Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Well, there’s good news, bad news, and hilarious news.

The good news: they’d followed the trafficking ring they’d been hunting back along the line from the group in Hell’s Kitchen, and found the last of them operating at a middle school knows for its ‘runaways’ and ‘truants’.

The bad news: they’d alerted the remaining ring members to their presence, and they had gone into hiding.

Good news again: all of them were low-ranked, and thus inexperienced enough to think just two weeks was enough time for the Brotherhood to give up looking for them, and Altair’s Sight showed them snatching a few kids from the school sometime soon.

And that’s where they get to the hilarious news. Obviously, a bunch of armed, costumed vigilantes can’t hang out at a school, and there weren’t any job openings to get them in undercover.

There was, however, one member that would blend in perfectly.

“I hate this. I hate you all.”

Connor mutters out the corner of his mouth, face carefully not showing his rage as he and Desmond, who is the only one who can pass as a relative, wait outside the administration office to fill out student registration papers.

Desmond, likewise, forces his lips not to smirk, instead continuing to fill out the papers with complete bullsh*t. Believable bullsh*t, since they’d gotten Connor’s civilian identity backed up by hackers, but totally fake otherwise.

Connor very nearly stabs him, Desmond sees it, when he gives the ‘kid’ a jaunty wave as he leaves the school. Connor glares at him as the door closes, flashing him the finger before the assistant leads him away to his classroom.

Desmond smirks, and heads for the nearest Gap Kids. He saw some cool new Avengers shirts in an ad, and figures ‘Hey, that’ll help him fit in, right?’

Connor sets the Hulk shirt and matching foam fists on fire.

He’s been here less than one school week, and he’s already come close to stabbing a few middle schoolers.

Most of them just ignore him after the initial interest of ‘new student’, but a few girls kept being weird in a way he figured meant they liked him, and a few boys thought making fun of his longer hair and calling him ‘Injun Joe’ was the funniest thing on earth.

Far be it from him, an actual adult who lived into his 50s (which was pretty good for both an Assassin and the 1700’s, apparently), to start a fist fight with a bunch of children, but…

Well. He needs to be drawing attention from the teachers as a troublemaker, and bullies tended to back off after realizing they’d picked a fight they can’t win. Connor kicks the ringleader in the groan in full view of a teacher he knows will report it, and Desmond makes sure to sound entirely unconcerned about the entire thing. By Thursday, most of the school was full of rumors- spread by him and his ‘overheard phone calls’- that his parents had gone to jail and his distant cousin was trying to find someone else to take him.

The traffickers, stupid and inexperienced as they are, take that as an invitation.

‘Finally!’ is probably not what most 13 year olds would think as they’re snatched off the street, shoved into a cliché white van, and driven off into the warehousey area. Seriously. They even have the stupid black masks and brass knuckles and sh*t they wave in his face as a ‘threat’ for him to behave.

‘Yeah. Right.’

“Hey, you need any backup?”

Connor barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes at Eivor’s inquiry.

“No.” He responds as they ‘drag’ him out of the van and towards a locked shipping container in the corner. Eagle vision shows that there are several children inside, and Connor’s blood boils.

“No, I’ll be just fine.”

Eivor sends the mental equivalent of a chuckle and a thumbs up before leaving him to his own devises. Connor waits until the warehouse door is closed and locked, and then moves.

Larissa isn’t a very powerful Mutant. She’s just an empath, with a tiniest sliver of telekinesis that only manifests when her heart rate reaches a certain point. Still, her powers are useful in finding young mutants before their own develop. She and her current partner, a hydrokinetic named Donnie, are currently assigned to New York City.

After the Attack last year, there were several children who’s powers manifested early due to the life-threatening situation they’d found themselves in. It was decided that until they could be sure the trauma from the Attack had passed enough not to trigger more manifestations, they were permanently assigned to the schools here, rather than traveling around like the other teams.

This, of course, led to them having to come up with more of a backstory than they usually did, as they basically made a loop through all the middle and high schools. This school, in particular, was one they’d last been through about four months ago. Larissa is relieved to feel a lot less anger-fear-greed-hopelessness than she had last time, and also notices that there seem to be more children and new staff, which… yes, she can guess how that all correlates, unfortunately.

Anyway, the two of them are just leaving the school as it let out, having presented themselves as ‘counselors’ checking on the students’ welfare, when they witnesses just about the most amateur kidnapping of their lives, and they’d had to thwart several over their five years of finding and protecting young Mutants.

