"So, where are we going now? Cause I don't think this is the way to the Pentagon," Allie said while dazedly looking out the window, watching as the modest neighborhood outside gradually morphed into an expensive, white picket-fence development.
She wanted to live in one of those shiny, ridiculously clean and proper houses one day. Have a sleek record player that was crisp and not malfunctioning half the time. Play music at a deafening volume while dancing atop a vibrant shag carpet with glistening wine glasses scattered on a mahogany coffee table. Plants and sunshine all over and a summer breeze slipping past the drapes, carrying the sweet aroma of the garden roses with it. Maybe someone to kiss and hold her on the velvet couch, cuddling amongst a thousand pillows while watching late night television with absolutely zero care for what was going on outside of their bubble of peace. That's what Allie wanted the most. To be free and content doing the little things with someone she truly enjoyed.
It was just Allie and her mom, given that her father was off fighting in Vietnam- though he would be soon coming home since the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty had taken them out of combat. But until then, all Allie could do was anxiously wait on his return.
Sometimes it got lonely in that pitiful looking house of theirs which was full of nothing but shadows and dust. Thankfully she had moments like these- times where she could daydream and escape for even the slightest moment. She could get in her buggy and drive around, the sunlight scattering around the windshield managing to whisk her off into some alternate life where things were good. A different reality lied within each golden streak of light that flashed over her preoccupied smile. Hopefully she could one day pick one and live within it. They all were different but filled with everything she was lacking in her uninspiring life, so each sunny dream was ripe for the picking. She could get lost in her head all day long.
"Thank you," Charles said along with Allie. "I've no clue where I'm supposed to be driving us."
"We are gonna pick up another kid, a mutant also," Logan answered. Charles audibly displayed his annoyance over the comment, groaning beside Logan with near contempt as he gripped the steering wheel. Allie was more concerned about the word 'mutant' that the man continuously used, making her conclude that it must've been the correct term to describe peculiar people like them. She supposed it made sense from a scientific point of view, although it somewhat sounded abrasive. Maybe she'd get used to it with time.
"Can we not just go to the God damned Pentagon now? Why do we need an army with us, for Christ's sake?" The telepath whined. Logan looked at him before turning away, just choosing to blatantly ignore the Professor and his dramatic cries.
"So what is everyone else's, uh, mutation, I guess? If the rest of you are actually mutants..." Allie asked while curiously turning to Hank, who was sitting peacefully beside her in the back seat. He awkwardly turned, giving her an unsure smile with his blue eyes darting around behind the dark pair of glasses he wore. Allie laughed. "Are you okay?"
He huffed out a chuckle that sounded more like a frantic wheeze with the pressure of her question. "Yeah, I just- sorry I'm pretty... uncharismatic."
Allie nodded knowingly, tossing him a sincere smile. "It's okay. I can be like that too. I think half the world is nervous and- and weird, actually."
"Right," He agreed, still acting sheepish. Then he tried to be inquisitive in order to counteract his lack of social skills. "Well before we tell you, why don't you show us what you can do."
How threatening could a Beach Boys fan really be? Hank thought, simultaneously wondering why Logan had been so hell bent on her being a part of the team. Not to be rude but she seemed rather harmless.
Before she could do a theatrical reveal of whatever her ability was, Allie quickly gasped and pointed at Hank. "There's a spider on your shoulder!"
"What?!" Hank shouted like a child as he reared his head to the side, seeing the creeping legs of a spider crawling in his peripherals. He went completely feral- yelping as he tore his coat off and swatted it against the seat in front of him which had Charles grumbling at the chaos.
The pitiful man only noticed Allie's laughter once he'd gone way too far in trying to kill the arachnid, confusedly turning to stare at the girl who slapped her knee with tears threatening her.
"I'm so sorry!" She cried through the hysterics. "There aren't any spiders, you're fine!"
Hank sank back into his seat, taking a deep breath as he gathered up his coat and put it back on. Ahead of him, Charles' eyes squinted with intrigue.
"So what is it then? You induce hallucinations?" The Professor questioned, looking through the rear view mirror at her. Allie gave him a half nod.
"Yes but it's only based on what people are scared of. Like, I sensed that he is deathly afraid of spiders, so I can use that against him and give him very real manifestations of it. And then he's even more scared and I get more fuel and it's just all around a fun time." Then she quickly turned to her victim apologetically, realizing he indeed did not just have a 'fun time'. "Sorry, by the way- y'know... for the spider."
"Also what are everyone's names?" She asked right after the curt apology.
With a defeated voice, Hank didn't even look at the girl as he mumbled, "Hank. And it's okay."
"I'm Charles," said the British guy.
"Logan," The one that apparently knew her in the future answered.
