14 The Way Things Change

Author's Note

I know this took a while. I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do with this story with how fast Kevin was growing. I think I found a good way to go with this story from here. I changed my mind about the titans, I want to limit the dimension hopping for now.

--------------------------------------------------------------Walking out of the portal, Rogue and I looked around to see that we were in the X-Mansion.

'Well we're in the right multiverse at the very least.' I thought and used the powers I gained from Cisco to see what universe in the marvel multiverse we were in.

'And the right universe too, looks like we're home.'

"We're home Rogue, let's head back to the house." I said.

Before either of us could move, Jean walked into the room looking at the two of us. When she looked at us, surprisingly her eyes started watering and she rushed forward, wrapping both of us in a hug.

"You guys are alive." She said as she continued to cry.

'How long were we gone. She doesn't look any older, so it can't have been that long, but it was long enough for Thor to get back to Earth and tell them we had supposedly died.'

"What do you mean alive? What happened while we were gone?" I asked.

It seemed I wasn't going to be getting an answer because Jean was content to continue crying on Rogue and I.

"Jean why'd you run out of training all of a sudden..." Scott's voice came from down the hall until he entered the room and spotted us.

"I think I need to get the Professor" Scott said.

"No need Scott, I am already here." Xavier said, rolling into the room without the rest of the members of the institute.

Kitty rushed forward, hugging Rogue. Kurt walked next to me, looking unsure what to do.

"Alright, can someone explain how long we were gone." I said.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Xavier asked.

"I remember everything and I might even be inclined to share what happened to us if someone would answer my damn question. How long were we gone?" I said again.

"Thor came back to Earth to tell us you two had died six months ago." Xavier said.

'We were only in the other universe for a few days. I can't conclude for sure that there's a time dilation between the two universes, though. It could have just been that when we were unconscious we spent a long time travelling to the Arrowverse.'

"Now what, may I ask, happened to you two?" Xavier asked.

'I'm going to have to explain what happened somehow to everyone. Might as well tell the truth, it's not like they can do anything with that knowledge.'

"Rogue and I woke up in another universe. We were there for a few days until someone there sent us back." I answered. 'Better to not tell them I built it. That way I won't be bothered about it.'

"Fascinating, so the multiverse theory is true then. Did you meet alternative versions of people you know?" Xavier asked.

"No, nobody we met was a doppelganger of people we already knew. They were completely different people. Now if that's all, I think it's time for us to leave." I said, trying to extract myself from the death grip Jean had on me without hurting her.

"You're not leaving me behind, not after I thought you were dead for six months." Jean said with a determined look on her face.

I dragged my hand across my face. 'Why is she reacting this strongly? We hung out sometimes, I helped her with the Phoenix, but we weren't extremely close.'

Taking a closer look at Jean, I could see a flash of flames appear in her eyes before disappearing.

'Okay, so it's the Phoenix that's causing this. The question is, is the Phoenix amplifying her emotions, or did she freak out because she could feel half of the Phoenix Force go to another universe. I need to spend more time experimenting with it, I haven't touched my connection so far.'

"Fine, you can come too, there's something we need to work on." I said.

Jean looked surprised that I had agreed so quickly. "Give me a second and I'll go grab my stuff." She said and ran out of the room to go to her room.

"So that's it. You show up after everyone thought you were dead and leave again." Scott said, stepping forward and looking at me.

"Don't act like you want me here. You want Jean here and now she's leaving. I have a question for you, do you think she doesn't know about your little crush on her. She was an uncontrollable telepath for years around you."

"This isn't about me, it's about the fact that you think you can just show up and take people whenever you want." Scott said, trying to change the subject.

"No, it's specifically because I'm taking Jean with me. I can tell the type of person you are Scott, you're possessive. In your eyes, I'm taking something away from you and you can't stand that."

"That's enough Kevin. I don't think it's for the best that Jean go with you." Xavier stepped in.

"And here comes the Professor, here to defend his golden boy. Still hiding the existence of mutants at the expense of regular people?"

"Things have changed since you've been gone Kevin. Mutants are public now." Xavier responded, with a slight smirk on his face.

'Shit, I wanted to mitigate the damage when that happens. I've got to change how I deal with this now. Fucking Malekith.'

"I have to wonder about that. Did you make the choice to reveal our existence, or did it happen against your will?" I said.

Here Xavier hesitated. It was at this point that Jean came back. "No, Magneto revealed the truth to the world. You need to get caught up on what's happened these last six months. As for you two, I made the decision to leave and you can't stop me. I would've left a while ago if I had somewhere to go." Jean said, turning to Scott and Xavier at the end.

I moved forward, picking up Jean's stuff with one hand and holding the portal gun with the other.

Rogue, meanwhile, had been having a quiet conversation with Kitty. They were finished and Rogue moved back over to where Jean and I were. She was giving Jean a weird look, but I ignored it for now.

"Well we'll just be off then. Seems I have some catching up to do. Logan, Ororo, nice to see you two again. Kurt, stay safe." I said and formed a portal in the air. I walked through with Jean and Rogue following behind me. The portal closed behind us, leaving the three of us alone in my house.

