𝐒𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐓 (X-Men ~ Peter Maximoff)

Relocation

When the morning came the group was ushered outside by officials who had been sent by the CIA to repair the base - though they would probably knock it down and restart considering the fact that hardly anything could be salvaged from the wreck. Maybe if they looked hard enough they'd find Jennifer's broken dreams among the rubble.

She hadn't slept that night -neither had the others - and it was obvious to see. Bags hung under her eyes – their usual brightness replaced with pain. Yet despite the lack of sleep, she was alert, standing next to the others who were sitting on a concrete bench outside. Her eyes were scanning everyone who entered and exited the broken building. Jennifer didn't quite know why she was doing this - maybe she was looking for Shaw to come back and kill them. Or maybe she was looking for the missing people in her family.

Jennifer had been doing this for over an hour when Charles and Erik finally arrived. Whilst Charles made Raven his top priority, running to her and enveloping her in a hug, Erik walked slowly to Jennifer.

"You alright kid?" His voice was a pleasant reminder that she hadn't lost as much as she thought she had. Erik must've known how Jennifer felt because of the unusual softness in his expression that Jennifer had never seen before.

"No." Normally Jennifer would've lied, told him she was fine, cast his worries elsewhere, but not today. She didn't have the energy. Avoiding Erik's gaze, Jennifer turned her attention to the rubble beneath her white sneakers. She stood like that for a few seconds until Charles began to speak to the group.

"We've made arrangements for you to be taken home immediately."

Confusion swam around Jennifer's head. How was she supposed to go home and pretend that everything was fine when one of her friends was going to help destroy the world, and another had died trying to save it? Jennifer refused to go home until the world was safe.

Banshee felt the same way. "We're not going home." He sounded so deflated, and Jennifer couldn't blame him.

Charles didn't understand. He wasn't there. Everything he knew about last night was told over the phone from a guy who hadn't even seen the events. (Raven had tried to phone him earlier on in the night, but the phone lines were out.) He couldn't possibly feel the loss that they did. It was more than likely that he felt upset, but he didn't know Darwin to the same extent.

"He's not going back to prison." Banshee explained himself, nodding to Alex who sat beside him. Jennifer couldn't remember why Alex was in prison to begin with, but from what she had heard about it, no one should ever want to go back.

"They killed Darwin!" Alex wasn't giving up on the groups hopeless crusade anytime soon.

"All the more reason for you to leave. This is over." Charles' voiced sounded stern, but the group of teenagers before him had a revenge plan playing on a loop in their heads - even Jennifer had a plan, though hers consisted of slightly less bloodshed.

"Darwin's dead Charles. And we can't even bury him." Raven spoke the bitter truth. The only thing left of Darwin was a black smudge on a slab from where he had burned. It pained Jennifer to even think about it.

Whilst the rest of the group looked down in pain, Jennifer finally looked up, staring Erik straight in the eye. He seemed rather collected (Jennifer presumed that he had seen death before), but Jennifer's eyes were glistening with what could be mistaken as tears, but was actually a fierce fire, burning intense images into her brain. Some people couldn't see the difference. Erik did. He understood what Jennifer was silently pleading him to say, and he spoke it aloud. "We can avenge him." Not the exact words she would've went with, but good enough.

Everyone looked at Erik, a mixture of different expressions on their faces. Hank had sat up straighter from his previously slouched position on the bench - either in interest or disbelief. He made eye contact with Jennifer, who was staring straight back at him, silently arguing about how this was a good idea with him. She won.

Charles, however, didn't like the words that had come out of Erik's mouth. "Erik. A word please."

As the two men walked past Jennifer to talk in private, she made her way over to the bench and sat in-between Hank and Alex. Although she wouldn't admit it, Jennifer was exhausted, both physically and mentally. She leaned her head against the back of the concrete bench and started tapping a beat with one of her feet. It was a thing she always did when she was nervous - it seemed to help keep her head clear and give her something to focus on other than the conversation taking place before her.

Everyone was looking in the pair's direction, waiting for a decision. From where the group sat none of them could hear Charles and Erik's conversation which was spoken in whispers, even Raven and Moira who were standing closer were deaf to the discussion before them.

After a couple of moments Charles turned back around to face the group. "We'll have to train." A smile grew on Jennifer's face, understanding what those words meant. "All of us. Yes?"

"Yeah," Alex and Jennifer spoke in unison. Charles had given in. They didn't have to go home. (Jennifer knew that it was horrible to feel that way, but her mother would understand and let her continue if she knew what she was doing. Either that or ground Jennifer for life.)

Hank raised an issue. "We can't say here. Even if they re-open the department, it's not safe. We've got nowhere to go."

He had a point. Shaw knew where they were, and the CIA weren't exactly friendly with the group anymore. Charles seemed to know something the rest of the group didn't, and he wasn't giving up on them - the super dysfunctional, problematic group. "Yes. We do."

After a three-hour flightand half-hour drive, the group (Banshee, Hank, Alex, Raven, Moira, Charles,Erik, and Jennifer) stood in front of a large mansion. It looked a couple ofcenturies old, and majestic. Screw that. The president could live here. Bansheeclearly felt the same way as Jennifer. "This is yours?"

"No," Charles replied after a brief moment. "It's ours."

Sure, Jennifer had lost a fair whack in the past day, but she had also been given things too, one of them being the opportunity before her. And on top of that, Charles was starting to see eye to eye with the rest of the group. Maybe not a fair trade, or balance, but why dwell on the past when there's a whole future ahead of you?

"Honestly Charles," Erik started, "I don't know how you survived, living in such hardship."

Jennifer realised that despite the trauma, they still had each other, and they were behaving as though they'd known each other for years - joking around, mocking each other, being completely comfortable in each other's presence.

"Well," Raven spoke up for Charles as she made her way to the front of the group, "it was a hardship softened by me."

Charles gave Raven a soft kiss on the head (in a brotherly manner). Raven smiled at his gesture. "Come on. Time for the tour."

Jennifer let a soft chuckle escape her lips as she followed the group inside the giant house. How did she, a high school student from the middle of nowhere, end up working with the CIA, in a mansion halfway around the world? It seemed impossible - like a piece of fiction had gotten tangled in the real world. Jennifer wasn't complaining though, sometimes fiction is the only thing there was to hang on to.