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A/N: Um…so I was under the impression that Westchester was a city and not a county. The way characters talk about things being "in Westchester" made me assume it was. (No one talks about counties like that, at least not where I'm from) Guess that's what I get for trying to let comic book movies educate me. For the purposes of this, it's the City and County of Westchester because I said so. Also we're going with the Taylor Kitsch version of Remy. I tried to make things more accurate too, like Remy's accent and Piotr being from Russia, etc.

Some other notes: As far as I know I came up with Wake Up! as the coffee shop name. (I think we've established I'm bad at naming things.) But the mention of Roberto making drinks too hot was a suggestion from Cee, so thanks for that. Title comes from Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop by Landon Pigg because nothing better came to me.

I Think That Possibly Maybe I'm Falling for You

August/September

Kitty Pryde strode down a busy street in Westchester feeling confident and excited. She was new in town, here for an internship under one Professor Charles Xavier. She was still a little surprised that out of everyone who applied that she'd been chosen, but her application had been a good one. With all of the excellent points she'd made in her essay and the glowing letters of recommendation from her professors at her previous college, she was the perfect fit. Professor Xavier had told her so himself.

With her parents in the middle of a messy divorce back in Illinois and her being pulled into the middle of it, Kitty had jumped at the chance to move to New York.

She'd gotten up early enough to make her bed and get dressed in the outfit she'd spent nearly an hour picking out the night before. Normally she wouldn't have bothered dressing up, but she had her first official meeting with the professor after her last class. Kitty was a firm believer in putting her best foot forward, and the right wardrobe was an important part of that.

Her mother had given her the old family car to take with her, but as usual Kitty didn't see much use for it. She'd applied for a New York state license, of course, and all the other paperwork that went along with it, but Kitty generally preferred walking. The apartment she'd found was within walking distance of the university and she thought walking over driving would be a good way to get to know the area. On her practice run from her new home to the school, she'd seen what looked like a cozy little coffee shop called Wake Up! She was headed there now.

Kitty pushed the door open and breathed in deeply. The scents of different coffees and pastries mixed together in a pleasant aroma. The inside of the shop definitely had a homey feel to it as well. The lights were dim now because it was morning and bright out, but she could see lots of fixtures scattered throughout that would no doubt be lit later on. The overstuffed black leather couches and armchairs looked so comfortable that Kitty could picture herself sinking into them and never wanting to get up. Music played from speakers overhead, but not at an obnoxiously loud volume. There was a nice collection of artwork on the walls. Some were reproductions of famous paintings, while others were clearly done by local artists.

Another point in favor of the café was that it didn't seem too busy. Though it had to be on the way to work or school for a lot of people, there wasn't a huge crowd. Kitty could see herself here, studying and working. If their coffee was decent, the brunette was sure she'd found her new home away from home.

A girl about her own age stood behind the counter. She had long dark hair with one wide streak that had been dyed white. The neon green letters on her nametag said Marie. "What can I get you?" she asked. Her voice had a very slight Southern accent.

"Just a large plain coffee," Kitty replied. "To go."

"You are my favorite kind of customer," Marie said as she grabbed a paper cup and a black Sharpie and scribbled the order on it. "People are so picky, I swear. It's just coffee. What's your name?"

Kitty hesitated for a moment. This was a new place and she was on her own for the first time. "Katherine," she answered. As silly as it was, Kitty felt a little more grown up using her full name.

"Alright," the barista said as she capped the marker, "that's $2.75."

Kitty fished a five dollar bill from her wallet. When Marie gave her the change, Kitty, remembering the other girl's declaration, dropped it all into the tip jar.

Kitty moved along down the counter to wait for her drink. She saw Marie hand the paper cup to a coworker with sandy hair before turning her attention to another customer. The brunette slid her phone out of her pocket for the wait.

It wasn't too long before her name was called. Kitty looked up from her phone, a "thank you" on her lips, but the guy had already turned away. She picked up her drink and frowned. The cup definitely should have been hot but it wasn't. She popped the lid off to investigate further. Sure enough, a number of ice cubes bobbed in the beverage.

