---

Jean once again felt a sliver of the being's attention. If Emilia was right this was the so-called Phoenix Force, some kind of eldritch God.

 

The being seemed satisfied, she didn't understand why at first.

 

"I don't know of any way to get rid of that position," her girlfriend looked at her with a teary, guilt-ridden expression.

 

She squeezed back on her hand, trying to reassure her that it was going to be fine. She still didn't know what the hell being its Avatar entailed.

 

She flicked Emi's cute button nose with a finger, "Explain, " she ordered.

 

"Oh, - um-, as I said, it doesn't do anything by itself, it lives through its Avatars, it enhances their power and gives them new ones. It mostly doesn't order them to do anything or intervene in their lives," she swallowed, "but it does manipulate them, it's Avatars tend to develop a secondary personality, it takes over if they lose control of their powers and focuses only on the Destruction part of the Phoenix."

 

Jean was first stumped but quickly what previously would have been irritation now manifested as fiery anger.

 

She calmed down, quickly feeling Emilia's distress and her attempt at calming her.

 

She glanced at the table, now in six different fragments, her coffee colouring the shards of the previous cup brown and finally up at her distressed girlfriend. She had blood running down her arm and seeping through her pants but she still made her way to Jean to hug her again.

 

She hugged her small head to her chest as she mumbled, "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

 

"That was what I was talking about, it makes the Avatar emotional and especially prone to anger. It makes the hate what it hates and when they lose themselves to anger the Dark personality takes over," Emilia said, hugging Jean close to her.

 

Jean forcefully crushed the rising anger as she heard that. This thing was trying to control her, to take control of her life. Didn't she swear that she wouldn't let that happen again?

 

Luckily her anger bled out of her as soon as it appeared, the soft body in her arms worked wonders for calming her down.

 

"What can I do?" there had to be a way, she said it didn't intervene or order its Avatars forcefully.

 

"I thought about it a lot," the girl said, looking thoughtful, "Firstly, we are telepaths Jean, we are masters of the mind, I don't believe we can't control our own emotions if we practice enough."

 

She must be right, if they could manipulate the thoughts and memories of others shouldn't they be able to do the same for themselves?

 

"Secondly, you could try appeasing it," the girl paused feeling Jean's rising irritation and hugged her closer before continuing, "I mean it wants chaos and progress, if we can make that happen without you obliterating the planet then I think it should be satisfied."

 

The idea seemed validated as she felt approval radiating from beyond her senses. It was weird, it felt close but she knew it wasn't anywhere near her. Hell, it probably wasn't even in the same dimension.

 

It was somehow connected to her, and it seemed to approve of Emilia's idea.

 

Jean sighed, "Alright, but now let's get you something, you are bleeding!!"

 

In her stupor, she almost forgot that she had made the girl in her arms bleed.

 

"I'm so sorry," she said as she levitated the girl onto the couch.

 

She refrained from smiling at the cute yelp Emilia let out when she was separated from the ground.

 

 

"It's going to be fine," Emilia said as she pushed the hands of the worrywart ginger away from her wounds.

 

"I just need a bandage and disinfectant, you won't even notice it was there by tomorrow," Emilia said, relenting on not treating her wounds so Jean would calm down.

 

She has previously noticed that she healed faster than before, it was like a very slow regeneration. She also felt ravenous afterwards, just like overexerting her psychic muscles.

 

She has watched smaller cuts she made on herself close in minutes. These were bigger and deeper but they should go away in a day.

 

"And food, a lot of food please," she added.

 

"Sure, I will go get some," she said before running out of the suite.

 

Soon enough Emilia was rolling her eyes as she ate, the redhead was watching over her with a guilty expression.

 

"Why---are you still so worried?" she asked between bites, not one of her most graceful moments.

 

"I could have hit an artery or your eyes, I could have killed you," she ranted, frustrated.

 

"We will learn how to control our emotions soon enough, alright?" she asked.

 

Jean radiated determination as she nodded, "I won't be controlled anymore!"

 

Emilia smiled at her, before continuing with stuffing her face. Even such small injuries made her so hungry, she didn't know how much she would need to eat in the future.

 

As a silver lining, she didn't gain any fat from it.

 

"What do you plan to do now?" Emilia asked, trying to distract her.

 

"About what?" Jean asked back, confused.

 

"Just generally, do you want to continue living in the mansion or,--something else?" Emilia asked, looking meaningfully at her girlfriend while saying the last part.

 

"I want to travel around, maybe even globally, attending a college afterwards. I'm pretty sure we could blaze through it if we learned how to use our telepathy better, and I don't mean cheating but using it to memorise things," she said, finally losing her worried expression, "and about a place, I would love to take my beautiful girlfriend along with me while travelling, maybe we could even attend a college together."

 

Emilia teared up a bit at the emotions Jean was radiating, "I would like that, yeah, " she said while smiling.

 

"But first you heal, meanwhile I'm going to have to notify the teachers at the mansion about me leaving," Jean said.

 

"Be careful," Emilia said, feeling worried both about Jean getting attacked again and Xavier pulling something shady.

 

"Oh, I meant to say after you heal up, you are coming with me," Jean said.

 

"Understood," Emilia answered, giggling a bit at the commanding tone Jean used.

 

Here she was, eager to go along with her while a few days prior she swore to not even poke a single X-Men even with a kilometre-long stick. That vow lasted up until she met Jean.

 

Was she this starved for a relationship? For affection?

 

Yeah probably. She just hoped this would go well.

 

The redhead nodded in satisfaction, "Good, we will wait until you heal and then we can go, I want to get over with it."

