I wish we could open our eyes...

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh's head is resting on the cool metal of the table when Warren enters the room. He's staring into the wall, and some combination of Elliot's mental shields and complete apathy makes him not notice the other person approaching until he actually shows up in the doorway.

His head moves slightly. "What do you want?" Josh's voice sounds hard, but Warren, of all people, should be able to see through the facade. He's upset, scared, and tired.

Are we clones? The situation was despairing enough to question their own sanity. Were their memories implanted? Was there even any way to tell? Maybe... Josh figured that a good telepath would be able to differentiate implanted memories from natural ones. The only question was whether Elliot was up to the job. Warren definitely won't trust me to tell the truth.

His last thought is almost enough to start the waterworks again, but he holds it back. Of course we're not clones with implanted memories. Somehow, to him, that seemed even more implausible than time travel. "If you're here to tell me everything's going to be fine, skip it. It's not. How the hell did we jump 20 years in the future?" Oh, right... his 'working theory' is that we're clones. "But you don't believe that's possible, do you?" I barely do.

[Warren Worthington III]

> "What do you want? If you're here to tell me everything's going to be fine, skip it. It's not. How the hell did we jump 20 years in the future? But you don't believe that's possible, do you?"

Warren isn't really sure what to say. He recognizes this mood, so much like the Josh he remembers that he wants to drop all his shields, just like he used to. Except, even if he could afford to risk the Brotherhood that way, even if this were Josh, he'd be ashamed. The things he's done in the last few years... the thought of Josh looking into his mind and seeing them... it's more than he can imagine.

Of course, the issue doesn't even arise, he reminds himself... whoever or whatever this is, it isn't the Josh he buried.

"I don't know what's possible. I've seen too many things I would have said were impossible to stay that arrogant. I mean, the Rasputin girl had some talents along those lines, maybe other mutants do too. But I remember Josh in 2008, and 2009, and... later. He didn't suddenly disappear in the middle of a fight and never come back. He didn't come back talking about a trip to the future. Neither did Fortress or Warhead or Russell or any of the rest of you." He shrugs. "Which I guess maybe doesn't mean anything, I don't know. I guess with time travel anything's possible. But... well, no, I don't think it's the likeliest answer. Do you?"

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> I mean, the Rasputin girl had some talents along those lines, maybe other mutants do too. But I remember Josh in 2008, and 2009, and... later. He didn't suddenly disappear in the middle of a fight and never come back.

But... well, no, I don't think it's the likeliest answer. Do you?

Josh raises his head to look up at Warren. His voice is glum. “No, not really. But are clones with implanted memory? Doesn’t that seem a little far-fetched, as well?” Josh studies Warren for a moment. Now that he has a few moments to look him over, it wasn’t so crazy that he’d mistaken the man in front of him for his 21-year-old husband. His hair was totally unkempt, but his body was mostly the same. Shouldn't he have aged more? If you looked closely, the shape was slightly off. Whereas his husband was incredibly lithe (Josh had trouble stealing Warren’s jeans, because they were just too tight), this man had some definite musculature.

“Not to change the subject, but how do you still look barely 20? I mean… you’re around 40, right? But you’re still as hot as…” Josh frowns slightly. They had no idea whether they’d be able to find a way back home, and this almost-Warren kept reminding him of the fact. “… as you are back where I’m from.”

Something Warren had said just a few moments ago nags at Josh. Something about… Ilyana? That light… Back during the fight, a member of the Brotherhood had gone after Ilyana and Laurie, and a strange power field had expanded through the entire Institute. “Warren. When Garrison went after Laurie, Ilyana was with him, and I heard her scream right before I woke up where you found us. And then this white light expanded outward…” Josh looks excited. “Where is Ilyana now? Maybe she can send us back!”

[Warren Worthington III]

< "clones with implanted memory? Doesn’t that seem a little far-fetched, as well?"

Warren nods without hesitation. "Yup, absolutely. But you being here at all is pretty far-fetched. Human cloning is at least doable, and there are mutants who can copy and transfer memories... though why they should be twenty-year-old memories beats me. Granted, you are about 20 right now, right? Maybe someone aged you in real-time from a sample in 2007 and... no, that's insane." He shrugs. "Look, the truth is, I'm no scientist. I'm hoping that Fortress -- my Fortress, I mean -- and her team can come up with something plausible; that's her job. In the meantime, my job is to keep my team alive, and that means I have to treat everything unexplained as a potential threat."

