[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/VE9AhGr.jpg[/img][/center]

[color=gray][right][sub][color=67a34b][b]Jean Grey, Magneto, CIA Deputy Director Greg Joseph [color=gray][NPC][/color], Paul Bailey [color=gray][NPC][/color][/b][/color] 
[b]Location: Albany, New York, United States of America[/b]
[b]Plot: The Trial of Jean Grey[/b][/sub][/right][/color]

[color=gray]
[i]"I know this isn’t really what your ‘team’ does, Jean, but I have to ask…are you going to avenge them?"[/i]

Jean Grey gave no outward sign of so much as having heard, let alone understood, what her brother-in-law said to her through the temporary telepathic link between them. Watching them, as the humans clearly were, it would certainly appear that Jean’s ears were perked to the chat between Max and the CIA Mutant Desk Director behind her. 

No one would guess where her thoughts really were.

“Mr. Bailey is under Federal protection, at his own request,“ the Director of the Mutant Desk explained, “When he requested to come meet his sister-in-law, Ms. Grey, we certainly weren’t going to say ‘no.’ The transport and security for this meeting was handed to our desk.”

Jean gave a squeeze to the arm of her brother-in-law she was hugging, before letting it go, and turning to directly face him. To take that face in her hands. To smile, at him, and at the memory of her sister, Sara, and their babies, her beloved niece and nephew. Green eyes smoldered with the kind of emotion that made people nervous to see in her features, her voice reduced to little more than a whisper. “I love you. I will always be here for you, Paul.”

It took little effort for the woman in heels to lean up and press her lips gently upon the man’s forehead, before her heels touched back down upon the pavement next to the entrance to the parking garage, and Paul embraced Jean with a tight, emotional, hug.

A smoke grey 2022 Bentley Bentayga Speed with blacked out windows emerged from the shadows of the parking garage at the kind of slow, deliberate, speed and perfect timing that hinted at telepathic coordination as it came to a stop just beside Jean and Paul as the two broke their embrace. 

“Deputy Director Joseph,” Jean said as her head turned to his direction, noticing the harder look that had replaced the formerly charismatic expression on the man’s face, “take care of your people, and mine, please.”

Emma’s driver, an ebony skinned man hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and an expensive, perfectly tailored, suit got out of the SUV registered to the Hellfire Trading Company, holding the back door open for the two mutants present. “Thank you,” Jean said it quietly to the driver as she got in, giving a final smile to Paul before the mutant they knew best as Magneto got in, the driver shutting the door after him, and taking up his post at the wheel.

“We need to stop at a pharmacy before we arrive,” a quick pause as her mind evaluated the options, before, “a Walgreens is preferred.” She always liked their selection just a little more than alternatives, and they were small enough that, maybe, she and her companion wouldn’t be immediately noticed. 

Her tone quieted, something closer to the kind of whisper that was reserved for private moments, her head turning so she could look the man next to her in the eyes, so he could see the sad little smile burned onto her red lips, “You’re not the man I first met. I’m not the girl you first met, Max…and if I address you, I would rather speak to the man I trust now; the real you.” Her eyes returned to the front, to the windshield and the streets before them as they began their trip to the funeral. After a quiet beating of hearts, she added, “Not the mutant everyone thinks they know.”

[i]We aren’t the people they think we are.[/i][/color]