The name Bolivar Trask was far more of a burden to Jennifer than she thought possible. For the first time ever, the word 'mutant' had been displayed on a tv screen for more than five seconds before being hastily shoved into a drawer, and newspapers were reporting on the minority populations that apparently posed as a threat to the community and wider society.
It hadn't taken long for most households in America long to get hooked onto the conspiracy of 'super-human terrorists', but surprisingly enough, Peter didn't seemed to care much about the situation, about the ever growing price on his head. To him, Trask was making a grab at power, scaring people into buying whatever he was selling – creating a problem that wasn't there so he could solve it twice as quickly and efficiently than the government ever could.
And as for the threat upon mutant kind? Well, how was one man going to round up thousands of them with abilities that allowed them to move faster than the speed of light, or fly higher than a plane, or control minds? It was highly improbable, so to Peter, it was all just a scam and there was no danger whatsoever, he could keep living his life as normal.
But with the situation constantly haunting her, Jennifer had spent her study periods at school (which she had reluctantly returned to) combing through articles, papers and ever magazines that mentioned Trask Industries. It hadn't been an easy task, having to go to three different libraries to get enough information, but over the course of three weeks, she had enough to write a paper on the company if she so wished.
Based upon what the black print had told her, Trask Industries had formed in early 1967, named after it's founder who had repeatedly lost funding and grants due to his wild theories, and had decided to make the company with whatever change he had left. Far ahead in human progress and, more specifically, genetic progress, within a year several partnerships had been formed, many of them with the United States government. From 1970 onwards, news from the large company grew scarce, only one or two announcements in scientist discovery coming out every few months rather than every week. The only thing Trask had to say on the subject was, according to American Science, "We are very busy with a new project that I am certain will make the world a safer place."
As easy as it would've been to believe that he was on about medical advancements or such, Jennifer knew that wishful thinking often resulted in a great disappointment. The countless news articles proved that indeed, something fishy was going on, but without inside access to Trask Industries there wasn't a chance in hell she was going to figure out what was going on, and since she was lacking a pass to the highly secure building and a way to get there, Jennifer had decided to take a break from reading and worrying.
Sitting at the plastic table in the middle of the cafeteria, she was constantly slipping in and out of the conversation, dividing her attention between the chatter and the pieces of plastic she was sticking down on a large piece of card. It was a part of Mary's art project, and rather than chose to do a simple still life or portraiture like the rest of the class, she had decided to turn iconic scenes from movies into stained glass themed posters, created through the painstakingly long process of cutting out and sticking down millions of tiny pieces of colourful. Now with the due date almost upon her, Mary wished she had listened to her teachers advise not to do this.
Jennifer, having been smart enough to realise she was a few months behind work, had dropped art this year, and so did not have the same issue as Mary. Having given up on her lunch time diggings, she had been looking for anything to get her mind of the nagging sensation in her head about Trask, hence why she was doing such a complicated task, though at this moment she wasn't really paying attention to where the countless pieces were being placed, trusting Mary to correct her positioning as she watched the far more entertaining scene before her.
Ellie was caught in a delicate game of tug of war with Linda's hair, or more accurately, the large wad of pink gum that had gotten stuck in her permed hair. The pulling, stretching, and yanking had been going on for at least ten minutes now, with little to no progress whatsoever. How Linda had managed to get gum there was a mystery to everyone, and it only made the situation more hilarious. Linda wasn't quite as amused at the situation though.
"What do you mean, it's not coming out? I need to look perfect on this date tonight, I can't just walk around with this, it'll ruin everything!"
Ellie sighed, readjusting her fingers, once again trying to pry the sticky substance away. "I don't know what you want me to do! It's not moving."
"Ow!," Linda squealed after receiving a particularly harsh looking tug. A few people from surrounding tables looked over to see what the commotion was, but immediately looked away when they met Linda's death stare.
"Sorry."
Ellie looked around trying to find a solution to their issue, and it didn't take long for her eyes to land on the supplies in Mary's hands. "Hey, pass me those scissors."
"What?!"
Jennifer sighed as Ellie lunged across the table, leaning back in her seat to avoid the hand trying to grab the sharp object that Mary was moving about in order to keep it away from the crazed girl. Linda was being pulled backwards, objecting and shouting to Ellie's plan, her hair still firmly held in her friends other hand.
From the other side of the table, Jennifer and Gale shared a look over the bodies of the three people in between them. It was pretty strange that the two of them, relatively calm and quiet, had been dragged into a friend group so loud and outgoing. There was no point in even attempting to stop the chaos that had attracted the attention of half the school, so, after a moment of thought, the two made a joint decision to eat Linda's untouched slice of sponge cake and Mary's jelly, passing half of each serving over the ongoing fight for scissors, thankfully staying out of the way of flying limbs.
Mixing a spoonful with both dishes, Jennifer realised that while the world was a mess and there was every possibility that mutant kind was on it's last straw, it wasn't her job to care about it anymore. Unrealistic expectations from teachers, stressful assessments and lunch breaks like this – that was her life now, and if something did happen then she would just have to burn that bridge when she got to it. As much as there was no point in living in the past, there was no point in fretting over a future that may never arise.
