After the fall *Mystic War tie-in*

[Captain America]

Logan had recommended this place, but Steve Rogers still felt a bit uneasy walking into Guernica. It was a bar for superheroes and those who worked as the "support team" for those heroes. Captain America was nursing a beer as he waited for Bucky Barnes to finally get there.

"You want more onion rings? Just ask," the waitress asked as she set down a plate in front of Cap. The burger on it was right out of some movie with fixings piled high on top of a medium-well cooked patty. Cheese oozed out from under the bun as Steve picked it up to take a bite.

"What? You couldn't wait for me?" Bucky asked as he slid into the booth where Steve had been seated.

"Here's your burger, sir," the waitress said as she came back with a second plate. "And your beer," she said as she set down a frosty mug next to Bucky's plate. "Enjoy, fellas."

"Nothing like a Manhattan dive bar's food to set you right," Steve said as he handed Bucky the ketchup. "And I mean dive in the best possible way."

"Yeah, I'm sick of hipster food as much as you are," Bucky said before he took a swig of his beer. "I'm having trouble getting that information you wanted. The mystic community is shutting down for anyone that's not in the club, and the mutant groups are being equally unhelpful. I know you don't want to ask Logan, but she is his wife."

"Something about that whole dust-up Kari had with Jean Grey doesn't sit right with me," Steve said as he looked around the bar. "Somebody forced them into it. We all agree on that. But I don't think it was some run of the mill hate group or some nutty death cult like Hank McCoy thinks it is. Call me crazy, but it reminds me of our old pal Shmidt. The Red Skull would have liked nothing more than to get his hands on Kari back in the day. Why does everyone think it couldn't happen now?"
 

[The Winter Soldier]

The Winter Soldier kept poking at his food with a fork as he listened to Steve. Something about this seemed way too personal, and Bucky was sure Steve had likely told him this already, but his memory was still fractured at times, so he was drawing blanks at the moment.

"Wait. I'm missing something. Again. Is this the redhead who worked with Peggy back in Paris before we got on the scene? The one who flung the serving plate like a shield and used the cutlery for target practice? I'm sorry I'm getting confused on stuff again, Steve."

Rogers nodded to his friend before tucking into his onion rings. "I know. It sounds crazy. But it is her. Logan didn't even recognize her when he met her the second time, so no need to apologize for getting confused. But it's more than that. She...she and I have a kid. I think. In some other reality."

Bucky had been sipping his beer as Steve got to the part about some alternate reality kid, and he promptly spit the golden-hued liquid across the table. "Seriously? A kid?"

"Maybe two. One adopted and one biological. Paul and Sarah. They might have something to do with this, or, at the very least, be targets for Red Skull to go after. I can't exactly talk to Tony about this. He's a raving maniac about his own alternate reality offspring. And I know how that all sounded."

"Like we are both crazy?" Bucky asked as the door to the bar opened, and Stephen Strange walked in. "Did you ask him to join the party? Or was it blind luck that he showed up here tonight?"
 

[Doctor Strange]

Stephen Strange was not even close to being a regular at most establishments in New York, but Guernica was actually one of the few places where he would go to get away from the rest of his life. "I've been here before, Mr. Barnes, but the Captain did ask me to join you this evening," he said as he moved to sit next to Bucky. "Captain, I'm afraid even I have been having issues getting the information you requested. The Mystic Council has no love loss for me at the moment. They are still trying to set things to rights after the attack by The Purifiers."

"What? I thought those loons only hated mutants," Bucky said as the waitress walked over and handed Strange a menu. "That certainly seemed to be their stock in trade."

"No, since the X-Men are full to the brim with mystics, The Purifiers have decided to go after both mutants and mystics alike. The lines between the two groups are becoming more and more blurred," Strange noted as he turned to see the waitress approach. "My usual, please," he said as he handed her the menu.

"Bourbon, neat, New York cut steak with mushrooms, mashed on the side, green beans, right?" the waitress asked as Strange nodded. "You got it, Doc."

"Been here before? Yeah, I think you have," Bucky said with a grin as he looked up at the TV to see a news item out of San Francisco about the fiasco at the Rydenborne-Mcgowan wedding. "You both better look at the TV. Think we need to head to San Francisco? Flying zombies? Seriously?"

 

[The Winter Soldier]

"Flying zombies," Bucky repeated as he kept looking at the screen. "Just what the world needs. Oh wait. Flying, zombie, death-dealing priests," he added as he pointed to the screen. "Those were those jacked up Purifier members. Logan called them The Choir, I think?"

