Jo woke slowly, dazed and confused. The ground was hard and damp, and she noticed a small puddle was inches from her face. How did she end up outside? Jo sat up and looked around. She was in a dark alley, at night, and she didn't know where she was. Not good. Not good at all.

Jo's memories surfaced and she remembered how Tony, Bruce, and Jane were working on creating antimatter and they'd made a breakthrough. They turned on a machine she had no hope of understanding and when energy flooded the room and the glass broke then a white light almost blinded her. A glance around gave no indication that the scientists, nor Darcy, had ended up in the alley.

Those idiots, she cursed to herself. I don't know what they did but when I find them I'll kill them.

"Hey! You over there," an unfamiliar man's voice called.

Jo startled and jumped to her feet, facing the alley entrance and the man. She swallowed the low growl that would've left her and settled on staring at the unfamiliar face.

"Now, what's a nice lady like you doin' in a place like this?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Piss off," Jo snarked. "I have better things to worry about than men like you."

The man took a step forward. "Now listen 'ere," he began.

"I think she told you to get lost, bub," a new voice sounded from behind the man. This one sounded familiar.

The first man held up his hands in surrender, "I was just tryin' to help the lady. It's not my fault I look like the villain out of some cheesy comic the kids are reading these days."

Before she had time to process the man's words he was scurrying out of the alley in favor of getting away from the other man. Jo shifted her attention to the man who had just shown up. He sounded familiar... and his smell, cigars, alcohol, and trees. It couldn't be.

"Logan?" Jo asked.

Logan's eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

She paused and took a long, hard look at Logan. His clothes were different; nothing like what he usually wore when she had been around. And despite how little time the two had spent together while she was at the X-Mansion, they did know a lot about one another.

The clothes were from the 1940s, she noted. Or replicated. It wouldn't surprise in the least if Xavier had the kids practicing a play, and even Logan helped out when Rogue asked him. So she was either - somehow - at the X-Mansion while they reenacted WW2 or she time traveled.

"Logan I'm going to ask you one question. When am I?"

"It's September 12, 1941."

Jo wanted to hurl. She pressed her hands to her head and took deep breaths. It wasn't working too well. She was in 1941 and she wouldn't be born for another forty-six years. Everyone she knew hadn't been born yet. Well, all but two people. Three if she counted Logan but he'd lost his memories in an accident or something. He never really told her what happened.

"Hey, are you alright?" Logan asked.

"Logan if I were to answer that truthfully, you would send me to an insane asylum." Her voice came out strained and quick and she almost sounded exhausted despite having just woken up.

Logan stared at her in interest. He didn't know her but she apparently knew him. "Prove it."

An hour later Logan and Jo sat on a bench in a park, she wasn't sure which one. Logan was staring up at the stars while Jo took the time to actually look at him. Seventy years and he acted like a completely different person. He looked younger as well, if only slightly. Jo could only guess that having one's memories did make a person seem different.

Logan sat up straight and glanced at Jo. "So let me get this straight. You're from the year 2014, you were born in 1987, and now you're here because Tony Stark, son of Howard Stark, accidentally sent you back when he was trying to add another element to the Periodic Table. That correct?"

Jo shifted nervously, it didn't sound all that convincing. Not to mention she probably sounded like a loon.

"Yeah well," Jo said, "you're over a hundred years old."

"And how'd you figure that?"

"Well given the fact that you've never told me your birthday, but you're still around in my time, I'd say it's an educated guess."

In all honesty, it really was just a guess. She had seen a picture of someone who looked a lot like Logan in a history book, the year having been titled 1895. Logan hummed and stood.

"Follow me, kid."

Jo followed without protest. He led her through the park and down streets, eventually stopping at an apartment building. She followed him up a few flights of stairs and into his apartment. It was small, and hardly decorated, but it could still house three people. Why it was big enough for three people was beyond her because she knew Logan was one to only have what he needed. Unlike Tony.

Logan walked to a closet and pulled down an extra blanket and pillow. Jo followed him to his extra bedroom and watched as he tossed the pillow and blanket onto the bed.

"This is where you'll sleep tonight," Logan sighed, then he turned and left. "We'll figure out what to do in the morning."

"Thank you," Jo called after him.

Her only response was a grunt and the sound of a closing door. Jo took a minute to sigh, and she sat down on the bed. Hopefully, this would all just be one bad dream. She set the pillow at the head of the bed and pulled the blanket over herself. Not before taking off her satchel and placing it on the ground. Maybe... just maybe... it was all a dream.

The next morning Jo stumbled out of bed, drowsy, and eyes almost closed. She sat at the table and yawned as a shadowed figure stood in front of her.

"Tony, I had the weirdest dream. I dreamt I was stuck in 1941, all because you tried to make antimatter." Jo yawned again and opened her eyes fully.

Logan stood next to the counter, arms folded, and an amused smile gracing his face. Jo slammed her head on the table, the loud thud telling Logan just how hard she hit her head.

"You okay?" Logan asked, amusement seeping into his voice.

"Oh, I'm just peachy. How about you?" Jo's voice was muffled through the table but she knew Logan could hear her perfectly.

"We need to figure out what to do with you."

And so the two spent the morning doing just that. Jo didn't tell him much about their upcoming history. It was September so that meant the U.S. would join WW2 in just under three months. Logan didn't complain about the missing details. One thing they did come to an agreement on was that she needed to look like everyone else. No women in their time period wore jeans, t-shirts, and leather jackets. Well, not many anyway.

The next thing that came up was money. Logan was just fine on his own and he rarely bought anything he didn't need, but with another person in his apartment things would become difficult. Jo promised to find a job as soon as she could.

