Any Port in a Storm: Family Reunion...Sort of

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Back at the mansion Franklin finds out what happened and decides what to do next.

Franklin Storm was fairly sure he had paced holes into the soles of his shoes between when he'd received the phone call saying his children had been found and when he saw them. A very small part of him thought "I should've put tracking microchips in them when they were toddlers" - the rest was ignoring the mud and dirt they were both smeared with and looking them over closely for anything worse than bruises. They looked - it wasn't good but it could've been so much worse, they were here and he couldn't see anything worse than scrapes and cuts even if Johnny looked like he wanted to hit someone and Sue - Sue looked like her mother, even unconscious and Franklin had to look away from them both. "Tell me what happened. Is Molekevic in jail?"

"Molekevic got away, regrettably." Vanessa brushed a dirty lock of hair out of her face and vaguely tried to wipe more dirt off her hands. "Lucas and I located the kids in an underground complex of sorts. We couldn't get them out without serious risk of being captured ourselves so we called in some back up. The others provided distraction while we got the kids out of the cages they were in. Molekevic, presumably in the process of fleeing the fight he and his forces were losing, came upon us with the kids and brought the ceiling down on us. It was Sue who prevented us four from being buried alive. We were found in our cavern not long after and everyone got out safely. Susan blacked out when she created what I can only call a force field and, as you know, she hasn't woken since. We couldn't track Molekevic once we got out, though Lucas will be talking to his contacts in the NYPD to give them what we know so that they might hopefully locate him and take him into custody."

"Sue? Sue made a force field?" Franklin squinted at Vanessa in disbelief and shook his head. "She saved you." It wasn't that he didn't believe her, it was that all he could picture was his little girl in that hospital bed. "Is she... " He broke off as the infirmary doors opened again. "Charles. Please tell me that she will wake up, and that my daughter did not ..." he took off his glasses and cleaned them on his tie. "Tell me my daughter did not give herself brain damage trying to save the people who were rescuing her."

"Your daughter will be fine, Franklin," Charles replied immediately as he came in. "She is merely exhausted from her powers use - it is not uncommon in young mutants to overextend themselves when they first develop their talents. And your Susan had quite the emergency to cope with."

All the weight went out of Franklin and he fumbled back to sit down on a chair before he lost his balance. "Thank you," he said, voice breaking. "What did Molekevic want from my children? What in the hell did he do to them?" He glanced at Vanessa and then looked back to Charles. "He was experimenting on people. He was angry at being discovered. It is not too much of a stretch to assume he wanted my children for some ... purpose."

"We're not sure what he was doing, precisely. He had a full lab down there from what we could tell. It might be possible to salvage data to know for certain. We do know he took Sue and did something to her hip. We're not sure if he cut into her or drilled. When she wakes up Sue will be able to tell us better, honestly. He had...dirt monsters that seemed to have powers not unlike mutants. We also know that homeless mutants have been disappearing and reappearing with incisions in their hip or leg area. Assuming they relate..." Vanessa made a vague gesture with her hand. Franklin was a scientist, he could probably put two and two together.

"Stem cells." Franklin said. "His experiments were in stem cells. He probably took their bone marrow." He frowned deeply. "Charles, if you are still in contact with Doctors McCoy and MacTaggart, I will forward what information we have of Molekevic's research to you to send to them. Some of it is beyond me. I'm just an engineer." He said, with the feigned humility he'd used so often to break the ice at meetings between colleagues. "Most of it was taken into evidence, but we have some of the so called abstracts." He didn't want for a response before turning in his seat to face Vanessa. "You said he was letting some of the homeless mutants go? Or were they reappearing in morgues? Are my children at risk?" Except, again he didn't want for an answer. "No, of course they are, I'd be an idiot to think otherwise."

