Thanks to enfant-terrible for reviewing! I'm glad I could make you like Jean better.
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, the Brotherhood or SHIELD.
SHIELD headquarters was a huge building, with all the latest computer equipment, tracking devices and weaponry that would make any NRA member weep with joy. Nick Fury was sat in his office, enjoying a surreptitious cigar – smoking was not allowed in Government buildings – when the door banged open and in walked the groups' premier operatives.
Fury sighed and stubbed the cigar out. "Back from the Middle East already?"
"You didn't mention any hostages," growled Wanda Maximoff. "Let alone forty of them. Do you know how hard it made our job?"
"We didn't know about them until after you'd left and you requested total radio silence." Fury grabbed the report from his desk drawer. "Anyway, according to this you freed all of them and captured almost all of the terrorists and killed the ones you didn't capture – wait, what's this about a fireball?"
St John Allerdyce looked down at the floor, reminding Fury of a naughty schoolboy in front of the headmaster. "I got a bit over excited."
"The guy was about to open fire on the hostages," added Fred Dukes supportively.
"The important thing is that they were stopped and with no harm to the civilians." Fury threw the report onto his desk and smirked. "I have a new assignment for you. Should be just like old times."
The six people standing in front of his desk looked back at him suspiciously. Everyone knew that when Fury got that look on his face, nothing good was about to happen.
"We have news of a terrorist operation taking out mutants. Their most recent activities include blowing up a church and driving a car through a café. Seven dead altogether and we expect the death toll to rise. I want you to investigate."
"Because we're mutants?" asked Pietro Maximoff.
"No. Because you know the area they're targeting." Fury's grin widened. "How would you like a trip back to Bayville?"
"You've gotta be joking!" Lance Alvers scowled at the thought. "We haven't been back to that dump in years. I was planning never to go back at all!"
"Tough." Fury leant forward. "We've got a frightened mutant population out there, Pow-R-8 is still legal and the Mayor is claiming the attacks are the fault of the victims for living in his town."
"Principal Kelly," recalled Todd Tolansky, none too fondly. "Is he still in charge? Thought he'd have been booted out years ago."
"In both attacks, the X-Men were involved…"
"That's a surprise," muttered Wanda.
"The church that was attacked had hosted Kurt Wagner, a mutant studying for the priesthood."
"No way? Nightcreeper?" Todd laughed. "Who'd of thought it!"
"The café attack involved a car. The accelerator was weighted down with a stone and as soon as the handbrake was released, it drove straight through the window and caused an explosion. One of the injured customers was Dr Jean Grey. I trust you remember her?"
"Oh yeah," said Lance. "No one could forget Little Miss Perfect. She badly hurt?"
"Mild concussion, slight burns. She was lucky. The guy she was talking to was killed."
"Summers?" asked Pietro.
"No, the owner of the café, a Joel Davenport. Also a mutant. The X-Men are leading an investigation of their own, but I want our best team on this. That's you guys."
"Looks like we're going home then," said Fred, not looking happy about it. "I guess we could stay at the Brotherhood house."
"Nope. You need to keep an eye on the X-Men and that means staying at the mansion."
"No way!" Lance looked horrified by the idea. "Staying with the X-geeks? It's not happening!"
"It's a typical bodyguard job," continued Fury, ignoring him. "Try to make sure they don't sneak out, do some undercover work and see if you can find out who these terrorists are and bring them down."
"Assuming they're all still at the mansion, I doubt they'll need us to protect them," grumbled Pietro. "Hell, we'll need some one to protect us from them!"
"You're not in high school now," said Fury. "Most of the associates of the X-Men in Bayville live at the Institute. The exceptions are Dr Grey, who lives on Ninth Street, Jubilation Lee, who lives on campus at the University and Danielle Moonstar, who resides in Dark Hollow. Professor Xavier assures me that he's trying to persuade them to return to the mansion until the threat has passed."
"So Xavier knows you're sending us?" asked Todd.
"He knows I'm sending a team," replied Fury. "I forgot to say it was you."
"Oh great," muttered Fred. "They're not gonna like this."
"What did Logan have to say about it?" St John actually looked quite amused at the whole idea, but then he hadn't had as many clashes with the X-Men as the others had.
"He growled a lot, put some scratches in the wall by the sound. I only spoke to them over the phone. Time's wasting. There's a heli-jet waiting for you. Good luck. Oh, and can you keep the property damage to a minimum this time?"
"We're promising nothing," said Wanda.
They went to the landing pad, taking a short detour past their lockers to pick up some spare clothes, grumbling the whole time. In their time at SHIELD they'd faced snipers, terrorists, suicide bombers and religious fanatics, but none of them had been quite as scary as confronting their past. None of them had been on Bayville for years. Wanda and Pietro were vaguely aware that their father was in the area, but on the rare occasions they saw him it was usually in New York, where they shared an apartment and invited him over maybe once a year.
Lance took the controls of the heli-jet, finding that having something to concentrate on helped with his dislike of flying. At least he didn't puke anymore. He was trying to concentrate on the mission objectives, but memories of Bayville kept intruding. He decided that they'd better sort this mess out as soon as possible so that they could leave their old home behind. Hopefully forever.
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"Fury's sending some agents to Bayville to investigate the attacks," Logan told the assembled mutants. "But until this mess is sorted out, all of you are in danger. That means all the students are confined to the mansion except for school. No arguments!"
