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Kurt Wagner placed a finger in the center of the map. He checked the determined faces of the teammates who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him: Kitty Pryde and Warren Worthington III. Across the table stood three equally determined combatants: Laura Kinney, Laura’s friend/roommate/clone/sister Gabby, and Laura’s boyfriend, who was, through a sequence of timeline violations that no one had ever explained to Kurt and that he definitely had no desire to try and get his head around, also Warren Worthington III.
“Any questions about territory?” Kurt asked. “Objective? Rules of engagement?”
Gabby cocked her head. “It’s capture the flag, right? I assume the objective is to capture the flag.” Her voice carried a note of long-suffering, with the unmistakable subtext of Grownups are drag, and Kurt was surprised by the strength of his urge to object. Sure, he had joined the X-Men as an adult, but he liked to think of himself as one of the fun, youthful team members. He was one the teens thought of as cool. In the interest of his own dignity, Kurt couldn’t raise this objection out loud, but he looked to Kitty for support.
Kitty held a hand to her mouth, obviously stifling a laugh. At Kurt’s reproachful look, she composed herself and said, “I think we have that part. And of course, powers are okay.”
“Team stealth versus team brute force,” agreed Younger Warren. “And one flyer per side.”
Laura and Gabby glared at him and said, simultaneously, “We’re stealthy.”
“Also,” Laura looked back at Kurt. “Nightcrawler mentioned something about a friendly wager?”
Both of Kurt’s teammates turned to face him. “Did he?” Kitty Pryde raised an eyebrow.
“Did you?” Older Warren (Kurt made a note not to mention he thought of Archangel that way, unless it came up in a context where it would be funny) drummed his fingers on the table. “Is this a wager that I am expected to finance or --?”
“I didn’t say anything about money,” Kurt said, defensively. “But if it comes to that, you’re the one on this team with an eponymous corporation.”
Younger Warren cleared his throat.
“Just don’t forget.” Older Warren gestured at Younger Warren. “Worthington Industries currently has to support both of us in the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed.”
“How does that work?” asked Kitty.
“It’s complicated,” Warren and Warren said together.
“Nightcrawler mentioned a friendly wager,” Laura repeated. She wasn’t about to get distracted from the business at hand.
Kurt tried for his most angelic face. Even next to the two Angels it wasn’t bad. He could make a surprisingly convincing innocent, for a man who looked like a color-blind medieval artist’s idea of the devil. “What I told Wolverine is that Logan and I used to make a friendly wager.”
Kitty snorted. “You and Logan used to play for beer.”
“Beer?” Gabby gaped. “I’m thirteen!”
Laura crossed her arms and trained her gaze on Kurt. “If you’re old enough to drink beer, shouldn’t that make you too old to play games for beer?”
Kurt hated to think “kids these days,” but this was the thing about kids these days. You had to show them you were fun, but apparently you couldn’t be too fun or that was frivolous. Possibly he shouldn’t take lab-grown clones and time-displaced founding X-Men as indicative of “kids” but it was starting to feel like a trend.
Younger Warren put up a hand. “I wouldn’t mind playing for beer?”
Older Warren made a face. “You don’t want any beer these two would buy. I’ll teach you about good wine some time.”
“I got it.” Kitty clapped her hands. “Dinner. The staff has the night off, most of the students are on a field trip, and the kitchen is well stocked. Losers cook a yummy and nutritious dinner for the winners.”
Young Warren, who Kurt was certain had never boiled water, looked slightly alarmed. Laura shook off his concern. “Gabby and I cook for ourselves all the time. If we lose, which we won’t, you can be our sous chef.”
“That means Laura tells you what to do,” Gabby explained. Then she raised her hand. “Professor Wagner, if we stay for dinner, is Jonathan invited?” Kurt, who wasn’t sure what actual wolverines ate or if it would be a good idea to have one in the X-Mansion’s kitchen, looked at Kitty for approval.
“He is an omnivore,” said Laura.
“Who’s Jonathan?” asked Older Warren.
“He’s a wolverine,” Kurt explained
This did not clear up Warren’s confusion. “I thought the clones were all girls.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kitty assured him. “Gabby, Jonathan is welcome. Now, synchronize watches. Three minutes to get in position and let the games begin.”
*
Gabby didn’t have a watch. She and Laura both had wrist communicators that were networked to their heavily encrypted smartphones, but those didn’t need synchronizing, they were connected to a satellite or something.
Warren had an enormous Rolex that Older Warren had given him for his birthday. He didn’t know how it worked, though, and he was afraid of breaking it, so it mostly sat on his dresser in his room, next to a basket full of cash he left out in case his friends needed it. Sometimes people touched the cash, but nobody seemed to care about the Rolex.
Warren worried a little bit about how boring his older self seemed to have gotten.
“It’s probably been three minutes,” Warren suggested, when they had more or less gotten the flag in place. “What does your wristcomm say, Honey Badger?”
