DISCLAIMER: I do not own the X-Men.

He knocked lightly on the door, not exactly expecting anyone to answer for him. When Jubilee opened it to let him in, he stood, somewhat wary of the seemingly friendly gesture. Jubilee stared at him, her expression so mixed that it was an unreadable mess of frustration, worry, and sympathy.

"Well, are you going to come in or are you going to stand there all night?"

Bobby blinked. He was expecting to be chewed out again, told to go away, that it wasn't any of his concern. Instead, he stepped into the room, moving out of the way so that Jubilee could close the door. As she walked back towards him to take her spot on her bed again, she whispered, "Just watch out for cranky Cajuns."

He chuckled a bit and looked over at Kitty, who was still asleep, an expression of worry taking over his face. "Is Kitty alright?"

Jubilee sighed. "Nobody's alright, Bobby. We're all freaked out. No one has any idea, all we know is that big Chuck says that she's going to pull through. And that's not even direct from the source." She pointed to the chair in the corner of the room. "You're allowed to sit, you know."

Another knock sounded on the door, and Jubilee started to stand, before pointing to Bobby. "Before you get comfy, would you see who that is?"

Not wanting to be at the wrong end of an angry Jubilee, he nodded and opened the door, letting Piotr enter. The large man turned his head immediately to Kitty, then back to Jubilee, raising an eyebrow.

"She's out. Cried herself to sleep a couple of hours ago. But you're welcome to wait for her to wake up, tall, shiny, and Russian."

Bobby took the seat that had been offered before and leaned back. He glanced out to the balcony and watched as Gambit paced some more. Piotr's eye drifted in that direction as well, mostly because he'd caught the smell of the smoke drifting in.

"Is Remy..."

Jubilee rolled her eyes. "I don't even know what he's doing." She looked at her watch and counted on her fingers. "But he'll be jumping off the balcony soon to go find out whatever he can. He's like clockwork."

Sure enough, Remy leaned on the railing long enough to extinguish his cigarette before vaulting over it. Not entirely used to Gambit's idiosyncrasies, Piotr ran towards the balcony, covering his body in metal as he went.

"Gambit!"

"Pete!" Bobby had leapt up and held out his arm, erecting a small barrier of ice between Piotr and the door to the balcony. Colossus tripped and stumbled a bit, before turning around. "He has just jumped two stories."

Jubilee stood up and sighed as she let off a few fireworks on the ice, melting it. "No, he probably landed in a tree or something. He's a monkey."

"Unghh... whazz going on?" Kitty rolled over a little bit and opened her eyes. Glancing once more to the balcony door, Piotr returned his body to it's normal size and texture and knelt next to Kitty's bed. "Nothing, Katya. Go back to sleep."

Bobby stood in place, watching, as Jubilee finished cleaning up the mess and headed back towards them.

"Ugh, they should just do it already and get it over with."

Bobby laughed, and Piotr blushed, making it quite clear that he'd heard what was said. A flying stuffed dragon aimed relatively well at Jubilee moments later confirmed that Kitty had heard it, too. Jubilee shrieked and grabbed onto Bobby's arm, jumping behind him. Seconds later, she gasped and jerked her hand back.

"Bobby... your arm..."

"What?" He was confused. Looking down, he noticed that his hand was a strange tint of blue, the way that it usually got when he was using his powers. Slowly, he rolled up his sleeve and gasped as his arm became exposed. Instead of flesh and bones, it seemed to be clear glass. He breathed heavily. "It's..."

Kitty was the first to finish the sentence. "Ice."

From his vantage point outside the med lab, Gambit couldn't see much of anything. He could hear soft murmuring, as if someone was relaying a story. And footsteps. He jumped as a hand on his shoulder alerted him to the fact that the footsteps were actually coming from behind him.

"What're you doing down here?" The voice was just as threatening as the man to whom it belonged, and Gambit paled.

"Monsieur Logan... I..." He tried to think of what excuse to use, but was too exhausted, and settled for the truth. "I was worried. Dis kind of t'ing don' happen every day, hein?"

Logan sighed and crossed the hall, leaning against the opposite wall.

"They're not letting anyone any farther than this. Believe me, I've been camped out here almost the whole time. Won't even give me the time of day."

Remy raised an eyebrow. "Di'nt see you when I cane down de ot'er times..."

"We're in the war room. You can actually see the inside of the lab in there through the security system. Jean's having a look at her right now."

"Jean?" Remy's eyes flashed a somewhat brighter shade of red, as his anger started to rise. "De supposedly dead chick wit' de fire problem? Hasn't she done enough already?"

Logan closed his eyes. This would not be the best time to slice up one of Rogue's friends. You couldn't exactly leave a "while you were out..." memo. He managed to compose himself enough to choke out a gruff "Follow."

Remy staked after the older man and soon found himself in the war room, where Carol was watching the monitor of the med lab and reading a magazine. She looked up when the men entered, and nodded.

