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Danny walked along the deserted road, his breath steaming in the frigid air. The sun had just risen above the horizon, and the ground was still covered in frost. He couldn't remember what state he was in. It might be somewhere up north, considering how disgustingly frigid it was, but even if he wasn't, the cold still shouldn't be surprising. It was the middle of December, after all.
Hardly anything stirred, and an oppressing silence filled the air. There was nothing to keep his mind from drifting back—like it often did in times of quietness like this—to when everything went wrong. He still remembered the day he had run away from his cozy little home in the suburbs as if it had just happened—and yet somehow simultaneously like it happened ages ago.
He didn't miss his parents so much—they were most of the reason why he had run away—but Jazz, his older sister, had always been there for him. He hadn't realized it until that day, and now he would likely never see her again. How cruelly ironic.
"Oh, come on. Your life wasn't that great before. You were the loser space dork without any friends," he muttered to himself. Yes, his life wasn't that great, but at least he had a roof over his head before all of this happened.
And what had happened...was not good, to say the least.
It had started on a Monday of all days, and Danny specifically remembered being in a bad mood, partially because it was the start of another long and arduous week, and also because his parents were on a work related trip, again. Despite already being malcontent and angst ridden the universe had to go and make it worse—so much worse.
...
Danny waded through the crowded halls of Darwin High, head ducked down and shoulders slumped. Most people ignored him or simply didn't even notice him, but of course, the one person he was trying to avoid did.
A large beefy hand—that didn't seem like it should belong to a fourteen year old—roughly gripped Danny's arm and yanked him into the lockers. Danny winced as he slammed into the hard metal, making a loud clang that, of course, attracted the attention of most of the kids in the hall.
"Hey, Fenturd where you going?" The big blond bully, also known as Dash Baxter, asked mockingly.
"I'm trying to get to my fourth period class. Where the hell else would I be going?" Danny snapped back, which had not been the smartest thing to do.
The sneer dropped from Dash's face. "You think you can talk to me like that?" he growled at Danny.
"I don't have time for this," Danny muttered and yanked his arm out of Dash's hold. He didn't care that he nearly dislocated his shoulder in the process; he just wanted to get to class and get through the rest of his crummy day.
Danny made it exactly four steps before he was being yanked back into the lockers, this time by his hair. His sister had said it was starting to get shaggy. He really wished now that he had listened when she suggested he should get it cut. Dash kept hold of his hair, pulling hard enough to make tears sting Danny's eyes.
"Listen, Fenton, I'm top dog around here, and in case you forgot that—" Dash viciously punched him in the stomach.
"What the fuck is your problem, Dash?" Danny wheezed. He instantly regretted asking when Dash rewarded him with another punch for it.
For once, Danny was actually scared of what Dash might do to him. Sure Dash was the stereotypical asshole that played football and pummeled people that were smaller than him in his free time, but he was usually more...controlled than this.
"I failed my algebra test. I was just going to give you the usual beating to let off a little steam, but now you're gonna get it," the bully snarled.
The next punch Dash threw, his fist literally went through Danny's abdomen and into the rigid lockers behind him. He yelped and let go of Danny.
Danny looked around at the shocked and horrified faces of the crowd that had gathered. He paused when he saw something strange in the reflection of another student's glasses. What he saw was a boy with snow white hair and glowing green eyes.
He turned back to Dash and saw that the bully actually looked scared of him. Danny had always wondered what it would feel like to see fear in Dash's eyes. He assumed he'd feel vindicated for all the times he had been roughly shoved into lockers, had his head dunked into toilets, and just had the crap beaten out of him, but now seeing the football player cower in front of him, Danny just felt sick with dread.
"Fucking hell, you're one of those freaks," Dash said, not in a snide mocking way, but in a voice that trembled and was hardly above a whisper.
...
Danny pulled his coat tighter around him, as if to shut out the coldness of his memories rather than the atmosphere itself. Maybe flying as fast as he could would allow him to escape his thoughts, but he wasn't sure how long he could keep that up. He was still tired from his brush with the freaks that tried to kidnap him at the train station.