She was definitely annoyed now. Kitty huffed and cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she said loudly. The worker turned around.

"Yes?"

She was caught off guard for a moment by his startlingly blue eyes. They were such an unusual color…almost like ice. The guy was cute, too, she thought as the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. Her gaze flickered to his nametag. Bobby.

Bobby arched an eyebrow at her lack of response. "Yes?" he repeated.

Kitty came to her senses. "My drink is cold."

"I did it again, didn't I?" he asked with a sigh. "I'm sorry. I can only drink this stuff if it's cold. Sometimes I forget and make the orders wrong." He reached for her cup.

It was her turn to arch an eyebrow. "You work here and you don't like coffee?"

"Nope," he said cheerfully.

Another man stepped out of a back office. The bright red letters on his tag said Scott and there was a tiny gold star next to the S. His eyes were narrowed at the two of them.

Bobby glanced over his shoulder and flashed a quick smile. When he turned back to Kitty, he propped his elbows up on the counter and leaned close to her.

"Listen," Bobby said in a low, conspiratorial voice, "that's my manager. Between you and me, I'm probably only one…mistake away from being demoted to busboy. So if you could not make a fuss that would be really great. I'll get you a fresh drink and I promise it won't be cold." He looked at her seriously, eyes searching hers for a response.

Kitty let out a sigh. "I'm not going to complain," she said. "But if you could hurry up with my coffee…"

"Of course," he said, nodding. He turned to his manager and gave a thumbs up. Scott, still looking suspicious, retreated into the office. Once the other man was gone, Bobby grabbed a new cup from the stack and crossed to the coffee pot. He poured it nearly to the rim before snapping the lid over it. The blond boy glanced back at the office and saw that Scott was now engrossed in his computer. Apparently satisfied that he was no longer being watched, Bobby slid the glass door to the display of pastries open and selected a blueberry muffin. He slipped in into a paper bag emblazoned with the shop's logo – a smiling sun – and brought the coffee and the muffin to the counter where Kitty was waiting.

"You're the best," Bobby told her confidently, as if he'd known her all his life.

Marie looked at her coworker with an amused smirk on her features. "He did it again, didn't he?" she asked. Kitty nodded and the other girl snorted. "It's a miracle Scott hasn't fired you yet," she remarked.

Bobby ignored her. "Here you go," he announced, pushing both the coffee cup and the pastry bag towards Kitty. She picked up her coffee and took a long sip. It was definitely worth the hassle, she thought fervently.

"I didn't order that, though," Kitty reminded him, gesturing to the muffin, which still sat in its small bag.

He winked. "It's on me." Bobby picked up the iced coffee and examined the hasty scrawl on it. "Have a good day, Katherine." Then he made a face. "Katherine, really?"

"Well, it is my name," Kitty answered, defensive. "Is there something wrong with that?"

"No, no, of course not," he said emphatically. Bobby's eyes regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. "You just look like the type of girl who would have a nickname. Katie, maybe, or Kat?"

Well, there went her feelings of being more adult. "Growing up, my family always called me Kitty," the girl admitted.

He grinned at her. "Kitty," he repeated. "Of course. I'm Bobby."

"I know," she answered. He tilted his head, curious now. "You're wearing a nametag," Kitty continued.

"You're right," Bobby said. "You're right. Well, have a good day, Kitty. Come back soon."

And as Kitty walked out of the coffee shop, drink and muffin in hand, she thought he might just be sincere.

XxXxX

Kitty hit the ground running in both her classes and with her internship. She was so busy getting settled into her new place and working under the professor and trying to keep on top of her classes that it was the fourth week of school – and the middle of September – before she made it back to Wake Up!

She planned to rectify that today, however. Her Tuesday class let out at noon and she wasn't scheduled for her internship. Once her class ended, she packed up her books and laptop and headed straight for the coffee shop.

