Sneaking About (res)

[parker]

"Pay no attention to the tight and colorful costume; I'm here to check the power bill! Take me to your leader. I took a right at Albequerque. I come in peace. I'm Santa Claus on Jenny Craig?"

These words were muttered under the breath of the Amazing Spider-Man as he sprinted across the street towards the Westchester school's campus, costume on and trying to look as unnoticeable as one could when clad in red and blue. The fact that it was two in the morning helped considerably with that, and the narrow road was deserted of headlights in both directions; he had taken two buses and a cab to get here, and had spent the past five hours lurking in wait nearby. By now, he hoped, the place was nice and quiet.

The first obstacle, the sizable school gates, offered Parker the first chance of a respite, and as he quickly leapt atop one of the supporting pillars, clinging to the inner side of it and keeping to the shadows, he once more questioned whether it was the best idea to try and sneak into this place. Sure, he didn't want to go taking off his mask and showing half of the student population his face- they had Twitter, after all- but considering the place was supposedly a repository of mutant students, he was essentially walking into a situation where he might get annihilated by a ten year old girl. Painful horrifying death was one thing, after all; embaressment was thinking things a bit too far. He could only hope that if he was inevitably discovered before he could reach his hoped-for target, the well-known costume and charming disposition would keep him alive long enough to make his intentions clear.

Unless they were fans of Jameson's editorials. In that event, death was guaranteed.

"Well. This should be fun." Clearing his throat, Peter gave the grounds one more careful sweep, fingers drumming restlessly on the stone pillar beneath him. "Creepy night. A hundred or so super-powered tweens. Possibly unstable mutation in my bloodstream. Ooooh yes, just like... the rest of my life... lately."

Sighing, Parker decided there wasn't much point delaying matters any longer. Leaping backwards, Spider-Man tucked into a tight ball and flipped over as he fired a quick blast of webbing towards the very edge of the pillar; he had fallen about eight feet down and ten away from the structure when the webbing caught. The moment it did, Peter straightened and gave the webline a hard pull, forcing it taut and using the strength of his arms to send him hurtling airborne. The wind whistled past his ears, muffled by his mask as his arms and legs tucked in tight, his entire body as straight as an arrow; he had used this particular trick more than once to cross ground when there wasn't a nice, tall skyscraper around. High in the air, his passage was virtually silent, adrenaline beginning to flood his body and time itself seeming to slow; while the fall from this height would hardly hurt him, he wasn't willing to test whether there were any motion sensors on the grounds... for all he knew, machine guns lurked beneath the manicured lawn.

Comeoncomeoncomeon, he thought, tense as the ground fell away and then, gradually, began to loom closer once more, Just a bit further, bitfurther, don't fall, aaaand-

Extending his arm again, another webline leapt out and caught the top ledge of the school just as he was beginning to drop below its highest point again. Both hands gripped the line tightly as he gave another powerful pull, using every ounce of strength he had and tucking his legs close to his chest as he somersaulted rapidly through the night air, just clearing the roof of the main building and landing with a soft grunt and quick roll. As he rolled, a brief flare of his spider sense forced him to plant his feet flat against the ground for his next rotation, every muscle straining to halt his foreward momentum now as he adhered to the roof. Leaning forward at a ninety degree angle, panting for breath as he found himself staring at the source of his precognitive warning; one of the roof tiles, less than half an inch from his boots, about eight feet in from the roof's edge. Though it looked harmless, it wasn't difficult for him to believe a pressure plate or some other security device might lurk underneath.

Well. Looks like people randomly popping onto the roof is a bit of an expected thing around here. Figures.

Slowly straightening, Peter gave the rest of the roof a glance, hands rubbing his sides as if to wipe off imaginary sweat; he had little doubt the rest of the roof had similar sensors and traps waiting for someone foolish enough to approach one of the skylights. So he took another tact, wandering along the roof's edge as he peered below, head craning as he scanned the side of the building; a few minutes later, he found what he was looking for. An open window.

Crawling down the side of the building, Peter peered through the window's very top portion carefully; inside was an unremarkable bedroom, in which two students slumbered in seperate beds. Across from that very window was the door to the hallway, and as far as Parker could tell, there weren't any security measures between him and there... which essentially meant his only way inside was to sneak into the bedroom of a couple of kids.

Great. The Amazing Creeper. I really hope Jonah doesn't hear about this...

Slipping through the window without a sound, Peter went with the ceiling approach, scrambling above the slumbering student's head without making a sound and working his way to the door on the other end of the room. Standing up, upside-down, his gloved fingers reached down/up to close around the knob, glancing over his shoulder towards the student to confirm he hadn't been disturbed. The moment one youth gave a particularly loud snore, the wallcrawler yanked open the door, flipped through it and shut it behind him, once more leaping to the ceiling and staring all about as if expecting ambush at any moment.

