Chapter Text
“Kitty!” Lance shouted as a dinosaur-looking creature seemed to pop into existence between them. It was facing her and everyone was staring. There was no way she could use her powers and keep it secret. He clenched his fists and everything began to shake as people screamed and looked away from the creature in favor of trying to get to safer ground. He had caused an earthquake at just the right time because the creature leaped at Kitty and she was able phase so it went straight through her. “Are you ok?” He asked her as he ran forward and gathered her in his arms.
“That thing is like, totally gross,” she whispered as she shivered. He watched the creature seem to turn back towards them. It seemed like it could sense they were the threat in the room. Luckily, instead of letting it charge towards them again, one of the other X-geeks used their powers and threw it into the hallway away from the rest of the students. He quickly spotted Summers and Grey and started herding Kitty towards them. He knew she’d be following them into their latest battle and he had no plans to be left out. This was probably one of the only times they would be on the same side. He wanted to earn as many points with her and her friends as he could. It would make things easier when he eventually messed up later on.
The group was quickly joined by the rest of their core team. Daniels and Summers took point as the long-range fighters while Kitty and him stayed in the middle and protected Jean at the back.
“The Professor said there are probably a few more of these guys, they’re from Kurt’s portals,” she explained as they ran through the halls searching for the creepy dinosaur.
“I thought dinos were supposed to have feathers?” He snarked.
“Their closest genetic link is the chicken,” Summers said absentmindedly before he turned to look at Lance strangely.
“Summers who do you think keeps Blob and Toad from failing out?” He asked, answering the unspoken question from the glasses-wearing team leader.
“He’s just surprised considering your first encounter with us was you stealing test answers,” Jean explained, looking equally surprised.
“Lance is like, actually pretty smart,” Kitty defended. He shouldn’t have been surprised, they studied a lot together. It was pretty much the only way the two of them were able to hang out without either of their friend groups interfering. His would never be caught dead in the library, Blob and Toad preferred to take their tutoring sessions in the privacy of the brotherhood home where no one could see them break down over things like math and history. Her friends just figured she was gossiping, which was stupid on their part’, Kitty was one of the smartest people in her grade and was the top student in one or two of his own grade’s classes.
“Whatever, where did it - whoa!” Daniels shouted as they found Blob, Toad, and Boom-Boom with a captured dino creature.
“All right!” Lance shouted punching the air and causing a minor shockwave to go through the school. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly at the inadvertent use of his powers. “Sorry,” he muttered to Blob who had had to shift to keep the creature from escaping. Kitty took his hand and squeezed it as he blushed down at her. Sometimes it was annoying to lose control of his powers when she seemed to know how to use hers so well, even though she’d had them for less time. He had to keep reminding himself that she had the advantage of teachers to help her, while he’d been left on his own.
“It’s ok,” she whispered to him in reassurance.
“Come on Alvers,” Summers complained glaring. He shrank back when Kitty glared right back at him.
“Coming through!” An unfamiliar voice shouted. Lance pulled Kitty out of the way, which always made him chuckle internally, he didn’t need to move her out of the way of anything, it would just pass right through her if she so chose. He watched as a guy who looked somewhat familiar aimed a piece of technology that had him remembering an incident with Toad at the creature. The dino creature zapped out of existence.
“Hey, I remember that!” Toad shouted as he hopped closer to the group.
“I bet you do,” the guy said with a glare. “I’ve modified her to send these creatures back where they belong. Come on! There’s probably a few more near my old lab!” He shouted as he started running.
“Forge! Wait up!” Summers yelled as he took off after the kid.
“Please don’t,” Lance quietly begged Kitty.
“Duty calls,” she said with a shoulder shrug, though she looked sad to leave him.
“Here,” he took off his coat and wrapped it around her, “you don’t have your uniform to protect you and it’s kind of cold,” she smiled sweetly at him and leaned up to kiss his cheek.
“You owe me a slow dance,” she whispered as she put her arms through the sleeves and ran off after the rest of her team.
“It’s kind of cold,” Tabby teased as the other boys mocked him. He glared and threw his hands out to shift them all back into the lockers, and caused a crack in the ceiling that triggered a fire sprinkler line to break over them.
“No! I just showered two weeks ago!” Toad cried out.
“Come on Lance!” Tabitha whined.
“Since when could you control it like that?” Blob asked him.
“Since I hung out with those X-geeks,” he answered nonchalantly. His few days with the X-men had helped him to gain some control over smaller more precise quakes. Storm had been the one to help him. She could relate, having control over her own natural phenomena, she was able to explain how to take a small amount of his power and direct it to where he wanted it. She said he saw his power as on or off, but it was a faucet, he could control how much he let out at a time. The two had worked on trickles of power to cause cracks in uniform ways. He was getting decent at it before he quit, and he still did some of those exercises in his room when everyone else was busy.
“What how?” Todd asked him.
“I’m heading home,” Tabitha said, not interested in hearing about the X-men.
“The reason we always lose to them is that they train like crazy, not just in fighting, but in control as well,” Lance told them.
“What?” Freddy asked, still confused.
“When I was with them, Storm, the weather lady, spent an hour with me every day going over control of my powers, I’m pretty sure every one of the kids at Xavier’s has a session a day until they have control, and even then they still have lessons, just less often,” Lance told them.
“Why didn’t Mystique ever do that with us?” Todd asked. “It’s like she was setting us up for failure,” he complained as he thought about how she had approached him, then dumped him in the boarding house and left him alone. She didn’t train him other than to throw things at him when she was mad.
“No clue, their Professor, has them train on fighting, but also rescues, how to drive their stuff, how to use their powers, they work those kids hard,” Lance told them. He didn’t truly understand why Kitty was so tired sometimes during their study sessions until he had done the X-man schedule for a few days. Since he’d left, if she ever looked exhausted he would drag them to a secluded part of the library and make her take a nap while he worked on his homework.
“Man, Mystique don’t do nothing for us,” Todd complained.
“Yeah, if there’s anything I miss the most, it’s the food,” Lance reminisced. It was the most well-fed he’d ever been. Foster care meant fighting for every meal and living with Pietro, Todd and Freddy meant there was never anything homecooked. They usually spent the food allowance, which thankfully still showed up once a month, on junk food and takeout. The kids at the mansion usually ate home-cooked meals for dinner, Wolverine, Storm, and the older ones rotated who cooked, it had been awesome not worrying about his next meal and he’d gotten to try some cool food.
“Why couldn’t Xavier have picked us up?” Todd wondered. The three were lost in thought as they considered what their lives could have been like if he had grabbed them before Mystique did.
“He tried to with me,” Freddy admitted after a moment.
“Really?” Lance asked, looking at him.
“Yeah, the scary one and Jean were at one of the truck rallies I worked at before Mystique invited me up here,” Freddy told him.
“Seriously?” Todd asked.
“What are you losers doing here? I thought you’d go home. Except for Lance, I bet he was hoping Kitty would get stuck in a tree and he could rock her world to get her down,” Pietro said tearing into their conversation.
“Yo! Did that Prof try to recruit you too?” Todd asked him.
“Uncle Charles wouldn’t have tried,” Pietro said flippantly before his eyes widened at his words. “I didn’t say that,” he muttered before tearing out of there.
“I’m so confused,” Freddy said clutching his head.
“Me too,” Lance agreed. “Let’s get out of here,” he told the other two as he made his way out of the school. He’d check with Kitty tomorrow how the rest of the dinosaur hunting went, and maybe he could get a reward for being a gentleman and giving her his jacket.