Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of this cartoon and this
story is purely for your enjoyment so please enjoy it!
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Kitty asked him, her eyes large with amazement. She'd always wanted Lance to join the X-men, but it was always an unreachable and untouchable dream. It was enough to wander what changed his mind.
Lance nodded, "Yeah," he told her. "But it's not gonna be like I'm joining the X-men or anything...just till we get better control and understanding of our powers. You know, me and Pietro."
She sighed for she did know. The whole freakin' institute knew. Yet still she wished he would join the X-men. She couldn't think of what she would do if Lance were to continue down the path he was going. As futile as it seemed, she wanted to save him. But she couldn't do it alone.
"Well," she began cautiously as if not knowing what to say to him. "Are you at least going to train...I mean those are some pretty hefty powers you're toting there." She informed like a child having done her homework.
He nodded. "I'm going to have to." He told her. "You know, that is if I don't want things to start blowing up and getting run into by people of course."
She bit her lip at his sarcasm. She hadn't meant to upset him, just encourage him a little. He seemed to notice because his expression softened.
"Sorry Kitty, I'm just sorta on the edge....I'm really worried about Pietro. Plus with her memories back Wanda's talking to Xavier about joining the X-men and that would leave Todd and Fred alone and....we couldn't do that to them. We're all each other's got." He told her in a fluid and emotional tone of voice.
He closed his heavy eye lids. His conscience weighted with stressful thoughts his young mind had no reason to suffer. There was a soft touch on his hand. As light as a feather and as tickling as dapples of rain on cement.
He lifted his eyes open, a victorious feeling overwhelming him as he prided in the fact that though vision obscured...he could still see. And what a sight it was.
Kitty's eyes were as soft and gentle as Ororo's when she had told him that Pietro would live. Every bit as compassionate as Xavier's when he said 'The offer is still open.' And they looked at him with nothing short of love and a caring he had never felt before himself.
"Now you have me too." She told him. He decided he liked being looked at like this.
Ouch....bright....Holy fuck what time is it? These were the thoughts that rapidly flicked Pietro's ever constant brain functions as he winced away from the shards of light that stabbed at his eyes.
Shoving off the thin white sheets that had held him captive for the past two days he sat up and struggled as if in restraint. He had never been too fond of the light. That much could be seen by the paleness of his skin.
Twisting himself over he reached his arm out as he groped the nightstand that had been dumbly put in his reach and picked up what he thought to be a hurlable object. Flipping back around he swung it in the direction of the light and settled back down into the sheets.
"Gee Pietro," a soft voice dripped into his ear, "I pegged you for a morning person."
He slapped his hand to his face. "Oh God." He mumbled to himself. He'd heard that voice only a few times in the past few hectic days but he could easily recall whom it belonged to.
"What do you want now Gray?" he snapped irritably in her assumed direction. He heard her omit an aggravated sigh.
"Oh gee I don't know," she began in a sarcastic voice that wasn't much like her. But being in Pietro's presence made her feel as if she would need every tone of voice she'd never used, "Opening your eyes would be a good start."
'The things I do for the people with the power over my life.' Pietro thought as he slowly opened his bright blue eyes.
Looking at them was so intense it took Jean a moment to remember what she was going to say.
"Uh...um...." she stuttered for a few moments as his agitated look bore into her conscience like a knife.
"Oh spit it out Gray." He snapped at her. "You certainly don't strike me as the stupid type so if you would..." he made a hand gesture at her to tell indicate that she should speed it up a little.
Snapping out of her hazy state she met his look of annoyance with her own look of patience. 'For the better good' she reminded herself. 'This will help him one day.'
"First off," Jean began much more articulate than before, "call me Jean. I mean after all we will be spending more time together."
He looked at her blankly for a moment and Jean gave herself a small pat on the back for having caught the hostile boy off guard.
"What the hell?" he asked rather bluntly. Sitting up so quickly that the wind knocked back his sheets he looked at her intently no longer entangled in webs of sleepiness that a long night had provided him. He waited.
She smiled, seeing that she had his full attention. Getting up she brushed her hands down on her jean skirt as if to wipe away an invisible filth.