"No change yet that I can see. Jean is still all hunched over."

Wolverine sighed and sank into one of the seats. It looked like the long night was going to extend well into the morning. He looked back up at the screen, not wanting to take his eyes off of it in case something happened. Across the room, Remy lit another cigarette.

"You might want to be careful with that, bub."

"Don' care."

"Chuck ain't gonna like it."

"Don' care."

"Your life." Logan shrugged and turned back to the screen, then jumped up. Jean was no longer sitting in the seat next to the bed, and Hank was also off screen. Looking over at Remy, he ran out of the room and back towards the med lab, both Remy and Carol hot on his heels. When the trio reached the med lab, they ran in, the psychic barrier that Jean had constructed seemingly broken. What they saw shocked them. Bobby was standing there, his shirt off. Instead of a body, though, his entire midsection and most of both of his arms were crystal clear. The rest of his skin had a definite blue tint to it, and when he spoke, his breath could be seen clearly in the air. Jubilee was also there, torn between worrying about Bobby and worrying about Rogue. She glanced over at the exam table that held Rogue.

"Oh my God... is she dead!"

Bobby turned sharply and looked at the table as well, the ice spreading to cover his hands and starting to creep up his neck.

"Dead! What!"

Across the room, Wolverine heard them and unsheathed his claws, ready to kill someone if what the teens had suggested was true. Remy gripped onto the countertop next to him, and the area surrounding hand began to glow. Noticing the commotion, Beast closed the curtain around Rogue's bed and pulled on a pair of gloves to examine Bobby.

"I can assure you all, she is most definitely not dead. Logan, if you would please retract your claws. Remy, I'm rather fond of that table and even fonder of the technology upon it. Please do not blow it up. Jubilation, go stand with them while I examine Robert. Up on the table, Bobby."

Bobby looked around. "There is no table."

"Ah." Beast pressed a button on a nearby wall and an exam table rose out of the floor. He gestured towards it, and Bobby sat down, his movements all accompanied by the sound of ice breaking. He winced, not so much from pain as from the sound itself. It seemed to reform itself without him trying, and didn't hurt in the least. Beast looked over at the four assembled in the doorway, as Jean approached with a tray of medical instruments.

"Perhaps you should all leave. We will alert you of any updates in either of their conditions."

Three of them didn't move. Carol, on the other hand, nodded and tried to herd them out. Still, the three stood in their places, so she was left with no choice but to pick all three of them up (much to their annoyance) and carry them back to the War room. Once she had them back inside, and the door was locked, she dropped them and took her seat again.

"Danvers, I've got half a mind to slice you up right here right now."

She looked at him over her magazine. "You're welcome to try."

Remy was unusually silent, and stood up, leaning against the wall, his eyes transfixed on the monitor. Jubilee mumbled something and sat down in one of the chairs. Looking over at her, Logan realized that someone was missing. "Where's Kitty?"

Jubilee sighed. "When Bobby took off his shirt, she saw the ice and accidentally phased down through the floor. Petey's looking for her now."

Remy looked up. "Dat's gotta be a tough t'ing to wake up to, non?"

Jubilee looked over at him, smiling a little bit. "Yeah... how're you doing?"

He shrugged and pulled out a deck of playing cards. "Been better."

Sliding into an empty seat at the table, he started to play solitaire.

The house was entirely consumed by flames, and the townspeople were scared. They lived a fairly secluded life, never had problems with things like this before. Someone had gone out to the phone on the edge of town and called the fire department, but it would take a while for them to arrive. As they stood huddled in many groups around the house, a sudden wind emerged from the blazing building, tearing up the main street of the town and causing the fire to spread out and catch on a nearby barn. As the townspeople scrambled to rescue the animals inside, the wind slowed about a mile away, first becoming a blur and finally stopping, revealing itself as a young man carrying a young woman. The man set the woman down on a fallen tree and started pacing. She looked up at him.

"Pietro... I... It was an accident." Her eyes were clear blue and showed just how distraught she was. She ran a hand through her dark brown hair and stood up, walking over to him. "Pietro! Answer me!"

Pietro looked up at her with the same eyes, the moonlight reflecting off of his white hair. "Wanda, it's always an accident. It was an accident in the last town, it was an accident the time before that." He spoke fast, and to the point. "You need to stop having accidents like some dog that needs to be housebroken!"

Wanda's expression hardened, and she walked up to him and shoved him against a tree. "Do not compare me to a dog."

Pietro sighed and rolled his eyes before disappearing in a blur of motion, ending up behind her. "Or you'll do what, Wanda?"

She stood, staring ahead of her, but a small, shining pink orb appeared in her hand. She waved her hand towards Pietro and it launched itself towards him, but he was gone. Instead, it hit a tree, causing the plant to wither and die, twisting in ways that it shouldn't.

