Julie returned to the Boarding House that night with an arm full of grocery bags. Everyone was in the living room watching TV when she entered. Pietro heard the fridge open and close, causing him to zip into the kitchen. He watched her put stuff into the cupboards and fridge in amazement.
"What're you doing?" he asked. His absence in the room had drawn attention of the others, causing them to follow him. They, too, watched in awe as this new girl moved about.
"Not starving," Julie responded. Turning around she saw two new faces. The big guy carried enough weight that she realized she had not bought enough food. The other was lanky, pale and stunk lightly. He was crouched down, almost like a frog. "Hi, I'm Julie."
"Oh, yeah," Pietro said, "this is Toad and Blob."
"What's up?" the one called Toad asked.
"How did you get home?" Lance asked. "And what took you so long? You've been gone a while."
"I had to make a few stops and then I walked home. Thank goodness for GPS on my phone."
"Well look at Ms. Fancypants," Pietro said. "So, how was school? You run into any of those goody two shoe X-Men? They think they run that place, but we could take them any day."
"If you mean those kids from the Xavier Institute, then yeah, I did. I have at least of them in each class. Even gym. They seem nice enough. What's your tiff with them?"
"Oh, don't get me started," Pietro said. "They're the reason we got kicked out, you know?"
"Really?" Julie said, feigning interest. Something told her that wasn't exactly how things went down.
"If they hadn't just let us do things our way..."
"Man, we still would have been kicked out," Lance said. "All of us, including the X-Men."
"Yeah, it's all Principal Kelly's fault!" Toad said.
"Were they going to not allow mutants to attend school here?" Julie asked.
"Yeah, they held a meeting and everything about it," Blob said.
"That's just wrong," Julie said. She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. "There shouldn't have been a vote at all. I understand that mutants are starting to come out, but that doesn't mean we're something society can ignore. We are intelligent human beings who have every right that they do. Ugh, it just boils my blood."
"Didn't it happen where you used to live?" This was the first time Wanda had said independently towards her.
"No. I was the only mutant who went to school that we knew of. And nobody had a problem so long as I didn't use my powers during school hours. It seemed fair."
"Well, now we're trying to get in with this guy, Magneto." Julie froze at Magneto's name, but quickly recovered. She didn't think they noticed.
"He's our father," Pietro said, waving a thumb between him and Wanda.
"Yeah, and he's one bad ass mutant. He wants to make sure everybody knows that we mutants are the superior race," Toad said. He was getting a little hoppy.
"But we're not," Julie said. "We're equal. That's the problem with this whole mess. Each side is trying to prove that one is better than the other, when in actuality, we could all get along if everyone just agreed that we were all equal. It's like racism except it's...mutationism..."
"But we could crush those humans anytime we wanted to," Toad said.
"Why does everyone want to make a fight out of this?" Julie said, getting exasperated. She didn't notice, but the others in the room saw the cupboards begin to rattle.
Pietro leaned over and whispered to Lance, "That's not you, is it?"
Lance shook his head.
"I mean, I just don't see why everyone can't get along! This whole idea that we have to battle out to see who's the superior species is so stupid! Sure, the humans are just as bad, but we don't need to make it worse!" Julie's fists were clenched, and the table and chairs in the middle of the room slowly began to lift off the floor.
"Whoa, sorry, didn't mean to strike a nerve," Toad said.
Julie blinked, as if she were opening her eyes and saw that the whole room was nearly shaking. She unclenched her fists and took a deep breath. The room stilled. "Sorry. Sometimes I get worked up and it just takes over..."
I have got to stop doing that!
"Noted. Don't tick Julie off." The guys all snickered. Pietro zipped over to Julie and put an arm around her. "You just might fit in here."
Do I want to?