Nightcrawler and I spent the next several hours covering holes in walls and windows with plastic sheeting and 1x2's. A brown haired kid around 10 years old attached himself to us (or, most likely, to Nightcrawler) right off. He didn't talk, but he answered our questions readily enough, tugging Nightcrawler by the hand and leading us to a storage shed off the garage when I asked him where there might be tools and supplies.
We were in the middle of cutting plastic to cover the biggest broken window when Nightcrawler put down his tools for a moment and said "Please, call me Kurt," in a friendly voice. "People who know me call me Kurt." His eyes were serious, moreso than his tone at least.
I was about to ask him if we actually knew each other (something I couldn't really figure out) when my attention was hijacked by the mental image of a "Hello my name is:" sticker with "ARTIE" scrawled on it. I blinked and the brown haired boy was staring up at me from where he was holding down a corner of the plastic sheet.
"Ask before you do that!" It came out lower and rougher than I intended. Brilliant. An innocent telepathic hello and I was already shaken up enough to almost revert to my natural voice. The boy, Artie, looked apologetic and opened his mouth to show me a thin, purplish, forked tongue. Maybe that was why he didn't talk. It had certainly taken me long enough to figure out how with my non-standard equipment.
I looked away and finished cutting the plastic. I could see Nightcrawler, Kurt, pat Artie's knee with his tail. I clicked the box knife blade into the handle and caught the kid's eyes. "I'm not mad; it just surprised me. It's not good to take over someone's visual centers while they're handling blades or power tools."
The kid nodded sheepishly and I wondered if he'd had this conversation already with one of the X-Men. They were corrupting me already; it took almost everything I had not to laugh.