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Tony pressed his hand to his face.Rogers had been going off at Logan and Remy, who were only two of what Tony could only assume might add up to more than a hundred, for almost thirty minutes. They weren’t paying any attention to him though. Lennie had spent the time washing the dishes and cleaning the benchspace that they’d been using before Rogers had charged in with his righteous fury.They were finally saved from the Righteous Rant when Charles Xavier rolled into the room. ‘Mr. Rogers, please save your irritation. Neither Logan nor Remy could have possibly been responsible for the situation in which Miss Maximoff now finds herself. Neither of them are suffering from the affliction, and none of my X-Men have even touched her in months.’Rogers froze, but only for a second. ‘Well, they shouldn’t have touched her in the first place! She’s just a kid.’Logan looked up and growled. ‘We only went for it because she was eyeing off the actual kids, bub.’Rogers jerked back.Tony pulled a face behind his hand. When he had met Xavier, the Avengers had followed after. Natasha was forever trying to ingratiate herself to the leaders and Steve had acted like he was in charge. Both were soundly ignored in favour of talking to Tony. And their dismissal of Tony’s fears of a future invasion had been treated with mockery and disdain. If it happened once, every member of the X-Men said, it can certainly happen again.Rogers’ self-confidence in his ability to fight off a full invasion with a small team that barely held together outside of battle had resulted in scoffing and walking away.Needless to say, the Avengers and the X-Men didn’t get on.Well…most of them.Tony had spent years as a playboy. He knew sex, thank you very much, and Wanda had been having…fun with quite a few of them X-Men, the Brotherhood of Mutants, and basically any mutant she could find. The mutants, for their part, had started treating her like a community bicycle, not to mention Lennie Alice’s nickname for her.Curious at Wanda’s sudden interest, Tony had FRIDAY do a thorough background check on Wanda’s HYDRA past – more specifically on her personality profile. And there was a gold mine to find. Romanoff had apparently wiped her record clean, but she’d never been as good as she thought she was.Wanda believed very heavily in eugenics.She had, in fact, once said, ‘Pietro and I need to find equals. We need others with powers before we can even think of settling down. Then we produce super-powered babies and start a new super-race.’Logan had worked that one out all by himself. Then again, at his age, he had likely met many women who only desired him for the potentially super-powered babies he could produce. So it was a no-brainer that Wanda would flit over to any mutant who showed an interest. But nobody wanted to start a family with her. Dr. McCoy had developed pills the men could take. From what Tony understood, the chemicals in the pills entered the bloodstream and within a day or so the men would only be shooting out blanks.So, a guy could get his leg over and not worry about knocking up the crazy lady.Then, a few months back, they stopped.‘Someone weren’t clean,’ Logan said, tapping his nose.That was all Tony needed to hear. He’d started calling across to the Avengers for “full medical check-ups” so Wanda could be officially diagonosed. But he kept getting ignored, until today when Rogers stormed in here in self-righteous fury. He’d apparently been looking specifically for Logan and Remy and immediately demanded, ‘Did you defile Wanda?!’Then he’d launched into a rant until this very moment.‘What affliction?’ Steve suddenly turned to face Xavier. ‘I’d call pregnancy more of a problem. I need to know whose baby it is.’‘Good luck there, bub,’ Logan huffed. ‘No one’s gonna be owning up. There was a reason Stark kept nudging you to get a full check-up on your team.’Rogers pulled a face. ‘What affliction?’‘Chlamydia,’ Xavier said. ‘Logan picked it up on her scent months ago.’‘What?’ Steve asked.Xavier inclined his head. ‘A sexually transmitted infection that can often go undetected for years due to a lack of clear symptoms. Logan, however, could pick up the chemical changes in her scent which told him that she was infected. He alerted the X-Men and I alerted Magneto, who informed the Brotherhood of Mutants. As a result, none of either group has touched her since. None of us would be responsible for her pregnancy. It is far more likely to have been a mutant from outside our two groups; one who had not heard of her infection.’The next bit was predictable. Robbed of the ability to demand somebody take responsibility for Wanda now that she was pregnant, Rogers rounded on Tony. ‘That’s why you kept pushing for the full body check-ups!’‘Yeah,’ Tony said, ‘and as I recall, you declined on behalf of your team.’