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Jean should probably be a lot more concerned about her current situation, but she couldn’t help her mind wandering. She had already tried for a good 20 minutes, and despite the cell not having any power damping properties, it wasn’t getting any more unlocked. For some reason the mechanism of the doors wasn’t responding to her telekinesis, and her captors had some sort of headgear that made them immune to her telepathy. Being so, she had finally given up, slid her back down the wall in the corner, and started thinking about her ex-boyfriend, again. ugh.
She had liked Scott a lot, he was kind and sweet and he bought her flowers and a corsage for prom. He shared his weed and drove her wherever she wanted and forgave easily.
It didn’t hurt that he was hot, either. Soft brown hair fell to his eyebrows, his eyes were often hidden by the same blocky red glasses he wore everywhere because of his migraines. They were brown, he had told her. Scott was tall and strong and toned in allllllllll the right places. He was safe but not in a boring way. No, nothing about Scott was boring. He was funny,passionate, and stupid( especially when he was driving), but he was, well, he was Scott!
Yeah, Scott Summers was a lot of things.
A Liar, for one.
“ Why didn’t you respond to my texts last night?” Jean asked at lunch. Scott shrugged, somewhat unreadable behind the glasses.
“ I fell asleep.” he answered coolly, eyebrows raised.
‘Then why did Warren see your bike on the interstate?’ Jean didn’t ask.
Violent, for another.
“Back off, Duncan.”
“ What! I wasn’t doing anything, Summers!” Duncan stopped leaning on Jean’s table as Scott approached. He sized up the skinnier boy, and with a dumb smile, put a finger on his shirt.
“Hey, you got something right here.”
CRACK!
Duncan fell to the ground, holding his jaw. Scott jumped back shaking his hand off a cursing loudly. The lunchroom fell silent after a chorus of gasps. It didn’t take much longer for Scott to be marched away by the Student Resource Officer, leaving Jean to ignore the stares and whispers from her peers. With a sigh she got up and went to find her housemates.
And maybe, worst of all, he hated mutants.
Jean had wanted to avoid the topic for as long as possible. The simple truth of it was that If she brought it up and it went wrong, then she’d have to break up with him. And she’d have to explain why she was breaking up with him, and Jean didn’t really want to have to explain to her potential ex-boyfriend that she couldn’t date somebody who hated mutants because she was one.
Well, she could, but she didn’t really want to lie to him either.
If she simply ignored the topic then it wouldn’t come to a head and she wouldn’t have to break up with Scott, which was a problem solved in her eyes.
Up until it got brought up.
“In other news, the so called ‘X-men’ strike again, interfering with police work on Long island as officers investigated a Mutant Attack…”
“Can you turn that up?” Scott asked. Jean’s heart jumped into her throat. Swallowing it down, she complied, side, eyeing Scott and she turned the radio up.
“ You keep up on the news?”
“ Just heard something that caught my ear,” he replied. Jean nodded slowly, looking forward again.
“ …The teenagers reported that a woman with features resembling a crocodile had chased them out from underneath the pier dock. As officers arrived to investigate the scene they found no trace of the mutant, other than the Two X-men. Upon contact with the masked mutants officers report that they became “ Uncompromising and obstructive” to the search for the mutant. Commentators suspect that they might have “ Spirted away” the mutant-”
“ every goddamn time- ugh.” Scott muttered. Jean glanced at him.
“ What?” she inquired. He shook his head, reaching over to tune the radio to a different station.
“ Nothing.” he replied. Something in his tone shook her a little. He had just sounded so…angry, but now his voice was as cold as ice.
‘Fuck’ Jean realized. ‘ I have to break up with my boyfriend.’
The problem was that Jean hadn’t really hated Scott.
Look, Warren had already pointed out to her many times in the intervening weeks that she really probably should have hated Scott. Then again, Warren was quick to point out everything that he hated about Scott, and by the time he was finished Jean was convinced that Warren might have actually been in love with Scott and in denial about it. His list went on and on and on to a point where he was naming things that Jean hadn’t even noticed about the guy, and they had dated for almost a year.
She knew that ultimately, it wouldn't have worked out. Even if Scott hadn’t turned out to be mutant-phobic, she wouldn’t have ever ever ever wanted to explain the X-men to him. Call it a hunch, but something tells her that her heavily traumatized and emotionally reclusive ex-boyfriend would not have been so keen to date a telepath.
It had been almost two months since their last conversation, and honestly, Jean was starting to regret that. Mostly because now she was unconsciously sizing up almost any guy she met. It was a passive hobby of hers, from time to time. God forbid a girl gets lonely once in a while.
Honestly, considering she lived with three of them, Jean was not sick enough of boys.
Speaking of said boys (and they were boys, even Warren), she was really wishing they would show up soon. They had come together, after all, and her mind ached from the idea of her x-men trying to function without their leader. For three guys whose collective power was Cold + Fly + Smart, them being left alone ended in a lot of explosions.
