Chapter 9

DC

Marvel

The Newest Marvel

*** Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters ***

'Wow!'

That was pretty much Clark dominant thoughts as he finished his physical. He have seen Jean's pictures both on the news and other outlets but seeing her in person made him realized just how gorgeous she had become.

"Ahem," Dr. McCoy cleared his throat before Clark gave him a sheepish smile. "You are free to go and catch up with your old friend. However, be here for tomorrow morning at six, we have a lot of work to do."

"Of course!" Clark got dressed and nodded gratefully to the larger mutant. "Tomorrow morning at six I'll be here."

Buttoning up the last button, Clark nodded his head gratefully to the man before he exited lab only to see Jean talking to the three pretty X-women from earlier. As if sensing him, Jean turned toward him, her eyes were welcoming but there was something else in them, disbelief if he had to guess.

"Clark! Finished already?" Jean spoke while her friends gathered closer to her.

"Yeah, Clark~~~ whatcha doing out here?" The pretty brown hair girl gave him a flirty wink while the Asian woman gave him a saucy smile. He had to gulp a bit a that. Apparently Jean caught it as she looked back to her friends and gave them a glare.

"Dr- I mean, Hank, said I can have the rest of the day off to... ah, well perhaps if you want to catch up, if you are not busy that is?" Clark stumbled through the explanation mainly because he saw the three women kept on looking back between him and Jean, a lot.

God, why did he felt like he was in high school again?

"Oh? Oh! Uh- I-" Jean began a bit flustered. "N-Now?"

"Of- Of course it can wait, I wouldn't want to tear you away from important work and stuff," Clark replied lamely and felt a bit sad that he'd not get to catch up with his old friend. Ah well perhaps he can get to browsing the campus and familiarized himself with it.

Jean went quiet as she stared at him before her face set and she had her familiar determine look he recognized she usually make when she given something serious thought.

"No, my work can wait, I haven't seen you in so long, let's go catch up," Jean decided firmly before strode forward next to him. She then turned to look at her friends.

"Kitty, Betsy, don't you want somewhere else to be?"

"Not reall-/I don't think so-"

However Jean gave them a harder stare before the two women raised their hand up as if in surrender about something. Storm gave him one last smile before she too left with the two X-Women.

And just like that, they were alone with one another in awkward silence. Clark kept sneaking glances at Jean only to find that she had just been doing the same thing. Finally he couldn't stand it anymore and decided to do something about it.

"This is ridiculous!" Clark told his childhood friend. "Our reunion shouldn't be this awkward!"

Jean remained silent before she shook her head with a soft smile. "You're right, It shouldn't be, I'm sorry."

"Pff, For what? It was probably my fault," Clark began to relax as he felt that this sparked a conversation.

"After all, I'm the dork, as you so often use to call me when we were little."

Jean suddenly blushed and looked a bit apologetic as she let her emerald like eyes roamed up and down his body.

"Well, I don't think I can call you that anymore..."

"What? Just because I got some muscles?" Clark mock flexed for her and apparently it was the right thing to do as the awkward atmosphere between them disappeared completely as Jean began to look at him critically.

"Jeez Clark, did you take steroids or something?" Jean gave him a mocking approvingly look. "What happened to the scrawny scraggly little boy that I grew up with?"

"Late Puberty?" Clark quipped and saw Jean eyebrow raised.

"Puberty was good to you" Jean replied before her body language became more relax. "I can't believe how different you look, totally different from how I'd imagine."

Clark gave her an arched look before he flashed her his farm boy smile. "Is that a good thing Mrs. Grey or bad?"

Jean blushed a bit before she brush her hair behind her ears. "It's MISS now, divorced thank you very much."

Clark wanted to kick himself for bringing up such a sore subject, apparently it showed on his face as Jean held up a hand to stop him from apologizing.

"Its fine, you didn't commit a faux pas, I'm good. Really!" Jean reassured him as she let her hand extend and squeezed his arm comfortingly.

"If that's the case, would you like to show me around the place? It is my first day after all, I doubt Hank want us to hang around his lab catching up," Clark decided to change the subject and thumb at the door behind him.

"Dork," Jean called him as she clearly knew he was changing the subject be went along with it anyway.

And so began the tour of the Xavier Mansion, like Clark initially thought it was very large. She took him the hanger, Cerebra their mutant detector, she told him they had an earlier version but it was destroyed. Then they went top side and she showed him the various room.

"Wait a second, if classrooms were are here where do the X-Men sleep?" Clark asked as he looked around.

"After the... Decimation, space is something we won't be having any problem with soon," Jean sighed softly. Clark could only give her a comforting pat on her shoulders.

"It's okay, we're X-Men, we'd been through worse."

