Stark Grey Eyes

The moon rose quietly overhead, unnoticed as a flower sprouts in spring. Wisps of cold air, freezing to feel, drifted across the plaza where the people danced and played. Winter had come to New York, with ice and snow blending together with the far reaching urban landscape of the city.

Here, in the plaza, a man stands out alone amongst his fellows. He has dark hair, and brown eyes that just watched the procession of ice skaters and snowball fights take place. He wears black clothing, a long overcoat, neat undershirt and pants. His shoes are shiny and wrinkled, leather worn down by frequent use.

A woman watches him from across the plaza. She has long blonde hair, and steel grey eyes, cold and welcoming. She walks to him.

They talk for the rest of the night.

Fall 2002

That same woman now walks away from a house with a basket on the front step. Her owl-like eyes are sharp and composed, with her purpose of walking away in mind. After about fifty yards out of sight, a flash of light occurs and she is seen no more.

The next morning, the man opens his door to find the basket with a small child in it. The child has his dark hair and eyes, but his smile was the mother's.

But, this man could not accept that this was his child. For he had never slept with that woman in his life. Just as he could not accept that she was a Goddess, or that magic truly existed.

Taking the basket with child in it, he drives to an orphanage and leaves it on their own front step. Ringing the doorbell, he walks away.

The Parkers were an odd couple. At least, that's what the neighbors thought.

Secretly though, they were agents of SHIELD, trained and prepared to deal with a variety of situations.

But not this. For you see, they wanted to have kids. Unfortunately, Mrs. Mary Parker was sterile and could not get pregnant. That led to where they were now, in an orphanage trying to adopt.

"And over here," the matron went on, "We have our newest addition. He looks to be about six months old and he only came here last night."

Mary looked into his big brown eyes and said, "We'll take him."

Six years later, Richard's sister said something similar, "I'll take him," when she found out that the Parkers had passed.

As Peter grew up, he saw strange things. Monsters, one-eyed men, and other creatures seemed to lurk in the corners of his vision. Sometimes they'd be fighting teens, sometimes not. All the same, they were there.

When he tried to ask his Aunt May about the monsters, she'd look at him confusedly and ask, "Where?"

But this was undoubtedly a monster. It was his first field trip of high school, and his science class had gone to Oscorp to talk biology. After looking around, Peter accidentally found himself in a room with all these spiders. But that wasn't the scary part. Oh no, the most terrifying part about the room was the giant man-sized spider that tried to speak to him.

"Athena's spawn! In the name of our mother, ATTACK!" It spit out.

Peter tried to leave as soon as he could, but one of the spiders hitched a ride with him on the way out. After he closed the door and caught his breath, a sharp pinch on his left hand grabbed his attention.

A red and blue spider with silver markings had bit him and left a large red mark in the center of the back of his left hand.

Quickly snatching the spider off the ground, he searched through his bag, took out a PB&J sandwich in a ziploc bag, took the sandwich out, and put the spider in before closing the bag.

Running down the hall, he catches up to his tour group and pretends nothing happened.

Professor Charles Xavier, headmaster and founder of Xavier's School for Gifted Children, did his routine scan for prospective students with Cerebro and picked up several pings around America. One of the most prominent new ones had sprung up in the Queens area of New York.

"This brings further investigation. Hank, could you prepare the car? I'd like to take a day trip out to New York and see if I can pinpoint this new mutant."

"Yes Professor."

...

Driving through the mass traffic of New York City, the Professor pondered the situation at hand. If he were in a more open world, all he'd have to do was post a sign saying "Mutants Welcome Here" on his front door, and the news would get out. But because of government oversight and secrecy, the mutant issue was to be hidden for the foreseeable future.

Now with mutants becoming more and more common, the rise of these so-called Inhumans, new vigilantes and supervillians, sooner or later mutants would come out and be the next reviled group.

Xavier only wished that children didn't have to deal with this, but it was as unavoidable as the sun rising in the East. His personal studies showed that mutant gene activation went hand in hand with puberty and the environment, and that it was the most optimum time for epigenetics to take place for these genes (else they might cause damage if activated too early or too late in some individuals, resulting in more disability mutations than useful).

Soon they came to Queens. Finding a local park, Professor X wheeled himself out into the shade of some trees nearby a fountain and closed his eyes. The beautiful part about his own powers was he could shut them on or off at will. The downside was that anyone's mind within his radius of reach had the same volume, and in such a populated area it was hard to focus.