Jean perked up when she heard footsteps and cursing. She stood quickly as the door scraped open and another body was thrown in with her. There was a short zap of red energy right as the door closed, absorbed by the thick metal inconsequentially.
Nobody had 0 time to realize Jean was in the room with him before she had him pressed with his chest to the wall, pinned by her telekinesis.
“Oh you bitch.” He half-spat, half-laughed. “ Just when I thought I got rid of you.”
Jean rolled her eyes.
“ It’s going to take a lot more than a few scrapes to decommission me, dickhead.” She laughed. With a flick of her wrist, the other mutant was spun around and slammed into the opposite wall, now able to see her. His head barely missed hitting a rusted bracket, which almost upset her.
“ Where’s your harem?” He asked snidely.
“ Where's your circus?” she replied just as childishly.
She couldn’t see Nobody’s eyes, nor could she read him, but he was glaring. He was always glaring in her mind. He pressed against her TK persistently, a bead of sweat rolled down the back of her neck.
“ Nervous?” He asked. Quirking his head. With a cruel smirk, he shoved his arms against her hold. The force of it nearly made her flinch. She responded with a snarl, forcing both his arms above his head. The sheer intensity of her rage gave her both the strength and precision to fold the bracket above him, trapping his wrists. His head snapped upward to look at it, and his carefully crafted persona of untouchable cruel zen fell away to allow a moment of spitting hot anger.
“ Are you?”
His head snapped toward her, and his demeanor changed instantly. He smiled.
“ I don’t think I’ve ever told you how fucking angry you make me.” he told her.
“ Good handle on your emotions there, Leader-man.” she replied. Jean had to duck out of the way as a beam of light destroyed the brick that was behind where her head just was. Setting her jaw she marched up and got on her tiptoes to remove his gloves, taking away the button that remotely controlled his visor.
“ You’re getting forgetful, miss.” He mocked lowly while her ear was next to his face.
Jean kneed him in the nuts. He made his best attempt to double over while strung up like a chicken. Unable to move his upper body, his legs tried to rise to his chest, which put all too much weight on his wrists, resigning him to just squirm uncomfortably.
“ You’re getting sloppy,”
“ That was not fair.”
Jean shrugged, going back to her corner and sitting back down, resolving herself to ignore the other Mutant.
Nobody was the biggest pain in her ass. Even worse than her romantic prospects. He was so- just- ugh!
In the early days of the X-men, when they had first crossed paths with the Brotherhood, Nobody was a figure that haunted her (not that she would EVER admit to that). He was a shadow, a boogyman. He came and destroyed and then went. He was untouchable, unreadable, and god damn it all, she had been scared of him.
But she wasn’t anymore.
Oh he made her blood boil, no, Jean was not afraid of Nobody anymore, she was so incredibly Annoyed by him.
She was sure he would feel the same about her, if she was able to read him. The Mask that typically covered his face and neck had been removed, but oddly enough the visor remained in place.
Jean realized this was the first time that she had seen Nobody’s face. Well, his mouth and nose. His hair was typically visible and his eyes always hidden. Now that she was thinking about it, this was the first time she had really cared to actually look at him. Floppy brown hair fell above his visor. His nose sloped a little crookedly, and if his mouth wasn't stuck in a permanent sneer (and if he wasn’t Nobody) Jean might have admired his lips.
He kicked a pebble at her. She threw it back at him.
“ What.”
He huffed through his nose, pursing his lips.
“ I would.. I would appreciate it if you would let me sit down.” He requested, obviously fighting to repress any unpleasant tone of voice. Jean smirked.
“ What's the magic word?”
She watched his jaw clenched, and she might have been fooling herself, but the dim red light behind the visor brightened.
“Please.”
She concentrated to pull the rusted hinge off the wall, but kept it wrapped around his wrists. His arms fell in front of him. Nobody rolled his shoulders, attempting to soothe the ache from keeping his arms above his head for so long.
“ My hands?” he demanded more than asked. Jean shrugged slyly.
“Guess Magnets will have to help you out with that one.” she told him. He pursed his lips, and his nose curled. Jean closed her eyes and let her head fall against the wall, she was already getting bored of annoying him.
There was a scraping sound.
She looked up.
Nobody had settled directly across from her. One of his legs was outstretched, his foot nearly touching hers. Her eyes trailed from his foot up to his face, where he was waiting for her to meet his eyes with a mischievous smile.
Goddamn it all. Was that… fondness she was feeling? Fixing her face, she took in the lean lines of Nobody’s body, the armored suit that left little of his arms and legs to the imagination. She realized that he got a familiar tone when he was smiling at her, which meant that he smiled at her a lot before she could see his face.
Almost against her will her mind supplied the simple question she had been asking herself since she broke up with Scott.
What about this one?
He pointed his foot so it nudged hers, cocking his head toward the door. Listening, she was able to distinguish the sound of more footsteps.
“ What do you say we blow this joint?” he asked quietly. Shaking away the unwarranted thought, she rolled her eyes.
“ That's the smartest thing you’ve said in your entire life.” she replied, readying herself for a fight as the door scraped open.