Notes: YAY I AM BACK FROM VACATION

CC, I'm so glad you're loving this because I LOVE writing it! It's so fun to come back from vacation and edit up another of these chapters and it feels like a continuation of all the fun that I've been having!

Griezz: Yeah... the X-Men didn't do real well on their intro to these two. But um, I'm gonna call BS on your calling BS on Scott. Yeah, he's lost some X-Men in his time, but what other team do you recommend, exactly? Hmm? The Avengers? The X-Men are the ONLY game in town when it comes to mutant issues; the other teams have stood by and allowed genocide to go on without stepping in to stop it. The X-Men aren't perfect, but they are the best and ONLY option for mutants in need. *oh oops the Protect Scott switch slipped :P

As for Logan and K, remember from K's backstory: she was in the program after Logan. so she knows who he is, but he wouldn't know her at all.

Chapter 4: Back to School Special

When the blackbird got to Westchester, the X-Men knew at this point that trying to separate the two newcomers wouldn't be the best idea, considering what little they had seen of the very protective relationship they both had. Instead, Charles arranged to meet them in the cell they had prepared for harder-to-handle cases, though he was sure to not only keep Scott and Jean with him but to plant the psychic suggestion in both Clint's and K's minds that they were in a classroom at the school.

All at once, as soon as Charles allowed the two of them to return to the here and now, K stiffened up further and quickly pulled Clint around to stand behind her just before a low, rumbling growl echoed the room. "What do you want?" she managed to get out between clenched teeth.

"My apologies," Charles said with a serene smile. "I know it can be disorienting, but we had to get you and your young friend away from the men who were after you — preferably without crashing a plane in an unnecessary confrontation."

She narrowed her eyes further. "And where the hell are we now?"

"The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters," Charles said.

"Yeah? Then why does it smell like a lab?"

Charles couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. "I thought it would be best to meet in a friendlier setting."

"Get out of my head, and keep away from my boy." She was physically blocking Clint from them, doing her best to keep him behind her, though Clint was taking a similarly protective stance, sticking close to K and obviously sizing up the X-Men for a fight.

"No one here is going to do anything to endanger him," Charles assured her. "We only wanted to speak to you about the people who were chasing you."

She tipped her chin up slightly. "Why? You have some kind of deal with them? Competition?"

Charles shook his head. "We have no dealings with them or anyone like them," he promised. "In fact, the X-Men are working to dismantle and fight the very ideas that formed programs like that one."

She smirked crookedly, though there was no actual humor to it. "Fight a weapon with a weapon, huh? Not very original."

Charles frowned and leaned forward. "Actually," he said slowly, "what we're proposing is far more revolutionary. Peaceful coexistence, an end to the fight between mutantkind and mankind."

"I'm not looking for the pamphlet."

"You asked what we wanted," Charles said simply. "I'm only answering your question."

She shook her head. "I don't give a crap about your mission statement. I want to know what you want from us. And I don't buy your line. Not with who you have in your little group."

For a moment, Charles frowned, though slowly, he started to nod. "And what, exactly, is it about Wolverine that you take exception to?"

But that just got a lower growl out of her. "Don't try to pull that crap. You know damn well what the problem is."

"I don't, actually," Charles said. He gestured to her with both hands. "Please. Enlighten me."

"You're a liar. You know it, and if you want to pretend like you don't know who he is — that's on you."

"He's an X-Man," Scott broke in.

"Then I'm not so sure you're anyone we should be near," K shot back.

"I don't know what you've heard about him," Jean said with a frown. "But the X-Men, Logan included, are a force for peace."

"Then what's with the deterrent?" K asked.

Scott frowned and tipped his head K's way. "Every one of us has been branded dangerous by some organization or another—"

"Yeah, but that one has all of the credentials. You? No way you're on the same level. I don't buy it."

Scott took a step forward, but Jean put a hand on his shoulder with a sharp look that carried a psychic warning to cool it before she looked toward K. "We don't turn people away for their pasts," she said.

"Especially if you can use them, right?"

"This is not a weapons program," Charles said, more firmly than before.

K turned his way with a completely unconvinced and very dry expression as her wordless response.

For a long moment, the room was quiet until Clint poked his head around K, watching the adults in the room wide-eyed. "So… can we just… go?" Clint asked quietly.

K took a moment to try and breathe a little deeper in an effort to relax her stance for him. "We don't even know who these people are or where they took us," K said with her head turned so she knew Clint could read her lips, even though she was unbelievably quiet about it.