Danny's head snapped up as an old station wagon drove by him. It looked just like the one his family used to own before they upsized when he and Jazz got older. Those were the good days. Then his parents, genius biologists that they were, started working on a project to confront the mutant pandemic, and those good days were out the window.
Danny never really gave mutants much though except to curse them for taking up so much of his parents' time. Unlike their son, Maddie and Jack Fenton had always felt...strongly against mutants. The only tender word for their feelings would be pity, and that was only on a good day. On bad days, when the news stations were covering some sort of legal offense made by a mutant, his parents would describe them as abominations and despicable inhuman monsters. When Danny found out that he was one of those despicable inhuman monsters, he didn't want to stick around long enough to find out what his parents would do to him.
He sighed, making a large puff of fog. His thoughts were one big circle now, always going in the same direction, and then always whipping back around. And every little thing seemed to remind him of home. Damn if he didn't miss his home, even with all its faults.
He was roughly dragged out of his thoughts when another car, this time a sleek jag, pulled over in front of him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he felt like ice was being poured down his back. There were two other mutants in the car. One high level, one mid level. Danny considered making up some kind of system or scale to chart power levels, but he didn't have much time to do so, what with having to run away every time he sensed another mutant nowadays.
Danny readied himself to jump in the air and fly away as the car doors opened. He only paused when a scruffy looking man hardly taller than Danny's scrawny fourteen year old self stepped out of the passenger side. Out of the driver's side came a woman with dark skin but stark white hair and sky blue eyes. Danny frowned. He didn't recognize either of them, but that didn't necessarily mean they weren't with the other mutants that had tried to kidnap him earlier.
Danny narrowed his eyes at them and crossed his arms. "Are you here to try to make me join your little cult of mutants again, 'cause that's not happening, ever."
"We're not here to make you do anything, kid," the scruffy looking man said in a predictably deep, gravelly voice. "We just want to talk. We're not the people you ran into before."
"We just want to help you," said the woman with a slight accent."We're from Charles Xavier's Home for Gifted Children."
"I don't need your help, and I don't care where you're from,” Danny spat.
"By the looks of you, you do need our help. When was the last time you showered?" The man said with a sniff.
Danny's cheeks heated. Okay, so he might smell a little, but it was rude of the guy to point it out like that.
"Look, with the...conspicuous nature of your mutation, it would be better for you to stay at the home for gifted children," The woman said.
Danny's jaw tightened and he leveled a glare at the other mutant. Pointing out that he smelled was rude, but saying that he looked like a freak...was just hurtful. He knew he had freaky white hair and even freakyer glowing green eyes. She didn't have to tell him. He saw his hated new form every time he accidentally looked into a reflective surface.
"I don't even know your names, and you expect me to trust you?" the teen bit out. "The last time I ran into some other mutants, there was this blue lady that could change her face, so no thanks. I have too many trust issues for too many good reasons."
Something seemed to change between the two and they shared a look, looking equally shocked and angered.
"Mystique, that means Magneto is after him. Charles was afraid of that," the scruffy guy said.
Danny frowned and inspected the couple again. From their reactions he'd say they probably weren't with the last people who confronted him. That was at least good news, but he was still wary of them.
"Who's Mystique and Magneto, and...Charles?" Danny asked.
"Mystique and Magneto are powerful mutants that we hope you'll never have to encounter again. Charles on the other hand...we hope you'll come with us so you can meet him," the woman said. "My name is Storm, by the way."
"Logan," the man asserted tersely.
Danny said nothing and simply looked warily between them again.
"Look kid, Magneto is not a good guy, and he doesn't know how to take 'no' for an answer. For some reason he wants you, and he won't leave you alone until he has you," the newly dubbed Logan said.
"My name's not kid, it's Danny. And why the hell does this guy want me?"
"Gee, I don't know. It's not like you can fly or become intangible or anything like that," Logan said gruffly.
Danny's eyes widened. "How do you know I can do that?"