They only thing that keeps them from ruining their cover and rushing in- Donnie could make some nasty little ice daggers that could pop out tires and pin people to stuff- was the fact that the kid, despite looking panicked, felt like anticipation/finally/excitement. That… was very unusual, and then they realize that the kidnappee is the same kid that they’d been eyeballing as ‘possibly not normal’. Because, again, emotions not matching up to expressions.

So, they hop in their car, discreetly follow the kidnappers, and are eventually led to the most cliché warehouse they’d ever seen for one of these. Honestly, these guys have to be either new or stupid, to be this bad at this.

They park around the block, sneak back to the warehouse, and start looking for a discreet way in. Only, that discretion goes flying straight out the window at the sounds of screams, gunshots, and terrified shouts of “Kill it! Kill it!”.

Donnie freezes the lock off a back door and they both rush inside, him with ice daggers and her with tranq darts, only to find… carnage, really.

Dead bodies, pools of blood and bullet casings all littering the floor, and across the room, in a spotless white hoody, is the kid, trying to pick the lock on the shipping container they can now hear cries of help coming from. The kid stops and turns to stare at them, and they stare back, bewildered by this turn of events. After a few seconds, the kid shrugs, pockets the lock picks, and tells them,

“Well, since you’re here, I’ll leave clean-up to you. I was just gonna lie to the cops, but you can do it instead.”

Before they can process that statement, the kid takes a running start towards the wall, hauls himself up along the cracked brick like some sort of spider, and then just leaps out the broken window near the roof, 20 feet in the air. That rouses them out of shock enough for them to sprint outside, expecting to find an injured child, only…

Nothing. No footprints in the dirt outside the warehouse, no blood any sign of injury or the carnage inside, just… nothing.

They turn to stare at each other, both thinking the same thing even as they call the police and build up their cover story.

‘We need the Professor.’

Chapter Text

Charles Xavier has experienced many great, wondrous, and strange things in his life. So when two of his Searchers call him in a panic about a Mutant child that let himself be kidnapped in order to kill the human traffickers, he is a bit surprised, but shrugs it off pretty quickly. Even seeing the pictures they took before the police got there- the blood, the stab wounds, the fact that one of them was nearly gutted- it turns his stomach a bit, as unpleasant images tend to do, but not more than usual.

He is, however, quite bewildered by the fact that attempting to use Cerebro to track down the child results in… well. He can only describe it as getting ‘weird vibes’, in place of an actual location.

Oh, he knows the address, yes, and gathers both Logan and Scott to accompany him, but he cannot connect to the child’s mind. Nor the other minds he senses near the boy. That, alone, is enough to have him investigating personally, along with backup. He’s old and powerful, yes, but not arrogant. With no way to access their minds, there’s not much he could do to defend himself, should they prove hostile.

And so, that is how Professor X and two of his X-men find themselves in an apartment building in Washington Heights on a Saturday morning, having pulled the elevator code from the mind of the polite young man running the lobby office to give them access to one of the two upper floors that were locked to public access.

The lower floor they skip, Charles sensing nothing there but the minds of many children, most asleep but a few up and thinking grumpy thoughts about the ‘homework rules’. The next up, the second highest floor, is the one they stop at, bracing themselves for anything as the doors slide open with a ding.

Rather than surprise, anger, or even nothing, they are met with a young man in his twenties, hair short and clothes casual, who is leaning against the hallway wall. He turns to them with a raised eyebrow, scans over their civilian clothing, and pushes himself away from the wall while shouting down the corridor,

“Connor! Your stalkers are here!”

He turns back to them, casually gesturing them out of the elevator.

“Come on in, Altair Saw you were coming. We’ve got snacks and sh*t set up in the kitchen, the others’ll meet us there.”

Bewildered and a bit amused (along with impressed, that they could hear the capitalized S), they follow the young man into an open doorway to the left, leading into a large kitchen that contains both counter seating and an enormous, 20-person table. On the right wall are a few more doors, one of which is marked ‘theatre’ and the other left open to reveal a large living room, with several couches and chairs and a large tv. Two men and a woman exit said room, the latter with dark hair and a facial scar, and one of the former appearing of Middle Eastern descent.