As she reached the window that connected Pietro to sunlight she glanced at the curtains she had so brutally pulled back to wake the younger mutant. She smiled sheepishly as she turned to face him.
"Well," she started off slowly, "as of today....I am your caretaker." She looked to him with a bright smile on her face as she looked to study his reaction. He raised an eyebrow as if not comprehending her words. She sighed.
"This means that I will be watching over you, taking care of you and helping you get a grip on your new powers." She informed him in a somewhat mechanic voice.
"Riiiight..." he drawled with a nod. "So.....do I get a say in this?" he inquired in a sincerely interested voice.
Jean's head shook immediately as if on automatic as she recited words that seemed easy to say to her but hard to hear to him. "Nope sorry Pietro you're just going to have to get used to having someone look after you."
His mouth closed slowly and he nodded. "Well I should be used to it by now I suppose!" he seethed in a low enough voice where Jean could not hear. He was always being forced to do things he had no wish to do.
It was the story of his life he supposed. Shut up and do as your told, if you want to stay alive that is. There was no doubt in his mind that his 'father' was so gone that he might contemplating killing Pietro just to speed up his domination plans.
'Then again,' his mind whispered to him, 'Maybe this is a good thing.' Jean bit her lip as she let her eyes wonder over the troubled youth in front of her. The bad news she had to tell him was in truth not all that bad, yet to someone whom spent his life running around, well she figured it would upset him.
"Pietro," she spoke slowly as she let him get use to the sound of her voice. Or perhaps it was her that just enjoyed hearing herself, for no reason at all, say his name. "You lost a lot of blood, I'm sure you remember." She informed him with a wave of her hand.
When he nodded she felt fit to continue. There were hardly a handful of people that would listen to what she had to say, and even fewer who cared. She began.
"I'll come out and say it Pietro. With all of those antibiotics that the doctor had to pool into you well...your legs will be out of use for a couple of days."
She expected a tongue lashing, a growl, a complaint, hell maybe she was expecting too much because all she received was his head, hung low and his lips parting. Just to say, "That sucks."
She stood there and stared at him in pity. Was it all really that bad? Did a public catastrophe and a silent convulsion brought upon an unsuspected victim truly give her the right to look at him like an orphan that had no home? Because that was Pietro felt liked he was being looked at. And he really hated pity.
He was warm when it was cold. It was a unique feeling. One he had always appreciated but rarely received.
He tugged at the lapels of the black flannel overcoat that protected his stooped shoulders and lovingly bore the name 'Bobby' on the neck tag. Pietro had no idea why they, or he for that matter, were out in the rain. It was drenching. Having gone from the light drizzle they heard inside the house, to the full fledge attack that was forced upon them when they stepped out.
Despite this he was extremely dry, being protected by an invisible shield that generated from the girl that stood behind him, fingers clutching the handles of the wheelchair that Pietro found himself in.
He imagined that she looked out of place in his world. The one with the rain and gray buildings and slick concrete. It may have been her that lived here but at that moment it was his world.
Risking a glance he twisted around in effort to see her face. To feel that fleeted moment of triumph when he realized he was right........but it never came.
She was soaked. Just barely outside of the regions of her own defenses and she was soaked. Her skin was pasty and pale and her hair was redder than blood as it matted against her face which was scrunched in concentration on keeping him dry and getting him to there destination.
This in all of Pietro's introvert life speculating thoughts had forgotten where exactly that was.
She reminded him of a girl he knew in the neighborhood he and Wanda once lived in together with their father. He had only been seven when he saw the little girl, barely four years old, wandering around the neighborhood looking for her dog.
She in all reality looked nothing like Jean with her curly brown hair and brown eyes. But when she had approached him in the pouring rain asking him. Of all questions, if he had seen a three legged collier running around, she had taken his answer of no as an invisible step backwards.
He had watched as she scrunched her face up and shook her head in a way only troubled toddlers could and told her that he sincerely hoped that she found it though.
He had later heard from his father, who sometimes proved to be a useful source to gather information that the girl's father had found the dog the next day. But the little girl had gotten hit by a car on the street just west of the community basket ball court, where Pietro had been when approached by the girl in hopes of enlisting his help.
