Pink Floyd's newest album filled my room as I hung up a new picture on my wall, carefully balanced on my tippy toes, on a few books, on a chair. Of course I could have scoured the mansion for a ladder or an exceptionally tall mutant but this was faster and more convenient although remarkably more dangerous.

I sang along to the album smiling as the spring air blew though the curtains and circled around the room. It was the best time of year. "We don't need no education; we don't need no thought control."

"That's a little scarily specific isn't it?" I jumped at Hanks voice dropping my box of nails and nearly falling off my chair ladder.

"My God Hank, you trying to kill me?"

Hank laughed stepping into my room and shutting the door behind him. "You should really shut the door when you wear short dresses and reach above your head. You're going to drive the students mad."

"Well they shouldn't be looking at their teacher like that should they?"

Charles had asked me to teach at the school and practice controlling my powers a few years after the incident in Cuba. I had just finished College at Yale and was searching for something to do when Charles found me using Cerebo. I had graduated Yale with a Journalism Degree and he figured that I could advise a school paper and teach a few writing electives. Hank and I became fast friends; we were both scholars although in different fields and loved good conversations, coffee, and the occasional movie night.

Hank bent down to pick up the nails I had dropped as I struggled to balance on my makeshift step stool. "So I was thinking about our movie fest tonight, maybe we could watch some scary movies, Poltergeist, Halloween, Friday the 13th? What do you think?"

"Sure Hank that sounds great!" He handed me the box of nails stealing one and plucking my hammer from my hands.

"Where did you want this?"

"Are you going to hang my picture for me?"

"Yes, now where did you want it?"

"Above the window."

He turned to look at me and anger flashed though his eyes. "You realize that your window is open correct?" I nodded a sly smile playing on my lips. "You realize that if you would have slipped on your horribly constructed stepstool you would have gone through the open window and fell four stories? What would have happened then?"

"I guess someone would have to draw the short straw and clean a pancaked Mutant off Charles's pretty green lawn. Personally I vote for that Davis kid, he's a real jerk."

Hank growled as he drove the nail into the wall, hung my photo, and picked me up and setting me on the floor.

"Why do you say things like that?"

"Because they annoy you." I shrugged with a smile, walking over to my record player and turning it off to switch the vinyl. "What do you want me to bring tonight?"

"Snacks, and your lovely sense of humor."

"Hank, people don't believe me when I say you're a sarcastic Ass, they just need to hang out with you more I guess."

Hank rolled his eyes at me and made his way to the door. "I'll see you at nine Sunshine."

I shook my head at his nickname for me. "Bye Beast."

Hank had decided to call me Sunshine after I complained that I didn't have an X-Men name. He and I had been out on a run, gathering some stuff Charles needed for a party he was throwing for the students and I spent most of the day trying to come up with nicknames for myself, most of which Hank deemed awful. He hated, Flare, Ray, and Solar Girl, but he truly despised SPF 1,000.

"Riley, you cannot call yourself SPF 1,000."

"What! Why not?" I held up a sleeve of ice blue cups in one hand and clear in the other, "Which ones?"

"Blue, and because, the sun isn't even 1,000 degrees, you're giving people false information if you call yourself that."

I tossed the cups into the cart followed by a large package of forks. "So?"

"You're a journalist, and a teacher, don't you care about giving false information?"

I threw my head back with a sigh, "But it sounds so cool Hank."

"I won't allow it."

"What are you the alter ego name police?"

"When people want to give themselves stupid names I am."

I rolled my eyes at Hank adding package of napkins and white plates to the cart. When Charles asked Hank and I to go out to fetch the items for the winter party I assumed he had simply forgotten to go and didn't want to do it himself. But when I had found Hank knee deep in engine oil and blueprints I knew it was because he wanted Hank to get out of his Lab and into the real world. The man was a genius but would disappear for days if it weren't for his classes he had to teach and the professor and I dragging him out of the lab for meals.

Hank threw a bag of marshmallows at me and it bounced off my face landing in the cart. "You're not listening anymore."

I looked at him with fake annoyance, "No I wasn't, what did you say before you tried to make s'mores with my face?"

"Sunshine. That should be your name."

"Sunshine?"

"Yeah."

I shook my head, "It's too cute for me."