“2:17?” Gabby frowned. “But I forgot to look at what time it was when Professor Pryde said three minutes. Laura?”
“Code names in the field, Honey Badger.” Wolverine put her hands on her hips. “I feel like you two aren’t taking this seriously. Don’t you want to win?”
“I think it would be fun to cook dinner for them,” Honey Badger said.
“And I like it when Wolverine tells me what to do.” Angel waggled an eyebrow.
Now Honey Badger was puzzled. “Lau - - hhh, Wolverine. Why is Angel making that face?”
“God knows. But I’m field leader, so Angel can start following my orders now.” Wolverine pointed at him. “You fly reconnaissance and see who’s guarding their flag. If you don’t see anybody, that means Nightcrawler’s probably lurking so watch out. If you just see -- you -- then -- “
“Then I’ll try swiping flag from under his nose,” Angel answered. “I’m younger and faster and have better eyes than him -- umm, than old me? Plus, if they leave him to guard the flag by himself he’s probably on Twitter. The Apple shareholder meeting is today.” He shook his head. “I don’t know the deal with my older self. Promise me you’ll stab me before I get that boring?”
“I don’t stab anymore.” Wolverine pecked him on the cheek before he took off. “I’ll definitely thwack you over the head though.”
When he was gone, Wolverine turned to Honey Badger. “Now let’s talk defense.”
*
Kitty leaned down from the tree branch to get a good look at where Gabby was standing in front of the flag.
A ‘bamf’ sounded in her ear, and she smelled familiar sulfur as Kurt materialized beside her.
“Do you think it was a good idea to put Archangel in charge of guarding the flag?” Kitty asked. “I bet you dollars to donuts he’s on Twitter.”
“Truly, I’m shocked our Warren Kenneth was willing to do something so frivolous at all, much less during a shareholder event. But he is making more of an effort to bond with his younger self. And as for Laura --”
Kitty could tell that Kurt had more to say, but he didn’t seem to know where to start. Kitty had known him for a long time, though. She squeezed his hand. “I know. I miss Logan, too. And Laura’s living in his old apartment now. She and Gabby are doing a pretty good job of making it on their own. But we want her to know she has a home here, with Logan’s old friends.”
“Yes,” Kurt said. “Certainly. All of that. But I was just going to say I understand from the All New X-Men that she makes a mean chili, and I’m looking forward to winning so we can taste it.” Then he flashed the brilliant Errol Flynn smile he was so good at, the one that had so often warned the angsty teen Kitty used to be not to take things too seriously.
Kitty stuck her tongue out at him. She knew he missed Logan, too, and, right now, this was better than crying.
Then she looked past Kurt and frowned. “Where’d Gabby go? The flag is totally unguarded.” For a matter-phaser and a teleporter, the two of them certainly sucked at reconnaissance.
“Come on, Liebling,” Kurt said, just before he vanished into a cloud of sulfur. “I’ll race you.”
*
The game ended in a tie. Despite everything that Kurt and Kitty had done to establish ground rules, they hadn’t provided for the contingency of Nightcrawler and Shadowcat finding themselves in a tug-o-war with an actual wolverine, who refused to relinquish the flag. As terms of the truce, the younger team agreed to prepare dinner, while Kurt’s team took care of the cleanup.
“It was a trap!” Gabby whooped delightedly, as they settled around the dinner table that night. “We knew we couldn’t outstealth you, but if you thought it was unguarded, you would show yourself but you didn’t count on Jonathan.”
“Yes,” said Laura. “This was definitely part of my plan and Gabby’s wolverine didn’t just run out of nowhere and grab the flag in his teeth.”
“I’m still not sure,” said Older Warren, “how your pet gets to count as part of your team.”
“We agreed powers are okay,” said Younger Warren. “Controlling Jonathan is part of Honey Badger’s power set.”
Everyone was quiet for a second, and Laura leaned toward her boyfriend. “Babe? First, I don’t think we need to hear from either of you, considering that when we went to find you, you were both on Older Warren’s phone looking at Tim Cook talk about bigger, better iPads.”
“Smaller is better, really,” said Younger Warren.
“You call me Older Warren?” said Older Warren.
“Second,” Laura continued. “You think that Gabby has the power to . . . talk to wolverines?”
“I thought you all could,” said Kurt.
“Logan definitely could,” said Kitty.
Everyone looked at Kurt and Kitty skeptically, until Kurt broke into a grin.
“Anyone can talk to wolverines.” Kurt grinned. “Now whether they listen. . .”
Everyone around the table groaned, now, united by a bad joke.
“It’s not that hard to know what they want,” Gabby pronounced. “Right now? Jonathan wants a bowl of Laura’s chili."
Jonathan didn’t say anything, unless you counted the contented grumble of a hungry wolverine stuffing his face.
The others took their cues and all dug in.
It really was a great chili. Kurt wasn’t surprised.
He would recognize Logan’s recipe anywhere.