Clark could not help but admired her resiliency but at the same time he understood exactly how she felt being one of the few of her kind. After all he WAS the Last Son of Krypton. He could understand the loneliness, the sadness of being the only one. It might seem like a small thing but it was not.

"Still the tough same ole Jean I know," Clark told her and saw her give him a half smile as she poked his chest.

"And you mister are definitely NOT the same Clark I remember."

"What can I say? I drink a lot of milk," Clark smirk playfully and Jean punched him lightly on his shoulder just like she used to when they were kids when he said something that irked her.

"Oh come on, you can punch harder than that, I'm not the same boy like you said. I'm tough now."

Jean looked over at him as if considering whether or not to take him up on his offered. A moment later she really did punched him with real force! His jaw dropped as he gingerly rubbed his shoulders, that punched actually stung.

"I hope you know that as an X-Men, I go through a very tough regiment of conditioning and study martial arts," Jean informed him matter of factly as she appeared to be satisfied at the damage she done.

"So don't get too cocky around here mister, A lot of the people here can kick that smart aleck behind of yours."

Clark mocking snapped off a salute to her. "Sir Yes Sir! Gah!"

"What did I say by trying to be a smart aleck?" Jean retracted her punch and pretended to dust it off. Talk about insult to injury.

"I knew you were a redhead for a reason," Clark retorted he faded left to avoid her punch which coincidentally coincide with her raising her fist to punch him again.

"Ugh! You have me acting like a child!" Jean put down her fist and huffed in mock anger before the both of them laughed at their silly antics.

"And that Mr. Kent, conclude our tour, thank you for traveling with Grey's Tour. Please come visit us again."

"Why thank you kindly," Clark gave a grandiose thanks and once more the two laughed at their antics.

"You hungry by any chance?" Jean asked after looking see the time on the master clock.

"I can eat, why you cooking?" Clark teased and saw her rolled her eyes at him. He followed her to the kitchen where he helped her make a large sub that they split between to two of them.

"Mmmm," Jean moaned before she saw Clark motion something was on her lips. She quickly wiped the little mustard stain away.

"So... Is there a Mrs. Kent?"

Clark stopped in mid bite as his thoughts were instantly taken to Carol. Jean must have seen it as her eyes had a sympathetic glint to it.

"I'm sorry if I brought up something painful."

Clark shook his head. "It's fine, just ended a relationship a month ago is all. I'm over it."

Jean eyes had a complex look before she turned back to her sandwich. "W- was she the one?"

Clark suddenly became deep in thought at Jean's question. Was Carol the one? To his surprise his answered was quite simple.

"I actually don't know, could it have gotten there? Perhaps with time, but we weren't even boyfriend and girlfriend officially."

Jean appeared to perked up a bit, probably because it wasn't too heavy of a subject.

"We parted I think on amicable terms? I think?" Clark concluded as he looked over to Jean who was still eating that sub like a life line.

"Sorry, some heavy stuff to drop there."

"Ah, no, its fine," Jean wave away his apology as she looked at him again. "Any chance perhaps patching it up? You know, give it another shot?"

Clark was deep in thought at Jean's question. Carol had worked with Super Villains, while he didn't hold it against her, she would hold it against him. Then now that the Civil War is over she would be in charge of hunting him down, hence the reason why Cobalt was in retirement. Their were bounties on his head and Resistance members by the Federal government. Another thing that kept Cobalt in retirement was them upgrading him from a D-Class threat to B-Class thanks in part to what he did to the clone Thor. Which mean if they spot him, Carol, and the heavy hitters will be called in to take care of him and he didn't want to fight her or any of them.

"Hmm, no, I don't think so," Clark said finally with a soft sigh. "I think we are walking on two different paths that are pretty much diametrically oppose to each other. I think- I think i'll always love her but am not in love with her if that make any sense."

Clark looked over to Jean and saw her giving him a long look, he could see complex emotion playing in her eyes before she too gave a similar sigh.

"Believe it or not Clark, I know exactly what you mean."

The two gave another deep meaningful sigh before they went back to eating their lunch.

"Sorry for bringing down the mood," Jean was the first to break the silence with an apologetic expression.

"Nah it's fine," Clark waved it off before he turned to look at her and grinned. "So to answer your question, no, no Mrs. Kent. Unless you want to apply for the job?"

Jean dropped her sandwich on her plate and turned to look at Clark with her mouth slightly ajar a slow blush developing on her face. "W-What?!"

Click

Clark turned his smart phone around to show her the picture he just took. "Oh you should've seen you- woah!"

"Oh you think that's funny huh?" Jean growled as Clark found himself being picked up telekentically and being spun in mid air.

"Okay, Okay!" Clark laughed at being spun around like this, he was use to flying around so this was actually quite fun.

"You win, Jean, you win!"

Just like that, Clark was stopped upright in mid air and place back into his seat.

