Chapter Text
There was a lot of yelling. Some throwing of knives (not at Professor X or Dr. McCoy). Even a bit of bribery. In the end though, it was Brooklyn who sealed it. “He was in my room.” She said, so calmly it hurt, and everyone went completely quiet and turned to her. Nikki had one of her hands. Lila had the other. Bucky didn’t see Destroyer Number Five anywhere on her as she met everyone of their gazes one by one, eventually landing on Professor X’s. “Ultron - he came to me first, then to Wanda and Pietro, right?” The twins nodded. Brooklyn went on, “Dad, Auntie Nat, I know you think it’s safest for us to be close, and maybe here at the compound it is, but I don’t want to hide and I don’t want to pretend I’m not…” She swallowed down the end of her sentence, redirecting her gaze to Professor X. “I won’t have to pretend with you, right? None of us would?”
The Professor smiled warmly at Brooklyn. “That is our hope,” he agreed. “I founded the school so that young mutants wouldn’t have to hide, and so that they could learn to safely control their powers. The twins are mutants, but the rest of you are also very powerful and I feel that it would be safest for you to study with us.” He looked at Jane, who was watching Tori waddle around but listening intently. “When she’s old enough, we would welcome her as well.”
Jane smiled tightly and nodded. “Thank you. I will let Thor know when he gets back.”
Then the professor nodded, then looked to Bucky and Steve. “One more thing - I saw three mutant signitures here. The Maximoff’s are two. It can be hard to tell without genetic testing when their young sometimes, but I’m guessing she’s the third.” He said, with a nod at Sarah, who was tugging at Bucky’s hair and stuffing it - fist and all - into her little mouth. “You’ve wondered why she survived when all the others didn’t, yes?”
Steve bristled. Bucky looked down at the baby. She grinned around her fistful of his hair right back at him. “Stevie, that makes sense…” He whispered. “And I still think this is the best option.”
Steve gave a nod. A stiff one. But he looked at Brooklyn and he relaxed a little. “Is it really what you want?”
Brooklyn glanced at Tavian, who didn’t look to Bucky like he’d given anything away, but she must have seen something in the blank stare he gave her because she looked back to Steve and nodded. “I am a super soldier. I don’t want to pretend I’m not and I don’t want to let all the things I went through go to waste. I want to be like you and Papa and I can’t learn that by hiding or pretending.”
“I don’t like this.” Natalia spoke up, finally, from where she was standing with Duckface on the other side oth the kids. She met Steve’s eyes, then Nikki’s and Lila’s. “I don’t and I might not ever but we agreed we’d try the other options first and if they didn’t work, we would send you to Xavier’s.”
“Do any of you *not* want this?” Pepper asked, looking around at the kids. When none of them spoke up, she turned back to the Professor and Dr. McCoy with a polite smile. “Alright. We will arange a time to tour the school before term starts. If there is anything you need to tell us or have us get before then, please Email me.”
When the pair left, and Pepper returned from showing them out, everyone looked around at each other - lost. It was a bittersweet thing, sending the kids away. Bucky knew it was the right thing. It was just… hard. “Let’s… order thirty pizza’s and watch movies.” He suggested, and the tension broke. Everyone murmured agreement and Tony pulled out his phone to order.