"Top shelf," Charles said as Peter paused and tried to remember where to place Art of Attack. "I'm surprised those books came in handy for you. I didn't take you for a reader."
"I'm not," Peter said, zipping past Charles and putting another book away.
"And you're certain that Erik has no knowledge of your . . . relationship to him?"
Peter laughed, pausing before putting five books away in a second. "If he does, it'd be a surprise to me. Why? Have you been inside his mind? Do you know something I don't, Wheelchair? Do you? Do you?"
Charles shook his head. "I don't read people's minds like you do chess books, Peter. Besides, I'd rather stay out of Erik's head."
Peter sagged a bit. "So you don't know."
"I have my suspicions, but—"
"For being able to read people's minds, you're no help at all," Peter said.
Charles grinned a bit. "You don't believe that, Peter."
Peter blinked. He should've known better than to lie to a mind reader. "I thought you said you don't read minds on a daily basis."
"Just because I don't, doesn't mean I can't. It is my mutant ability, Peter. Why don't you try living a day at normal speed for once?"
Peter shook his head. "Already have; I'll pass." Checking his watch, Peter saw that it was noon on the dot. Realizing that lunchtime was here, Peter raced from the study toward the kitchen. After being here for two weeks, Peter had learned that Erik always ate breakfast at exactly seven, lunch at noon, and dinner at six. Peter ate whenever he was hungry, but he could always join his team, and his father, for the respective times that normal people ate at. Peter, being a speedster, didn't favor a schedule at all, but he wanted to be in the kitchen at noon because . . . well . . .
Now in the kitchen, Peter saw that practically all of his team minus Hank were busy eating lunch. Erik was eating as well, and Peter joined them all at the table with two dozen chili dogs just as Erik was in the middle of taking a drink of water. Peter's sudden materialization beside him caused Erik to spill water all over himself. Lucky Peter was there to save the day. He took the glass out of Erik's hands, grabbed a towel to wipe up the falling spill, then set Erik's drink on the table. There. Done.
"Morning, everyone. Hey, Magnet," Peter said.
Erik looked at his hands then to Peter, grunting once before picking up his glass and taking another sip. "Do you always enter a room with such fanfare?"
Peter nodded, shoving a chili dog into his mouth. "That's just who I am." He turned to the rest of the team. "Hey, guys. Guess what?"
"What, Pete?" Scott asked.
"I just beat Magnet here at chess."
"I vought he vas a chess master," Kurt said.
"He is. Well, was," Peter said, smirking a bit. "But I beat him by practicing my legs off." Peter glanced over at Erik to see that Erik had his eyebrows furrowed in slight displeasure. Instantly, Peter was there to rib him. "Hey, come on, Magnet. Come on. Come on, you know I'm just messing with you."
Erik said nothing, but he used his powers to pull a stained German half dollar coin from his pocket and morph it so that it spelled the words, Shut up before reverting the coin back to normal.
Now everyone was laughing, and in that instant, Hank ran into the room, obviously excited about something.
"What's up, Furry?" Peter asked, taking a drink of soda from the liter he'd gotten from the fridge.
Hank looked as though he'd just found out that his mutation no longer included living life as a Smurf. "I did it," he said proudly. "It's finished."
"What's finished?" Raven asked.
Hank rubbed his hands together in excitement. "I updated the cloaking mechanism for the plane."
"Wait, we need to disguise ourselves when we fly around in a plane?" Peter asked. "What are we doing, something illegal?"
Hank looked at Peter, slightly annoyed. "It's for undercover missions and stealth."
"Sure, it is," Peter said, balancing the vase that was sitting on the table on the tip of his finger.
"I've worked on updating the plane's stealth device for the last two weeks," Hank said, grinning and looking around the room as though everyone else would realize the horrendous amount of work he'd just accomplished. "It's finally ready. Do you guys want to see it?"
Peter shrugged, eating another hot dog and glancing around the table to see what everyone else's plans were before he made his decision.
"I'll come," Raven said, leaping up.
"Let's go," Jean said.
"It's not like there's anything important going on," Scott said, standing up as well.
Peter remained nonchalant and seated, still not answering.
