Pete raised an eyebrow as Vanessa fidgeted with the cigarette, finally giving herself away when she realized it wasn't lit. He formed another hot knife and held out his hand, touching the blade of energy to the tip of Vanessa's cigarette, and when it was lit he simply flicked the knife casually out onto the lawn, watching it shimmer into nonexistence almost as soon as it made contact with the ground.
"Not to brag here, love, but I think I'd stand a better chance of getting on their good side. You lived with 'em, trained with 'em, of course they're gonna feel more betrayed than if you'd just shown up out of the blue. No pun intended," he added, fully realizing he was being a bit harsh but, in his typical fashion, not seeing the point in mincing words. He nodded curtly when Vanessa mentioned the trio of Weapon X operatives now residing at the school. He couldn't say he was exactly looking forward to meeting the third leg of that bizarre triangle. Xavier had only told him her name, but that was all that had been needed to set Pete's mind racing trying to place her in his memory. He knew he'd never seen her, since they had worked in vastly different sectors, but he'd heard others talk about her like some kind of lab rat. Besides setting his teeth on edge, that had just been another reason why he'd determined to stick it to those monsters the second he got the chance.
"True, that. I guess they do have ways of keeping track themselves," Pete conceded with a shrug. He didn't lose sleep worrying about when or if Weapon X would come to seek revenge on him for his betrayal. If it happened, it happened, but after the merciless beating they'd taken last time they tried to raid the school, they'd be absolutely moronic to try again anytime soon.
"Legally, both ways, if you can believe it," he answered with a slight grin over at Vanessa. "Worked for the government -- British, not American, obviously -- and wanted to retire, they sent me on one last job whilst my pension papers went through, and I ended up working for those fuckheads. Left when my pension came in." He didn't bother mentioning, of course, that he'd spent the majority of his time there deliberately falsifying some of the very same information Vanessa had passed along, or that he'd acquired an impressive and damning array of internal secrets about the organization and turned them over to Xavier.
He also quite pointedly did not ask Vanessa about her own story. He figured it wasn't any of his business in the first place, and he also couldn't expect it to be even remotely as simple and painless as his own had been. If she wanted to talk, she would. If not, whatever, Pete wasn't going to press the issue. He knew better than most about the value of silence.