‘You should have told me this was why!’ Rogers insisted.‘They should have been getting regular check-ups anyway,’ Lennie retorted, coming over to the table. ‘You don’t just go to the doctor when you’re sick, Rogers, expecially not if you’re engaging in a high-risk occupation. Why do you think Hank’s around so much?’ She gestured to the large blue mutant, covered in fur. ‘We have post-mission check-ups after every mission. Even Logan sits down for them, and he heals from everything.’‘Off topic!’ Rogers insisted. ‘The point is that Wanda’s pregnant and somebody needs to take responsibility for it! If we can’t find the actual culprit then someone needs to step up.’Logan and Remy looked at each other, and promptly cracked up laughing.‘What’s funny?’ Rogers demanded.‘Well, firstly,’ Remy said, ‘nobody does that anymore. If a woman is unmarried and pregnant, no one cares.’ He nodded to Tony. ‘Take Stark, for example. He’s marrying Pepper cause he wants to, not cause there’s any social expectation for him to do so.’‘Secondly, good luck getting anyone to marry her,’ Logan said. ‘She’s a good fuck, but she’s batshit crazy. No one can tolerate her outside of the sack.’‘Vision liked her!’ Rogers insisted, his face twisting at Logan’s casual mention of Wanda’s performance.‘Vision is the equivalent of a very small child,’ Xavier said. ‘And wasn’t that before she dropped him like a hot scone the moment she realised there were other…prospects?’‘Yes,’ Tony said before Rogers could deny it. That hadn’t been a fun time, explaining to the synthianoid that Wanda had viewed him as the only option avaliable to her and hadn’t really loved him at all. Wanda wanted babies so she didn’t care who stuck their key in it, as long as they had powers. Even more fun was explaining human nature when it came to men – not just mutants but all men.If a woman offered you sex with no strings attached, most men jumped on it.Poor Vision, finding out like this.Well, at least he was off on his world tour. He was actually enjoying himself and learning all about other cultures and societies and people first-hand.‘Wanda’s not like that!’ Steve insisted. ‘She’s not a…a…’‘Slut?’ Lennie’s nickname for Wanda rolled off her tongue with malicious glee. ‘Well…not entirely, no. She did have one prerequisite for her bedfellows. They had to have powers. See, Wanda wanted to have a baby.’‘How would you know?’ Rogers demanded with his trademark Captain America Diaspproves In You look. ‘Wanda’s not mature enough to make that kind of decision! And she’d have talked to me first if she was considering it.’Tony rolled his eyes.Lennie was unaffected. ‘No one is that selective in their sexual partners.’‘Wanda’s just a kid!’ Rogers insisted.‘I don’t know why you keep insisting a woman in her mid-twenties is a kid.’ Tony normally wouldn’t speak up on the matter. Usually, Cap was surrounded by his loyal followers and it simply wasn’t worth it having them all jump down his throat. But, in this circumstances, they were nowhere around. And Tony was actually surrounded by people who stopped and thought for themselves.‘It’s a byproduct of the 40s,’ Lennie said as Rogers spun around in indignation.‘Used to be common to call a woman who was unmarried a “girl”,’ Logan said. ‘Didn’t matter how old they were, white men infantilised them constantly if they didn’t have a ring on it.’‘Hell, I still got called “girl” until I had my first kid,’ Lennie added. ‘And you’d be surprised how many random guys on the street felt the need to lecture a fully grown woman on her behaviour.’ She cocked her head. ‘Actually, maybe you wouldn’t. These days, it’s treated with the condemnation it deserves. Back then it was so commonplace, it was almost expected for men to be considered morally upright and socially conscious.’‘Only a small handful of men realised it was actually sticking yer nose where it didn’t belong,’ Logan put in.‘Yeah, but nine times out of ten those were rural folks,’ Lennie remarked. ‘Cause everybody knew everybody and they gossiped like God knows what, but the law of the land was: mind your own beeswax.’ She gave Steve a deeply unimpressed look. ‘Can tell you’re a city boy.’Rogers frowned. ‘Ma’am—’Remy and Logan both leaned back, letting out low whistles.Lennie looked up sharply. ‘Did you just “ma’am” me?’Rogers jerked back, evidently startled. To Tony, that had always seems patronising and condescending. Rogers only ever called a woman “ma’am” when they said something he didn’t like or disagreed with. He then proceeded to speak down to them, but most help the assumption that he was right in whatever he said.Seemed Lennie Alice was not the kind of person who would let that slide.Pulling his phone, Tony began looking up Lennie’s background. In the time it took for her to stand and slowly round on Rogers, Tony had made a discovery which would make her next sentence make perfect sense.