Once again, Marie and Bobby were both behind the counter. As Kitty entered, a bell sounded off somewhere overhead. Both employees looked up at her. Marie acknowledged her presence with a nod before going back to adding whipped cream to the top of a drink. Bobby, however, grinned at her.

"I was wondering when you were coming back," he said as Kitty approached the counter. "I thought –"

"–you thought she found a place where they actually hire competent baristas?" Marie cut in.

"Do you realize you just insulted yourself by saying that?" Bobby questioned.

"The two of you need to stop arguing in front of customers!" Scott called from the office. "I swear I will fire you both."

Marie flushed a bit and finished up her order. As soon as she slid it across the counter she began wiping down her station with a dish towel, as if she thought her job would no longer be in jeopardy if her area was clean.

Bobby didn't seem to be concerned. "Scott would never fire us. He loves us. He's like our work dad."

"I do not love you and I am not your dad," Scott huffed.

"He always says that," Bobby told Kitty, winking, "but we know he doesn't mean it. So where have you been?"

Kitty was sure she should have been annoyed by this question. She certainly didn't owe this guy – who she'd met all of two times – an explanation. But at the same time it was kind of nice that he'd wondered about her. It was sweet, somehow. "I've been busy," Kitty answered finally. "New place, you know, plus a new school and my internship is kind of crazy."

"Internship," Bobby echoed. "What kind of internship?"

"Leave the poor girl alone, Bobby," Marie chided him. "You don't need her life story just to take her coffee order."

Bobby blinked, surprised. "I'm not bothering you, am I?" he asked.

In truth, he really wasn't. It was nice talking to him. Kitty shook her head in response and he smiled. "See," Bobby said, glancing at his coworker over his shoulder, "she likes me."

"She's being nice," Marie retorted without missing a beat.

"So what kind of internship are you doing?" Bobby questioned again, ignoring Marie's quip.

"I'm working under Professor Xavier at the university. He's writing a new book and I'm assisting with it, fact checking, keeping things organized, that kind of thing." She cracked a smile. "And it pays well enough to keep me in coffee."

"That's good," Bobby agreed. "I've heard it's crazy competitive to get one of his internships. So if you're doing all that, you must be some kind of genius, right? Scott's girlfriend, Jean, used to be an intern for him, too, and she's probably going to cure cancer or something."

Kitty felt her cheeks warm and she ducked her head. Her old feelings of shyness whenever someone brought up her intelligence resurfaced. "I wouldn't say 'genius'," she replied.

He grinned. "And she's modest. Well, what can I get started for you?"

The brunette hesitated. It was still warm out, too warm for a hot drink in the middle of the afternoon. She glanced at the menu, mulling over her options, and found that she still had no idea what she wanted. Kitty had always been a plain cup of coffee kind of girl.

"I don't actually know," Kitty admitted. "Any suggestions?"

"Order something that's supposed to be cold," Marie put in. To Kitty's surprise, Bobby didn't have a witty reply for this.

"She's right," he said with a hint of defeat. "I do better with cold stuff. Frappuccinos are really good and there are a lot of flavors. Strawberry, caramel, mocha, vanilla…"

"Okay. I'll take a caramel frappuccino. Medium, so in case I don't like it I'll still be able to finish it."

He took a plastic cup from the stack and marked it with a Sharpie he pulled from the pocket of his apron. "Smart of you," Bobby said, grinning. "Are you sure you aren't a genius?"

Kitty smiled. "Maybe I'm a bit of a genius," she conceded. She fished her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and tapped the screen. There was a missed call from her mom. Kitty frowned and decided to ignore it for the moment. If she returned the call now, there was no doubt she'd get sucked right back into the mess at home. Frankly, she didn't have the time or energy to deal with it. Kitty put her phone away. Out of sight, out of mind.

"I think you made a good choice," Bobby began as he clicked the domed lid over her drink. Then he caught sight of her face. "Hey, is everything okay?" he asked. There was a note of concern in his voice, maybe too much for someone he barely knew.

