someone just figure out its path so someone could try to stop it? Just try! Nobody tried! Avengers? Fantastic Four? Nobody?"

"All Earth's heroes," Laura said, arms crossed sternly – the only overt sign she had given that she was also troubled by the news, "They say they are friends of the X-Men, but that only goes so far," As in, up to the point where lending a hand was more trouble than it was worth.

True enough, I didn't remember anyone ever sticking their necks out for us when we needed them, "The X-Men have always had to handle X-Men problems," I said.

The only time help ever seemed to come was when it was convenient. It had stuck in my craw for the better part of a year. Miss Pryde had saved the entire planet, and didn't even get the courtesy of any of Earth's finest trying to save her.

Eddie nodded in agreement, scowling, "Well, I guess that means it's high time we did something, isn't it?"

Upon hearing that her oldest friend at the school had designs on doing something so rash, Hisako jumped up from her seat, "What exactly do you think any of us can do?"

"I don't know, Hisako!" Eddie replied, "But we're X-Men aren't we? Isn't that supposed to mean anything? Or are our stupid uniform just to make us look cool while we stand around being useless?"

"Eddie..." Hisako winced, "It's been months. Even if we got the bullet back, she's..."

Eddie put his hands on Hisako's shoulders, "We should still at least bring her home," He said before looking over at me, "Sol, I'm right. You know I am," He might as well have been begging, "Come on. We've got to do something. We've got to at least try."

He was right. Back when the Breakworld thing happened, and Miss Pryde pulled the sacrifice play to protect the entire Earth, I had always wished I'd been in any kind of position to do something. But I hadn't been. I hadn't known enough, didn't have enough, didn't think enough of myself to try anything.

Even if it was only eight months later things were different now. Even if it got me in trouble, it was worth it to make the attempt.

I had been way ahead of him though. I wracked my brain trying to stitch together any thread of an idea I could muster to form anything coherent. I had been all morning. Even after hours of thinking, there was still a mere patchwork of a plan tumbling around in my head.

"Okay..." I eventually said, hands folded in front of my mouth as I concentrated, "I have about 60% of something maybe-workable right now. It already involves a lot of moving parts, and everything will have to go off perfectly just for us to have a shot of getting anything out of it."

That was good enough for Eddie, "My man!" The amount of trust he had in me was absurd. It was also much appreciated.

From my side, Laura was quick to give me a nudge, "Bellamy. Do not forget what happened the other day."

I hadn't forgotten the 'lesson'. Were it not for easy access to a healer on my team in Josh Foley, I still would have had the bandages on my arm and back as a reminder. But this was completely different. The only similarity was that I was considering a gamble that one could consider unnecessary. But it wasn't unnecessary to me.

If I was stuck all alone in space, even if I was dead out there, I would have appreciated the people I did it for not forgetting about me. I would have appreciated them at least trying to bring what was left of me back.

I reached out for Laura and wrapped my arms around her, pressing her head to my chest. She relaxed against me, "I know, Buzzsaw. I know. And I know it's selfish of me, but I have to try," I whispered to her, "Remember how I told you to always check me if you think I'm doing something dumb?" She hummed affirmatively, "I'm asking for a pass on this one."

Eddie hurriedly moved things forward, unwilling to let things get bogged down on the rationale of things, "So, me and Sol are doing this. Does that mean it's just us?" He asked, opening the field.

Laura pulled away enough to look up at my face, "Is this an order?" She frowned.

I shrugged, the girl still in my arms, "If it makes you feel better, sure. You can say I lied about this being an official mission when Cyclops comes to collect my balls afterwards."

"What about when Logan does?"

"I may need your clawsies to protect me, 'cuz he might come for 'em literally."

"..." Hisako was clearly conflicted. The good girl in her wanted no part of the crapstorm that was sure to come from the faculty for what we were about to do. But the Paladin in her demanded she take part, "...School hasn't even been in session for a week. We're gonna get in so much trouble."

I grinned at her. 'We'. She had clearly cracked, "Hell yeah, we are," And it would be worth it.

Ruth jumped up from my bed and latched onto one of my arms. I could have sworn I heard a growl of annoyance from Laura for having cuddle time disrupted, "She will go too, yes," Ruth said, "Pardon. What she sees... it is not clear, no. Many outcomes, yes. She will need to be closer."

No idea what that meant, but it didn't matter. That was all of us.

"Yes!" Eddie threw up a 'too sweet', "The crew is back in business. Paladin up!" No one joined him in the long-held traditional team gesture. Ruth, in fact, stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry, "What?"

