Sparrows and Iron

Chapter 2

-Xavier Mansion, 1973-

A little girl sat on one of the tables in lab, watching her father's best friend as he worked.

"Uncle Hank, there's someone at the door!" the three-year-old announced. Her small voice held just a hint of an English accent, which she got from her father.

The man looked up from his work, about to ask what she meant, when suddenly, Hank McCoy heard a faint pounding from the front of the great house. He frowned. Things like this had been happening far more often with the child, and he wondered if it was possible that her mutation could be showing this early. Of course, given who her father was, he wouldn't be surprised.

He got up, heading to see who could possibly be at the door. Then, he remembered that he was supposed to be babysitting. The "stand-in parent" had become his permanent role since Charles started drinking and obsessing over walking again.

Hank briefly debated whether or not to take her with him.

"Alright Jenny, I need you to stay here while I go see who that is. Can you do that?"

The girl nodded. Breathing a sigh of relief, Hank started towards the front door. Just before he left the room, he turned around with one last thought.

"And don't touch anything!"

With that, he headed up front. Normally with kids that young, one might be a little more concerned about leaving her alone in a lab full of abnormal chemicals and dangerous things, but Jenny was smart for her age. She was speaking better than most three-year-olds would, and she liked to listen to her Papa and her Uncle Hank talk about the science of mutations.

However, this meant that she was also too curious for her own good. She would (mostly) listen to instructions, but if you didn't tell her not to touch anything, there was no doubt that she would try to conduct her own 'experiments'.

Hank answered the door and found a gruff looking man with dark hair and aged eyes standing on the steps. Oh dear. This wasn't going to end well.

Back in the lab, little Jenny was getting restless. She might be smart, but that doesn't mean she never gets bored. Whoever was at the the door was very important, she could tell. It was just something she could sense. So, she thought, it might be fun to go see who it was.

When she arrived in the main entryway, Papa was yelling at the strange visitor and Uncle Hank was blue. They had told her a long time ago why her uncle was sometimes fuzzy and sometimes not. But that didn't explain why he was hanging from the chandelier...

"Papa, why is Uncle Hank upside-down?" she asked. The three adults were suddenly silent.

The strange man seemed to be confused, however, as he frowned and asked, "Who's the kid?"

Charles shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. Get off the chandelier, Hank. Take Jenny back to the lab or something, somewhere out of the way."

Hank looked slightly offended, but flipped himself off of the lightpiece. He took Jenny's hand in his paw and started to lead her out, but she pulled away.

"No! I wanna see the Future Man!" she said.

The stranger froze.

"How did you know that?" he asked, frowning again. He seemed to do that a lot.

Jenny grew shy now.

"Sometimes... Sometimes I say things, and they turn out to be correct."