"Right. Lovely meeting you all," Allie told them with a quick fading sweetness that was replaced with her endless curiosity. Then she pursed her lips. "So back to my question- what can you guys do?"
She knew Logan had the claws already, which were pretty badass. Allie wondered if that was the extent of his ability or if he had more tricks up his sleeve- or within the muscle fiber of his arm, so to say.
"I'm a telepath," Charles informed the girl.
Something about not being able to perform his telepathic abilities met him with the sharp sting of regret. It bristled in the center of his chest and he looked to his feet with a frown, watching as he applied more pressure to the gas pedal. He hadn't driven in years since the paralysis... But the time he'd spent without telepathy, while shorter, actually felt like a millenia longer. It made him wonder which was actually more important to him.
He didn't feel like Charles Xavier anymore. He was just... someone else. Someone sad.
"So you're like an Esper?" Allie asked him.
The Professor raised his brows. "You mean from The Demolished Man?"
"Uh huh, the book," She quipped. "I remember reading that in one of my literature classes. It was the first time that I realized not everyone can read other people's thoughts."
"Yes, it's quite a strange thing," Charles confessed, thinking back on his own struggles with the intrusive nature of his telepathic ability. "But you're right about Espers. I've not read that in a long while. You've reminded me to check it out again."
"Save yourself. I would've rather read Shakespeare but of course my teacher had a hot nut for Sci-Fi and changed his whole curriculum the year I took his class. It's less exciting when you're the thing that the writer created to be otherworldly."
Everyone in the car hummed in agreement with her. Most mutants probably felt similarly.
Allie suddenly whipped around to look at the man beside her. "What about you, spider guy?"
Hank lightly flinched and looked at the young mutant, inching his arm outward apprehensively. He allowed his hand to take its natural blue form, with his vibrant fur expanding ever so carefully along the top of his knuckles. "Wow-"
"Here, here, here." Logan's commands had Charles punching on the breaks.
"Where?!"
"Just stop here!"
The car jerked to a reckless halt which had Allie thrown onto Hank, interrupting his special moment.
"Alright, alright!" Came Charles, who'd been bracing against the steering wheel.
"Next time I'm driving, alright? Don't get used to it," Logan warned the Professor as he thrashed his way out of the God forsaken car. He could tell the man had been paralyzed for years as clearly his legs weren't used to operating the pedals.
The two mutants in the back both fumbled around, elbows knocking into ribs as they wrestled into upright positions. Once they'd straightened out, Allie swiped the blonde hair from her face and shot Hank a sorry expression, noticing he seemed very stiff around her throughout the entire ride.
"I feel like I'm making you uncomfortable," She confessed in a heartfelt way. Hank reached for the door handle, shrugging in embarrassment.
"Sorry," He told her in a hushed tone, "You just kinda remind me... of someone. It's the hair, I think."
"Oh, I get it," She consoled him quickly before hopping out of the car, continuing their conversation once they were both walking up to a prim and proper looking home. She absently noticed that the mailbox read Maximoff. "Is she a crazy ex? High school sweetheart? Abusive friend?"
Hank thought about it for a moment. "You know... It feels like a mix of the three."
Allie nodded with a contemplative look, watching as he mirrored her movement. "Man, that sucks. Hopefully I don't remind you too much of her."
"No, no," He reassured. "Confident and assertive blondes just... I don't know-"
The girl couldn't help but laugh at how adorable he was despite being a grown man. There was something so sweet about his timid nature that made her think of a puppy dog every time she looked at him, watching as he softly smiled down at her for how silly the entire conversation was. At least she made a crack in his shell.
In front of the mutant pack was Logan, who knocked on the front door of the home when an expectant woman answered almost immediately.
"What's he done now?" She asked brazenly, pulling the door wide open. Allie tried to hide the smile forming on her lips, sounding like this woman's hands were full with whoever the hell they were picking up now. "I can write you a check for anything he took."
"We just need to talk to him," Logan said before the lady could frantically bargain anything else on behalf of her son. She nodded despite herself and stepped aside, allowing the mutants to walk right on in without needing to do any other convincing.
"Peter the cops are here, again!" She yelled to whoever Peter was. Were they supposed to be acting like cops right now? Because the Beach Boys shirt would definitely blow their cover pretty quickly, the blonde figured.
Allie sighed as she looked around the home. Spotless, well decorated and maintained a welcoming energy that felt cozy and intimate. It was like one of those houses you'd see in the renovation magazines.
"I'm a princess. What are you?" Came a tiny voice from beside the mutant group. Both Allie and Logan looked down, finding a little girl sporting a lovely makeshift princess costume with a dazzling miniature tiara atop her mousy colored hair. The blonde immediately smiled at how cute she was.
