1st story:
In the streets of a city, Jubilee and Wolverine are walking. Jubilee points out some men in a back alley. She saunters in there alone, asking if someone called for entertainment. They stare at her and let her pass.
Later, Wolverine criticizes that her trying to act sexy seems so wrong. Not thirteen anymore, she reminds him. He sort of wishes she were, he sighs, then realizes that sounded bad. Awful, she agrees.
They enter the building which turns out to be a prison of sorts. Quickly, the two of them take out the guards, after which the police are called. The jailers had kidnapped former mutants and planned on using them as an example. However, they don’t know who freed them.
Jubilee watches from a rooftop. Wolverine joins her and she asks if he got it. He got it and a lecture from the checkout girl, he informs her. A lecture and not her phone number? Jubilee teases. He is getting old. He hands her the ice cream while he has his beer.
Been a while, he tells her. Yes, she agrees. Remember when they first met? he reminisces. He was crucified. Hard to forget. That wasn’t the first time, he corrects her. He was unconscious, delirious. Doesn’t count. The first time they met was in that cave she’d made her home. He tried to kill her and all she did was knock him on his butt and then keep taking care of him. She never showed fear. She made every place they went feel like home.
Why is he saying this? Jubilee asks after some silence. Because he’s worried about her. She tells him not to. Right, he’ll just pretend they are not family. He urges her to talk. They were always good at that. She laughs. More like she talked and he listened. Exactly, he agrees.
Jubilee admits it’s hard to explain. She feels like she’s whining or something, even just thinking about it. She hates whiners! You’re part of the club and then you’re not. And you think it’s a small thing. Not having powers. Because you’re still the same person. You’re still a mutant in your head, in the way you look at the world. That never changes. You never become one of them… human. But for everyone else who has their powers, you are suddenly the outsider. Not quite up to snuff. And all those dreams of belonging to something bigger than yourself suddenly don’t matter. All the friends you thought you had don’t matter.
He begins that he’s lived longer than he deserves and there’s a mountain of lives behind him. Some he called friends and the rest he killed. But she--
She tells him not to. She can see it in his eyes. He apologizes for not being there for her. Not his fault. She didn’t tell him. They’re gonna stop being such strangers. But not tonight.
He tells her he has to go soon. She could come with him. Jubilee refuses. She’s more than just some fireworks. She always was. But when she’s around the others, she forgets that. Present company excluded, of course.
Glad to hear it, he replies, drinking his beer. Now pass him some of that ice cream. He’s going to eat strawberry vanilla after drinking that? she mocks. Gross. She warns him he’ll puke. He’ll let her know beforehand, unless she wants to be surprised. The coat is new, she warns. Surprise it is then. And she knows he loves her, right? She knows and tells him she loves him too.
2nd story:
The Power kids are cleaning the house and doing laundry, planning to buy a present for their mother’s birthday afterwards. The problem being that apart from Julie they are broke. A solution presents itself when they get an offer to babysit.
Soon they fly towards the newest biggest skyscraper in the sky, wondering how X-Factor got their phone number. Jack suggests Franklin Richard’s mom probably told them. He stays with the Powers after all, when the Fantastic Four are on a mission.
They are unaware that their nemeses, the alien evil Snarks, are watching them.
The Powers land on Ship’s deck and are welcomed by X-Factor. Cyclops tells them Ship can reach X-Factor in case of emergency and mentions his son Chris has a cold and can project a forcefield. Katie suggests they take Chris to the park.
Later in Central Park, the kids remark they sure worry a lot. They probably never left Chris alone before. Julie hands Chris to Alex while trying to grab a tissue. Chris’ nose is running. However before she can reach his nose, Chris projects his forcefield. Julie worries what will happen if he doesn’t want his diaper changed.
Jack tries to reason with the baby, pointing out snot is gross. “Da,” Chris replies and points upward where a group of Snarks come down to attack them.
The Powers quickly put on their costumes. Julie warns the others the Snarks have mummy wrap guns. Katie disintegrates a gun. The Snarks decide to get her first. Julie tries to fly Katie away and the gun hits another Snark but she protests she has to power up.
Alex flies upward with Chris in his bubble and suggests Jack could mist around the Snarks so they can’t see them. He’d rather use the old Jackhammer, Jack replies, becomes smaller and denser and lands on a Snark head.
Up in the air, Alex hits something invisible, figuring it’s the Snark ship. Julie suggests Katie power up from that and she and Alex switch kids. Alex tells Julie to get Chris out of it.
The Snarks fire at Julie and Chris while Katie powers up. When Julie is hit by a mummy wrap gun, Jack angrily attacks another Snark. Julie reminds him he was supposed to be shielding them and throws the baby at him.
Katie fires her energy blast at the Snarks attacking Jack and takes them all out. Afterwards, she uses their mummy wrap gun on them.
Julie weakly asks about the baby. Katie informs her Jack is holding him because he feels guilty because he let Julie get hit and Katie had to save him. Jack protests and shudders that little snot face is grosser than ever. He hands him to Julie and asks her to wipe his nose.
