#t: predictable

Despite years of seeing their Avengers on TV, despite seeing the X-Men interceding on their behalf (and getting far less credit than their human counterparts for the trouble), despite the fact that non-humans were slowly but steadily becoming a larger and larger part of the population– despite all this, humans still got terrified when someone’s powers slipped in public.  

It wasn’t even anything imminently dangerous; the boy looked to be no more than a child, scarcely old enough for his powers to begin manifesting, and all that had happened was a telekinetic pull of a piece of candy off of the register in the little cafe.  Of course, the fact that it was nothing but a candy moved by a child meant nothing–the cafe’s occupants erupted into chaos, and the parents, bewildered and clearly afraid, all but threw the candy back at the cashier and fled the cafe before anything more could happen to their child.  

The attempt of one of the patrons to file a police report led to his phone mysteriously getting fried, as Erik quietly sipped his coffee from the back corner–he hadn’t been recognized, yet, in this crappy little Starbucks on the border of Chinatown, and confrontations with the police who surely would know his face were something he’d like to have as few of as possible.  

For now.

The commentary from the woman the next table over, who looked equally unfazed, earned an amused scoff.  “They are, aren’t they?  So afraid and hateful of what they do not care to understand, as always.”