She was born in Blakely, Georgia.
‘There are only two reasons which make it acceptable to seriously call any female “ma’am”, buster,’ she said. ‘If she is your superior in the armed forces, or if you are a southerner. As neither of these circumstances apply, you’ll not call me that again. I know you northern fellows think it makes you sound respectful, but you sound exactly as patronising and condescending as you feel. Now sit.’Rogers opened his mouth.‘Don’t you talk back to me, young man.’ That reprimand would have fit nicely in a schoolteacher’s mouth. ‘Sit.’Rogers resisted, trying to glare Lennie into submission. But Lennie held her unimpressed and passive stare. It actually went on for a good few minutes. Then Rogers turned on his heel and stormed out of the room. He didn’t even look back as he said, ‘Someone had better take responsibility for what happened to Wanda.’Tony looked up and blinked after him. For a minute he couldn’t work out what happened. ‘Did you win?’‘Totally won,’ Lennie said. ‘If the other guy choses to storm out or take a swing at you, you have effectively won the argument. Despite what Rogers’ type thinks, arguments aren’t won by shutting the other guy up or having the last word.’ She turned and sat back down. ‘But now we have to address what to do about this kid. They’re almost certainly going to be a mutant.’‘Indeed,’ Xavier said. ‘I would like to bring the little one here, but my scans of Wanda’s mind shows that she planned on more and intends to raise them as a super-race.’‘I can report concerns to CPS,’ Tony said, ‘and then organise the child to be put into care at your school.’‘Scott and Jean would be our best bet for that,’ Xavier said. ‘They’re a stable couple and if the child turns out to have inherited Miss Maximoff’s powers, Jean will be able to manage it. I’m only concerned about them realising where the child is and coming after us.’Lennie leaned back, eyes glazing over. ‘It’s an etopic pregnancy.’Hank nodded. ‘Sadly, that does happen with chlamydia. Will she die?’‘Almost certainly,’ Lennie said. ‘Rogers will spend the whole nine months generally pissing off the mutant community while he tries to find the man who impregnated Wanda. Romanoff will spend the time planning how to mould the child. She’ll be the one to realise what’s wrong first, but won’t care too much.’Logan scoffed. ‘A kid’s easier to mould if there are no parents at all.’Lennie nodded, eyes still glazed. ‘That’s her logic. Barton is apparently such an absent father that he won’t realise there’s nothing normal about what Wanda’s gonna go through. The only one who’ll be concerned in Sam, but he’ll be largely ignored…until there’s so much blood coming out of Wanda in the third trimester that Steve literally picks her up and carries her to hospital himself. The staff will reprimand him but he’ll ignore it and then they’ll call CPS, because they’ll think Steve’s the father and immediately be afraid for the child’s safety.’‘I take it, by this point, Maximoff’s fate is already sealed?’ Remy asked.‘Well, after they do the c-section, they’ll basically just be waiting for her to die,’ Lennie answered. ‘In this time, CPS will pick up the baby. When she does die, though, we’ll have to be there. It seems when he’s told, Rogers blames the doctors and lashes out at them.’Logan nodded. ‘So we gotta be there.’‘Pretty much.’ Lennie blinked and her eyes cleared.
