The Siblings Who Stayed in New York

Quicksilver, whose optimism and thick skin were practically unmatched in the world, hooked an arm around Henry's neck again.

"Please, my friend. Here in New York, other than Professor X, I don't know who else to ask for help.

"Could you give me an idea? If nothing else, do it for my adorable little sister.

"Can you bear to let her wash dishes for a living? And as for training her abilities, I can ask you for that too, right? Professor X and the others are still the same as ever—they only teach people control, never how to develop their powers.

"Oh, and could we temporarily stay in that empty room you had before? We can rent it from you.

"Well, renting the whole place might be impossible. So we'll just rent one—two rooms. But we'll have to wait until I find a job before paying the rent."

All right, Henry could take back what he had said about Quicksilver being impossible to dislike.

This guy might have lived out in the countryside, but he had at least spent some time running around New York with the X-Men. Did he really not know the going rates in the Tribeca District?

Did he think it was Hell's Kitchen or Harlem? Or had he seen how the original furnishings had all been ripped out, leaving the place like an unfinished shell, and assumed the rent would be cheap?

To put it another way, the monthly rent for a luxury apartment in the Tribeca District was roughly equal to one or two years' income for an ordinary working-class family.

If Quicksilver wanted to earn enough for a month's rent by washing dishes, he would probably have to work at twenty restaurants at once, twelve hours a day, for thirty straight days.

—For a