For the sake of this story, the Avengers are not well-known, and Mutants are still unknown to the general population…And we're pretending that 'The Two Horses Job' never happened. So no Aimee, she never existed.

Oh, and I own the story, but not the characters…Boo!

A young woman danced around the regulation-sized MMA ring, throwing kicks, punches, knees and elbows at lightning-fast speed. She was the only person in the new gym aside from a single employee and a group of four that stood midway between the entrance and ring. The four were a motley crew, no one would suspect they were a family-of-sorts just by looking at them, but that was exactly what they were, a family. They were just heading to grab their final family member who stood in the office, looking over things laid across an expensive desk.

The sole employee who seemed to be working waved to the group as he was leaving for the evening. "Hey, can one of you guys let the boss know that woman is looking for him?" He asked, nodding to the girl shadow-boxing in the ring. He seemed hesitant to even acknowledge her presence, and the group did not blame him.

The girl's rhythm changed suddenly, as the song crooning from her boom-box changed. She never repeated any combination that the four on-lookers could catch. Her admirers jaws fell slack as she suddenly jumped and used the middle rope to propel herself half-way across the ring into a perfect roundhouse and fell onto one knee, her left elbow coming down on her imaginary opponent's spine. The young brunette leapt up as her song again changed, and her rhythmic movements became a little more erratic.

The tall, thin, black man whistled through his teeth as the girl spun and kicked out with such force he could hear the air whistle. He'd only ever seen one fighter do that, and that was the owner of the new MMA gym they stood in.

"Somebody should go get Eliot." Said the slim dark-haired woman in low tones to the rest of the group, her English accent stressing her aversion to being the one to do so.

"Ah," The older man with slightly wild dark hair stammered, "I'll go get him." The song that played seemed to infuriate the woman, and he had no desire to stay and become the one she turned her rage on.

"She's good." Whispered the wispy blonde woman, conspiratorially to the other two.

As the next song came on, the sultry beats seemed to seep into the young woman as she turned her back to the door and allowed her hips to slink to the belly-dancing beats amidst the martial arts moves she was performing.

Eliot jumped up onto the elevated ring, and slid between the ropes, speaking over the music. "Hey, I hear you needed to speak to me?" Eliot's jaw sagged as he recognized the woman's style, matching her fighting rhythm to that of whatever song was on the radio.

The blow was unseen until the woman's elbow collided with Eliot's jaw. Eliot stared in amazement and missed the knee that landed with damnable accuracy in his hip-flexor. He jumped back to avoid the next flying limb with a huff.

"Katya." He seemed to breathe the name, though it was loudly enough that his entire team heard him, along with the strange accent and the hurt that entered his voice.

"Damn you, Piotr!" Katya shouted as she struck out again, her fist flying just to the side of Eliot's ducked head. "Not a word " she kicked him in the side of his left, bad, knee. "Not so much as a WHISPER-" another punch, this time deflected by Eliot's forearm. "Not a stupid NOTE-" Another spinning kick, which Eliot shoved away so the girl spun back around the way she had come. She brought her knee up and kicked her foot out to knock the wind out of the Hitter she was attacking. "Not ANYTHING in TEN months!" She lunged and her elbow barely missed Eliot's nose. "And now THIS!" She brought her knee back up; connecting again with Eliot's stomach, just off her mark of his solar plexus. "You BASTARD!"

Eliot shoved the knee away and continued to dodge and block the onslaught of attacks. He shifted, never quite comfortable with the ease of the dance/fighting-style the girl had somehow created. "I thought-" he deflected her fist with his forearm, "you WANTED it that way!" The barrage of attacks didn't seem to be slowing by any means, and Eliot groaned as a Shakira song came on, and he knew that he would never be able to counter the barrage of attacks the song would bring. "As I recall it—" He grunted as her knee finally found it's mark in his solar plexus. He took a deep breath that hurt more than he would ever willingly admit and leapt forward as his opponent turned in preparation of another back-kick, he looped his arms around hers and planted his feet, lifting her slightly off the ground. "YOU turned down MY proposal!" He shouted.

The rest of his team stared in a mix of hurt and amazement at his sudden admission. They finally understood why Eliot had been spending every free moment when they weren't on a case in the ring for the past ten months. They were confused by his slip in accent, and could not understand how their resident hitter had a woman he loved and never told any of them about.

