Chapter 50: FAREWELL AT THE GATE
The airport was noisy with the usual flood of travelers, but for the X-Men it felt strangely intimate. Charles Xavier sat in his wheelchair near the gate, his bags already stowed. He looked tired, thinner than usual, but his eyes still carried that same iron conviction. He was about to step away from the Mansion for the first time in years.
Jean Grey stood close, arms folded, voice sharp with concern.
"Charles, promise me you'll take it easy. No straining. No reading minds on strangers just because you can. VACATION means VACATION."
"Jean... I assure you, I am not so fragile as to
"You ARE fragile, don't even argue with me! You always act like you're invincible but look at you. If you so much as lift a finger I'II-"
She kept going, like a dam broken. Her voice carried that fierce warmth, half daughter, half soldier, half... something else. Logan leaned against a pillar just far enough away to make it look casual. His eyes cut toward her every few seconds. 'That fire. Even when she nags, she burns. Dangerous kind of woman.'
Cyclops adjusted his visor, stoic as always, though the way his jaw tightened betrayed how much he hated being sidelined in her presence. Storm stood serene but watchful, Colossus was too polite to intrude, Thunderbird impatient as a storm cloud, and Sunfire tapped his foot like he wanted to be anywhere but here.
Nightcrawler, disguised with Stark's image inducer, looked like an ordinary man for once. He fiddled with his fake human face as if it itched.
Jean finally threw up her hands. "Fine! But if you don't call Moira every single day, I'll come drag you back myself."
Charles chuckled softly. The wheelchair rolled forward. The goodbyes lingered-hugs, handshakes, nods of respect. And then the professor was wheeled up the ramp into the waiting plane.
That was when Logan stiffened. His nostrils flared. The scent slammed into him like thunder-two scents he knew but didn't. Familiar. Family-adjacent. But twisted, poisoned. Havok and Polaris.
He growled low in his throat.
"We got company."
Cyclops blinked.
"Who?"
"Your brother. And his girl. But something's WRONG with them. They smell... bent."
Jean's eyes lit with relief, almost joy. "Alex? Lorna? They're here? Thank God-"
Logan cut her off with a snarl.
"Don't thank anyone yet, Red. They REEK of somebody else's leash."
And as if the words had summoned them, the two appeared from the far end of the terminal. Havok's stance rigid, Polaris's eyes glowing faint green.
Jean stepped forward, hopeful. Cyclops shouted across the floor. "Alex! Lorna! What are you-"
The answer came in the form of a blazing plasma beam tearing across the air.