He thinks about that for a second and adds "I guess that probably doesn't make much sense to you, if you don't remember anything after 2007, right? Well... you can look up the history on our network whenever you want, but take my word for it -- you have no idea what it's like out there. If my team hadn't picked you up you'd be facing Sentinels within the hour and in the camps pumped full of Cure not long after that. I..." He shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe you can't understand, but that's just the way it is."

< "Not to change the subject, but how do you still look barely 20? I mean… you’re around 40, right? But you’re still as hot as... as you are back where I’m from."

Warren laughs. "Flattery will get you --" he stops, suddenly, aware that he's responding as if this were his Josh, which feels equal parts entirely natural, extremely dangerous, and guilt-inducing betrayal of Josh's memory. More grimly, he adds "Yeah. 41 last month, not that I'm really keeping track of birthdays. It surprised me, too, really... once I hit full maturity I just stopped aging, it seems. We didn't really even notice until I was 30 or so... Hank said it was basically the same talent that helped me heal all those broken bones, back before I learned to protect myself." He catches his reflection in a metal surface and adds "I used to keep my hair better than this, though -- didn't I?"

< "Where is Illyana now? Maybe she can send us back!"

Warren blinks. "Send you back where? I don't -- oh. You mean... travel back to 2007? That's... " He stops. He was about to say "ridiculous", but the whole situation is ridiculous, really, and Illyana is probably the closest thing to an expert on time-travel in the world. If nothing else, she'd be in a good position to definitively rule out the idea.

"Well, I guess it can't do any harm to ask her. She's --" he hesitates again, aware that Illyana's location is not exactly public information... on the other hand, anyone who is capable of setting up a fake this elaborate could find out that sort of information with a trivial effort. she's in Moscow, working with Colossus' team. Things are a lot worse over there, from what I hear... we don't really have any reliable communications. But I can send a signal and hope, I guess."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

>Well... you can look up the history on our network whenever you want, but take my word for it -- you have no idea what it's like out there. If my team hadn't picked you up you'd be facing Sentinels within the hour and in the camps pumped full of Cure not long after that.

Josh nods slightly. “And I’m thankful for it, believe me. All of us are, even if we don’t show it. It’s just…” He pauses, not sure how his words will come out, but rushes on anyway. “It’s just really hard to see someone who looks so much like Warren not believe me. I guess it’s been awhile for you, but you were married to me longer than I’ve been so far… wow, that came out really weird. Anyway, what I meant is that you and I didn’t have secrets because it was impossible to lie to each other. And I guess it’s really hard to see you in front of me but not feel your mental presence.” Josh looks away.

> "I used to keep my hair better than this, though -- didn't I?"

He laughs. “Yeah, you used to be so particular about it and wanted it to be just so.” Josh reaches a hand across the table and ruffles a hand through Warren’s hair. “I think it’s one of the little things I love - loved - about you. That and…” Josh cuts himself off, suddenly embarrassed. It was like talking to Warren, but everything was subtly different. Based on the evidence, he was operating on the idea that Illyana moved them forward in time, but it was still weird as hell.

> Things are a lot worse over there, from what I hear... we don't really have any reliable communications. But I can send a signal and hope, I guess."

“Oh.” Josh sounds slightly disappointed. “Well, it’s worth a shot, anyway.” For a moment, he’d thought that Illyana would be able to send them packing and solve the entire dilemma. Granted… that doesn’t solve all of this. Which leads to the question I’ve been avoiding this entire time.

“Warren?” Josh looks into his eyes hesitantly. “How did the world come to this? And how did…” He swallows hard. “How did I die?” Do I really want to know this? Maybe if I know, we can change it? It sounded horribly narcissistic, but his life, in the grand scheme of things, couldn’t have made too many ripples in the space-time continuum. Did the universe care if he lived or died? Probably not, and if it was all the same to whatever higher force governed this type of thing, he’d rather be alive. Warren, too.

[Warren Worthington III]

< "How did I die?"