"Follow me Jean, I'll show you where you'll stay and then you can catch Rogue and I up on what we missed while we were gone."

Moving up stairs to an empty room, I put Jean's stuff down and led the two of them to the living room. The three of us sat down in the chairs and I gestured for Jean to start.

"Okay, well do you want an overview or the smaller stuff as well?" Jean asked.

"An overview is fine for now. I can find the smaller stuff out later." I said.

From there Jean explained what all had happened since we had been gone. Apparently, we missed a lot. The first thing was that mutants existence had been revealed. Jean went more into depth on how exactly that happened. Apparently, Magneto had attacked the president and tried to get him to recognize the authority of mutants. The X-Men stopped him, but he revealed mutant's existence to the public before he fled.

"So how did the public react to mutants?" Rogue asked.

"There was a lot of confusion at first. About what exactly a mutant was. The Professor decided to make a statement on the matter. He told the public about the X-Gene and revealed what he called us; Homo superior. The name didn't go over to well." Jean said.

"I like the term metahumans a lot more." Rogue agreed.

"Too bad you weren't here to say that before Xavier did. The public basically lumped us in with Magneto as thinking we were better than them just based off the name Xavier gave us. It took some time, but we managed to fix some of the damage to where they don't immediately associate us with Magneto anymore, but it's still a work in progress." Jean said.

I had bene quiet up until this point, but I took the opportunity to speak. "Did the government respond in anyway?"

"They made a statement clarifying that mutants were still recognized as humans and still were subject to the protections the law provides. Why?" Jean asked.

'So they haven't made the Sentinels yet. Or at least they haven't released them yet, they might be in development. I need to track down Trask as soon as possible.'

"I was just wondering how they would react. Do they know exactly who are mutants?" I asked.

"They know who all of the Brotherhood are. They flaunted it as soon as they were outed. As for the rest of us, yeah. They don't know about you two because everyone thought you were dead, but the rest of our identities are public. Xavier revealed us to 'give the public a good example of how human mutants are.'" Jean said in a mocking tone.

"Okay, it sounds like I've got a lot of damage control to do. Was there anything else major that happened?" I said.

"Cerebro detected an influx in mutants recently. Xavier was actually planning to go contact them soon." Jean said.

"Alright, we'll ignore that for now. I need some time to figure out what I'm going to do about all of this. Do you guys need anything, I'm probably going to be inaccessible for a while."

"Not right now, but if you have some time to talk soon, I need some help with something." Jean said.

"Okay, I'll let you know when I have everything figured out." We all stood up and moved to go to our various rooms. I made my way to my lab, entering and putting the portal gun down inside.

'I'll have to refine that later. Improve it, combine it with Cisco's powers. For now, damage control.'

Going to my computer and googling mutants, I took some time to figure out more about the public opinion on mutants. There was no shortage of examples. I found people debating whether mutants should be considered human, sites talking about if mutants were demons, there were all sorts of different conversations going on about them.

The prevalent opinion, however, was uncertainty. People weren't sure what to do about mutants or how to react. There would probably be some kind of anti-mutant protests soon, but they would be a vocal minority for the moment.

'Okay, I need to get in front of this. I'm already having to work from a deficit with what Xavier did, how do I fix this? Wait, why should I even care? I'm not actually a mutant, if I can pass myself off as an alien then I would be fine.' I thought, but then I realized something else. 'Rogue would still be under attack though. Also, if mutants are prosecuted it's taking attention off the real problems. There were way too many dystopian futures in X-Men comics, I would very much prefer not to have that happen to the reality I'm living in. Don't need Cable or Rachel Summer's future to come to take place.' Taking some time to think about different ways to shift public perception of mutants, I came to one decision quickly.

'I need to present myself as a third party. Someone not associated with Xavier or Magneto who can give another look at mutants. I can contact Stark, he's good at press conferences. If I can hold one and be persuasive enough, I can fix some of the damage. First thing is to get people to call us metahumans instead of mutants. I don't know why Xavier chose mutants, it has such a negative connotation it was a recipe for disaster. I can't just work on the public though, I need an in with mutants too. Xavier isn't an option and Magneto is too radical. The best choice would be to figure out a way to get into the Hellfire Club. For that I need influence. If I can set myself up as the spokesman for mutants that could be a start to getting them to notice me.'

I knew what I needed to accomplish, from there it was figuring out how to put that plan into motion.

'I'll contact Stark tomorrow, tell him I'm alive and what I plan to do. Xavier always had an easy way to improve public perception of mutants, solve public problems. Iceman could've stopped the polar icecaps from melting. Storm can give places in droughts rain. All of this would help the way people view mutants. I can get that started if I get my Atmokinesis leveled enough.'

Turning off my computer for now, I spent a little while ironing out the finer details of my plan before heading to the door to exit my lab.

'Now to see what Jean need help with. I have a feeling it's got to do with the Phoenix, which could lead to even more problems for me to deal with.'