***
A few hours later, Lennie joined Tony and his friends in the Penthouse.‘Wouldn’t it be easier to track down the mutant with chlamydia that gave it to her?’ Rhodey asked as he took a glass from Tony.‘Well, see, that would be sensible, so of course he’s not gonna do it,’ Lennie said. ‘But there’s a 50-50 chance the guy will come to the mansion after the fact when he finds out that’s where his kid by Wanda is. And an only 25% chance he’ll stick around. But if he does show up, Hank will probably use the opportunity to test if the contraceptives he made are actually affected by STIs.’‘What’s that pill actually do?’ Pepper asked.‘Oh, it basically just…deadens all the swimmers the guy has so he just shoots out blanks,’ Lennie said. ‘How long it takes depends on his sperm count. So, there’s room for error there. I think it takes a few days for any live ones to be reproduced again. Hank’s still studying the long term effects of the pill, so it’s not like a woman’s one.’‘I’m curious,’ Tony remarked, sitting down next to Pepper. ‘What were you gonna say to Rogers when you told him to sit?’‘Oh, not much,’ Lennie answered. ‘His not adapting to the world as it is really is his own choice. I was just gonna rake him over the coals about that.’‘He wouldn’t have listened,’ Tony pointed out.Lennie smirked. ‘No, but it would’ve made me feel so much better.’The room was filled with light chuckling.When it died down, Happy asked. ‘You know, I don’t get it. How is Maximoff going to die in childbirth. You barely hear about that sort of thing happening these days. I mean, doctors would want to keep an eye on an etopic pregnancy and I’d think they’d have the technology to save her now.’‘Well, yes, certainly,’ Lennie said. ‘If she was taken to a doctor early, she could totally be saved. But nobody’s taking her to a doctor. She’s not even going to birthing classes. Sam’s going to presume both birthing classes and doctor’s appointments are happening when Natasha goes off with Wanda, but really that’s Natasha taking Wanda aside for her own plans. Natasha won’t because that would increase Wanda’s chances of survival, which would take power over the child away from her.’‘Romanoff’s lack of respect for life is staggering,’ Pepper grumbled.‘Less so when you realise she’s a trained assassin,’ Lennie pointed out. ‘Those bastards are conditioned to think of life as dispensible. As far as Natasha’s concerned, she’s banking on the kid having the same powers. So she’s sacrificing something she can’t fully control for something she can. She expects to have primary care of the kid after the fact, especially since she knows Rogers has that old 40s mentality where a woman’s job is to look after the children.’‘And Wanda’s not picking up on this?’ Tony asked.‘Strangely enough, you can lie with your thoughts,’ Lennie said. ‘You can intentionally think things. Natasha might not be as good at reading people as she thinks she is, but she is good enough to know Wanda’s angle and cater to that. Then again…complete strangers knew Wanda’s angle.’‘What about Barton?’ Pepper asked. ‘He has three kids, doesn’t he?’‘And he wasn’t there for most of them,’ Lennie pointed out. ‘But, at the same time, one woman will have a different experience with every pregnancy. I only had one kid, but I saw enough of my friends have multiples to know that. Barton’s just going to assume the mutant genes are making it a difficult pregnancy and leave it to Romanoff.’‘They do realise that chlamydia can cause ectopic pregnancies, right?’ Pepper asked.‘Not really,’ Lennie said. ‘Most people actually don’t realise it’s anything more than an itchy bacterial infection down south. Unless they look it up, they don’t realise the entire reproductive system can be affected. And Rogers had clearly never even heard of it before.’‘Which surprises me,’ Happy said. ‘I mean, it’s not a new thing.’‘No, but back in the old days the only STI we ever heard of was syphilis,’ Lennie told him. ‘Remember, these were the days when the only people who actually talked about sex were people working in the medical field. You didn’t know a lot of the other STIs were a thing unless you had them.’Tony nodded. ‘And Sam?’