Hisako shook her head in disgust and pushed Eddie's hand down, "'Paladin up'? That was never a thing. Stop trying to make that a thing."

I took the opportunity to pile on, "Wingman, if you want to push a dogshit catchphrase, that's your business. Just don't associate my 'too sweet' with it."

"You guys suck..." Eddie pouted.

XxX

The first step of the plan was to enlist some help. I needed three people, each more difficult to convince than the last, and if any of them turned me down, the entire scheme was shot. With that in mind, I started with the easiest person; also, the one with the most personal stake in all of this.

Ruth had told me that Mister Rasputin had not attended any of the art classes he taught in the few days that school had been running. Instead, a sub had been in place. The poor guy had been cooping himself up in his quarters whenever possible. At least that made it easy to find him.

Standing outside of his suite, I took a moment to gather myself before knocking, "Mister Rasputin?"

"Go away," His voice answered from inside, muffled by the door.

I knocked again, "It's Bellamy."

Identifying myself did little to change anything, "You heard what I said."

I let out a sigh and leaned my back against the door, "I also heard why you're like this right now, and I get it."

"What do you understand?" Mister Rasputin spat bitterly, "You are still young, Bellamy. While others around you may have a better perspective of loss, while you may have felt some of your own, you do not yet understand the meaning of the word."

He had a point. Compared to him, compared to a lot of the other kids on my team, I was doing pretty alright in comparison. Still, I could relate to one aspect of what he was likely feeling.

"I was there when we lost her, you know," I said, sinking down to sit against the door, "Not sure you remember, but I was standing right there when it happened. I watched the damn bullet get shot off with her in it, and I couldn't do anything."

"I should have been there."

"It wouldn't have mattered."

Now that got more than just depressing melancholy out of him. I almost jumped up when I heard him raise his voice, "How could you say such a thing!?"

Mister Rasputin's rage rattled me a bit, but it was a better reaction than nothing. I could work with anger, "Because I run it back in my head. A lot. Maybe if I did this or that, maybe things would have been different, but that's bullshit. Nothing I did that day, nothing I was capable of, none of it would have changed anything, and if our positions had been switched, if I'd have been the one fighting on Breakworld while you went to stop the launch, the exact same thing would have happened."

Miss Pryde still would have jumped inside of the thing to try and disarm it. Even if with the benefit of hindsight, we told her what would happen, she probably still would have gone inside, if only to do what she wound up doing – phasing the bullet harmlessly through Earth. None of us would have been able to grab her to stop her, or anything.

"You're pissed, just like I'm pissed, only way worse," I continued, "You're pissed because the people who care enough to help can't, and the people who can help don't care enough to. More than anything else, you're pissed because you couldn't do anything. And I know that – because it's why I'm pissed."

"You're right," Mister Rasputin admitted, "I couldn't... I can't do anything."

"Wrong."

"What?"

"You're wrong," I repeated, "There is something we can do. But I really need to talk to you about it."

I left everything after that hanging in the air. Even though he was right there, I wasn't going to maximize our chances of getting busted. If he wanted the details, he would have to let me in. Right as I started thinking that I should leave and let him think things over, the door behind me opened. I almost fell back, instead, scrambling up to my feet.

Mister Rasputin greeted me in sweatpants with no shirt, unkept hair, and a full goddamn beard. He looked down at me, then stepped aside, allowing me entry, "I am listening."

I had no idea why he bothered. Just about any other logical adult in his situation would have shut me down ten seconds into my pitch. He probably should have shut me down. But that was why I went to him first. Without him, no aspect of my plan would have gotten off the ground.

Mister Rasputin simply waited and allowed me to explain. He heard me out until the very end, his face a stone visage. I couldn't tell if he was onboard or not until the very end. Once I was finished, we stood in silence as I let him think everything over.

Eventually, I was not disappointed.

"Do you really think that this will work?" Mister Rasputin finally said.

"Not even a little bit," I replied honestly, "But that's not the point."

The point was to try. We had to try. Someone had to. So, we would. It was as simple as that.

Sofia Mantega – "Office Hours"

I could not help but be excited as the new semester started. I was always excited to return to school. I did not much enjoy going home to my father. We often avoided each other when I returned. I much rather enjoyed being at Xavier's with my friends, with people who were happy to see me and be around me. I enjoyed training to be one of the X-Men. I enjoyed the idea of making a difference, helping others.

To that end, at the tail end of the previous semester, I had an idea. To stay plugged in with the goings-on around school and stay connected with other kids, I had suggested the entire team take part in some kind of outreach. Eventually, I was able to map out the idea and get it approved. We were given an office and everything we needed to make it official.

