Forever and Again

Posted on Tue Feb 13th, 2024 @ 8:14pm by Scott Summers & Jean Grey

5,649 words; about a 28 minute read

Mission: Episode 0: X Lang Syne
Location: Blackbird Hanger - Mansion
Timeline: January, 1986

[Warning: This post contains mild adult content - Reader discretion is advised]

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Magneto’s occupation of Santo Marco had been a powder keg of a mission for the X-Men. The militia of an army formed along with the Brotherhood’s assistance had created a tense and dangerous political situation with the anti-mutant native inhabitants of the island being held hostage to whatever whims Magneto had. The X-Men had been sent to defuse the situation which culminated in a stalemate of a battle with the Brotherhood. They fought until both sides were exhausted and drained with Magneto’s departing act deploying a nuclear bomb, the loss of life of the anti-mutant natives being of little consequence to him. Defusing the bomb was an act the X-Men were ill prepared for; had Quicksilver not stepped in and assisted in a surprising turn of events, thousands of lives would have been lost. It was a victory for the X-Men but a somber one. They all realized just how lucky they had been and the other side of that coin was how close to failure they had come.

The flight home and the customary post-mission debriefing had been solemn. With the team released from duty, they all scattered across the mansion grounds to continue processing what had happened. One person remained after everyone else disbanded, though. Scott had to perform the post-flight inspection of the Blackbird before he hung up his suit, s simple but essential task that ensured the aircraft remained safe and well-maintained. But after missions like this one, it was hard to push through the menial work.

Jean found Scott in the hangar, clipboard in hand as he reviewed and wrote down each point of the inspection. His face was stony as he walked the perimeter of the Blackbird, lost in thought. She could tell he was still troubled over Santo Marco.

“Hey.” Her greeting was more to alert him of her presence than an actual salutation. Jean rounded the side of the plane, her gloved hand brushing against it as she walked towards him. She hadn’t bothered to change yet, so she still wore her uniform and mask. “I thought I would come and help you. It’s not fair you always have to do this on your own.”

“I don't mind,” Scott said, tucking the clipboard under his arm. “Gives me time to think.”

He needed to think or else he would pace, grind his teeth, and even stay awake at night. A little menial labor that ensure the flight readiness of the team jet and personal peace of mind was a fair trade.

“Today was a close call,” he said at length. “Too close. I'm not sure how we could have done better.”

“Yeah, today was…” Jean paused and considered her choice in words. There was a multitude of euphemisms she could pick from to soften her feelings, but instead she went with the most direct response. “Today was terrifying. I’ve never been so scared, I thought that bomb was going to go off.”

She shook her head as she thought about those agonizing seconds of watching the timer counting down for detonation. Jean had placed a telekinetic shield around the bomb but she wasn’t sure if it would have even worked, the force of an atomic blast most likely would have torn through her defenses. The best she could have offered was to dampen the impact of the explosion; she had been willing to sacrifice herself in order to spare some lives.

“I don’t know what would have happened if Quicksilver hadn’t been there.” Jean followed him as he continued to walk the Blackbird. “It was a humbling experience and definitely changed my perspective on a lot of things.”

“Same.” Scott nodded, still in thought. Humbling didn't tell the half of it. Not only could they not defeat the Brotherhood and the militia that supported them, but they were completely caught off guard by the tactical nuke. Xavier hadn't trained them for that. Why would he? They were the moral counter to evil mutants like Magneto and Vanisher and Unus, not nuclear specialists or peacekeeper troops. It wasn't fair or even rational to expect the X-Men to be all things to all people, but that didn't stop Scott's mind from churning. Didn't even slow it down.

As team leader, Scott always kept a stiff upper lip. The others needed to see he was never in doubt when they followed his orders. Only Jean ever knew of the storm that raged inside.

Scott looked at Jean then, really looked at her he mask she wore on mission that could never hide her eyes, the skirt that flaunted her femininity rather than obscure it like their original blue and yellow training gear did, her billowing fiery hair that was by far her defining trait. She looked like an actual goddess who had stepped out of some ancient bas-relief only to stare at him and take his fear away.

