Last one... Phew!

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for your support!

Chapter 24

It wasn't often that Vincent took an enemy's advice, but he had to admit that, Thief girl or not – Noelle LeBeau had a point. So he waited and watched for an opportunity. He was also inclined to be a bit more generous towards his strange target seeing as he had returned to his room that night to find his uncle's knife sitting on his bed with the book she had recommended to him. Not only that, the smallest Thief had approached him that evening and thanked him for the brief moment of insanity that had led him to save her – which had rather bizarrely stroked his ego.

So he fell back into the routine and suffered through Wolverine's torturous training sessions – which had increased to insane levels that left him aching and the others on the ground unable to move. School was getting tougher and he found himself actually in the library toiling alongside the other students, complaining about tangent lines, essays, and thermochemistry.

September had passed in a blur and he found to his surprise that he had been at the Institute for almost a full two months. It was starting to show in the way he knew the best places to sit and read, the best places to hide from Wolverine when he was pissed off, best place to draw, which of the instructors wouldn't tell if he took one of the Institute's cars for a spin, the names of all of the students, how to turn on and off the Danger Room, and when the best time was to try and snag some alone time in the gym they had next to the Danger Room. He was learning and it was getting easier to get through the days.

It was a crisp, clear October morning when he walked down to get breakfast – as it was Tuesday he didn't have to worry about a Danger Room session until after school – to find the kitchen bedecked with purple and green streamers that screamed 'Happy Birthday!'.

Bridget was sitting at the kitchen table, looking very pale and uncharacteristically tense. Vincent didn't bother trying to flirt with her anymore – the girl was an iceberg, she didn't get angry or happy or do anything really interesting – but he still found her rather interesting to talk to. She often told him things that he never would have learned otherwise with the simple reason that he was 'meant to learn this at this time'.

"Y' alrahght, Bridgette?" he asked, coming into the kitchen and hurrying to grab a Pop-tart before the early morning crowd came stampeding in.

"I am alright, Vincent Boudreaux. My powers are going to take on an unforeseen evolution."

He paused in the act of stuffing his breakfast into the toaster. "Wha' kinda evolution?"

She wrapped graceful, ivory fingers around her coffee cup. "I do not know. Something very large and interesting."

"When?"

"March of next year."

"Wha- "

"I do not wish to speak of this, Vincent Boudreaux," she said sharply, turning her head away.

He shrugged. "D'accord. Can y' tell meh wha's wit' all da streamers an' shit?"

Bridget glanced at the bright colors for a moment. "It is Sarah Masters-Summers' fifteenth birthday and her parents and the other instructors wish to surprise her." She gave him a look, her usual half-amused-half-neutral expression coming back over her face again. "Wal-Mart in the entertainment section today after school – look for Noelle LeBeau and Sofya Rasputin."

And with those cryptic words, the Swiss girl stood up and swept from the room.

Okay then.

That day was a study of bad luck. He was paired with the Thief girl for a project to outline one of the battles of American Revolution – he wondered if Mr. Cox knew how much he didn't want to paired with this girl and was just doing it on purpose. There was a test in Math that he hadn't studied for. In English, Ms. Rosebury came down hard on him just because he didn't see the point of all of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter. The gym teacher spent all class ranting about the unfairness of the ref's calls from last Friday's football game – from what Vincent had heard, the school's team just happened to suck very hard. During lunch about thirty hulking idiots picked a fight with his table that culminated in the faculty intervening and trying to blame the whole thing on them. He ended up arriving late to his French class and Madame Rousseau was not the slightest bit sympathetic. Then there was Chemistry with Mr. Curry. Vincent's clumsy lab partner – a blonde with more breasts than brains, which was good everywhere but in Chemistry when they were trying to light a Bunsen burner – nearly set his shirt on fire four times.

Needless to say, staggering into Art was like arriving in heaven after trudging through hell and purgatory barefooted and naked.

"Rough day, Vincent?" Miss Fiennes asked sympathetically as he slumped over on his bench.

He groaned. "Lee' meh alone t' die…"

The teacher laughed easily as the bell rang. "No dying during Art class, Mr. Boudreaux!" She clapped her hands briskly and turned to the class at large. "Now! My superiors have reminded me that this is a school and I am required to try and make your lives as miserable as possible! So I have come up with a fairly horrific year-long project."

She held up a fake jack-o-lantern. "In here is a slip of paper for each of you! On each paper, you will find a random word that I got off the wonderful online Random Word Generator! Make sure you choose very carefully because you will be stuck with that word for the rest of the year!"

