------
Author's Note:
Greetings.
Read, REVIEW, and enjoy. ;) Pretty please.
Cheers.
Jack
------
"This place is empty," I said as Summers wheeled me down the hall. I'd declined his offer of a sponge bath. That was just too weird to even consider. I'd figure out how to bathe later. I think he may have been relieved, too, so it was a win-win situation.
"Mr. Cassidy took a group to MOMA [1] in the City for some sort of Celtic Art exhibition," he said brightly. "Ororo and a bunch of others are on the road to Albany for some history display at the museum there."
"Sounds like fun. Guess we have the place to ourselves, eh? Whatever shall we do?"
He laughed. "Not exactly. Doctor MacTaggart is around somewhere and so is the Professor. He wants you to stop by his study for lunch." He paused. "I think Kurt is hanging around somewhere, too."
I ignored that last bit.
I'm sure Xavier wanted me to go into therapy with himself as the shrink. Food was just a clever distraction. I hoped he didn't expect me to just open up and pour my thoughts and feelings out for him to examine in detail. I'm not the most social of people when it comes to talking about what's actually going on inside me. I don't like opening up because that always gives the other person a hold on me.
"But I promised to show you around the mansion," Summers went on. In actuality, I'd seen a pretty good portion of it when I'd been here before the trip to Colorado. In fact, people had pretty much left me alone for those couple of days and I'd had plenty of time to explore. I imagined there were probably a lot of secrets left, but this guy was going to put me to sleep if he was going to go over the mundane aspects of it.
I wanted to see the cool airplane they had, for one. And that super- computer Red always referred to as Cerebro. The dining room, while important in its own right, just didn't have the same excitement factor.
We stopped at the top of that grand staircase in the foyer then Summers turned us around. "I think someone mentioned you're a video game freak. We've got a pretty extensive collection in the rec room." He started pushing me down the hall, back the way we'd come. I didn't object. The longer he took giving me the grand tour, the longer I could put off talking to Xavier.
Whoever told him about my passion for video games wasn't joking, either. We hadn't had a console system at the Brotherhood house so I'd usually spend my spare time knocking over pay telephones and taking the quarters to the mall arcade. Gave me something to do on rainy days, you know? I wondered if my record on Mortal Kombat had been beaten yet.
The recreation room, it turned out, was a long room at the end of the hall. French windows on the wall opposite the door overlooked the wide expanse of the backyard, letting sunlight stream into the room. Bookshelves lined the other walls along. There was various furniture scattered about as well, which made sense. I tried to imagine this place filled with Xavier's students. Yeah, I could see why there was a lot of seating in here.
There was a pool table at one end of the room next to a smaller snooker table. The other end was anchored by the biggest and most elaborate home entertainment system I'd ever seen. I was pretty sure that the television alone was taller than I was, had I been standing. In between were more tables - gaming and otherwise - as well as a couple of those dainty little chess tables. I wondered who played chess. Summers, maybe. I looked around the room, a low whistle streaming through my teeth.
"Wow.
I felt Summers' hand on my shoulder. "Think you could find something to distract yourself with in here?"
"Oh, hell yeah." I looked a little closer at the entertainment center. "Is that an Xbox?" I couldn't help snickering when I said it. Figured that the X-Men would have that particular console.
He looked over. "I think so. I don't play with it that much."
"Dude, if you guys have Tao Feng, I think I could find something to keep myself occupied."
He laughed then, a rich and clear sound, and it made my skin crawl. I didn't deal with perkiness that well. Probably had something to do with the disaster also known as 'my life to this point.' I opened my mouth to make a snide comment and decided against it. Summers had too hard a shell to crack with just one remark. Instead, I said: "So how about that lunch?"
"Sure, not a problem." He took hold of my chair again and we started down the hall. He herded us straight toward the grand staircase and I had a thought. It occurred to me that the elevator seemed to be restricted to the underground levels. He confirmed my suspicions at the head of the stairs.