She was Marvel Girl, through and through, but he didn't feel like Cyclops. He was just Scott Summers, the pretender who only got his friends home through sheer luck and the unlikely help from an adversary he had managed to Judo throw moments earlier. If Quicksilver had been knocked out or had other thoughts…

All he could do was shake his head. “I need to stow the report in the cockpit.” Scott avoided eye contact and drudged his booted feet up the steps.

Jean pursed her lips as he walked past her with his eyes to the ground and his heavy crestfallen steps. Disappointment and worry that only showed when everyone else was gone. It was the main reason she had followed him to the hangar today, she knew how hard he was taking this and she didn’t want him to go through that on his own.

Scott took all their missions personally. He put everything that he was into leading this team, any shortcomings were his own shortcomings. For Scott, being leader meant he was responsible for everything and everyone, a heavy cross to bear but one that he carried without hesitation. So on a day like today, when it felt like dumb luck had spared them from disaster, Jean knew he took that as a personal failure.

“Sure.” Jean followed him up the stairs, a small act to help confirm that he wasn’t alone. She watched as he signed and stored the inspection along with the rest of the jet’s paperwork, only when he was finished did she finally broach the real matter at hand. Scott felt her hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look at her.

“I’m proud of you.” Jean pulled off her mask so he could see her better. “Today was a hard day but you handled it well.”

Behind that Marvel Girl mask was Jean. That stung Scott all the more. It wasn’t just the X-Men who nearly died today. Jean Grey, the light of his world, was nearly snuffed out. His mouth curled into a frown above a quivering chin.

“Thank you…” he said, tearing his eyes away from her face. Pride wasn’t going to keep them safe, though. They had to be better. That meant he had to be better. “It’s just… I don’t know what I’d do without you.” His jaw slammed shut. Even one more word might break open the floodgates and… and…

There was a hitch in his throat. His feet shuffled to turn his body away from Jean. If there was anybody Scott didn’t want seeing him like this, it was her. He needed to be calm and strong so she could depend on him. Running was his natural instinct in a moment like this. But there was nowhere to go. Jean was between him and the door. For all intents and purposes, he was trapped with her in the cockpit.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Her voice became soft and soothing as his body tightened and he attempted to hide his emotions from her. Missions like the one they had just finished were a roller coaster once everything was said and done and the adrenaline had worn off. Once the fight or flight impulses stopped, they were often left reeling from the gamut of emotions that had been stifled by survival.

Jean reached out for him and pulled him in close to her, bringing his head to rest on her shoulder. Scott often put up a front, only showing people what they expected from him or what he thought he was supposed to be to them. When in reality, he was just as hurt or scared as anyone else. “I’m fine. Nothing bad happened.”

“This time…” He brought his voice to a whisper. It just would have been a whimper at his normal volume. Tucked into the shelter of her shoulder, Scott finally let go. It wasn’t a mournful wail or torrent of tears. Just a few sobs that left his cheeks moist and his heart raw and exposed from the fear that he just couldn’t shake off. “What if we don’t come home next time?”

~Or worse…~ The thought was so terrible he couldn’t even speak it. ~Only one of us does?~

Jean held him close as he shuddered and sobbed, her heart hurt for him and his very real fears. What they did was dangerous and today they looked death straight in the face, it was enough to rattle the most steadfast of soldiers. “You can’t let the hypotheticals consume you, to think about what could have happened or what might happen, it will destroy you.”

“I know that,” Scott whispered. “I do…” So why did he still feel so weak inside?

Her hands ran up and down the length of his back providing a soothing touch as she turned her head towards him, he felt the warmth of her breath next to his ear. “We saved a lot of people’s lives today and we freed Santo Marco from a terrorist.” Jean’s voice was a gentle whisper. “A nuclear weapon was confiscated, preventing it from ever being used again. No one was hurt, we all came home, it was a hard day but in the end a lot of good things happened.”

He felt her lips press a small kiss into him. “Celebrate the good, live for today.”

Jean’s kisses were always an infusion of life. Glad, mad, or sad, the effect was always the same. A rush would fill Scott’s head that would set his heart aflutter and his thoughts alight. Nothing ever seemed so bad when she touched his soul.

~Celebrate the good~ He contemplated her words. She made that sound so easy and her lips were the proof. ~Live for today~

It dawned on him, then, that he had been looking at recent events all wrong. There was no amount of training, drilling, and preparation that could account for every scenario. Whether by luck or by fate, they had survived even when facing a threat they had no way to prepare for. Fear wasn’t the right response. Joy was. They were alive. If that wasn’t a cause for celebration, then what was?

