A/N: Um. I clearly don't want to pass Geometry or chemistry, since I'm writing this rather than studying. But while procrastinating I saw this trailer on you tube where they matched the "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" trailer to XMFC and boom! Story was born. Plus there are a bunch of clips on you tube where James McAvoy shoots people (I've never actually seen Wanted, but I think that's where they're from), so there's helpful inspiration all over
Disclaimer: I don't own MARVEL (duuuuh), nor do I own the movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith off which this was vaguely based. I've never even see that movie, just snippets.
6 am.
"Darling, wake up." Erik grunted. A hand touched his shoulder. "You've got a board meeting today, remember? The higher ups will be furious if you miss it."
"Ngnh. Not until nine o clock." The covers were suddenly yanked off the bed. Erik cracked an eye open and glared at his husband. "It does not take three hours to get to my office."
"The kids have to be woken up-half an hours work right there. They all need to eat breakfast, that's another half hour. Add ten minutes for Raven to do her hair. Add ten minutes if Angel has homework she conveniently misplaced. Twenty minutes to drive them all to school. Twenty minutes for you to get to work, ten minutes ahead of meeting-time." Erik counted up in his head.
"That leaves half an hour."
"The kids are all sleeping, and I need to shower." Erik raised his head just in time to catch Charles's grin. "I thought sharing it might wake you up a bit."
One very, very, satisfying shower later
Erik knocked on a bedroom door. "Kids? Up!"
Nothing.
He pushed open the door and went in. As expected, the only sign of life was that the two lumps in bed seemed to be breathing. Erik flicked on a light.
"Whuzzagoinon?" Erik stepped forward and shook the nearest lump, skillfully navigating the many miniature trucks which lay on the ground. "Whu?"
"Alex, time to get up for school. You too Sean." Erik waited.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
"Is it morning? Awesome! What's for breakfast? Can I have frosted flakes? What about Coco Puffs? Hey Dad, did you know I get to bring in something for show and tell today?" Sean bounded from his bed.
"Good morning Sean, you'll have to ask your father, and I assure you, there will be no consumption of Coco Puffs in this household."
"You're kookoo enough already." Alex hopped out of bed. They were both too young to have serious issues with the morning. "Morning Dad!"
"Good morning Alex. Your Father should be in the kitchen making breakfast." Alex's eyes brightened. At seven years old, Alex was possibly the most cherubic child Erik had ever seen, complete with blonde hair and shining eyes.
"Do you think he's making pancakes?" Sean gasped and bolted to Alex's side. Sean didn't only have energy in the mornings. Sean always had energy. Sean had so much energy that Erik would have had him checked for ADD, except Charles was a psychologist and told him Sean was just a typical five year old.
"Daddy's making pancakes?"
"If you ask nicely, maybe he will." With a pitter patter of feet, Sean and Alex were gone. Erik glanced around their room. Apart from being littered with Tonka trucks, toy dragons, and books, it was in decent shape. No feathers floating about from late night pillow fights, no suspicious marks that suggested the dog had been tormented in the middle of the night.
"Did they say that Daddy is making pancakes?" Hank poked his head out of his bedroom. Hank, by virtue of being the best behaved, had his own room. Erik wasn't sure how the logic of that worked.
"I'm sure that if all three of you puppy-dog eyes him at once, he'll be convinced." Hank hurried off towards the kitchen. Sometimes, Erik thought Hank was rather serious for a nine year old.
…then again, Charles's pancakes (no matter that they were often shaped like animals) were certainly a serious matter. Erik left the boys to harangue Charles and knocked on the next door.
"Angel, Raven. Time to get up." There was shuffling from inside the room. Then the door cracked open, and one dark brown eye appeared. "Angel, is Raven up yet?"
"Um." Angel shifted. "Give us a sec."
"Angel…" Dear God, what had they done? Angel gulped.
"It's nothing big or serious don't worry!" She flicked a glance backwards. "Just give us two seconds. Or um, minutes."
"Open the door, Angel." Erik wracked his brain. What could they have done already that Angel could be guilty about?
Then he realized he hadn't seen Moira that morning.
"Is Moira in there?" How had he missed that? Moira was always around. She had a strange and unnatural way of constantly being underfoot, and a singular quest to always be as close to Charles as possible. The fact that she hadn't been scratching at the bathroom door while they had shower-sex should have tipped him off to something being wrong.
"No!" Angel said frantically. "No no no, what would make you say that? Just me and Raven."
"Raven and I. Now move aside." Erik let his scary parent voice show through. Angel squeaked and opened the door.
