"Mmmm," Bobby Drake said, as they shut the doors of the cab and stepped onto the sidewalk of West 77th Street. "That smells good." He turned in the direction of Starbucks, the source of the delicious coffee scent that wafted through the air, just past the cross walk, a couple of storefronts ahead. "Can we go?"

"It's four-forty," Jean-Paul informed him with an edge of impatience in his voice. "Mr. Summers said the buses would be leaving at five."

"So we have twenty minutes," Saint-John said. "Twenty minutes to walk down the street and then take the crosswalk to the right to get to the front of the museum. That's plenty of time."

"Oh, Sin, not you, too." Jean-Paul grimaced.

"'Fraid so." Saint-John shrugged.

"Oh, relax, J.P.," Bobby said genially, slinging an arm around his shoulders, which Jean-Paul immediately shrugged off. "This a great ending to a great day!"

"Great day?" Jean-Paul echoed. "We spent four hours at a video arcade."

"And we went bowling," Bobby reminded him. "And we met Spider-Man. He seemed pretty cool." He nodded, smiling. Then his smile faded. "What was my point again?"

You didn't have one," Jean-Paul coolly informed him. For God's sake, what was Drake smoking?

"Oh, yeah! You were worried we wouldn't have enough time," Bobby recalled. "Just roll with it. We'll get there in time."

"We don't know that we won't be delayed," Jean-Paul argued. "There could be complications. It probably won't be that easy." He grimaced and shot a look at Pitor, who had remained silent throughout this discussion, and, presumably, neutral. Russia wasn't one of his allies today, he supposed.

Saint-John nodded. "Right and if there are complications, we'll be able to think more clearly because we'll have a caffeine boost from the coffee. You hear me?"

Jean-Paul gritted his teeth. "The streets here take longer to navigate than the ones in Salem Center. Also, this place is considerably more dangerous, as we learned earlier today."

"Excuse me," a voice said behind him.

Jean-Paul to see a man, standing behind him, and he realized that during their heated debate, their little group had stretched out across the sidewalk, blocking the way.

"Sorry," he said flatly and moved toward Bobby, who raised an eyebrow and glanced at Pitor.

"Thank you." The man walked past, the leash of a chocolate labrador that hadn't quite grown to full size yet in one hand and using the other to grasp the hand of his small child, a boy about six or seven years old.

Jean-Paul watched them for a moment longer than necessary, unable to avoid thinking of his own father as the parent and child waited to cross the intersection.

Then it all happened so rapidly.

Another dog on the other side of the street began barking at the labrador puppy. The puppy, still a good size despite not being fully grown, yanked on leash, which slipped out of the father's hand, and darted out into the street.

"Seal!" The young child cried and, to the horror of Jean-Paul and his father, chased after the dog into the busy street and directly into the path of an oncoming city bus.

"Matthew, NO!" His father shouted, to no avail.

Time seemed to slow down around Jean-Paul. He moved past his classmates into the street, dashing to where the child was kneeling, grasping onto his puppy. He grabbed hold of both of them, scooping boy and dog into his arms and bolted back to the safety of the sidewalk before any traffic touched either of them.

He set them down gently on the sidewalk, and both the child's father and his classmates rushed over to them.

"Matthew!" The father lifted up his child off the ground, holding him tightly. "My God, what were you thinking?"

To Jean-Paul's discomfort, he noticed that several other people had paused in their excursion along the sidewalk and were looking at them.

If they had seen what happened- if they had seen him use his mutation-

"I don't know how to thank you," the father said, turning to Jean-Paul and his classmates. "But how did you ever manage- ?"

"I'm . . ." Jean-Paul wearily fumbled for the best word to describe himself. He was unable to reach a strong phrase, so he settled for the stock term. "- I'm different."

Bobby snorted.

"Well, I'm very glad that you are," the father said. "Are your parents nearby? I'd like to tell them what an upstanding, brave son they have."

The father's sincerity brought Jean-Paul to inwardly laugh without humor. The thought of his parents, who preferred not to acknowledge his existence, being greeted with such a strong statement about his character was darkly amusing. Then he became aware of what an awkward position he was in. His parents weren't in the city, but his teachers were, and he couldn't contact his teachers because he wasn't supposed to be outside the museum in the first place. Now, either he had to lie through his teeth or admit his misdeeds to a complete stranger. Neither option appealed to him, and his mind worked furiously, the gears turning to try to outline a third option.

Luckily, his close friend Saint-John came to his rescue. "Actually, sir, we're all here on a field trip for our school, with our teachers as chaperones."

"Is there any chance that one of them is nearby, then?" The man pressed.

"Actually, yes," said a voice with a lilting accent but severe tone.

A woman had emerged from the Starbucks.

A woman with long, white hair.

Ororo Munroe, their history teacher at the Institute.

They stared at her in shock.

"Hello boys," she said grimly, holding her latte in a death grip.


A/N:

Good for Jean-Paul, being heroic and all that stuff.

He calls Saint-John "Sin" as a nickname because "Saint-John" should be pronounced "Sin-jun".

I recently posted Jean-Paul's origin story about him and his twin sister Aurora, how he arrived at the Xavier Institute, and why she isn't there; it's called "Guilt Trips" in case you're interested.

And I'm just going to say this once, because it really bothers me: it's interesting to see how many people put this story on favorites/alert, yet never bother to review even once.

Let me know if you have any ideas for the final chapter! :)