"Just... don't do it."

He re-emerged at her side and clenched his jaw. "Fine. But we need to find a new place to live. And fast. Those hicks are going to figure out what happened sooner or later."

"All of my stuff was in that house."

"Yeah, and you hexed the oven. Torched the place. We'll get new stuff."

"All of the information we had about him was in there, too."

"I told you to give that up. We won't find him. He was probably just some no-good asshole anyways."

"Don't call my father that!"

"Well, he was. As I see it, he's worse than mom. He abandoned the abandoner."

"I still want to find him."

Pietro sighed and rubbed his temple. "Fine. I'll see if it's still there. But then, we're leaving."

"Thanks, Pietro."

"You're coming with me."

"Great." She rolled her eyes, but the end of the expression was lost as Pietro picked her up again and ran off towards the house, depositing her at the back of the crowd and continuing on into the house. Unfortunately, one of the townspeople noticed her sudden appearance.

"It's the witch!"

"Witch! What, me?" She backed up, but found herself pressed into a corner.

"Yeah, you. I know who you are! You're that same chick who blew up the old place in Rector! My cousin lives there, he told me all about it."

"How about that. Hick networking." Pietro appeared at the edge of the growing crowd, a small metal box in his hand. He waved it in the air, so that Wanda would see that he'd found it and zipped to her side.

"We ain't hicks, moron."

"Oh, ain't you?" He crossed his arms, obviously convinced that they could easily take on the entire town. Wanda wasn't so sure.

"Pietro... what are you doing? Lets just get out of here."

"You're gonna let these backwater buffoons talk to you like that and get away with it?"

She looked at the mob, which was getting angrier and fuller by the second. "Yeah, yeah, I am. And so are you. Lets go."

"Can't you just hex them?"

"I don't want to hurt anyone. Lets just get out of here!"

"Fine." He turned to the crowd. "We'll be leaving."

"No, I don't think you will." One of the men pulled a gun, and the two siblings looked at him, and, at the same time, in the exact same tone of voice, expressed their fear.

"Oh, shit."

A dark, cloaked figure behind the crowd turned, nodding to a large shadow of what seemed to be Bigfoot. Bigfoot nodded back, and the two jumped into the crowd, the smaller cloaked one extending what seemed to be a slimy whip from the inside of the cloak, effectively disarming the man. The man was stunned, and turned around slowly, as the cloaked man removed his outer layer and retracted his tongue.

"Mutants!" Unbeknownst to him, the man standing next to him had transformed into a thin, scaly, blue woman. She tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned again.

"Well put." One well placed punch and he was out. One of the townspeople ran from the barn, carrying a pitchfork. The ground beneath him shook, and he stumbled, dropping the weapon. As he scrambled for it, two figures stepped out of the shadows, and one extended his hand, easily pulling the pitchfork into his grasp. He threw the pitchfork into the woods, as another figure stepped out from behind them and sprinted off towards the burning buildings, raising his hands and making the flames subside.

Magneto and Avalanche approached the crowd from behind, and the group turned on them. Dominic raised his hand and again the ground shook, toppling those who were not expecting for it to happen, including Wanda and Pietro. Sabretooth stepped out of the shadows and approached them, offering his hand. Pietro scrambled to his feet and helped Wanda up.

"No, thanks."

The townspeople were petrified, and Wanda and Pietro were equally scared. As the streets slowly cleared, people running to their houses or for cover elsewhere, the Brotherhood (sans Mystique) regrouped, encircling the Maximoffs. Wanda clutched the small box to herself, worried that it would be taken. As Magneto stepped forward, all eyes were on him. He took off his helmet and looked at the twins.

"Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. You've gotten so big since I last saw you."

Pietro stood in front of his sister. "Who are you? What do you want from us?"

Smiling, Erik extended his hand. "Join us."

"Why should we?" Pietro seemed ready for another fight, but Wanda wasn't going to have any of it.

"We will."

"What? Wanda, we can't just…" His voice was racing, and it was hard to understand what he was saying. Wanda was used to it though.

"Yes we can. They saved our lives. Where else are we going to go? We can't stay here." She stood up and straightened herself out, tucking the box under her arm. "What other choice do we have, Pietro?"

He sighed, and Magneto smiled. With a nod, Pyro stepped away from the group and touched his ear. "Bring it in."

A whooshing noise accompanied by a strong gust of wind announced the arrival of Mystique in a helicopter. With one last glance, Wanda and Pietro followed their new teammates onto the craft.

A/N: Well... sorry about the wait. And dum dum dummm... there's the intro of Pietro and Wanda! I should really post my casting ideas to go along with this, but in my mind, they're played by the Gyllenhaals. So yeah. As for Avalanche, I don't really have any particular actor in mind. Same with Carol Danvers. But I'm working on that.

Oh, I almost forgot. Please review :-)