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" We're here."
Hank McCoy's calm baritone cut through the smoldering silence in the Blackbird. He shifted the controls with delicate precision, easing the jet into its descent.
The Blackbird needed no runway. Like everything else in the X-Men's arsenal, it was decades ahead of anything the military could dream of. Where human engineers had struggled with vertical takeoff fighters back in the Cold War—machines with miserable payloads and laughable range—the X-Men had solved the problem with a cocktail of mutant ingenuity and unapologetic black tech.
Henry didn't spare it a glance. Normally, he'd have been the first to pick apart its design, muttering about thrust ratios and material science. Not today. Today, his attention was fixed on what lay below: a picture-perfect slice of suburban America. White picket fences, trimmed lawns… and somewhere inside, a girl with enough power to end the world.
Jean Grey.
As the team disembarked, Henry lingered at the hatch, eyes narrowed. Just as he suspected, this wasn't a rescue mission. It was a retrieval. And the target was the X-Men's prodigal daughter.
If this was playing out anything like the movies, then Jean had already brushed against something no one should touch—the Phoenix Force. The same cosmic fire that had ripped apart the Endeavour shuttle only days ago.
Henry's mind ticked through the timeline. Jean breaking free of Charles' mental blocks. Jean remembering the accident from her childhood. Remembering her father, alive, but unwilling to take her back. Realizing she'd killed her mother in that crash.
Three wounds. Each one deep enough to shatter someone her age.
First: Charles' deception. Discovering the man she trusted had manipulated her memories.
Second: the truth of her mother's death—that Jean herself had caused it. Not betrayal this time, but unbearable guilt.
Third: the final knife twist. A father's rejection. Believing family would be her salvation, only to find nothing but fear and disgust in his eyes.
Any one of those could break a young mind. She was enduring all three at once.
Mutants, Henry reflected, carried a curse deeper than prejudice. The world saw them as dangerous outsiders, but their real exile often began at home. Their gifts didn't bloom at birth—they detonated in adolescence, in moments of trauma. And the first casualties were almost always family.
It wasn't like being born into hardship. This was worse. To grow up loved, safe, normal—and then, one day, wake to find yourself a monster in the eyes of the people who raised you. That kind of betrayal bred a venom that went bone-deep.
It was why Henry had no desire to "get involved." Mutants weren't just fighting for equality; half the time, they couldn't even trust each other.
And Jean Grey? She was a walking powder keg, lit from both ends.
Henry hunched low as they advanced through the neighborhood, practically using Mystique as cover. To her increasing irritation, he looked less like backup and more like a gamer who'd brought his max-level character into a newbie zone, only to realize the "tutorial boss" was an eldritch god.
This is it? You want me to fight the GM? Henry thought sourly. What am I supposed to do, pay-to-win my way out?
If nothing else, he'd perfected the art of talking fast enough to avoid throwing punches. That would have to do.
Charles tried first. He rolled forward in his chair, voice steeped in paternal gravitas. Family. Trust. Home. But the words bounced off Jean like rain on glass. She heard only betrayal.
Then Cyclops stepped in. Not the Professor's pseudo-fatherly lecture this time, but Scott Summers—the boyfriend. His words wavered, but they cut deeper. Jean faltered. For a moment, it looked like he might reach her.
And then came the sirens.
Three squad cars, lights blazing, sirens screaming through the quiet streets.
Jean's eyes snapped toward them. Something inside her broke. Two of the cars lifted into the air with a flick of her wrist and slammed into the asphalt like toys in a child's tantrum. Metal crumpled. Screams echoed.
Only one car survived.
The battle began.
Storm called down lightning, but Jean was faster. Nightcrawler tried to dart behind her, but his strikes had no weight. One by one, the X-Men fell.
Quicksilver blurred into motion, faster than thought—only to be swatted back in an instant, hurled across the street like a ragdoll. He didn't rise again.
Mystique barely noticed Henry's cowardly crouch behind her. Every ounce of her attention was locked on Jean Grey, blazing with the fire of a god.
And Henry, watching from the fringes, whispered the truth to himself:
"Yeah… nope. Not my fight."
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