Clint nodded and bit his lip before he turned toward Charles with his shoulders back a bit. "My mom'll kick your butts, so you should just back off and just… we don't need any help — so go away."

"Yeah, you were both in really good shape when we found you," Scott said with a dry tone.

Clint turned Scott's way and simply shook his head. "You guys just showed up after I scared 'em."

But at that, K's expression went a bit more flat and she simply watched the little boy for a long moment as she weighed it out. If it had just been her, she wouldn't have given these guys a second thought. But hearing Clint say that he had actually tried to take the soldiers on himself was just the reminder she needed that she wasn't in this alone. And she couldn't risk any mistakes with Clint.

"I don't appreciate the fake scenery," K said, finally meeting Charles' gaze and refusing to look away.

Charles very slowly nodded, and in an instance, the two of them were able to see the room as it was for the first time — which set Clint back a step behind K again as he scowled around at it. K might have had good reason to be suspicious of a lab, but even to Clint's young mind, the whole setup looked… worrisome. Not to mention the fact that it was so different to what they had just been looking at

"You're not really instilling a sense of confidence here," K said, taking hold of Clint's arm — and this time, he stayed close behind her, honestly off his guard.

"You were ready to attack my team," Charles said.

"What makes you think I still won't?"

"I think we would both like to resolve this peacefully," Charles said. "We simply want to know why these people were after you — and offer our help, if you want it."

She tipped her head to the side and glanced at both Jean and Scott for a moment before settling back on Charles. "How many reasons do you think they need to hunt someone down?"

"I know that they would love to find powerful mutants to turn to their own devices. But they are hunting you, not just trying to use a mutant they came across," Charles pointed out.

She gave him a pointed look as if to say 'there's your answer.' "Do you really not have a clue on that?"

Charles shook his head lightly. "I simply want to know how… invested they are in getting you back."

"Enough."

"Then we'd be more than happy to let you stay here," Charles told her. "You wouldn't be the only mutants to use our school as a refuge."

At the mention of schooling, K seemed to pause. There, again, was the reminder that she wasn't the only one facing this situation. "Might not hurt for you to work on your spelling a little bit," K said with her head turned Clint's way. "You're probably better off than the big guy, but …"

Clint snickered a little at the look on Scott's face. "Yeah, I am for sure."

"This is a school," Jean said with a smile that seemed overly warm next to Charles' look of concentration and Scott's annoyed look at already being the subject of picking — even if Jean's expression was just as genuine as the expression the men wore.

"He's not the spelling teacher, is he?" K asked, clearly baiting Clint into more giggles.

"No, that's Storm," Jean said. "I can introduce you."

The two newcomers shared a raised eyebrow look as K mouthed, Sto-orm.

Clint just grinned and signed out, One is clothing and one is weather. Weirder names than mine.

"Told you eventually you'd find someone weirder." K leaned closer to Clint. "Looks like you hit the jackpot of crackpots."

He grinned and leaned into her too. "I did wanna run away to the circus."

"They got the clown clothes right then, huh?" K teased.

"Oh yeah," Clint giggled.

"I can give you a tour of the school," Jean offered Clint's way with a smile. "If you want."

Clint looked toward K, but when she seemed to be leaving it up to him, he nodded slowly. "Alright," he said, then stuck a finger out to point at Jean. "But you have to promise you're going to bring me back to Mom, or I'll kick your trash."

"I promise," Jean said, still with that warm smile, and waited for Clint to give K a quick hug and a whispered 'kick their butt' before he followed her out so that K could talk to Charles and Scott without having to censor herself in front of the young ears in the room.

And meanwhile, Clint was taking the tour, wide-eyed at how big the school was. He'd gone to Kindergarten, yeah, and there was a school that the home he and Barney had stayed in fed into… but this was not like any school he'd ever seen, and he got a lot quieter the longer he followed Jean around.

"It's really big," he said at last when they weren't even halfway through the tour. Without K, he felt a lot smaller — because this school was clearly made for bigger people than him and kids that had more than the handful of clothes K had bought for him and Barney.

Considering how poorly Clint and his mother had reacted to Charles' psychic incursion before, Jean was trying to keep her mind to herself — but she couldn't help but peek in when she saw Clint shrinking in on himself a bit. And when she caught what he was thinking — that he wasn't good enough for a nice place like this — she made it a point to point out a few of the personal touches that the students had all put on the place, hoping that he would catch the hint that there were people there from all walks of life.