"Yes, a very unusual name for such a band of bigots," Strange replied as he kept watching the screen. The waitress had brought over his drink, and he nearly dropped his glass of bourbon as he saw some amateur footage from the wedding. It clearly showed a zombie hoard before the footage blinked into snow. "Someone who is a mystic stopped the video feed. That was not normal."

"That's not a comforting thought," Barnes said as he shook his head. "Tony's kids were there. I saw them for a split second before the feed died."

"Tony is going to go ballistic when he hears about this," Steve said as he looked at a second screen over the other end of the bar. "He wanted to keep those kids at arm's length because of their powers. He's afraid we might have another M-Day situation on our hands."

"Which brings us all back to square one, right?" Bucky asked as he, too, turned toward the other screen. "What does it all really mean now that the magical cat is out of the bag? You can't really unsee anything that happened in that fight over the Golden Gate."

[Captain America]

Steve hung his head when he thought about what had happened in California and what could have happened. Jean and Kari goaded into some apocalyptic battle over the Golden Gate Bridge. Tony nearly sent to hospital when he tried to, as he put it, shut down the Phoenix for the sake of the planet, forgetting how much the Phoenix and the battle raven of The Morrigan were tied together in this reality.

"Before we all jump up and run, let's get Logan on the line and see if we're needed this time," Cap said as he opened the Avengers comm line straight to Wolverine, Beast and Storm.  "You need us out there?" he asked as a grunted "No" came back across the line. "Fine, but you know how to find us if you do," he added as he closed the comm link. "About what I expected, but I had hoped for better."

"And, more company's coming," Bucky said as he pointed his fork toward the bar's main window. "Hot Pockets is coming in to join us."

"I wish you'd stop calling him that," Steve said as Phil Coulson pulled up a chair and joined the trio. "I take it you heard about San Francisco?"    

[Phil Coulson]

"I heard enough to know you're calling me Hot Pockets again," Coulson said to Barnes as he sat down. "I come to Avengers Tower once and ask for a snack, and this happens. And yes, I heard about San Francisco. I was actually supposed to go to that wedding, but things got in the way."

"How did you get invited when Tony didn't?" Rogers asked as the waitress handed Coulson a menu. "Wait. The sisters that run that magic school, right?"

"Actually, Logan's wife invited me so I could see how much the magical folks are getting along now. She means well, but even she can't fix that bunch with all the Crazy Glue in the world," Coulson replied as he eyed the menu. "And frankly, some of those vampires scare me. They aren't the pacifist Twilight type. One or two of them want to take over the world. Sorry, but I don't want fangs."

"And you don't want to be on the menu either," Bucky added as he looked at the screen again. "I still think we should go there. Can't you magic us there, Strange?"

"Magic is not a verb, but yes, I could get us there if needed," Strange replied as Coulson looked back toward the screen. "Are there any SHIELD agents there?"

"I'm not sure," Coulson said as he scanned what was going on across the country. "And what does this have to do with that mess a few months back? Things probably are connected somehow."

[Doctor Strange]

"Of course it's all connected, Agent Coulson," Strange said as his food arrived. "What bothers me more is the euphemisms we use for that damned Donnybrook. It was not an event. I was not an incident. It was as close to Armageddon as this world has ever witnessed. Two women fighting, more or less, over one man and some perceived slight years ago, something that happened before one of the combatants died and then came back from a place so neatly titled the White Hot Room? All because two god-like forces could not simply sit down over a glass of wine and chat? Yes. Exactly that."

"We all agree, Stephen," Cap said as he ate his last onion ring. "We all could have died if it hadn't been for that other Phoenix. Jessie Grey, right? She's going out with Kari's brother. The vampire one. Ewan."

"Yes, Jessie Grey," Strange replied as Coulson flagged down the waitress. "You were speaking as I got in about the Red Skull. Has he ever shown interest in The Phoenix before? And why stop at him. What about Loki? He'd love to have some unbeatable world life force at his side in battle. He's a god, and he isn't stupid."
 

[Black Widow]

"He wouldn't go that route because he isn't stupid. The MacFeorais family doesn't exactly enjoy the Trickster's company, so I doubt he'd try to win any of them over unless they were inclined to be evil anyway, and none of us can actually say we've met any of their black sheep yet," Black Widow said as she slid up to the table where the others were sitting. "I was going to get takeout, but now I might stay. Unless this is a boys-only affair."

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson said as he jumped up from his chair and offered her his seat. "I'll get another chair."