“You’re right,” Scott said, returning her kiss with his own. “As usual.” He looked down at her green eyes and felt silly for letting himself be so blind to the goodness right in front of him. “So let’s celebrate.”

Jean laughed a little from his shift in perspective. Sometimes Scott’s own mindset could be his greatest opponent. When left to his own devices, he would happily wallow in regret and remorse. He needed to be reminded of the good things in life, to be pulled from that dark place and brought back into the light. A task that Jean had helped him with since they were children and she would happily continue to do for as long as fate allowed her to.

Her hands moved up his shoulders to tenderly hold his head. There was such love for him in her eyes, when Jean looked at him, he saw how much she adored him. Even in those moments when Scott was bleak and forlorn, she saw how much he cared, how much good he wanted to do. Jean saw nothing but a man of merit and it made her love him even more.

She pulled him in for a kiss and that electric thrill passed between them, confirming everything they both wanted from each other. “Let’s celebrate.”

The kiss was different than before. Tantalizing. Enticing. Inviting. It filled Scott with an insatiable lust that he’d never felt before—one without inhibition.

~Really?~ Once the realization of her true meaning of celebration set in, he wasn’t going to argue. It just felt… Scott didn’t know how he felt. This wasn’t a time for reflecting. It was a time for action. ~Here? Now?~

Heart rate spiking, Scott felt his hands slide down the sides of her body and follow her natural curves until they rested on her hips. There was no telling whether they were guided by his own will or hers or maybe some combination of the two. Entangled lips meant verbal confirmation was out of the question. Even Jean’s thoughts were veiled to him, at least for that initial moment. All he had was her body language.

And then there was her teasing tongue. Scott opened his mouth to meet it with his own. ~I’ll take that as a yes~

~* ‘Here. Now. Yes.’ *~ Her tone was jovial but her hands and her tongue had become sinful. Jean moved on him with such eagerness that it was impossible to not get swept up in it, to finally indulge in that aching want for one another that they had denied themselves for long enough. Jean wanted to feel alive, she wanted to allow herself to feel everything that was good and divine. She wanted to experience everything that Scott could offer her and she wanted to give him the same in return.

Jean murmured something against his lips before she broke their heated kiss. She leaned back from their close embrace so she could look into his eyes. There was an unexpected seriousness to her expression.

“I can hear your thoughts and I can feel your emotions but you can’t hear me, at least not in the same way, and I’ll admit that it’s a little unfair. But if you wanted to, I could share more of myself with you, so you could hear me and feel me in the same way.” A unique proposition that only a telepath could offer, to share both the physical and the mental. “I want us to do this as equals.”

Scott nodded without a second thought. The proposition of his mind being inside hers made his sexual desire overtake any vestiges of the old agreement they'd had to wait until…he couldn't even remember what they had waited for. Life was for the living, wasn't it?

“What do we have to do?” Scott laughed at the way the question sounded. “Other than that.” The press of her body against him was already awakening his physical desire. He didn't want to rush the experience, feeling a little nervous as he was, but the eagerness threatened to get the better of him. “Whatever it takes to make this special, that's what I want to do.”

“You agreeing is all I needed to hear.” Jean’s lips returned to his and those heady and enticing kisses continued. At first it was only the press of her body against his own, her anxious hands moving across him, that sacrilegious way her tongue danced with his, and then he felt her, the inviting sensation of her mind meeting his.

Jean described people as having mental signatures, much like how someone took pen to paper to write their name, each person had their own way in which their thoughts flowed and their minds worked, a unique presence that could be used to identify someone without seeing them. Jean’s was like that first day of spring, when the sun was finally warm enough to heat your skin and it created that beautiful optimism that the cold and darkness of winter was over. With the ferocity of a lion and the gentleness of a lamb, Jean filled his thoughts like a force of nature, awe inspiring and unstoppable.

Then Scott felt her desire for him, a focused want and need that heated her skin and made her whole body ache for him, a heaviness that created anticipatory tension inside of her. To know how badly Jean wanted this, wanted him, it was like pouring gasoline on a fire, igniting a reckless blaze of heat between them.