I'd like to point out at this point that there is a reason I'm a slender guy. My metabolism, much like every other part of my body (don't go there, please), operates at an accelerated rate. I don't eat like a bird - I eat like a cow, and yet it doesn't stick to me. Lance had the idea of counting my average caloric intake for a week and the number broke twenty thousand in less than four days. I didn't gain a single pound. In fact, I think I may have lost one. My point is that my girlish figure, for lack of a better term, makes me easy prey for pretty much everyone strong enough to lift a cinder block.
Anyway, Summers proceeded to lift me out of the chair without so much as grunting. He looked down at the chair and for a fleeting moment I seriously thought he was just going to toss me over his shoulder and grab the thing with a free hand. Luckily, he decided against it. The guy made two trips down the stairs, setting me down on the bottom step before going back up.
I suddenly had the urge to try to stand for some reason. Call me stupid, and I know you probably are, but I had to see if I could at least get myself vertical again. So while he was on his way back up, I grabbed the banister with both hands and heaved. Sure, I may have lifted an inch or two off the ground, but that was about it. Let's just say my upper-body strength at that point pretty much sucked.
"What are you doing? You'll hurt yourself," I heard Summers say from above me. I let go the banister and tipped my head back. He'd been standing right behind me, so it wasn't hard to find him. I shrugged.
"I was just seeing if I could move on my own, Slim," I sighed. That the experiment had been a failure hung in the air between us. He just shook his head and echoed my sigh. A couple light steps later, he set the chair down on the marble floor and sat down beside me on the step.
"Look, Pietro," he said and I mentally rolled my eyes. Great, just great. Wasn't one lecture from this stick-in-the-mud enough for one day? I didn't say that out loud, of course. I wasn't really in the mood to hear both a third lecture. I realized I had been lost in my thoughts because he tipped his head and looked a little closer at me. "You're not going to listen to me." He didn't ask, just assumed.
"Just say what you're going to say, Scott, and get it over with would you?" His eyebrows shot up above his red shades. When he didn't say anything further, I poked him in the chest. "Well?"
"When was the last time you called me 'Scott'?" he asked with that surprised look still on his face. That was a good question, actually. I didn't think I'd ever done that before, actually. I mean, I practically had to fight down the urge to call him Mr. Summers most of the time because he acted more mature than most adults in my life. I just looked at him helplessly.
"Never mind, it's not important." Oh, but if the look on his face was any indication, it was. "Come on," he said, lifting me into the chair again. "If you don't show up for lunch with the Professor, he'll probably think I'm deliberately trying to starve you."
I didn't have a ready-made piece of wit with which to respond. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and just let him wheel me into Xavier's office. Turned out it was just a couple rooms away from the lobby, through a large, bare room with empty bookshelves.
The old man was reading through a folder of something when we entered and didn't even look up at first. I'd never been in his office before, so I took a moment to look around. Shelves like the ones in the outer office lined the walls, filled with lots of leather-bound books. Odds and ends dotted the shelves, breaking up the dull brown monotony. There was, for example, a piece of stone at about my eye level and just close enough to pick up. It was smooth and grey on the bottom, but the top was studded with little reddish-pink crystals. I tilted it back and forth in the light, watching the crystals glitter as the sunlight suffused them with a warm glow. Interesting.
I set the stone back on the shelf, looking at the rest of the strange items. There were feathers in colors I'd never seen before arranged in a jar on one shelf. Pictures in small frames took up some of the space. Bits of stone and chunks of metal ore were the overwhelming majority, though. Maybe the guy collected rocks. I heard a shuffle of paper from Xavier's direction and turned as he closed the folder he'd been reading.
"As a matter of fact, I do," he said. I looked blankly at him until I realized he'd been reading my mind. I felt myself start to blush. He went on as though he hadn't noticed: "I dreamt of becoming a geologist in my youth." He gestured for me to hand him the crystal I'd picked up earlier.
"This, for example," he said, turning it in his hands, "is a chunk of amethyst geode, which is a type of quartz. Your father found it while we were out spelunking during spring break nearly twenty years ago." My eyes widened as he mentioned Dad, but I looked away before he noticed. I concentrated on controlling the blush instead, but probably wasn't successful at that either.
"Can we talk about something else, maybe?" I muttered.