For many years to come Pietro would bear the misplaced feeling of guilt on his shoulders due to the young girl's death. Feeling that...if only he had helped her in her search she could have been steered from that ill fate. That if only the human race weren't so damn selfish and lazy she wouldn't have died so young.
If only people like him were more like people like her the world would be one hell of a better place.
"HEY!" he called to the water soaked form of Jean Gray, raising his voice to rise above the thrashing pelts of the rain. Her head snapped towards him. The chair stopped. Pietro swallowed.
"You're going to get....um sick or whatever you know. Maybe you should shield yourself...if you want....I guess." He told her uncomfortably. She shook her head fiercely.
"It's fine," She called to him, "Were here anyways." She informed him nodding her head into the direction of a light green building with tall glass ceilings. He scanned his surroundings and realized that they were in the large sweeping back yard of the Institute. Right on the edge of a forest he hadn't known existed. He consented that he should pay a little more attention.
"Oh," he whispered as she laughed, thanked him for his concern and began to steer the wheelchair over the slick wet grass and out of the rains line of fire. Briefly lowering her shields, Jean kinetically opened the green house door.
Pietro sucked in a puff of air as a cool breeze washed over him as he was seemingly breathed into the green house. He heard the dulling of the rain mute slightly as the door clanked shut.
The interior of the green house was as, well, green, as the medical room had been white. He let his eyes wonder over the plants. He never really did appreciate nature.
Turning around he watched as Jean slipped off her corduroy green jacket and run a slippery hand through her matted mess of hair. As he began to turn around he caught sight of Jean's eyes and noticed that there were no dark mascara streaks that often accompanied the faces of girls that had been unfortunate to get caught in the rain. Her eyes were a bright green and matched the color of all the plants in the natural dwelling they currently resided in.
He imagined that he looked very out of place in her world.
"So," Jean heard Pietro say as she picked up a watering can and began to water the plants like Ororo had asked her to do while she and the Professor went to talk to the principal about the little 'incident' that Lance had accidentally caused at school the other day. "Why exactly are we here.......and just how may days of school do you get to get to cut?" he asked her rather bluntly.
She spared him a half interested glance. "Well I'm watering Ororo's plants like she asked me to while she's away and I don't like to think of it as cutting but more as a little break until you're ready to go back to school." She informed him.
He leaned his head on his hand tiredly. "I'm ready to go back!" he insisted for reasons unbeknownst to even himself. Probably just to make conversation in the thick mix of green house heat and awkwardness.
"In a wheelchair?" she inquired as she gave him what he liked to refer to as "the eyebrow" He let his hand fall as he straightened his back in the leathery handicap tool.
"Good point," he told her evenly though his tone spoke that he wished she would say why she brought him with her. Sighing she put the watering can down.
"Pietro do you remember when I found you in front of that oak tree by the football field a couple of days ago?" she asked him. He nodded and motioned his hand for her to proceed.
"Well after what you did with that tree." She paused, "well I was wondering if you might want to practice that on one of these plants."
She looked at him to study his reaction. He rotated his jaw in a curt fashion as if looking over an important business plan. He shrugged, which Jean took as a sign of 'if I have to.'
Smiling she steered him over to a little plant that Ororo had just previously planted on the day of Lance and Pietro's arrival to the Institute.
"You see that plant?" she asked him motioning to it. When he indicated that he most certainly did she fed him his instructions. "I want you to focus on making it do something........anything. Okay?" she asked him rhetorically,
"Fine," he said as he put his arms into use by grasping the wheels of the chair and twisting himself to face it. He closed his eyes.
He took deep slow breaths. Trying to ignore the stuffy heat and the fact that Jean hovered so close to him he conjured up a mental image of the plant. Concentrating her tried to think of how the plant might look when it grew.
Suddenly Pietro felt his skin heat up and tingle as if being cut by billions of small needles being scraped over his skin. He felt an internal pull backwards. The kind of feeling you get when going 100 miles per hour on a racetrack.