"There's videos of you, kid. How else?" Logan replied flatly.
"Oh. Well, how did you know where to find me? I haven't stopped moving for at least two days straight," the teen demanded.
"We know the general area you were in because of a little thing called Ceribro," Logan said with a hint of a smirk. "And I'm also a tracker. Sabertooth is probably on your tail, too. You're lucky we got to you first."
"What the hell is Ceribro, and who or what is Sabertooth?" Danny asked making a face.
"Sabertooth is another of Magneto's mutants, a tracker like me, and Ceribro is..." Logan trailed off with a frown and looked to Storm for help.
"It's...not something you can really describe," Storm said.
Danny narrowed his eyes. "Well, that's not vague and concerning at all.
"Anyway," Danny said shoving his hands into his pockets, "now that you've warned me about these mutants after me, I can steer clear of them. Problem solved."
Storm began to protest, but Logan quickly cut her off. "All right Storm we tried. If the kid doesn't want to come, he doesn't want to come. I guess he'll just have to deal with Magneto alone.” The man abruptly turned to get back into the car. Storm's eyes widened a fraction, but when she received a look from Logan she started to play along and got in beside him.
"I know what you're doing," Danny said stubbornly, not wanting to admit that he was suddenly a little anxious.
When the car started and began to pull away, he realized he really didn't want to deal with some crazy mutant brotherhood alone. He was still hardly in control of his powers, and he didn't know how long he could keep running from them if what Logan said was true.
"Wait!" Danny shouted.
He lifted off from the ground and flew over to the car as quick as he could and fazed right into the back of the seat. When he saw the man's smug face in the rear view mirror Danny knew instantly that he had been tricked.
"This better not be a trap," the teen grumbled.
With amusement clear in his voice, Logan said, "it's not. We're just taking you school, unless you consider that a trap."
Danny huffed and crossed his arms. He didn't even bother buckling his seatbelt for the ride ahead.
"Oh, so this is Ceribro," Danny said as he looked around the spherical room. He had a strange temptation to just jump off of the platform in the middle of the room and fly around it for some reason. It was very tempting, but he decided that that was not the best course of action at the moment. In fact, he really should be listening to the bald guy in the wheelchair giving him an explanation on how the thing called "Ceribro" worked.
"...connected to Ceribro, I'm connected to all the minds of the mutants world-wide."
Now that got Danny's attention. "Wait, hold up, so your saying that when your...connected to this thing you can read the minds of every mutant in the world?"
"Well, not all at once, but individually, yes. You see it enhances my telepathic abilities," the bald guy said. "And I don't appreciate being called 'the bald guy', Daniel. As I said before, my name is Professor Xavier."
"So...I'm guessing telepathic abilities means reading minds," Danny said awkwardly rubbing his neck. "Could you...maybe not do that. It's…kind of freaking me out."
A sly smile twisted the Professor's lips. "Of course." Danny found no comfort in the old man's words.
"If we're done here, why don't I show you where you'll be staying," the Professor said as he zoomed past Danny in his wheelchair.
"Just a few days, right? I'll only be staying for a few days until we find out why this Magneto guy wants to recruit me, or something, right?" Danny asked.
Professor Xavier stopped and turned his wheelchair around to face the troubled teen. "Daniel, you don't have to feel ashamed for what you are around here. You are not sick, and neither am I or any of my students."
Danny swallowed thickly and averted his eyes. "I thought I asked you not to read my mind," he said quietly.
"I didn't have to," the professor replied.
Danny shook his head. He didn't want to think of this right now. In fact, he didn't really want to think of it ever. He just wanted to get through the next few days unscathed.
"Okay, whatever, I just...really want to sleep right now. Can you show me my room or not?"
With a suffering sigh, the Professor turned back around. "It's right this way."
Danny didn't think he would be able to fall asleep as fast as he did with all his swirling thoughts, but as soon as his head hit the pillow of his loaned bed, he was out like a light.
It wasn't much later that he woke with a snort, drool covering half of his face and his hand that he had wedged under his cheek. He realized what had woken him as the sound came again. It was a knock at the door.