By just after noon they figured out living arrangements, money, Jo's clothing, and her back story. She would keep her name, everything, but if asked she would answer that she was born April 1, 1917, in Ohio, but raised in an orphanage. By that moment in time, she would be twenty-four years old, only three years off from her real age.

Then Logan was gone an hour and came back with a few dresses for Jo, which she spent a good long time laughing at him. Logan was close to stabbing her. Jo grinned and apologized, thanking him for what he was doing for her. It seemed to calm him down.

Later that night both were sitting at the table eating a soup made from potatoes and vegetables. Jo sighed, it was going to take some getting used to. It was a rather uneventful night. The next day she left the building in search of a job. She found a position open for a waitress in a diner a short distance from the apartment. Jo would begin work the next day.

Over the next few months Logan and Jo gained a schedule. Jo would wake up, make breakfast for her and Logan and then both would set off to work - Jo still wasn't sure where he worked. She would be walked home by Logan after her shift ended, and Logan would make dinner. The other girls at the diner teased Jo about Logan walking her home every day and she just laughed and shook her head at them. It was when she and Logan were headed home she learned the most about him. Logan, much to Jo's amusement, was just a big teddy bear once you got past his gruff exterior.

"I need to talk to Howard Stark," she said.

"Good luck with that," Logan replied.

"I'm serious Logan, he may be the only person in the world who can help me."

"And how are you going to get his attention?"

Jo held up her satchel, opened it, and took the notes out. The same ones she had inadvertently stolen from Tony and Bruce. Left inside was a book and, surprisingly, her phone. That may help as well... given the fact that it was Stark technology. Jo set the notes on the table and her satchel on the floor.

"These are the notes from Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. Bruce is... a scientist in a lot of fields."

"So what, you'll mail them to Stark and hope he answers?"

She nodded, "That's exactly what I'm going to do. But I won't send all of them. If he doesn't answer I'll still need help getting home. So I'll copy a few pages and send them. Maybe it'll get his attention. If it doesn't then I'll find someone else and I'll still have the papers."

"You've really thought this through."

The next day Jo sent the letter with the help of Logan. As it turned out, the postal system wasn't too different in seventy years. It took a week for there to be an answer, during that time Jo spent any extra time she had pacing back and forth.

On her first day off after a very long and very tiring shift, Jo climbed out of bed around ten in the morning. Logan would have already left for work, so she didn't bother changing into actual clothes. Instead she changed into her clothes from her own time period, she wasn't going anywhere today and she really missed wearing her jeans. Jo sighed in despair when she realized her hair had reached her shoulders; she needed to ask Logan to cut it.

When she reached the living room Jo froze. A familiar, yet unfamiliar, face was staring at her. Jo stuck a hand into her jacket and pulled out a knife. "Who the hell are you?" Jo asked.

"Howard Stark," Howard replied.

"Oh." Jo sheepishly placed the knife back into her jacket. "Why are you here? More to the point, how'd you get in?"

Howard held up the notes she had sent him. Jo suddenly felt stupid for asking the question. Of course he was here for that, why else? He still hadn't answered her second question though and it bothered her knowing he'd just walked in and waited for her to get up.

"Where'd you get these?" he asked.

"If I told you, you'd call me insane."

"Try me."

Two hours, one bottle of alcohol, and a tiny mental breakdown later Howard knew her story. Jo could see where Tony got his like of alcohol and coping methods.

"So you need my help to get home?"

"Yes."

"Can you prove you're from 2014?"

Jo reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out the Stark phone Tony had given her for her birthday. It was slightly scratched, but fully operational due to its charging method; solar power. She was proud of Tony for going economic with the phone. The connection to the future was what helped Jo keep her sanity and not think that maybe she was crazy after all and maybe she had been born in the 1910s and lost her mind.

Howard took the phone from her, gave it a once over, and gave it back. He nodded once. "I'll help you," he said, "but, you have to give something in return."

Jo thought for a moment. "You have started the Super Soldier program, haven't you?" Howard's surprised look told her that yes, they had. "I know the perfect candidate, where you can find him, and when."

The next few days were about as hectic as Jo's first day at the Avengers Tower. Loud, scary, and strange. Logan almost attacked Howard when he came home and saw him leaning over Jo's shoulder. The issue was fixed almost immediately. That didn't stop him from hovering over her like an overprotective bear with her cub.

A week passed and Christmas arrived. Jo gave Logan a necklace with a wolverine on it, a small joke of hers. Jo received her own necklace from Logan with a wolf on it. He'd received a hug from her in return and almost never took the thing off.

It was decided that Jo would travel around with Howard as his cousin. Howard had an uncle who died and there were no records for anyone to check, so he said it was fine. Jo would be helping where she could, trying to do her best with engineering and science degrees. On her last day with Logan, she was sad to be leaving him.

"If I could take you with me I would," she said.

"Yeah well, maybe I'll see you on the battlefield."

Logan had been given his orders and was being shipped out within the next week. Jo wasn't too worried, he would live, but it was still war and she didn't like the thought of him being injured.

"It's not like you can die," Jo joked. Logan huffed a laugh and pulled Jo into a hug.

"See you around, kid."

"Later big brother."

Logan looked down at her in surprise and Jo winked at him. Then she turned and left the apartment, giving a small wave in a last goodbye. Howard was waiting by the entrance, Jo's stuff having already been packed into the car.

"Sad to leave your boyfriend?" he teased.

"Brother," she corrected automatically. Her head turned and she watched as the apartment building slowly left her sight. "But I think I'll see him again."

**********

So. Jo met Logan and Howard. She lived with Logan for three or so months and left on New Year's with Howard. What do you think is gonna happen next?

Edited 11/22/19