Suddenly he jolted back to reality. Blinking away falling beads of perspiration he looked at the plant in front of him. It was no longer small. But grown up to the height of Pietro's head as he sat. It was now thicker and contained blooming buds of pink that sparkled in tranquility.
Jean stood for a moment flabbergasted. What she had just witnessed, the rapid growth of a baby plant to it's full potential was perhaps the single most amazing and beautiful thing she had ever seen. And she had seen many.
Pietro, for his own part, didn't find it to be too big of a deal. This surprised him. He turned to look at her.
"There," he said to her blandly, "I did something for you now I need you to do something for me. Okay?" he asked her.
She stared at him mouth hung open and nodded. He followed her actions. "Alright," he said clapping his hands together as if a tour guide initiating the local's trip through an ancient museum, "I need you to teach me how to use ESP."
Recovering from her initial shock she said, "Why exactly do you need to know that?"
"Because me and Wanda have some sort of Telepathic twin thing going on and I want to know how to use it. And I'd feel more comfortable learning from you than Xavier, alright?" he told her with a sigh.
She nodded. "Of course Pietro. This is just kind of shocking, you know?" she told him. He nodded.
"Do I ever." He informed her as she smiled. Leaning back on the stool that Ororo used during her free time. She began to explain it to him.
"But first....do you want to see some of the plants? To pass the time...you know until the rain stops?" she asked.
"Um sure." Pietro agreed not used to getting such polite offers.
So the two of them spent the rest of the day in the green house looking over different types of plants and educating Pietro on telepathy. And when Ororo got back and saw the light to the green house on. She just smiled and knew that Jean was doing exactly what she suggested her to do.
Pietro, who had been subjected to many green sights that day, had agreed he had a favorite. Plus when he watched Jean's eyes light up as she animatedly explained the story of a certain flower he decided that green was as of that moment......his favorite color.
Her world was a pretty nice place to be in.
DigitalAngel4U: To anyone who really wants to see more Lance don't worry. The next chapter will be mostly him, the brotherhood, and some more of Scott and Rouge. Plus watch as a plot magically forms in front of your eyes! Please review whether it be good or bad!
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Kitty asked him, her eyes large with amazement. She'd always wanted Lance to join the X-men, but it was always an unreachable and untouchable dream. It was enough to wander what changed his mind.
Lance nodded, "Yeah," he told her. "But it's not gonna be like I'm joining the X-men or anything...just till we get better control and understanding of our powers. You know, me and Pietro."
She sighed for she did know. The whole freakin' institute knew. Yet still she wished he would join the X-men. She couldn't think of what she would do if Lance were to continue down the path he was going. As futile as it seemed, she wanted to save him. But she couldn't do it alone.
"Well," she began cautiously as if not knowing what to say to him. "Are you at least going to train...I mean those are some pretty hefty powers you're toting there." She informed like a child having done her homework.
He nodded. "I'm going to have to." He told her. "You know, that is if I don't want things to start blowing up and getting run into by people of course."
She bit her lip at his sarcasm. She hadn't meant to upset him, just encourage him a little. He seemed to notice because his expression softened.
"Sorry Kitty, I'm just sorta on the edge....I'm really worried about Pietro. Plus with her memories back Wanda's talking to Xavier about joining the X-men and that would leave Todd and Fred alone and....we couldn't do that to them. We're all each other's got." He told her in a fluid and emotional tone of voice.
He closed his heavy eye lids. His conscience weighted with stressful thoughts his young mind had no reason to suffer. There was a soft touch on his hand. As light as a feather and as tickling as dapples of rain on cement.
He lifted his eyes open, a victorious feeling overwhelming him as he prided in the fact that though vision obscured...he could still see. And what a sight it was.
Kitty's eyes were as soft and gentle as Ororo's when she had told him that Pietro would live. Every bit as compassionate as Xavier's when he said 'The offer is still open.' And they looked at him with nothing short of love and a caring he had never felt before himself.
"Now you have me too." She told him. He decided he liked being looked at like this.
Ouch....bright....Holy fuck what time is it? These were the thoughts that rapidly flicked Pietro's ever constant brain functions as he winced away from the shards of light that stabbed at his eyes.