Erik entered. Most of the room was as it should have been-an adorable ten year old clutching a stuffed shark, an adorable thirteen year old blonde in a purple robe (which, incidentally, belonged to Erik), various articles of clothing and makeup scattered about the room.
One smallish dog with big brown eyes, staring at Erik in a pitiful way. To be fair, Moira always looked rather pitiful.
But she looked especially pitiful with a gauzy pink scarf wrapped around her neck, socks stuffed onto her paws, and wearing a skirt. Judging by the smudges on the cloth Raven (aforementioned adorable blonde) held, they'd been attempting to paint the poor dog's toenails.
Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh.
"Well." Raven winced. "What have we here?"
"Um…"
Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Don't laugh.
"That poor dog. What did she ever do to you?" Raven and Angel looked at each other guiltily. Erik really doubted that putting some clothing on the dog would seriously traumatize her, but still. The nail polish was simply unacceptable.
"Well…she was there." Angel admitted. "And my alarm went off early, and Raven got up, and we were going to get up and bother you and Daddy, but Moira was sleeping at the end of the bed and we realized that she totally needs a makeover."
"There is no justification for doing this to an innocent animal. Do I need to explain to you the difference between jamming her paws into socks and putting them on your own feet?" Raven and Angel looked even more guilty. Erik sighed. He really couldn't give them any serious punishment for dressing up Moira… "Go eat pancakes, but I don't want to see this again."
"Yes Father." They said in unison, before scuttling off. Erik shook his head and followed them into the kitchen, where Charles was doling out pancakes shaped like Moira, an elephant, and larvae (Hank was weird).
"Ohh, can I have a butterfly one!" Angel chirped.
"Shapes are for babies." Raven sat down with a hmpf. Erik's mouth twitched up when Charles handed her a cat shaped pancake anyway, and passed him a smiley-face. Charles didn't believe in normal pancakes.
Or in having his dog dressed up. Moira had managed to walk into the kitchen and plop herself at Charles's feet, which prompted Charles to give Angel and Raven a brisk scolding then carefully pull the socks off.
Erik glanced at the clock. "Charles, it's nearly time to leave. Don't you have appointments?"
"Right!" Charles began gathering up plates. "Raven, Angel, go get dressed." Charles took Sean's hand and flashed Erik a grin. "Do you have everything you need for your meeting?"
"Just about. You go and make sure Sean doesn't try to put his pants on his head again." Charles laughed and left with Alex and Sean. Hank, who had dutifully dressed himself before going to breakfast, and began to put dishes in the sink.
After only one Charles-Raven clothing argument (Why the girl wanted to wear eyeshadow at thirteen was beyond Erik), they were on the road. Sean, Alex and Angel were dropped off at elementary school, with hugs and lunches and two minute conversations with teachers. Hank was placed in the capable hands of the advanced placement teachers at his school for geniuses. Raven was deposited, as per specifications, a block from her school, so that none of her friends would see the minivan.
Charles was dropped, with a kiss and a "good luck with your crazies" in front of the Mendal Center for Mental Research, which Charles claimed was an exaggerated way to say "Shrinks Shop".
Erik sighed and leaned back, watching Charles trot into the building. As far as Charles was concerned, Erik was on his way to a meeting with several CIA officials, the topic of which was strictly classified.
As soon as Charles was out of sight, Erik slid the knife he'd concealed in his shoe to his hand. It was time to really get ready for work.
The minivan was parked in a garage on the other side of town. From there Erik switched to a BMW, special design. The bodywork of the car was thicker, the better to hide an arsenal of firearms. The seats were higher, so each could easily fit a bomb beneath it. And in the trunk was a first aid kit which carried roughly the same amount of practical supplies as a fully stocked ambulance.
It was time to go to work.
Erik walked into the Hellfire Club five minutes after nine.
"Magneto!" He rolled his eyes. "You do realize you're late?"
"Good morning to you too, your highness. Is Shaw here yet?" Emma Frost, commonly known as the White Queen, was, in Erik's humble opinion, the office bitch. The office bitch who was unfortunately gorgeous, therefore sleeping with the boss, and in charge of everything.
"Of course not." Emma rolled her shoulders. "He'll be along with Riptide in a few minutes. Do you want me to tell him about your tardiness?"
"Let me guess, you want me to switch assignments with you." Emma smiled. "What is it this time?"
"The CEO of Monoc Securities." Emma passed him a file. "Rich, affluent, more interesting than the poisoning of a widow."
"I assume the widow has something you want." Emma leaned over her desk. The Hellfire Club's first level looked like a normal office, albeit one with only a single blonde goddess working there.