Warren looks up sharply, almost angrily, at the question. "You didn't -- " he starts out sharply, then sighs in defeat. "Oh, what's the point? Like you said, it's hard... you look, you sound so much like him." He gets up suddenly, starts pacing like a caged animal.

"You -- I mean, he -- oh, Lord." He can feel the burning behind his eyes, the tears threatening to roll down his cheeks, and banishes it with an effort of will. There will be time later to give in to emotion; right now he has to pay attention. Too many people's lives depend on him for him to indulge in anything else.

"Josh died June 13, 2017, at 3:47 PM, Eastern Standard Time." His voice is almost a monotone, more like an automated reader than a person. "I wasn't there. Officially it was an accident -- 'friendly fire'. We were still with the X-Men, then. Things hadn't gotten so bad." He pauses, then shakes his head. "No, that's a lie. They had gotten so bad, but we were still able to pretend. Even when they released the Sentinels and reopened the Camps and..." the anger comes back into his voice then, and the bitterness, and he stops talking for several seconds.

When he starts again, it's in the same monotone as before. "SHIELD decided the Institute was an insecure holding location for mutant children, sent a squad to transfer the residents to the Northeast Camp they'd just opened. I wasn't there." He knows he's said that before, but it's the thing he keeps coming back to. If he'd been there -- well, he and Josh had taken down Charlie before. Mostly Josh, admittedly, but... they'd always been more, together, than the sum of their parts. They might have made it. And even if they hadn't, at least Warren wouldn't have been alive to know about it.

He squeezes down on that despair again, refusing to let it cripple him, but not before it flashes through Elliot's mental defenses, visible to any attentive telepath.

"Officially, it was an accident. Friendly fire." He's repeating himself again, but he doesn't care. "When it was over, Josh was dead. So were most of the students he was trying to protect. I... felt it. It wasn't an accident. I told them. But I guess it was easier not to listen. And I guess I wasn't exactly the voice of reason, at the time."

He shrugs, a sharp, tense gesture that seems more at home on the battlefield than in a conversation. "Eventually I stopped talking. Walked away. Drake -- we fought, a few times. We still do. " Officially, at least, he thinks, but that thought he's careful to keep hidden. "Fortress had already left. So had -- well, so had most everybody. Some of the old guard stayed in the area. We... reformed. Not the same, though. Still... we've kept the lid on things, here. Mostly." He's rambling now, thoughts spilling out in fragments. "I... Josh, you have no idea what I've had to do. If you could touch my mind you wouldn't recognize it. I've... " he's losing it again, he realizes, desperate for an absolution this boy cannot give, and he wouldn't be able to accept.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> Like you said, it's hard... you look, you sound so much like him.

Josh resists his immediate retort - ‘That’s because I am him, you idiot!’ - and just listens. It was probably easier from him to accept being tossed into the future than for Warren to accept that his husband has been temporarily resurrected as a teenager. In any case, it seemed like Warren needed someone to talk to. He probably doesn’t have anyone to confide in any longer. I was all he had. The feeling makes Josh shiver, and he resolves to never take Warren for granted ever again, if he ever gets back to his proper place in the space-time continuum. As the pacing begins, Josh shifts his position, climbing up to the table and resting his feet on the bench.

> "Josh died June 13, 2017, at 3:47 PM, Eastern Standard Time."

This is so fucking bizarre. It was impossible, right? How could he be standing in front of a future version of Warren, who was telling him the exact date and time of when he would die? An empty, sick feeling in his stomach makes Josh close his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, he has about a billion questions. “What were my last 10 years like? Did I ever finish school? Did we stay at the Institute or did we get a house? Did we…” He takes a breath. “Sorry, keep going.”

> "When it was over, Josh was dead. So were most of the students he was trying to protect. I... felt it. It wasn't an accident.
Josh takes a deep breath in. Hey, at least I died trying to protect others. Between the X-Men and his interest in becoming a doctor, a lot of his life thus far had been tied up in helping others. If he had to go, trying to keep students safe wasn’t an awful way for it to happen. Too bad I hadn’t been able to save them… He briefly feels anger at people who’d put them into that situation, but it was pointless, and the complete insanity of being angry at his murderers isn’t lost on him.