Shoving off the thin white sheets that had held him captive for the past two days he sat up and struggled as if in restraint. He had never been too fond of the light. That much could be seen by the paleness of his skin.
Twisting himself over he reached his arm out as he groped the nightstand that had been dumbly put in his reach and picked up what he thought to be a hurlable object. Flipping back around he swung it in the direction of the light and settled back down into the sheets.
"Gee Pietro," a soft voice dripped into his ear, "I pegged you for a morning person."
He slapped his hand to his face. "Oh God." He mumbled to himself. He'd heard that voice only a few times in the past few hectic days but he could easily recall whom it belonged to.
"What do you want now Gray?" he snapped irritably in her assumed direction. He heard her omit an aggravated sigh.
"Oh gee I don't know," she began in a sarcastic voice that wasn't much like her. But being in Pietro's presence made her feel as if she would need every tone of voice she'd never used, "Opening your eyes would be a good start."
'The things I do for the people with the power over my life.' Pietro thought as he slowly opened his bright blue eyes.
Looking at them was so intense it took Jean a moment to remember what she was going to say.
"Uh...um...." she stuttered for a few moments as his agitated look bore into her conscience like a knife.
"Oh spit it out Gray." He snapped at her. "You certainly don't strike me as the stupid type so if you would..." he made a hand gesture at her to tell indicate that she should speed it up a little.
Snapping out of her hazy state she met his look of annoyance with her own look of patience. 'For the better good' she reminded herself. 'This will help him one day.'
"First off," Jean began much more articulate than before, "call me Jean. I mean after all we will be spending more time together."
He looked at her blankly for a moment and Jean gave herself a small pat on the back for having caught the hostile boy off guard.
"What the hell?" he asked rather bluntly. Sitting up so quickly that the wind knocked back his sheets he looked at her intently no longer entangled in webs of sleepiness that a long night had provided him. He waited.
She smiled, seeing that she had his full attention. Getting up she brushed her hands down on her jean skirt as if to wipe away an invisible filth.
As she reached the window that connected Pietro to sunlight she glanced at the curtains she had so brutally pulled back to wake the younger mutant. She smiled sheepishly as she turned to face him.
"Well," she started off slowly, "as of today....I am your caretaker." She looked to him with a bright smile on her face as she looked to study his reaction. He raised an eyebrow as if not comprehending her words. She sighed.
"This means that I will be watching over you, taking care of you and helping you get a grip on your new powers." She informed him in a somewhat mechanic voice.
"Riiiight..." he drawled with a nod. "So.....do I get a say in this?" he inquired in a sincerely interested voice.
Jean's head shook immediately as if on automatic as she recited words that seemed easy to say to her but hard to hear to him. "Nope sorry Pietro you're just going to have to get used to having someone look after you."
His mouth closed slowly and he nodded. "Well I should be used to it by now I suppose!" he seethed in a low enough voice where Jean could not hear. He was always being forced to do things he had no wish to do.
It was the story of his life he supposed. Shut up and do as your told, if you want to stay alive that is. There was no doubt in his mind that his 'father' was so gone that he might contemplating killing Pietro just to speed up his domination plans.
'Then again,' his mind whispered to him, 'Maybe this is a good thing.' Jean bit her lip as she let her eyes wonder over the troubled youth in front of her. The bad news she had to tell him was in truth not all that bad, yet to someone whom spent his life running around, well she figured it would upset him.
"Pietro," she spoke slowly as she let him get use to the sound of her voice. Or perhaps it was her that just enjoyed hearing herself, for no reason at all, say his name. "You lost a lot of blood, I'm sure you remember." She informed him with a wave of her hand.
When he nodded she felt fit to continue. There were hardly a handful of people that would listen to what she had to say, and even fewer who cared. She began.
"I'll come out and say it Pietro. With all of those antibiotics that the doctor had to pool into you well...your legs will be out of use for a couple of days."
She expected a tongue lashing, a growl, a complaint, hell maybe she was expecting too much because all she received was his head, hung low and his lips parting. Just to say, "That sucks."