"Can we look at the paper?" asked one of the other students.

"Nope!" sang Miss Fiennes, offering the fake pumpkin to Vincent.

Sticking his hand into it, he swirled the slips of paper around a bit before settling on one and pulled it out. In a stylish scrawl read the word 'goddess'.

"'Goddess'?"

"OOOO! You got a good one!" his teacher sighed as another student received the word 'melody'.

Once all of the words were distributed, Miss Fiennes beamed at them and flapped her hands at them excitedly. "Go on! I want to see what you come up with!"

He ended up drawing his mother, Belladonna, as a queen goddess, which did not sit well with Miss Fiennes.

"This doesn't have nearly the same amount of soul that your previous drawings had. That little girl had more fire than this woman does… I would have to suggest finding another subject, Vincent."

He spent the last fifteen minutes of class staring from his drawing of his mother, her face cold and proud, to his last drawing of the little girl who had dragged him out of the canals of New Orleans all those years ago. He had drawn her as she tore a chunk of bread, her pale eyes bright and kind. Miss Fiennes was right, the little girl was far more alive than his mother.

Hm.

The end of the day bell rang and everyone scrambled for the door, Miss Fiennes calling behind them that she wanted a rough sketch of their next project. His first project was tucked under his arm as he tottered under the weight of all his usual school crap.

He lamented his failure to get that damn locker open for the umpteenth time as he made his way to Alexei's truck. Luckily, James and Vassily hurried over and helped him with the two bulging bags and the fair-sized bit of canvas he was juggling.

"What's this, mate?" James asked, nodding at the wrapped canvas.

"Jus' somet'in' I whipped together in Art," Vincent said offhandedly, tossing his backpack into the bed of the truck.

James started unwrapping the painting.

"Pas ici!" Vincent hissed, snatching it back.

"No fighting, children," Vassily smirked, tossing Vincent's messenger bag into the back of the truck as well. "We have things to do."

It seemed that everyone in Alexei's truck was on their way to Wal-Mart to buy Sarah a birthday present. This meant, of course, that Vincent was stuck being crammed into the truck as they sped to the store for a present that he had no desire to get for a girl he barely spoke to.

At least Wal-Mart was empty. Or to be more specific, most of the customers rushed to the cash registers or hid when the Institute students walked in.

"Don't worry," Julia said brightly. "This happens all the time."

Vincent snorted and wandered off to find the Entertainment section, remembering Bridget's advice from this morning. Hey! The new CD of Ugly Humor Sheer was out! Wandering the shelves, he began making a mental list of all the songs he was going to get off of ITunes.

"Is this really a good idea, Noelle?"

"Prob'ly not, but y' old skirts're hangin' off y' lahke y' a goddamn scarecrow. An' da Prof's footin' da bill so y' should get what y' please."

"But is all of this really necessary?"

"Sug, y' pants'd be fallin' 'thout dat belt. Y' don' wan' keep goin' out wit' mon frère dressed lahke dat, do ya? 'Sides, dat's why I took a car 'stead o' ma moto."

"I suppose…"

Well hell, if it wasn't the Thief girl and her brother's Russian girlfriend.

Sofya was clutching a wide array of new clothes to her chest, while the Thief strode easily along beside her. The Thief caught sight of him and smiled brightly.

"Dis! Vincent!"

This annoyed him as usual. He had been doing his level best to avoid the Thieves ever since the botched assassination attempt. He had done pretty damn well and thus the whole History project had hit him rather hard.

"Quoi?" he demanded rudely.

"Need a favor!" she said briskly. "Sofya here's still too skinny ta fit inta her clothes so da Prof's forked ovah his credit card fo' new clothes."

"I ain' carryin' y' bags," he said flatly.

"Ain' askin' y' to," she retorted easily. "Ah'm askin' y' ta be a guy an' give y' opinion."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "'Pinion 'bout what?"

"Sofy's clothes, bien sur!"

"I ain' gon' act da part o' y' gay friend!"

The Thief rolled her eyes. "We need a guy wit' urges fo' girls – y' ain' gay, rahght?"

He said something in French that would have made even his mother shriek in horror. His rival merely laughed lightly and gave him a dangerous grin.

"Say day in front o' da younger kids an' Ah will be forced ta rip y' tongue out. I take dat as a 'no'. We need a straight guy so he can tell us how hot Sofy looks in her clothes. C'n y' do dat?"

"Wha's in it fo' moi?"