The other man, with brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail, greets them with a French accent and introduces himself as Arno. The hallway man calls himself Desmond, and gives the other two’s names as Eivor and the aforementioned Altair. The ‘others’ start filing in then, introducing themselves as they arrive and sit at the table. The only other woman, British, is named Evie, and her brother Jacob. A well-dressed Italian man shakes their hands with a smile and an “Ezio Auditore, pleasure to meet you, gentiluomini.”.

The last two to arrive are the boy, of Native American descent, who glowers at them and is introduced as Connor, and Nikolai, a Russian of few words that sits next to Arno and gains several narrow-eyed looks which they answer with faux innocence.

They all sit in silence for a moment, the plates of crackers and cheese left ignored as both sides await the other to begin.

“Don’t think we’ll get anything outta them without talkin, Boss.”

Charles hides his amusement at Logan’s sarcasm, before settling back in his chair a bit. He waits a moment longer, feels Scott’s vigilance and Logan’s impatience, before deciding to be the one to start.

“My name is Charles Xavier. I am a Mutant with telepathic abilities. I am also the founder of a school exclusively for young Mutants, which allows them a safe place to learn and grow into their powers without being threatened or becoming a threat. Behind me are Scott and Logan. Scott is both a teacher at my school and the current leader of the X-Men, a team of Mutants that-“

“Has saved the world several times over the past few decades, and got no thanks for it. We know. Altair can see visions of the future: we looked you up after he Saw you come here.”

Charles hums at that, allowing his surprise to be seen. Precognition was… exceptionally rare, so much so that, despite there being tens of thousands of Mutants, he’d only discovered two with the ability. One was currently a student of his, and the other a follower of Magneto.

Desmond lets them have a moment before continuing, eyes on them with such an intensity that Charles is certain he is seeing something other than just them.

“So, since we know you’re good people, and we already know about you, we’ve voted to give you the full story. In exchange, you tell no one about this without our permission, and if you ever need help you can call us. Sound good?”

Charles nods without pause, though he can feel Scott’s hesitance. The three Mutants are stared at for a few more seconds, during which he could swear he saw Desmond’s eyes flash gold, before the man leans back and begins his tale, voice steady even as his fingers twitch.

“So we’re all the last living descendants of a species that came before humans, known as the Isu. The others were all killed by a super solar flare 75,000 years ago, and our ancestors blended in and with the humans that were left. We were all members of a larger group of these descendants, but we were attacked and nearly wiped out. We went into hiding until the killers were all dead, and now we’re rebuilding a secret organization that our ancestors ran to protect the world from tyranny.

It was spread all across the globe before the Purges, which is why we are all so different despite being related. That non-human blood gives us shared powers, such as enhanced agility, strength, and speed, along with something we call Eagle Vision. But we also sometimes pop out another one if we come into contact with one of the Isu’s surviving artifacts, which we all did, and is the reason we are currently alive.”

He stops for a moment, letting them digest the slew of information they’ve just been given. Charles can hear the churning thoughts of his two companions, and has a few of his own.

‘Another species? Is it possible Mutants could have some relation to these Isu as well?’

Desmond takes a deep breath, then gestures towards the purpose of their visit.

“Connor is actually an adult, the artifact he touched just did something weird before crumbling to dust. So we weren’t, like, letting a 13 year old go off into danger alone. Oh, and thanks to an experiment by people now very dead, we all have memories of a past ancestor, from various points in history, and since we needed new identities we all chose new names based on those cause we basically became them when the machine we were in was used for too long too often. So like, mental reincarnation I guess. So yeah, that’s uh, that’s us, here. Questions?”

Charles is… fascinated.

Chapter Text

Desmond is tired.

In between pretending to be Connor’s guardian for the undercover op, he spent most of the week dealing with problems at the bar, because some idiot ordered everything wrong and he had to spend hours doing paperwork and making calls in order to get it all returned and refunded and the company intentionally makes things like that difficult.

Then he had to go on a snipe hunt through several different stores in order to find everything they needed in bulk, because their new, correct delivery wouldn’t arrive until the next day.

And then half the employees called in sick because a different idiot drank straight out of the juice carton in the shared employee fridge in the back room and spread his germs everywhere.

So he and the other half had to pull double shifts for three days straight, and he couldn’t let any of the Brotherhood so much as step foot inside because one catastrophe at a time is him limit, thank you very much.

Of course, once the orders were corrected and the employees back and he could sleep, he gets woken up from his nap by Connor telepathically bonking them all over the head. He then tells them that the last of the traffickers are dead (good), that he was followed and seen making them dead (bad), and then Eivor cuts in to tell everyone that Altair just Saw a bald old guy in a wheelchair and two other people show up at their building within the next 24 hours.

