A/N: Charles's firsts: First day of school! (Finally, I meant to be here like five chapters ago. . .)

Chapter dedicated to CadetEyes, who requested first day of school, and blanc-hiver, who requested Charles meeting Raven (there will be more Raven coming eventually, I promise).

Also . . . at this rate I will never get Charles to teenager years, so please just pretend that a whole year has passed and Charles is nine right now.

To people I can't PM:

To allie101 = Thanks! I know, I'm a sucker for protective!Erik, hence why this story even exists. Hmm. Lost puppy. Maybe. Someone already sorta requested a pet story, so it may be smooshed together with that.

To Alana-kittychan = Thanks!

To Alicia = Thank you!

To sjl = You're very welcome, I was glad to write it, otherwise I would have just jumped to 7-year-old Charles to nine-year-old Charles and forgotten about Erik giving Charles a present.

To The Scarlet Rook = Hmm. Yep. My muse apparently enjoys me throwing in creepy possible villains. IDK. Do you know, you're the only person who picked up on the lack of metal bit? Kudos to you – that will indeed become very important sometime in the distant future (read=legit plot), and I promise more explanation then will be forthcoming.

To Magpie09 = You're welcome for the dedication, but thank you for the idea, I loved writing it.

To anon = Thanks! I hope to keep delivering on the cuteness.

To Anime Fan 4 life = Here you go, the next update – my apologies for the long wait!

Chapter Nine

~ Erik Lehnsherr ~
Between comforting Charles after meetings with Shaw and Erik's own personal quest to make Charles smile and laugh as much as possible, Charles is rapidly catching up to the kind of normal life – well, as normal as a mutant can have, anyways – Erik might have envisioned for him. He's safe, he's happy, he's fed, he's experiencing everything a normal eight-going-on-nine year old should experience.

There's just one thing Erik's not quite sure how to introduce to Charles.

School.

Every mutant has to go to school sometime, because it serves the double purpose of ensuring that they are educated, just like every other kid, and ensuring that they won't run off and cause mass chaos due to their mutation. In that light, no mutant has been homeschooled since the Bill of Rights for Homo sapien superior was passed; it was one of the few concessions the mutant leaders actually made those years ago. You go to mutant school for a while, and then you get transferred to an integrated school, and that's pretty much the end of it. Charles objectively knows this – every mutant does.

But Charles has never been to school at all.

Erik knows that Charles's telepathy manifested at birth, meaning that the doctors derided him as delicate and needing special care. In the end, someway or another, the doctors had eventually realized Charles was a mutant, even though Charles's mother had refused the blood test, and that had only made her hide Charles away even more.

The most interaction Charles has had with anyone near his age is when Cain beat him up.

However, Charles cannot remain out of school forever. He's nine years old, and most mutants end up in normal school by eleven or twelve. It can't be avoided.

Shaw has insisted Charles is ready to be integrated. Erik doesn't believe him.

But they have no choice. Either they bring Charles to school, or they risk admitting that Charles simply is too powerful to be integrated at this point, and in that case, Charles would be taken away to the Mutant Care Clinics, where he'd be kept isolated until he learned to control his power or they would simply solder a suppression collar around his throat and force him to control his powers that way. It's something that's happened before; one of Erik's friends, Azazel, was dragged to an MCC because he kept teleporting out of school and choosing instead to hang out with members of the Brotherhood of Mutants, a lobbying group/gang that often called for the expansion of mutant rights. The government, scared of his abilities, had tranquilized him a week later.

Erik hasn't seen Azazel since.

He refuses to let that happen to Charles. It's one thing to suppress a teleporter with a collar. It's quite another to suppress, say, a telepath.

He's heard stories of telepaths who've been put in nullifying or suppression collars. There's a reason it is a law that telepaths can only be tranquilized or given suppression collars even if they're caught doing mass murder before they stand trial and are convicted, because otherwise they're as good as dead as if you had put a bullet in them. Shutting off a telepath with a nullifying collar often kills the telepath, no matter what power level they are.

So Erik grits his teeth and doesn't protest, although he'd love to.

He does insist on bringing Charles himself.