“You felt it? Warren…” When their mental link was especially intense, mental or physical pain was transmitted across it. The bonuses of the link generally outweighed the negative aspect, but actually feeling his partner die across their link had to have destroyed Warren inside. And it’s my fault. Mine. Josh bites his lip. God, this future sucks. Again, he wonders how the course of events have shaped the world into its current state.

> "I... Josh, you have no idea what I've had to do. If you could touch my mind you wouldn't recognize it. I've... "

I’d still recognize it. I could never not recognize you, no matter how much you’ve changed. Josh sniffles a little. Empty platitudes run through his mind, but he says none of them. Warren was probably right - he likely couldn’t imagine the sorts of things a person would have to do when they were being hunted down by their own government. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t in the here and now. All there was right now was himself, and Warren, but not quite Warren.

On one of Warren’s paces, Josh reaches out and snags him by the belt loop, pulling him close. He wraps his arms around Warren, hugging him tightly. I love you no matter what, is what he wants to say, but it catches in his throat. This wasn’t his husband. Not exactly. Nevertheless, he squeezes tightly, wishing he’d been there to prevent his optimistic, loving, brilliant husband from turning into a cynical, suspicious war victim.

Josh inhales slightly, noticing Warren’s scent was off. I guess it’s wartime, and supplies are scarce. Even after they’d lost access to the Worthington fortune, the two of them had found a supplier that they could buy his expensive French cologne from at cost. Warren had initially planned to go without, but Josh had liked the scent so much he’d scoured the internet for a cheaper source. The designer’s headquarters are probably a bombed-out shell now, based on everything else in this world.

“I’m… sorry. I’m sorry I left you all alone.” A tear drops off of Josh’s cheek.

[Warren Worthington III]

It would have taken exactly no effort to evade Josh’s grip... just letting his forcefield flare back up would do the job. Which is exactly what he should have done, Warren realizes: there’s no justification whatsoever for standing here letting this teenager hold him as if Warren were still the idealistic twenty-year-old he’d married. God… that was so long ago. Half my lifetime… feels longer.

He shouldn’t be doing it, but he does. And almost, almost, he can pretend it’s real, if he stands very still and squints. Warren remembers their first kiss, and the first time they had sex, remembers the day Josh moved in with him, the day he proposed, his first argument with Josh’s mom, a whole litany of “first” s, all two decades past but still clear in his mind, and this is so convincingly that Josh that all at once Warren decides his origins don’t really matter… wherever he came from and however he got here, he’s still him.

But that’s all it is, is pretending. Because his Josh is also their last kiss, and the last time they had sex, and packing up Josh’s things and moving them out of the house, and the last time Rachel spoke to him, and a whole litany of “last”s and “nevers” and “won’t ever again”s that still ache more than anything, even after all this time, but he realizes he’s not willing to throw away for a comforting illusion.

> " I’m… sorry. I’m sorry I left you all alone "

Warren doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he decides to misunderstand. "I wasn’t alone. By the time you – by the time the Institute was destroyed, most of the older students had already left. So had most of the senior X-Men. It was just me and Drake and a few of the old guard, and a bunch of new folks straight out of a recruiting poster. When I finally quit, they all found me… Toni and Storm and Sam and the others, they found me and helped me hide out until I’d become human again. Eventually I ended up running the show." He laughs, or tries to, though it comes out as more of a choked cough. "Ironic, isn’t it? Bet you’d never have guessed I’d end up running the Brotherhood. Or, well, the local franchise, anyway."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

The hug is strange. Warren’s body stiffens up at first, as if he doesn’t normally allow people this far into his personal zone anymore. Eventually, though, he loosens up slightly, but it’s still incredibly different than usual, and not exactly intimate. Aside from the scruffy look, this Warren looked and felt the same as the one he’d left behind. But it’s not Warren… not the one I know.

This has to be hard for him. I look 20 years younger than I should, and he hasn’t even seen me for 10 years.

> It was just me and Drake and a few of the old guard, and a bunch of new folks straight out of a recruiting poster. When I finally quit, they all found me… Toni and Storm and Sam and the others, they found me and helped me hide out until I’d become human again. Eventually I ended up running the show.

Josh lets go, and takes a seat. “Why did we, sorry, you and Josh…,” he pauses for a second at that, blinking at referring to himself in the third person, “…why did you stick around so long? And what happened, exactly? And the X-Men? And how did Storm even let SHIELD take over? That’s what happened, right?” He has so many questions… it seems like there’s not even enough time to answer them all. I guess SHIELD is part of the government. It would be easy for them to take charge if they wanted to.

