not edited
Wendy once again found herself in the back of the rental car, only this time they had a new passenger. Somehow they had managed to convince Peter to get into the car, and now he was sat in the middle seat, between her and Hank, tapping his fingers and his foot, bumping his leg into her's over and over again.
They had a few hours to kill before they got to D.C, and Wendy knew it would be hell for him. Now, all she really had to decide however was whether she wanted to keep her new friend company or sleep the trip off.
She stared at him in consideration.
Wendy didn't really make friends easily – well, she could, she kind of just did with Peter if she was reading this right, and it wasn't like she was horrible and bitchy, but more than most everyone else just seemed to get bored with her. Not even the other um... hippies? We're they hippies? Could she be considered a hippy? Wendy would totally be up for wearing flowers and flowy dresses and or skirts/pants if they didn't look so bad with her leather jacket. Whatever it was, not even the other hippies liked hanging out with her.
Apparently she was too weird, too quiet and laidback, just plain different from them. And then there were her eyes. Like how Peter's hair was bright and silver and simply not normal, hers were unnaturally gold and vibrant, it's why she was always wearing sunglasses.
So really, it was them that couldn't make friends. Wendy was an incredibly laid back and chill person, it wasn't her fault that she wasn't as adventurous and wild as her year group. She was nice, her jacket and perceived 'don't give a fuck' attitude did not mean she was bad.
Then again… Wendy didn't actually care whether she had friends or not. She was perfectly fine being alone, as long as she had her siblings she was okay. But she didn't think she'd mind if she had someone she could hang out with. Wendy eyed Peter closer, more thoughtfully. Maybe it would be different with him? They were both different from other teenagers, with the whole mutant powers thing.
Decision made, Wendy scratched her head before waving her hand in the air lazily. Time seemed to slow, almost to a stop, and Peter now moved at a pace that was just slightly above the average persons. Instead of a quick bobbing blur, he looked like any normal bored teenager, staring up at the ceiling with a resolute pout.
Wendy kicked his shin. "Hey."
He blinked and rolled his head towards her. His eyes lit up. "You!"
Wendy sunk deeper into her seat. "Me, yeah."
"How do you do that? You never answered me! Like, I don't get it?" Peter's face scrunched up. Wendy was momentarily confused. Do what…? "Sometimes you keep up with me, like right now, but then other times your just as slow as everyone else?"
She mouthed 'oh' in realisation. "I don't, move fast, not normally but I can if I want I guess? It's more like I speed up my perception of time, or I just slow everything but myself down." Wendy shrugged, fixing him with a small smile. Explaining her 'power' generally required effort, she wasn't a scientist, she couldn't be sure that what she was saying was actually right, but if she wanted to make next many hours at his pace bearable, she may as well give it her all and get along with him. "I can sort of control time, among other things in that regard."
"Control time, huh? That's pretty neat, and all I do here is run and have silver hair." He grinned, teasing himself though Wendy noted the slight hunch in his shoulders. She stored that away for later.
"Run and steal Twinkies?" Wendy raised a brow.
He shrugged in a 'what can you do?' gesture. "That too, yeah."
"I see," she said with visible amusement.
Peter grinned and ran a pale hand through his silver unruly hair. "So, uh, I don't think I've ever seen you at school?" there was a hint of something in his voice that Wendy was unable decipher.
"I don't live around here, so I wouldn't be at your school."
"Oh, yeah, I guess not," Peter was jittery again, having seemed to calm down when talking to her though now it was back.
She eyed him thoughtfully. "You okay there? You keep uh, moving. Bored?"
His eyes darted to hers for a second before they roamed all around the inside and outside of the car. He shrugged. "Yeah, well, when everything is this slow, all the time, it gets pretty boring. There's nothing to do. It takes people sooo long to even blink!"
Wendy grimaced, understanding perfectly what he meant. If she was getting this right, it hadn't even been a minute or so in the normal time stream humans traveled within (was time stream even even the right word? Wendy didn't know, but it sounded probable, so she'd used it). She patted him on the arm, sympathizing. If she had to spend the rest of her life like this, all the patience in the world wouldn't help her get through this crap.
The two teens slumped into their seats. The eternity long drive Wendy spent all of it in Peter's perception. They talked about almost everything. Wendy's family, Peter's mom and his two sisters, what classes they took at school and what they liked to do; at one point they'd had a competition to who'd gotten the most detentions and who got a detention for the most ridiculous stunt – Peter won, of course, all Wendy ever got detentions for were for being late, sleeping late, and kicking the nuts of irritating school football players.
It was the least she could do; the guy basically hadn't even known there were other people – 'mutants' – with powers besides his sister, plus, Wendy kind of had a bleeding heart, even though she rarely interacted with anyone at her school. Kicking bullies in the nuts was enough socialization for her.
By the time they'd gotten to D.C, Wendy figured they were friends now, and it was late out. She along with Peter had slept for what might've been around about twelve hours? She wasn't too sure, and wasn't exactly bothered in trying to calculate how much time in the time stream they had sat through translated to everyone else's.
She rubbed her eyes, stretching out like a cat before turning to Peter and clumsily patting him on the head. He was snoring, nose nuzzled into Hank's shoulder to which she was pretty sure the scientist hadn't noticed.
"Dude," she sighed, still out of it. She blinked blearily, "s'time to get up."
Peter grumbled and dug his head further. Wendy rolled her eyes and kicked him in the shin again, only harder this time. He waved his arm out in a pathetic attempt to shoo her away.