That morning, his mother cooks a particularly large breakfast with everything Charles likes, and she stuffs his backpack with snacks and school materials, fussing over his uniform and hair. He indulges her for a while and the good mood lasts most of the car ride with Charles chattering away, but eventually the strain gets to Charles, and he sits quiet and still in his chair, fingers twisted tight in his lap, eyes downcast.

When they get to the school, the tension is so thick Erik wishes he could just reach out to the school and rip it apart.

He reaches for Charles and puts his hand over Charles's. "If you don't want to, we can try again later," he offers. Shaw hasn't put a time yet, and Erik can play just as dirty as he can. They can probably get away with a few more days, perhaps even a year if they really want to

But Charles takes a deep breath and shakes his head. "No. I can do it." I think.

Erik squeezes his hand as they get out and walk towards the main office. You can do it, Charles.

When they enter the main office, the secretary – typical pretty human with blonde hair and a curve-hugging dress and wide bland blue eyes – smiles at Erik. "How can I help you?" she says cheerily.

Erik hands over the folder of registration papers – name, address, health form, education records from Charles's dozens of tutors, and more – and then hands over Charles's government ID. All mutants have one, inscribed with their name, birth date, current address, and a picture updated annually with a big red M stamped across it, and under that Charles's power and current level. Charles, like always, looks adorably confused in his picture (although that could be because it was the morning after his ninth birthday and Erik had been tasked with waking him up, and he had done so by dumping a bucket of cold water on Charles's head). Erik had been plagued with mysterious little headaches for hours afterwards.

The woman's smile falters when her eyes read "telepathy".

Charles flinches and draws closer, and Erik gets a quick flash of godtelepath-ishereadingmymindnow-ohgodhemustbe-he'satelepath-gammalevelwhatisgammalevel-

The woman stands, and the thought cuts off. "I'll just, um, go get Mr. Essex then," she stutters.

Charles waits a very long moment, and then he slumps in his chair and crosses his arms. "She doesn't like me."

Erik sits next to him. "Some humans don't."

"Why not?"

Erik flicks his fingers and withdraws all of Charles's change, drawing out an indignant, "Hey!" from Charles. He makes them float around Charles's head, much as he did the first day, just out of reach, so Charles seems like some bizarre brown-haired, pale-skinned sun to the flashing copper and silver coins.

"Because we can do things they can't," is all Erik says.

There's a gasp from behind them, and Erik turns to see that the secretary is back, along with a tall, broad-shouldered man who stance screams casual, but it is so feigned that it makes the hair stand up on the back of Erik's neck. This man is dangerous, Erik can tell, and without even thinking about it, he stands, so that the man's attention falls to him and away from Charles. The man offers them a small smile, and then takes the folders from the secretary's frozen hands, saying, "Run along, my dear; I think I can handle this."

"Um, yes, sir," she stutters, and vanishes like wolves are after her.

"So, you're a telepath," the man says. "Welcome to our school, Charles Xavier. My name is Nathaniel Essex, and I am the current principal. And this is . . ."

"Erik Lehnsherr."

"Nice to meet you."

Mr. Essex fishes out a pile of papers, and Erik intercepts them and rifles through them, passing along the class schedule and school map to Charles. It seems a bit . . . odd, but when Erik questions it, the principal merely shrugs and says, "They'll have to get used to it sometime, Mr. Lehnsherr, and what better way than this? We are better than humans."

Erik raises an eyebrow. He had thought Essex was a human. "We, sir?"

Essex grins. "I'm a metahuman, Lehnsherr."

Metahumans are rare, almost as rare as epsilon-level mutants. They are human – or were, anyways – and have taken to injecting themselves with the strengthening serum that mutants sometimes use to attempt to trigger secondary mutations or gain more power in hopes of gaining more control. That is why they are so rare; the strengthening serums are tightly controlled, in hopes of preventing mutants from becoming too powerful and outnumbering the humans. But very few mutants choose to take it, because sometimes the mutations triggered did not manifest before for a very good reason, and more than a few have ended up dead or catatonic for it. Humans can try, but it works on only a few to enhance their natural capabilities – strength, sight, hearing, and so on.

Those humans are called metahumans, and they are currently caught in between mutants and humans, neither quite one or the other, and no one really knows what to do with them yet.

"Accelerated healing," Essex continues. "It comes in handy, sometimes, when dealing with a bunch of rowdy teens. Now then. This has been lovely, but I must run. I'll be keeping an eye on you, Charles Xavier."