> "Ironic, isn’t it? Bet you’d never have guessed I’d end up running the Brotherhood. Or, well, the local franchise, anyway."

“If the X-Men are the new regime’s Gestapo, I think I can understand your career change. It seems impossible to even think about, though.” Josh pauses. “Speaking of careers… what ever happened to ours? Did you end up running for office like you always wanted to? Did I get into med school?” It all seems trivial, especially seeing as his future self is dead and Warren was some kind of rebel leader, but it’s somehow important. “Did anything good actually come of the future?” He stops himself. “Sorry about the 20 questions. It’s just… well, if the future sucks this badly… do you think there’s any way to change it?”

“Assuming, of course, that I’m actually from the past and not some kind of zombie clone.” A wry look spreads across Josh’s face.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Why did we, sorry, you and Josh… why did you stick around so long? And what happened, exactly? And the X-Men? And how did Storm even let SHIELD take over? That’s what happened, right?"

Warren doesn’t so much sit down as collapse into a chair, more emotionally overwhelmed by the last hour or so than he had quite expected. This kid doesn’t just look like a teenaged Josh, doesn’t just have the same powers. He sounds and acts and talks like Josh did, before everything went sour. I may as well admit it… one way or another, this is Josh. It isn’t possible, but there it is.

Which raises a host of questions Warren simply isn’t prepared to answer right now. So, OK, this is his long-lost husband, except… he’s eighteen years old? That’s… well, at best, creepy. He remembers the little speech he gave Rachel, back before the wedding, about maturity and age and all that, and the irony is like dust in his mouth… still, a 2-year difference is one thing, a 20-year difference quite another. Hell, this Josh is Nathan’s age… I could quite literally be his father! Which raises yet another question Warren doesn’t know what to do with… Oh, God. Do I tell him about Nathan?

Fortunately, Josh is full of questions that are easier to answer. Or, well… at least less confusing.

At least slightly less confusing.

"Lord… I don’t know. I guess we thought we could stop it, you know? I mean, after the Alcatraz Incident, the President seemed to be on our side... even Project: Strikeback wasn’t ever really supposed to be used, until the White Queen took over, right? Sure, looking back it all seems inevitable, but at the time… well, it just seemed like one fight after another. We won some, we lost some, but we thought we were accomplishing something.

Maybe we were just deluded all along, I don’t know anymore. When Storm first took the X-Men public, asked me to be their spokesmutant… when SHIELD actually started working with us, publically, well, I really believed we’d turned the corner. Sure, there were still a lot of bigots and paranoids talking about the “Mutant Menace,” but they were more and more marginalized. And when Elliot took out Magneto, I nearly did a little dance of joy. Man, you should have seen me and J—um, I mean…" He trips over his own words, not sure whether this Josh would remember that, or what exactly is going on, and barrels on through. "Anyway… well, I guess we were wrong. The MRA came up a few times, but never quite got enough votes to pass, until… well, I guess the Washington Massacre was really the tipping point."

He waves vaguely towards a computer terminal and adds "You can look up the details, but the short form is some mentalist – we still don’t know who it was, actually – drove about 20% of Washington DC homicidally insane during the International Summit on Mutant Relations. Guess whoever it was thought the timing was symbolic.

We tried to keep it under control, but… well, we failed. The President was one of the affected, he ended up launching nuclear strikes at Western Europe… almost started World War III. I still don’t know why he didn’t… I guess cooler heads prevailed on that end. Still, pretty much every country on Earth went on high alert, border wars popped up everywhere. Took almost a week for the dust to settle; when it did we realized most of Congress, the Senate, and the executive office were either dead or crazy. SHIELD stepped in to keep things under control. It made sense at the time.

Of course, everyone blamed mutants. Understandably, I guess. The MRA passed, of course. Mutants were required to turn themselves in for testing and, if their power was deemed a threat to National Security, they were Cured. Some voluntarily, others… not.

Most of the team quit then, but some of us went along, registered, tried to be good citizens. Most of the older students left the Institute, and we started getting new students under mysterious circumstances… later we figured out they were being taken away from their families, but what could we do? Put them out on the street?"