The brush of Jean’s thoughts against his was nothing new. Always delightful but not an altogether unknown feeling. But this… it was something else entirely. What had been a warm breeze was now a tropical ocean, its currents drawing him in and pulling him under. And he surrendered without any resistance. Every touch came alive with sensory overload. Kisses. Caresses. Grinding…

“Ugh!” Scott’s face tightened into a grimace, followed by a head-to-toe convulsion that localized into the pelvic area. “J-J-Jean!”

Jean shivered as Scott was overwhelmed by their heavy petting, a fleeting moment of delight shared between them before his embarrassment took over, an uncomfortable awkwardness knotting both of their stomachs.

Scott closed his eyes and willed time to rewind itself. That obviously wasn’t going to happen but a guy could dream. Out of all the times for that to happen, it had to be now?

“Sorry,” he said, biting his own lip in embarrassment. What else was there to say? That was not how he’d expected this moment to go.

“It’s okay.” She replied as quickly as possible, knowing that her response carried a lot of weight in a moment like this. Jean’s cheeks reddened as her own guilt crept in. She felt bad about her enthusiasm. It had been too much, too fast, and she scolded herself for daring to bring her telepathy into this. She should have followed a more traditional approach, especially for their first time.

She took a step back and sat down on the arm rest of the co-pilot’s chair, giving him space to breathe. “I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No… no, it was amazing.” Scott turned even more apologetic, almost desperate. “Do that again… please.” An airy smile came over his face again. For a brief moment, everything had been pure euphoria. “We can try again, if you’re still interested.”

For Scott’s part, he was still very interested. The fumble did nothing to dissuade him from Jean’s earlier point about living for today and celebrating the now. This wasn’t about fulfilling some rite of passage or getting a notch on his belt. It was the first night of the rest of their lives.

But, if Jean didn’t feel the same, they could always wait. It wouldn’t be the first time they had come close to going all the way together. He wouldn’t blame her. There were better opportunities… flowers and music and candles, like in the movies. Maybe she’d like all those things better than the old team jet anyway. Little did he realize it, but Scott was already managing his expectations, fully anticipating Jean to suggest they wait. “It’s okay if you’re not. There’s always tomorrow.”

“I want to.” Jean stood up again as she replied, as if sitting down meant that she wasn’t a willing participant. They had come so close several times before this and had talked themselves out of it, but she didn’t want to make excuses anymore. Days like today reminded them that life was fleeting and putting off the things they wanted for themselves could end in regret.

Jean loved him and she wanted to take that next step with Scott. Waiting until tomorrow or this weekend, it felt like a frivolous waste of time that only delayed the inevitable.

“I still want to.” She pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto the same chair that held her mask before she took a step back towards Scott. Jean wrapped her arms around his neck and her lips found his once more, a slow and gentle kiss rather than the intense and heated force that she had used before.

For a short second, Scott hung himself on his own disbelief. This was really happening. Jean had been given every out and she passed on them all. It didn't matter that he had … doused the moment. Soon it became clear it wasn't about a fairy tale romance or some fantastical ideal. This was two people who loved each other more than anything, more than faux pas and rude awakenings, and who were finally ready to go to the next level together.

That realization tore shackles away from Scott's heart, ones that had held him back for so long. He realized that with Jean, he couldn't ever really be embarrassed or disappointed. What's more was he realized that feeling was mutual.

While their kissing grew from soft and sweet affection to more turgid passion, Scott let go of the pit he had always carried in his stomach. It kept him strong, alert, and centered, but those were things he didn't need with Jean. He could be exposed, vulnerable, and free.

~I love you more than life itself~ The thought went out to her like a shout to the sky. He knew she would hear it. ~After today, I know that for certain. No more hiding~

It was what they had promised one another long ago when they first admitted their true feelings. Now, at the cusp of their first plunge into full intimacy, he offered up the broken dredging from his heart's wellspring. No fronting. No masking. No toughing it out. Still clothed in his uniform, Scott presented himself naked before her in the way only Jean could see.

Scott had always celebrated her, even when she doubted herself or she became overwhelmed, he always remained her champion. There was no part of her that he didn’t love and because of that she knew she could trust him with everything that she was.