He set the rock down on his desk and folded his hands. Summers walked back in at that point with a large tray. Typical luncheon fare. Salads, fresh bread. A couple covered plates that really smelled delicious. A bottle of ginger ale for me; water for him. Neither of us said anything while Summers set it down on the desk.
"Need anything else, Professor?" he asked. Maybe he got merit points or something for sucking up.
"No, thank you Scott. Would you please close the door behind you, though?"
"Sure."
The door closed behind him. It made a very heavy noise and I felt like my fate had been sealed. If Xavier started talking about Magneto, I'd be stuck there listening to him. I looked up to see the guy looking at me, a faint smile playing across his face. It occurred to me that he'd probably been reading my mind.
Xavier arched an eyebrow at me. Jeez! Having a telepath in the house was downright creepy sometimes. I hated it when he or Red poked around in my mind.
"I should have remembered that, Pietro," he said with that almost- smile still in place. He passed a salad plate to me as well as a bottle of bleu cheese dressing. I didn't bother asking how he knew what I liked on my salads.
"Remembered what?" I asked, shaking the bottle. He pulled the covers off each of the plates and my mouth started watering in earnest. At the risk of sounding like I think with my stomach, I'll admit that I can be bought for a good Reuben if it's been prepared right. This one had.
He took a bite of salad, swallowing before speaking. He'd read my mind without thinking twice - no pun intended - but his table manners were excruciatingly formal. I actually moved my elbow off the desk rather than offend his sensibilities.
"I seem to recall a trip to Central Park during which Wanda's favorite doll got lost for over an hour," he said. I frowned, trying to figure out what he was talking about. I'd been to Central Park hundreds of times when I was small. Father seemed to enjoy taking us there for some reason. I hadn't thought about that in years, but after a moment it hit me. I nodded slowly.
"Oh yeah. You picked my brain and told her where I hid the darn thing."
His face lit up like a Christmas tree and it changed his entire demeanor. He looked like a truly different person. He looked like the person I remembered from so long ago. Only with less hair.
"That's right," he said. "You and your sister didn't speak for a week."
I washed down a mouthful of salad. "Is that why we're having this lunch date? You want to talk about the past?" I had a sneaking suspicion that this was indeed the case and my heart sank. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the present. The last thing I wanted was to dredge up old memories of...before.
To my surprise, he shrugged. "Not if you don't feel comfortable, Pietro."
We ate in silence for a few minutes.
"So what are we here for?"
He pushed his plate aside and picked up the folder he'd been reading when I'd come in.
"There are a couple items that you need to consider before too much longer. Principal Kelly has been informed of your injury, though not of its source. He's sent a letter requesting that I inform him of my intention regarding your junior year."
I blinked. "I don't get it."
"He wants to know if you're going to be going to Bayside or if you'll be schooled here at the Institute," he said. Oh. Yeah, that was a hard decision to make. On the one hand, taking classes here would relieve me of having to deal with the scorn and derision my physical status would bring up at the public high school. On the other hand, if I spent all my time in this place, I'd probably go nuts. I hesitated for an instant.
"Uh," I said. There's that eloquence again. "Bayside, I guess."
He didn't argue. "All right, I'll let him know. Getting you to and from school will not be a problem. Both Jean and Scott drive to school already." His brow furrowed and he frowned. "Kurt also has a permit, as he keeps reminding us, but I'd recommend riding with one of the less...impulsive...students instead."
"I'll keep that in mind." The little blue guy was probably going to hold a grudge all year, so I didn't think I had to worry about getting killed by his driving any time soon.
"Now," he went on, "there's also the matter of your interaction with my other students."
I paused in the middle of taking a huge bite from the Reuben and my stomach growled in protest.
"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously. I was rewarded with a stern look that looked hauntingly familiar.
"I think you know what I mean."
I made a production out of chewing, just to give me time to think of a safe answer. Couldn't come up with one. There are days when I wonder if people deliberately in cryptic phrases or if I'm just that dense. This wasn't one of them. I finally settled for telling him what he wanted to hear.
"You mean my attitude."
"Yes, I do." I suddenly realized where Kurt learned that piercing stare and squirmed in my seat. No mean trick for someone who couldn't feel his most of his backside.