All seemed quiet, however, and after a long, tense moment, Parker began to move once again, picking a promising looking direction.

Fortunately, his spider sense would alert him if anyone was going to come wandering from around any corners without warning, but more than once he ended up in long stretches of corridor that lacked much of a hiding place. Although he had no real idea where he was going to find this Xavier individual, he was hoping he'd find a helpful 'Welcome to School!' map or something that might show where the teachers all dormed. Even as he crept through the Institute, he was trying to think of some appropriate words that might save him from a stabbing/beating/burning/mindscrewing if he was found first.

"I'm cute?"

[xavier]

Xavier was in his office it was one of those nights he was tired but he had so much to do. his staff had left they had to have a life after all Scott and Jean were saying there relationship he hoped. He had checked in with them and they were fine or so they had said. Cable spent most of the day beating up the students. the two of them had talked about this and Cable had promised this week he would not lay a finger on a student but its hard to trust a man who could snap bones with a thought.

Hank was spending a lot of time building bridges with the government which was what had been needed for every one to help. Steve Rodgers had been a god send with helping the students. He knew there would be a time that he would leave them but the fact that he was an Icon a real hero it may help the school in the long run.

He sent his mind wondering threw the school checking the children and making sure they were all were they should be and that was fine but then he felt some thing strange. some one had broken in to the school. Well this he could not allow to happen.

He listened to the mans surface thoughts then he sent the message. Do you normally brake in to schools late at night? he hoped that this man was not her to hurt any one. He surface thoughts did not show that. You are lucky that i found you before some of the others. I will not harm you unless you are here to harm my students. Trust me i will know as soon as you think about it. so tell em why are you here? he waited for a response. He did hope that this man was here for some reason. he could sense the man wanted to hide who he was and he would respect that for now and not dig to deep in to his mind.

[parker]

Oh God. A psychic. The one thing anyone with a super identity learned to fear above all else.

Listen, um, mind-probing-guy, he thought, all but frozen in the middle of the hallway, still stuck right to the ceiling, the thoughts he actually meant to send this mental intruder mixing with the inadvertant 'brain farts' that popped through his head. I don't mean to be in here creeping around at two in the morning. Well. I do mean to be creeping around at two in the morning since I, er, am currently doing it, but I'm not here to try and hurt anyone. Listen, I'm a hero from Manhattan, Spider-Man; you've heard of me, right? Catchy little jingle? Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a- okay, nevermind, not important. Look, I came here like this because I wasn't sure how the kids would react if I came strolling up the front lane in red and blue spandex, and I'm not really in a position to be going maskless, if you get what I'm saying. Though if I'd known there was a freaking psychic in the building I would've just run back and forth across the front gates with a big yellow banner going la-dee-dah, but- not important, right, um...

He took a moment to collect his thoughts- more effort than one would think, considering how agitated he was feeling. Could this guy just skim the stuff that was going on inside his head right now, or could he poke around at will and take whatever he wanted? Just in case it was the former, poor Spidey found himself in the position of trying to ensure he didn't think of anything that would compromise who he was. No name, no address, nothing whatsoever... and trying to specifically not think about something, usually, just made one's rebellious brain think of little else. Of course, it was obvious he had no idea that the man in his brain was the very same Professor he had come seeking out; he knew quite a bit about Xavier's education, his various published papers, and certainly knew that he was likely a mutant himself. He just didn't know that this was the man's mutation.

All right, listen, he finally began again, 'sounding' much calmer now as he sought to reveal his honesty without revealing too much- that was a fun dance too!- starting to slowly make his way down the hallway. He wasn't sure where he was going, but he was beginning to feel a little exposed out there in plain view. I'm here because I think I might be in trouble. My powers? They're the result of a genetic mutation inflicted by a retrovirus; the problem is, I don't think the mutation's stable, and that could be very bad for me. Like super-hairy, eight-limbs bad, and while I appreciate the whole 'Mutant Equality' idea, I don't want to spend the rest of my days able to give the most potent thumbs-up of life. The thing is, I don't have access to very good equipment, and to be honest genetics isn't really my focus... I could really use the help of a professor who's supposed to live here, Charles Xavier?

[xavier]

Well you have found him. Do not worry about your privacy as long as you are not here to harm my students i will not read any thing more than your thoughts. We have the leading experts in Mutagenics living here i am sure we can help you spider man. Xavier sent him an image of were he could find him. he thought that he would find it simpler to talk face to face. most found this form of conversation uncomfortable.

if your power is not stable we can help correct it.[/] well it looked like it was going to be another long night. he could sense that the man was here for the reasons he clamied he could sense no lies in his thoughts at all.