"Do you still want to take him with us?"
Eric glanced at Pietro, who was slumped in the back seat, fast asleep, and spoke with clear displeasure.
"He's incredibly fast and has excellent control over his abilities. He'll be a valuable asset," Charles replied with a smile as he drove.
"Ha." Eric turned to look at Pietro, who was sleeping like the dead. Normally, he wouldn't hesitate to mock someone so unreliable—but strangely, he felt no real irritation toward this kid, only a faint, indescribable feeling.
"Hey, kid!" Eric reached back and gave Pietro a firm shove to wake him.
"Are you always that fast? Or is it only during… certain situations?" Eric's voice dripped with sarcasm. Anyone could hear the implication. Charles, watching the exchange, couldn't help but chuckle. For all his composure, Eric was acting no different from a competitive young man in his twenties.
Though both of them were in their twenties, Pietro was clearly younger mentally, so Charles naturally assumed the role of the elder.
"What is your world… like?" Charles asked curiously. From Pietro's memories, he had glimpsed scenes of them battling overwhelming hordes of robots—some images had even made his blood run cold. There was also that strange man and a girl.
Charles found himself particularly interested in that odd-looking man. He resembled a mutant in many ways, and thanks to his bond with Raven, Charles had developed a strong tolerance—even acceptance—for unusual appearances.
"From what you said… that Renzo—that strange guy—is here too, right?"
There was concern in Charles's voice. From Pietro's memories, Renzo's combat ability was undeniably formidable. If someone like that joined Sebastian Shaw, it would spell disaster—not just for peaceful mutants, but for human society as well.
The group continued chatting casually as they drove toward their destination.
They were greeted by a heavyset man, with a slender blonde woman standing beside him. She shot Charles a resentful look.
Raven was clearly unhappy. The previous night, Charles had left her at the hospital while he went off with two grown men. Though their relationship was more like close siblings, she couldn't shake the feeling that something important to her had been taken away.
Her gaze toward Eric and Pietro carried open displeasure.
The man led them into his facility, proudly showcasing the equipment as he spoke.
"Hank, introduce yourself."
Inside stood a young man in a white coat. He was handsome, with blue eyes strikingly similar to Charles's.
"So there's already a powerful mutant here," Charles said warmly as he shook Hank's hand.
But the moment their hands met, Hank's expression shifted. Combined with the man's confused reaction, Charles immediately realized his mistake—he had unintentionally exposed Hank as a mutant.
"I thought he'd be like Stark, but turns out he speaks before thinking," Pietro muttered weakly. Charles's blunder left him at a loss for words.
Fortunately, with Raven smoothing things over, the atmosphere quickly lightened.
Meanwhile, elsewhere—
Renzo followed Riptide and the Red Devil out into the city. Shaw had stayed behind to speak with the White Queen, Emma, about the missile crisis. As for whether that conversation would lead to anything else… that remained to be seen.
Renzo sat alone in the back seat, staring out the window at the outdated scenery with a faintly troubled expression.
He couldn't take on a human form and could only keep himself hidden behind the glass. The same applied to the Red Devil in the front seat. In this era, simply being different was enough to be condemned. Discrimination was the norm.
Mutants hadn't yet been revealed to the public, but within certain families, those born with mutations were treated as if they were demonic offspring—insulted, abused, rejected, even beaten while still children.
Renzo felt a deep dissatisfaction with this so-called order, but there was little he could do. The conflict between mutants and humans seemed irreconcilable—a clash between two races where coexistence felt impossible.
He leaned his head against the window, thinking about the bleak future awaiting many mutants, occasionally glancing at the two in the front seat.
Their futures wouldn't be any better. They would be captured by the military, subjected to brutal experimentation, their bodies never even recovered. Few met worse ends.
"What are you looking at?" the Red Devil asked, glancing back with a trace of sympathy in his eyes.
For mutants whose appearances had changed so drastically, they understood better than anyone the hostility and fear directed at them. The Red Devil would never forget those looks—the kind that wished for their immediate death.
"I… was just looking outside. It's… lively," Renzo replied awkwardly.
Both the Red Devil and Riptide twitched at the obvious excuse.
"Do you really want to provoke a conflict between mutants and humans?" Renzo asked cautiously.
He already knew the answer, at least partially. These two weren't truly devoted to Shaw. Otherwise, they wouldn't have later sided with Eric after Shaw's death. They followed Shaw more out of a desire for survival—for a better life, for equal treatment.
What they sought wasn't dominance, but fairness.
"They will never accept us," the Red Devil said quietly, his tone carrying a deep, unspoken loneliness.
"In their eyes, we're just monsters. Like prey and predators—one exists to be hunted, the other to hunt."
Riptide glanced at the rearview mirror and spoke firmly, "Then we must become the predators. Only then can we claim the rights we deserve."
Hearing this, Renzo knew his plan was likely to succeed. Just because humans in this world rejected mutants didn't mean the same held true elsewhere. In the Avengers' world, things were different.
Given the right circumstances, if they performed acts of heroism—so long as they weren't doing something absurd like helping an old lady jaywalk—they could be accepted, even admired.
Maybe they could even gain fans, like Steve.
As Renzo quietly mapped out his plan to bring them across worlds, a smile crept onto his face.
In the front seat, Red Devil and Riptide caught sight of Renzo's foolish grin in the mirror. They exchanged a silent glance, then both turned away at the same time, as if afraid of being infected by his idiocy.
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