‘Sam’s the only one who’ll realise something wrong, but he won’t be able to convince the others,’ Lennie said. ‘Natasha will start actively gaslighting him to shut him up and he’ll completely fail to notice it. He won’t, but his sister will and she’ll start making excuses to get Sam away from them, when she can’t convince him that it’s happening.’‘So, Sam won’t actually be around when the shit hits the fan?’ Rhodey asked.‘And the aftermath will be a nice wake-up call when it’s over,’ Lennie said.‘Okay,’ Tony nodded, ‘so who’s going to be on standby when Steve eventually has his shit-fit?’‘Logan’s already volunteered,’ Lennie told them. ‘Trust me. When that guy wants to, he can just blend into the woodwork. Kurt and Remy are on standby too. Kurt’s ready to just teleport in.’Tony smiled. ‘Remy, I’d fully believe can blend into the background.’‘Used to be a card shark, didn’t he?’ Happy asked.‘Yeah,’ Lennie said. ‘When we met him, at least. Tell you the story another time.’‘Might be an idea to show up myself,’ Tony said. ‘Take some of the attention off of the mutants.’Lennie nodded. ‘Yeah, three mutants being there at exactly the right time to intervene…it’d be hard to say that wasn’t planned. At least if you rock up, it looks like “Tony Stark had the foresight to put them there” over anything else.’Tony nodded as his phone rang.‘CPS?’ Rhodey asked.‘Yup,’ Tony responded. ‘They did their initial investigation today.’ He answered the phone. ‘Hello?’
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Logan glanced through the doorway as Jean and Scott brought in the baby carrier with the one-month old infant inside. As far as he’d heard, there’d been a lot of shock and concern and contention that the kid had even survived to nearly full term. Less surprising was Lennie’s declaration that the kid had cerebral palsy.Beast had theorised that Maximoff’s powers were actually a base form of reality warping, which may have been enough for her to subconsciously keep the kid alive.Logan looked back at Remy and Kurt across the table.After their takedown of Rogers, and Stark’s subsequent appearance and dressing down, the billionaire had advised them to keep their heads down and let him absorb all the attention. It’d worked.
Everyone believed that the three mutants that’d stopped Rogers’ rampage at the hospital had been there on Tony Stark’s dime. They believed they did the job, they took the pay, they moved on.The fact that Stark had initially reported concerns to CPS when Wanda Maximoff first fell pregnant leant weight to the idea that he may have been concered that what did happen…would.So, it made sense that he’d hire some other people with super-powers to be on standby when the shit inevitably hit the fan.And mutants were the first people you’d think of who had powers, so of course he’d hired mutants.The mutants had done their part.Now it was time for Lennie and Stark to do theirs.
***
Being a personal trainer was one thing.Lennie, though, was not trained to do what the kid needed. So she tracked down a collegue that worked as a physical therapist as well.‘Crystal Summers?’ Ingrid looked at the file. ‘Adopted by Scott and Jean Summers. CP…Only a month old?’‘Right now,’ Lennie said. ‘Scott and Jean have only just signed the paperwork and took her home.’‘What happened to her biological parents?’ Ingrid asked.‘Haven’t got a clue about the father, but the mother died of complications in childbirth,’ Lennie answered.‘I presume those same complications are what caused the cerebral palsy?’‘Naturally.’‘What do her new parents do for a living?’‘They both teach at the same school.’‘Any other children?’‘Not as of yet.’‘So they’re young?’‘Late twenties.’ Lennie shrugged. ‘They’re getting help, though, including from me. They have a pretty big support network.’Ingrid nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll meet with them in four months. By that time, Crystal should be starting to move on her own.’