 

Emilia raised an eyebrow questioningly, "Why the hurry?"

 

The answer didn't come in the form of words but in emotions through their link, Jean transmitted her eagerness to put the previous detached segment of her life behind her, along with the excitement of travelling the world along with Emilia.

 

"I'm sure I'll be fine by tomorrow morning, we can go then," she said, "where would you like to travel?"

 

Jean sat down at the end of the couch, next to Emilia's legs, "First Europe, I always wanted to go to London and Paris, then we could head to Asia maybe, China and Japan are interesting too," she said while fidgeting with a lock of her long mane of hair.

 

"Maybe I could pick up painting again, we are sure to come across many picturesque locations," her excitement starting to mount along with her partner's.

 

"I would love to see you paint," Jean said, making Emilia a bit embarrassed about it.

 

"Sure," she shrugged, "but you have to show me your drawings too, plus there are many buildings with great architecture in Europe."

 

"Oh, you are right, sure," Jean brought a finger to her lips, taking up an iconic thinking pose.

 

"You still want to study architecture?" Emilia tilted her head.

 

"Yes, I want to design buildings," Jean looked at Emilia, the girl was swiftly getting infected by the redhead's energy and excitement.

"By the way, are you alright with me dragging you around the world to travel?" Jean asked, taking one of Emilia's feet onto her lap and starting to massage it.

 

"It's the opposite really," Emilia groaned in satisfaction, "I appreciate finally having a real plan for the future, plus travelling around sounds fun so I'm all for it."

 

"Hmmm, okay," Jean focused on kneading the dainty feet in her hands, afterwards giving some attention to Emilia's calves too.

 

The raven-haired girl just relaxed on the couch, enjoying the massage. She never received massages before, her sister, unfortunately, wasn't the touchy-feely type like Emilia. With her blossoming relationship, Emilia found herself to be quite needy, enjoying every bit of physical contact with Jean.

 

"So, I've been thinking. If all this crazy stuff you have said about the X-men is real, is there anything else interesting in the world?" Jean wondered, her hands and fingers getting even better as time went by. Emilia noticed Jean was attentively observing her with her empathy, discerning what she was enjoying and what she wasn't and adjusting her technique.

 

This left Emilia groaning and humming in satisfaction to the delight of her masseur.

 

Meanwhile, she decided to not mention the things she wished didn't exist for now, like real Eldritch Gods, Celestials, Galactus, Thanos and other similarly apocalyptic assholes.

 

"Well, let's see---there are a bunch of aliens for one."

 

"Like you?" Jean raised an eyebrow.

 

"No...yes? There are the ones you imagine when thinking about aliens and there is other stuff from other universes," Emilia said, jogging her memory and recording stuff about anything she remembered, she should have done this long before this. Forgetting something important would suck.

 

"Little green men on Mars?" Jean asked jokingly.

 

"Maybe there are, but I don't think so," if the buff shapeshifting ones from DC didn't decide to migrate over to Marvel.

 

"Give me a fun fact that's related to Earth," Jean demanded.

 

"Magic is real..." Emilia groaned again as Jean's hands gripped her calves harder for a bit.

 

"Really?" Jean asked, her emerald eyes shining with excitement.

 

"It's not as fun as you think, the practitioners are called Sorcerers and protect Earth from magical and... extradimensional threats, " she trailed off, "fuck," she whispered.

 

"Is it going to be a problem? " Jean asked, suddenly worried.

 

"Don't worry, if they had a problem with me they would have made that clear already," Emilia said, causing the redhead to continue her ministrations, " the Sorcerer Supreme, their leader, can see the past, present and the future."

 

Jean looked at her incredulously but Emilia just shrugged, "We live in a crazy world."

 

"True," Jean shrugged too, "anyway mind telling me what you learned yesterday?"

 

"Unfortunately nothing substantial," Emilia shook her head, "the man didn't know who his employers were, he only got the gear and a bit of information about you."

 

"Great," Jean grimaced.

 

"This wasn't his first time 'collecting' mutants either," Emilia felt revolted, even if she didn't learn much about his employers she got his knowledge about the underworld. Capturing a mutant was considered hitting the jackpot by these lowlifes.

 

"Probably the same people that tried to capture me before," Jean frowned.

 

Emilia urged the redhead to explain.

 

"When my...parents found out I was...like this, they decided to report it to the police, soon a bunch of men and women dressed in suits flooded our house. All of them had some kind of telepathy disruptor like that helmet, and they took me away," the girl swallowed.

 

"How did you escape then?" Emilia asked worriedly.

 

"I didn't, they let me go due to some kind of a deal with the Professor," Jean averted her eyes, "I couldn't do anything back then," she said morosely.

 

Emilia refrained from mentioning how shady that was, though she couldn't help but feel thankful to the old telepath for saving Jean.

Emilia thought back to all of the secret government organizations in the USA, excluding those which would never make deals with the X-men. That still left more than a few, maybe it was only the CIA or FBI, not SHIELD or something else.

 

Emilia propped herself up a bit and pulled Jean in front of her, her back facing Emilia, the ginger let herself be relocated by the smaller girl with a confused smile.

 

"What are you doing?" she asked without looking back.

 

"Repaying you," Emilia said as she got to work on massaging the redhead's shoulders and neck.

 

Jean relaxed, closing her eyes and groaning in satisfaction. Emilia emulated Jean's application of empathy, dutifully working out the stress-induced knots in Jean's muscles.

 

They spent the day like that, cuddling, talking and eating. Soon tomorrow would come and they would have to visit the X mansion before departing on their journey.

 

Emilia wished today could go on forever.