"We let y' put y' name on our present fo' Sarah. Y' need da brownie points."

Noelle dropped her messenger bag in a corner of her room as she moved quickly to tug off her boots and go back downstairs. There was a 'Death by Chocolate' cake to make. Sarah had asked her to make it specifically for her birthday and the young woman had no intention of disappointing her friend.

The kitchen was occupied as Miss Tessa – aka Sage – cooked ground beef in a pot big enough to bathe one of her kids in and Ms. Laura cut lettuce and tomato with eye blurring speed. Tonight was Sarah's favorite: tacos.

Pulling her hair back into a loose bun, she washed her hands and started greasing the pans. Then there was the measuring of the flour and butter…

Noelle LeBeau did not do the Betty Crocker shit – the crap that came out of boxes wasn't worthy to fertilize her Spanish ivy upstairs. She had been raised to make her own food – from scratch – and that included taking the time to bake birthday cakes and make the frosting by hand.

She was adding the eggs when the Poisoner of the Institute entered the kitchen with an eager expression.

The Cajun tensed as Julia Alvers approached. "Did y' need somet'in', petite?"

"What can I do?" she chirped. "I want to help!"

"You can finish decorating the dining room," Tessa said flatly.

Julia pouted. "That's almost done! I want to help with the cake!"

Noelle tossed an eggshell into the trash can before turning around to face her friend. "Sugah, le'me be honest wit' y. Y' a menace in da kitchen. Las' tahme y' cooked y' set da oven on fire, blew da microwave up, and made all o' us sick wit' dat… wha' was it?"

If Julia's lower lip stuck out any further it was going to fall to the ground. "It was lasagna!"

"It nearly put Allison in da hospital an' we had ta get Dawn's appendix out afteh dat."

"That was not because of my food!" screeched the other girl.

"It was a major contributing factor," Laura said wryly from where she was now grating mounds of cheese.

"Alexei eats my cooking!"

Laura, Tessa, and Noelle all gaped at her.

"Dat boy deserves a metal!" Noelle gasped.

"Oh yes!" chorused the older women.

"Forget this!" screeched Julia, spinning on her heel and stomping out of the kitchen.

The three remaining women sighed in relief.

"Da food is safe!"

Vincent had never in his life seen a bigger cake than the one sitting in the middle of the table – not even when his second cousin Jeanette had insisted that her wedding cake be a scale sized edible model of the Versailles palace. It seemed to be a chocolate mountain, with elegant iced words spelling out: "Happy Birthday, Sarah!"

"Don't even think about touching that cake until after Sarah's opened all of her presents!" Miss Jubilee ordered as she and the other older women instructors stuck multicolored candles around the edge of the cake.

And so the Assassin and his companions had to suffer through the long minutes of watching the birthday girl unwrap CDs, sweaters, books, knickknacks, paper cards…

Finally, the tall silver bag that contained the gift that Vincent had put his name on after an hour of looking at slick outfits was presented to her by the Thief girl. "Gently, chère. Don' wan' break it."

Sarah plunged her hands into the mess of silvery tissue paper and her eyes widened. She looked from the Thief, to Sofya, then to him. "You didn't!"

The Thief grinned. "Pull it out, sugah."

Vincent leaned forward a bit. What could it possibly be? There hadn't been time to look at it before dinner.

Very carefully, the girl pulled out the tiniest tree he had ever seen. It looked a bit like a bush with dark oily green leaves and large white flowers.

"Da' gardenia bonsai tree y' wan'ed," the Thief girl laughed lightly. "D'y' lahke it?"

"It did take an awfully long time to find it," Sofya said with impressive fake solemnity.

Realizing he should probably say something, Vincent managed to come up with, "Hope dis goes wit' y' flowers…"

Sarah didn't say anything, just lowered her face down to breathe in the scent of her plant.

"De rien," the Thief said with a smile.

It took several excruciating minutes to get the breathless girl to put down the bush so they could sing her happy birthday and cut the cake. By the time they passed the slices around the table, Vincent was drooling. It was truly the most magnificent cake he had ever seen – in that it was huge and chocolate. Call him a girl or whatever, but he loved chocolate anything.

His slice was particularly delicious looking and he wasted no time in shoving a laden forkful into his mouth. He closed his eyes as the warmth of fudgy goodness burst in his mouth; to hell with it being girly – this was the best damn thing he had ever tasted!

He swallowed and shook his head. "C'est le mieux que j'ai jamais mangé! Merci, Madame Laura!"