The girl seemed to go limp and suddenly slid right out of Eliot's grip, and she turned to attack again, bringing her knee up to his ribs. Eliot countered by gripping her knee to his ribs, and holding the back of her head in a loving way as his right foot pulled the girl's heel out from under her, sending them both down to the matt and he crushed his mouth over hers.

"RASPUTTEN!" A deep rumbling voice positively roared, as a large very well-built man launched himself from somewhere behind the four shocked spectators straight over the three ropes and into the ring. His fist connected with Eliot's shoulder and actually caused the professional hitter to fly into the ropes on the opposite side of the ring.

Sophie and Parker screamed out at the action, Nate and Hardison yelling, "Hey!" And "What the hell?!"

"Shit." Eliot cussed as he looked up and into the most frightening steel blue eyes ever.

"Dad!" The girl sprung up and landed on her feet next to the new-comer. She sighed in indignation.

"DAD?!" Eliot questioned from where he sat propped up on his elbow, his back against the ropes.

The girl's eyes fell and she looked slightly admonished by Eliot's tone. "Yeah, well, you've missed a few things."

The large-built man took a step forward and pointed at Eliot. "Touch her again, bub, and you won't be moving for a month." He sneered.

"Again," The girl said, angrily, "Dad!"

"Logan…" Eliot slowly stood and kept his posture slouched. "I…Katya." He turned to the girl, his voice small, like a child who had just been scolded, and in the same strange accent again.

"A few weeks after you…left, last year…we, well we got into with the Brotherhood again, and I had to have a blood transfusion…we discovered my…uh-slightly disturbing lineage when there was a paternal match on hand at the institute." She shrugged.

"Katherine," Logan nudged her slightly more behind his bulky form. "I'll deal with this part…go wait with the others."

"Not likely." She rolled her eyes. She half turned as Eliot's teammates joined him in the ring.

"Back off, you bloody bastard!" Sophie yelled at a slightly amused Logan.

"Who the hell do you think you are? You could have broken his clavicle!" Parker yelled.

Logan laughed. "If he can't handle that, then he's more soft than ever."

"Guys." Eliot's tone turned into a warning.

"How long does this really take?" Another new voice echoed through the gym. A black man with an eye patch walked in, looking completely annoyed; another group of men followed behind him.

"Fury." Eliot growled.

"Aw, naw, man, Eliot, your shoulder's gonna need to rest." Hardison tried to hold Eliot back as he straightened to his full height.

"Well, damn, did I miss something; I thought you were the best and toughest son of a bitch ever a part of my team…Eliot Spencer." Fury laughed quietly.

"Eliot?! Really?" Another new voice laughed.

"Not a WORD, Stark!" Eliot roared, sounding incredibly like Logan.

"Wow." Said the brunette man, ignoring the warning in Eliot's tone and posture. "Isn't it a bit…creepy, Kathy?" He smirked toward the girl beside Logan, who now had been called by three different names. "That your boy-toy modeled his accent and speech patterns after your dad?"

"TONY!" Eliot shrieked.

The man's face finally lost it's grin as he took in the group surrounding his former teammate. "Oh…sorry."

"Tony…Tony Stark…man, you know Tony Stark and…what, just forget to mention it to me?" Hardison admonished, his tone awed at the other man's name.

"Ubber-geek, meet super-nerd, and vice-versa." Eliot introduced the two sarcastically.

"Ah! My young Comrade in Arms!" The tall blonde man behind Fury bellowed.

"Someone shut him up!" Eliot ordered, his southern drawl dropping away and a tight Russian accent replacing it. Sophie drew away from his side, looking as if she'd been slapped.

Parker was equally upset, but her face only held confusion. Hardison stepped back next to Sophie and pulled Parker with him. Nate seemed to be the only calm one in the room.

A somewhat shorter brunette man in all black put a hand on the blonde man's shoulder, urging him to wait quietly. The last dark-haired man stood furthest from anyone and seemed to be taking in everything with a look of controlled tension.

"What happened to our little shy-kid-in-a-monstrous-body?" Tony Stark asked, oblivious to the tension, until Kathy shot him a dirty look and jerked her head slightly in the direction of Eliot's new team.

Nate patted Eliot on the shoulder and nodded towards their team. "Um…El, now may be a good time to-uh-be a little more forth-coming about your…past." He said gently, earning a questioning look from Eliot.