~* ‘No hiding’ *~ Jean repeated and he felt her return into his mind, creating that shared space where her thoughts and feelings freely flowed and allowed him to know her. Earlier she had been an ocean, whose undertow had caused him to lose his orientation until all he could do was drown in pleasure. This time it was more of a plunge, deep and vast yet up and down still existed, allowing his own thoughts to remain intact.

~* ‘I love you with all that I am’ *~ Words of devotion that he had heard countless times before but now he felt her love, how powerful of a force he was for Jean, her source of strength and comfort. To feel his own adoration mirrored in her, it reinforced every choice he made and confirmed his commitment to her, to them.

~* ‘I need you.’ *~ Sweet words that were spiked with lust as the building passion between them returned to that heated and urgent place. Jean’s hands stopped their innocent exploration of him and she began to undress him.

Peeling away their uniforms together was a thrill that took Scott out of his inner thoughts about surrendering himself to Jean’s affections. It wasn’t the first time either of them had helped the other out of their field gear. There were even a couple of times where they had wound up topless together, whether in the hot tub or on a blanket under a midsummer night sky. But those instances had the buffer of knowing they wouldn’t go past a certain point together, not until they were both ready.

That buffer was gone. An entirely new flutter had replaced it. Anticipation. Scott was no longer nervous. He was eager. After unhitching the wide belt that held Jean’s costume together and letting it drop to the deck, he pulled her tactical dress up and over her head. The sight that greeted him stole his breath away and made him all the more eager to shed his remaining garments.

Each article of clothing that was shed only added to Jean’s anticipation, the thrill of seeing more and more of each other and the excitement that exposure created caused her heart to race and her breath to quicken.
By the time they had both been stripped bare, the sound of her pounding heart echoed in her ears and her chest heaved from her heavy breaths.

Kissing her again was only natural. Scott ran his palms across her exposed flesh and felt a fresh surge in himself. He pulled away from her lips long enough to ask, “How do you want to do this?”

When Scott finally dared to touch her naked body it made her quiver under his hands, a shockingly strong response to such a simple gesture that only furthered their escalating libidos. Jean glanced down at him, his arousal now fully on display and her mouth went dry over the notion of how he would fit.

In response to his question, Jean glanced over at the chair next to them, she didn’t need to explain it any further. As Scott sat down, Jean followed him, eager to keep her body close to his as she straddled his thighs and brought them even closer to that long awaited union. She felt the rush of excitement that moving into position created for both of them, it was urgent and dangerously desperate enough to cause her to pause.

She kept herself lingering above him, allowing them both to cool down for a moment so they didn’t burn out so quickly. Jean found his gaze again, forcing herself to look at him rather than at the carnal display of their naked bodies. She felt his eyes fixed on hers through the opaque ruby quartz and Jean felt a painful pang in her heart over how much she loved him.

“I love you.” Her voice wavered slightly from the sheer force of everything she felt for him, a vast and beautiful love that had transformed her and saved her.

“I love you too…” It was something Scott said hardly ever and mostly to Jean at that. Today he would show it in a way he had never shown anyone before. Going through with it was a bittersweet pressure that made him gasp in slight pain but mostly pleasure.

“Oh, God!” Scott's hands fell to either side, his fingers splayed out at the new and sudden shock to his system. Even though it wasn't exactly going smoothly, it was still as amazing as he'd hoped. Maybe more so. And they'd not even begun. “Oh Jean,” he whispered in ecstasy.

Jean placed her hands on his chest to brace herself before she began to slowly lower herself down onto Scott. She audibly gasped and her brows knitted in worry while her shoulders tensed in a fleeting moment of discomfort as her body adjusted to accommodate him. She leaned forward and kissed him, a moment of celebration over the coupling as they reveled in the pleasure they provided for each other. Jean held him in that kiss until their shock and awe became a manageable admiration.

Wrapping her arms around Scott’s neck, Jean’s gaze became focused as she began to cautiously roll and grind her hips into him. Languid and slick friction occurred between them and Jean couldn’t help but gasp his name from sensation.

Scott always loved the way Jean said his name but her voice was almost keening as she said it now.

