Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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"Should I even ask how you two met?" Charles kept his voice a low whisper meant only for Erik.

"Is that a hint of jealousy I hear?" Erik stood composed with eyes only for the class they faced, though his playful, taunting laughter was easy for Charles to pick up out from the din some tenfold students could create even idly sitting at their desks.

The newest face of the Xavier School for Gifted Children was late for his introduction, and not even the least bit fashionably or so Charles thought, but outright tardy. As a man always looking for the good in others, it did grate on his nerves if ever just so slightly, and that in and of itself painted him as getting old.

"If you don't quit fussing with your hair, you really will start going bald."

That Erik noticed this habit of his brought a stubborn smile to Charles, perhaps because Erik was oft the reason he had to blame for all his grey hairs. There were other culprits of course, foremost among them Pietro, the son Erik hadn't even known about until the day he showed up at the school with a letter from his mother. Now that, that had been an awkward introduction admitted Charles as he thought back on it...

So, you're my dad, huh? Where have you been all this time?

Until recently? Prison.

To see the boy looking genuinely impressed with that admission of Erik's, Charles really should have known then and there that Pietro would take after his father. And as if to exasperate matters, Jubilation had instantly taken a liking to the young Maximoff.

"What's the name of this class again?" asked a boy who seemed to have grown bored of waiting.

"Urban Survival." Pietro and Jubilee replied almost at once.

That was enough for even Erik to spare a glance that begged to ask if they were really doing the right thing. While certainly no dullards, not with the biting wit they both wielded expertly for sharp retorts and insults that earned them time in detention, Pietro and Jubilee alike looked on class participation as something to be endured, not enjoyed. To see them looking so eager to be taught was...disconcerting, but that was a thought for later as Charles felt the presence of the newest addition to the faculty approach.

Remy LeBeau was a man who had presence, opening the door with what Charles would describe as a flourish. Looking a man who had seen and enjoyed all that the nightlife of New York could offer, unshaven, his shirt only half buttoned as if to tease fantasies of what might lay beneath, while wearing sunglasses that painted him as perhaps somewhat hung over, Remy spared not a glance for Charles or Erik alike as he strode past.

The box he carried was dropped on what was to be his desk, taking a moment at the board to write his name for the class. Facing them at last with his sunglasses dipped low, Remy's smile bespoke his enjoyment of their reaction to his red on black eyes, eyes that seemed to glow with their own light as that of cooling embers in the blackened ash of a dwindling, dying fire.

"Sorry for being late, but I had to stop and help a lady on my way here," Remy begged his forgiveness with a smile that set some cheeks aflame with a blush, "You may call me Remy, and I be here to teach those of you without any street smarts everything you need to know to go to the less desirable parts of town and live to tell about it."

Rolling his eyes at the unnecessary theatrics, Charles had yet to draw a breath to correct Remy on just what it was that he was to be teaching when two hands shot up, cutting short of his chance to correct Mister LeBeau due to his own surprise.

"Ah, yes...Pietro?" Charles interrupted, only to feel ignored as the boy instead looked to Mister LeBeau.

"What about the rest of us?"

At that Remy smiled even as Charles felt his own stomach clench tight, because it was a question asked by a child who had grown up poor, having done without all the things he had once taken for granted. It was a painful reminder of a little girl whose only want was a meal to ease away the ache of her belly, a girl who had become as a sister to him. Feeling a wash of regret roll over him, Charles needn't look to Erik to know his jaw was tense and taut from the unwelcome reminder of his own unintentional abandonment of the boy and his mother.

Blinking away the tears of his own haunted past and that of his lovers, Charles let himself indulge in the sudden shock of his students. Dangling from Remy's finger was a pair of handcuffs, one of the many that filled the box he had brought with him. It was a dangerous world they lived in, or so Erik always reminded him, so this new class had been added to the curriculum.

"Extra credit for whoever can pick the lock while wearing them."

Of those ten, only two volunteered, with Jubilee going so far as to have Remy handcuff her hands behind her back.

"Betcha five bucks I can get outta these before you can, Maximoff." Flashing a teasing bit of tongue, Jubilee squared off against Pietro.

"Tough talk, make it ten."

"D'accord, you two have until the end of class." Passing off picks that looked well used, Remy suffered the twofold looks of the troublesome teens that said they would be free long before the bell even rang.

Feeling an arm guide him to the door, Charles found himself in unspoken agreement with Erik, that the class was in good hands. His was a school hiding the unconventional beneath a facade of normalcy after all, so why shouldn't a repentant thief teach some of his tricks to the eager troublemakers who were bored with the more conventional lessons taught there?

"Logan is going to hate him." Charles confessed with a laugh once the door fell shut behind him.

"And here I was worrying they were to become the best of friends."

"Ah, but just who do you think the lady was that our dear Mister LeBeau happened to stop to help?"

Erik's step fell short in the face of the awful truth that was obvious only in hindsight, of course it would be Rogue who Remy had run into that had him be late to his first class.