***
Tony sighed and sat down behind his desk. ‘Look, Romanoff, what do you expect me to do? Rogers lashed out, and hurt people, in a hospital. Of course they called CPS to remove…’ He paused. The last thing he wanted to do was tell Natasha Crystal’s name.‘Vera,’ Natasha said.As he thought then. ‘Well, of course they called CPS to remove Vera when the guy who was supposed to take her home after her mother died lashed out violently, People take child safety very seriously these days.’Natasha pulled a face. ‘Where is she then? What do they do when they take the kid?’‘That depends,’ Tony said. ‘Removing a child from family is a last resort – and I don’t mean family the way Steve says it. I mean her biological family.’‘She has no biological family.’‘Then she’ll have been put into a foster home,’ Tony said.‘You mean an orphanage?’ Natasha asked.Tony shook his head. ‘The orphanage system has been shut down. If she hasn’t been adopted yet, she’ll be in a house owned by CPS with other children and being looked after by social workers.’ No need to tell her the kid had already been adopted.‘Can’t you get her out and back home?’ Natasha asked pointedly.Tony knew what she was suggesting. ‘It’s CPS. All the money in the world isn’t going to get her out.’Natasha stared at him, narrowing her eyes. She didn’t believe him, he knew. Natasha might have “defected” but she still had a very Russian perspective of Americans. It was why she thought people like Tony could do anything he liked with his big, fat fortune. She thought he could buy Crystal – or Vera, as she called her – out of that place with a thick wad of cash.And, sure, he could. He could find a corrupt idiot, wave some cash in his face, and get a kid released.He just didn’t want to.‘Fine.’ Natasha stood up. ‘I’ll do it myself.’Tony watched her go and leaned his head back. ‘FRI?’‘Good idea making her sign herself in with pen and paper, boss,’ FRIDAY said. ‘I’ve matched her handwriting to that forged birth certificate.’Tony rolled his eyes. Sometimes he thought Natasha thought everyone else was a moron. When Crystal was being processed, there was a birth certificate in her file that no one remembered putting in there. Wanda, during birth and after, had been in no state to name the child so no one knew where it came from. Even weirder…it was hard copy.The hospital filled in birth details on their tablets.But there was an old stock of unused physical birth certificates in the records room,So…it was pretty obvious the birth certificate had been forged.Tony only knew because they came asking him about it.Now, Tony knew precisely who did it and he winced as he thought about the name on that birth certificate:
Vera Martha Maximoff
Though he suspected…
***
As Natasha walked away from Stark’s building she ruminated.She had spent nearly nine months manipulating everything so Vera would be very firmly under her control. Wanda’s powers were useful but she was a loose cannon. It made far more sense to mould her child from a young age. And Natasha knew that Wanda’s pregnancy was particularly hard, so she’d told her it was all normal and discouraged any form of external help.The biggest hiccup had been Sam.Sam had, apparently, seen his sister pregnant and had worried something wasn’t right. He had been vocal about it too, so every time he spoke she had to shut him down. She was subtle about it and it helped that Steve still had a very 1940s mindset towards women and babies – it was all natural and you didn’t talk about it. Natasha made sure to both talk and think about how men knew nothing about the female reproductive system so Wanda dismissed him too.Wanda had gushed about the baby too, and had already named it. She had wanted either Billy or Tommy if it was a boy and Martha or Nancy if it was a girl. The names…were so western. Wanda was supposed to be from the Baltic region. Yet, in a few short years she’d been totally Americanised. Natasha had noticed her dropping her accent, but thought she’d been mimicking herself and intentionally adopting the American one to blend it.But…maybe she’d really gone native.It was a good thing that whole thing with Yelena and the red dust happened.Natasha started talking to Mileena about it. Upon hearing everything, Mileena had agreed and given Natasha advice and instructions on removing the child. Like Natasha, she agreed a child that powerful should not be left loose. And she agreed