The Baxter Building's private elevator carried them upward in tense silence. Jean Grey-Summers adjusted Nathan's carrier strapped to her chest for the third time in as many minutes, and her fingers smoothed and re-smoothed fabric that didn't need smoothing. Scott stood beside her, one hand resting on the small of her back, the other gripping the elevator rail.
Neither of them had set foot in this building since the night Victor Von Doom tore through it like a natural disaster wearing a metal mask.
Reed's screams still echoed in Jean's memory. Doom's Tech ripping through his defenses, Sue's desperate shields crumbling under sustained assault and Ben's roar cut short by a blast that should've ended him.
Not to mention the whole ordeal with Jay and Doom's revelation.
The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open.
A baby's wail hit them like a wall of sound.
Franklin Richards screamed in full meltdown mode. His wails echoed through the penthouse with lung capacity that was not natural for a baby of his age. Sue rocked him with the desperate rhythm of someone who'd been at this too long, her blonde hair escaping its ponytail in defeated stages. Reed stretched his face into exaggerated expressions, features contorting into shapes that should've been funny but just looked exhausting. Ben crouched beside them, his hands shaking a toy that played a tinkling melody designed by someone who'd never met an actual infant. Johnny hovered near the kitchen, adjusting the temperature of milk in the bottle with flames dancing between his fingers, treating it like a bomb disposal operation.
The Fantastic Four, Earth's premier super-team, had been thoroughly conquered by six pounds of unhappy baby.
The scene froze for exactly one second. Sue's head turned, Reed's face snapped back to normal proportions, Ben's toy-shaking stuttered, and Johnny's hand flickered for a bit.
Franklin's next wail shattered the frozen moment.
"Jean! Scott! Thank God you're here!" Sue called over her shoulder, frazzled warmth barely masking exhaustion. "Please, make yourselves at home! We're just having a moment."
"Been goin' on twenty minutes straight," Ben rumbled, setting the toy aside with gentleness. "Kid's got lungs that'd put his uncle to shame."
"Hey!" Johnny protested, testing the bottle against his wrist. "I have excellent lung capacity. It's called projection."
"It's called bein' a loudmouth, matchstick."
"Boys," Sue warned. "Not helping."
Jean and Scott exchanged a glance heavy with shared parenting trauma. Jean carefully unstrapped Nathan's carrier. The baby had been dozing, his small face the picture of peacefulness, but Franklin's continued distress began penetrating his sleep. Nathan's tiny features scrunched. As his hands curled into fists against his chest and little body tensing.
"Let me try," Jean said, moving toward the group.
Sue's relief flooded her features. "Please. He's picking up on everyone's stress, which makes us more stressed, which makes him more upset. We're trapped in this horrible feedback loop."
Before Jean could reach them, a knock came from their window and the group turned as one.
Domino stood in the sky, balanced on a red cloud woven from quantum strings that pulsed and shifted beneath her feet.
The Fantastic Four and the Summers couple stared.
Not because of the entrance, though that was admittedly impressive. But because this was the woman who'd brought back over forty thousand people from death just yesterday and broadcast it live to the entire planet.
Tension crackled through the room like static electricity.
Domino caught the shift immediately.
Her expression softened as she stepped off her makeshift Nimbus, red light dissolving into crimson motes. She crossed to Sue with movements that spoke of hard-won confidence masking uncertainty.
"May I?" Domino asked quietly, her hands already reaching but hesitating just short of Franklin.
Sue hesitated for a heartbeat. Every maternal instinct probably screamed warnings about handing your crying infant to someone who'd recently wielded the Such power of Life and Death itself, but exhaustion won out.
The transfer happened in that awkward shuffle of passing off a squirming, unhappy child. The moment Domino settled him against her chest, her entire body language transformed. The movements became deeper than learned behavior, something that looked almost instinctive. She rocked him with a rhythm that was neither too fast nor too slow, her hand supporting his head in a way that surprised even her, if the brief flicker of wonder crossing her face was any indication.
"Hey there, sweetheart," Domino murmured, her voice dropping into that particular tone adults use with distressed children. Lower, slower and infinitely patient. "It's okay. You're okay. All these people love you so much they're tying themselves in knots worrying, and you're picking up on every bit of that worry, aren't you? Makes everything feel too big and too loud."
Franklin's wails stuttered. Caught off guard.
"That's it," Domino continued, swaying slightly. "Nothing's wrong. You're safe, you're loved, and all these people here? They'd move mountains for you."
The crying downshifted from catastrophic to manageable as hiccupping sobs replaced the wails.
The room exhaled collectively.
"How did you..." Sue started.
"You all need to calm down. Seriously. I can practically taste the tension in here, and it's not helping anyone," Domino said with a small smile, but her eye tracked to each person in the room.
Johnny opened his mouth, probably to make some quip, but Reed's arm stretched across the room and his elastic hand covered Johnny's mouth with a wet slap.
"Mmph!" Johnny's protest came out thoroughly muffled.
"What my brother-in-law was about to say something spectacularly unhelpful," Reed said with the strained patience of someone managing a headache, retracting his arm and giving Johnny a warning look. "is that your accomplishment yesterday significantly exceeds anything even Jay has managed. Bringing back that many people simultaneously." His voice carried scientific fascination mixed with existential concern. "It's unprecedented. And perhaps we're all processing the implications of what that means about power scales we thought we understood."
