The soft blue glow of the laboratory’s containment fields painted everything in cold light, the air thick with the sterile scent of ozone and nutrient solution. Beyond the reinforced glass, a single stasis pod hummed quietly, its occupant suspended in a translucent fluid that shimmered with the distinctive green of Krakoan biomass. Hank McCoy stood before a bank of holographic displays, one massive blue-furred hand idly adjusting a sequence of genetic markers while the other held a slim data-slate. He did not look up immediately when the door whispered open, though the subtle shift in his posture made it clear he had registered the arrival.

“Ah,” he said at last, the familiar rich cadence of his voice carrying the same old literary lilt, “the very person I hoped might grace these humble precincts. Do come in. Mind the threshold—security protocols are rather more… enthusiastic these days.”

He finally turned, blue eyes bright behind the refined spectacles he still insisted on wearing, the corners of his mouth curling into a smile that never quite reached them. The smile of a man who had long since decided that charm was simply another useful tool. “I trust the Quiet Council’s latest session left you suitably enlightened? Or at least less inclined to interrupt the necessary work of keeping our little island paradise from becoming a smoking crater.”

Hank gestured toward the pod with a clawed finger. “This particular gentleman was instrumental in a rather ambitious human initiative aimed at our borders. Intelligence suggests he possessed certain… residual knowledge that could not be allowed to travel. Resurrection protocols have already been prepared, of course. A clean slate. Selective mnemonic pruning. He will wake believing he simply suffered a minor accident while vacationing in the Caribbean. No fuss. No inconvenient memories. And Krakoa remains unspoiled.”

He set the data-slate down with deliberate care and stepped closer, the powerful frame that had once bounced through danger rooms now moving with the quiet, measured grace of something that no longer needed to prove its strength. “I realize this may strike certain of our more idealistic colleagues as distasteful. But idealism, my dear friend, is a luxury we can no longer afford. The world outside still dreams of our extinction. Someone must be willing to dream the darker dreams on our behalf.”

Hank’s gaze held steady, searching, the old affectionate familiarity still present yet overlaid with something colder, more calculating. “I rather hoped you might understand. Or at the very least, that you would not feel compelled to make this… unnecessarily complicated.”