Grumbling herself, Wendy did what she normally did when her siblings wouldn't wake up – she stuck her pinky in her bottle of water, then stuck it in his ear.
Peter jumped out of his seat, flinging an arm in her face. Wendy sniggered at his disgusted face, mouth open in a frown and looking like he was about to gag as he desperately wiped at his ear. He shot her a betrayed look, and said, "You, are an evil person. Eeevviilll."
Wendy simply sent him a lopsided smirk, opening the door as soon as the car stopped and tipping some water over her finger so she could clean it. "I told you to wake up. Not my fault you didn't listen."
Peter looked crushed. "But a wet willy?"
"At least it wasn't a purple nurple," Wendy said, like that would make it better. Peter blanched and pulled his open jacket together firmly.
Wendy rolled her eyes, ducking out of the car when she felt the strong urge to grin. She squinted, surveying the motel and parked cars.
Around her time sped up. A dog was barking, smoke was rising up into the night sky in fogs, and several motorbikes revved in the distance.
Peter appeared next to her, seemingly gotten over her wake up call and was eyeing the scene just as doubtfully as she was. He called behind him to the guys getting out of the car, "Hey, are you guys sure this is the right place?"
Wendy eyed the building. She hadn't even known D.C had little bar and motels like this one. She'd always imagined all of it as a city – like, no houses and little suburbs, just city and skyscraper.
"Yep, this is it." Logan grunted, slamming the doors shut and locking the car before making his way past the lingering people towards the entrance.
Charles… still looked miserable, Hank looked just as unsure as she felt, clutching at his sweater with strained hands, and Peter sent her a dubious look. Wendy shrugged and walked up the crunching gravel path. Peter stuck behind her, taking it slow. She bet it must've been excruciating and silently patted him on the arm for support again.
They rented out two rooms, one for her and one for the guys. It wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, Wendy inspected the bathroom, before leaving her room altogether and stepping inside the guys'.
"So," she said, hands on her hips. "what's the plan?"
Wendy sighed, drumming her fingers over the steering wheel of the car that Charles had trusted her with in boredom. So apparently, during this part of their plan to save the future, she was useless. The getaway driver, she grumbled silently. And she had really wanted to help them break into the Pentagon…
Wendy leaned back further into her seat, playing with the keys absentmindedly. When Logan had told her she could give them a chance when they fucked up, this was not the time they would fuck up. He'd seemed absolutely sure that they'd get this Erik guy out of his prison – the one made out of concrete and sand and glass, some hundred or whatever floors below the ground – without her as a safety measure.
Men, she rolled her eyes. She paused thoughtfully, because they did have Peter after all, and just this morning – like, three in the morning – he'd dragged her out to buy – yeah, they'd actually bought, with actual money instead of just stealing – a roll of duct tape and a bunch of late night/early morning snacks. Wendy had to concede that with Peter there they probably wouldn't need her that much. But still!
Wendy's time to shine would be later, in Europe later, at that Peace conference in Paris. She was the insurance – the chance of screwing up was higher in Paris than it was here, and if they did, she would one of two things: send her mind back to her limit and either warn the guys about what they'd done wrong so they could avoid and or fix it, or do that but keep the knowledge to herself and subtly guide them away from what bad choices they made. They hadn't wanted to leave that type of responsibility into her hands, not because they didn't trust her, but because she was just a kid, a teen in their eyes. Charles was adamant that if something went wrong, it was Erik's fault.
He was a metal controller, fancied himself the name Magneto, and was dangerous. They didn't trust him one bit. Logan had told her the story, she knew what happened, and was perfectly compliant when Charles asked them not to reveal what she could do, or at least keep hidden as much as she could. He was majorly paranoid though he kept it well hidden, but Wendy figured if she had to seek out the help of an ex-friend that had caused her paralysis from the waist down she would be too.
Wendy could see that it pained the guys to leave it in her hands, they didn't want to put that sort of pressure on her, but the way she saw it, they'd have no choice. Wendy understood their worries – all of them – perfectly and was already preparing herself for the worst. She wouldn't tell a soul about what happened if anything did and she was forced to go back.
Wendy got comfortable, a foot on the dashboard and another on her seat as she gazed out the window. It was early noon, warm yellow rays spilling across sharp white buildings, the lively green grass of the Pentagon's lawn, the variety of coloured cars parked and driving, and all the tourists milling about and having picnics. She played with the binoculars hanging around her neck.
She was staring at the daunting building in the distance when she heard her cue: a wailing alarm, loud, clear, and most likely making everyone in the buildings heart race. People rushed out like a herd, stumbling and running away as fast as they could to the safety site.
Wendy waited several minutes before Hank radioed in, telling her get the car ready for driving. Her nerves lit on fire as she started the car, hands placed firmly on the wheel and her foot hovering over the pedal. The anticipation was killing her, and when she flicked a glance out the window she jumped, startled to see Peter's face looking inside.
She unlocked the doors and he deposited a pale Charles looking like a drowned cat in the passenger seat. She hesitated before giving him a good pat on the shoulder, immediately knowing that the reason why he felt so sick was because of the speed in which Peter ran. "You'll get over the nausea… probably." She tried sympathising. She hadn't been expecting it either when Peter had zoomed them both to that twenty-four-hour store at three in the morning.
Charles gave her a pointed look before sighing loftily into his seat. In the back the seats were filling up quickly with green and nauseated men. Peter sat on the floor of the backseat, face poking between the two front seats, beaming wide as he gazed out the front window, and yelled, "Step on it!"
Wendy did exactly that.
Five minutes after the Pentagon's initial alarm went off they were hightailing it out of there.
