[ Ned's not really wrong; as soon as anyone knew mutants existed within a day there were people calling them exactly that: freaks. But Erik wants a name as badly as he wants an us, and he's understood since he was a child the feeling of having a person's identity deemed pejorative just for being what it was. If he makes 'mutant' his, he owns it. ]

Charles would be the one to ask, he's the geneticist. [ [Another of those pauses; he could talk about himself here, but--no. It's too revealing. They have commonalities and he wants to extend those to Ned, but he needs to do it without the expense of too much of himself. So instead he flips his phrasing, turns it into a mirror. ]

If you've hidden what you can do because you're afraid, because you understand the world will always fear what it can't understand, that humans hate what they fear, then--you are a mutant. You're the next stage in human evolution. And you shouldn't have to hide.