"You want me to be nicer to Summers and the rest," I said flatly. Then I laughed. "Man, you don't want much, do you?"
Xavier ignored my sarcasm. "I don't think it's too much, do you?"
"Don't make me answer that. You saw how nice I was being to Summers already, didn't you?" I mean, come on. If he kept a mental eye on me all morning, he had to know that I'd been pretty good. A note of disapproval chimed in my head. Actually, I'd already mouthed off to the guy several times and we hadn't even been awake all that long. And that was just what I'd said out loud. "All right," I grudgingly admitted, "I'll try to be more pleasant." As he started to nod, I hastily added: "But only if he does the same." His eyebrows went up.
"He's a poster boy for the Boy Scouts," I said.
"Eagle Scout, actually."
"What?"
"He's been an Eagle Scout for almost a year now."
Boy, that explained a lot. "His self-righteous attitude drives me up a wall, man. Can't he just tone it down a little?"
"If you really wish, I'll ask him to be a little more abrasive in your presence." Xavier actually smirked at me. "If it would make you more comfortable, that is."
I let that slide.
"All right, all right, I promise I'll do my best to be his buddy." Tell the man what he wants to hear, Pietro, just get him off the subject. Didn't he know when to quit?
"And Kitty?" Apparently not. I blushed again and had to swallow a curse. "And Kurt?"
"All right already!" I snapped. "I said I'd be good. Quit pushing me."
He sat back in his chair, resting his chin on steepled fingers and locking eyes with me. I was getting a little tired of people staring at me like I was some kind of zoo animal. Promises aside, I'd bite the head off the next person who gave me any sort of look. Maybe that's what it would take.
After a while, I just couldn't take his eyes on me any longer and I looked away.
"Pietro," he said quietly.
"What is it now?" As soon as the words slid past my lips, I regretted my tone. My lunch lay in my stomach like a lead weight. I was seriously entertaining the notion of flinging myself out of the chair and crawling under a rock somewhere.
"All things considered I think your 'attitude,' as you put it, is perfectly understandable. In fact, I've already asked my students to be more considerate of your feelings." He leaned forward. I dragged my eyes back to him, though I didn't meet his gaze. I settled for staring at his nose instead. "You're going through a rough time, Pietro, and being angry isn't going to help your recovery."
I laughed and it sounded forced, even to my own ears. "Just angry?"
He smiled slightly. "Would you rather I added: sullen, arrogant, irritable, moody, thin-skinned, and downright rude most of the time?"
"Not particularly, no.
"Then I won't." He sighed. "We're all going to have to adjust to the new...situation...around here. I don't expect you to change overnight, but I do expect a solid effort on your part. Can you do that much for me?"
I nodded, but we were interrupted before I could say anything. The office door swung open and I shot a look in that direction on instinct. Kurt was framed in the doorway, tail twitching with a mind of its own. He started to say something to Xavier and the words died on his lips as he caught sight of me. His expression went carefully blank and his eyes unfocused, as though he was seeing or listening to something I couldn't hear. A moment later, I understood.
'Good. Then you can start by apologizing to Kurt.'
I glared at my godfather. You've got to be kidding me, I thought really loud. Can't we start with something easier? If he heard my attempt at mental communication, it didn't show.
'As I recall, he wants to go to the mall to pick up some school clothes. This would be a good chance for you to get some fresh air, I think.'
I sighed and exchanged a resigned look with the blue guy. Clearly he was as unhappy with Xavier's manipulative tactics as I was. He didn't argue, though, just stalked into the room and wrapped his hands around the handles of my chair.
"If ve're going, ve'd better leave now," he grumped. I poured everything I had into a last pleading look at Xavier. It didn't work. The man just smiled at us both as we left.
"Thanks a whole bunch, Uncle Charles," I muttered darkly as Kurt wheeled me through the mansion. I heard him snort behind me.
"On that ve agree. Danke schön, mein Herr. [2]"
I didn't say another word.
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To Be Continued.
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[1]: MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, is a world-class gallery on Manhattan in New York. No visit to the City is complete without visiting it, I promise you.
[2]: "Thank you very much, sir."
Author's Note:
Greetings.