"No it's not, trust me." He blushed before placing more packages of marshmallows into the cart and moving away from me down the aisle.

"That's a nice memory." Jean pulled me from my own head with a smile. She was standing in my doorway a piece of paper in hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry Jean, how long were you standing there?"

"Long enough to enjoy that, sorry for prying. You were just standing there staring at the wall with a huge smile I had to make sure you were okay."

"Well I'm fine, what can I help you with?"

"Could you look over my paper for me, and maybe…could we talk for a bit?"

"Of course Jean! Come on in, sit down." I motioned for her to sit on my bed next to me as I read over her assignment. I liked Jean, she was a sweet girl she just had a tremendous amount of power. She was scared and lonely and I wished that people would give her a chance. I hoped that she felt comfort in me so I took every opportunity I had to sit and chat and be her friend rather than just her teacher. I wanted to giver her what I needed when I was her age.

After looking over her paper Jean and I took my Jeep to the market for Ice Cream, so I could pick up snacks for my movie night and so her and I could talk. Often times she vented and I listed, usually over some sort of junk food. Sometimes we would laugh about boys and she would tease me about my friendship with Hank. I may have been six years older than her but it was like having the litter sister I always wanted.

Once back at the mansion Jean handed me the bags she helped carry to Hanks room and gave me a warm hug. "Thanks for everything Riley."

"I'm here for you, always okay. You ever need anything just come by my room and I'll be there, unless its class time."

"Have fun watching your movies, you should totally kiss him tonight." She smirked at me and walked out of the teachers wing of the mansion and back to her own.

"It's not like that Jean, how many times do I have to tell you!" I yelled at her back.

"Whatever Sunshine!" She laughed disappearing around a corner.

Hank swung his door open and grinned at me, "What's not like what?"

"Oh nothing, Jean was just being a little punk that's all." I pushed past Hank and stumbled into him room dropping the bags on his bed and kicking off my shoes.

"What did you get today?"

"Let's see, chocolate chip cookies, a bag of Red Vines for you, gummy worms for me, jiffy pop that I promise not to burn this time, a bucket of KFC chicken and mashed potatoes, some coke, and chocolate fudge cake and Rum for dessert." I set each item on his end table as I went over them before scrambling onto his extra-large mattress as he put in the first movie.

"We will NEVER finish all that."

"Hank, you're a beast, you can eat all of this alone, if you wanted to." I teased, placing two forks into the mashed potato container. "What were you working on before I got here?"

"What?" Hank shot me a confused look as he opened up the KFC bucket plucking out a chicken leg.

"You have streak of graphite on your forehead which tells me you were working on something."

"Oh, it was nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yeah."

"Hank tell me."

He bit into the chicken leg and his cheeks flushed. "It's for you."

"You were working on something for me?"

He nodded wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Is a suit, one that will withstand your mutation…. hopefully."

"What for, is there a conflict? Will I get to be a real X-Men? Even use my name, and powers in a real life situation?"

"No, none of that. It just because wanted to make you one. I will have to get your measurements eventually though."

"Oh how…intimate." I sent Hank a wink and burst into laughter. Sure Hank was incredibly handsome, and a wonderful human who was passionate and smart and cared deeply for those around him, but I wasn't here for a relationship. I'm not a relationship or commitment kind of woman. We settled in after that watching though the third installment of the Nightmare on Elm Street series and Halloween, demolishing the bucket of chicken and the candy. We were halfway through Poltergeist and at some point I had wiggled my way into Hanks side watching the movie mostly though his shirt. I was not a fan of the possessed. I yelped nearly every five minutes, burrowing deeper into him to which he laughed relentlessly at.

"You okay down there?"

"I could be better."

Hank put his arm around me and pulled me into his side rubbing his hand up and down my waist. He left a trail of heat where his hands touched even for me, someone who's mutation caused me to be hot always. "I thought you liked scary movies"

"I do." I mumbled looking up at him. From my angle I could see just how thick his glasses were and the bit of stubble that lined his jaw. "This one is just scarier than the others." I liked Hank. That much was true, Jean knew it, I knew it and Charles knew after he spent a bit of time wandering around my head. But it didn't matter, Hank was in love with Raven. Or at least infatuated with her, and he had every right to be, they both had visible mutations, and she was beautiful and cool and his first mutant crush. Admittedly our relationship was a bit weird. We were close both emotionally and physically, we had seen each other cry and platonically shared the same bed. We could never be a thing.