The plan was that there would be three of us scheduled to work at the desks on any given day. That meant there would be plenty of manpower available to run missions if needed, and at least once a week every member of the team would have to spend time working office hours. Bellamy and I set up the schedules, but the rotations would likely shift quite a bit. For the time being, however, since it was my idea, and he was our team leader who presented this to the headmaster along with me, it was only natural that the two of us would be the first to roll the initiative out.

It was the first time I could remember being in a position to help others where we did not need to throw our powers around to do so.

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Bellamy grumped as we worked to get the office set up and decorated, "This is gonna be a complete drag, Sof. Why are we doing this?"

Obviously, Bellamy was quite enthusiastic about it all. He did not volunteer for the first shift so much as I persuaded him to take it. It actually took less effort than one would think to agree. Bellamy can often be counted on to do the right thing, even if he complains about it the entire time he is doing it.

"It is good to open ourselves up to the student body," I insisted, smiling and trying to encourage him, "I believe things like this make us more approachable. Whenever trouble arises, our peers should believe they can come to us to help them with their problems."

Things like what happened with Jay and that monster Stryker, they could never be allowed to happen again. I believe things went as poorly as they did, that Jay felt the need to reach out beyond his friends, peers, and mentors, was because he truly felt a disconnect between himself and those that surrounded him. If things got that bad for him, they could get that bad for anyone.

Besides, enough problems sprang up around the school that we could help with on our own; non-violent problems. We were X-Men, even if only in a probationary sense. We were constantly told that the job would not be all about combat. A lot of us needed that idea reinforced.

I continued to share my reasoning with Bellamy, "We are meant to help mutantkind in the future, yes? Shouldn't we start with those closest to us first?"

He seemed deep in thought, and for a moment I thought I might have gotten through to him, "Have you been telling that to kids around campus?"

"I have," How did he know? "Why?"

Bellamy looked away and shook his head, "Nothing, just... that explains so much," He muttered the last part.

It didn't take long for us to start seeing students. There were flyers on every bulletin board around school. An announcement was even made about our office hours during the school assembly at the start of the semester. As the first few came in, I was ecstatic. When one person left, it didn't take long for another to come right in. Sure, what they talked to us about was mundane, many stopped by just to see if we were really there, but I was happy that there were kids eager to speak with us at all.

Many of the younger students tended to go to me instead of Bellamy, which was understandable. With his face constantly fixed in the idle scowl most of us were used to, he could be quite intimidating... that is, until you understood that he was just grumpy, as opposed to being malicious.

No, instead, Bellamy tended to be more popular with older students. They knew enough to be aware of many of his exploits around the school and knew that he was the leader of our team of would-be X-Men. We were public figures at the school – the equivalent of a varsity athletic team, but with higher stakes. That made him the captain. Many of our appointments didn't really seem to want anything of note – they were simply eager to interact with us in a setting where they weren't bothering or interrupting us. Students looked up to us, not that Bellamy realized it himself.

After the last of our most recent round of sessions ended, Bellamy threw his head back and let out a groan, "If I get one more kid coming in here asking if we do tutoring, I'm throwing a chair. They may or may not be in it when I do."

"You are exaggerating, Bellamy," I said, "This is not as bad as you make it out to be."

I actually liked it. As much as I enjoyed the more thrilling aspects of what we were training for, I found this fulfilling as well, in its own way. Bellamy was more the straightforward type who preferred direct goals he could manipulate the outcome of with his own hands.

He waved a notebook around in the air, "I'm trying here, been keeping a log and everything, in case something comes up that we should look into, but these have all been jokes. Last time I checked, there's bigger shit to worry about. I got fucking stabbed two days ago. Now I'm dealing with..." he took a moment to read to the notes he had taken during one of his previous meetings, "...The 8th grader with spike powers poking holes in his gym uniform."

I frowned and walked over to his desk. He noticed my approach and leaned forward properly in his chair as I stood over him, "Taking two hours to be here and do this is not a waste of time. Just because someone else's problem isn't very important to you doesn't mean it isn't important to them," I said, "Not all of us will be X-Men or superheroes. But we all have things we struggle with, need help with."

One of my favorite things about Bellamy as a leader was when you challenged him. His nature was quite stern, which made him the kind of person equipped to handle a fighting force. He was never easy to argue a point against, but for a friend, he would always attempt to see things from a different perspective. Even when he had only been squad leader of the Paladins, he never threw his rank around to have the last word. Unless he was giving a direct order, he would take the thoughts and concerns of his teammates into consideration. That approach went beyond the field for him.

We were all important enough to listen to, which meant he cared. He was not as unpleasant a person as he preferred to paint himself as.