Fantastic.

So then Alty has to sketch out what they look like, send it to their hackers, and then they all wait around to see what they come up with.

And boy oh boy, do they come up with some sh*t.

Apparently, their future visitors are none other than the founder and leader of the X-Men, a group of Mutant superheroes that, according to what the hackers found, had saved the world for the first time in 1962 and twice in 2003.

‘Heh. We should start a club. Secret Groups That Prevent Disasters.’

It’s as Desmond starts to imagine what the tshirts would look like that he decides he needs sleep. Under threat of stabbing, no one enters his nice, dark, quiet room until the next morning, when his alarm clock is joined by Connor announcing,

“Hacker says their cameras tagged the X-Men headed for our building.”

With a massive, heartfelt sigh and an apology to his bed (he’s still tired, okay?!) the current Mentor of the Assassin Brotherhood heaves himself out of the soft sheets and tosses on some clothes. A quick bathroom break, brushing teeth and splashing water on his face, and he’s out the door and walking down the hall. He heads for the kitchen first, and pulls out one of the cheese and cracker trays they all like to snack off of and sets it on the big table they use when they have the kids upstairs.

After that, he gets an alert on his phone- one they all get, actually- that tells them the access code for the two private floors was used in the elevator. Desmond wanders back out and leans against the wall outside the lift, watching idly as the numbers tick higher.

Finally, it’s stops with a ding, and the doors slide open to reveal Professor Charles Xavier, Mutant Telepath Extraordinaire, and two members of his X-Men team Desmond recognizes from the hacker’s files;

Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, who currently leads the team and glows the purple-rimmed gold that signifies that he could become either Ally or Enemy.

Beside him is Logan, AKA Wolverine, who the hackers had a lot of fun tracking backwards through what history records where online. They only got back to the late 70’s or so, when Logan- then James Howlett- was a member of a ‘super secret’ group of Mutants recruited by the military to run spec ops missions. Cute.

All three follow Desmond into the kitchen easily enough, and after a slow and awkward start, they’re able to get things hashed out.

Mostly.

Desmond gives the Mutants the same type of sanitized story they gave Matt. No way in hell are the getting into the alternate dimension and time travel (even just a few weeks, seriously, what’s up with that?) and suns blasting Earth.

Which… was another thing they needed to figure out. Apparently this Earth was a few weeks behind theirs or something, and was different enough that the sun didn’t kill everyone. Or this sun is just on a different schedule, and they’re all going to get roasted well-done at some point.

Fun thoughts.

Anyway, Desmond doesn’t need to be the a telepath to see the absolute fascination on the Professor’s face about the whole ‘another species’ thing. Probably wondering, as the Assassins had, if the Mutants might have been a result of them somehow. They already know that the Isu liked to experiment, and if Eivor can be the genetic reincarnation of the Isu Odin then who’s to say that the Mutants couldn’t be a result of the genetic tampering?

Actually… huh.

“Hey, Eivor? You were able to connect with your Isu predecessor with some sort of herbal potion before, right?”

The X-Men look a bit startled at Desmond’s apparently change of subject, but the others are starting to see where this is going. Eivor sits up straighter, looking interested, as she answers,

“Yes, I did. I experienced visions and sought guidance on their meaning. I drank the potion and experienced another one in full. You think doing so again would allow me to dig for more information?”

“Yeah, or at least I figure it’s worth a shot. Connor, you did something similar too once, right?”

He shrugs. “Sort of.”

“… So between the two of you and the internet, think you could make up that herbal potion stuff?”

They both share a look that Desmond knows is actually them ‘talking’. They turn back after a few moments.

“Yeah, sure.”

Desmond fixes Connor with a Look.

“… I think you integrated into the school a little too well there.”

Most of the others snicker as Connor gets an outraged look on his face, only worsened as Eivor reaches over to ruffle his hair, pulling some of it out of the short brain. Connor retaliates by flashing out a hand to yank on one of the tiny braids she has hanging from her face, and-

Wait.

“… Weren’t you blonde last night?”

Several of the others snort at him, and Eivor rolls her eyes.

“I haven’t been blonde since last week, Mentor. Next time, I’ll choose something to make me look like one of those teenagers we saw at the mall, see how long it takes you to notice pink and blue.”

