Scott had been part of the backup team for the mission in which Storm, Wolverine, and an unaffiliated Colossus (most recently one of Magneto’s Acolytes) accompanied Callisto into the subway and sewers to confront Gene Nation. As a result, he’d heard about the duel with Marrow rather than witnessed it. He’d had to rely on Wolverine’s after-action report, because Colossus had disappeared with Callisto, and Storm – Ororo – had been tight-lipped about it. She had been withdrawing herself from the group more and more in the month since then.
Scott had been watching her. Eight years ago, his conversation with her in the Savage Land had opened his eyes to her as a person and made him a better leader, even as the both of them grieved for to dear friends who had turned out to be alive. Over those eight years, both he and Ororo had each endured their own highs and lows, relationships, triumphs, and upsets. Sometimes he lead the team; sometimes Ororo did. Throughout it all, the two of them had maintained a close, unique sort of friendship in which they opened up and revealed things about each other that they didn’t feel comfortable telling other people, including whomever their respective significant others might have been at the time.
It looked like Ororo was in need of just such a shoulder to lean on. He ventured out into the greenhouse outside the mansion, which had become Ororo’s home away from her attic loft more than usual. One look at Ororo’s posture – and the water can she was holding – confirmed his suspicions. “How’re you feeling, ‘Ro?” he began. “Your powers still haven’t returned, have they?” It wasn’t something she’d made known or previously discussed with him.