Logan took his glasses off. "I'm the Wolverine."
The girl looked a little unsure of what to say after that so Logan simply got down to business. "Where's your brother?"
She pointed innocently to a doorway leading downstairs. Her mom plopped down in front of the television, waving around a glass of water lazily.
"Go upstairs and bug your sister," The mother said in an exhausted way, likely because she was under the assumption that they were the police and about to interrogate her son. The girl waved the princess wand she wielded and sassily turned around.
"But she bugs me!" She contested as everyone made way for the door behind her. Allie couldn't help but find the whole exchange sweet. It must've been nice to have siblings. How could you ever feel alone?
The delightful scenery of the home changed as they were led into the basement, the first thing greeting her being a bunch of stolen street signs which lined the stairwell hall. She peered over Charles' shoulder, whom she walked behind, discovering a busted out wall to the right that now only consisted of the wooden framing and nothing else. Well this was a stark contrast from the tidiness of the upstairs.
Alice Cooper's "Hello Hurray" sifted through the air, sourcing from somewhere far from where they were. Not a bad choice, she noted. Maybe she and this Peter guy would get along well.
They continued filing down until everyone was crowded in the expansive basement, giving Allie time to survey the new surroundings. There were arcade games, skateboards hung up like trophies, advertisement signs, brand new television sets piled up on each other, so many posters the walls were barely visible and lastly a criminal amount of packaged pastries neatly stacked in some warehouse-grade shelves in the rear of the room. In the center was a ping pong table, where a boy was playing by himself and then- wait what the fuck?
Allie stared on as she witnessed a young man with silver hair zip from one side of the green table to the other, hitting the little white ball each and every time with an unbelievable amount of speed that made him look like he was teleporting around if you weren't watching closely. This must've been Peter. And wow, was he intriguing.
"What do you guys want? I didn't do anything," Peter said between flashes from one side of the table to the other, making his voice sound clipped and rushed. "I've been here all day."
Then the boy was gone in a swift gust of wind, sitting behind the group of mutants on a couch with his hands stretched nonchalantly behind his head and his feet kicked up. Everyone slowly walked toward him like one would if approaching a dangerous animal. Though there wasn't really a threat coming from the speedy mutant, there was just a great deal of wonder fatiguing them as well as caution so that they didn't spook him since there'd be no catching the boy, obviously.
"Just relax, we're not cops," Logan said, seeming the least shocked one out of everyone else. Allie and Hank were both highly invested in the new mutant as they watched the scene unfold with slack jaws. How could someone be that fast?
"Of course you're not cops or else you wouldn't be driving a rental car. And c'mon, she's wearing a Beach Boys shirt," Peter pointed out, gesturing to Allie at his latter statement. The girl threw her hands up. She knew it!
"How'd you know we got a rental car?" The Professor asked in mild confusion.
"I checked your registration as you were walking through the door. Then I had some time to kill so I went through your rental agreements and saw you were from out of town," Peter explained as Allie's brows slowly rose. This guy was nuts. "Are you the FBI?"
Not giving any of them a moment to answer, Peter sped over to Charles and stole his wallet, at which point he began to read through everything stored within.
"Nope, you're not cops," He confirmed. Peter then pulled out an old card from one of the wallet sleeves, which advertised Charles' school. "Hey, what's with this 'Gifted Youngsters' place?" Once again, the mutant was gone in a flash, dropping the items onto the ping pong table. Charles quickly strode to where his things were discarded by the growing nuisance that was Peter.
"That's an... old card," the Professor said as he picked up the belongings, annoyed as he did so. Hank, however, looked around curiously as he tried to spot where Peter had zipped off to.
"He's fascinating," He mused.
"He's a pain in the ass," Charles sighed, slipping his wallet back into his pocket.
"I like his shirt," Allie complimented the boy, wherever he might be, referencing the Pink Floyd tee he was sporting beneath a black varsity style jacket with two roaring tiger patches on the front. He had good tastes in both style and music, she'd give him that.
"What, a teleporter?" Hank asked Logan, who was standing behind Charles with his hands on his hips. He shook his head.
"No, just fast," Logan said from behind them. "And I knew him when he wasn't so... young."
Logan wasn't sure what to expect but it certainly made sense. Peter was always a bit wired, it was bound to be in the biology of someone with his mutation. But this was a whole other level of delinquency that Logan was not expecting at all.
"Young? You're just old," Peter stated defiantly, sucking on a nearly finished popsicle behind the group. Allie twirled around, as did the rest of the mutants, so that they could face the mischievous boy who was just lounging and snacking as if he hadn't been running circles around them for the past five minutes. He then looked at Allie with a smile. "I like your shirt."
She grinned before looking at her feet. He was alright, aside from acting like a major show-off.