If anyone cared to look deeper, they'd find the stacks of ammunition and weaponry in Erik's desk, the building plans and schematics hidden beneath tax forms in Azazel's computer, and the bombs neatly organized in Riptide's cubicle. Emma's cubicle was full of information on their "jobs".
"Here." Emma handed him a photograph of an old woman. She was modestly dressed and looked very grandmotherly, the only unusual thing being the large diamonds around her neck. "Her son wants the inheritance. I want the diamonds. Besides, she's hardly on your level."
"Fair enough." Erik was well aware the poisoning some old woman was a waste of his skills. He was after all, the best assassin in the Hellfire club. Most claimed the best in the world. That had even gotten him the nickname "Magneto"-people claimed he could manipulate the bullets to go wherever he wanted.
Thank God for the privacy clause in his contract. Outside of the Hellfire Club, no one knew who he was. Shaw kept no photos of him on record, no address, no telephone number. It was a benefit given to all members.
For all Erik knew, Emma herself had a husband or kids, or elderly grandparents to look after, or Riptide (Janos to his friends) had a lovely house in suburbia. But he doubted it. Then again, none of his coworkers would ever think he had kids and a husband either.
"Excellent." Emma leaned back and stared at him. "You look strange today, Erik."
"You constantly look like you live in the 1960s with that hairstyle, do I comment on it?" Emma chuckled. "When the hell is Shaw going to get here?"
"In his own time, as you damn well know." Oh, Erik knew. Shaw ruled the Hellfire Club with an iron fist, and while Erik acknowledged that they were the best of the best in their field (ignoring of course The Guild, the only rival company that mattered), he sometimes wanted to shoot Shaw. "Go read the files, he's quite an interesting character."
"That sounds promising." Erik sat down at his desk and flipped through the file. The CEO was in his fifties, disgustingly rich, and at the center of a drug distribution ring that encompassed most of Northern California. "Who wants him dead?"
"The owner of Yezmen Securities." Emma began filing a nail.
"Distributes drugs to most of southern California." Azazel provided. Erik forced himself not to jump. That man had the most irritating way of walking in without making a sound… "Magento, is zat your target?"
"I'm after his rival." Azazel made an amused noise and began cleaning off a bloody knife. "You must have had a interesting case."
"Ze man's guards forced me to escape vizout cleaning my knives." Azazel shook his head in a disgusted manner. "No courtesy."
"But you got him?" Emma pulled out another form. Azazel nodded. She smiled coldly and stamped something. "Your percentage will be deposited as soon as I confirm with the client."
"Zee Zhat it is." Erik finished reading his file. His target would, at noon, be eating lunch on the roof of his horribly guarded penthouse. With the proper gun, he'd be easy to off from one of the surrounding rooftops.
"Nice to see all of my wonderful assassins working hard." Erik, Azazel, and Emma stood to attention as Shaw walked in, accompanied by Riptide. Shaw smiled at all of them. "Have you received your assignments?"
Erik and Emma nodded. Azazel held up the bloody cloth.
"Ahead of schedule as always, Azazel. Remind me to give you a raise." Shaw walked to the back of the room and laid his hand flat on the wall.
Without a whisper of sound the wall moved up, revealing a richly furnished room. Leather chairs were placed around a table made of some dark wood. Erik had seen building schematics projected onto that table, a dead body being dissected on that table, and Emma swearing at paperwork while sitting at that table.
The last had been the only one that scared him. Erik followed Shaw into the room and sat down. The rest of the club followed suit. Shaw settled himself in the largest chair at the head of the table, and began to speak.
"Gentleman, and Gentlewoman, I have interesting news. In our last quarter there's been no enormous rise in profits, which can be attributed, as you may have guessed, to the Guild." Groans from around the table. "It's unfortunate that they're as good as their reputation-I have very little information about any of the assassins serving, nor about their headquarters."
"How many do they employ?" Emma leaned forward. "Could we get a mole in?"
"It's doubtful." Shaw's eyes narrowed. "This is after all, not an organization in need of new recruits. It's been around for centuries, and it has the only assassin whose skill is on par with yours, Magneto."
"They've got someone that good?" Riptide asked, sounding a bit incredulous. Shaw nodded. "Mierda."
"Janos, be civil. I'm working on the problem as we speak." Shaw pressed his fingers together. "Magneto, Emma, I want those jobs completed by tonight. The Hellfire Club could use the boost in reputation. Azazel, you'll be dropping them off."
"Ja." Shaw waved a hand to dismiss them.