“…”

Desmond turns away with what little smidgen of dignity he’s still got and addresses their bemused visitors.

“Is there a good time for us to come meet with you all at your school? We need at least a few days to do the memory potion thing but I get the feeling we’d all like to know if we’re related or not. I’m guessing you have facilities set up to do blood tests and stuff?”

“…Yes, we do, in fact. Would next Friday around 5:00 pm work for you? Classes will be out then, and it will give me time to call in a friend of mine, if that’s all right with you? I assure you, he is very professional.”

Desmond shrugs, not really caring one way or another. Right now, he just wants sleep.

“Yeah, sure, whoever you want. As long as everything stays confidential, we don’t mind teaming up.”

The Professor smiles.

“Excellent.”

… Desmond gets the feeling he’s going to spend next Friday night getting poked.

Fantastic.

Chapter Text

While Odin and his people did not have much contact with the Realms of Suttungr of Jotunheim— also called Tinia, Jupiter or Zeus, by his human slaves— or Poseidon/Neptune of the island Atlantis, he did, however, have enough spies to know of what happened in their war against their uprising human slaves. Presently, is seemed as if the human were gaining the upper hand. And while the Jotnar fought thralls and wasted time and resources, the Aesir/Vanir were recovering from their own war and looking for ways to survive the coming Ragnarok.

Odin had been able to steal some information himself when he tricked Suttungr and Minerva into allowing him into their city, hacking into the Jotnar databases around the world using their computers. After giving the Mead over to his own scientists to prepare for use, he had searched through his bounty.

Discovering that several of the other groups were also attempting to supplant themselves into the hardier human bodies wasn’t a surprise. Their experiments on captured human prisoners was… largely unsuccessful, consciousness-transference wise, so they had instead started looking into ways to improve themselves, to make their own bodies better suited to survive Ragnarok.

They tweaked the human genes to contain Isu dna, to make them closer to themselves, then began to tweak that as well. The mutations that the modifications created were odd, and some not at all useful, but others…

Well, if his scientists could get the Mead to work, it was a thought to keep in mind. Having an improved body ready to take over after rebirth…

It was unexpected, their survival. They had thought, after uploading their consciousnesses into the Yggdrasil, that they would be killed by the Great Catastrophe. That they would perish in Ragnarok, as millions of others did.

Instead, they stood in just the right spot, while Earth was at just the right angle, at just the right time, to live.

They searched, of course. The nine of them and the others who survived with them. Went out in pairs to check all the cities, all the Realms. The human the Jotun has been fighting came off better, in the thousands. Of the Isu, of all of those different Realms and cultures across the world, there were only a few hundred. Not nearly enough, at their rate of reproduction, to save their species, despite their centuries-long lives. So, accepting their fate, and deciding to imbue all they could upon the humans to ensure their legacy, at least, would lead on, they began to work.

Thanks to the Research buildings being made to last, most were intact enough that their discovered gene manipulation, combined with certain Pieces of Eden that the Isu were slowly collecting and storing away, was enough to expand the survivors lives by thousands of years, thought the process of ongoing and painful, and sometimes deadly. For every few thousand years more they lived, another of their people died in the process.

It was not much of a surprise, to eventually discover that some of the mutated humans had gotten free and mixed with the populace. They didn’t show any signs of the ‘powers’ the scientists had seen potential of, nor did their descendants. It wasn’t until the Others came, that something… interesting began to happen.

It was about 55,000 years after the Great Catastrophe that They came. Their technology was comparable to the Isu’s at the height of their civilization, but still millennia behind. Seeing a new opportunity to spread their legacy, not just among Earth’s humans, but to the stars as well, the few remaining Isu were welcoming of these Newcomers. By then, it was mostly just Odin and a few Aesir and Vanir left, the others having died during the Rejuvenations.

They taught these Newcomers their names, their history, their culture and technology. Young as they were, the physically advanced beings soaked up the knowledge like sponges, and gratefully accepted the Pieces the Isu gifted them. Better in the Newcomers hands, they thought, than in the hands of the humans, who even now showed signs of power-hunger and greed, even slavery (and oh, the irony of that!).

The Others also, in their curiosity, visited the humans nearest their landing sight. It was a land of desert, made fertile and livable only by the river which flowed through it. The people there were dark-skinned, a trait they had adapted over the millennia in this area to withstand the heat and sun. Just as the Isu once had, the Others, too, ‘mixed’ with the humans and passed their genes on.