He looked me straight in the eyes, never looking away even when he growled in what I could only take as acknowledgment of my point, "...Goddamn it... I know you're right, that this is all just some harmless counseling. But I'm bad at this. I try to keep my personal problems away from others, big or small. Now I'm supposed to just help people with theirs?"

I smiled, "No one is asking you to be a psychologist," I assured him.

At that, Bellamy smirked, "Yeah, we already have one of those, last time I checked," He said, referring to Dr. Garrison, "He's more for trauma though, I guess."

"Just do what you always do whenever any of us ask you for help or advice."

"I'm not exactly equipped to talk people through the same phase of life I'm still working through."

I rolled my eyes. So dramatic. With a flick of my wrist, I produced enough wind to playfully blow him back a few feet in his chair, "You say that, but you're missing my point. You don't always end up giving advice. What you do always do though, is listen," Even then, he sat and listened to the last student we had just been talking about, "And despite what you were saying about that boy, what did you end up doing for him?"

Bellamy shrugged, "I texted Max and sent him his way," Maxwell Jordan was another student on campus. He used to be a member of the Corsairs student training squad. Though he and Bellamy were more loose acquaintances than friends, they got along well enough, "I figured who better to give him some tips than the kid who's literally called 'Quill'?"

"You see?" I offered, "You helped."

Bellamy looked away. According to Hisako, he never did that. This was one of his tells that someone was wearing on him, "I didn't do anything. I passed the buck, is what I did."

I could feel the grin pulling at my face. No, I was not going to allow him to downplay this, not when I could see he was so close to cracking, "Do not be obtuse, Bellamy. You deferred to the expertise of another, and it will help him."

Bellamy stammered for a moment, trying and failing to come up with another way to downplay his actual efforts today, "T-Take your optimistic ass back to your own desk, would you? We've got more kids to see!" He ordered.

"Of course," I did as he asked, feeling very pleased with myself. It was normally quite difficult to catch Bellamy on the short end of an argument. As I went to let the next set of students know we were ready to see them, I caught the tail end of Bellamy's grumbling.

"...I swear to God. Team leader my ass. I sure don't feel very in charge of you people sometimes."

Like I said, Bellamy can often be counted on to do the right thing... even if he does complain about it the entire time.

Scott Summers – "Peer Review"

The world needed the X-Men, but the ones it had wouldn't be around forever. When we were gone, someone would have to step up and take the reins in our place. That had been the idea when we made our newest X-Men team, comprised of our brightest students from each of the training squads that had been active over the last year.

It was a good crop of kids, all with good skills and lots of heart. Me, Emma, and other members of the staff would do everything in our power to get them up to speed. They had already seen their share of action, but they still had a long way to go. Still, their potential made me feel a little bit better about the future of mutantkind.

To that end, however, I found myself focusing on one in particular. The would-be leader of the team, Bellamy Marcher. I say 'would-be' as if there was any consideration to the contrary. Had Bellamy not attended the school, I couldn't think of who would have been the leader instead. Maybe many things would have been different if Bellamy didn't exist, but in this reality, no one else on the roster made enough sense to be in charge.

It wouldn't have been wrong to consider him my current pet project. I was putting a lot on his shoulders and keeping on him to make sure he could handle it. It wasn't just about the fighting, the strategy, the management and organization though. No, if I was going to try and mentor him, he needed the whole leadership experience.

"Peer reviews?" Bellamy asked, looking confused. I'd had him meet me in the mission briefing room after a training session with his team so we could talk, "I thought we already went over those before school let out for winter break?"

"We went over your reviews of everyone else," I told him, tapping a finger on the stack of files that sat in front of us, "These are everyone else's reviews on you."

His gaze drifted between the files and me, as if he were trying to come up with some method to excuse himself. Had there been a shredder in the room, I had little doubt Bellamy would have attempted to do away with them then and there.

"Everybody on the team had to do one of these?" Bellamy said, sounding desperate. He would have preferred to fight every member of the X-Men back-to-back than sit there and read those reviews, "Are we going to go through all of them? You can't be serious."

I felt my lips tug upward, "The joys of leadership. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish."

"We have to do all of this now?" He asked, "Whenever Emma has some mundane crap for me to do, she at least pulls me out of class to do it."

That was because Emma had come to favor him, even if she would never admit it out loud. I liked Bellamy too, but I wasn't about to let him skip class for his extracurriculars. Xavier's was still a school, after all. Emma had little compunction about skirting the rules a bit for those in her good graces.

"I don't get what your problem is," I said, needling him further, "You don't sleep, so you have more hours in the day to get things done, right?"