The knock came again, this time sounding more impatient. He quickly rubbed the drool off his face, before giving a groggy shout to come in. As he sat up on the bed, two teenagers about his age walked in. One was a goth girl mostly in black with a few purple and green accents. The other was a dark skinned boy wearing a red beret, cargo pants, and an ill fitting canary yellow sweater. As Danny looked closer at the pair he noticed that their eyes were strange colors, the goth girl's being a purple that reminded Danny of a kind of orchid his mother used to like, and the boy's was an electric blue.
The girl introduced herself first. "I'm Sam, and just so you know I wouldn't be here if the Professor hadn't put me up to it," she said with a bored look.
The boy gave Danny a sheepish look. "Sam isn't really a people person. You'll have to excuse her."
"I prefer the company of plants," she droned, as if that was a completely normal thing to say.
"Okay..." Danny said, a bit more confused than he'd like to admit. "So who are you?" he asked the beret wearing kid.
"Tucker Foely, technopath," he said pointing to himself.
"Alright, is that supposed to mean something to me?" Danny asked.
Tucker visibly wilted. "See? I told you no one would know what that meant," Sam taunted.
"It'll catch on!" Tucker said rounding on his "friend".
"Okay, look guys, I just woke up. I'm not awake enough to deal with two fighting strangers," Danny said rubbing the grit out of his eye.
Sam smirked at that. "Alright, you seem pretty cool, I guess. Tucker can control technology, and I can control plants. By the way, I like you hair. It's very nu goth."
Danny blinked then pulled down a snow white lock of his bangs to look at it. "Um, thanks, I guess."
"So what's your power?" Tucker asked.
Danny fidgeted for a moment. He didn't really want to talk about his powers, but they were both looking at him expectantly. Danny stifled yet another sigh. "I can walk through walls, disappear, and fly, sort of like a ghost. And a few other things."
Sam raised her eyebrows while Tucker openly stared at him with his mouth slightly agape. "That's pretty wicked," Sam commented. "We already have a girl who can walk through walls, but flying and disappearing is kind of new. How do you fly? Do you have wings?"
"Uh, no I just..." Danny trailed off as he lifted off from the bed and floated three feet in the air, "...kind of do it, like Peter Pan." Danny cringed at the embarrassing comparison he made by mistake. He desperately hoped he hadn't unintentionally given himself a stupid nickname he'd have to deal with for the duration of his stay.
Sam smirked, not missing a beat. "Maybe Peter Pan should be your superhero name."
"Come on Sam. Don't be that heartless," Tucker said.
Danny touched down back on his bed. "Superhero name?" He asked.
"Yeah, we all come up with our own code names, even if we never become an X-man. It's kind of like an initiation thing," Tucker explained.
"Oh...so what are yours?" Danny asked.
"Mine is Undergrowth and his is Technos, not to be confused with Technus the other technopath that is way more powerful than him," Sam said.
"I came up with it first," Tucker sulked.
Danny eyed the strange couple. "So you two are friends?" He asked a bit warily.
Sam shrugged. "On a good day."
"Well, it's just that you two seem a little...at odds."
"Well, we're kind of like the weirdos among the weirdos, and we stick together because of that," Sam explained. "And besides we do have some things in common. For example, we both like playing Doomed."
Danny perked up at that. "You guys play Doomed? I love that game!"
"Yeah, it's pretty awesome, and with the new level added in last week it's even better," Tucker said.
"Man, I haven't played that game in like months," Danny said. "Not since..."
"Not since what?" Tucker asked.
"Not since I ran away," Danny answered quietly.
"You know there are a lot of kids here that ran away. You don't have to be alone anymore," Sam explained.
"Really?" Danny asked with a frown. "How'd you two end up here?"
"Well, my parents dumped me here, and haven't talked to me since my fourteenth birthday party," Sam deadpanned.
"What happened at your fourteenth birthday party?" Danny cautiously asked.
"My parents invited all the people that I hated," she said flatly. "The stress triggered my mutation, and the back yard turned into a jungle. That enough info for you?"
