The Traitor, The Avenger, And The Killer

Chain Of Command

Inside Tony's hidden bunker, Kate was having a particularly miserable time. Her little girl was being wriggly that evening, and no matter what Kate tried, she couldn't get comfortable — and it was only worse when the little one kept kicking her bladder.

Jubilee was a sympathetic friend and had helped her make it all the way to the couch from the bathroom after the fifth or sixth trip when she was feeling worn out — though Jubilee herself was a little green around the gills. Tyler had checked her over when she wasn't keeping anything down at all, and according to his scan, the little half-Kree was growing faster than would be the case for a normal human pregnancy. Which wouldn't be a problem for a genetically enhanced Kree from Noh's home dimension — but for Jubilee, it meant a whole lot of misery and being sick.

So she and Kate were getting pretty good at taking care of each other. After all, they could both empathize. But when the message came in from Tony that they could expect visitors, both Jubilee and Kate cheered up immensely — Kate especially, since Tony said Kurt would be one of their visitors.

But of course, no one in the room missed the fact that in the list of visitors ... not a one of the names was one of the people who had been on the televised near-execution.

Kate grabbed hold of Jubilee's hand and squeezed it hard for a second. "Logan and Scott will fill us in," she said, repeating the same promise Jubilee had been telling herself like a mantra since that horrible broadcast. Jubilee nodded and squeezed her hand back, but didn't say anything.

As they waited for Tony to let their visitors past all his security measures, Gambit was sitting with Dani, who had more or less pinned him down to tell him very importantly about how she was going to start Kindergarten this year and "Miss Annie" had said if they had to stay in the "Stark House" for too long, she'd teach her Kindergarten things to make sure she wasn't behind when she was able to go to school. He could hardly get a word in edgewise but didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

Gerry was giving his mother a hard time; he didn't seem to want to actually eat his dinner and kept trying to play with his new best friend, Chance. And Elin was watching the whole thing from Tyler's arms with a scrunched up nose and a very K-like expression; and until then, she had been absolutely no problem for Tyler when it came to taking her bottle.

Annie's nieces and nephews were in more or less a dogpile on Anton as they ran around playing with him, though Chance was bouncing close to Gerry, already done eating and ready to go back to playing "gone fightnin." And Charlie had parked on Hope's lap, perfectly content to play quietly and giggle delightedly every time Hope would go "in my head."

When the door finally opened to admit their visitors — everyone that had gone to the moon prison except Fury, who was trying to get a handle on the new status of the Kree as well as a fix on where their three friends could possibly have been taken — Annie was the first to the door to simply fling her arms around Scott's neck and kiss him.

The twins weren't far behind, with little shouts of "Daddy!" echoing the enclosed room as they took a leg apiece. Scott had a very hard time getting much further than the doorway — though he didn't look the least bit bothered as he soaked in the hugs from his family.

He was, however, surprised to see Nate and Hope there, and he blinked at them a few times before he broke into a smile. "When'd you get here, Nate?" he asked.

Nate smirked as he got to his feet to help Scott at least get out of the doorway — though the twins reattached to Scott's legs almost as fast as Nate got them to let go. Not that Nate was trying all that hard when he was honestly enjoying the look on Scott's face with his family. "Been here since the invasion started, more or less," he told Scott.