Starting Fires Bonus Chapter
Natsu thoroughly enjoyed his job. Not only did he get to teach kids about science, but he got to blow stuff up on a fairly regular basis AND he now had his younger cousin in his class. Granted, Wendy and her friends had gotten into a whole lot of trouble yesterday for having set fire to the lab, but really he was kind of to blame for that for letting them experiment without him.
"So, first you add the sodium," Natsu began as he stood next to Wendy's new lab table, since the other was covered in scorch marks and the bookshelf beside it was almost completely destroyed, demonstrating the proper technique to all of his students gathered around him. "Then you…"
"NATSU DRAGNEEL WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!" he was interrupted by a feminine shriek, nearly dropping the beaker containing the sodium he was holding. Utterly stunned, Natsu turned to look at who was yelling at him while his students turned, and once catching sight of who it was, started snickering behind their hands.
"I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU LET YOUR STUDENTS EXPERIMENT ON THEIR OWN!" Lucy Heartfilia, the resident astronomy teacher, yelled at Natsu. Her face was practically tomato colored she was so upset.
"What?" Natsu said somewhat dumbly, setting the beaker down on the table and then pushing his safety goggles up into his hair.
"You let Wendy, Romeo, and Sherria experiment when you weren't even in the room!" Lucy fumed at him, marching up to him to poke him in the chest while the students parted like the Red Sea before her rage. Never had any of them seen Ms. Heartfilia act like this and it was awe-inspiring, terrifying, and hilarious all at the same time, especially since her rage was directed at Mr. Dragneel.
"It's not like I did it on purpose!" Natsu replied, trying to defend himself, but Lucy was on a roll.
"They almost burned down a bookshelf, Natsu! Look at it! It looks like it's going to topple over any second! And the lab table! It's covered in scorch marks! They could have been seriously hurt! What on earth were you thinking, leaving while they were about to start an experiment? Are you really that irresponsible?"
Wendy, Romeo, and Sherria all looked properly chastised as they listened to Lucy ripping Natsu a new one. And then they started to feel guilty, because really it was their decision to continue the experiment without Natsu's assistance, which was really irresponsible of them, and he HAD asked them to wait for him…
"Um…Ms. Heartfilia?" Wendy tried to talk to Lucy, but Lucy just whirled to her with an angry stare.
"Wendy Marvell I absolutely do not want to hear you try to defend him! I don't care if he IS your cousin! He made a mistake and he needs to own up to it!" And with that, Lucy whirled back to Natsu, leaving Wendy standing there shell shocked.
"But Luce!" Natsu said, watching as Lucy's left eye started to twitch and her chest heaved as she breathed furiously, "I did own up for it! And I DID tell them to wait for me to come back before they continued…" Natsu gulped as he trailed off at Lucy's enraged expression while all of his students, except for the three who had caused her outrage, continued to snicker behind their hands and take bets on what Ms. Heartfilia was going to do to their poor chemistry teacher.
"They're teenagers, Natsu! Don't you remember what it was like to be a teenager?" Lucy hissed at him, getting back in his face as she poked his chest again, "They have like NO impulse control! What were you doing, anyway, when you left them alone!"
Natsu grinned sheepishly as a blush rose on his cheeks at her question and all of the students gathered around them let out an "Oooo!" They all knew that Mr. Dragneel and Ms. Heartfilia had a thing for one another; it had been obvious since she had started working at the school that Natsu was head over heels for her. The only people who seemed to be oblivious to this fact were Natsu and Lucy themselves.
"Well, Luce, you see…" Natsu started, fumbling through his words as Lucy stared intently at him, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot impatiently. "I was…I was…I had to go to the bathroom really bad!"
Every student groaned at that, even the sweet and ever polite Wendy, and Romeo even slapped his hand to his forehead. THAT was the excuse he was going with? Seriously? Why didn't he just tell Lucy the truth, that he had gone to see her because he was hopelessly in love with her?
"You…had to go to the bathroom," Lucy repeated in a flat tone. Her expression was dangerously disbelieving and it looked like her eyebrows might just disappear into her hair as she stared at Natsu incredulously.
"Yeah!" Natsu said enthusiastically, grinning like a fool at having provided a rather reasonable explanation while avoiding what he had really been doing, which was flirting with her. Lucy's eye twitched again as she stared him down and Natsu's grin began to slide off his face, leaving him looking at her in trepidation, praying she bought it.
"Um…Mr. Dragneel," Romeo whispered to Natsu, having moved closer to his side as Lucy shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, like she was taking a minute to bring back her patience, "I don't think she's going to buy it."
"What?" Natsu asked, whirling towards the boy, "What do you mean she won't buy it? Wait…you know what I was doing?!" Natsu looked utterly horrified, and slightly ashamed of himself, as he realized Romeo knew he had been flirting with Lucy yesterday. Did ALL of his students know?!
"Uh yeah…" Romeo said as he sweat dropped. Was it possible for Mr. Dragneel to really be THAT oblivious? "We all know…" Romeo trailed off as Natsu's face took on an even more horrified expression.