"Plus, y'know, yesterday was kind of a shitshow," Ben added. "Sentinels everywhere, people dyin' then not dyin', golden rain givin' random folks superpowers. Some of us are still wrappin' our heads around the whole mess."
Domino's expression flickered. Franklin had settled against her chest now, his small body still fidgeting but calmer. One tiny hand fisted in her black and white hair, tugging gently.
"Before we get into deep waters and long explanations," Domino said, her voice carrying an edge that made it clear this wasn't negotiable, "everyone needs to sit down. What I have to tell you is important, and I'd rather not have anyone standing when I say it."
The group exchanged uncertain glances. Something in Domino's tone suggested arguing would be pointless.
Sue settled into the sectional sofa, her hands trembling as she smoothed her clothes. Reed folded himself beside her. Ben dropped into the armchair he'd claimed years ago. Johnny sprawled across the loveseat with deliberate casualness that fooled no one. Jean and Scott took the remaining section, Scott's arm wrapping around his wife's shoulders like a shield while Jean kept one hand on Nathan's carrier.
Domino remained standing, still rocking Franklin.
"Yesterday," she began without preamble, "you all remember what happened. The Sentinel attacks, the chaos, the temporary heroes showing up, Jay's broadcast, the mass resurrection." She paused, her eye tracking each face. "But there was something else. Something that happened in the Atlantic Ocean. An explosion."
"We felt it," Sue said quietly. "Even through the building's shielding. That much energy discharge, that far away, and it still registered. I thought it was another Sentinel weapon or maybe a reactor breach."
"It was worse than that," Domino said, her voice dropping. "It was the Cabal's submarine. The one Xavier had flagged as suspicious. They'd been conducting genetic experiments, and when Jay's broadcast revealed their plans had failed, they activated their backup project in desperation."
Reed's eyes widened as Horror spread across his features like spilled ink. "Genetic experiments? What kind of..."
Suddenly, the air crackled with blue light before Reed could finish.
Jay materialized in the center of the living room, and for once, no one jumped. They'd all gotten used to the Power Broker's tendency to simply appear when convenient.
But it was the child in his arms that made them stare.
A boy, perhaps five years old, with brown hair falling in soft waves across his forehead and blue eyes that held equal parts wonder and wariness. He wore simple clothes, denim overalls over a split-color shirt. He clung to Jay with the absolute trust children reserve for people they consider completely safe.
Franklin's eyes snapped open the instant the boy appeared. Nathan's tiny hands reached out, fingers splaying. Both babies made sounds somewhere between coos and cries, their little bodies straining toward the newcomer like iron filings toward a magnet.
Jay knelt, setting the boy down gently, his hands steadying small shoulders. "Go ahead, buddy. They want to meet you."
The boy hesitated for two heartbeats. His fingers clutched at Jay's sleeve. Then he moved toward Franklin and Nathan with careful, measured steps.
Both babies tracked his movement with absolute focus, their tiny bodies straining against their respective positions as if invisible threads pulled them forward.
"Okay," Johnny said slowly. "What the hell? Why are the babies acting like they know this kid? Did we miss a memo?"
Domino shifted Franklin in her arms, angling him to get a better view of the approaching boy. The infant's hands reached out, fingers splaying wide, making grabbing motions.
"His name is Luv," Domino said quietly, watching the boy kneel between the two babies with natural ease, as if he'd done this a thousand times. He let Franklin grab his finger. Reached out to gently touch Nathan's carrier with his other hand. "And he's the reason for the explosion in the Atlantic."
Silence crashed over the room.
"Domino," Jean's voice came out tight, suggesting she was working very hard not to jump to conclusions or read minds without permission, "what do you mean?"
"The Cabal had genetic samples," Domino said, choosing each word with care. "Samples from two of the most powerful mutants ever born. They tried to clone them, combine them, create a weapon they could control." Her eye moved to Nathan, then Franklin. "They used Nathan and Franklin's DNA and merged them into a single organism."
The silence that followed felt like the moment before a bomb detonates.
Sue's face drained of all colour, going so pale her freckles stood out like drops of paint on snow. Her hands gripped the sofa cushions hard enough to make her knuckles white. Reed's body went rigid in a way that had nothing to do with his elastic powers and everything to do with barely restrained fury.
Jean's hand flew to Nathan's carrier. Her fingers curled protectively around the edge and Scott's jaw clenched hard enough to make tendons stand out in his neck like cables.
"They... they cloned our sons?" Sue's voice came out barely above a whisper, each word scraped raw from her throat. "They took genetic material from Franklin and Nathan and..."
"The clone should've been impossible," Jay cut in, his voice carrying weight that made everyone's attention snap to him like a physical pull. "When I delivered both boys, when I had access to their genetic material during the birthing process, I installed a failsafe. A genetic code buried deep in their DNA that would destabilize any cloning attempts. Catastrophically."
The room's temperature dropped.
Johnny's entire body ignited. Flames wreathed him from head to toe, the heat making the air shimmer. "You did what?"
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