It was a few millennia after that, once the Others had returned to their planet to spread the fantastic knowledge and stories they’d gained, that the mutated humans once again made an appearance.

Apparently, Other genes mixing with the mutated human/Isu dna was just what was needed. Those ‘powers’ the scientists had been attempting to induce revealed themselves, sometimes rather explosively.

These powers raised them above the other humans, made them seem god-like as the Isu once had. As some of their powers paralleled what the humans thought their ‘gods’ had stood for, so some of these Mutants in turn were considered those gods.

Odin, by that time the last Isu survivor, was amused by this. And relieved, as the Others, now calling themselves Asgardians in their mentors’ honor, had returned around the time the humans were populous and advanced enough to begin organizing into civilizations and producing rulers. It was, in fact, the grandson of one of the previous explorers that showed up, using the teleportation technology they had given the aliens thousands of years before. Bor, son of Bir, he calls himself, the name of Odin’s own father and grandfather. A warrior king, who fought off the Dark Elves during the convergence of the Nine Realms, ruler of the new Asgard founded by Bir.

And so Odin learns, in his last days, of how the new Asgardians had adopted the Aesir’s customs and religions and legends, naming their own children after the great stories that were brought to them from the stars. They used the gifted knowledge and technology to find and explore other planets within the ‘area’, naming them and their species after the Realms they compare to. They returned, in part, to show their gratitude for the advancements by creating a device to contain the next Solar Flare. By then, in his old, old, old age, Odin no longer has the mental capacity to understand their excited ramblings. He knows they launch it into the sun itself, and he knows that it will prevent another Ragnarok, and he knows that his peoples legacy will live on.

And that, he thought, as he died in his homeland of Asgard, was a victory worthy of achieving Valhalla.

Chapter Text

Silence hangs over the room as Eivor finishes speaking, the tale of her Ancestor heard for the first time in millennia.

The other Assassins don’t have much of a reaction, other than thoughtful looks. They’ve all seen and experienced far stranger things than the story that was just told.

The Mutants in the room, however, are having a variety of reactions. Professor Xavier has a calm, thoughtful air about him, obviously carefully considering the story and putting it together with what he knows.

Doctor Hank McCoy, a very blue and hairy Mutant with glasses, is diligently scribbling notes into the previously-empty journal sitting on the table before him, dozens of pages filled with his scrawled shorthand as he rushes to get the story and his initial thoughts on it recorded.

Doctor Jean Grey is likewise writing in her own journal, but it seems to be more on the gene and DNA manipulation she’d heard about.

Logan Wolverine, Scott Summers, Ororo Munroe, Piotr Rasputin, and Kurt Wagner, all teachers at the school, were also in attendance. There were, of course, other instructors here, but they would occasionally volunteer to rotate out with the Searchers they sent to check for new Mutants and provide rescues if necessary. Those present were also the current members of the X-Men Team.

All of the Assassins were sitting with the Mutants in a large conference room that was in the secret basement of the school. That had been pretty cool to find out, and the clean, futuristic design made the Brotherhood’s dusty old tunnels they used seem so… boring.

‘Baby steps,’ Desmond thinks, lips twitching with a smile, ’give it a few more months, and we can buy a nice piece of property out in the country and build our own Secret Hideout. Hmmm, I wonder if the Davenport Homestead exists here…’

Desmond— and everyone else’s— attention is brought back to Dr. McCoy, who clears his throat and sets down his pen. He looks around at the group, inhales, and then just… talks. A lot.

Mostly it’s questions about the ‘vision’, asking for more details; possible dates, timelines, do any others have these memories, would you be willing to try it, what are these herbs that you used, could you all give us samples of your DNA so that we can do more research into this, what about those devices they spoke about, are there any left on Earth, what about their cities, so Atlantis actually existed, do you know where-

Desmond and his relatives answer as best they can, whenever the guy stops to take a breath. Occasionally, one of the other Mutants manages to slip a question in as well, and once Dr. McCoys run outta steam a bit the Assassins are able to ask some questions of their own. They talk long enough that the Professor apparently sends a mental message to have lunch brought down for them, and then they keep talking.

Eventually, a few hours after the meal, they all get tired of sitting and decide to do some doing. Apparently, there’s a full medical center, which they visit and get stuck with needles and swabbed and scanned, but that’s not the doing.

That comes when they find out that there is a massive, high tech training room they call the Danger Room.