Suddenly Hank pulled away from me, getting off the bed and leaving me open to attacks form the movie spirits. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to the bathroom, and taking my injection."

"But you've left me!"

"Riles, I'm two feet from you I'll be back."

"You've left me to DIE!" I dramatically flung myself across the bed, my head hanging off the side as I stuck my tongue out to mock death. "Freddy will come back and Kill me!"

"Well I guess I'll have to burry your body somewhere then huh?"

I ignored him continuing my act by flinging my arm off the side of the bed to dangle near my head. I heard Hank close the bathroom door with a click. I decided that were I to die in the three minutes it would take Hank to use the bathroom and take his injection I would take a shot of my own. I quickly poured myself two shots of rum and downed them, then I took a few bites of the fudge cake before I heard the bathroom unlock and I flung myself back down into my death position.

"Did you stay like that the whole time or did your ghost take a shot of rum?" I could feel Hank crawling onto the bed and over me as he talked. I ignored him, sliding further down the bed with a deadly groan. He chuckled and I was sure his face was lighting up with his signature smirk. "Well I guess since you're dead I'll have to finish this whole cake by myself." I felt him settle back into his pillows as the smell of cake wafted towards me.

I pulled myself up so I was sitting on the bed facing him and my back to the movie playing in the background. "Don't you dare McCoy!" The two shots of alcohol swirled around in my head due to the sudden movement and for a moment there were three Hanks in front of me.

"She LIVES!" Hank smiled at me over the cake. "and with evidence of cake eating still on her lips."

"What?"

"You have fudge all over your mouth and face, you idiot." Hank set the cake down on the bed next to him.

"I do not!"

"You do too." He leaned forward towards me causing me to lean back onto my elbows so our heads didn't bump

"Hank…what are you doing?" I breathed, my stomach knotted as a coy smile played on his lips. I was practically laying down on his bed and he was practically straddling me. I had imagined this scenario a few times I just never thought it would happen.

"Nakpkin?" He grinned. Producing a napkin from behind me and placing It on my shocked face.

I pulled the napkin off my face with a glare, "Hank you…. You …." And suddenly his lips were on mine one hand held him above me and the other tangled in my hair gently pulling me towards him. I kissed back, after the shock had worn off and I was sure I hadn't actually died. Then he pulled away, a blush on his cheeks, his glasses foggy. "…Beast." I gasped, finishing my sentence.

Hank blushed looking down at the comforter avoiding eye contact. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not."

"You're not?"

"God no Hank, you Blue idiot, I've wanted that for ages."

"Ages?"

"Ages." I nodded. Hank smiled grabbing me by the chin and placing a gentle kiss on my lips.

"Me too."

"But I thought you loved Raven."

"I did, for a long time, but not anymore."

"So youre mine now?"

"And you're mine?"

"oh yes." This time I leaned forward and kissed him. He pulled me down and rolled over so I was in the pillows and he was straddling me. I liked this side of Hank, a confident, dominate side. He pulled away only to move the cake from the bed and take his glasses off. Then he was at it again leaving kisses down my throat. "You know; no one would believe me if I told them you were like this." I teased a whimper escaping my lips as he found a particularly sensitive spot on my neck.

"Oh there will be evidence." He growled biting and sucking the spot, one of his hands making its way up my shirt drawing circles on my back. I arched into him with a gasp, and low growl escaped his lips. "I'm called the Beast for a reason you know." He looked down at me with that smirk of his grinding his hips into mine. My hands went into his hair pulling at the dark strands, his eyes fluttered closed as he rolled his hips into mine again.

"Hank…that's a dangerous game you're playing." I scolded kissing his jaw and neck.

"Sunshine, you're glowing."

"What?"

"You're actually glowing." I looked down at myself, my skin was the color of the sunset casting a glow on Hanks face.

"Well that's a first." I laughed, "Must mean you're doing a good job." I smirked nipping at his earlobe. He growled attacking my lips with his, as we spent the night forgetting about the movie we were supposed to be watching.