Danny nodded silently.
"My story's not really all that dramatic," Tucker said. "I just came out to my parents and we all agreed that it would be best if I came here to learn about my powers." Danny noticed Sam give Tucker a dark look that could only be described as envious.
She turned her intense gaze back on Danny. "What about you? Why'd you run away?" she said flatly.
"Um, yeah, no, I'm not talking about my problems with two virtual strangers," Danny said.
"Whatever then," Sam deadpanned. "We're missing out on lunch. You should come along. You look like you haven't eaten in weeks."
In the cafeteria with his two new quasi-friends, Danny wolfed down whatever it was they were serving. He didn't know what it was, but it was just about the most delicious thing he had ever tasted in his life.
"You two are disgusting," Sam said with a sneer as she watched the two boys inhale their food.
Danny looked up from his food for a second to look at what the goth girl was having. She was eating a weird sandwich with lots of greens and gross looking lumpy white chunks. "What are you eating?"
"Don't ask, dude. It's disgusting," Tucker said around a mouthful of food.
Sam glared at the technopath until he shrunk under her gaze then turned to Danny. "It's a tofu sandwich. I'm a vegan, if you must know."
Danny tilted his head curiously. "I would have thought since you like plants so much that you wouldn't eat them."
"Unlike the poor animals you creatures eat, plants produce fruits specifically for consumption by other animals," Sam explained brusquely.
"Oh, okay," Danny said, not really having an opinion one way or the other. "By the way what can you do with plants? I can't really imagine that's such a great superpower."
She fixed him with a venomous glare, but it quickly evolved into a mischievous smirk that almost worried Danny more. "I'll show you,” she purred like an evil villainess from one of those old James Bond movies.
Sam's gaze shifted to an ivy that was in a hanging pot near the large bay window. Her eyes suddenly became a pupilless green, reminding Danny of his own green orbs. When he heard a rustling behind him, he turned around to see that the innocuous little ivy had sprouted thorns and its vines were now as big around as Danny's arm. He gave a yelp as the demented looking plant curled around his waist and lifted him six feet into the air. There were a few groans around the cafeteria and someone shouted "Put the poor kid down!"
Danny simply hung there for a moment, amazed and even little frightened at what the goth girl could do, until the Professor zoomed into the cafeteria in his wheelchair.
He gave Sam a halfhearted glare and said with just a hint of amusement in his voice, "Samantha, when I asked you to become acquainted with our new guest, this is not what I meant."
"Sorry, professor," she said, actually looking a little abashed.
"Now could you please put Daniel down?" The Professor asked.
Danny said, still suspended in the air by Sam's greenery, "I can get myself down. It's no big deal." With that he phased out of the ivy's hold and gently floated down back to the table.
"Now if you would please put the plant like it was?" The Professor suggested with a small amused smile.
"I don't know, I like it better this way," Sam said cheekily.
The Professor just had to give her a look and she obeyed, albeit with an annoyed huff. Sam focused back on the ivy. It quickly retracted, loosing its monstrous girth and thorns on the way, and looked just as nonthreatening as it had before.
"Okay, that was...a little terrifying actually but cool, too," Danny said to a very proud looking Sam.
"If you think that's cool," Tucker said with a goofy smirk, "just wait until you see—"
"Please, Mr. Foely, let's not have a repeat of last time," the Professor shouted halfway across the lunch room.
After sulking lightly for a second, Tucker perked up and said, "I can show you later if...you know, you're not going to disappear."
"Um...why do you ask? Do kids often leave?" Danny asked trying to divert their attention.
"Well, not often, but the ones who do leave are usually runaways in the first place," Tucker explained.
"So are you going to leave anytime soon?" Sam asked, not letting the matter slide.
"I plan on staying for a little while, at least until they figure out what to do with this Magneto guy," Danny stated.
"Hold up," Tucker said holding up a hand. "You've got Magneto after you? Man, that's rough."
"Yeah, it wasn't great when he sent some of his goons after me," Danny muttered.