Eliot turned his attention away from everyone in the room, and focused on the only person that mattered to him at the moment. "So what was I supposed to do after you shoved my ring away, darlin'?" He ignored Tony's chuckle and stared intently at Kathy.

"Dammit…Eliot. I turned you down because you have a FAMILY now!" She gestured to the people standing closest to him. "And you live here! Across the friggin' country!"

"People get married all the time when their families are on opposite sides of the continent!" Eliot objected.

"Yeah, that's when they choose between the families or live some place between the two! I can't leave my family and neither can you!"

"Do you realize how easy it would be to convince them to live in New York? Just a subway ride away from Manhattan?!"

"You have no intention of ever telling them about…us…about yourself!" She finally argued her real reason for saying "no" to Eliot's proposal.

"Because if I did…if they rejected me…where would I have to go, Katya? I'm really not the…Lone Wolf they think I am…and if you don't want me, really where could I go?!" Eliot's voice turned child-like, the shy boy he used to be when he first met Kathy.

"Dammit." Kathy whispered and ran the few feet separating the two, Nate barely had enough time to step back before his friend was tackled in a loving embrace by the bouncy brunette. "You should know that I will always want to be with you…I thought…I just thought that…that you were still…were ashamed of what we are…of me." She admitted quietly.

"Darlin'" Eliot sighed and pulled back to look at the small girl questioningly at her slightly strangled chuckle.

"Ya know, it is slightly disturbing now…the accent thing."

Eliot smiled, then the expression turned sad. He turned toward the accusatory looks from three members of his team. "Guys…"

"And this is why we should have just left him out of this." Fury sighed.

"I doubt he would ever forgive you for throwing his team into S.H.I.E.L.D. cells." Logan drawled, slightly amused by the thought.

Eliot growled, literally, and even Sophie looked shocked at the sudden anger on his face. "You even think of doin' somethin' like that to my team, you will find yourself in a very shallow grave!" He promised.

"Why would you even need us out of the way, Mr. Fury?" Nate asked calmly. "It's not like you can't operate in this city without letting us know you're here."

"I don't recall having met you before, Mr…" Fury's voice drifted off.

"Ford. Nate Ford. I know Xavier…and have heard plenty about you." Nate said evenly. His anger surprised his team, but Eliot was the one who gripped his shoulder and spun him to face his team.

"NATE?! What the HELL?" Eliot shrieked shocked.

"I told you, Eliot; I looked into each of you before we decided to do…this." Nate replied calmly. "When I realized you were…who you were, I just asked the Professor's opinion of you. He said you were a good man."

"Wait…how did you know the Prof?"

"Well, Sam would probably be attending the institute this year, had his X-Gene been active…" Nate shrugged, slightly amazed that his son's name did not cause him the pain it normally did.

"Wait! You—you're…" Eliot trailed off.

"No, not me…" Nate sighed. "His mom."

"Holy…" Eliot's eyes were huge. "Wait…your ex-wife…is…THEE Maggie?!"

"You married MAGGIE?!" Logan appeared as shaken as anyone had ever seen him. "And you're ALIVE?"

"You divorced Maggie and lived?!" Katherine was incredulous.

"She'd given up…all of that; by the time we got together." Nate explained, off handedly.

Sophie's raised eyebrows and somewhat disapproving frown showed her curiosity at the exchange, and made Nate blush, slightly.

Eliot shook off the uncomfortable feelings, before realizing another awful truth. "WE CONNED MAGGIE?"

"You WHAT?!" Logan asked, clearly appalled.

"You had us CON Maggie? Nate…you ASSHOLE!" Eliot's chest felt heavy; suddenly he could not get enough oxygen.

"Okay," Fury broke in, "you can discuss your…bosses little…mental lapse…later. Right now, we are here to tell you to stay away from Ikol."

Hardison's head whipped around comically to stare at Fury angrily. "Yeah, you want us to stay away from the company that authorized genetic experimentation on minors? Yeah, y'all are nuts!"

"Why does our new case concern you…people anyways?" Parker asked, suspicious as always.

"It just does." Fury stated evenly.

"Talk to her like that again, Fury," Eliot snapped, "and your head will be on a pike!"

"He's right, though, Tin-man." Tony spoke up, his tone serious for once. "You all should just leave it alone."

"No!" Sophie spat, angrily. "Tanya Greggs' son is now a monster because of that company! The CEO is going down tonight! This is what we do!"