The ideal future was good enough, great even, and hopefully she could through it ignoring the countless spinoffs designed to drag her down. She could see her future being so bright, so full of discoveries and love – she had an opportunity to do something great, and she refused to miss her shot on a tiny bit of fear and apprehension.
"I got it!," Ellie shouted, momentarily holding the gum in her hand triumphantly before seeing how disgusting it was with coiled hairs still attached to it, which caused her to drop in suddenly onto her empty lunch tray. Wiping her hands on her jeans with a grimace at the yuck of it, she turned to Linda. "No need to thank me or anything."
Rolling her eyes, Linda scoffed. "Yeah, thanks. My head hurts now."
"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want me to leave it in there?"
"Guys, enough," Rebecca interjected before an argument could start, walking over from where she had just got lunch. She had been selected for the homecoming committee, meaning that she now spent the majority of her free time planning themes, colours ad decorations for the end of June, which seemed like ages away, but apparently wasn't enough time to organise the event. It was weird to have such a big member of the group missing so often, and maybe that's why everything had gone far too dramatic for anyone's taste, with no one to offer any suitable solutions.
"Would you guys rather we had a pink and silver theme, or a green and gold theme for homecoming?"
"Um neither," Linda said with disgust. "Black and gold."
Ellie, who was clearly still annoyed about spending her entire lunch break pulling on hair, shook her head. "That's way to dark. It's supposed to be pretty. Silver and pink is good."
"Whose idea was green and gold?," Mary asked, finally removing the scissors from under her leg, deeming the situation safe enough to do so. "The room will look like some wannabe comic book villain."
Shrugging, Rebecca took a bite of her wrap. "Alex thought it would be a good idea."
Eye's widening, Jennifer set down her glue stick. "Alex is on the committee?" Rebecca nodded. "Oh God, this is going to be the worst party ever. How did he even get picked?"
"He needed to do an extracurricular to keep his scholarship, and no one else would take him so we're stuck with him."
Gale let out a long intake of breath. "Don't let him make any final decisions, alright? I refuse to have a rubbish homecoming."
"Anyway," Linda said before the conversation could continue. "Jen, what did you get for question nine in the math homework?"
Her jaw slowly fell in shock. "We had homework?!"
"Oh wow, this is a day to remember. Jennifer Jones forgets to do homework, I'm putting that in my diary when I get home."
"It's not funny! Give me the answers before the bell goes," she begged, aware that the teacher would ask for it first thing. But even then it was too late, for as soon as she spoke, the bell called the end of lunch, and with panic rising in her chest, Jennifer walked to her maths class with a smirking Linda by her side. She was never going to hear the end of this.
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Mornings were a nightmare. School starting so early, having to get up before the sun was visible in the sky, walking miles in the dark with a heavy bag. It was not ideal.
Even less ideal was the fact that the alarm clock on the nightstand had failed to go off that morning, successful making Jennifer sleep through the entirety of first period. It wasn't a big deal considering that first period was P.E., but she would rather get to school before Chemistry was over.
On a standard day, everything was in the right place, waiting perfectly to be picked up - clothes folded perfectly, bag prepacked and ready to go, bread pre-cut and ready to be toasted. On a late day however, everything went wrong. Nothing was in a logical place, shoes in the washing machine, hair brush under the ping pong table, physics textbook in the kitchen, and to add to the bad luck, her toothpaste had run out, forcing her to go upstairs and use Maise's pink barbie one instead.
When she finally reached the front door, thinking she had everything, she was proved wrong as a thick strand of hair fell over her eyes. Hairband. Sighing, Jennifer dropped her bag in the door way, heading back towards the stairs.
Laura, who was seated in the open plan living room with a glass of tomato juice in hand, called after her as she began descending the stairs. "The cops are downstairs."
Jennifer frowned. Why on earth were the cops there? Pete hadn't left any trace when he stole the tv's or the various sweets, and he'd returned most of them anyway two weeks ago. Fair enough, that morning had been chaos, but she was fairly sure that there wasn't any extra boxes lying around. Either way, she didn't have the time to sit around and wait for the cops to leave, so without hesitation, she continued on bouncing down the stairs.
"Pete?," she called in advance. "Have you seen my red bandana?"
He rushed over with it, not bothering to hide his mutation from the police, placing the strip of material in her hand in under a second. She wouldn't admit it, but it was common knowledge that Jennifer always forgot something, even on standard days, and Peter made it his duty to make sure she didn't leave the house without everything, and she had started giving him a kiss on the cheek in thanks, which made his day, but no such thing happened at this point in time.
There were three men in the basement, but not one of them was looking at the reason they had came to the Maximoff house, but rather Jennifer. Maybe their attention had moved to her because her appearance was unexpected and they wanted to see who had just came into their interrogation. But with two out of three mouths wide agape, that certainly wasn't the case.
Jennifer was staring straight at those two, a flame flicking on behind her eyes that hadn't be seen by anyone before. He stood right there, less than ten feet away, looking oblivious to the situation, oblivious to the clenched fists hanging by Jennifer's side.
He saw a lost hope.
She saw a deep red, and behind that, she saw Charles Xavier.
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