Wanda had no discipline or control so she’d be better off dead.Their entire “family” would come together for this.The plan was for Natasha to take Vera and have her transported back to Russia where she would be raised and trained in a controlled environment. Mileena had contacted some old contacts in the KBG, who had agreed with the plan, and Alexei was on standby in case Vera ever needed to be subdued. Yelena would just be occassionally using the safe house on her way in and out.But then Steve had screwed it all up.Natasha was tempted to take Alexei up on his offer to pummel him.Tempting but Mileena was right – too risky. They didn’t want to draw attention.Anyway, Natasha had been glad that Wanda hadn’t told anyone her name choice before she died giving birth. She’d been able to sneak in, find a blank birth certificate, and rename the girl. Vera was a nice Baltic name that would easily blend into western society, should she ever need to pretend to be a westerner. The name “Martha” was just a placeholder. Americans had middle names. Russians did too, but they were very clearly Russian.Natalia Alianova Romanoff.See? Very clearly Russian.Much better for stealth to give her an English name.And it wasn’t hard to convince Steve and Clint.Sam was hardly around; he didn’t know Wanda had chosen different names.‘Yeah,’ Clint had said. ‘Martha’s a little too old-fashioned. You send a kid into a classroom with that name and they’re gonna be calling her “granny” in no time.’‘Wouldn’t Wanda consider that?’ Steve had asked.‘Maybe not,’ Natasha had said. ‘She liked those old sitcoms, and she’s from out east. She may not have realised just how outdated that name is around here.’She had both Steve and Clint convinced that “Vera” was a far more common name. They had fully accepted it. And they would accept her next step too…because they believed every word she said.
***
The only sign of Crystal’s disability, at this stage, was that she held one hand a little strangely and close to her chest at all times. Besides that, Remy wouldn’t have known. When she was five months old, the physical therapist came in for the first time. She sat down with Crystal, with Scott and Jean watching, and gave her a series of exercises.‘Well, it’s about what I’d expect,’ she said, standing up and facing them. ‘We’ll have to deal with that arm right now; get her using it.’‘Okay,’ Scott said. ‘How are we going to do that? Just…hand things to her from that side?’‘That’s a start.’ The woman nodded. She started heading out, talking about other exercises and a wrist brace they used.As they left, Remy let out a low whistle. ‘Sounds like this is gonna be one heck of an uphill battle.’‘Well,’ Logan remarked, ‘at least the help she’s got is better than it used to be.’Remy nodded in agreement. ‘What about Stark?’‘He’s been watching Romanoff,’ Logan answered. ‘Apparently, she tried to name Crystal “Vera Martha Maximoff”.’Remy cocked an eyebrow.‘It seems Wanda was going to name her Martha, and Natasha didn’t like the name, so she renamed her.’ Storm leaned over and dug through the fridge to get Crystal’s water bottle. ‘The Professor’s already looked. Because she doesn’t realise her forgery was immediately picked up, she’s hacking CPS databases looking for a child with that name.’‘There won’t be a child with that name,’ Remy said.‘There ain’t,’ Logan said. ‘But that don’t mean we let out a breath. I’d bet that once she realises that, she may start looking for a kid that she thinks is Crystal.’‘And kidnap her?’ Remy asked. ‘Seems a little off for Romanoff. She prefers playing mind games. Not well, but you know…’‘She could pass herself off as a prospective adoptive parent,’ Storm said. ‘If she can sweet-talk a case worker, and present herself right, they may release a child to her.’ She frowned. ‘Logan, you trained her at one point, didn’t you? What are the odds of that?’Logan pulled a face. ‘Yeah, but I don’t think she recognised me. She was clumsy with us because we got powers and she saw us as marks to control. A case worker is someone she has to trick in the short-term. Truth be told, if there are no distractions and she has no biases she’s actually somewhat good at her job.’‘Somewhat?’ Remy asked.Logan snorted. ‘If she can resist the urge to flash clevage and thigh.’Storm and Remy both chuckled.Then the door opened and Lennie walked in. ‘And, unfortunately, Mileena’s going to realise that.’