"Hmph," Jean glared at her long time pen pal before she finished the last of the sandwich.

"You got off easy mister."

"Yes, Yes, I know I know, You could have lobotomized me," Clark raised his hand in mock surrendered and saw Jean glare but there was no heat behind it.

"Oh I don't have to do that to embarrass you," Jean reminded Clark before she turned to look beyond the door.

Curious, Clark turned and his eyes widen as he took in the Blonde beauty that was just walking in through the door.

'Whoa!' Clark thought as he saw a blonde that could rival Carol in terms of looks beauty and proportion as her outfit clearly left nothing to the imagination.

"Who's Carol?" the blonde frosty eyed beauty asked him with a hand on her cocked hip. Only to gasp in pain a moment later as she staggered.

"Jean, stop!" a male voice said from next to the woman.

Clark honestly did not even see the man next to the woman, he had clearly been standing alongside the beautiful blonde the entire time. She drew that much attention.

"Bitch!" The blonde women grunted out before she seem to staggered to her knees.

"Jean!" the handsome brown haired man shouted again as he knelt down next to the woman.

Clark turned to see Jean giving a the woman a fierce look as if pinning the woman with her gaze.

"Jean?"

And just like that, Jean fierce look was gone as she turned to Clark, looking very apologetic.

"Jean that was way out of line!" the brown hair man with the red sunglasses chastised his childhood friend.

*** Jean Pov ***

One moment she was eating lunch with a friend, the next she felt a very invasive intrusion in her mind as Emma entered the room with Scott in tow. She had instantly throw up her telepathic defense only to realized the intrusion was not on her. Finally projecting herself on the astral plane, she was shocked to see there was a line connecting her to Clark, she realized what it was, but she hadn't realized it still existed.

In a way it could be compared to the bond she had with Scott when they were deeply in love. Of course the bond she had with Scott was stronger as she could feel Scott even when he was on the other of the world, but that bond was complex, intricate. The one that was connecting her to Clark was clearly made by an amateur, really as if done by a child who had no idea what she was doing.

That child of course was her, it was base on what she made with Clark that she weaved the bond she had with Scott. With her knowledge now, she realized her bond with Clark never disappeared. For her child self, the world must have began and ended in Annandale, so the range was smaller and thus never connected because they were so far away, and then Clark moved to Boston.

Much like the bond she had with Scott, she could feel an invasion of his mind from another telepath. And once again, like Scott, Emma was the one invading Clark's mind. Anger flared in her.

Jean might no longer have the phoenix with her, but she was still more powerful than Emma. So she too dove into Clark's mind and caught a glimpse of a pretty blonde woman she recognized as Carol Danvers! Realizing she was also invading Clark privacy, she located Emma and push the woman out of Clark's mind none too gently.

'What's wrong with you?' Emma astral form demanded of her looking indignant.

'You are not to invade Clark mind again do you understand me?' Jean warned the woman who stole her husband.

'Clark? Wait, he's Clark?' Emma looked over to her childhood friend before grinning saucily. 'Well he was staring at me darling, perhaps he wants me in his head.'

Jean took her pink astral energy and fired it at the blonde telepath.

'Bitch! That hurt!' Emma fired a powerful astral blast only for Jean to meet it with one of her own. Moments later it overpowered the blonde and struck her full on.

'Auggh!'

'You tell the Cuckoos that they are also not to read his mind, his thoughts are his own,' Jean stood over Emma victoriously.

'Anyone that does will have to deal with me, understood?'

'Red deviled bitch,' Emma spat only to be struck by another astral blast. 'Fine!'

Jean watch as Emma merged back into her body even as Jean went back into her own. She sense Scott was less than pleased with her.

"Jean that was way out of line!" Scott chastised her but she did not feel like explaining things to him. Emma could do it. Their relationship now was strictly professional, like she told Clark, she'd always love Scott, she don't think she can ever stop but she was no longer in love with him.

Speaking of her childhood friend she looked over to see his deep blue eyes looking at her in confusion.

"She won't be invading your privacy ever again," Jean told him as she her green eyes looked back to the blonde.

"Isn't that right Emma?."

Jean watch Emma get unsteadily to her feet while leaning against Scott.

"It was just a bit of harmless fun," Emma replied while giving Jean a withering look. "You didn't have to be so rude about it."

"Clark is off limits," Jean replied with steel in her voice. "I hope I've made things clear?"

"Wait, that's Clark?" Scott suddenly spoke up. She she could not help but sensed a bit of hostility from him directed to her childhood friend.

"That Clark Kent?"

It was then Clark turned to Jean and gave her an exasperate look.

"Seriously Jean, just what did you tell them about me?!"

Jean could only give a weak smile under Clark accusing glare.

To Be Continued...