He’s surprised by how little anger there is in his voice. He used to be outraged by it all. Now he’s just tired.

"It was pretty bad, but we figured it would blow over. Meanwhile we cracked down on the Brotherhood, on the Hellfire Club, all of them. Set up a network of detectors, and automated Sentinels, to protect against mutant criminals. More containment camps… like Neverland, except worse.One fight after another, and it took its toll, but… we were winning. Hell, we won.

But of course that was just the beginning. After that the X-Men were a liability, of course… the government was hiring mutants! The media had a field day with it, the public was shocked. They always are. So… SHIELD told most of us to stand down and came to take the kids away. That’s when… that’s when Josh died."

He shrugs, unable to really express any of what’s churning around in his mind. "After that… well, I stopped paying attention, really. Ended up here, helping ferry mutants to safe havens. After a while, started leading rescue ops. And, well… here I am."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> You can look up the details, but the short form is some mentalist – we still don’t know who it was, actually – drove about 20% of Washington DC homicidally insane during the International Summit on Mutant Relations.

As Josh listens to Warren’s account of what led up to the present, he becomes more and more horrified. This is what the future has in store for us? Oh, god… After a second, he speaks up. “That summit is coming up this fall! My neurobiology professor said she was going to speak at it…” Josh claps a hand over his mouth. “Things are going to start changing that soon? Damn it…” He frowns. “You never figured out who did it? There are only so many suspects, right? I mean… it would take someone with some serious telepathic ability to pull that off.” Power I don't have, he reflects briefly. At least I didn't cause this. By yourself, a nasty voice chimes in. You've been fine-tuning Cerebro II...

> So… SHIELD told most of us to stand down and came to take the kids away. That’s when… that’s when Josh died.

When I died… There’s got to be some way to change it all! It wasn’t like he was around to live through it, but what he’d heard of the future indicated that it pretty much sucked balls. And, you know, living past 30 would be pretty cool, too. “Warren… can’t we change it, now that we know what’s going to happen? Or is that impossible?”

> After that… well, I stopped paying attention, really. Ended up here, helping ferry mutants to safe havens. After a while, started leading rescue ops. And, well… here I am.

And you’ve changed so much. Everyone has, even Toni. He’d never thought she’d ever stop telling jokes, but it was apparent that the Toni of 2027 had lost her sense of humor. Along with some family members, from the sounds of it. Toni and Jack? Who would have ever guessed that one? “Well… I guess it probably doesn’t mean a lot, seeing as I’m not your Josh…” He pauses, and looks down. “…but I think he would be proud of you. You’re still fighting for the sake of others. He’s dead… but he’ll always be with you. Don’t forget him.” He’s not exactly sure why he even said that, in fact. Facing your own mortality makes you act strange, Josh supposes.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " That summit is coming up this fall! My neurobiology professor said she was going to speak at it. Things are going to start changing that soon? "

Warren blinks at that, suddenly remembering that one of Josh’s professors had been at the Summit. OK, that does it, he thinks privately… whatever their origins, it’s these guys really do have memories that stop in late 2007 or so.. To hear Josh exclaim about something happening “soon” that actually happened two decades ago is disorienting, to say the least. Lord… that means he doesn’t remember our fifth anniversary… or Nathan… or anything. He’s… we just got married a few months ago in his head!

It hurts his brain. I should really tell him about Nate. He’s going to find out in the archives anyway… and he’d want to know it wasn’t all bad. Warren has absolutely no doubt of that… and yet, he doesn’t mention it. He’s not entirely sure why, beyond a vague sense that Nate is something he’d shared with his Josh, not this… echo… and it feels wrong to bring it up.

> " You never figured out who did it? There are only so many suspects, right? I mean… it would take someone with some serious telepathic ability to pull that off. "

Grateful for the change of subject, Warren nods. "Exactly. There were only a few possibilities – Emma Frost topping the list of suspects, especially after she got her hands on Cerebro…" he pauses for a moment, looking uncertainly at Josh, and adds "Do you remember that? Right, that was just after we were attacked in Paris… your birthday, before we got married."

