Disclaimer: Marvel owns X-men, I don't. So please don't sue.

Author's Note: This story is becoming a life goal moreso than a side project. However, I'm still trying to post a new chapter every summer. I don't have as much time to work on them, but I would eventually like to get this finished. So for everyone who has stuck around, you have both my thanks for your support, and my apologies for the long stretch of time between updates. Included here are my timeline of major events in the lives or Gambit, Jubilee, and how old they are at different points in their interaction. I have also included a timeline of Bastian and O:ZT, as well as where my timeline departs from canon. But feel free to skip all this and go straight to the story. Enjoy :)

This story assumes that there is a five year difference between Gambit and Jubilee.

Gambit's Timeline

0-1 - Prophesied and Stolen from birth

14 – Gambit picks Jean Luc's pocket and is adopted

15 – Meets Belle

18 – Exiled from New Orleans

21 - Meets Sinister and unknowingly organizes Morlock Massacre

22 – Turns over a new leaf. Meets Storm and joins the X-men

27 – Rogue finds out about his past and leaves for Savage Land with Joseph (who gives her a necklace to control her powers). Gambit is put on trial and left to die in Antartica. Rogue (and the others) leave him to die and return to X-Men with Joseph.

28 – Survives assasination attempts by New Son

29 – Meets back up with Storm and returns to X-men. Rogue helps him expunge the green mist lady, but storyline departs from there.

Jubilee's Timeline

5 – Parents are killed. Goes from Beverly Hills Prep to bouncing around group homes

15 - Runs around L.A. until her friend CynJen is killed by her malfunctioning powers.

16 - Discovers she is a mutant and lives at the mall where she entertains people with her fireworks for survival.

17 – Follows the X-women through the Siege Perilous and rescues Wolverine. Travels the world as Wolverine's sidekick. Officially joins the X-men and runs with them on missions

18 – Abandoned by Wolverine who had his adamantium ripped out by Magneto (now Joseph). Joins Generation X and is a late bloomer academically.

19 – Hunts down her parents' killers. Her room is burned during anti mutant protests when the school is exposed for harboring mutants. Synch sacrifices himself to save her.

20 - Kidnapped by Bastion and graduates Generation X that same year.

21 - Tries the college life

22 – Works with X-Force

23 – Goes back to the X-men. Goes on a few missions before Cyclops takes her off the roster at 24 saying she needs a break.

25 - Constantly monitored for malfunctioning powers (which begins my story arc).

How Jubilee and Gambit's Timeline intersect:

Jubilee's parents are killed around the same time Gambit organizes Morlock Massacre. Jubilee is 16. Gambit just turned 21.

They both join the X-men roughly around the same time – Gambit is 22, Jubilee 17.

Jubilee is captured by Bastion while with Gen X while Gambit goes on missions with the X-men and gets close to Rogue. The two know of each other but maintain separate lives on separate teams.

Jubilee is tormented for five years as Bastian bides his time, studying her every move, torturing her physically and mentally.

Gambit is abandoned in Antartica after the Trial around the same time Cyclops declares Jubilee unfit for the field.

A year later at 29, he tries to help 25-year-old Jubilee cope with what they've both been through because of the X-men (which begins my story arc).

Bastian's Timeline

Project Wideacre – Creation of Mark V Sentinals – they are robots just like in the cartoon (financed by Sebastian Shaw Industries). Mastermold is created to control them. First appearance New Mutants Volume 1 issue 2.

Operation: Zero Tolerance – Mastermold becomes synched with Bastion (a future version of himself). Created the first wave of robot and human sentinals. The program went underground when government funding was pulled. Gyrich and Trask are the private backers who want to keep the program running and are biding their time to pitch the new program for government support and funding.

Project Wideacre Reboot – Gambit, Shadowcat, and Wolverine break into Bastion's old O:ZT base to steal back the files on the X-men that Bastion obtained during that arc. They get the files, but fail to realize Bastion is experimenting with creating mutant sentinals. If he can control their powers he can use them for the "greater good" to eliminate the mutant threat.

In the future Bastion will combine with an alternate version of himself (Nimrod) if he is not stopped by Jubilee.

Bastian is still pretty basic at this point. His cybernetic soldiers and sentinals are enhanced beyond what they were in the cartoon. But they are not nimrod models (which have the capability of time travel, regeneration, indestructability, and immunity to telepathy). Bastian is still in the early phases of experimenting with time travel and the astral plane thanks to the technology he's been sucking up at SHIELD.