But he was Charles Xavier, one of the world's strongest telepaths and such limitations were easily overcome with lots of training.

Listening to minds like the channels of a radio station, he sifted through until he found a teenage mind that was in shock and panic. Something about a one-eyed man was going on….

Peter was absolutely shocked and in panic. After the tour of Oscorp, he stepped outside to get back on the bus when a man came over to him.

The man had a big bulky suitcase and was extremely tall and broad chested. "Hey, excuse young man, could you help me find a building nearby?"

He had two fierce green eyes the color of rotting pine.

"Ss-sure." Peter said. "Where do you need to go sir?"

"Oh so kind, so gentlemanly. I need to go to the nearest restaurant to eat dinner! Do you happen to know where one is?"

Feeling uncomfortable, Peter replied, "Uh, yeah. There's a good Chinese place a few blocks away. You just take a right down this way and-"

"Oh could you come with me! I'm horrible at directions!" The man's green eyes were fierce and heavy, with hunger deep in their shades of emerald.

Glancing at the bus nervously, he saw his classmates already loaded up. Some were looking at him weirdly as if to say, "We're waiting for you dumbass!"

"I-I actually have to get going. If you take a right and then follow the block down and make a left, you'll get there."

The eyes turned angry. A rough scarred hand came up and grabbed Peter by his right shoulder. The man started to walk, pushing Peter in front of him.

At this time, to Peter, his eyes turned singular, one massive dark green eye focused in the middle of his forehead. 'Cyclops,' Peter thought.

Getting pushed into an alley wasn't fun by any means. Getting pushed there by a really strong one eyed giant was terrifying. Peter was scared and worried. It was only hours before that the Spider Incident occurred.

For some reason, the bus started to take off without him, as if they lost interest in waiting. This stayed in the back of Peter's mind while he dealt with the situation at hand.

Pushing him up against a wall, the Cyclops roared, "ARRGGH! You smell a lot stinkier than some of her other kids. Maybe that makes for a better meal. Only one way to find out, don't you agree!"

Peter, wide-eyed, tried to think of things to say, "WAIT! Are you gluten or lactose intolerant!"

"What even IS GLUTEN!"

Hesitating, Peter continued. "Uh, are you allergic to any nuts or fruit?"

The giant stopped. Closing his eye, he murmured to himself. "Am I allergic to nuts? Let's see, I've had peanut butter…"

Peter caught his breath while the giant mumbled out nuts he's eaten. 'Think Peter, think!' looking around, he saw no one, and that the alley only had one exit. If he could escape the cyclop's arms, he might be able to run for it….

At this moment, a car pulled up to the side of the alley. At the sound of the door opening, both Peter and the giant stopped and turned to look. Coming out of the black car was a man with blue fur, and a bald man in a wheelchair.

"Peace. Stop hurting this child at once!" Baldie yelled out.

The giant grumbled and yelled back in a sweeter sounding voice than should have been possible, "Oh, me and my son are just taking a walk sir!"

Baldie narrowed his eyes at the giant. "Your mind tricks are useless against me. Go begone!"

The Cyclops was getting angry. "Make me old man!"

Said old man smirked and concentrated his eyes on the beast. Soon the Cyclops began to stumble around. His knees bent and he fell to the concrete. His hands started to come up and hit his own face. After about three minutes of this self pain, the giant just flopped onto the ground not moving.

Peter froze. "Wh-what'd you do to him?"

"Oh he's not dead, yet at any rate. I merely erased his memory of how to walk and talk. He's no more a threat to you or me than a tree."

The blue man laughed. "Yes, Professor. Except when some telekinetic kid starts throwing the tree around."

Rolling his eyes, the man in the wheelchair introduced himself and his partner, "I'm sorry, we haven't met properly. I'm Professor Charles Xavier of Xavier's School for Gifted Children, and this is my colleague, Doctor Hank McCoy. Would you mind if went to your home to talk to you and your guardian?"

"Umm… Can I get back to you on that Professor? Aunt May is working late tonight. Perhaps you could come over next Sunday?"

Charles smiled. "Sure, I just need your name and address and I'll meet with you and your Aunt on Sunday. This has been a stressful day for you hasn't it? It might be good for you to have some downtime to process everything. Something like this is a big shock to the system."

"Thank you, Professor," Peter smiled back.