“You feel so good,” Scott said, his voice raspy and forced through clenched teeth. “Jean! You…”

Breathing turned to gasps which choked out his words. Whatever discomfort he'd felt soon turned to unspeakable pleasure. Scott's hands flew out and seized hold of the first part of her body they found. Was it her waist? Her ribs? Maybe one on both. Sorting it out was hard.

~I feel you, Jean~ Scott both completed and repeated his earlier thought that distracted him from processing his hands which had taken a mind of their own. ~You feel so good!~

A small moan escaped her lips as she began to drown in the pleasure Scott provided, the feel of his hands across her body, his gritted and heated praise for her, the steady strokes of him across her core, the pressure that started to build inside of him that demanded release, it all flooded her senses to the point where she couldn’t breathe.

~* ‘Don’t stop.’ *~ She begged in response to his exalted words for her, a request to continue their union for as long as possible. But the tension continued to build inside of her and physical wants began to dominate her. Jean dared to move a little faster, her hips finding a brisk pace that caused both of them to tense in further ecstasy.

“I love you, Jean!” More than words, the declaration was a conduit for the overflow inside him. She had to know. He needed her to know it.

Scott felt himself buck beneath Jean's rapidly increasing, a motion that forced her hips to rise up and come down harder in her rhythm. The thrust and impact made him shout in the shock of unexpected peak pleasure. Every other part of his body felt numb and electrified at the same time. All awareness focused around the increasing sensitivity of Jean's flurrying hips and the paradise between them where she had taken him.

“Ugghh!” Scott threw his arms around her and held her body close against him. “Keep going…please don't stop.” It was going to happen again. But this time it wouldn't be a premature mishap. The threshold was getting near. His arms tightened like vice grips and synced to her rhythm.

She pressed herself into him as he pulled her in close, the friction of their heated bodies matched the rhythm of their thrusts, making their unified cadence one that caused her whole body to bounce from the impact they made upon contact. She moaned and gasped each time it was achieved with sweet little staccato noises that punctuated their feverish pace. It wasn’t long before Jean felt herself near that same threshold that threatened Scott.

~* ‘Oh Scott!’ *~ There was surprise and exaltation in her words as her body tensed and tightened. It made her clench her fists and squeeze her eyes shut as a fierce wave of pleasure gripped at her, the sensation pulled her under and Jean lost herself in the fall. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t form words, all she could do was surrender to that divine and surreal ecstasy that consumed her.

~JEAN!!!~ Between the tightening spasm and the telepathic tsunami, Scott was swept away in Jean’s climax straight into his own. It was far from anything he’d felt before. Physical releases of the past were a bottle rocket that sizzled out with a quick bang. This was a nuclear meltdown which left him aglow in the radiance of a beautiful woman who had imprinted his soul with her own. After the final burst, he just continued to hold her close and waited for their breathing to even out.

“I knew it would be good…” Scott whispered at length through her red locks that sprawled out across his chest and shoulders. “...but you were great. Definitely worth the wait.”

Jean sheepishly laughed at his comment as she kissed him. “You weren’t so bad yourself…” She jokingly smiled as she cooed the words. The euphoric feeling that came over her was like nothing she had experienced before. She had told him to celebrate and live, these feelings definitely embodied those words. Jean wanted to feel like this all the time, to stay entwined and pressed against Scott whenever possible.

“Now we can do it over and over again.” Her grin turned sinful with the revelation, they had finally dared to take that next step and now they could enjoy in this new found intimacy.

That thought hadn’t yet occurred to Scott. It made him beam at her. “Again. I think I’m going to like that word.” He returned her kiss with a happy chuckle. “Just fifteen minutes ago, I was brooding over the thought of losing you. Now I can’t even remember why I was worried. I don’t know how couples normally work…” He paused for a moment in memory of his lost parents. “... but I feel like this is a forever thing.”

“Forever. Now there’s a word I think I’m going to like.” Jean sat up straight and looked down at him with an endearing, dreamy smile, she gently caressed his cheek and daydreamed about what that word meant for them, to be his wife, to bear his children, to grow old together, it meant to love him until her heart stopped beating and then after.

“My heart will always find yours because they belong together. You are my everything. I promise I will love you, now and forever.” Scott had once told her of the sanctity of a promise, to never promise something you knew you couldn’t do. As she leaned down and kissed him once more he knew she meant every word of her promise. Jean would love him forever.

 

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