But when they got to the living room, where Storm was reading on the couch, Jean noticed that the little boy suddenly got a bit of his swagger back, simply because someone was watching him now.

"Who is this handsome young man?" Storm asked as she looked up from her book and gently closed it on her place marker.

"My name's Clint," the little boy said with a little grin.

She gave him a warm smile and offered her his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Clint. I'm Ororo, but everyone here likes to call me Storm."

"Oh, you teach spelling," Clint said, starting to grin a little wider.

"I teach English, but spelling is part of that," she agreed. "Do you like to spell?"

Clint shrugged. "Not really," he admitted. "I'm not very good at it. But Mom says I should work on it."

"Then will you be joining me in my classroom?" she asked, still smiling his way as she looked entirely engaged. After all, it wasn't every day that someone as small as Clint found his way into the institute — and it certainly wasn't every little boy who had Clint's outlook, sense of humor, and frank way of speaking. Even if a lot of that was still only there for Jean to hear in his thoughts.

"I'm not…" Clint bit his lip. "What grade do you teach?"

"All of them," Storm replied easily.

"Okay." Clint nodded. "Okay then, yeah, I might be in your class, I guess. If my mom decides we're staying here for a while."

Storm glanced up at Jean with a slight wrinkle of her brows. "I'm glad to hear you have someone with you. Most of our students don't have parents."

Clint looked around the place. "This is one of those rich people foundations huh?"

Storm smiled wider. "You could say that."

"So…" Clint looked around at the lavish setting. "Do you try and find families for everybody, or are you just a 'home'?"

She shook her head. "We're more like a boarding school for those with families — and a family for those without." She tried for another kinder smile. "You're welcome to ask the students about us."

"Maybe I will," Clint said. He took a deep breath as he glanced up at Jean. "Do you all got powers, then?" he asked. "'Cause I don't got anything but my pocketkni-" He stopped. "Oh… no. I don't even got a pocketknife. I used it on one of those creeps and I didn't get it back."

"I'm sure we can get you a new one," Jean told him.

Clint nodded thoughtfully, though he didn't get to say much more before Sicem came bounding over to catch up to him, followed closely by a laughing Kitty, who stopped when she saw Clint.

The golden started whining again, his tail wagging as he kept putting his head under Clint's hands, nosing at him to pet him more and licking at his hands as he did so. It was painfully clear that the dog was worried about Clint.

Clint smiled down at Sicem and scruffed his ears. "Hey, boy. Didja miss me?" he teased lightly, crouching down to get completely bowled over by the enthusiastic dog now that Clint was smiling and scratching his ears. And Sicem kept right on licking him until he was giggling so hard that he had the hiccoughs.

When Sicem finally let him up, Clint found that the three girls in the room were grinning, and he flushed red. "Umm… um, this is my dog," he said softly. "His name's Sicem."

"I'm sorry, his name is what?" Kitty said, her brows furrowed, though she was grinning wider somehow.

"His name's Sicem," Clint said, fingerspelling it for her just in case, without really thinking about it, so that it was even clearer. After all, if she hadn't heard, he wanted to help. And if she had and was being dumb, he wanted to make it real clear.

"I just … I've never heard a dog named something like that," she said. "I thought he'd be like … I don't know… Max. Or … Noble … something … that fits a fluffy slobberpuss."

Clint shrugged easily. "Mom named him, but I like it."

"Okay … that's … interesting," Kitty said. "He's been a perfect gentleman."

"Yeah, he only thinks he's a guard dog," Clint said with a crooked grin before he stuck his hand out to say hello. "I'm Clint, by the way."

"Kitty," she replied, taking his hand with the smile still in place. "Are you hungry?"

Clint shrugged. "Not really," he said. "Mom and I already ate dinner, and as soon as she's done talking to people, we'll just… get set up."

"Oh, okay," Kitty said, looking a little surprised. "Um … are you going to have your own room then, or are you two … or three … going to share a suite?"

Clint wrinkled his nose at her. "I dunno," he said. "I have my own room at home, but I don't think I should leave Mom alone with strangers.".

"I thought you said she could kick all of our butts," Jean teased.

Clint scrunched up his nose and stuck his tongue out at her. "Well, yeah, but we still gotta stick together."

"I'm teasing, of course," Jean said, smiling. "They should be done any time, and if you want to stay close to each other, I'm sure we can arrange for a suite."

"Okay," Clint said with a little nod, glancing around at the three of them and then biting his lip. "So… umm. I don't really know what I'm s'pposed to do here? I mean, we walked around…"

"If you're going to go to school here for a little while, then we could talk about what classes you need," Jean said. "But that might be something to wait for your mom for."