Kitty looked up to meet his gaze. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just…family, you know?"

He nodded. "I know how that goes," he replied. "Anyway, here's your drink. You made a good choice. And trust me, in a few weeks it will be rainy and cold, so there'll be plenty of time for hot stuff then."

She took a cautious sip and considered it for a moment. Despite the caramel it wasn't as sickly sweet as she had expected. "This is good," Kitty told him.

He smiled. "I told you I do better with cold stuff. I mean, I might not be a genius like you, but I'm not a complete idiot, either."

The brunette had a comment on the tip of her tongue when Scott came out of the office. "Bobby, please flirt on your own time. I don't want to deal with a harassment suit." The older man looked at them both sternly for a moment before turning on his heel to go back to his office.

Kitty felt her cheeks warm again, but Bobby shrugged off his boss's words. "He's kidding about the lawsuit," Bobby assured her. "Unless you're really going to file one…?"

She let out a laugh that, reflecting on it later, was probably closer to a giggle. "No danger of that here," she swore.

"Good," Bobby replied. "See, I told you you're the best."

"Maybe you should file a lawsuit," Marie quipped, turning to look at them. "You're only encouraging him, Kitty."

Any lingering hopes of feeling like an adult Kitty might have had were gone now if everyone was going to call her Kitty. She didn't really mind though. It was one familiar thing in this new place. And if she wasn't wrong, the way both Bobby and Marie talked with her like they'd known her for years made her think she just might have made some friends.

XxXxX

The following Monday afternoon found Kitty back at the café. She had been slightly disappointed to see that it was not Bobby behind the counter for once, but it had kind of balanced out. Marie, who was also not working today, had snagged the big table and invited Kitty to share it with her.

It was nice, Kitty thought, sitting there with the other girl. Both had their own projects and homework spread across the table and neither was really talking, but the companionship was nice. When she'd finally gotten around to calling her mom back over the weekend, Kitty had only hesitated for a moment before saying she'd made a few friends. Now she was sure that was actually true.

Kitty was so absorbed in typing up the notes she had carefully organized for Professor Xavier's book that she hadn't noticed the bell going off or that Bobby had crept up to the table she and Marie were at.

"Don't you know people write songs about girls like you?"

She looked up, startled, at Bobby's grinning face. "Really?" she asked flatly, one eyebrow arched.

"It's a song," he said, pointing up at one of the speakers that was mounted to the ceiling. Kitty listened for a moment and found that he was right. She made a mental note to look up the song later when she could listen to it properly.

Marie had looked up from her own work as well. She smirked at him. "Let's be fair, Bobby. You can't blame her for thinking you were trying to use it as a line."

"Not de worst thing I eva heard him say to a girl," a new voice said. Kitty glanced over to see a man who had apparently come in with Bobby. He had brown hair that just grazed his jaw line and there was an ace of spades on his purple T-shirt. It took Kitty a moment to place his accent as Cajun.

The other girl smiled and offered the newcomer her cheek, which he leaned down to kiss. "This is Remy, my boyfriend. Remy, this is Kitty."

"De one he won't shut up about," Remy supplied, jerking his head in Bobby's direction.

Kitty cocked her head to the side, confused. Marie, seeing this, explained. "Remy's also Bobby's roommate."

"Do not play cards with him," Bobby said seriously, icy blue gaze locked on Kitty. "He's been stealing my money for years."

"I been winnin' yo money," Remy corrected.

But Kitty was still hung up on what Remy had said before. "You talk about me?" she asked Bobby, who had pulled out a chair at the table and plopped down in it next to her. "But you hardly know me."

"I wouldn't say 'talk about'," he answered as he dumped his messenger bag on the table and rummaged through it. He pulled out his phone from somewhere within its depths. "I'd say I mentioned meeting a cool, smart girl at work."

"You didn't complain to Scott about him, so basically he's in love with you," Marie said.

