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"I'M INVINCIBLE!"
"Of course you are. Now take your medicine."
"I don't need— achoo!"
Wanda held the pill up to his mouth. Hawk tried to refuse, but another sneeze stopped him. He pulled the blanket more tightly and moved closer to the fireplace.
Yes. Hawk was sick with a cold.
"This makes no sense." He frowned. "I used to stand naked in the snow without catching anything."
Pill in one hand and a glass of water in the other, Wanda rolled her eyes. "It makes perfect sense. You said you wanted to become a normal person again. When a normal person stands naked in the snow, he doesn't just get sick. Everyone who sees him also thinks he's insane."
Hawk became silent.
Wanda shrugged. "Do you want me to give you your invincible body back?"
His head felt stuffed with cotton, but he shook it anyway.
"No."
"Then take the pill."
Hawk was nowhere near whole at the moment, while Wanda had already become the Scarlet Witch. Using her Chaos Magic, she made a small change to reality and turned his indestructible body into that of a regular person.
Naturally, Hawk had agreed to it. In fact, he had been the one to ask.
The reason was simple. He had moved up too fast, never giving his basics time to settle. If it stayed unstable, he would have to start over from the beginning. That was what Hawk was doing now.
He took the pill and water from Wanda, swallowed them, and thought of an old saying.
It was easy to go from having nothing to having everything.
Going back was much harder.
Almost two years had gone by since they came back from Cairo, but to Hawk, it felt more like twenty.
After taking the medicine, he tossed aside the blanket and walked out to the heavy bag hanging from the parasol tree in the backyard.
Wanda frowned.
"You have a cold, and you're still going to train?"
"Yeah."
Sweat was already on Hawk's forehead, and his voice sounded thick from congestion, but his eyes stayed steady as he walked up to the bag.
"I threw ten thousand punches back then. I can do it again now."
Back when Hawk was just an ordinary man, he got fevers like everyone else. Once, when he needed to rescue Anya, he trained even while burning with fever. Sweat poured off him like he had just stepped out of a bath, but he still finished all ten thousand punches before collapsing.
If he could get through it back then, there was no reason he couldn't do it now. He needed to find the determination he had lost along the way.
Thump.
Hawk drove his fist into the heavy bag.
Then he struck it again.
And again.
Wanda walked out of the living room and stood under the eaves. Instead of watching him, she looked up at the clear blue sky.
High above, so faint it looked like a ripple in the air, the outline of a phoenix flickered in and out of view.
She remembered when they first moved here. After Hawk asked her to make him human again, he started rebuilding himself with those same basic punches.
At first, nothing happened. There was no response for the first few months, or even during the whole first year.
That changed during the second.
Now, every punch Hawk threw got a faint reaction from the Cosmo waiting outside this universe. Each day, the response grew clearer. Hawk was rebuilding his basics and calling his inner universe back to himself.
Maybe they wouldn't have to stay here for the full ten years. At this pace, his power might return within another year.
Wanda lowered her gaze when the front door opened behind her.
Jean came in wearing a dark red trench coat. She dropped her car keys on the cabinet by the door and looked at Wanda.
"Mom, I brought the cold medicine you asked for. Who needs it?"
Wanda laughed.
"Your father caught a cold."
"WHAT?"
Jean walked to the back of the house and looked through the open door. Hawk was shirtless in the snow, his face red with fever as he kept hitting the heavy bag.
She blinked.
"Dad has a cold, and he's training outside without a shirt?"
"He says you have to get back up where you fell."
Jean watched him hit the bag in the freezing air. She opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything.
Wanda glanced at her daughter as another thought came to her.
"While we're still in this universe, do whatever you want to do as an adult. Once we leave, you'll become a little girl again."
Jean paused.
"What?"
"This universe is on a lower level, so time moves differently here than in our home universe. Higher laws can come down to a lower universe, but the laws of a lower universe can't go back up."
"I know that." Jean shook her head. "I meant the ten years. Didn't you say we would be here for about a decade?"