Read, REVIEW, and enjoy. ;) Pretty please.
Cheers.
Jack
------
"This place is empty," I said as Summers wheeled me down the hall. I'd declined his offer of a sponge bath. That was just too weird to even consider. I'd figure out how to bathe later. I think he may have been relieved, too, so it was a win-win situation.
"Mr. Cassidy took a group to MOMA [1] in the City for some sort of Celtic Art exhibition," he said brightly. "Ororo and a bunch of others are on the road to Albany for some history display at the museum there."
"Sounds like fun. Guess we have the place to ourselves, eh? Whatever shall we do?"
He laughed. "Not exactly. Doctor MacTaggart is around somewhere and so is the Professor. He wants you to stop by his study for lunch." He paused. "I think Kurt is hanging around somewhere, too."
I ignored that last bit.
I'm sure Xavier wanted me to go into therapy with himself as the shrink. Food was just a clever distraction. I hoped he didn't expect me to just open up and pour my thoughts and feelings out for him to examine in detail. I'm not the most social of people when it comes to talking about what's actually going on inside me. I don't like opening up because that always gives the other person a hold on me.
"But I promised to show you around the mansion," Summers went on. In actuality, I'd seen a pretty good portion of it when I'd been here before the trip to Colorado. In fact, people had pretty much left me alone for those couple of days and I'd had plenty of time to explore. I imagined there were probably a lot of secrets left, but this guy was going to put me to sleep if he was going to go over the mundane aspects of it.
I wanted to see the cool airplane they had, for one. And that super- computer Red always referred to as Cerebro. The dining room, while important in its own right, just didn't have the same excitement factor.
We stopped at the top of that grand staircase in the foyer then Summers turned us around. "I think someone mentioned you're a video game freak. We've got a pretty extensive collection in the rec room." He started pushing me down the hall, back the way we'd come. I didn't object. The longer he took giving me the grand tour, the longer I could put off talking to Xavier.
Whoever told him about my passion for video games wasn't joking, either. We hadn't had a console system at the Brotherhood house so I'd usually spend my spare time knocking over pay telephones and taking the quarters to the mall arcade. Gave me something to do on rainy days, you know? I wondered if my record on Mortal Kombat had been beaten yet.
The recreation room, it turned out, was a long room at the end of the hall. French windows on the wall opposite the door overlooked the wide expanse of the backyard, letting sunlight stream into the room. Bookshelves lined the other walls along. There was various furniture scattered about as well, which made sense. I tried to imagine this place filled with Xavier's students. Yeah, I could see why there was a lot of seating in here.
There was a pool table at one end of the room next to a smaller snooker table. The other end was anchored by the biggest and most elaborate home entertainment system I'd ever seen. I was pretty sure that the television alone was taller than I was, had I been standing. In between were more tables - gaming and otherwise - as well as a couple of those dainty little chess tables. I wondered who played chess. Summers, maybe. I looked around the room, a low whistle streaming through my teeth.
"Wow.
I felt Summers' hand on my shoulder. "Think you could find something to distract yourself with in here?"
"Oh, hell yeah." I looked a little closer at the entertainment center. "Is that an Xbox?" I couldn't help snickering when I said it. Figured that the X-Men would have that particular console.
He looked over. "I think so. I don't play with it that much."
"Dude, if you guys have Tao Feng, I think I could find something to keep myself occupied."
He laughed then, a rich and clear sound, and it made my skin crawl. I didn't deal with perkiness that well. Probably had something to do with the disaster also known as 'my life to this point.' I opened my mouth to make a snide comment and decided against it. Summers had too hard a shell to crack with just one remark. Instead, I said: "So how about that lunch?"
"Sure, not a problem." He took hold of my chair again and we started down the hall. He herded us straight toward the grand staircase and I had a thought. It occurred to me that the elevator seemed to be restricted to the underground levels. He confirmed my suspicions at the head of the stairs.
