The second hand is creeping towards the twelve on the clock. It's so close, so terribly close to that beautiful bell. He could feel the corners of his mouth twitching into a grin. Three...two...

Ziiiiip!

Briiiiing!

"Hey Mr. L, sup?"

Goddammit.

Remy LeBeau got up from his desk with a sigh, shaking his head at that good for nothing problem child. This was the third time in the last two weeks he managed to get this close...this close to giving the damn kid the detention he deserved. He needed something to knock him off his high horse.

Fast bastard.

"Today then, class, we gone be working on one of the simplest and yet most difficult tasks you can possibly have in good cooking-prepping our own basic roux." He knocked lightly on the side of the large metal pot he already had sitting on the teacher's station, letting the clang ring through the room. "You may wonder, 'Oh, Mr. LeBeau, how hard can slopping some fat and flour together be,' but let me tell you, one moment on the stove too long and BAM! Forty minutes hard cookin' gone burn and you'll have no bechamel to show off to yo mama in law. Let me tell you, not a good experience." Remy smiled, waiting for the laughter of his class.

There wasn't any.

Remy shook his head, his dark black eyes rolling. These kids, they just didn't understand.

"Well, anyway. Kids, your instructions are all written on your handouts, but I'll walk you bebettes through the process. Now I'd rather use some bacon grease myself, but we gone be makin' a basic, true French roux, as it's needed if you ever make any of the mother sauces. So get yourself some of the butter and all-purpose flour, and grab yourself a lil veggie bag if it takes your fancy to spice this up a bit."

The students started chattering amongst themselves as they lined up for the supply fridges, and Remy sighed a bit. It was a month into the class, and he had definitely managed to single out that student. There was always that one bad apple that you had to cut the rot out of before it infected the rest of the bag, but it was a bit of an issue in the particular case-somehow he managed to have that cocky brat the boss discovered was his a couple of years ago. It was relatively well known that the speed-demon had actually wanted to leave when he was a sophmore, considering that the Xavier Academy's courses would have essentially given him a high school diploma by then, but Erik had put down his iron fist to declare that any offspring he had to pay through college would be finishing their extra years at the charter school, verdammt!

Which had just made the kid...irritating. It was relatively obvious he had signed on to Remy's course to take the piss, thinking it'd be a breeze to learn the fine arts of cooking. From what he'd heard from Erik himself, apparently he was sitting German as well and intentionally butchering the language simply to piss him off. He hadn't been talked about quite as much from the science and arts departments, but what he had heard...well. It was obvious the kid was acting out in more places than one.

The rumors were it was a bit more than that too. Apparently he had a suspicious number of items appear in his bedrooms considering that he wasn't working a job, and the cops may have been called more than once on him. He was never caught on a camera, though, and so no one could prove anything happened. While Remy did have to admit that as an experienced "liberator" himself he was somewhat impressed with the kid's work, it still bothered him to no end that he was using his powers in such a way. Years the mutant rights movement had been going on, and it was slip ups like these that could wind up with Fox News breathing down their necks. Homo Superior may be around 10% of the population, after all, but it was still a minority. He couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was a side effect of going to a school aimed at the mutant youth of the tri-state area was a part of the problem, but he shook his head. No, the Academy had done nothing but good for most of the kids there; it was just one bad seed.

"Now make sure when the color turns caramel, you turn that there heat down," Remy said, stirring his pot at the front of the room and adjusting the temperature. "We still got a long way goin' here."

"Mr. LeBeau, seriously, can't we just buy this at the store?" He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Tolerated moaned in the back. A couple students giggled, and before Remy could respond, there was a snap from a student a few tables over.

"Pietro, it's a shame you don't respect our teacher's art," the blue boy said, stirring his pot gently. "Some of us have expectations."

"That's right, Wagner," Remy said with a nod, and his star pupil beamed. Kid apparently was already gearing up to start a Bavarian bakery after graduation. Good, sweet boy. Honestly a shock he was Raven's kid with whom Remy was positive was the le diable himself. "Really, a good roux isn't somethin' you can get out of a jar. You need the labor that goes into it; it makes it all the sweeter."

The rest of the lesson went on relatively without a hitch, with most students successfully frying up a rich brown trinity-filled sauce, much to the delight of Remy. He had to be honest, first time he tried cooking the stuff it burned within the first ten minutes; he was glad there were relatively few casualties amongst the pots filling the classroom with a heavy aroma.

"You should find," Remy said, strolling towards the door, "that any sauce made from the fruits of your labor will give you a far more flavorful dish, so while it seems like a hell of a lot of work, it can be the vital difference between a good and an excellent dinner. I'll be stickin' all this in the Tupperware for us to work on next week." As he finished, the bell for the end of the period rang, and Remy felt a painful thud against his arm he had just managed to stretch across the door frame in time. He leaned down to drag the wincing white-haired boy up by his collar.

"See you Monday, class, we gone cook up a quality gumbo then!" He waved as the students packed up to leave the class, then turned to the boy he was still holding. "We need to talk, Mr. Maximoff."

Pietro wouldn't stop fidgeting as the non-teleporting members of the class filed out, much to Remy's annoyance. As the last girl left, he effortlessly extended his leg a full 90 degrees to the side and kicked it closed. He let go of Pietro's collar and leaned against the door with a frown.

"You've been suffering in your classes, and as both your course and guidance teacher, I'm very concerned about your performance." He could practically hear the teenager's eyes roll. "I know you're trying to stick it to your dad, hell, I know authority issues. But I wanted to see if you really realized the chances you're squandering."

"Hey, I'm doing just fine as far as I'm concerned."

Remy pointed at Pietro's workstation. The cast iron pot was on fire.

Pietro shrugged. "Just fine, Mr. LeBeau."

"That's not just fine an' you know it," Remy said. "Look, I can't keep you right now, end of the day and all, but tomorrow you're stuck with a detention. I don't want your to think of it as punishment, we're gone work out a plan o' attack instead, you see?"

"It's Friday tomorrow though!" Pietro whined.

"Think of it as an hour away from dealin' with your family."

The explanation seemed to suit Pietro, as he looked to the ceiling thoughtfully and nodded. Satisfied, Remy stepped away from the door.

"And there you-" the door smashed open and the boy in front of him was replaced with a blur, "-go."

Remy looked at the still flaming pot and sighed.