"We are clearly in deep shit." muttered Riptide. "I hope Shaw can get that particular assassin out of the way, and fast. Or recruit him."
"Don't be a moron, no one leaves The Guild." Emma began riffling through her desk. "Their severance package is even worse than ours."
"Ah." Erik grimaced. The only way to leave the Hellfire Club was with a bullet in your skull. "Emma, where's your target?"
"Utah." Emma finally fished a capful of white powder from her desk. "Riptide can drop me off on the way. Pass me a needle." Erik slid open the file cabinet devoted to plain needles, and selected one full of clear liquid. Emma took it and tapped a sprinkling of powder into the liquid. She held it up with a smile.
"Planning for the injection route?" Azazel sniffed. "So scientific."
"So untraceable, unlike your knives. This is meant to look like a natural death."
"As opposed to you indulging your diamond fetish." Erik picked a gun from under his desk and began filling his pockets with ammunition. Emma glared at him. "Come on, I want to leave on time."
When Erik stepped into his house, two large masses slammed into his legs.
"Dad!"
"Dad! Lookit what I drew today!" Erik blinked down at Sean and Alex. Alex was waving a piece of paper at him. Erik leaned down to pick Sean up and take the paper.
"Hello, kids." Sean giggled and tugged on his coat. Erik examined the picture. "Hold on a second. I see Raven, I see Angel, I see Sean and Hank. Where are your father and I?"
"Silly Dad!" Alex pointed to the blobs on the right hand side. "See! You two are dragons!"
"Of course. How did I miss that?" Erik patted Alex's head. "I must say, you have great artistic talent."
"What's artistic talent mean?"
"It means you know how to draw, stupid." Angel hurried into the hallway. "Dad, can I have a pony?"
"No, and don't call your brother stupid." Erik bounced Sean. "Is there a reason you want a pony?"
"I can't fly." Erik was going to let Charles figure out this one. Speaking of which, where was his husband?
"Charles?" Charles hurried around the corner. Erik's mouth twitched up. Charles was barefoot and had something orange splashed over his cardigan. Erik shifted Sean to on arm and stepped forward to kiss him.
"Hi honey, how was your day?" Well, the assassination went smoothly-really, anyone with that much money in their bank accounts should install bulletproof windows, and a co worker of mine now has a new necklace which is worth more than your entire wardrobe. We're having problems with another firm and I found out that someone else might be as good at killing as I am, but nothing you need worry your pretty little head over.
"Oh, just a normal day. The board meeting was boring." Charles chuckled.
"Those government types always seem to be." Erik tugged on the edge of Charles's cardigan.
"And what have we here?"
"Hank was helping me make dinner, and we had a minor accident." Charles smiled. "Did you see Alex's picture?"
"Yes. We're, ah, dragons." Alex, down at his knees, nodded emphatically. Charles ruffled his hair.
"I was thinking we could hang it on the fridge." Sean gasped and wriggled out of Erik's arms.
"Can I do it? Can I? Can I?"
"Ask Alex." Erik instructed. Sean turned to Alex with huge eyes.
"Can I hang up your picture?"
"Sure." Erik handed the picture to Sean. Alex and he scurried off. Angel trotted after them. Erik rolled his eyes and took off his coat (all ammunition had been removed). Charles laughed quietly.
"I have no idea how Alex got that idea, but it's better than when Raven was eight."
"The lab rat and shark thing? Anything is better than that." Erik tugged Charles closer. Charles tipped his head up and kissed him properly. "And how was your day?"
"I had some interesting patients." Right. Charles believed in doctor-patient confidentiality. "Nothing as fascinating as government commission work."
"Heh. Define interesting."
"Daaaaad! Hank won't stop touching my stuuuuuff!" Raven shouted.
"I think that answers your question." Charles muttered. He raised his voice. "Raven, Hank is just curious!"
Erik snickered and followed Charles into the kitchen.
There were times when Erik wished to God he had a different job. A job that he didn't end up in just because Shaw became his guardian when he was eight. A job that was nice and boring and had easier hours, which he could quit if he wanted to.
Like now. Charles had Alex on his lap and was reading "Winnie the Pooh" to him, Raven was curled up next to him reading a Harry Potter book, Angel was leaning against Erik fighting to stay awake, Sean was snoring lightly while sprawled across Moira's belly, and Hank was reading another Harry Potter book.
It was so normal. So far removed from the Hellfire Club and everything that damned organization was. Except that the cheque he got for killing that CEO would probably pay for next month's groceries.
A/N: Um. Reviews? Please?