"It vould be fascinating to see," Kurt said, vanishing and reappearing beside Hank.
"I'm up for it," Ororo said.
Erik finished the last bite of food on his plate before wiping his mouth with a napkin and nodding. "All right."
"Sweet," Peter said, up in a blink. "Let's check it out."
Soon, everyone, including Charles, were standing inside the plane Hank had modified, admiring the changes he'd made.
Peter, however, yawned slightly. The plane looked the same, except for this apparent "cloaking technology" Furry had updated. Aside from that, things were kind of boring.
" . . . I even developed an alternate power source so that the cloaking would be able to last for up to twelve hours, even running partly off the fuel line of the plane itself."
"Fascinating," Charles said. "You've been working on this for the last week?"
"Actually, two weeks, but . . . yeah," Hank said.
"And this ability will last for twelve hours?"
"In theory," Hank said. "I haven't tested it out yet."
"Why don't we try it right now?" Charles asked. "This could come in handy if it actually works."
Hank's eyes glowed. "Really? I can take it out?"
"Of course," Charles said. He turned to the rest of the team. "Are you all up for a short trip?"
"I don't see why not," Raven said, sitting in the chair next to Hank.
"Sure," Jean said.
Charles glanced at Erik, and Peter saw Erik nod and grinned himself.
Now giddy with excitement, Hank got up and walked toward the cockpit to start the plane.
"Dude, you need a girlfriend," Peter said, zipping over to Hank as he began to start the plane. "Spending all your time around planes is just pathetic."
Hank blushed a bit, then glanced over at Raven who was now talking to Ororo and blushed deeper. "Whatever," he muttered.
Peter placed his music into his ears, pausing as his stomach growled. Hungry. Right. All he'd eaten was a snack. He probably should've eaten that pot roast and the other two dozen hot dogs before getting on the plane. "This hunk of metal's got food, right?"
"Yeah," Hank said absently, starting up the engines.
Peter nodded, then returned to the belly of the plane and sat down next to Erik, taking out a single ear bud. "Didn't bring your chessboard, huh?"
"It'll only be a few hours," Erik said.
"A few hours of nothing to do," Peter said, yawning again.
"At least Baldy over there isn't bored," Scott said, pointing over to where Charles was listening intently to Hank's explaining the inner workings of the cloaking mechanism.
"I heard that," Charles said, glancing over in Scott's direction.
Scott panicked for a moment, then nudged Jean who was sitting beside him. Jean laughed.
"So are ve taking a trip avound the vorld?" Kurt asked.
"Probably several times just to make sure our cloak will hold," Hank said.
"By then we'll all be dying of boredom," Peter muttered.
"I can fix vat," Kurt said. In an instant, he disappeared. The plane was just in the middle of taking off when Kurt suddenly returned, holding a chessboard.
"Thanks, Circus," Peter said, glancing at Erik. "At least now we have something to do."
"You really can't just sit still and do nothing, can you?" Erik asked.
"Course not; I'm a speedster. That'd be like telling you to stop pulling submarines from the water," Peter said.
Erik rolled his eyes, then brought the chessboard over with a flick of his finger and levitated it in the air as he made the first move.
"How long have you been playing chess, anyway?" Peter asked as he made the second move.
"On and off for five years," Erik said, moving as well.
"Yeah? Did you ever manage to beat Charles?"
"Only once when he couldn't read my mind," Erik said.
"I never read your mind, Erik," Charles said from inside the cockpit. "I've just been playing longer than you."
"You know I would never believe that, James Dean," Erik said with a bit of a grin.
"Who's James Dean?" Peter asked, moving another piece forward.
"Charles' alter ego," Erik snorted.
"Wouldn't that be something," Charles said. "A bald cripple by day, a million dollar actor by night."
Peter frowned as he and Erik began their fourth chess game. Now quite hungry, Peter raced once around the plane, then did the same again before rushing into the cockpit, crossing his arms as he stood next to Hank. "Hey, Furry. I thought you said there was food here."
Hank looked away from the pressure gauge and up to Peter. "What? I never said that."