Jean already knew she would turn back into a six-year-old when they left. Wanda had told her about it not long after Cairo.
She didn't mind. In some ways, the idea even made her feel better. Jean had grown up, but Hawk and Wanda weren't around for most of her childhood. Going back to that age didn't feel like a loss. It meant she could be their daughter again.
Besides, she had already been an adult. To be honest, Jean didn't want to grow up. Being an adult had its good sides, but she'd seen enough of it. She just thought she'd stay in this body for eight more years.
At Jean's question, Wanda looked toward the sky again.
Far past what anyone could see in the sky, at the edge of the universe, a red speck burned in the darkness. It looked like a fiery phoenix, pushing against the edge of reality and trying to break through.
"The moment your father's power breaks through, we can go home."
"Dad's power..." Jean followed Wanda's gaze as a memory from childhood surfaced. "Is it that beautiful firebird?"
Wanda nodded.
"Yes."
"How much longer?"
"I don't know. His power has already reached the edge of this universe. Once it breaks through the barrier..."
Wanda thought for a moment, then turned back to Jean.
"That's why you should enjoy being an adult while you can. Once we return, you'll be a little girl again."
Jean gave a small smile.
"I liked being a little girl, Mom. Especially when we lived in Westview."
Mother and daughter looked at each other and shared a tender smile.
Jean didn't stay long. After dropping off the medicine and chatting with Wanda for a bit, she left for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. She said she was an adult now, and most of her friends were at the school. Since they might leave this universe sooner than planned, she wanted to spend as much time with them as she could.
That was the well-mannered reason. The truth was, she just wanted to give her parents some time alone.
So Jean showed up.
Then she left.
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When she got back to the school, she ran into her bargain-bin uncle, Pietro, who was once again there to bother Storm.
After Cairo, Angel and Storm had nowhere else to go. They heard about Professor X and followed him back to the school. With his help, they began learning to control their mutant powers and helped care for the younger mutants who had lost their homes, too.
Pietro, though, did have somewhere else to go. He just refused to stay there. Since Cairo, he'd come up with excuse after excuse to visit the school. Anyone could see what he was really after.
"If you really want to date Storm, I suggest changing your look."
Jean watched Storm walk right past Pietro without even giving him a kind smile. After she left, Jean turned to the speedster, who was standing there with an awkward grin.
"The way you dress doesn't exactly make you look mature."
Pietro's face fell.
"Is that any way to speak to your uncle?"
"...Fine, Uncle."
Jean let out a helpless laugh and shook her head.
"Try acting a little more mature. You're never getting a date with Storm like this."
"Change my style?" Pietro waved her off. "Not happening. If I buy new clothes, all the money I spent on these will go to waste."
Jean blinked and looked at him, serious now.
"Okay. You really are my uncle. You're both cheap in the same way."
The older Pietro from her own universe had been just as painfully frugal.
He bought candy one piece at a time.
Jean remembered complaining about it to Wanda once. Wanda had told her that receiving an entire piece was already generous. Back when she wanted something sweet, Pietro would sometimes dip his finger into sugar and let her lick it off.
Sokovia was a small country torn apart by war. Just keeping Wanda alive had pushed Pietro to his limits. Candy was a luxury they couldn't afford even after they moved to Westview, where they could have bought out every candy store in town; that habit of saving money stuck with them.
And honestly, there was nothing wrong with that.
After hearing the story, Jean said she wanted to be as thrifty as her uncle. Pietro was so touched that he took her right to a candy store and bought her a huge bag.
Thinking about her uncle from her own universe, Jean looked at the young man in front of her.
For a moment, the two Pietros seemed to blend.
This Pietro's face grew even darker. He waved her off and disappeared in a silver blur.
Jean looked at the empty spot where he'd been, smiled, and stayed quiet.
She went upstairs and pushed open the doors to the conference room on the second floor.
Professor X, Beast, Cyclops, Storm, and Angel were already seated inside.
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