"Thanks," she said as she took his seat. "I've been looking over those notes Oksana left before she went to Moscow. That bullet fiasco she was investigating with Kari. I think that's tied to the mess at the Golden Gate as well. I just need to get my hands on a few of those ammo clips."

 

[Phil Coulson]

"I have some of those clips," Coulson said as he came back with another chair. "Oksana wanted Fitz and Simmons to take a look at them. Nasty bit of work. Stark munitions tricked out with some anti-mutant and anti-mystic elements. And then there is the drug issue in New Orleans..."

"What drug issue?" Cap asked as Coulson handed him his tablet and showed Rogers footage of The Punisher and Elektra taking on some dealers near an old Roxxon facility in the Crescent City. "When did you find out about this?"

"Last week. Frank Castle was not exactly a bundle of joy when he found out SHIELD was looking into what he was looking into. Elektra was a bit more helpful. It seems to be some variant of enhancement drugs last used by Weapon Plus. The X-Men raided their facility in Alaska..."

"You mean a few X-Men, Madelyn Pryor and Amora the Enchantress raided the facility," Natasha said as she was handed a beer by a waitress. "Thanks. That was where they found Jean Grey. That was just before Hope Summers slipped back into the time stream with Cable."

"This is giving me a headache," Bucky said as he drummed his fingers on the table. "I wish the magical cat was back in the bag. The Phoenix, too, for that matter. This is insane."



   

[The Winter Soldier]

"Beer," Bucky grunted as he waived to the waitress. "And I know. Nothing is going to change now, Coulson. The Mystic Council is avoiding this like the plague. And Cyclops is avoiding us like we had the plague. Thank Stark for that."

"You can't blame that all on Tony," Natasha replied as she gave Bucky a funny look. "He isn't the one who started that fight over San Francisco."

"No, but he didn't help it either," Barnes added as the waitress set down his beer. "Thanks. I mean, seriously, Natasha. Dragons flying over San Francisco. Guys who look like extras from The Hobbit at my local coffee shop. Merlin speaking at the UN for crying out loud."

"What was that old fortune cookie proverb about interesting times?" Stephen Strange asked as he looked at Barnes. "None of us bargained for this. My concern in all of it, though, is how we make sure it doesn't happen again. None of us want to be on the brink a second time."

"You've got that right," Bucky replied before turning back to Steve. "So, what are we going to do about it?"

[Captain America]

"Not run off and do something crazy," Steve replied as he turned his attention away from the TV screen. "This bothers me as much as it does you, Bucky. It bothers all of us."

"What bothers me even more is the response out of Washington and the major cities, or lack thereof, until now," Strange noted as he picked up a copy of one of the local tabloids and showed it to his teammates.  "Stories like this one scare the hell out of me."

Rogers took the paper from Strange and looked at the headline before reading it aloud. "Do You Believe in Magic? The march to ban magic studies in NYC schools."

"This is not what we need," Strange said as he took the paper back from Rogers. "Someone is going to get killed because they are wearing some ridiculous fake mystic symbol from an anime show."

"Well, then we need to sit down with the X-Men and try to put a cap on this before it explodes," Cap said as he looked back at the TV screen. "I'm just not sure anyone will listen to us unless Tony admits he didn't think things through."

[Jillian Saltzmann PhD]

"Excuse me, but, except for the Sorceror Supreme here, do any of you know what the hell you are talking about?"

A small, thin woman with crazy looking blonde hair and yellow-lensed goggles walked over to the table where Captain America was holding court. Her leather jacket had seen better days, and her copy of Charles Xavier's thesis on mutations that was crammed in her backpack looked rather dog-eared. She had a glass with some very odd looking blue beverage in it in her left hand, and it started to spill a bit as she looked at the assembled Avengers and Coulson. "Jillian Saltzmann. You can call me Saltz or Saltzie or Jilly for short. And you can call me any time you want, hot stuff," she said to Black Widow as she gave her a wink. "But you guys really do not want to get the mystic X-Men in a knot over this."

"Who invited you to this meeting?" Bucky asked as he looked at Jillian and shook his head.

"I'm older than you are. By at least a hundred years. Show some respect," Jillian replied as she glared at Barnes. "And I'm part of the X-Men's science squad, so I might be of some help, bubbe. I'm also a New Yorker like you, so I do care about the people here as much as you do. No one wants Thanos or Galactus or the Red Skull deciding NYC is a nice place to rest a well-heeled boot."

"Miss," Stephen Strange started to say before Jillian shushed him.