"You're enjoying this," Bellamy (accurately) accused me, "Why are you enjoying this? You have to be here too."

That was a good question. Why was I enjoying it? I had the reputation of being a stick in the mud, but that didn't mean I liked doing all of the mundane and monotonous things that my position as headmaster and leader of the X-Men required. Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps it was because I had the opportunity to pass that misery on to the next generation.

Judging from the amusement I felt at watching Bellamy scowl at the stack of printouts in front of us, I could safely say that was most than likely the case.

"These are all submitted anonymously so you can take the critiques with an unbiased approach," I said, trying to move things forward, "Shall we?"

"Go ahead," Bellamy said, sounding defeated.

I took the file from the top and opened it, passing a copy off to Bellamy before I cleared my thoat and started reading, "'I do not have any major issues with Solaris as leader of the team. Despite only being active for two months, he has managed to find a way to balance most of the enmity between the more contentious members of opposing squads from previous years. He is diligent and spreads his attention across the team, taking great care to focus on fixing areas of weakness instead of allowing us to rely solely on our strengths. If there is any area at the moment where I could say I find him lacking, it would be in his approach to tactics. He relies heavily on hard-set combinations specific to certain team members that, while admittedly effective with practice, could prove to be a problem if any members are disabled in the field. I suggest more interchangeable sets that can be used with any members, no matter the composition of the squad. Furthermore-.'"

"That's Prodigy's," Bellamy offhandedly interrupted.

I stopped reading, "W-What?"

Bellamy repeated himself, "Prodigy. You know? David Alleyne? This is him. I'd put money on him writing this long-ass thing," He tapped the pages on the table in front of him, "I was thinking maybe Laura at first, but then you just... kept... reading. Then I saw two extra pages stapled behind the comments," He explained, "I doubt anybody else but Prodigy would have filled out three pages for this. Not unless they wanted me sacked bad," We were only halfway through a single page of what had been written, "So? Am I right?"

"I will neither confirm nor deny," I said, "These are meant to be anonymous."

"I'm pretty sure you organized these in ABC order too, so Noriko is probably next."

I stared at Bellamy long and hard before taking the stack of files out of the room to shuffle them out of his sight. I could hear his laughter through the open door. Smartass.

From that point on, he listened and responded to the feedback of his teammates as we went over them, but a game also emerged for Bellamy where he would attempt to guess who had written the review while I was reading it. To 'make it fair', he would only give himself one guess.

"'-We believe that the team would benefit from additional use of-.'"

"Unless somebody on the team writes in the 'royal we', that's the Cuckoos."

"'-I always think it's crazy that this grumpy dingus is in charge of all of us and the team hasn't imploded yet. He's actually really good at keeping people in line without being overbearing about it, which if you've ever spoken to him for ten minutes, you'd know was amazing.'"

"There isn't one compliment on this page that isn't backhanded, so I'm gonna say this is Armor."

"'-I wish Bel would take better care of himself. It's always kind of scary whenever he puts himself in a position to get hurt just so someone else doesn't have to.'"

"This is definitely Pixie's handwriting. Don't... don't ask me why I know that."

The quickest one only took him the first two sentences of the review to figure out.

"'We have all the parts to make this an all-timer X-Men team. As good as things are now, a slight change in leadership would-.'"

"Hellion. Nobody else is gunning for my spot. They're all too smart to want any part of this job."

Though I never confirmed for him whether he was right, out of the 16 we went through, he hit on an impressive 13. If nothing else, the results of that ridiculous game meant that he had at least made the effort to get to know his team and what made them tick.

I figured it was a good start. Leading a team of diverse, potentially volatile teenagers promised to be difficult, but I expected great things. I felt Bellamy was fully capable of living up to those expectations. If nothing else, it would be interesting to watch him try.

And that's the chapter.

Goddamn it, children! I broke my arm back before Christmas. As of the time this goes out, I'm out of the whole-ass cast I had been in, but I'm still rocking a brace. Aside from the obvious issue, being that I haven't been able to wrestle or even work out properly for two months at this point, typing with my busted-ass arm had been a real pain – quite literally.

I've also taken some time to try and work on some original stuff. I finished the draft of a novel, and I'm trying to put together an unrelated serial series.

Anyway, I'm here now, and there's a rescue/recovery plan afoot with an absolutely miniscule chance of success. Are there any other kinds though? And obviously, the first thing you do after being lectured about taking arbitrary risks is to take more arbitrary risks.

Thanks again to KhemAnialator1000 for the new story cover. If you like the look of it, why not hit the man up and see if he can work on a commission for you?

Until next time, guys. Kenchi out.