She stood there and stared at him in pity. Was it all really that bad? Did a public catastrophe and a silent convulsion brought upon an unsuspected victim truly give her the right to look at him like an orphan that had no home? Because that was Pietro felt liked he was being looked at. And he really hated pity.
He was warm when it was cold. It was a unique feeling. One he had always appreciated but rarely received.
He tugged at the lapels of the black flannel overcoat that protected his stooped shoulders and lovingly bore the name 'Bobby' on the neck tag. Pietro had no idea why they, or he for that matter, were out in the rain. It was drenching. Having gone from the light drizzle they heard inside the house, to the full fledge attack that was forced upon them when they stepped out.
Despite this he was extremely dry, being protected by an invisible shield that generated from the girl that stood behind him, fingers clutching the handles of the wheelchair that Pietro found himself in.
He imagined that she looked out of place in his world. The one with the rain and gray buildings and slick concrete. It may have been her that lived here but at that moment it was his world.
Risking a glance he twisted around in effort to see her face. To feel that fleeted moment of triumph when he realized he was right........but it never came.
She was soaked. Just barely outside of the regions of her own defenses and she was soaked. Her skin was pasty and pale and her hair was redder than blood as it matted against her face which was scrunched in concentration on keeping him dry and getting him to there destination.
This in all of Pietro's introvert life speculating thoughts had forgotten where exactly that was.
She reminded him of a girl he knew in the neighborhood he and Wanda once lived in together with their father. He had only been seven when he saw the little girl, barely four years old, wandering around the neighborhood looking for her dog.
She in all reality looked nothing like Jean with her curly brown hair and brown eyes. But when she had approached him in the pouring rain asking him. Of all questions, if he had seen a three legged collier running around, she had taken his answer of no as an invisible step backwards.
He had watched as she scrunched her face up and shook her head in a way only troubled toddlers could and told her that he sincerely hoped that she found it though.
He had later heard from his father, who sometimes proved to be a useful source to gather information that the girl's father had found the dog the next day. But the little girl had gotten hit by a car on the street just west of the community basket ball court, where Pietro had been when approached by the girl in hopes of enlisting his help.
For many years to come Pietro would bear the misplaced feeling of guilt on his shoulders due to the young girl's death. Feeling that...if only he had helped her in her search she could have been steered from that ill fate. That if only the human race weren't so damn selfish and lazy she wouldn't have died so young.
If only people like him were more like people like her the world would be one hell of a better place.
"HEY!" he called to the water soaked form of Jean Gray, raising his voice to rise above the thrashing pelts of the rain. Her head snapped towards him. The chair stopped. Pietro swallowed.
"You're going to get....um sick or whatever you know. Maybe you should shield yourself...if you want....I guess." He told her uncomfortably. She shook her head fiercely.
"It's fine," She called to him, "Were here anyways." She informed him nodding her head into the direction of a light green building with tall glass ceilings. He scanned his surroundings and realized that they were in the large sweeping back yard of the Institute. Right on the edge of a forest he hadn't known existed. He consented that he should pay a little more attention.
"Oh," he whispered as she laughed, thanked him for his concern and began to steer the wheelchair over the slick wet grass and out of the rains line of fire. Briefly lowering her shields, Jean kinetically opened the green house door.
Pietro sucked in a puff of air as a cool breeze washed over him as he was seemingly breathed into the green house. He heard the dulling of the rain mute slightly as the door clanked shut.
The interior of the green house was as, well, green, as the medical room had been white. He let his eyes wonder over the plants. He never really did appreciate nature.
Turning around he watched as Jean slipped off her corduroy green jacket and run a slippery hand through her matted mess of hair. As he began to turn around he caught sight of Jean's eyes and noticed that there were no dark mascara streaks that often accompanied the faces of girls that had been unfortunate to get caught in the rain. Her eyes were a bright green and matched the color of all the plants in the natural dwelling they currently resided in.
He imagined that he looked very out of place in her world.
"So," Jean heard Pietro say as she picked up a watering can and began to water the plants like Ororo had asked her to do while she and the Professor went to talk to the principal about the little 'incident' that Lance had accidentally caused at school the other day. "Why exactly are we here.......and just how may days of school do you get to get to cut?" he asked her rather bluntly.