"So you're not afraid to show your powers," Hank determined. He was surprised at how open Peter was with showing off his abilities.
"What powers? What are you talking about?" Peter told them seriously, shamelessly gaslighting the group before he went on. "Do you see something strange here? Nothing anyone would believe if you told them."
He sounded smug, which was something that might have worked on regular people but for the mutants, well, they were far from clueless. Peter then zipped through Allie and Logan which greeted her exposed skin to the tickle of fast moving air. She turned with the movement, finding that now he'd taken a seat by one of the arcade games, delighting himself in a match of Pong as he continued to grill them.
"So who are you? What do you want?" He asked while trained on the game. Logan sighed through the noise of buttons being smashed from the corner.
"We need your help, Peter," The man stated.
"With what?"
"To break into a highly secured facility... and to get someone out," Logan said, carefully easing the proposal onto Peter. This was the first time Allie was hearing the reason for their Pentagon trip, making her interests pique. Who was so important that they required being rescued from the Pentagon of all places?
"Prison break? That's illegal you know," Peter grinned. He sounded like he didn't really care about the law, it was more of a taunting statement. Everyone simultaneously took a moment to realize just how many stolen goods were littering the basement, confirming what they already knew about Peter: This job was right up his alley.
"Mm, well, only if you get caught..." Logan reasoned. He could tell that Peter was liking the sound of everything he'd explained.
"What's in it for me?" Peter asked, still grappling with Pong. Charles sighed from behind him, taking off his sunglasses and wiping at his tired eyes. This was getting to be rather exhausting.
"You- you kleptomaniac- get to break into the Pentagon," Grumbled the telepath. With those words, Peter paused and slowly turned around in surprise, the statement forcing him to abandon his precious game. The... Pentagon? Did he hear that right?
"How do I know I can trust you?" He asked in seriousness for the first time in his encounter with the others. Peter had done all the snooping that he could to make sure these people weren't a threat of any kind, however their outrageous plan had him fearing otherwise. Across the room, Allie could sense his apprehension and silently hoped that one of the men did something to keep Peter on their side because he was slipping a tad bit.
"Cause we're just like you," Logan said, glancing over at Charles.
"Show him," Was all the Professor had to say. Logan nodded and held his hand over his chest, allowing his claws to once again protrude from their confinements beneath his flesh and be shown off to Peter who was sitting yet, now with wide eyes. He looked up at Logan, tearing his glare away from the intriguingly gory sight.
"It's cool but it's gross," He admitted with a grimace but then he quickly adverted his attention to the blonde who stood beside Logan. Training his eyes onto Allie, he gestured to her. "Does the Beach Boys fan have a power?"
Allie just smiled coolly as she tapped into his mind and mulled over the various fears he had- which was a surprisingly short list. The image of bats hit the forefront of her thoughts, then the hissing of snakes and a gruesome home invasion scenario that he'd heard on the news... oh yes, the Manson Murders. Well, she empathized with him on that one.
She continued before landing on a fear that would be appropriate for their current situation as it was simple yet comical. Apparently his beloved Pong arcade game meant a great deal to Peter, so much so that when it malfunctioned from time to time he feared that he would eventually have to scrap it and get a new one- meaning his high score will be wiped away forever. Nothing threatened his manhood more.
"I think there is something wrong with your game..." Allie observed only the hallucination herself and Peter could see, like she was an audience member spectating him endure a horrific nightmare. The young mutant turned to tap the game's buttons when he found that there was no longer a picture displayed on the screen, just the terrifying void of unresponsive darkness. Then suddenly wires spewed out from the panel on the lower part of the system. Allie showed him a sparking and heaping wired mess scattered on the ground, tangling with his feet.
"Agh! What did you do to my game?!" Peter cried as the other three men stared, puzzled at what he was yelling at until they realized the blonde mutant was orchestrating another one of her fearful tricks. The boy kicked away the imaginary wires and scooted backwards from the catastrophe helplessly. Feeling that the punishment was enough, the girl ended the tragedy.
"Nothing, it's all in your head," Allie smugly crooned, pushing herself off one of the wooden posts in the basement and strutted up the steps, feeling very fulfilled inside. Down in his manhole stood Peter yet, frowning at where the mass of wires used to be. They were no longer lying and sparking there, only a few crumbs were occupying the space from him eating Twinkies as he played. The young mutant frowned even further at the observation, pushing the leftover cake underneath the system.
"Did she really just do that?" He asked the other three men, turning around. Logan nodded with a knowing smirk. Peter would soon learn to submit to the constant fear mongering.
"Better get used to it, kid." Then Logan was off. Peter rolled his eyes and did one last glance at the game, ensuring that it wasn't broken. He gave it a loving pat before gathering his things