Author's Note: Thank you everyone for commenting and giving me kudos. I hope you like this chapter, which turned out really difficult to write in the end. Sorry for the bit of a wait on this one, but I'd rather take my time than produce less-than-amazing chapters. I hope I captured Nix properly and that you're all ready for some major angst featuring Web and Leib in the next chapter!

Also! Good Intentions now has fanart! Secretspy0404 has been helping me so much on this story, it could not exist without her and please go follow her on tumblr. Besides being a huge help and inspiration with this fic, she's insanely talented. Check out this gorgeous drawing of young Winters surrounded by wildflowers from the first scene of chapter one. art/A-Miracle-471993868

The classroom was very large with wide, table-like desks each meant to fit two people and plenty of shelving space. The walls were a rich mahogany, just like the hallways and dorm rooms in the rest of the mansion, and sunlight streamed in through the wide windows that had been cracked open to let in the breeze. There were five power outlets, two sockets each. He could work with that.

There were more outlets along the counters, because spectrometers, lasers, and oscillators need to be plugged in nowadays. But as far as the kids were concerned, he could really just be saying cause science. He had mentally counted off ten of those before something caught his eye and distracted him. His room was completely free of decorations save for a poster with the periodic table on it and some extra reading materials in the corner. However, on his teacher's desk at the front of the room sat a purple flower, perhaps a daisy, sitting in a beaker filled with water. Curious, Nix wandered over to it and noticed a folded note card sitting there as well. In careful but slanted handwriting, it read "Welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. I'm sure you will do very well here and I look forward to working with you in the future." and was signed Richard Winters.

Nix chuckled at it incredulously before the door burst open and a young man with flaming red hair hurried in. "Oh gosh, I'm so sorry," he said nervously. "I should have introduced myself before just leaving you a note on your desk. That was very rude of me, I'm so sorry."

Eyebrows raised, Nix nodded and held out a hand. "Lewis Nixon," he said as the man accepted his hand to shake. "But everyone usually just calls me Nix. And you're Dick?"

"Excuse me?" the man asked, his face turning slightly pink.

"Your name," Nix clarified, though he was laughing. "It's a shortening of Richard, don't people call you Dick?"

Dick shrugged. "Not really. I've always just been Richard."

"Well do you mind Dick?" Nix asked, grinning to himself at the immature double meaning.

"No," Dick replied. Then he suddenly realized Nix had set a trap for him. "No! I mean, not—"

Nix waved it off with his hand. "No, I'm sorry. That was mean. And a little bit more childish than my usual puns which really is saying something. Just wanted to see how flustered I could make you."

Dick smiled at him, finally looking at ease. "Well, you succeeded," he said with a chuckle. "It's nice to meet you Nix. I've heard good things."

"Really?" Nix's eyebrows were raised again. "Well that's not something people usually tell me. Though I suppose Charles has always been very generous."

"Charles?" Dick asked, his voice slightly reverent. It was one of the reasons why Nix was endlessly grateful that he'd never actually gone to school at Xavier's. The ones who'd been under the telepath's care since they were boys always saw him as this holier-than-thou figure that they could never be casual around. Not that it was an entirely bad way to act, or that Charles didn't deserve the title of holier-than-thou. But Nix just didn't think he could stand calling the man Professor Xavier in every setting imaginable. It just wasn't the way he was comfortable doing things.

Nix shrugged slightly. "He and my dad are good friends. I've known Charles for ages but never really spoken to him until I was considering taking up a job here. So I don't really see him the same way you students here do."

"Oh, well I'm not a student," Dick clarified.

"A teacher then?" Nix asked, impressed that someone who looked just out of college had gotten a position.

"Well, no," Dick answered, though Nix didn't miss the disappointed look on his face when he said it. "I'm Professor Xavier's teaching assistant, ever since I graduated from the program. I didn't have the means to go to college or family to go back to, so I just… stayed here. He was nice enough to let me help out where I can. I love helping to teach his history class, it was my favorite when I was a student. So it's never been any trouble on my part to just stay where I'm needed."

Nix nodded, that sounded like just the type of thing that Charles would do. Though it almost surprised him the man himself hadn't ponied up the money to get this kid an education outside of the mansion's walls. Especially considering how enthusiastic he seemed about the subject that Charles had lovingly taught for so many decades. Wasn't it about time the old man retired to admin duties anyway? But it is what it is.

"So," he asked, changing the subject a little bit. "What's with the flower?"

