A/N: Here's another chapter for you guys. Please enjoy and don't forget to leave a review :)

A Brazen Tactic

Xavier's School For Gifted Youngters

7:15 AM

The morning after the attack on the SHIELD helicarrier, the world continued to spin on as it always had. Life didn't miss a beat for those that were blissfully unaware of what was happening beyond their own personal bubble. This included the inhabitants of the X-Mansion. For them, it was the cusp of yet another school day.

Dr. Jean Grey-Summers was sitting behind the desk of her classroom, going over the lesson plans for her classes that day. She knew that her husband joined the taskforce that Coulson put together the night before, along with Bobby, Logan, and Ororo. Even though she declined almost immediately, that didn't stop her from worrying about what Doom was up to. He, more than anyone else other than Magneto, had the ambition and the will to change the world however he saw fit.

It was too bad his world vision was almost invariably bad for mutants.

There was a timid knock on her door. "Come in." The door opened and a small Japanese girl stepped inside. Jean smiled as she watched her walk over to her desk, clutching a notebook tightly to her chest. "Good morning, Kiyoko."

"Good morning, Dr. Summers. I keep having trouble with these conjugations."

"Well, let's see what we have." Jean taught English and Grammar, as well as Health with the older students. Soto Kiyoko was an empath Professor Xavier found in Tokyo. The X-Men found her in her closet, traumatized after accidentally reading the emotions of a man who had just been stabbed to death. It was because of that that Jean felt a connection with the girl.

She was going over verb tenses with her when there was a terrible explosion on the other side of the school. "What the –" There was another explosion nearby, blowing out the five windows to her right. She and Kiyoko fell to the floor and had to cover their heads to keep from being cut up from the jagged pieces of glass. "Stay down."

She rose to her feet in time to be grabbed by a pair of doombots. "Get off of me!" She crushed one with her telekinesis, and would have done the same to the second had it not attached some kind of device to her wrist. It send an electrical pulse through her body, paralyzing her and quickly rendering her unconscious.

"Dr. Summers!"

"Target acquired." The doombot hoisted Jean over its shoulder and flew out of one of the broken windows.

Word of Jean's kidnapping spread quickly. It wasn't long before news of it reached Coulson. He, understandably, wasn't pleased. Though, his reaction was pleasant compared to her Scott's. "We're wasting time, Coulson!" he yelled.

From the moment he learned that his wife had been taken and the school attacked, he insisted on going to Castle Doom and getting her back. Coulson was understandably hesitant to just barge into Latveria blindly. Doom was going to be a tough fight when they had time to prepare; going in with only a few minutes to think about anything resembling a strategy was just asking to get their asses handed to them. "I know that. But, we can't just go over there half-cocked. We do and whatever team we send over there is going to get slaughtered."

"Doom's castle is teeming with supervillains, supersoldiers, and god knows what else, Summers," May added to back him up. "We know you want your wife back, but you do her no good if you're dead."

Despite how badly he wanted to disagree, the tactician in him couldn't find a point to argue. "Fine." He marched off, likely to go cool off.

Coulson sighed and started to pack up his equipment. "Stark radioed in a few minutes ago to fill me in. Turns out it wasn't Mandarin is Atlantis, but Loki disguised as him." He didn't have to be facing him to know that Clint was as rigid and tense as a statue. "Pack up. We're moving to the Sanctum Sanctorum. I already spoke with Dr. Strange and he gave us the nod."

It was a general consensus that no one actually liked being inside Strange's home. While they understood that it was the nexus of all the magical energies on the planet Earth – and thus was the best place to house all of Strange's artifacts, trinkets, baubles, and the like – that did little to make it seem more of a home and less of a haunted house.

As the agents gathered and packed their equipment, Ororo left to find Scott. She eventually found him on the roof, standing by the ledge and looking down at the street below. She knew it couldn't have been as relaxing as looking up into the clear blue sky, but to each his own. "Scott? We will be moving to the Sanctum Sanctorum shortly."

He sighed heavily. "Did they say why?"

"Loki was in Atlantis posing as the Mandarin. I suppose Coulson wants a sorcerer to counter a sorcerer."

"Makes sense."

She stepped up to him and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "We will get Jean back. I promise."

"I know," he said eventually. "That's not what I'm worried about. I'm afraid of what he wants her for."

"Do you believe he wants to try and steal the Phoenix Force?"

"I wouldn't put it past him." He stood straight and turned to face her. "Doom knows what he's getting himself into by taking Jean. He isn't an idiot. There's more to this than simple power-jacking." What that was was anyone's guess, but one thing was clear: it wasn't going to end well.

For anyone.

Castle Doom

Jean came to a few hours later. She groaned and tried to rub her aching head, only to find that both her arms were chained to the floor. "What the hell?" She was in a cell, cold and damp with large stone blocks making up the walls, ceiling, and floor. Thick iron bars were the only things separating her from freedom. She reached her hand out to yank the door from its foundation.

Nothing happened.

Her breath caught in her throat as she tried – and failed – again. "What is happening? Hello? Hello?!"

Doctor Doom rounded the corner and stopped a few feet in front of her cell. "Ah, so you're finally awake."

She gingerly rose to her feet, a fierce glare set on the emerald clad villain. "What the hell do you want?"

"No hello?" He chuckled softly, seemingly undeterred by her hostility. "I suppose I will get straight to the point. I am going to offer you to a higher power. A tribute or sacrifice of sorts. I have little doubt you will survive the ordeal, but by the time you return to this realm, your opportunity at revenge will have long since closed."

She swallowed nervously, but put on a defiant face. "And if I say no?"

"I will kill everyone in at Xavier's school. Starting with your daughter, your son, and your husband. Or, perhaps I will save them for last. Yes, the Summers clan will be last." He watched her to gauge her reaction. When her expression never wavered, he sighed. "I forgot, death means nothing to you people."

She smirked. "You're damn right."

"Be that as it may, your fate is inevitable. You play a very small, but very important role in my rise to ultimate power and I will not allow anyone, not even the almighty Phoenix, to derail my ascension. Your acceptance or denial of what has been foreordained is irrelevant."

"Then why did you even bother telling me?"

"To gauge your reaction, and to see if what I determined about you is true."

"And?"

"And yes, you truly are afraid of your power."

That gave Jean pause. "What are you talking about?"

"You wish to escape, yes; and yet, you have done nothing to provide yourself with a means to escape. To my knowledge, the Phoenix cannot be stifled by a mere mutant power nullifier, and yet, here you remain. Were you truly worthy of such incalculable power, I would be a mere memory, like the Kree accuser."

Jean didn't respond, because he was right. In truth, the Phoenix's power terrified her because she had seen firsthand just what it was capable of. Not just with Ronan and the Kree, but with the Shiar when it wiped out their entire star system when D'Ken wouldn't cooperate with it. Even if Doom was right – she did have the power to escape and make him pay for even thinking about taking her – there was never a guarantee that Phoenix would allow itself to be shackled again.

Doom knew that, and that was why he felt comfortable with pawning her off for power or whatever it was that he wanted.

He turned to leave.

"You don't understand!" she yelled after. Her teeth gritted together. "You don't know what it's like to have this power lurking inside you. You don't know what it means to constantly keep from feeling too much or exerting too much every single day. Knowing that just one slip and poof, there goes the planet. There goes the galaxy. There goes the goddamned universe." Her face dropped into a haggard grimace as she considered him. "You're damn right I'm afraid of this power. If you had it, you would be, too."

Doom watched her slide down the wall until she was sitting back where she started. "That, Dr. Grey, is where you and I differ."

With that, he turned and left.