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“Thanks for watching him,” Jessica said, taking baby Jonathan firmly in hand and cradling him to her breasts. Jon giggled and clutched at her fingers as she rubbed his tummy, seeming both inquisitive and comforted by the return of his mother. “Did you enjoy having a little sleepover at your aunt MJ’s? Didcha? Didcha?”

“It was really good practice, actually,” Mary Jane said, gathering up the last of Jonathan’s things to do in the baby bag. The only way Jessica had been able to let the babe go was to hand over an arsenal of childcare stuff to go with him. “I know it’s a marathon, not a sprint, but—we handled the sprint part. I think we can handle the marathon too.”

“You’d better,” Carol said. “Hardy looks about ready to pop.”

“Sensitive, Danvers,” Jess replied. “And I thought I spoke my mind.”

“C’mon, let’s get home. I’m sure the sister-wives would be more than okay if Jonathan left them without one more dirty diaper.”

Mary Jane’s expression soured. “We’ll see who’s laughing when Felicia and I get our hands on Captain America and he’s Peter’s brother-husband.”

“If that were possible, we’d get him first,” Carol retorted.

“Baby wanna see goodbye to all his aunties and uncles?” Jess asked Jonathan, rocking him excitedly.

Carol groaned. “We’re never going to leave.”

“Just bring him back for a visit soon,” Mary Jane told them. “Maybe a little playdate when Felicia pops… now you’ve got me doing it.”

“Wait up!” Rogue called from deep in the apartment, and Mary Jane heard her cowboy boots stomping a moment before she launched herself into the air and flew in a flash out to the living room. She landed with a stumble. “We’re losin’ the peanut already? And me without a chance to send him on his way?”

Then she saw Carol. And Carol saw her.

Perhaps it was their respective superpowers being tensed at once, but there was a sudden charge in the air, like animals sensed before an earthquake. Jonathan started crying and Jessica hushed him, carrying him away from the tangle of the people that had crowded the room. Mary Jane almost took a step back.

“What’s she doing here?” Carol asked.

Mary Jane stepped in quickly, reversing that involuntary half-step back to put herself between them. “She’s my guest. She left the X-Men and doesn’t have anywhere to go. We met and we… bonded, so to speak, and after she helped Peter, we all agreed to let her stay her while she gets on her feet.”

“With my child?” Carol insisted.

“Our child,” Jess corrected, voice raised. “And it’s fine. You’re over what happened, remember? She’s changed. You’ve changed.”

“There’s a difference between putting up with someone while you fight Galactus and knowing that they’ve been sleeping under the same roof as your daughter.” Carol looked at Jess. “No, our daughter. Our love for each other, our family, and she was—“

“She wouldn’t hurt a child,” Mary Jane insisted. “And I would never let her. C’mon. She’s an X-Man.”

“Carol…” Rogue tried, her voice hollow. “If ah need to say ah’m sorry anymore ah will. But you must know by now how badly ah wish ah could take it all back.”

“I know what I thought,” Carol said. “I thought you’d left the Brotherhood and all that mutant supremacy shit behind, Thought you’d turned over a new leaf. Then I hear all this shit about Cyclops assassinating people, about Wolverine leading a black-ops team, about God knows what bullshit Xavier pulled before he was killed by one of his own students. So after all these years of ignoring my instincts, were they wrong? Or did you just trade one gang of mutant terrorists for another?”

Rogue stiffened, taking angry step forward. “Y’all can say what ya want about me, but don’t let me ever hear you insulting my friends, or I’ll—“