3rd POV January 31th 2006 (X-mansion)

“The investigation continues as officials search for the person responsible for the  assassination of Doctor Bolivar Trask who had been scheduled to appear before the senate to address concerns over the increasing number of Mutants appearing within America. Doctor Trask was a pioneer in his field, and the nation mourns the loss of such a talent.”

“Right you are Marie, and the Doctor's sudden death has made many Americans question just how much influence these Mutants really have within the country. Citizens are concerned that Mutants might be working together to undermine the authority of our beloved nation. But according to Federal officials the assassination was achieved using strictly human means.”

“They’ve advised everyone to stay calm and rational in these trying times and to not recklessly approach any Mutants unnecessarily. Until the investigation progresses further any biases towards the likely culprits will only hinder the investigation. If any one has any information please contact the number passing by on the screen right now to reach federal agents. Please be aware any prank calls will result in a fine up to $2 000.” 

“Thank you Andy, and now we move over to Maze for the weather…”

[Bang] 

[Whistle] “Nice throw.” Jessica walked into the living room just in time to see a short brown haired girl launch the remote straight into the TV screen cutting off the News just as it switched over to the weather network. 

“This is so stupid how can they just blame us?! ‘They haven’t confirmed its Mutants but we all know it was.’ They might as well just admit that they’re not even suspecting anyone else might have done it!” 

Not yet done expressing her anger the girl proceeded to stomp on the floor while shouting and mocking the news casters. Not that she is alone in her anger the other students around her were also starting to get rowdy following her example and just as Jessica set about to find a good spot to watch Xavier wheeled himself into the room immediately silencing the teens with his presence or by manipulating their minds the Xavier didn’t have any obvious tells for when he is using his powers so Jessica was never sure.

“Ms. Pride I can understand your anger but please calm down. There is no benefit to getting yourself or others worked up.”

“But Professor, they're blaming us for this. Mutants are already oppressed now, they'll probably be persecuted too.”   

“ Ms. Pride, do you really think so little of our fellow humans? I assure you they won’t be so quick to jump on Mutants for something as trivial as this.” Xavier’s words had a visible impact on the riled up teens. Their bodies relaxed back into the furniture they lounged on. Not that Jessica could blame them Xavier had saved many of these students from bad situations and he’s so damn nice all the time they probably think of him as some kind of infallible angel.

Deciding to knock him down a peg Jessica took a step forward to draw his attention before speaking “You sure about that Baldy? With how heavily the media’s pushing these accusations everyone’s going to start treating Mutants like time bombs. Especially since no one on our sides made a counter statement.” 

Jessica smirked as the compassionate smile Xavier wore when he entered the room slipped off his face. Honestly, she didn’t have any problem with Xavier himself, she understood why he didn’t want to make a public statement excusing Mutants from the crime. Well the reasons beyond that he doesn’t know who actually did it although judging by the bags under his eyes he’s definitely been looking. But these teens need to start thinking for themselves, not constantly looking to Xavier for guidance.

 Her words had the intended effect on the teens and soon Ms. Pride was back to stomping angrily only this time her anger focused on Xavier. “Ms. Jones is right! If we don’t make a statement people will start to believe all the bullshit the news is spouting. Professor why aren’t we doing anything to help protect our fellow Mutants? I thought that’s our goal peace for Mutantkind.”

Xavier’s expression soured as Ms. Pride finished her tantrum. And Jessica took a sip from her beer knowing victory is hers. No matter how Xavier tries to justify it, the kids aren’t mature enough to fully understand the situation they’re in. They can’t understand just how bad the consequences of making a statement are.

Sure on the surface it seems like a great idea, have someone come out and be a spokesperson for all Mutants preaching for equality and trying to counteract the garbage the media is feeding everyone. But in practice it wouldn’t progress past stage one. Making an announcement as a spokesperson for an entire race is fine if you're a publicly known and supported figure but Xavier’s whole shtick is being a hidden haven. And the other Mutant groups are following his example.

If he or any of the other staff spoke out against the propaganda spread by the news the only thing people would take in is that Mutants had organised themselves within the country in massive numbers and no one could find them until they chose to reveal themselves. Not even bringing in the fact that most of them are children and Xavier is a telepath.