I'd like to point out at this point that there is a reason I'm a slender guy. My metabolism, much like every other part of my body (don't go there, please), operates at an accelerated rate. I don't eat like a bird - I eat like a cow, and yet it doesn't stick to me. Lance had the idea of counting my average caloric intake for a week and the number broke twenty thousand in less than four days. I didn't gain a single pound. In fact, I think I may have lost one. My point is that my girlish figure, for lack of a better term, makes me easy prey for pretty much everyone strong enough to lift a cinder block.
Anyway, Summers proceeded to lift me out of the chair without so much as grunting. He looked down at the chair and for a fleeting moment I seriously thought he was just going to toss me over his shoulder and grab the thing with a free hand. Luckily, he decided against it. The guy made two trips down the stairs, setting me down on the bottom step before going back up.
I suddenly had the urge to try to stand for some reason. Call me stupid, and I know you probably are, but I had to see if I could at least get myself vertical again. So while he was on his way back up, I grabbed the banister with both hands and heaved. Sure, I may have lifted an inch or two off the ground, but that was about it. Let's just say my upper-body strength at that point pretty much sucked.
"What are you doing? You'll hurt yourself," I heard Summers say from above me. I let go the banister and tipped my head back. He'd been standing right behind me, so it wasn't hard to find him. I shrugged.
"I was just seeing if I could move on my own, Slim," I sighed. That the experiment had been a failure hung in the air between us. He just shook his head and echoed my sigh. A couple light steps later, he set the chair down on the marble floor and sat down beside me on the step.
"Look, Pietro," he said and I mentally rolled my eyes. Great, just great. Wasn't one lecture from this stick-in-the-mud enough for one day? I didn't say that out loud, of course. I wasn't really in the mood to hear both a third lecture. I realized I had been lost in my thoughts because he tipped his head and looked a little closer at me. "You're not going to listen to me." He didn't ask, just assumed.
"Just say what you're going to say, Scott, and get it over with would you?" His eyebrows shot up above his red shades. When he didn't say anything further, I poked him in the chest. "Well?"
"When was the last time you called me 'Scott'?" he asked with that surprised look still on his face. That was a good question, actually. I didn't think I'd ever done that before, actually. I mean, I practically had to fight down the urge to call him Mr. Summers most of the time because he acted more mature than most adults in my life. I just looked at him helplessly.
"Never mind, it's not important." Oh, but if the look on his face was any indication, it was. "Come on," he said, lifting me into the chair again. "If you don't show up for lunch with the Professor, he'll probably think I'm deliberately trying to starve you."
I didn't have a ready-made piece of wit with which to respond. Instead, I kept my mouth shut and just let him wheel me into Xavier's office. Turned out it was just a couple rooms away from the lobby, through a large, bare room with empty bookshelves.
The old man was reading through a folder of something when we entered and didn't even look up at first. I'd never been in his office before, so I took a moment to look around. Shelves like the ones in the outer office lined the walls, filled with lots of leather-bound books. Odds and ends dotted the shelves, breaking up the dull brown monotony. There was, for example, a piece of stone at about my eye level and just close enough to pick up. It was smooth and grey on the bottom, but the top was studded with little reddish-pink crystals. I tilted it back and forth in the light, watching the crystals glitter as the sunlight suffused them with a warm glow. Interesting.
I set the stone back on the shelf, looking at the rest of the strange items. There were feathers in colors I'd never seen before arranged in a jar on one shelf. Pictures in small frames took up some of the space. Bits of stone and chunks of metal ore were the overwhelming majority, though. Maybe the guy collected rocks. I heard a shuffle of paper from Xavier's direction and turned as he closed the folder he'd been reading.
"As a matter of fact, I do," he said. I looked blankly at him until I realized he'd been reading my mind. I felt myself start to blush. He went on as though he hadn't noticed: "I dreamt of becoming a geologist in my youth." He gestured for me to hand him the crystal I'd picked up earlier.
"This, for example," he said, turning it in his hands, "is a chunk of amethyst geode, which is a type of quartz. Your father found it while we were out spelunking during spring break nearly twenty years ago." My eyes widened as he mentioned Dad, but I looked away before he noticed. I concentrated on controlling the blush instead, but probably wasn't successful at that either.
"Can we talk about something else, maybe?" I muttered.