Vivid memories of that aborted date inundate him, most especially the moment their telekinetic powers melded. That was the first time, he remembers. They’d practiced the “force-field” trick a lot, after that… it was fun as well as practical. Warren hadn’t figured out how to do it by himself until long afterwards. Which was more practical, but not nearly as much fun.

Which pretty much sums up the last decade or so.

" She’d been underground for months after the Invasion, but she surfaced afterwards. She’s leading the West Coast Brotherhood team now. It’s… different there." Outright war, he sighs privately. Every day he expects to hear that the entire state of California has fallen into the ocean, or been transported to another dimension, or who knows what. Thus far, it’s just a warzone.

Anyway.

"We couldn’t prove it, though, and she’s never admitted it, and mass annihilation wasn’t really her style, not back then. Never could figure a motive for it. And there were signs of another Xavier-class telepath operating in the world, but neither Josh or Jake could ever get a lock on him, or her." He shrugs. "Josh kept insisting the mental signature was familiar, but we never identified it."

And of course there’s Nate. He’d just been born, though. Besides, he’s not talking about Nate.

> " Warren… can’t we change it, now that we know what’s going to happen? Or is that impossible? "

"’going to happen’?" Warren echoes incredulously. "Josh… it happened. Twenty years ago. It’s in the past." He understands what Josh is thinking… for him, it’s still “in the future”. But it isn’t, really. "I understand it doesn’t feel that way to you… but it’s just as much in the past as the Institute Invasion, and Magneto’s attack on Alcatraz, and World War II, and… " he waves his hand around vaguely "…everything."

> " I think he would be proud of you. You’re still fighting for the sake of others. He’s dead… but he’ll always be with you. Don’t forget him "

Warren looks away then, unwilling to let anyone see him crying. "I never have," he responds quietly, then dries his face with his hands and turns back to face Josh.

" You’re a lot like him, you know. I suppose that sounds really strange to you, but… well, there are differences. I was with Josh through college and medical school and he changed a lot during those years. Matured. He could have led the X-Men if he’d wanted, but school came first, and his patients, and… his family. "

He doesn’t understand why he’s telling Josh this now, any more than he understands why he didn’t bring it up before, but it seems right. "There was a boy, a few years after we got married. Nate. Nathan Winters. Eight years old when we met him, the most amazing mind on the planet. Incredibly powerful, sweetest kid you could ever hope to meet, and incredibly dangerous.

Everybody wanted to suppress his power, like Xavier did with Dr. Grey. Everyone except you – Josh, I mean. He stood up to Storm and Fury and Sheppard and Logan and everybody, argued and fought and… well, at the end, he linked his own mind to Nate’s, so tight that Nate losing his powers would have burned out his own mind." Warren smiles, remembering how frightened and how proud he’d been that night.

"They backed down. We adopted Nate – officially, about six months later. Josh taught him everything… they were mindlinked pretty much all the time. " He laughs, remembering some of the attendant awkwardness of that, then goes numb as he remembers the last time he saw Nate.

"Anyway," he starts out, then realizes he doesn’t actually have anything more to say.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "We couldn’t prove it, though, and she’s never admitted it, and mass annihilation wasn’t really her style, not back then. Never could figure a motive for it. And there were signs of another Xavier-class telepath operating in the world, but neither Josh or Jake could ever get a lock on him, or her. Josh kept insisting the mental signature was familiar, but we never identified it."

Josh rolls his eyes. “I dunno, Emma Frost would be on the top of my suspect list for just about any kind of telepathic crime. But you’re right - her plans always seem to revolve around taking people over. She’s not a fan of direction confrontation." So far. Everyone else had changed so much… why couldn’t the White Queen?

> "Josh… it happened. Twenty years ago. It’s in the past."

“I know, but not for…” Josh stops talking, and just smiles sadly. It hadn’t yet happened to him, and there was a chance of avoiding it all, if they were able to alter that event in Washington somehow. He files the information away for later. Warren’s reluctance probably had to do with the fact he didn’t quite believe they were really time-travelers yet. If they were able to prove it, he’d come around. He’s not the same without my future self. He’d do just about anything to have things the way they were, I think.

> "I never have,"

Warren’s reaction cuts to his core. He’d not seen a sensitive side to this Warren until now. A multitude of images flash through his mind - dates with Warren, their wedding, the first time they met, images of him flushed and pressed close, after sex. Josh brushes at his eyes absentmindedly, finding them slightly wet. As strange as it was, Warren’s obvious love for his future self made him emotional. If - when - I get back, I need to tell Warren how lucky I am be with him.