"Oh!" Dick replied, turning slightly pink again. "Well, daisies are supposed to be pure, simple, and innocent. And purple means things like charm and success. So it's a good gift for someone that you want to get along with when you're first meeting them. Technically, yellow roses are the best symbol of friendship, but I thought that would be a bit too forward considering that we don't know each other yet."

Nix's mouth pulled into a smirk as he tried to keep a teasing grin off of his face. "Okay, so you really know your flowers. Where'd it come from I mean?"

"Well I made it this morning," Dick explained. "When I heard you were coming today, I thought I should do something nice for you and almost everyone likes my flowers so…" he trailed off, looking awkward.

"You can make flowers grow?" Nix asked him. "Oh, I'm sure it was a field day of name calling when you had to pick an X Men identity. Flower Child, Mother Nature, that sort of thing? I still haven't come up with mine yet. Nothing has been worthy enough so far."

Dick was smiling, but Nix was pretty sure that he felt a little self conscious about it. "We haven't really needed code names," he said. "And it's a bit more than just the flowers."

"Oh really?" Nix asked, hopping up onto his desk. He was feeling truly interested in learning more about his new friend. He supposed that's what they were now. There was a symbolic flower to prove it and everything.

"My powers are over almost all earthly elements," Dick explained. "I can create quicksand out of nothing, make cave-ins or sinkholes. Even earthquakes when my powers aren't bound."

Nix's heart stopped cold. "Your powers are what?" he almost shouted, using all of his restraint to keep his voice from thundering. The outlet closest to him was starting to spark and crackle while the lights flickered just enough to seem as though a power outage was threatening them.

"Well, when I'm not training, the Professor binds my powers," Dick explained. "It's much safer that way—"

"Safer?" Nix burst out. "Does the good professor do that to all of his students or just some? And how would anyone else even know the difference?"
"It's not like that," Dick insisted. But the look on his face was a conflicted one. "I'm sorry. I should just go."

Nix frowned. "No, Dick. You don't have to—" But the man was already shutting the door behind him. Nix sighed and let his head droop.

After a few moments alone in the empty classroom, he got off the desk and started unpacking bins filled with classroom supplies. If each box of goggles and magnets and water droppers was set on to the counters with far more force than necessary, Nix tried to ignore it. And the crackling noise from a shorting outlet or two could be ignored until he was calm enough to fix the dumb things.

He really did believe that this was unacceptable. For once he wasn't just trying to stir something up. Stopping mutants from fully using their powers seemed more like something bigoted humans would be in favor of rather than any sort of precautionary measure. Nix pulled a box of spare batteries out of the supplies bin and felt their currents flowing under his power. It made his fingertips tingle in the same way that whiskey and bad decisions usually would.

Bad decisions. He'd promised himself that this job was something important to him. He cared about students and having a reputation as someone qualified to help them through their most significant years of growth into adults. Far more responsible adults than he'd ever been. But responsible or not, Nix felt so strongly about this. And there was no way that the beloved Charles knew best when it came to everything. Nix put the batteries away and left the classroom in its state of almost organization. He had made up his mind to go and speak with the Professor right away.

His rapid knocking was only answered with a pleasant "Professor Nixon, please come in."

Nix burst through the door right away, only taking the briefest of moments to be unsettled by the Professor knowing it was him at the door. "Good morning, Charles," he hastily greeted, not wanting to sound rude, but also not wanting to waste time on social conventions. He opened his mouth to go on a rant about the freedom to exercise your own powers when the headline of the paper Charles had been reading caught his eye. Magneto Followers on the Rise – Is Anyone Safe? His eyes darted to Charles'.

"Sit down please, Lewis," Charles said calmly, flipping the newspaper over. Nix did so, his mouth open slightly and words unable to form. "I understand that you're here about young Mr. Winters' powers?"

Nix came to his senses. "Yes. I know it's not my place to tell you how to run a school. Especially considering you just hired me," he chuckled once. "But I completely disapprove of the methods you're using to teach him and I'm worried about the other students as well. Will my classroom be filled with children whose powers are repressed? Because I cannot teach that. I can't help someone who hasn't been able to work with their own powers, sir."

"I understand your concerns, Lewis," Charles said. "But you should know that I explained to him how much I don't like restraining children's powers. He insisted because of how easily his powers could hurt someone. Of all the mutants I've ever encountered, Richard is one of the most powerful. But he is also one of the most dangerous."

Nix nodded and let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "You'd never know by just looking at him."

"All of the students are like that," Charles agreed. "One of our most personable young boys has the ability to take our powers away completely using sheer energy. Meanwhile, our most intimidating teen has a power that he chooses to use almost exclusively for protecting others."

"I still don't like it," Nix shook his head. "It isn't right."

