A long plane journey later, Isabella and Alex sat in the back of a CIA car, which was sent to pick them up via Charles. They sat in silence, one Belle couldn't quite describe. It wasn't awkward, not necessarily uncomfortable. It was just there. After hours of talking on the plane, they were both pretty exhausted. The only people Isabella talked to every day were Charles and Raven. And those were her siblings so it was all natural flowing conversations, which she rarely gets with other people. Thankfully, with Alex, it was as if they'd known each other for years, which was of course not the case. It was like they were meant to meet, call it cliche but Bella felt so. Especially since Charles couldn't stop her from talking to him.

Isabella had gotten a lot out of Alex. He told her how he found out about his mutation, how he got sent to prison, his parents, and even his favorite color. Which Isabella thought was a win-win situation. Recruit him (a powerful mutant from what she was told) and make a friend without Charles to stop her.

She had no idea where Charles went with Erik, but she felt perfectly fine with Alex, so she didn't worry. Once they got there they saw all the other mutants introducing themselves to each other. So instead of going straight there, Isabella grabbed Alex's hand pulling him in the opposite direction from their fellow mutants to a guard post.

"What are you doing?" He asked confused as to why they weren't going to the other mutants.

"Watch this." She said with a smirk letting go of his hand. She was saddened at the loss of his touch, but she tried not to dwell on it. He stood there with his arms folded waiting for whatever she was about to do.

Isabella felt the tingling sensation of her invisibility washing over her. She watched as Alex's face turned from boredom to shock. As she moved, her footsteps made no sound. Whenever she was invisible, she felt a sense of power and freedom, but also a sense of vulnerability and isolation.

As the top half of Isabella's body started to disappear, Alex saw her move toward him. Once her body fully vanished, Alex noticed her footsteps were completely silent. He was stunned by her mutation.

"Grab my hand" Isabella whispered, forgetting Alex didn't realize she was behind him, watching him stumble back in shock.

"Sorry, sorry! Just stay with me, I'm making you invisible too."

Isabella took a deep breath and concentrated. She grabbed Alex's hand and closed her eyes, focusing on making him invisible. As anticipated, it worked. Alex's body slowly disappeared, making Isabella visible to him and only to him, and vice versa.

"Whoa," Alex said, looking down at his invisible body. "This is crazy."

Isabella giggled, feeling proud of herself for bringing him out of his shell.

As Alex looked around, trying to get used to being invisible, Isabella explained how it would work.

"As long as you're holding onto my hand they won't see or hear us. I can even make us phase through objects. But I won't push you that far yet. It can feel a little, weird." She explained with a giggle.

The first guard was walking towards her, and Isabella waited until he was close enough. Then, she gave him a light push. The guard stumbled, confused as to what had just happened. He looked around but saw no one. Alex couldn't stop laughing.

The second guard was a little smarter. He had seen the first guard stumble and knew something was up. Bella watched as he looked around, trying to spot her. She waited until he was close, and then blew air right in his ear. The guard jumped, swatting at the air. He still couldn't see her.

Alex snickered as he watched the third guard reading a magazine, totally unaware of their presence.

Alex got an idea. He would make the guard think that he was going crazy. He started to move objects around the room just enough that it wouldn't be noticeable at first. He moved a pencil a few inches to the right, a book to the left, and then the chair to the right again. The guard was confused but didn't think too much of it.

Isabella then started to get bolder. She moved the magazine the guard was reading so that when he looked back at it, the page was different. He frowned but still didn't realize what was going on.

Alex chuckled as he watched her. But then, she went too far. She moved the guard's hat from his head to the table, right in front of him.

The guard's eyes widened in surprise, and he quickly looked around. "What the...?" he muttered, trying to figure out what was happening.

Alex panicked. "Isabella, that's enough!" he hissed.

But she couldn't resist. She moved the hat back onto the guard's head, just as he was about to take a closer look at the table.

The guard jumped, startled. "What the hell?" he exclaimed, looking around frantically.

Alex and Belle couldn't contain their laughter anymore. Bella made the pair visible and ran away, still laughing, and still clutching Alex's hand.

Isabella felt a rush of excitement as she ran toward the room with the other mutants residing in it. She stopped outside the door catching her breath. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off she let go of Alex's hand, acknowledging that it was probably making him uncomfortable.

"You didn't have to let go you know." He said with a smirk walking into the room full of other mutants. She stood there in awe. It may have been stupid because that was basically nothing.

pull yourself together Isabella!

But after having very little physical contact with anyone but her siblings, little things like that made Bella weak in her knees, especially from someone like Alex Summers. But she pulled herself together and followed him into the room immediately going to her sister and hugging her.

"Finally I was wondering when you would finally come in here," Raven said with a small smirk on her face nudging her little sister.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She said back with a straight face sitting down after her sister. The young mutants sat around on the couches, talking among themselves.

"We should think of code names," Raven said after reuniting with Bella.

"We're government agents now. We should have secret code names," she grinned.

"I wanna be called Mystique."

"Damn, I wanted to be called Mystique," Sean groaned.

Raven laughed. "Well, tough, I called it," she transformed into an identical copy of Sean, much to the group's - minus Isabella's- surprise.

"And I'm way more mysterious than you," she said in his voice. The group gave Raven a round of applause as she transformed back into herself, asking.

"Darwin, what about you?"

"Well, uh, Darwin's already a nickname and, you know, it sort of fits," he said.