"I neglected to say I have my PhD, so it's Doc to you all," she added as she wolf whistled at the waitress. "I've been dealing with the supernatural since my brother brought me my first voodoo doll from Nawlins. You can't just go to the X-Men and holler that they broke things and need to fix them. Cyclops will literally rip you a new one, and that woman of his, well, I'd hate to see what Emma would do."

"If it meant getting the mystics out of her house, she'd wave banners and hold a party," Strange said as Saltzmann grunted at him.  "You can't say I am not correct about this one. Emma Frost has never met a mystic she could stand."

"Except her daughter, genius," Saltzmann noted as she slurped on her drink through a decorative straw. "You know. Magic and Phoenix combined. Jessie Grey. Emma might not like most of the MacFeorais clan, but her own flesh and blood is another matter."


 

[THOR]

"Well this seems like quite the gathering." A voice spoke as some of those present turned to see who it was while others knew.The king of Asgard decided to make an appearance at the behest of a few of those present. His daughter Alexia had taken the mantle of Thor once he had ascended the throne but he still was asked to appear from time to time.

One person who was noticebly absent from his side was Amora. The Enchantresses presence might put some that were assembled on edge so it was thought best for her not to be here.


"DR....Always a pleasure." He smiled to Jillian as he walked in as she was making her point. "Actually the Doctor is quite correct. Emma's opinion of mystics has somewhat changed with Jessie's arrival. She is a interesting piece of the puzzle and despite how we feel about the magic situation she did avert a disaster which would have ended everything. I personally believe Emma is trying to change how she feels because of Jessie but she will always have her concerns......You also forget Kari is my daughters mother as well.....And Alexia is a part of your team Steve."

He then glanced over at the paper and shook his head. "Mortals and magic is always a tricky thing.....And fear is one of the unintended consequences of it."

[Captain America]

Before Rogers could say a word to Thor, the waitress wheeled over a large tankard and keg of Asgardian ale and placed it near the King of Asgard. "There's more to the story than all of that. Glad you made it here, Thor. And I am very happy Alexia is on the team. Don't ever think otherwise."

"You mean you and he both have kids with Karenza?" Barnes said in a rather inarticulate manner. "I mean ones from other worlds? Maybe I need one of those huge beers, too? This is crazy. Steve, seriously. This can't be a coincidence that both you and Thor have kids tied to Logan's wife. Even if yours aren't here yet and might never show up."

"I think we should all take a breath for a moment before we all start..." Cap said before he was cut off by sirens screaming by the bar's window. He looked at the barkeep who waved him off. "They have a scanner back there. Routine call."

"Before we all start acting like Tony?" Natasha asked as she nodded to Thor. "Sorry, but he's been a bit consumed with the fear his children will go crazy and doom us all. He sees mini Pietro and Wanda in his own kids. It's sad."

"Yes, let's all back up a minute," Cap said as he looked at Thor. "Have you heard word from any of the other magic realms about what is going on here?  Is it possible someone is pulling the strings that we aren't looking at?"

"Like Loki?" Jillian asked as she bowed slightly to Thor. "Personally, I don't think he's involved, your majesty, but I know he's not always the most predictable of your kinsmen. Maybe the dark elves? They don't like the Celts much."

[THOR]

Thor put a gentle hand on Rodgers shoulder when he responded to his comments about Alexia. "I know Steve I know I am still getting used to being a father but I've known you long enough to know that. I do wish I could spend more time around her...I do envy Kari in that aspect in fact all of you in that regard." He said with a smile. He then focused on Barnes.

"Kari is a interesting case that even those of us with knowledge of the ancient and magical world have trouble understanding. I do know her devotion to her clan is absolute and despite her unpredictability I know she has a good heart."

He then looked over at Natasha. "I've talked to Tony and Alexia tries to put his mind at ease as well. The difference between Wanda and Peitro's situation and Tony's kids is they have family to protect them and guide them. Tony will never lose his uneasiness completely but I think some of the edge is coming off.

"Its a little ironic that how closely the lines of The Phoenix and the Morrigan are aligned. You mentioned Emma and she is very much having to deal with her own demons having a daughter that is very much a link between the different family lines and the Phoenix."

His head then finally rested on Jillian as well as the final question that was asked.

"My brother may not always have the best intentions at heart but to this day he still surprises me. I know he has a rather interesting relationship with Alexia....Like you said Jillian my brother is a hard one to read. As far as the Dark Elves nothing
has signaled their direct involvement but I will keep the proverbial head to the ground. I have been in contact with the various realms but unfortunately they are as just as much of a loss as we are but one good thing has come of this. We are putting our efforts together to get some sort of idea of what is going on."