There were groans from the younger students as the prospect of being stuck in the Institute.
"The rest of you, we can't stop you from leaving the mansion. But I suggest you stay here. We're protected by the defences and there's no need for you to go back to your own places."
"I'm staying for a while," replied Jubilee. "I can go to lectures straight from here and to be honest, I'm not real comfortable being in a dorm where anyone can walk in at the moment."
"I don't think anyone would attack Dark Hollow," said Dani. "It's too far from Bayville. But I'll talk it over with my grandfather, see what he has to say."
"He's welcome to stay here too," said the Professor. "We've plenty of room."
"I want to stay at my apartment," said Jean.
Kitty gave her a look. "Are you mad? Do you know how dangerous that is?"
"More than most," replied Jean, touching the lump on the back of her head. "But I won't let some group of bigots drive me out of my home. And it's closer to the lab."
"With all due respect Jean, I think it would be better for you to remain here at the mansion," said the Professor. "It would make us all feel better."
Jean glanced around at the other mutants, the group who had formed the original X-Men and all the students who had come after them. For a moment she wavered in her conviction – then her glance fell on Emma Frost, who was scowling, sat close to Scott Summers. Jean knew she couldn't stand to be around the woman for too long, not with all the sly little digs about who was his girlfriend now.
"No. I want to go home," she said.
The noise of a heli-jet cut off any further conversation. Logan went to the door. "That must be the team Fury sent out. Who's coming to check them out?"
"We'll go," said the Professor, indicating to himself, Storm and the Beast. "The rest of you, remain here. We'll need to introduce you."
"Fabulous," muttered Jean. She had no desire to meet the SHIELD team, because she had no intention of remaining in the mansion. She just wanted to get back to her apartment.
The four instructors went to the hangar, where the heli-jet was touching down. They'd done their homework, noted Logan with approval. They knew where the hangar was, no hovering around before landing on the tennis court like certain other teams that SHIELD had sent before. They must have studied a map of the mansion.
The door to the heli-jet opened and Logan glanced up, half-expecting some grizzled campaigner carrying enough guns to open his own shop – Fury had promised to send his best team – but nothing could prepare him for the sight that greeted him.
"The Brotherhood? Fury sent the Brotherhood?"
"We haven't been called that for a while," replied Pietro as they strolled out of the heli-jet and gave the X-Men a disdainful look. Five minutes in Bayville and they already felt like the resentful teenagers they'd once been.
St John went over to Logan and slung a friendly arm around the mans shoulders. "Hey there Wolverine! Long time no see, eh?"
"You wanna remain attached to that arm?" growled Logan. St John backed off hurriedly.
"It's…good to see you," said the Professor. "You're the team SHIELD sent?"
"We're the best they got," replied Pietro proudly.
"They must be going downhill then," muttered Logan.
"Can we just get on with our job and investigate these attacks so we can get the hell out of this dump?" Pietro glared at Logan.
"Certainly." The Professor led the way and the Brotherhood trailed behind.
"Sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can get away from here. No problem." Todd felt seriously uncomfortable in the mansion. It had been a long time since he got his ass kicked and many of those had come at the hands of the X-Men.
A silence fell over Xavier's office as the crowd of mutants looked up and saw the people that were to protect them from further mutant attacks.
"Lance?" Kitty's voice was squeaky and she let go of Piotr's hand quickly. "I didn't know you'd joined SHIELD."
"Years ago." Lance found himself unmoved by the sight of his childhood sweetheart obviously dating the big Russian. He was almost surprised by the lack of emotion, he'd been intensely in love with her in his teens, but it seemed he'd gotten over her. He'd been worried that he'd fall for her again, jeopardise the mission and set himself up for a lot of heartache in the not-too-distant future, but apparently it wasn't too be.
"Wait," said a girl who couldn't be older than thirteen. "Those are Mr Lensherr's kids?"
"We do have names," snapped Pietro, always unhappy to be compared to his father.
"Mr Lensherr?" Wanda looked confused.
"Erik has been aiding us at the Institute with some of the students," Storm informed them.
"It's been a while since we spoke to him," admitted Wanda.
"Enough of all that," said Pietro impatiently. "Can we get on with finding the bad guys so I can get out of this miserable dump?"
The Professor glanced around the room and noticed some one missing. "Where's Jean?"
"She went home," replied Emma a touch smugly. "Said she wasn't gonna be talked out of it and she wanted to feed her cat."
"Jean has a cat now?" asked Kitty.
"I think she was being sarcastic my dear."
"We need to find out what she remembers about the café," said Pietro. "Lance, you go to her place and find out. And get her to come back here. It's a pain in the ass having to baby-sit people in two locations."
"It'd be quicker if you went," said Lance.
"I'm needed here." Pietro grinned at the cool blonde sitting beside Scott and Lance rolled his eyes, knowing where this was heading.
"Fine. What's the address?" Lance wondered vaguely if Summers was dating the woman and what had happened between him and Jean, who had always seemed like the perfect couple.
Pietro told him the address and Lance left, glad to be away from the X-Men. He stopped only long enough to change into his street clothes – no point in frightening the citizens of Bayville by wearing his uniform – before leaving the Institute and heading toward Dr Grey's apartment.