"Yeah," Clint said quietly, scrunching up a little bit with his shoulders up to his ears. "I dunno about stuff like that."

"You did say that you wanted to learn spelling," Storm said with a warm smile.

Clint nodded. "Yeah, I'm not real good at it," he said. "So I gotta learn."

"Would you like to spell a bit with me?" Storm offered. "So we can find a place to start."

Clint glanced up at Jean again, and when she gave him an encouraging smile, he nodded. "Okay," he said. "I guess we can do that."

He quietly followed Storm to a classroom so that he wasn't being watched the whole time, and he bounced his foot against the chair he was sitting on a few times as he watched Storm.

"So… I can sound things out and stuff," he offered.

"That's a wonderful start," Storm agreed. "So why don't you tell me the hardest word you know how to spell?"

"Ummm." Clint bit his lip and then started to smile despite himself when he remembered something Barney had helped him read… "I can spell… it's part of your ear and it's c-o-c-h-l-e-a."

Storm looked pleasantly surprised. "That is an impressive word. How do you know that one?"

Clint frowned. He had been trying to impress Storm, convince her that he wasn't as stupid as he felt — but he hadn't been expecting her to ask to see behind the curtain of that particular trick. "I … I read it," he said quietly. "On a doctor sheet."

She nodded at that and rifled in her desk for a sheet of paper. "Let's try a few words out. I'll say them slowly, and you do your best to spell them." She handed him a blank notebook and a pencil. "Take your time."

Clint frowned as he took the pencil in his hand, his face flushed. His handwriting was atrocious, and he knew it. And he hadn't done a lot of writing in… a long time. K had helped him read some stuff while they were together but … he found himself absently spelling the words with his hands, fingerspelling before he wrote it down.

Storm didn't say anything about how slow he was or about the fact that he had to fingerspell it first, though when Logan got there, it was clear he'd picked up on that as he watched Clint work.

Logan stayed near the door, arms crossed and patiently waiting until Clint was finished, and when Clint finally realized Logan was standing there, Logan cleared his throat. "Your Mom's lookin' for you — if you're done."

Clint glanced at Storm. "Can I go?" he asked.

"Of course," Storm replied. "I'm sure we have plenty to work with for now."

Clint nodded. "Thanks!" he said before he simply rushed off, not really thinking about the fact that he didn't know how to get there.

"Hey kid," Logan called out. "Wrong way." He tipped his head and pointed the right direction. "Three doors to the kitchen."

Clint skidded to a stop and looked up at Logan and then nodded and quickly changed directions, rushing off again and leaving Storm smirking and shaking her head.

"So," she said, glancing up at Logan. "I'm sure I could ask Jean what was said, but tell me what you think of our new visitors."

"They're interesting," Logan replied. "She didn't say much about the kid outside of 'mine' and 'not your business'."

"They have a dog named Sicem," Storm said with a smirk.

Logan couldn't help but smirk at that too. "Like Little John."

"I had the same thought," she chuckled.

"Not sure how long they'll stick around though — so get in what you can with the kid."

Storm let out a sigh. "It's obvious he's behind in academics," she admitted. "But he is smarter than he realizes. Even with just the spelling test I gave him — he was faster spelling it with his hands and more accurate than when he tried to write it."

"They were signing in the jet," Logan said, nodding. "They got a system figured out."

"I wouldn't be surprised in the least if he was at least partially deaf," Storm admitted. "He knew 'cochlea' but not 'ardent' or even 'rain'."

"Yeah, might explain a few things," Logan said, nodding. "How was he otherwise? She didn't trust one of us any further than she could throw me."

"He's reserved for the most part, until he forgets to be," Storm said with a spark of laughter in her gaze. "Once he was playing with his dog, he was just like you'd expect any boy to be. It was only when we asked him about himself or his mother…"

He nodded. "She's fighting programming. Kinda curious how long it'll last."

"What else did she tell you?" Storm asked, leaning forward, genuinely curious about the newcomers.

"Not much," Logan admitted. "Assumed we'd know what the basics were, refused to elaborate. Only got out of her what some of her specialty training was when Charlie pressed."

"And?"

"And she's fighting some of that training," Logan replied as he kicked himself off of the wall and started out the door.

Storm let out a sigh. "And you don't think they'll be staying."

"I don't know," Logan said. "She's contrary as hell. Could go either way."

"Well, we'll just have to see," Storm said.