Then Essex sticks his head out and bellows at the stream of fast-moving people, "Darkhölme!"

A young blonde girl who is perhaps one or two years younger than Charles materializes and wades her way to the office, clutching a shoulder bag and looking so innocently confused that Erik immediately understands why his mother always feels the urge to give him That Look and ask him to confess what he did wrong before she finds out. And God, but he admires her gut already.

"Darkhölme, your job," Essex says dismissively, jerking his head at Charles. "No slip-ups or you'll be in detention for two weeks. Behave."

When the door closes, Darkhölme does two things simultaneously, or so close after each other that it seems pretty darn simultaneous: she sticks her tongue out and blows a raspberry at Essex's retreating figure, and then she whirls around and smiles a huge smile at Charles.

Who looks like a deer caught in headlights.

Figures.

Oh, shut up, Erik, Charles whines.

"So, what can you do, then?" Darkhölme says eagerly, stomping over as Charles scrambles backwards, eyes wide. "You are a mutant, right? Sinister only comes in personally for mutants, you have to be, what can you do – never mind, look at what I can do!"

Darkhölme stretches her arms out and does a little ballerina's twirl, all unnatural grace and poise and flexibility, with her foot pointed and against her other leg's thigh, and as she spins, blue ripples down her arms and then her torso and then her legs, leaving her blue-scaled and cherry-red haired and gold-eyed and glorious, her real skin beautiful against the bland khaki of her school uniform.

A shapeshifter. A real live shapeshifter.

Erik's never seen one before. They're among the rarest of mutations, and almost always shrouded in mystery, as they tend to be snapped up to work for the CIA and such. Usually, no one ever knows they were a shapeshifter until they, regrettably, die in their line of work and are shipped home with all the fanfare.

"Come on, tell!" Darkhölme insists.

Charles swallows, eyes darting between Darkhölme and the door, and Erik deliberately flicks his fingers and locks it, causing Charles to glare at him.

"Telepath," Charles mumbles finally.

"Really? Awesome! Um . . . tell me what I had for breakfast this morning!"

Charles blinks at her. " . . . Cereal?" he says hesitantly.

Darkhölme beams like it's the coolest thing in the world. "Oh, gosh, sorry," she says suddenly, and within an eye's blink, she's blonde and fair-skinned again, neat and irritatingly human. "What's your name?"

Charles goggles at her. "You aren't . . . scared of me?"

Raven smiles at him, her stance softening. "I always believed I couldn't be the only one in the school. The only person in the school who was . . . different. And here you are. Raven Darkhölme."

Charles gives her a hesitant smile back. "Charles."

The bell clangs, vicious and shrill, and Charles jumps as Raven grabs her book bag and opens the door. "Come on, come on, I'll show you around," she chatters at him, grabbing his arm and tugging him out the door, ignoring his spluttered protests. She's strong, surprisingly so, and when Erik finally starts after them, they are halfway down the hall, with Raven literally dragging a stumbling Charles along.

They vanish just in time for Erik to hear Raven exclaim, "We're going to be just like brother and sister!"

Erik doesn't stop laughing at Charles's face when Raven says that for five minutes, and on the way home, he has to use his mutation to drive because he keeps having uncontrollable and random laughing fits. His mother raises an eyebrow at him after the fourth laughing fit she witnesses in which Erik nearly breaks all the plates as they bend and twist and groan as the metal flexes while he attempts to control his laughing, but she finally just sighs and says, "Oh, just go pick the boy up from school already, Erik; clearly your wits are addled when he's not around."

But she smiles as she says so, and Erik knows she understands.

A/N: Hmm. I think this was a bit more schizophrenic than I intended. Anyways . . . Yes, Raven has a completely different attitude about telepathy here, but I'm going with the idea that she might be too young to fully understand the full extent of telepathy, and in any case, Charles isn't really as powerful as he was in First Class when they were snipping at each other over "you promised to never read my mind", so . . . yeah. That's my excuse. We might see more of a telepathy-fearing Raven later on. Maybe not. Depends on how much I develop the two and where they wander off from there. (Of course, this entire damn story's wandered away from me at this point, so, no promises.)

Coming up next = Charles's first day of school continued! (will be a faster update, I promise)