He set the rock down on his desk and folded his hands. Summers walked back in at that point with a large tray. Typical luncheon fare. Salads, fresh bread. A couple covered plates that really smelled delicious. A bottle of ginger ale for me; water for him. Neither of us said anything while Summers set it down on the desk.
"Need anything else, Professor?" he asked. Maybe he got merit points or something for sucking up.
"No, thank you Scott. Would you please close the door behind you, though?"
"Sure."
The door closed behind him. It made a very heavy noise and I felt like my fate had been sealed. If Xavier started talking about Magneto, I'd be stuck there listening to him. I looked up to see the guy looking at me, a faint smile playing across his face. It occurred to me that he'd probably been reading my mind.
Xavier arched an eyebrow at me. Jeez! Having a telepath in the house was downright creepy sometimes. I hated it when he or Red poked around in my mind.
"I should have remembered that, Pietro," he said with that almost- smile still in place. He passed a salad plate to me as well as a bottle of bleu cheese dressing. I didn't bother asking how he knew what I liked on my salads.
"Remembered what?" I asked, shaking the bottle. He pulled the covers off each of the plates and my mouth started watering in earnest. At the risk of sounding like I think with my stomach, I'll admit that I can be bought for a good Reuben if it's been prepared right. This one had.
He took a bite of salad, swallowing before speaking. He'd read my mind without thinking twice - no pun intended - but his table manners were excruciatingly formal. I actually moved my elbow off the desk rather than offend his sensibilities.
"I seem to recall a trip to Central Park during which Wanda's favorite doll got lost for over an hour," he said. I frowned, trying to figure out what he was talking about. I'd been to Central Park hundreds of times when I was small. Father seemed to enjoy taking us there for some reason. I hadn't thought about that in years, but after a moment it hit me. I nodded slowly.
"Oh yeah. You picked my brain and told her where I hid the darn thing."
His face lit up like a Christmas tree and it changed his entire demeanor. He looked like a truly different person. He looked like the person I remembered from so long ago. Only with less hair.
"That's right," he said. "You and your sister didn't speak for a week."
I washed down a mouthful of salad. "Is that why we're having this lunch date? You want to talk about the past?" I had a sneaking suspicion that this was indeed the case and my heart sank. I was having a hard enough time dealing with the present. The last thing I wanted was to dredge up old memories of...before.
To my surprise, he shrugged. "Not if you don't feel comfortable, Pietro."
We ate in silence for a few minutes.
"So what are we here for?"
He pushed his plate aside and picked up the folder he'd been reading when I'd come in.
"There are a couple items that you need to consider before too much longer. Principal Kelly has been informed of your injury, though not of its source. He's sent a letter requesting that I inform him of my intention regarding your junior year."
I blinked. "I don't get it."
"He wants to know if you're going to be going to Bayside or if you'll be schooled here at the Institute," he said. Oh. Yeah, that was a hard decision to make. On the one hand, taking classes here would relieve me of having to deal with the scorn and derision my physical status would bring up at the public high school. On the other hand, if I spent all my time in this place, I'd probably go nuts. I hesitated for an instant.
"Uh," I said. There's that eloquence again. "Bayside, I guess."
He didn't argue. "All right, I'll let him know. Getting you to and from school will not be a problem. Both Jean and Scott drive to school already." His brow furrowed and he frowned. "Kurt also has a permit, as he keeps reminding us, but I'd recommend riding with one of the less...impulsive...students instead."
"I'll keep that in mind." The little blue guy was probably going to hold a grudge all year, so I didn't think I had to worry about getting killed by his driving any time soon.
"Now," he went on, "there's also the matter of your interaction with my other students."
I paused in the middle of taking a huge bite from the Reuben and my stomach growled in protest.
"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously. I was rewarded with a stern look that looked hauntingly familiar.
"I think you know what I mean."
I made a production out of chewing, just to give me time to think of a safe answer. Couldn't come up with one. There are days when I wonder if people deliberately in cryptic phrases or if I'm just that dense. This wasn't one of them. I finally settled for telling him what he wanted to hear.
"You mean my attitude."
"Yes, I do." I suddenly realized where Kurt learned that piercing stare and squirmed in my seat. No mean trick for someone who couldn't feel his most of his backside.