In a room with two stoic men and Charles it seemed like the options for being comforting were a little short. After a moment of hesitation, Vanessa sat down next to the worried father and lightly placed her hand on his knee. "We have no indication the mutants taken came to any sort of irreparable harm. We've only tracked a few down but they were all alive, though infected at incision sites because they didn't get to clinics. The second and third hand stories we've gotten from others all say people turned up drugged but alive. We don't know anyone Molekevic killed." Which was not to say some didn't turn up dead. Vanessa and Lucas had both immediately considered that a possibility but why voice that right now? Franklin would, no doubt, fill in the worst case scenarios himself in vivid detail.

"The work was done the same way it would have been at a hospital, more or less." Bishop offered the man. "No reason to take that kind of care if you don't want your patients to come out of it just fine. He was exploiting mutants but not trying to torture them."

"Or he wanted to make sure his resources were renewable." Franklin suggested bitterly. "Arthur was never one to be wasteful. He wrote memos on the backs of dry cleaning receipts." He glanced again at his daughter, lying asleep in the bed, and Johnny, trying to scowl at the doctor despite the obvious signs that what he really wanted was to sleep. "He'll try again, either to finish his project or because he thinks I - my family - caused his downfall, and I am certain I do not want to have my children be followed by bodyguards for the rest of their lives." He paused, again to look at his daughter and son, and then shook his head sadly. "Charles, your school, would it be safer for them? Can Sue be ... taught? trained? I'm not sure what word you want to use, could you teach her to protect herself? And Johnny, if he discovers powers like hers?"

"Susan can certainly be trained in her gifts," replied Charles, his voice sympathetic for his friend's distress. "And if you had not suggested she study here, I might have suggested it myself. As for Johnny... should he manifest, he would certainly be welcome as well. We'd take care of them, Franklin."

"It's true, sir, there's nothing to worry about. They'll be in good hands." Sam was of course a little biased, being one of the teachers there, but he was confident they'd be able to look after Susan, and Johnny when the time should come.

Rather hesitantly, Vanessa asked, "Is there somewhere Johnny could go? Not that he couldn't stay here with his sister but it might be better, just in case, if the kids weren't both in the same place. That way if Molekevic figures out Sue's here Johnny's not in any danger. Kids do go into town and such. They're safe here but if someone bides their time long enough they'll find a window of opportunity to exploit. It might be better if there's only one Storm here for him to try to come after, if he dares. Just until he's caught."

Franklin frowned, again taking his glasses off to clean them absently. "For now I can hire bodyguards. It is possible my parents can take Johnny in. We visit enough, they live in California, he's never wanted to go home when it was time to leave. Sue may not like that, but I think you are right, separating them may be the safer option."

"And we have resources over there also, should the unthinkable happen," Charles continued. "I can ask the West Coast Annex to keep an eye on things there, to make sure Johnny and your parents remain safe."

"Then I think that is our best option, though I am not sure how sustainable it is long-term. Hopefully Arthur will come to his senses and turn himself in, or the authorities will find him." Funny how authorities seemed to be more the people here, to him, now. The police had not been as helpful as he thought they could have been - and what would they have done in the place of these people who rescued his children? Franklin was not sure he wanted to imagine a scenario where people without gifts had gone into rescue Sue and Johnny.

"We can make the arrangements later. For now, I expect you want to some time alone with your children." Charles nodded at the X-Men and X-Factor members, his meaning plain. "Thank you, all of you, for bringing them safely back."

Bishop nodded to everyone assembled, offering Franklin another XFI card. "If you need anything else or get a word about Arthur, we'll pull him in if we can." And with that he was off, his partner in tow.

"Likewise, you can always contact us if we can ever be of service to you again, sir." Sam reached out to shake Franklin's hand before parting company with the man so he could spend some time with his kids as Charles had indicated.

"Believe me, I will. If Arthur Molkevic ever even approaches my children again, you will be the first people I call." He shook Sam's hand, and thanked him, and Charles again, before Franklin Storm went to collect his son, and then wait out the time until his daughter woke up.