"You have to remember that not all of my students were raised the way you were, Lewis," Charles said, a slight tinge of scolding to his voice. "You were lucky as a legacy with the resources for home teaching."

"It still isn't fair," Nix muttered under his breath.

Charles shook his head in agreement. "You're right, Lewis. It isn't fair at all."

And of course, that gave Nix an idea. His head snapped up slightly. "What if I bargained with you? …Professor," he added hastily.

"Bargained?" Charles asked, looking as close to surprised as Nix assumed a telepath could become.

"You said it yourself. None of the student here have the opportunities that I had. Dick told me he didn't have any family left." Charles raised his eyebrows at the nickname, but said nothing. "It isn't my place to say any of this. I fully realize it. But you should really consider giving him a teaching position."

The Professor's face gave away more than it ever had before. Of all the things he thought Nix was about to say, he certainly hadn't been expecting this. "Richard wants to teach?"

"He'd never say as much for himself, but I don't need to be a telepath to see how badly he wants his own classroom," Nix said.

"I could have sent him to school," Charles said. It was difficult to tell, but the man looked to be upset with himself.

"You know he never would have asked you to do that," Nix argued. "And I only met him for ten minutes. He loves your history class and knows the curriculum perfectly after so many years. Dick isn't even that young! It's been, I'm guessing what, at least six years of him as your teacher aid? That seems right, he can't be more than twenty five."

Charles' brow furrowed. "Has it really been that long?" he asked himself, flipping the headline about Magneto back over so that the black and white photography was staring at him.

"Please just consider it," Nix said, leaving the Professor alone to his thoughts for a while.

Nix spent most of his time after his intense first day setting up the classroom and making his bedroom into a livable home. It was another few days before he saw Dick again, standing outside his classroom door and grinning.

"You need something?" Nix asked with a smirk, unlocking the door and sitting down on top of his desk again.

"I can't believe you did that," Dick burst out. "I was going to come here and apologize about snapping at you the other day, but Professor Xavier called me into his office and I can't believe you did that!"

Nix raised an eyebrow. "Did what?" he grinned.

"Don't even joke," Dick grinned back. "The Professor wants to try transitioning into solely being our principal and letting me teach his class full time. You did that, don't even lie about it."

He shrugged like it was no big deal, but still couldn't keep the smile off his face. "Congratulations on that, I'm glad to hear it."

"I still want to apologize, Lew," Dick said seriously.

"No," Nix cut him off before he could even go there. Though he did take note of the nickname he'd been given. "It's me who should be apologizing. I didn't let you explain or even try to understand why someone would want their powers suppressed. I'm sorry that I made such a big deal out of your personal decision. We grew up very differently, you and I. And I lose sight of that too much."

Dick nodded solemnly and Nix took it as an accepted apology. "We were always just simple farm people. I chose to leave them behind me for everyone's safety. And I chose to have Charles help with my decisions about my powers."

"I understand," Nix promised, his tone more serious than it had been in a long time.

Dick smiled softly. "So where are you from? How come you never came to school here?"

Nix smiled awkwardly back at him. "Well…" he began. "I'm from Nixon, New Jersey." Dick laughed until he saw Nix's face and realized that he was being completely serious.

"Wow," he said sarcastically. "That is different from me."

"Shut up, farm boy," Nix quipped back at him. But it was good natured quipping, something Nix was only just getting used to. "My dad's really well off, owns a huge portion of the town. So he had the money to teach me how to use my powers from home. It also doesn't hurt that he and I are both electricity manipulators."

"You're a legacy?" Dick asked curiously.

Nix nodded. "In more ways than one. My folks could have done without me touching power outlets and attracting lightning as a kid, but they mostly just wanted me to grow up into an Ivy Leaguer. I went to Yale, just like dear old dad. Now don't look at me like that!"

Dick shrugged. "I didn't look at you like anything. Though I really should be going, I just came by to thank you."

"Alright," Nix said. "It's the least I could do, you really deserve it, Dick."

"Oh but before I go, that reminds me," Dick said brightly, grabbing the now empty beaker from the counter and filling it with water. "Here, as a thank you." Nix watched in fascination as Dick dipped his fingertips into the water and pulled them slowly upwards, creating freshly cut flowers from the bottom upward right before Nix's eyes. It was flowing and beautiful and unlike anything Nix ever could have imagined existing.

"Thank you," he said sincerely as Dick smiled at him and walked out the door.

The moment he was gone, Nix realized that the flowers left in the beaker for him were yellow roses. "You dork!" he shouted out the door after his (official) friend, only to be replied with bright laughter.