"You want me to be nicer to Summers and the rest," I said flatly. Then I laughed. "Man, you don't want much, do you?"
Xavier ignored my sarcasm. "I don't think it's too much, do you?"
"Don't make me answer that. You saw how nice I was being to Summers already, didn't you?" I mean, come on. If he kept a mental eye on me all morning, he had to know that I'd been pretty good. A note of disapproval chimed in my head. Actually, I'd already mouthed off to the guy several times and we hadn't even been awake all that long. And that was just what I'd said out loud. "All right," I grudgingly admitted, "I'll try to be more pleasant." As he started to nod, I hastily added: "But only if he does the same." His eyebrows went up.
"He's a poster boy for the Boy Scouts," I said.
"Eagle Scout, actually."
"What?"
"He's been an Eagle Scout for almost a year now."
Boy, that explained a lot. "His self-righteous attitude drives me up a wall, man. Can't he just tone it down a little?"
"If you really wish, I'll ask him to be a little more abrasive in your presence." Xavier actually smirked at me. "If it would make you more comfortable, that is."
I let that slide.
"All right, all right, I promise I'll do my best to be his buddy." Tell the man what he wants to hear, Pietro, just get him off the subject. Didn't he know when to quit?
"And Kitty?" Apparently not. I blushed again and had to swallow a curse. "And Kurt?"
"All right already!" I snapped. "I said I'd be good. Quit pushing me."
He sat back in his chair, resting his chin on steepled fingers and locking eyes with me. I was getting a little tired of people staring at me like I was some kind of zoo animal. Promises aside, I'd bite the head off the next person who gave me any sort of look. Maybe that's what it would take.
After a while, I just couldn't take his eyes on me any longer and I looked away.
"Pietro," he said quietly.
"What is it now?" As soon as the words slid past my lips, I regretted my tone. My lunch lay in my stomach like a lead weight. I was seriously entertaining the notion of flinging myself out of the chair and crawling under a rock somewhere.
"All things considered I think your 'attitude,' as you put it, is perfectly understandable. In fact, I've already asked my students to be more considerate of your feelings." He leaned forward. I dragged my eyes back to him, though I didn't meet his gaze. I settled for staring at his nose instead. "You're going through a rough time, Pietro, and being angry isn't going to help your recovery."
I laughed and it sounded forced, even to my own ears. "Just angry?"
He smiled slightly. "Would you rather I added: sullen, arrogant, irritable, moody, thin-skinned, and downright rude most of the time?"
"Not particularly, no.
"Then I won't." He sighed. "We're all going to have to adjust to the new...situation...around here. I don't expect you to change overnight, but I do expect a solid effort on your part. Can you do that much for me?"
I nodded, but we were interrupted before I could say anything. The office door swung open and I shot a look in that direction on instinct. Kurt was framed in the doorway, tail twitching with a mind of its own. He started to say something to Xavier and the words died on his lips as he caught sight of me. His expression went carefully blank and his eyes unfocused, as though he was seeing or listening to something I couldn't hear. A moment later, I understood.
'Good. Then you can start by apologizing to Kurt.'
I glared at my godfather. You've got to be kidding me, I thought really loud. Can't we start with something easier? If he heard my attempt at mental communication, it didn't show.
'As I recall, he wants to go to the mall to pick up some school clothes. This would be a good chance for you to get some fresh air, I think.'
I sighed and exchanged a resigned look with the blue guy. Clearly he was as unhappy with Xavier's manipulative tactics as I was. He didn't argue, though, just stalked into the room and wrapped his hands around the handles of my chair.
"If ve're going, ve'd better leave now," he grumped. I poured everything I had into a last pleading look at Xavier. It didn't work. The man just smiled at us both as we left.
"Thanks a whole bunch, Uncle Charles," I muttered darkly as Kurt wheeled me through the mansion. I heard him snort behind me.
"On that ve agree. Danke schön, mein Herr. [2]"
I didn't say another word.
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To Be Continued.
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[1]: MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art, is a world-class gallery on Manhattan in New York. No visit to the City is complete without visiting it, I promise you.
[2]: "Thank you very much, sir."