An hour later, they return Chris to X-Factor. Alex tells Scott they had too much fun to accept payment. Scott doesn’t want to hear it. They earned their pay, with a nose-wiping bonus thrown in.
Can’t accept payment? Jack asks later. What was that all about? Alex reminds them Chris was in danger. Julie asks what they should get their mom for her birthday.
3rd story:
Magneto challenges Wolverine, telling him this is the end. Is he strong enough to continue? Logan announces: “let’s finish this.” He’s getting old, he tells Magneto.
As they trade insults, Magneto levitates a metal box at Logan, who hits it aside. Logan tells him every five times he does that he loses as much as in a house fire. Such a dismal fact, Magneto replies, levitating a paperbox at him. Much like Wolverine’s legion of failures. He’s not the guy who lost three space stations, Logan begins before Magneto hits him with another box.
He opens it to find baby clothes (baby Magneto clothes, to be exact). He might have need of those again, Magneto remarks as he shoves a throne at Logan. Yeah, ‘cause he can rule the world when he needs a nap and a nappie, Logan scoffs.
Enjoying himself? he asks. Immensely, Magneto replies, rarely does he have him where he wants him. Logan carries the throne, asking are they done yet. Alas, they are “done yet,” he replies. He trusts there are no hard feelings over his using his power to commandeer Wolverine’s vehicle?
Is he kidding? Wolverine looks at the truck. He told him he wasn’t gonna help him empty his space, then he told him no dinosaurs, no asteroids, no antiques not on a weekend, and here they are. So he’s telling him now, this is the first, last and only time he helps him move!
As he follows the truck on a toy car, he mutters he’s gonna get rid of that truck and get a car made of plastic.
6th story:
Kitty Pryde sighs as Wolverine puts a party hat on her head, signifying her 21st birthday. It’s not sleazy at all, he points out regarding the celebration at the bar which apparently was his idea. As of two hours ago, she isn’t a kid anymore and he wants to buy her a drink. Kitty is less enthused by the idea, announcing drinking is nasty. Standing some distance away, Tony Stark sighs.
What has she tried? Logan points out and puts a fruity decorated cocktail in front of her. She looks at it doubtfully and reminisces that she won a glass this size at a county fair once. It came with a live goldfish. He tells her to try it or pick something else. She drinks half of it in one go, then her head falls to the counter. Brainfreeze.
Half again, Logan orders at the bar. Kitty pouts she doesn’t feel any different. It takes a minute, he tells her. No, she meant, now that she’s-- She expects one drink to make her all grown up, huh? He mocks it’s a magic drink, it only works when you are grown up already.
She giggles as he complains her standards are high. She musta been hell on Christmas morning. She wasn’t, Kitty protests, though she did bounce a dreidel off her cousin Neil’s head that one time he ate all “the gelt.”
Where’s his half? Logan asks the barkeeper to be asked if he can’t handle a whole pint by the Thing and Gorgon. He’s got his super duper quickie heal thing, right? The two of them challenge him to a drinking contest. Logan protests half-heartedly he is with the kid. They are buying, Gorgon announces.
Logan asks Kitty, who has finished her drink, if she wants another one. Well, she loves or hates it. She will tell him in a minute, she announces, then runs off to the bathroom.
Logan, in the meantime, doubtfully faces the barrage of shots prepared for him.
In the ladies’ restroom Dani Moonstar fixes Kitty’s hair and warns her to stay away from the sticky girl drinks. All that fruit juice tears up her stomach. Kitty admits she feels pretty good again. Rolling her eyes, Dead Girl muses that that’s exactly the kind of thing Wolverine would buy a girl for her first drink. Wouldn’t care what he bought her, Dani sighs, she’d drink it. Songbird suggests a songbird as a drink while the Wasp remarks Wolverine shouldn’t be anybody’s type. Dead Girl suggests a zombie while She-Hulk remarks Kitty’s perfect drink is a Coffee Highball - because they go right through you. Dani and Dead Girl keep on discussing drinks.
Someone offers to buy Rogue a drink. What is she drinking? Whatever they are having, she replies.
A drunk Kitty discusses drinks and turning 21 with Beast, Gambit and Lockheed respectively until ending up in Colossus’ arms dancing. He complains he can’t believe she let Logan take her to a bar. He supposes Gena (the barkeeper) is all right. She knows them all so well. He just doesn’t want her to become so like the others, so hard. So much has happened to her, to all of them. He begs her to tell him she can be brave and strong and still keep her sweetness, and he won’t worry. Drunk, she phases through him and slurs an apology. What did he say?
Wolverine, in the meantime, has finished the barrage of shots and his challengers are all out of money.
While Beast and Nightcrawler are singing German songs and Colossus looks after them, Wolverine and a floating Kitty are leaving. She loves him, she slurs. She’ll grow out of that too, he promises.