"If your powerful enough to evade his people then it's really no wonder he wants you. You should really consider staying long-term. He may not give up on you for quite some time," Sam said. "And besides, this place may seem like prep school, but at least you're not spat at and called a freak of nature here."
"That is a very convincing argument, but I think I'm going to have to pass," Danny said.
Sam quirked an eyebrow and gave him a searching look. Danny somehow felt even more exposed and vulnerable than when he had been around the Professor who could actually read minds.
"Why? You're not afraid of mutants, are you?" she said giving him a knowing look. It almost reminded him of his sister, except it was too predatory. "Did you come from a really prejudice family or something? Or did your little run in with Magneto's henchmen shake you up that bad?"
Startled, Danny straightened in his seat. "I-I...um..." he stuttered. She hit it right on the head with both guesses. He was naturally a little distrustful of other mutants because of living with his parents' prejudice, but after the run in with Mystique looking like his sister.… It only helped to solidify his aversion.
"And if you're wondering, no, I'm not a telepath like the Professor. I'm just really good at reading people," she said flatly.
Tucker gave her a worried look. "Sam..."
"I'm just asking, Tucker. I know what it's like," she said.
Danny's face suddenly hardened. "No, you don't know what it's like. You don't know anything about me, or my family, or what I've been through," he bit out.
She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand. "Then tell me," she deadpanned.
After a moment of deliberation, Danny said in clipped, cold tone, "My parents didn't just hate mutants, they were scientists actively working to 'cure' them. My sister, Jazz, left school early because I ran out after my...mutation presented itself in front of the whole school. She helped calm me down and tried to convince me to stay. Fast forward to a few days ago, I nearly had a heart attack when a person I thought was my sister finds me at a train station, and I can suddenly sense her as a mutant. Surprise! It wasn't Jazz! It was some naked blue lady that wanted to kidnap me!"
Sam and Tucker looked confused for a moment until realization dawned on them. "Oh, man, he sent Mystique after you? He must want you really bad," Tucker said.
"Can we stop saying he 'wants me'? There's something just a little too weird sounding about that," Danny suddenly snapped. Tucker snickered at that, to which Sam elbowed him in the ribs.
"All right, um...how about we talk about something else now, since that seems like such a sore subject," Sam said.
"Brilliant idea!" Danny said with faked enthusiasm. "Why don't you tell me more about your powers, Tucker."
The technopath looked startled that the conversation was suddenly about him, but stuttered out anyway, "Uh, okay, well, like I said before, I can like control technology, and what I mean by that is I can link my mind with computers and basically anything that has electricity in it."
"Yeah, his favorite trick is being a complete ass and changing the channel on all the TVs in the house," Sam deadpanned.
"Hey, that one time was an accident!" Tucker defended.
"Oh, yeah, but what about that time you switched all the TVs over to My Little Pony?" Sam said with a dangerous look in her eye.
Ignoring the danger, Tucker smirked goofily and said, "Guilty as charged."
"I will never forgive you for that,” the goth girl said, looking away dramatically as if he had killed her beloved pet or committed some other inexcusable offense.
After a few games of Doomed with Sam and Tucker, in which the latter used his powers to cheat a couple of times, it had been dinner time and then bed. As soon as Danny had arrived at the school, he had taken a shower, but before bed he had taken another, simply because he could. Laying in the warm soft sheets and smelling like citrus shampoo, he could almost pretend he was back at home. Almost.
Danny laid in his bed, staring at the ceiling. There was something disturbing about its lack of stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars. He would have to amend that as soon as possible. That was if he decided to stay.
He wondered not for the first time if Xavier's Home for Gifted Children could be his home. He already seemed to have made friends, two more than he had ever had in his home town of Amity Park, and unlike there he actually seemed to be sort of popular here. A few times someone had walked up to him and introduced themselves and said his powers were cool. Nothing about him had ever been considered cool before.
He wouldn't think of actually staying and living there long-term, but maybe—just maybe—he'd stick around a little longer than planned.