"Yes, you did," Peter said, now getting a bit angry. "Where's the food in this place?"
"Peter, there's no food here," Hank said, reaching over to inspect how much power the cloaking device still had. "It's not a kitchen."
Peter returned to his seat next to Erik in an instant, throwing a dirty glance toward the cockpit before moving his castle forward. "Furry said there was food in this hunk of metal," Peter growled. "He lied."
"Don't worry about it," Scott said, leaning back and stretching so his arm went around Jean's shoulders. "We'll be back in a few hours. The mansion's got food; don't sweat it."
"While I'm busy waiting, why don't I just take those shades off your face and see how you deal with that?" Peter spat.
"Dude, chill," Scott said. "It's not like you're starving or anything."
"Like you'd know," Peter growled. He felt horrible. Sick and weak. Suddenly, he remembered that there were other members on his team who could help. "Hey, Circus," he said.
"Yes?" Kurt said.
"How far do your teleportation abilities go?"
"About one hundred miles. Why?"
Well, that ruined his plan of teleporting to the mansion; they weren't anywhere near the mansion. He wouldn't dare leap from a moving plane and try to hit the ground running; the last time he'd done that from his mother's car, he'd nearly gotten himself killed. Peter rubbed his neck. "Could you teleport someone to the ground from inside the plane?"
Kurt looked a bit worried at the thought. "If I didn't see vere I vas teleporting to, I could very easily end up in a tree."
That wasn't going to work, either. He didn't want to end up with his arm in a tree or his leg partway under the earth. He'd already had his leg broken once; it was not going to be broken again. Moving another chess piece, Peter looked again at the rest of his team, pausing as his eyes fell on Jean. "Red."
"Yeah?" Jean asked.
"How good are you at levitating people?"
Jean blinked. "Not good. I can lift heavy things easily enough, but holding them steady takes an enormous amount of concentration. The only time I can ever levitate myself without much difficulty is in my sleep."
Scott was hanging on Jean's every word, but Peter had tuned her out the instant she had given him a negative response to his question. He found himself having to fight not to get exasperated. Could no one help him?
"Peter."
Peter's gaze snapped over to Erik. "What?" he asked sharply.
Erik glanced down at the chessboard, and Peter realized it was his turn. Sighing once, Peter took his turn then was in the cockpit again. "How long until we land? How long?"
"We've got . . . five hours of power left, in theory," Hank said.
Peter's eyes widened. "We can't land for five hours? Are you serious?"
"If we land, we'll have to shut off the cloaking device and start all over for recalibration. If we land now, the systems would reboot, there would be a power swap between the fuel lines and the cloaking mechanism, and the entire thing would be a dud," Hank said, sounding a bit exasperated. "We're checking to see if this could be helpful in an infiltration situation here, Peter. This isn't some game."
Hunger practically tore at Peter now, but his mind still raced. If only he could get them to land, then . . . "Well, why can't you just land, recalibrate everything, and take off again? Or just take note of how much power the cloaking mechanism had before you landed and go from there?"
"Recalibrating would take too long," Hank said. "Besides, twenty-five percent of fuel power goes to cloaking abilities every three hours or so. If we've been running this thing at full power for nine hours at twenty-five percent fuel swap, that means that seventy-five percent of our fuel will be gone. If we stopped the plane now, when the plane started up again the cloaking device would only be able to run at the maximum amount of fuel that was remaining, which was twenty-five percent. Twenty-five percent of cloaking ability won't help in a life-or-death situation or an infiltration."
Peter turned to Charles. "Baldy, can't we stop?"
Charles turned to Peter with a slight frown. "I told you not to call me that, Peter."
"Come on, Wheelchair," Peter said, inhaling deeply. "Can't you stop this plane?"
Charles was about to turn back to Hank but paused. "Peter, is there something the matter?"
"I'm starving," Peter said through gritted teeth.
Peter was surprised, however, when Charles simply chuckled slightly. "I don't think you're emaciated yet, Peter. You practically eat me out of the Institute every day, consuming at least two tons of food at every meal. Five hours will be over soon enough. Then you'll be able to eat as much as a herd of blue whales."
Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing. How dare Charles tell him that he was fine! Charles wasn't him! Charles didn't know about his speedster metabolism! Now both infuriated and fatiguing quickly from hungry, Peter walked over to his seat next to Erik's, not caring to expend extra energy and race over with his powers. He sat down, briefly worked a fingernail in-between his two front teeth, then took his hands away as he moved another chess piece.
If Peter had had a mirror with him, he might've seen how ghostly pale he was, and if he'd thought to inspect his stomach at the time of his immense hunger, he would've seen ribs becoming more and more visible with each passing second. Finally, it drew the attention of the rest of his team.
"Whoa, Pete," Scott said. "You don't look so hot."
Peter sent a glare of death over toward Scott. "Hungry," he muttered. He glanced over and saw Erik looking at him again, and he glared at him. "What?" he asked. "I just took my turn, Magnet. It's your turn now." Peter watched Erik blink once and return his focus to the chess board. Turning away from the chessboard, Peter stared at the wall of the plane, furious with everyone around him. Why couldn't any of his teammates help him? Didn't they see he was starving? Why had Hank lied about there being food on the plane, and why did Charles think it wasn't a big deal that he was famished? Would he really starve in the middle of half a dozen or so mutants? Did they just not see the danger, or were they all just —
"Charles, land this plane," Erik said suddenly.
"Didn't you listen to Hank? Besides that, we in a Russian forest, Erik," Charles said. "It's not like there's a landing pad ready and waiting for us."
"I told you to land this plane, Charles," Erik said.
"And I'm telling you, it's not going to happen. Peter can wait for his midday snack."
Erik sighed and got up, and Peter simply ignored Erik and rested his face on his fist. He couldn't take five more hours. He couldn't even take five more minutes. He could feel his metabolism starting to crash as it screamed for food yet got nothing. Why did everyone treat it as though it weren't that big of a deal? Didn't they know how his metabolism worked? For him, three hours without food was the same as two weeks for a normal individual! He could easily starve in a day! In four hours!
Out of nowhere, the plane lurched and stopped moving, and everyone was thrown to the floor. Peter, using both mutant powers and adrenaline, landed in a runner's starting position.
"What did we hit?" Raven asked.
"Are we being attacked?" Ororo asked.
Peter was already on his feet, seeing Erik in the center of the plane with his hands extended and confused as to why Erik hadn't fallen over as well. Almost instantly, Charles was out of the cockpit, yelling,
"Erik! Are you mad?"
"If you would care about the state of your team for one second, Charles, I wouldn't have to do this," Erik said.
"Just because one of us is a little bit peckish doesn't give you right to put us all in danger!" Charles shouted. "Going from one hundred thousand miles an hour to a complete standstill isn't something that's very safe!"
"Are you doubting my mutant abilities, Charles?" Erik asked as the plane began descending to the forest below.
"No, just your sanity," Charles muttered, rubbing his head and wincing a bit.
"Well then, that makes two of us," Erik said as the plane touched down. "I stop a plane; you refuse to help a teammate in need."
Peter thought he heard a bit of anger in Erik's voice, but he was too concerned about his immense hunger to care.
"Don't start with me, Erik. There's a big difference between actual need and just idle complaining."
"So Peter was just complaining?" Erik asked. "Not starving? Just like all the rest? It wasn't a real threat?"
"You crippled me!" Charles yelled. "You left me; left all of us!"
"And you didn't help a teammate when they needed you!" Erik shot back. "For being a mind reader you certainly don't pay attention! Just because you feel sorry for yourself, doesn't give you the right—"
"Oh, like you should talk about what's right!" Charles shouted. "You killed all those men—"
"—to abandon those who need you!" Erik roared. "Gone! All gone because you couldn't think, for one second, about anyone else except yourself! And after all these years, it's still the same? You're just going to let someone starve because you won't take what they say seriously? Are you still that selfish?!"
Peter looked up. He thought he could hear metal bending. Was the floor shifting?
