Agent Hawthorne glared down at the detestable documents in front of him.

 

He Hated paperwork. Why was there so much damn paperwork for the Commanding Agent of the swift response squad at an airport?

 

Shouldn't his damn subordinates do this instead of him? They were only twiddling their thumbs anyway, 'staying alert', *My ass is more alert sitting here than those buffoons,* he thought.

 

'Requires the signature of the Commanding Agent', read the annoying note at the front of the document. Those damn Greenhorn agents playing security were flooding him with paperwork about 'suspicious person'-s and all trivial stuff.

 

'She turned around the moment I thought how nice her behind looked', he almost blew a blood vessel at that. These morons haven't seen any mutants outside of books, he was getting reports of damn dogs acting suspiciously too.

 

Oh how he hated Fury, to curse him with this misery, wasn't he a dutiful and loyal agent for decades?

 

Now he was hammering greenhorn agents into shape at an airport.

 

His reoccurring musings were interrupted by a silent alarm sign showing up on a small monitor built into his desk.

 

He swept off all of the documents from his desk, raising to his feet suddenly.

 

Fuck, this alarm meant the facial recognition they have installed recognized a known mutant.

 

According to the orange sign he saw on the monitor it would be one of the stronger ones too.

 

He reached into his drawer and took out his trusty sidearm, sliding it into his hidden holster under his armpits.

 

He would need to go alert his men, this was a silent alarm for a reason. Only he got it in this whole building, plus it sent an alert to the main base in New York. Agents would come swarming in here if he didn't report the matter as resolved in an hour.

 

He reached for the doorknob when he suddenly found himself confused.

What was he doing?

The Alert?

 

Oh, he was probably overreacting. The monitor must have returned a false positive.

 

He slumped back into his chair and removed the underside of his drawer, revealing a hidden telephone.

 

Eh, the call could wait a bit. He proceeded to relax in his chair, taking a quick 20 minutes break from the detestable paperwork.

 

He called the only number it could call.

 

"Yes, Agent Hawthorn this is New York Command?" a voice reached his ears.

 

"Oh, a few moments ago an orange alert just went out yeah?" he asked relaxedly.

 

"Indeed," the man on the other side confirmed, "have you already resolved the issue?"

 

He was just about to answer that the device was mistaken, there was nothing there but another idea came to the forefront of his mind. Why didn't he realize such an obvious answer before?

 

"Ah, indeed, the facial recognition software identified a normal person as a mutant," he said, shaking his head in disappointment. The SHIELD's tech should have been better than this.

 

"Are you certain it wasn't a mutant?" the man asked for clarification, sounding incredulous.

 

Agent Hawthorne understood. SHIELD tech rarely messed up things like this but it does happen.

 

"Yeah, we checked...his identity and we found everything matching the databases, not even that new fancy sensor turned up anything when we examined him," he said, feeling annoyed at having to explain himself, but having a bunch of busybodies swarming the airport a pestering him well into the night would for sure deprive him of today's sleep.

 

"Understood, I will rescind the reinforcement order, Good Day Agent," the man said.

 

"Yeah, good day," Hawthorne hung up.

 

He could continue his brake for another half an hour, he decided after glancing at the documents spread out across his office.

 

Huh, he kind of wished the alert was real, capturing one of those mutants would have been a welcome break too.

 

The additional paperwork though. He grimaced.

 

He might as well take a nap, who is gonna do anything about it, he was demoted to a security guard already.

 

As he drifted off to sleep he decided to forget about this event, no use in remembering it.

 

 

"Are you alright?" Jean asked worriedly as she held Emilia's hand.

Emilia was panting from exertion beside her, they were already on the plane sitting side-by-side.

 

"I--j-just- need--a second," she managed to say between pants.

 

The distance combined with the complexity of the mental orders and the disruptor made manipulating that Agent severely exhausting.

"I'm--good," she said with a final intake of breath. Her brain seemed starved for oxygen, well so was her stomach for food. Even with her expanding reserves, this was a bit much.

 

"Want me to get you water or something?"

 

"Food, I need something to eat," her stomach grumbled on emphasising it.

 

"Sure, I'll be back in a minute," the redhead said as she swiftly strode up to a flight attendant to order some food.

 

Emilia, even in her exhausted and starving state was overcome by a feeling of contentedness, for now, they were safe, her powers were growing, and she already found several things she would need to practice just during her previous exercise, but most importantly she wasn't alone.

 

She didn't realize how lonely she was all her life before getting together with Jean, her sister was similar but the pure concern and affection she could feel from Jean couldn't be compared to any other relationship.

 

The assurance that she was understood, cared for and loved. It made a world of difference in her life.

 

Her main goal shifted from just surviving in this world to making sure she and Jean would thrive here.

 

It wasn't a grand goal like some heroes would have, it was the goal of a single girl, who wanted to be happy with her girlfriend.

 

Yet, she felt it would prove no less difficult to achieve.

 

She watched as Jean made her way back to her seat, with a small smile on her face and two bags in her hand.

 

Her elegant and graceful stride captivated Emilia, she got these moments when she couldn't believe she was dating that girl.

 

"I got you two bags of pretzels, hope you like them," said the girl handing Emilia the bags and sat down beside her.

 

"Thanks," Emilia smiled, she didn't think she was the emotional type but she was tearing up due to her previous musings.

 

"Is something wrong?" Jean took her face in her hand as she cleaned away her tears with her thumbs. She looked at her in worry.

 

Emilia just smiled and shook her head softly.