Laura blinked at him. "I didn't make this."

"Den I t'ank y' Miss Ororo, c'est délicieuse!"

The woman smiled. "I did not make this, Noelle did."

Vincent went absolutely still. His fork, loaded with another chunk of cake, hovered inches from his mouth as his head slowly turned to look at the Thief girl. She was sitting, her elbows on either side of her plate, a triumphant smirk on her face.

Had she planned this?

"Y' lahke it? Ah'd say i's one o' mah best cakes."

He shifted unhappily. He had swallowed this! Had declared it the best thing he had ever eaten in front of everyone. "No' bad," he muttered at last. "Je n'ai la grèbe."

She smiled and laughed lightly. "Kind o' y' t' say, Vincent. T'ank y'!"

"Yes," Charles Summers said formally from the other end of the table. "I must commend you, Noelle, you've finally managed to concoct something that doesn't make everyone's tastebuds bleed."

The table went silent and the Thief girl's smile faltered for a moment. "T'ank y' fo' sayin', Golden Boy. Now if y' could actually grow some balls, Ah'd be able ta compliment y' too."

There was snickering all around the table and Vincent couldn't help but smirk – further down the table the male Thief was outright laughing. He spent the next few minutes staring at the cake in front of him. He didn't have to eat it – he shouldn't eat it – but this made the brownies two months ago look like cheap, day old pastries. His mother would be furious if she knew he was actually considering eating this…

He shook himself – what was the big damn deal about not eating or touching anything the Thieves made or touched? Shouldn't he be taking advantage of their gestures of goodwill? It wasn't like they offered him poison; judging by the gusto with which everyone ate anything they cooked, the three certainly didn't lack culinary skills the way he did.

What the hell… it wasn't like his mother wouldn't have stuffed her face with the cake if she didn't know where it had come from. He stuck the piece into his mouth and chewed defiantly.

The Thief girl shot him an amused look before she turned to speak in rapid French with Bridget.

Elle est chanceuse son gâteau est tellement bon, he thought sourly to himself.

Noelle was sitting in the empty Right Circle – the nickname of the Rotunda on the right side of the house – scribbling away in her journal. She didn't look up as a shadow fell over her. "Bonjour Vincent."

"Y' coulda told moi dat y' made da cake."

She spared him the briefest glance – she wanted to finish this entry before midnight – "Would y've eaten it?"

He scowled. "I still got mah mission."

Did he think of anything besides that damn mission? "Je la sais! Mon dieu, mon gar, don' y' ever t'ink o' anyt'in' but y' mission? Ah jus' wan' know if y' lahked mah cake o' not."

He was taken aback for a moment. "Eh bien, it wasn' dat bad. Tasted better… tasted worse."

A smirk spread across her face – she could feel his emotions writhing beneath that mostly calm mask. Annoyance, reluctance, anger and confusion… a lot of confusion. In face of that, she knew what those words meant: "It was delicious."

"Merci. So, y' gon' trah an' kill meh now?" Noelle closed her journal, placed it to one side, and leaned back on her bench, looking up at him.

The confusion and annoyance mounted. "Y'd fahght back."

"Oui." What? Did he think she was suicidal?

Vincent smirked lightly. "Too much work an' noise. I try again in a coupla months."

"Got a date picked out?"

"Why'd I tell y'?"

She couldn't help it – she burst out laughing. "Glad y' finalleh learned da rules o' da game, Vincent. See y' a demain."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and trudged away.

Noelle watched him walk away and sighed. It was really too bad she had sworn to herself to never influence someone to like her – it wasn't like it would've been hard, a little push here and there and she could have him eating out her hand before he knew what was happening. But no, she was just going to have to rely on good old feminine wiles to get what she wanted.

Good thing natural charm ran in the family.

She reopened her journal and started on a new topic: The coming insanities of next year.

Now what?

PS - anybody got any ideas on how Vincent should figure out about Deadpool or vice versa?

Review!!

Pas ici – "Not here"

ma moto – "My motorcycle"

Dis! – "Hey!"

Quoi? – "What?"

bien sur – "of course"

De rien – "You're welcome"

C'est le mieux que j'ai jamais mangé! – "This is the best (thing) I've ever eaten!"

c'est délicieuse – "it's delicious"

Je n'ai la grèbe. – "I didn't puke"

Elle est chanceuse son gâteau est tellement bon – "She's lucky her cake is so good"

Je la sais! - "I know that!"

a demain – "tomorrow"