"Peter's not starving!" Charles yelled. "He's just being a pain in the—"
Erik pointed over at Peter, and Peter raised his hand a bit before sitting down hard due to hunger. "Actually, Magnet's right," Peter said slowly. "My metabolism's . . . pretty fast, and if I don't eat every hour or so I'll"— Peter blinked hard to clear his vision, —"get pretty hungry."
Charles' face blanched when he saw Peter. "My goodness. Peter, you look — why didn't you tell me about this?"
"He did," Erik said, using his powers to forcefully open the ramp of the plane. "You just refused to listen."
Charles sighed, and he put his hands up in defeat. "All right, all right. I've been a real idiot. Not just stupid, but selfish as well. Forgive me, Erik, Peter. Hopefully I haven't caused irreversible damage already."
Peter, slowly getting up, tested his powers for a few moments before taking a deep breath. "Nope, you're good. Caught it just in time. Any longer and I'd be in a coma." He glanced over at Erik. "Thanks, Magnet."
Erik nodded, and then Peter was gone, speeding through the forest and already tasting something, anything, on his lips. He'd even take vegetables at this point. Peter's nose alerted him to a smokehouse nearby, and instantly he was there, opening the door and grinning at all the smoked meats that were hung out. It was paradise, and within a blink, Peter had gotten his fill with a side of wild boar, some two hundred smoked sausages, and eighteen whole pheasant. After sighing once, he was gone and back in the plane, looking at both Erik and Charles and tapping one foot all the while. "Come on, hurry up. Don't we have to get out of here? Come on, come on. Let's go."
The plane took off a minute later. Peter sat back down and made another chess move while Erik and Charles continued talking.
"Hopefully next time you'll take a teammate's problem seriously," Erik said.
"Hopefully you'll give me a warning before you bring a plane going one hundred thousand miles an hour to a standstill," Charles said, rubbing his head again. "I think half of my powers went with that blow to my head."
"At least then our chess games will be fair," Erik said.
"Shut up." Charles, glancing one more time at Erik, went back into the cockpit and monitored the state of the plane as Erik and Peter continued their chess game.
"So, are you guys like friends or enemies?" Peter asked.
"Friends," Erik answered. Then he paused and changed his answer. "Both."
"It seems to me like you two run the gauntlet," Peter said as his bishop captured Erik's rook. "One moment you're like, buddies, then the next you're, well, doing that freaky plane thing."
"Such is the friendship between two mutants who don't see eye-to-eye on several very important topics," Erik said.
"Like turkey sandwiches," Charles called out from the cockpit.
Erik captured Peter's bishop with his knight. "It's an issue that rocked the world," he muttered.
Peter could hear Charles laughing, and everyone in the plane was laughing as well. Peter and Erik continued their game, and after the game was over, Peter blamed his chess loss on the hunger he'd felt and the poor start he'd had in the game. He said nothing, however, when he knocked over his king and they played again.
"Peter, if you're ever that hungry again, please let me know," Charles said as they returned to the mansion some time later and exited the plane.
Peter pulled an ear bud out of his ear, grinning and glancing over at Erik. "Hopefully next time you'll listen, or else Magnet here will have to get your attention."
"If it comes to that, can you get my attention a little bit less painfully?" Charles asked.
Erik shrugged. "I can't make any promises. Who knows? If you ignore one of us again, I just might . . . " Erik extended a hand, and Peter couldn't hold back his laughter as Charles' wheelchair lifted several feet into the air, wobbling once.
"Erik!" Charles yelled.
Erik set Charles back down, and Charles clutched his chest and glared at Erik.
"Now that you're done giving me a heart attack," Charles muttered, "I'm going to go eat something." Charles wheeled off.
"The kitchen's the other way, old friend," Erik called out.
Charles paused, blushed, then turned around and went the opposite direction, muttering a few words under his breath that caused Erik and Peter alike to laugh quite a bit.
"We'd better show him the way to the kitchen," Peter said, grinning and walking after Charles. "He might've forgotten with that blow to the head."
"I think you're right," Erik said.
Peter grinned again as the two of them walked after Charles, and he found himself glancing over at Erik for no real reason whatsoever. Erik caught his glance.
"What?" Erik asked.
Peter brought his head forward. "Nothing, Magnet," he said airily. Then he grinned again.