The tall blonde man took another step forward, shaking off the two still-silent brunette's hands. "My lady, we mean you no disrespect; but this…job…it is not a job your team is going to be able to solve…"

"Legolas! Control Goldielocks!" Stark motioned for the other man that had been beside the tall blonde to step back.

"Yeah," The man called Legolas replied sarcastically, "I'll get right on that."

"Guys, shut up." Eliot commanded.

"I just can't believe that you allowed your team to take this mission!" Fury said, staring at Eliot.

Eliot stared at Fury in confusion before it dawned on him. "Oh, hell, I missed the update meeting, I had to finish up on a job and then came here to finalize a few things for the tournament the gym is hosting next month." He turned to his team. "Guys, we're off this job. Nate, call Mrs. Greggs and tell her that Professor Charles Xavier will be contacting her within the next couple of days to explain everything to her, and will hopefully be able to help her son to…be the boy he used to be."

The Leverage Crew stared at Eliot in surprise, having heard him speak more in the half-hour they had been in the gym than ever before.

Before Nate could finish nodding his head, Sophie spoke up. "So who or should I say what are you, Eliot…Piotr…Rasputen…Tin-Man!" Her voice rose slightly with each name she called him, that she practically shrieked "Tin-Man".

Eliot looked pained as he turned to look at each of his team members. Hardison looking pained and disappointed, Parker looking ready to cry, and Sophie looking angry and hurt and confused. Nate, already knowing the explanation, looked apologetic and tried to console Sophie with an arm over her shoulders. She shrugged it off and turned on him.

"You've known this whole time that Eliot-OUR ELIOT-was hiding this huge secret and you've never once even tried to convince him that it would be for the best that we knew? Or that it would be okay and that we wouldn't judge him for anything?! Don't bloody touch me!" She yelled, tears forming in her eyes as they shifted to Eliot. Eliot blanched beneath her gaze, shamefully. "And you!" She pointed at his chest. "We know you're no angel. We know you've done things you're not proud of. We know you've killed. We know you've had to hide things for our safety…You should know that we wouldn't give a DAMN if you had two bloody heads! You are OUR Eliot! I don't care that that isn't your name, it's not like I go by my real name. I care that you couldn't find the decency in your heart to tell us the truth about yourself! We've all struggled with it, but YOU are the reason most of us have spilled our guts to each other! What happened to "you don't con your own crew"?" Eliot flinched as each new verbal blow hit home.

"I told you not to be like me." Logan said when Eliot cast a helpless glance at Katherine.

"I'm not like you, Logan." Eliot said quietly.

"Okay, let's start with this…you joined the Army to use your abilities to help people. Then someone noticed your abilities and recruited you to their special ops force where you realized that you were causing more harm than good with your abilities. So you took off and did what you had to do to survive…then you started living like you have no abilities at all…tell me, kid, how many nightmares do you wake up from in a month with your room trashed from your own thrashing?" Logan's arms were crossed over his chest, weight balanced on the balls of his feet; a complete Eliot-esque stance as far as the Leverage team could see.

"Dear God…" Eliot stated quietly, reluctantly, "I am you…"

"Aaaaand NOW it's REALLY disturbing." Stark joked, trying to ease everyone's tense moods. "You know," He explained, "The whole accent-speech-patterns thing?" He shrugged when everyone just looked at him like he was crazy.

"There's somethin' wrong with you, Stark." Eliot stated, flatly, and Parker giggled.

"Usually he's saying that to me!" She laughed, causing Eliot to give her the same look he had given Stark. "See?" She smiled, causing Eliot to grin a little, too.

"Okay…am I the only one lost on the whole 'abilities' thing?" Hardison asked, not amused at the by-ply that typically had him laughing. Parker sobered up and wrapped her arm around Hardison's waist.

Eliot took a deep breath and looked to Katherine again. She smirked at him and said, "Look, I've been helping the Prof. with recruiting for the past couple of years…do you want me to start?" Eliot nodded, not quite able to maintain eye contact with any member of his team other than Nate.

"Okay," Katherine started, "We'll start with the basics of Evolution. Evolution happens over hundreds of thousands of years…but every few Millennia Evolution takes a leap forward, and we call that leap a Mutation."

"Okay, so what's with the Sixth-grade Science lesson?" Hardison asked irritably.