 

Words wouldn't quite do justice to her feelings so she didn't even try to put them into words, and she didn't have to. They had a Mental Link after all.

 

Jean stiffened at the torrent of emotions that washed over her. As she recovered her face adopted a loving expression as she stared at Emilia.

She hugged the raven-haired girl, crushing her in the hug.

 

*If we weren't on a plane right now I would kiss you silly,* Jean told Emilia.

 

Emilia blushed deeply at that, she was getting used to physical affection but doing it publicly was too much for her. Though at the moment she wouldn't mind it much.

 

Unlike other people as the two were both telepaths and mentally connected they didn't need words or physical touch to show their affection. At that moment as they stared into each other's eyes they knew what the other felt, that they were the most important to exist person to the other.

 

"We'll continue this privately," Jean said as she released Emilia, though she snuggled close to her.

 

Emilia felt a meaningful promise behind that, her heart rate skipped a beat at the thoughts that flooded her mind.

 

"Good that you understand," Jean whispered as she interlocked her fingers.

 

They stared out the window as the aeroplane slowly separated from the ground, the land swiftly became distant afterwards.

 

Emilia looked on as the distant scenery passed by under them with a bit of nervousness.

 

"Is this your first time flying?" Jean nudged her as she too leant closer to the window to get a look.

 

"Yeah, never travelled overseas from Europe before," Emilia admitted.

 

"But you did travel around in Europe, right?" Jean glanced at Emilia before continuing to look out the window.

 

"Only a bit, I was in London, Rome, Vienna and Amsterdam, most of it only for a day on a school trip," Emilia told the ever-curious ginger.

 

"Show me around places you know then hmm?" Jean asked, "I've never been outside of the USA either."

 

"Sure," Emilia said, she felt like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulder as New York vanished in the distance.

 

They were far too weak to contend with most threats that could have sprung up at any moment. There were threats all over Earth but if they were lucky, by constantly travelling around they could evade them for long enough to train themselves. Both of them had great untapped potential.

 

By the time they returned to the City, they would be able to shrug off most threats like SHIELD, Hydra and AIM.

 

Together they would be unstoppable on Earth, Emilia vowed to strive for that goal.

 

 

Director Nicholas Fury glared at the sullen Agent sitting before his desk.

 

"Hawthorne, I've sent your sorry ass to that damnable airport so you could capture any of Xavier's runaway brats, so tell me how in the nine hells did one of the highest priority targets slip right through under your nose?"

 

Agent Hawthorne swallowed, he tried to remember but his memories were foggy.

 

"Sir, I don't even remember the afternoon this supposedly happened," he admitted shamefully.

 

"Of course you don't you motherfucker," Fury seethed as he slapped a document down in front of the man, "Read!"

 

Hawthorn grumpily did so.

 

'Name: Jean Grey, Age: 21, Class: unknown, Type: Telepath, Danger Level: 2 / 5'

 

"Fuck," he said intelligently.

 

"Couldn't have said it better myself," the director complimented sarcastically.

 

"Now explain to me," Fury leaned over his desk, "how did a Telepath fool you if you had your disruptor equipped?"

 

"I don't know sir," he admitted, "I did have it equipped when I woke up."

 

Fury glared at him thoughtfully, could that brat telepath manipulate one of his Agents both trained to resist such things and equipped with a disruptor that proved effective even that bald fool?

 

Fury contemplated the possible reasons for this mishap, while he couldn't rule out that the girl truly did somehow manage what the most powerful known telepath could not the idea that his moronic underling fell asleep at work or didn't wear his disruptor was a far more likely reason.

 

His spies have reported the same girl struggling to exercise her power for years, only being capable of minor telepathy and empathy. Though her Class was unknown and Danger Level was assigned according to the lengths Xavier went to 'save' her from SHIELD.

 

He assigned this moron to the airport because he considered it an important location, plus the new Agents needed to be slapped into shape. After all New York seemed to attract superhuman weirdoes, so he needed to keep a watch over its airport.

 

Most importantly Hawthorne called the command to rescind the reinforcement order due to the alert being a mistake.

 

"You are fired Hawthorne," the Director announced, "hand in your badge and weapon by the end of the week. You can leave."

 

Fury sat back into his chair as the gobsmacked former agent left his office. He couldn't let such a huge fuck up slide even if Hawthorn was a veteran agent. If he just ignored the alert that would have been fine, but he actively sabotaged the agency's goals. He could be happy he wasn't court marshalled.

 

He glared at the document and the report he received from the agents. They collected security footage and interviewed the staff that interacted with the mutant.

 

Thankfully none of the staff had any sign of mind fuckery.

 

He got to the page where a picture was displayed, taken by the security cameras as the mutant girl was checking-in for the flight.

 

He stared at it, there in the picture was the young ginger mutant side by side with another girl, he didn't recognise the slim black-haired girl as one of Xavier's child soldiers.

 

He found a brief report of her, nothing much just her identification.

 

'Emilia Novak, Birth: 1986.03.20. Budapest Hungary; USA citizenship gained in 2003'

No known properties, address, phone number, prior workplaces, nothing.

He frowned, an unknown travelling out of the States along with one of Xavier's 'students'.

 

He got to work, made an order on putting this girl under surveillance, and added the entry about travelling along with the mutant. He was lacking information, he hated lacking information.

 

He compiled all he knew and put it into a single document, he was also reminded about the case of Agent Blackwood's death, he included a notice in the dossier. A rogue telepath being the most likely suspect for the murder along with one fleeing the country was most likely a coincidence but Fury didn't believe in those.

 

These mutants couldn't run around unchecked under His watch.