So today I decided to revamp this entire chapter because it's well over three years old and it's getting in the way of the other chapters that one-upped it. That, and every time I look over it, I just want to gauge out my own eyes.

You could be a hero; you might save a life…
-Hero, by Superchic[k]

He didn't expect it to happen; not at all. If anything the pink loving, Lance dumping, Valley Girl was the last person (last person from the other side of the fence, anyway; even Fuzzy rated higher on the probability scale) Todd thought would save his hide from getting taped to the flagpole at five in the morning on a Monday. Oh, and he wasn't wearing underwear, so he knew that put his chances of getting rescued at all even lower. Usually he would have better chances at winning a free car.

His wrists still hurt because they were still covered in silver, heavy duty tape, but at least he was out of that thorn bush (roses, roses—if he could burn down every bush in the county that grew the foul smelling, Queen of Hearts coveted weeds, he would do it if it wouldn't lead to a lawsuit) and in the relative privacy of the locker room in the basement of the school; a flat, mildew scented towel draped around his waist to safeguard Pryde's virgin eyes (she so was, too; her eyes were focused anywhere but near his face and completely focused on her task as if that would erase the Irish drunken blush coating her skin) while she peeled the tape back slowly.

He flinched again as a piece of tape pulled his sensitive skin in a bad direction and actually yanked off a little of his fine, downy arm hair with it. Kitty apologized and tossed the silver piece into the bin with the rest of its body (squares, triangles, tapers—shapes that came from having no idea what to do and simply being there when enough pressure was applied to tear and tear again).

"'S'okay," Todd muttered, allowing himself the luxury of seeing someone of the opposite sex worried about his comfort, even if it was only for a short time before his hands were released from the bind Duncan Matthews had left him in.

-:-
High hopes and aspirations,
Ideas above my station, maybe.
But all this time I've tried
to walk with dignity and pride.
-The One and Only.

There was nothing Evan could do to try and catch Pietro; not at a speed like that, which often led to the white haired devil of a teenaged boy to throw out his shoes every other week after he had repeatedly patched them up (tears and melted rubber didn't go well with those bird thin feet with skin like leather). There was no option the dark teen could take in order get revenge for the trick in the locker (fake pigeons set on a spring load that pushed out and onto Evan when he'd gone to pick up the books and papers he needed for biology class; a trick that hadn't been there that morning when he'd put the books in there before gym) and it was burning his ass as he stalked the grounds nearing the Brotherhood house.

Growling was unflattering. He paid for it dearly when it cut off all of his attention and he was suddenly flying through the air after something he barely even felt spun him around twice and then let him go towards the trench.

The trench was filled with deep rainwater and mud that felt a bit more like clay; slicker feeling and the grind of small round stones dug into Evan's arms as he fell and heard the rounding, snide chuckle that echoed as he looked back to the road.

He saw the jeans with flakes of grass clinging near the ankles before brown eyes went further up and landed on Winter Frost blue eyes that held ridicule as well something Evan had never been able to identify, "Even you gotta admit I got you good, Daniels. My God you're slow."

"I will get you one of these days, Pietro," Evan growled for the second time in five minutes, fishing himself out of the muck and flicking one finger as an afterthought in an attempt to soil Maximoff's pretty-ass face; the bit of watered dirt only managed to smear his fancy shoes, but that was as much of a victory Evan ever thought he would get, so he allowed himself to grin as he went onwards, "I know where you live, after all."

-:-
I never meant to start a war; you know I never wanna hurt you.
Don't even know what we're fighting for…
-Battlefield, by Jordin Sparks.

The pressure on Scott's arm had been increased with the torn off right sleeve of Taryn's formerly beautiful green winter Cardigan, but she didn't know how to make the gaping wound at his left hip stop bleeding.

Honestly, she thought, of all the ways he could have gotten seriously injured, it would have to be by Duncan with a gun registered to the blonde's horrible, (bigger) bigot father. Scott had been exceedingly lucky that he was agile and fast and skilled in combat, otherwise Duncan would have gotten a shot into a more vital area that would have killed the mutant ('What am I thinking—he's my old boyfriend; who cares if he's a mutant right now for God's sake?!'), rather than send him head first into the cement where he'd passed out from shock trauma and would have been hurt more with Duncan grabbing another round of bullets if Taryn hadn't had a moment relieved of peer pressure and mob mentality. That rock she'd knocked the jock out with had cut into all ten of her fingers when it impacted with the back of Duncan's skull, but for the moment she felt no remorse.

She didn't want him to die and she felt herself cry in relief when she heard the familiar sounds of Jean Grey in Scott's car swerving around the bend towards their location; tires burning on tarmac were a welcome, distracting noise from the sound of her own fingers squelching in Scott's blood as she used her own hands to put pressure on his hip.

-:-
…Well I saw her yesterday.
It's you she's thinking of, and she told me what to say;
She says she loves you, and you know that can't be bed…
-She Loves You, the Beatles.

Amara didn't like the smell of some of the wood from the trees she'd blown to pieces wafting crisp smoke as they lay in the piles she'd left them in; the same piles she'd used to hoard the rubble of the sculpture she'd demolished. All of it was covered in heated ash and smelled of her magma debris, and it was doing her no good as she waded through the water of the pool at Xavier's chagrined at not being any calmer than she had been when she'd gone on her own angry spree of destruction and ruin.

"Hate him, hate him, hate him…" Amara continued to repeat over and over as she drifted on her back through the water and stared up at the sky that held clouds that could not have been Ororo's doing as she was in New York visiting her sister. The clouds were milky and bustling together like Pyro's flames when he was bored out of his mind and trying to imagine something more creative…

"Gah!"

She gulped in a little of the water from the pool as she pulled herself out of that train of thinking, spitting and coughing when she re-emerged and made her way to the shallow end.

"Damned lunatic… why I even bother is beyond me…" she grumbled as she sat on the cement outside the pool and found her black bag where she'd left it, along with her extra large towel. She allowed some of her own heat to evaporate the water clinging to her and after pulling her hand away and then putting it back in the position it had been hovering in above the black purse; she pulled out her private cellphone and got even angrier at herself as she dialed a number she could recall in her sleep.

-:-
Please love me, too. I'm in love with you…
-Say a Little Prayer, My Best Friend's Wedding Soundtrack.

She absolutely hated the swamp and she was really starting to hate the French Quarter with all of its historic places and all of its people and all of the turns and twists she'd had to take in order to get to the church adjacent to a place she remembered years ago walking into to get a drink and then getting to really know the guy that had kidnapped her for both right and wrong reasons. She couldn't bring herself to hate the church though—what with the way the Thieves Guild had gone through the trouble of dressing it up to meet the standards of two completely unreasonable clans that were trying to hitch their children to keep the piece. She couldn't even count all the clusters of yellow and white roses spun up and held together with lace and ribbons. But she could see the huge doors that would lead to the inside, which was the only thing Rogue wanted to see, anyway.

She walked up the steps like a lady, but kicked in the doors like the affirmative action X-Man she was; flinching a little when the door that had faced the brunt of the kick impacted the wall and broke the window, but she didn't blink at all the heads turned her way from both sides. The guns being drawn didn't even mean anything when she spotted Remy up at the head of the aisle, dropping the visage of being serious and solemn in the face of being married to someone that wasn't Rogue herself.

She drawled, lazy, "Wait. Wait. Stop… Get that smile off'a your face, Swamp Rat, or I'm leavin' right now."

Remy ignored her order and threw in a little hop for joy as well; never mind the priest and his "bride" that looked all too scandalized at the both of them.