"Well…we've been seeing these…mutations is humans since about 1546-"

"43." Logan interjected.

"Sorry, 1543, anyway, these mutations…they are giving humans new…abilities…" She glanced at Eliot, "This is typically where we give a…demonstration." At his nod, Katherine smirked and allowed her molecules to vibrate so quickly that she fell through the matt at her feet and walked off to where Fury stood, impatiently waiting to speak.

The Leverage crew's faces were all shocked as Katherine climbed back into the ring and phased through her father to walk back to Eliot's side. "Now, no two mutants have the EXACT same powers. And a mutant may pass-on the X-gene that carries the mutation, but their children will not have any powers unless it is an "active gene" sort of like you carry the recessive gene for green eyes, but your kids have brown eyes because it's a more dominant trait."

Hardison couldn't find his voice. His mouth kept starting to open then it would shut again as he tried to process the information. Sophie just cast a glance around the room and finally stared at Nate, silently questioning him with her eyes. He smiled comfortingly at her and shrugged. Parker's reaction shocked everyone, though. The perky blonde jumped up and shrieked.

"You mean I'm not the only one? There isn't anything wrong with me?"

Eliot felt like he could have been blown over by a feather. Hardison yanked his arm off of her shoulders and turned her to face him head-on.

"Woman…What do you mean, 'I'm not the only one?'?"

"I mean…I can do that, too!" She smirked. "Well, not EXACTLY that, but close enough!" She smiled happily.

"Parker." Eliot's raspy voice was tinged with his natural Russian accent. "What exactly is it that you can do?"

"I-I don't know how to explain it…when I'm jumping off buildings or down an airshaft," Fury's face was rather amusing to Eliot at Parker's casual mention of her two favorite activities. "I can…it's like I can move the air through my body so I can slow myself down or I can…I don't know, it's like I pull into myself so that I'm heavier and fall faster."

"Parker?" Katherine interrupted, "I think what you are actually doing is a lot like what I do, I phase-pass through solid objects-by vibrating my molecules so fast that they bounce between the molecules that make up other objects. You just expand or contract your molecules to control your density. Pretty nifty power for a thief." Katherine smiled at the other woman.

Hardison shook his head and tucked Parker back underneath his arm. "That's my girl." He said, rolling his eyes.

Sophie still looked confused. "So what is it you can do, Eliot?" She asked.

Eliot blushed and looked down suddenly more bashful than he'd been since he first entered Xavier's mansion at 18. "I-uh-well…" Suddenly everyone could hear metal sliding against metal, and although Eliot continued to look like himself, he had grown a good foot and a half, and his bulk expanded with him. His voice took on a metallic sound as well, "Since gaining full control of my powers my skin doesn't look metal, but that's what it is."

Parker, being Parker, had to poke him. She jumped up and down like a child on a sugar-high, laughing as she poked him again and then tried to squeeze his arm.

"He really is made of metal!" She announced happily.

Nate was shocked for the first time that evening, and Sophie was livid.

"You mean to tell me that you have this power and yet you have allowed yourself to get broken bones and be bruised and…busted up for weeks being our Hitter?! Not to mention the times you've been shot, or just shot at!"

"You WHAT?!" Katherine yelled, shoving the metallic man at her side, not that it made him move. "You could have been killed!"

"He was trained by me." Logan interrupted, "No, he would never have been killed. And how many times have we trained with no powers-just in case?"

"Training is one thing. An inhibitor collar impairing our powers is one thing. But stupidly just not using your abilities to protect yourself? That is ANOTHER!" Katherine yelled.

"Does anyone remember the reason we are all here?" Fury sighed. Suddenly everyone was silent, Fury's team anxious, and the Leverage crew confused. "We need to talk." He said to Eliot.

Eliot returned to his normal size and nodded to the older man. "My team can hear anything you have to say."

Suddenly the man that Tony had called Legolas spoke up. "Really, it may be better if you talk with Fury alone."

"Cliff," Eliot said his name in a warning tone. "Wait…" He looked over the assembled group and realized something wasn't right. "Where is Natasha?" He asked, anxiously. "Where? Where is my sister?" Suddenly he was in his metallic form again, his anxiety and instincts over-ruling his common sense, momentarily.

"She's why we're here." Fury said.

This time the interruption came from the tall blonde child-like man. "I am sorry, my young friend. My brother is this…CEO as you call him…He has taken Natasha."