She spared him a half interested glance. "Well I'm watering Ororo's plants like she asked me to while she's away and I don't like to think of it as cutting but more as a little break until you're ready to go back to school." She informed him.
He leaned his head on his hand tiredly. "I'm ready to go back!" he insisted for reasons unbeknownst to even himself. Probably just to make conversation in the thick mix of green house heat and awkwardness.
"In a wheelchair?" she inquired as she gave him what he liked to refer to as "the eyebrow" He let his hand fall as he straightened his back in the leathery handicap tool.
"Good point," he told her evenly though his tone spoke that he wished she would say why she brought him with her. Sighing she put the watering can down.
"Pietro do you remember when I found you in front of that oak tree by the football field a couple of days ago?" she asked him. He nodded and motioned his hand for her to proceed.
"Well after what you did with that tree." She paused, "well I was wondering if you might want to practice that on one of these plants."
She looked at him to study his reaction. He rotated his jaw in a curt fashion as if looking over an important business plan. He shrugged, which Jean took as a sign of 'if I have to.'
Smiling she steered him over to a little plant that Ororo had just previously planted on the day of Lance and Pietro's arrival to the Institute.
"You see that plant?" she asked him motioning to it. When he indicated that he most certainly did she fed him his instructions. "I want you to focus on making it do something........anything. Okay?" she asked him rhetorically,
"Fine," he said as he put his arms into use by grasping the wheels of the chair and twisting himself to face it. He closed his eyes.
He took deep slow breaths. Trying to ignore the stuffy heat and the fact that Jean hovered so close to him he conjured up a mental image of the plant. Concentrating her tried to think of how the plant might look when it grew.
Suddenly Pietro felt his skin heat up and tingle as if being cut by billions of small needles being scraped over his skin. He felt an internal pull backwards. The kind of feeling you get when going 100 miles per hour on a racetrack.
Suddenly he jolted back to reality. Blinking away falling beads of perspiration he looked at the plant in front of him. It was no longer small. But grown up to the height of Pietro's head as he sat. It was now thicker and contained blooming buds of pink that sparkled in tranquility.
Jean stood for a moment flabbergasted. What she had just witnessed, the rapid growth of a baby plant to it's full potential was perhaps the single most amazing and beautiful thing she had ever seen. And she had seen many.
Pietro, for his own part, didn't find it to be too big of a deal. This surprised him. He turned to look at her.
"There," he said to her blandly, "I did something for you now I need you to do something for me. Okay?" he asked her.
She stared at him mouth hung open and nodded. He followed her actions. "Alright," he said clapping his hands together as if a tour guide initiating the local's trip through an ancient museum, "I need you to teach me how to use ESP."
Recovering from her initial shock she said, "Why exactly do you need to know that?"
"Because me and Wanda have some sort of Telepathic twin thing going on and I want to know how to use it. And I'd feel more comfortable learning from you than Xavier, alright?" he told her with a sigh.
She nodded. "Of course Pietro. This is just kind of shocking, you know?" she told him. He nodded.
"Do I ever." He informed her as she smiled. Leaning back on the stool that Ororo used during her free time. She began to explain it to him.
"But first....do you want to see some of the plants? To pass the time...you know until the rain stops?" she asked.
"Um sure." Pietro agreed not used to getting such polite offers.
So the two of them spent the rest of the day in the green house looking over different types of plants and educating Pietro on telepathy. And when Ororo got back and saw the light to the green house on. She just smiled and knew that Jean was doing exactly what she suggested her to do.
Pietro, who had been subjected to many green sights that day, had agreed he had a favorite. Plus when he watched Jean's eyes light up as she animatedly explained the story of a certain flower he decided that green was as of that moment......his favorite color.
Her world was a pretty nice place to be in.
DigitalAngel4U: To anyone who really wants to see more Lance don't worry. The next chapter will be mostly him, the brotherhood, and some more of Scott and Rouge. Plus watch as a plot magically forms in front of your eyes! Please review whether it be good or bad!