"Adapt to survive, and all. Check this out."

He got to his feet and approached the fish tank that was situated against the back wall. Isabella watched as he ducked his head down under the water, and a moment later a set of gills appeared on the side of his face, allowing him to breathe underwater. Impressed, she joined the others in their applause as Darwin shook the water from his face after straightening up.

"Thank you, thank you," he said with a smile.

"That's incredible," Hank grinned.

"What about you?" Darwin asked, gesturing to Sean.

"I'm going to be... Banshee," he replied, coming up with the name after a slight pause.

"Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?" Hank asked.

"You might wanna cover your ears."

With confused glances shared among themselves, Isabella covered her ears with her hands and caught Alex's eye. The two of them smiled at one another before shifting back to Sean, who got to his feet and eyed the glasses lined up on the table. Bella watched him take a deep breath before releasing what appeared to be a sonic scream, which caused the glass window to shatter. Removing her hands from her ears, Isabella laughed as Sean pointed at Angel.

"Your turn."

She got to her feet and started to remove her jacket.

"My stage name was Angel," She said, turning so that her back was to them, and a pair of wings emerged from her back.

"It kind of fits."

"Whoa, you can fly?" Raven gasped. Isabella smiled at how mesmerized her sister was at Angel.

"Uh-huh. And, um..."

She turned to the broken window and spat an acid ball at the statue. It hit the head of the figure and sizzled as the metal began to oxidize under the acid. Laughter and clapping applauded her abilities, and although she was having fun, Isabella couldn't quite help but think back to earlier, it may have sounded totally cliche and ridiculous but she had a lot of fun, and it seemed as though Alex did as well.

"What's your name gonna be?" Isabella decided to ask Hank who was terribly shy and wanted to give him a chance to show off his mutation. Evidently too embarrassed to answer, Hank remained quiet, paving the way for Alex to chime in with,

"How about Bigfoot?"

While everyone laughed, Isabella couldn't bring herself to. She knew how Hank was feeling, and didn't enjoy laughing at the cost of someone else, but before she could speak up and defend him, Raven beat her to the punch.

"Well, you know what they say about guys with big feet," she said, making a show of looking at Alex's feet.

"And, uh, yours are kind of small." Alex looked away, specifically toward Isabella, obviously feeling embarrassed. Isabella mouthed a sorry to him smiling sadly. While he may have deserved it, she knew all too well what it was like to be ridiculed in a room full of people.

"Okay, now," Darwin said, as the others laughed.

"Alex, what is your gift? What can you do?"

"Uh, it's not, um..." Alex stammered, finally looking away from Bella.

"Um, I just can't do it. I can't do it in here."

"Can you do it out there?" Darwin asked, pointing beyond the broken window.

"Why don't you just do it out there?" Raven questioned.

"Come on," the others pressed.

They started chanting Alex's name, and he noticed them all waiting for him to show off his power. He got up and put down his drink. Smiling at Isabella as he headed to the broken window.

"All right!" Sean exclaimed.

"That's the spirit," Darwin said.

"Get down when I tell you."

"'Get down when I tell you,'" Sean mocked.

"Get back," Alex said, noticing them all peering out from behind the wall. They disappeared for maybe a second before reappearing, and when he saw them once more, he said,

"Get back!" with a little more emphasis in his tone.

When they didn't move, he sighed. "Whatever."

Isabella didn't stand with the others, instead, she became intangible. Her body matter disappeared temporarily. She stood there in case she needed to throw up a forcefield, trusting Alex but not wanting to take any risks. Alex looked over at Isabella slightly nodding as if to check if she was fine to stand there. She nodded back.

His powers consisted of red rings of energy forming around his torso. He did a hula-hoop move and fired them in all different directions. It was clear he couldn't fully contain his powers yet.

One flew in the direction of the statue - that had previously suffered from Angel's spitball -cutting it down in half, dropping the burning half-head and torso of whichever old man the statue was of onto the lawn at his own feet.

Belle praised Alex as he rejoined them in the room.

"That was better than I imagined." She joked, nudging his shoulder softly. Their eyes locked as they grinned at each other.

"Havok!" Raven announced.

"That's it. That's your name. Havok with a K because it's cooler."

"I like it," Bella nodded, turning to Alex.

"What do you say, Havok with a k?"

He grinned. "I like it too, but we still don't have a name for you."

Isabella's good mood plunged as every pair of eyes in the room landed on her, putting her right in the spotlight. Angel asked, "So what is it that you do?"

With a shrug, Isabella said, "I can turn invisible among other things."

"Damn, that's sick. how do you do it? is there a way I can? can I learn how to-," Sean rambled. Alex punched his shoulder, a motion telling him to shut up.

"No, it's only me." She started with a chuckle.

"And I harness energy from the stars and use it to do whatever I need. I turn invisible, create forcefields and I can phase through things. I can also let other people turn invisible, as long as they are touching me in some way." She finished, eyes moving toward Alex subtly.

"That's pretty cool," Darwin said. "With the right training and practice, you could prevent wars if you create a forcefield big enough."

"Yeah, maybe one day," Isabella replied. She had always thought of things like that. Protecting people, though she knew Charles would never in a million years let her.

"Well, I think we've got your code name," Raven said, grinning at her sister. "We're going to call you Astrea."

authors note

oh how I love balex<3
btw Isabella has many nicknames loll
astrea pronounced ast-rey-ah

dont forget to vote && comment !

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