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If Superman could get away with hiding behind Clark Kent's glasses and acting skills, then surely the Phoenix Force-capable of reshaping reality-could keep a low profile if it wanted. For Jean Grey, staying unnoticed should have been easier, not harder.
But just as Henry couldn't control Tony Stark's reckless behavior, Jean wasn't about to start obeying Henry's every word.
"My business isn't yours to manage," she said coldly. "I can handle myself. Just lead the way."
Henry muttered, disgruntled, "I wasn't worried about you-I was worried about the trouble you might cause others. Is this how all superheroes are? Feeding their egos while ignoring everyone else's safety?"
"You-!" Jean's eyes flared as she glared at him.
Unfazed, Henry deliberately looked away, still grumbling: "If you want to live unchecked, stay in the sky. If you want to walk among humans, then act like one."
Jean sucked in a sharp breath, teeth clenched as though she might crush his bones in her jaw. But after a tense pause, she slapped her cheeks lightly, forcing herself calm.
"I'm fine now. Let's go," she said.
"You don't look any different," Henry remarked with exaggerated surprise.
"People's perceptions are altered. Including surveillance caras-
they'll see soone else. But your brain is... abnormal. I don't want to interfere too much. I'd end up like Professor X"
For most telepaths, manipulating mass perception ca at great cost. For Jean-host to the Phoenix-it was easier than keeping her cosmic fire bottled up.
The truth was, the Phoenix seed unwilling to approach Henry, which was why her psychic masking didn't affect him.
Henry leaned in with a mischievous grin. "So, right now-in other people's eyes-are you male or female?"
Another death glare.
Henry raised his hands. "Hey, I just need to know. What if I introduce you wrong in there? You want to go along with a gender swap?"
"Why not admit you're the one mistaken?"
"That works too. First to speak wins, right?" he said shalessly.
"My gender hasn't changed," Jean ground out, already regretting coming.
"Got it. Let's go," Henry said, finally leading the way inside.
The VIP ward was on an upper floor, but access wasn't heavily restricted. Aside from the nurses' brief questions at the station, they entered without issue.
The mood inside was no longer the sharp tension Henry had left earlier. Now it was quiet, heavy-funereal.
Is that really better? Henry wondered.
Jean too felt the weight in the room. On the bed lay Audrey Hepburn -exactly as Mystique had guessed.
Had it been anyone else, Jean wouldn't have co.
The mont she entered, all eyes turned to her-staring, guarded.
Their scrutiny unsettled her.
Henry stepped in quickly: "This is Jean Grey-the Phoenix. A reserve mber of the X-n. She's a telepath. My suggestion is to let her communicate with Miss Hepburn."
Jean hadn't been a frontline fighter like Mystique, Storm, or Cyclops, who each carried their mutant codenas.
"Phoenix" was a na Henry had tossed out on the spot. She had no idea the fiery force inside her was called the Phoenix Force.
The family didn't recognize the alias, but they had heard of the X-n -a U.S. superhero team with close ties to the governnt. That eased so of their suspicion. Still, Sean frowned.
"How do we know the words you claim to hear are really my
mother's?" he asked.
Henry filled in the introductions: "This is Sean Ferrer, Miss Hepburn's eldest son. And this is Luca Dotti, her younger son."
Hearing their nas, Jean didn't feel offended. After all, they were family-they had the right to question.
So she offered, "I can create a shared link. Your minds can connect with your mother's. You'll speak with her directly. But whether you choose to believe what you see-that's on you, not ."
The brothers exchanged a glance, then nodded.
Jean added cautiously, "I've never entered the mind of soone comatose before, let alone connected her consciousness with others. I can't predict exactly what will happen. But I can promise-it won't
be dangerous."
With no objections, she asked gently, "May I hold her hand?"
Robert helped lift Audrey's frail hand from beneath the blanket and placed it in Jean's.
Even Jean faltered for a mont. It wasn't the plump hand of a child,
but an adult's-skin taut over bone, rough and brittle, like a whisper of
the life ebbing away.
She held it only lightly, afraid a firr grip might break it.
Extending her other hand, she said, "Now, both of you-put your
hands here."
Sean and Luca complied without hesitation. The instant their hands touched hers, their awareness was pulled into a strange space. No up or down, no ground to stand on, their own forms blurred and
undefined.
Jean didn't guide them. Instead, she let their joined consciousness drift until it drew near another presence.
A small girl, six or seven years old, curled tightly in a fetal position. Perhaps she had always been this child-longing most for family, for
parents.
"Mother." One of the brothers' voices-neither knew whose-called
out.
The girl stirred, slowly opening her eyes.
And ti swept across her. She aged in an instant-girl to maiden, maiden to young woman, young to old. Like a flower blooming and withering in a single heartbeat.
By the ti her eyes were fully open, she was Audrey Hepburn again -the woman on the bed.
She embraced the two weeping boys, but her gaze turned elsewhere.
To Jean Grey-the Phoenix.
And she smiled.
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