> Everybody wanted to suppress his power, like Xavier did with Dr. Grey. Everyone except you – Josh, I mean. He stood up to Storm and Fury and Sheppard and Logan and everybody, argued and fought and…

Josh blinks. “Me? I did that? I must have been nuts... Storm is scary when her mind is made up.” He had a healthy self-confidence, but somehow, he couldn’t imagine himself railing and fighting with the administrators of the school. I guess I got more confidence in my 20s. It was a strange thought to have.

> "They backed down. We adopted Nate – officially, about six months later. Josh taught him everything…

A strange feeling spreads through him… it was sort of like when Warren had asked him to get married. “We… we had a kid?” He’d wondered if they ever would - hell, he wondered if the two of them had would have ever gotten married, if they hadn’t gone to California to visit Warren’s parents. That had seemed to be the final break through Warren’s lingering issues of commitment.

But kids were a different story. He knew that some same-sex couples had difficulty adopting. Maybe it had been their semi-celebrity status. Or some other connection… maybe through my job? No way to know.

Adopting was establishing a legacy… and a kind of physical representation of their love. And even more than that, having someone to teach would be cool. It was the little things, like putting a band-aid on a scuffed knee, or making cookies, or reading a book together... He hadn't realized how much he wanted kids someday until now.

“Wow. I mean…” Josh sits down, slightly dazed. “Where is he now? Around the base somewhere?” Josh looks around for a second, as if trying to spot Nate.

A sudden thought comes to mind. If Nate was around, would Warren still have turned into this crusty soldier? He raises a hand to his mouth, horrified.“He’s not… oh god, he’s not dead, is he?” Josh didn’t even know this little boy, and yet the idea stuck icy shards into his heart.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Josh… it happened. Twenty years ago. It’s in the past."
> " I know, but not for…"

Warren recognizes that smile, the “I’m dropping the subject but haven’t given up” expression, and looks away. Josh had always been indomitable that way. Yeah. Tough enough to stand down an army battalion. Just not tough enough to survive the experience. He hates the bitterness in his thoughts, but he’s come to terms with it… this is life, now, and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change it.

> " Me? I did that? I must have been nuts... Storm is scary when her mind is made up."

That gets a laugh out of him… choked and sharp, but a laugh. "Yeah. That’s what you said then, too. You wandered around in a daze for days after she backed down."

> " We… we had a kid?"

"Yeah. Three weeks of running jokes about which of us was the mom. I never came closer in my life to dropping Toni in the lake. Of course, that was before –" he cuts off, then, not wanting to ruin the moment, but completes the thought in the privacy of his own mind: …before Matthew blew up… before I had to blow Jack’s fool head off… before. He can practically feel the nascent smile shriveling on his face.

> " Wow. I mean… where is he now? Around the base somewhere? He’s not… oh god, he’s not dead, is he? "

Part of Warren wants to cheer at the question, at the indication that this Josh is starting to get what life is like now, and he stifles that reaction. "Maybe. I don’t know." He’s about to explain what happened, how Nate disappeared after Josh died and how he’d just sat there like a zombie and let it happen, but all at once he doesn’t have the energy. "I haven’t seen him in over ten years."

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

> "I haven’t seen him in over ten years."

Josh’s jaw drops. “You haven’t seen him in ten years? How…” His mind works furiously for a moment. Warren wouldn’t have just abandoned your kid, you idiot. “Ten years? What happen---” Ten years. It had been exactly ten years since the Institute was destroyed, based on the numbers. Josh swallows, a hard lump in his throat. “Was he killed in the explosion?” With me, he wants to say, but it’s too morbid.

Focus on the good things. “Nathan.” He turns name over in his head. Probably not what he would have named a baby, had he the choice. But already it was taking on some kind of special meaning in his mind. “What else can you tell me about him? What was he like? What was I like? You said that I helped Nathan learn how to control his powers… but my telekinesis is much stronger. Does that change?” Josh can’t help but pepper Warren with questions.

He sits slowly back down on the kitchen table. “Not to insult you guys or anything, but this world blows.” A wan smile crosses his face.