Yes .

It’s been ages since they’ve all had a good, real challenge. Apparently, the X-Men hadn’t had a good fight since those messes ten years ago either, just skirmishes really, so once they’re all geared up and they’ve got the Room turned on…

Oh, Yeah.

It’s nearly dinner time before they’ve all gotten themselves worn out enough to finally leave the Room. Well, the Assassins and Wolverine, anyways. The other X-men duck out a lot sooner, and by the end the kids— including theirs, since they figured this would make a fun field trip— are all gathered in the observation room and cheering them on.

Judging by the ‘sly’ changing of hands among the older students, several of their kids just won some bets.

‘Ah, entrepreneurs already! Ezio must be proud.’

(And yeah, Desmond is aware he’s called them ‘their’ kids. They are, at this point. They feed, house, clothe, and educate them, and care for their other, non-physical needs as well, and that’s what parents are supposed to do, right? If only several of the Assassins parents had gotten that memo.)

Anyway, with it getting late, they decide to head back to the city. Kids to feed, gangs to run, criminals to scare. Ya know, the usual weekend plans.

They all say their goodbye’s, pry Tadeo off the fancy stair banisters, and load up the 12– count ‘em, don’t wanna loose any— kids into the actual short bus they got for this. Like, one of those ones that looks more like an extra-long van that you see with a church logo on it, but theirs was plain white besides a few handprints the kids had all added when they bought the thing. It was cute. They even got the adults to do it, though how they convinced Connor is a secret known only to them.

The stop at a pizza place to get an un-humanly amount of food keeps the younger ones from their attempts to climb all over the seats, which— yeah, that’s kinda on them, teaching elementary and middle schoolers parkour. They’ve placed bets of their own on how long until they get a call from a school, which school it’ll be, for who, and for what. It’s a complicated Excel sheet. The pits up to $210 now. Arno’s already lost, unsurprisingly.

And so, bellies full, climbing urges sated, and a plan to make the same trip next weekend, they get the kids hustled onto their floor, then go upstairs to pass out.

Or, well, wish they could. Again, ‘weekend plans’. The Twins run off to look after their Rooks, Ezio goes to check his businesses, Altair his stocks, Arno and Nikolai take off and Desmond intentionally does not ask, Connor vanishes (probably at the school, messing around with the rude teachers sh*t and leaving glitter bombs in the bullies’ lockers. Adolescence 2.0 has made him petty and impulsive. It’s hilarious) and Eivor goes to document about her herbs and ceremonies to give to Dr. McCoy later.

And Desmond, of course, goes to work. The bar, clearly, cannot run itself, and unfortunately for his sleep schedule it will likely be weeks at the least before he can trust the employees not to f*ck sh*t up like last time.

(Yeah, he’s looking at you, Mr. I’ve-totally-got-this-Boss-you-go-on-ahead. You don’t got this. You really don’t got this, Jerry.)

Both fortunately and unfortunately, the bar has been gaining popularity, and has begun attracting more high-brow customers. This, of course, was the goal, as drunk people tend to be a lot easier to steal information from. They’ve gotten some good sh*t just by Desmond handing out drinks and asking the right questions.

So it’s surprising, but not shocking, when Tony Stark, Iron Man Extraordinaire, walks into the bar at 9:30pm sharp, glowing gold under Eagle Vision. He’s got a red-headed woman with him, wearing killer heels and a dress that Desmond’s Bad Weather days has taught him cost more than the bus and cars they’ve bought combined.

Desmond spends about two hours keeping an indiscreet eye on them, over in their private corner table, clearly here on a date judging by the slight awkwardness and the types of food and wine they choose. Desmond learned how to spot that, too. Real useful, bartending.

Eventually, Desmond’s attention is drawn away by a couple of guys deciding to get into a very drunkenly fist fight over, of all things, professional golf. Thankfully, both are too drunk to actually land anything, and they’re easy enough to herd outside and into separate taxi’s.

By the time Desmond’s back behind the bar, his observees (watchees, slightly stalkees? Stark and the lady) are gone.

‘Well, d*mn. There goes planting a bug. Probably wouldn’t have lasted long, but we might’ve gotten some stuff on the Avengers or SHIELD before they found it. I wonder, how many hackers does it take to hack Tony Stark? Heh, Sounds like the start of a joke. And a bad idea.’

‘…I’ll ask our guys later.’ What’s the worst that could happen?’