"You all know nothing!" Natsu said rather shrilly as he eyed Lucy warily, but she seemed to be still working on gaining back her patience for dealing with the pink-haired man.
"Look, Natsu," Romeo said, ignoring the fact that he was definitely not supposed to be calling his teacher by his first name while in class, "We all know you're in love with Lucy. You need to man up and do something about it! And this seems like a really good opportunity…"
"What do you mean?" Natsu asked, eyeing Romeo warily. So the kids all knew what he had taken months to figure out…Natsu sighed as he realized that. He really was dense wasn't he?
"Well…whenever I've seen Mira get upset with Laxus, he distracts her from her rage and gets her to calm down before trying to talk about whatever it is with her. It seems to work really well," Wendy piped up from behind her boyfriend. Natsu quickly turned to her with begging eyes.
"Laxus usually kisses her silly," Wendy said with a giggle as she hid her mouth behind her hand and Romeo blanched slightly; imagining Wendy's scary oldest cousin making out with his wife was not really a vision he wanted…
"He…kisses her…silly…" Natsu repeated, looking at them with a dazed expression before he looked back at Lucy, who was finally opening up her eyes again. She seemed slightly calmer now, but the anger in her eyes had not yet abated. Sensing this was his only chance, as she moved like she was about to start chewing him out again, Natsu grabbed her by the back of her head and slammed his lips over hers.
For a moment, Lucy just stood there stunned, staring at Natsu's closed eyes as his lips moved over hers. Was this…actually happening? Natsu Dragneel was actually kissing her? With a contented purr, Lucy wrapped her arms around Natsu's neck and kissed him back as her eyes fell shut and the students all let out gasps, shouts of glee, and various forms of "I KNEW IT!"
"Ms. Heartfilia what do you think you are!" the students all heard their principal, Erza Fernandez, shriek as she entered the classroom. But as she caught sight of what Natsu and Lucy were doing, her cheeks suddenly burned bright red and she swayed where she stood, averting her eyes from the very passionate kiss between her two friends that had been months in the making.
"I must…I must go…" Erza said shakily as she turned on her heel to walk out of the classroom before turning back as she realized Natsu's entire class was watching him kiss the girl of his dreams. As suddenly as her rage had been quashed, it flared back up again as she realized her teachers, two of her BEST teachers, were making out in the middle of a populated classroom.
"WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU TWO THINK YOU ARE DOING!" she roared as she steadied her pregnant self with a hand on her lower back. Natsu and Lucy immediately sprung apart as they heard their friend, and boss, yell at them. They looked rapidly between themselves, Erza, and their students before they realized they had been kissing, quite passionately, in front of twenty-five teenagers.
"Oh my god," Lucy murmured, her cheeks turning bright red in embarrassment. She looked at Natsu, who just grinned at her, looking quite smug with himself, before she rushed out of the room. The students all laughed at Ms. Heartfilia's sudden exit, all knowing why she was running away, before they turned to Mrs. Fernandez, who looked like she might just implode from the inappropriateness of the situation she had just seen.
"Luce I'll call you later!" Natsu yelled after her, causing all of the students still present to laugh good-naturedly. The majority were excited that the two had finally, FINALLY gotten together. Wendy and Romeo shared a secretive smile as they watched Lucy run away and Natsu stare after her like a lovesick fool; their "Aunt" Cana was going to LOVE this…
"Mr. Dragneel," Erza said through gritted teeth as she stalked towards him, "What possessed you to think kissing a colleague in front of your students would be a good idea?" With a gulp, Natsu shrugged, knowing Erza would not appreciate that as his answer but also knowing his real answer, trying to stave off Lucy's anger, wasn't much better.
"Mrs. Fernandez!" a student suddenly called from the hallway, "Ms. Lisanna has been looking for you everywhere! Apparently some seniors decided to pull a prank and now the football field is flooding!"
In a second, Erza turned her back on Natsu, and looking furious and frazzled all at the same time, she rushed out of the room, screeching for the janitor and maintenance man, Max, to accompany her onto the football field before she roared for the AV teacher, Loke, to bring up the cameras so she could determine what hooligans decided messing with her school was a good idea.
"So…Mr. Dragneel…" one of the students piped up as Erza swept out of the room, leaving the pink-haired man to sigh in relief and thank his lucky stars for the reprieve, "What was it like kissing Ms. Heartfilia?"
With a rather salacious grin, Natsu turned to his students and said calmly, "So once you have measured the appropriate amount of sodium, you add it to the mixture slowly…"
"AW COME ON MR. DRAGNEEL!" the students groaned as Natsu laughed and put his safety goggles back down, continuing the experiment and ignoring their questions about his kiss with Lucy completely. After all, he wasn't one to start fires in his kids' imaginations unless it involved teaching them how to make something blow up…although…it had been one hell of a kiss and he couldn't wait to do it again…
AUTHOR'S NOTE: So my little sister is to thank for this bonus chapter! She couldn't believe I didn't write any NaLu in this story and insisted I rectify the situation immediately. :) So…bonus chapter! :) And as usual…I do not own Fairy Tail, although if I did, there would definitely be more canon couples…