What could possibly go wrong

First things first, let me present ourselves, hello, I’m Ash and this is my twin brother Francisco. I know we don’t look alike, specially because he is albino and I’m Latino but anyways, this is the story of how we became … Spider-Man, no wait, that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go, let’s do that one again, this is the story of how we became part of the X-men.

Now, it all started a while ago when these two dudes came looking for my brother and I, in the streets of the beautiful city of San Francisco.

We weren’t having a particularly good day, we didn’t have any food or a place to stay. Last night we shared our stuff with some mutant kids, it was late and they looked worse than us so we decided to share. Unfortunately that meant that we wouldn’t have food for the next day, so here we are, looking for food in the trash outside a restaurant.

-Hello- a short man said with a strong British accent. He was wearing a light brown shirt, a dark brown coat and some blue jeans, and looked like a wealthy guy. The man behind him just stared at us, he was wearing an all black outfit, quite scary, with a leather jacket, black sunglasses and black shoes, fashioned, but looked like a supervillain.

-Hello- I responded while looking for something half decent on the trash can in the alleyway we were at. -I’m sorry gentlemen but the pride parade it’s two blocks in that direction- did I knew where I was leading them, no, did I care, even less. I heard a chuckle on top of me and I saw my brother just sitting comfortably in one of the fire escapes around, that bastard was waiting while I searched in the bin.

The short man just chuckled -We aren’t here for that- I heard but not really, it was in my mind, a god damn telepath, I hate those ones. We were telepaths, well not really, an empath? Does that even exist? The thing is qe can feel what others feel, the emotions. Nonetheless I wasn’t going to let this freak roam around my head like that, I had a way.

-Have you ever read Harry Potter?- I asked out of the blue with my usual level of cockiness.

-No, why- he asked, very confused. The man behind him not making a single movement, what the fuck was wrong with him.

-Then you are not going to like what’s about to happen- Francisco answered. Next thing they knew the British man was squirming in pain and the other man finally made a move, I was starting to think he was just some sort of hallucination.

-Charles, are you okay!?- he said with a concerned tone. He put a hand on his back and repeated the question - What’s wrong Charles, talk to me-.

-Make it quiet- he answered, his voice demonstrated his pain and suffering. You’re probably wondering, what on earth happened, and, most importantly, what did Harry Potter have to do with all this, good question. What happen is that in some part of the Harry Potter books Snape showed Harry how to protect his mind from Voldemort and everything, so I used the same tactic, I played in my head the most annoying sounds I could find, including a baby crying, an anvil, some animal shouting, car horns, people talking, among other things.

-Stop whatever you are doing- the man we haven’t identified yet said in an angry voice, metal stuff started moving around us.

-I wouldn’t do that if I were you- my twin added while starting to create some blades out of white smoke. Oh yeah, I did not explain that part, the thing is, with the emotion we feel we make stuff, like, we can create this smoke and form almost everything, in this case, weapons.

-It’s okay Erik- Charles said composing himself. I decided he had enough. - he stopped-.

-First of, don’t ever try to do that again, next time it won’t stop, and it will be much worse, you have my word, and second, I did not stopped because you told me - I said pointing at the taller man, don’t want him to think he had some sort of control over us- I stopped because I rather end with this quickly so we can take lunch- I said quite annoyed -so, what do you want, money, power, fighting, something?-.

-We don’t want any of that- Erik said, still quite pissed at us, understandable, we just hurt his friend? Now, remember I can feel emotions and everything. I can’t control it, which means I feel everything all the time. The thing is, whatever these two were feeling was weird. I could not define it as love but not quite friendship either, maybe the lack of food was starting to hit.

-We want to buy you lunch- Charles said in a calm happy voice, this had to be some kind of sick joke, or maybe they were going to drug us and then have us fight till we died or something like that.

-You can take your charity event somewhere else- Cisco said while finally dropping off the ladders right to my side, we had enough, still the food was a good offer, way too good probably -we don’t need your help- clearly a lie, but we were not going to show any kind of weakness.

-How about we make a deal,- he respondent, still calm even though the confrontational tone of Cisco -you let us buy you lunch and then you’ll have to hear what we need to say- we really did not trust these guys but god we were hungry. We look at each other before saying.

-Deal-

I’m probably going to regret this

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We went to an In-and-Out. I can’t remember the last time we ate hot food, our living conditions weren’t as good as they used to be before everything happened. We were sitting at an outside table, being inside was too overwhelming for us, and it seemed like Charles could feel that.

Erik took our order, he didn’t seem to like that idea of being a waiter but the look Charles gave him made him accept, with a bad mood, but accept. We asked for a simple cheeseburger for me and a one with bacon for my brother. Charles said he wasn’t gonna eat but five insisted that he ate something, it would’ve been really uncomfortable if they just sat there and stared at us.

-You know- he started -in all my years as a telepath nobody ever made me feel as bad as you-.

-Thank you- I said sarcastically -I’m really flattered-.

-As you should be- He decided not to push with that subject. He didn’t need to read minds to know that we felt uncomfortable with the conversation that was going on.

-———————————————————

Erik didn’t approached with our food till 15 minutes later, but they were the longest 15 minutes of my life. Meanwhile Charles tried to make chitchat.

-So… where do you live?- he asked politely

-Everywhere- my twin answered while spreading his arms and leaning backwards. He catched the weird look on Charles' face.

-Means we are homeless- I deadpanned

-it sounds bad if you say it like that- told me with a deceptive look, he was trying to look nice in front of a stranger. I wasn’t gonna feed his ego.

-It’s bad- I continued with my point, to be honest I just wanted to piss of my brother at these point, totally forgot of the stranger sitting in front of us

I rather said that this city is our home- he said, trying to look to the positive side in our situation, he always did, it was comforting, but annoying sometimes.

-Homeless- I finished the conversation just to remember that Charles was in fact the one that asked the question.

-That’s interesting- he said m, doubt he ever had to live in a situation like ours -That reminds me of the deal-.

-What’s the deal then- my brother spoke while I tried to not seem so desperate for food. Can’t remember the last time we ate at all.

-You get a house, unlimited food and clothes and internet and electronics- Charles offers. It was too good to be true.

-What 's the catch?- I asked while eating some more fries, they were really good. It does not sound like a bad deal, but there’s gotta be a catch.

-You train your power and help us defeat some evil Russian guys- Erik said, he was the only one that wasn’t eating, despite Charles' offerings.

-That’s it- Cisco asked shocked.

-We play to be super heros and we get all that- I repeated so I could understand what they were offering.

-Indeed- Charles confirmed and then taking a long sip of 7up.

-Deal?- Erik asked bluntly.

What could possibly go wrong -Deal-