And any positives he might gain from going public would quickly be sapped away by politics. Scandals and bureaucracy would make any changes he tried to make take years and by then the opposition would have already implemented anything they needed to counter his efforts. 

Xavier would have to take control of dozens of officials to have any real impact but with Trask as a pioneer more and more Mutant detection technology is going to come out and powerful people will take steps to avoid being affected.

Knowing Xavier was in for a long haul talk where he desperately tried to tell children how dumb they are without them realising it Jessica turned around and went back into the kitchen to get another beer. 

1st POV February 2nd 2006 Phil Coulson

“So let me get this straight, we had a full team in all the surrounding buildings, cameras meant to cover every angle and multiple computer nerds attempting to steal the designs off Trask’s servers and not only did Trask get assassinated in his hotel room but all the data on his servers was whipped clean and we still have no idea who might have done it?”

I winced at the director's calm tone knowing he only uses it when he’s too flabbergasted to curse. A rare occurrence; showing just how unexpected Trask’s assassination was. SHIELD monitors all military scientists just in case they stumble onto something way above their pay grades. Which happens way too often, whatever the military feeds those guys causes them to pump out futuristic weapons so often Fury made a separate task force for each military base in the country.

Forcing myself back on task I cast my gaze at the mockingly slim folder sitting on the desk in front of me. It doesn’t make sense since Trask hadn’t even presented anything to his superiors in the military instead he’d headed right to Washington, clearly he planned to use his invention to secure himself a promotion anyone looking for a target shouldn’t have found Trask a valuable target.

Sure a device to identify Mutants might be something some Mutants would want to prevent but anyone with the ability to pull this off should be smart enough to know that Trask was one of dozens of scientists inventing such technology. No every instinct in my body is saying there’s another angle to this I can’t see. 

Whatever, Trask was researching and someone found out and decided that it couldn’t get into the hands of the government. But who had the resources to outperform SHEILD’s best? The computer guys were still hours away from getting into Trask’s servers. If we had been lucky we would know what he’d be presenting an hour before he got onto the stage and yet this unknown had easily gotten and erased all of Trask’s work so well we hadn’t even found a scrap.

“I don’t like this at all, Coulson. In the past few months more threats to SHIELD have popped up than in the past 2 decades combined. Something larger is in the works and I need to know what it is.” Doing a quick mental check to confirm the directors words - Always double check info Coulson - It did feel like in the past couple months SHIELD had evolved from a spy agency looking for advanced weaponry to a taskforce for the paranormal.

Mutants have started to appear in explosive numbers, the underworld is whispering about dozens of super projects in the works pumping out soldiers capable of rivalling Captain America himself - over exaggerations -, and we’ve had visitors from another world constantly popping up. 

“Do you think it might be another visitor director? Our guys have already gone over it and this assassination doesn’t seem to fit in either of the two groups we’ve identified in the Mutants so far. It’s unlikely anyone trying to solve a personal vendetta would do it in a way that would draw this much attention and Dr. Ziegler is proof enough of their advanced technology.”

Fury briefly raised his eye away from his desk to look at me with approval before refocusing his gaze on the slim folder in front of him. “It’s not a bad theory unfortunately we know very little about our visitors and therefore don’t have many options to change that.”

I stayed silent as the director pondered. I learned the hard way that interrupting the director while he was deep in thought was a one way trip into desk duty for the next couple months. I still get uncomfortable around big stacks of paperwork. 

Leaning back in his chair I stood up following the director's unspoken order and waited patiently for him to speak.

“Contact Agent Romanoff, tell her to approach Dr. Ziegler officially and see if she can open a peaceful dialect between SHIELD and any visitors that have reached out to her. We need more information going forward or all our investigations will be bogged down by false suspects and useless suspicions.”

“Right away, director.” Stepping out of the directors office I took a deep breath before taking out my phone and quickly relaying his orders before turning it off. No way was I going to be the one to deal with the widow’s anger at being told to give up a 6 month undercover identity and still not having any significant results.

AN: Sorry if this chapter feels kind of underwhelming. I'm trying to get back into the groove of writing and reform all my ideas for where I want this story to go. This chapter isn’t important in the grand scheme of things but I enjoy showing that other people are changing as a result of Makenzie’s actions in real time, not just when they interact with him directly.