"Charles, you're horrible at reassuring me of my worries. You know that, don't you?"

The laughter that rang out was neither Charles's nor his lovers though, laughter, a hearty whoop, holler, and cheer actually. Sparing a glance back to the class of Mister LeBeau, Charles looked to Erik begging his apology.

"Hah! You owe me ten bucks, Maximoff!"

Heaving a sigh, Erik felt his regrets piling up in short order. It had all been his idea after all, the class and the teacher alike, pestering Charles time and again until he relented.

"It's a fine road to hell I'm cobbling together, isn't it?"

Beckoning Erik for a kiss in the empty hall, the bells that tolled the change of periods would be long yet to ring. Breathless as they parted, Charles looked unto Erik who always stood so tall over him, delighting in the warm breath that washed against his brow to become a tender kiss to his temple.

"You'll save me, won't you?" Erik asked, needing to be reassured again in the light of his earlier jest.

"You are so much more than your mistakes, Erik, and I won't ever let you forget that."

Walking down the halls of everything they had built together, the brick and mortar wasn't to be their legacy, but all the lives of those they touched.

"I do wonder when Pietro will finally notice Jubilation's affection for him, don't you?"

"Oh for goodness sake, Charles! You really are horrible at reassuring me!"

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"You're blushing."

"No I ain't."

Okay, that was a lie and she sure as hell knew that Logan knew it too, he could smell a lie...among other things. Setting down the grocery bags filled with ingredients for her class, Rogue swatted away his questing hand. Home Ec had been a lot more interesting ever since she had tossed out all the boring recipes, instead searching for inspiration from the cooking shows that filled one with a longing for the aromas denied them that the chefs spoke of with moans of pleasure.

"Fine, I'm blushing. You jealous?"

"Of some smooth talking kid not even old enough to drive?" Snorting at the absurd idea, Logan settled against the island as she unpacked her shopping.

"Wasn't one of the kids..."

Letting loose her smile as she thought back to that encounter with the charming Cajun, Logan's growl tickled her enough to send shivers rolling down her spine that curled her toes. Glancing over her shoulder, his flared nostrils were all she needed to see to know he was indulging in other aromas now, and nothing like those of her cooking that had him coming around like an ol' hound dog begging for table scraps.

Falling with her elbows against the counter in a way that left her prone, that teased the swell of her hips, she played at reading the recipe from her phone that was to be the days lesson. The beating of her heart counted out the seconds until she felt his arms wrap her up safe in their embrace, his breath hot at the back of her neck as he looked past her shoulder.

The warmth that warmed her bottom was wholly pleasant, shifting her weight from one foot to the next just to grind herself at his crotch that she might feel him buck back against her, a reflex born of his barely restrained urges.

"Does this mean you're jealous?" Rogue struggled against the flutter in her voice and lost, lolling her head down that she might hide behind her flowing tresses.

"Should I be?"

Thinking again of the harmless flirting that had seen her on her way, Rogue let her veiled smile speak for her. His growl was more fierce this time, his grip on her possessive and strong, and the curling in her toes? They dug for purchase even as her knees grew weak, throwing her weight against the counter to steady herself.

"I didn't think so." Logan whispered at her ear, smug in his own satisfaction.

"What's that line you always fed me? Ain't no harm with a little flirting as long as ya come home with an appetite?"

"Does that mean yer gonna be comin' hungry tonight?"

Twisting in his grasp to feel trapped between him and the counter that was now at her back, Rogue let her now ravenous hunger fill her eyes, wetting her lips with an enticing roll of her tongue, "Fuckin' starving..."

Sharing a kiss that was an appetizer of a feast too far off, the warning bell told of how long they had been lost to the sinful, simple pleasure. Blushing once more, Rogue let go of her hard fought control to taste the lust that darkened Logan's eyes. The sudden lance of pain only served as an accent to the sweetness of her lips he had enjoyed, returning it in kind with a bite at her neck that earned him an echo of her gasping, breathless voice he longed for.

"This had better heal before my students get here!"

Laughing as if it were some silly hickey, Rogue swatted and shooed away her lover lest they get caught making out again. Yet by the way he adjusted his jeans in his ambling walk to the door, she knew she wasn't alone in having a tattling trophy to tell of her succumbed to desire. Trailing fingers at her tender throat, the fading red welt was a promise that she would again feel his teeth against her bare skin.

Running a hand through her mussed hair to make herself presentable, as the youngest of those who taught at Xavier's, she had to work twice as hard to remind her students of their respective roles. The first few filtered in and found their seats, among them two troublemakers she felt an affinity for, Pietro and Jubilee.

"Why the hell do I feel like I'm gonna go regrettin' askin' this, but what the heck are you two doing handcuffed together?" Sure enough the two looked at another with the kind of mischief that they were famous for.

"Uh, homework?"

Biting back any further questions lest she play right into their hands, handcuffed they might be, the two of them were experts at derailing a class. Ignoring them as most of their peers had been doing, Rogue hit the board to write up the days recipe that they were to try.

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