Bobby scowled at her. "That is a gross exaggeration," he told Kitty. "Such good friends I have."

Remy and Marie both looked very pleased with themselves.

The brunette girl was still confused. "You talk about me," she repeated.

"Not in a weird way," Bobby assured her, blue eyes serious again. "All I said was there was a cool girl I met at work…who probably helped me not get fired," he amended.

Kitty considered this. She was more than a little flattered to be thought of so highly by someone who hardly knew her at all. She found herself smiling shyly at Bobby's assessment of her, which he returned.

There was a pause. Kitty went back to her notes and tried to keep herself from grinning. She heard Marie and Remy talking quietly amongst themselves and Bobby drumming his fingertips on the table.

"So if I did use that as a line," he began out of the blue, "you know, hypothetically…would it work?"

The brunette girl turned away from her computer again. She shook her head. "Sorry," she told him, "it would have to be a way better line than that for any girl in her right mind to fall for it." Bobby looked almost sad at this response, so Kitty reached out to pat his arm comfortingly. "Maybe if you sang the song?" she continued.

"You do not want to hear him sing," Marie said, snorting.

"She's right," Remy agreed.

"I'm wounded," Bobby said flatly.

Marie regarded her coworker for a moment. "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you have class soon?"

"Stalker," Bobby answered promptly. "I do have class, but it's also Monday at –" he tapped the screen of his phone so that the time flashed on the display – "3:04 p.m. Which means that in exactly eleven minutes Scott is going to come out of his office and post the schedule for the next two weeks. Once he does that I'm going to take a picture of it so I know when I have to show up, which will then give me approximately thirteen minutes to get to my 3:30 class."

"At Lensherr Hall," Marie said. Bobby nodded. "Which is on the opposite end of campus. The furthest campus building from here." He nodded again.

"Couldn't you just come back after your class?" Kitty questioned. Bobby's logic was lost on her.

"I could," the blond boy replied, "but I like to live dangerously."

"Which means he neva thought of dat," Remy put in.

Bobby just glared at the other boy before turning his attention back to his messenger bag. He pulled out two thick textbooks and a binder, stacking them neatly on the table. Then he began piling bits of paper and granola bar wrappers on the table beside his books.

"How is that what your bag looks like already?" Marie asked. "School only started a few weeks ago."

Bobby shrugged and continued to work on cleaning out his bag. When he got up to throw the trash out, Kitty studied the names of his textbooks. As he came back to rejoin them, she said, "You're an accounting student." The brunette girl couldn't hide her surprise.

"I'm smart," he replied.

"Coulda fooled me," Remy muttered.

Kitty ignored that remark. "I didn't mean it like that," she said to the blond boy, her cheeks pink.

He grinned at her, eyes sparkling with mirth. "I know you didn't. It surprises everyone; don't worry about it." He picked up his books and dumped them back into his now clean bag.

Kitty was still turning this new information over in her head when Scott made an appearance. His attention lingered on their group and he let out an enormous sigh.

"Why is it," the manager began, gaze settled firmly on Bobby now, "that I can never get rid of you, even on your days off?"

"Love you too," the blond boy called cheerfully. He picked up his phone and made his way across the café to where Scott was pinning the schedule to the bulletin board.

The older man, still grumbling, tossed the old schedule in the garbage can before disappearing into his office. Kitty was pretty sure she caught the phrase, "…don't pay me enough."

Bobby returned for his bag and his books. He acknowledged his friends with a nod. "I guess I'll see you two later. And Kitty –" she turned her attention to him – "maybe reconsider where you're sitting. Don't make the same mistake I did by being friends with them," he told her in a grave tone.

"I'll do my best," Kitty answered in the same grim voice.

He smiled at her again, his hand skimming her shoulder as he passed on his way out. Kitty watched as he left, once again fighting to keep herself from grinning.

"What are we going to do with him?" Marie asked with a sigh.

Remy had not missed the way Kitty had watched Bobby go. "I tink he's her problem now," he answered.