Chapter 4: That's Cheating

Peter only napped for a little less than an hour, which was just enough time for his program to have run its course. Peter spent the rest of the time before his parents got home skimming through recent news about mutants, which happened to be very little actual information; the most recent significant event being some terror attacks a couple decades prior. Peter's evening was unproductive and he ended his day without having learned anything of note.

The next day, Peter was continuing his fruitless research when his parents opened his door and informed him that they had decided to go out on a date for the day, leaving Peter home alone. Peter thought it seemed a bit out of nowhere but decided not to question it because it made it easier for him to avoid physical contact with other people. Twenty minutes after his parents had left, Peter heard a knock on the door. Walking out of his room and to his home's front door, Pete peeked through peephole in the door. Beyond the door he saw a middle-aged gentleman in a wheelchair, an unkempt man with black facial hair, a black woman with white hair, and a redheaded girl about Peter's age. Peter thought. [Well they're an odd bunch. Girl's pretty, but she's a redhead, probably has quite the temper.] and opened the door and started saying

"Hi, how can…"

Making eye contact with the black-haired man, Pete mentally panicked a bit. [Shit, shit, shit, he's got claws, maybe I can convince them to leave. Time for plan A.]

"Oh, girl scouts, right? I'm a bit strapped for cash right now, so how about you come again some other time and I'll buy some Thin Mints or something. Have a nice day."

Pete closed the door as naturally as he could in the situation before the visitors could even get a word in edgewise. Leaning against the door, Peter repeated to himself [Please have left. Please have left.] almost as if in prayer. After a few seconds like this, there was another rap at the door. [Damn, time for plan B, hope they don't know I'm a mutant.] Opening the door a second time,

"Not girl scouts, huh? Then Jehovah's Witness?"

Seeing a couple of them shake their head, Peter sighed and looked toward them,

"Then may I ask how I can help you?"

The older man in the wheelchair started to speak,

"Hello, my name is Professor Charles Xavier,"

Peter made eye contact with Professor Xavier and immediately thought [Dammit, mind powers are totally cheating. You better not have read my mind! At least he wasn't the one I called pretty.]

"and you seem to already know about mutants, which makes this a lot easier."

Peter immediately knew that this guy had read his mind. Professor Xavier continued speaking.

"Long story short, I founded a school for people with exceptional abilities that they may not be able to control and I help teach them to control them. We are here to invite you to this school."

"Alright, couple questions before anything else."

Peter glared at the wheelchair guy and asked

"How much of my mind did you read and how often do you read other people's minds?"

"Enough, and not very often."

"That doesn't answer anything, do you even realize how many rights you violate doing that! You're actually worse than the government, at least they don't know what people are thinking."

After a bit more back and forth, Peter invited the group inside and took that chance to make eye contact with the two women; Storm's power mad him think [Wow, that's actually pretty cool.] but eye contact with the redhead actually scared him. It wasn't her powers he was scared of; it was the fact that when he started to look into her eyes, he felt as if he could dive deeper into them and see more but the strongest instinctual pull he had ever felt insisted he stop and look away. It was as if he had narrowly avoided a dangerous monster.

The group settled into the Potts' family living room for their discussion.