Chapter Text
Ellie
“Don’t be nervous.”
It was possibly the tenth time he’d said it that morning and she hadn’t been, but she was starting to think maybe she should be.
“I’m not,” Ellie said anyway, hoping to calm both their nerves.
The first day of a new school was always awkward and a little scary, at least until she got her bearings.
She would know; this was her fourth First Day this year.
“I was talking to myself,” her papi said, smiling afterward so she knew it was a joke. But he was nervous. She could tell. He was super quiet all morning — not like him at all — and he’d had to tie his shoes three times before the bows finally held. He kept dropping stuff too. Her papi was silly sometimes (most of the time) but he wasn’t clumsy for real. Not usually.
He hadn’t been like this with the other schools, not since kindergarten days, but this one was apparently special. Full of kids just like her.
Well, not just like. They all had lots of different mutations, they wouldn’t be the same as hers. She’d only ever met adults with mutations before, so she was way more excited than nervous at the idea of meeting more kids her own age who she didn’t have to hide around.
This school was gonna be great. She had no idea why her papi was so nervous about it.
Gabby
“It’s okay if you wanna go eat with your friends,” her dad said, nodding towards the open doorway that led out into the hall where a group of kids from her class were laughing and shoving each other.
The mansion had a big dining room with four long tables for students to eat at, but the faculty had their own kitchen and dining room where she usually ate all of her meals with her dad and the other teachers.
“They’re not my friends,” she muttered, stacking pancakes on her plate and layering bacon and syrup in between.
“Weren’t you playing with them last week?” he asked, sliding the bowl of strawberries towards her after scoping out a spoonful for himself.
Pancake, syrup, bacon, syrup.
“Yep.”
Strawberry slices, syrup, pancake, syrup.
“Something happen?”
Bacon, syrup, strawberry slices—
Her dad grabbed the brown plastic bottle out of her hand.
“Enough with the syrup. Your pancakes are gonna dissolve.”
She huffed, added one more layer of bacon, then started working on carefully cutting it into triangles.
“Gabs? What happened?”
She shrugged.
“Nothing. They just don’t like me.”
“Why do you say that?”
Ugh, she didn’t want to talk about it!
He was staring at her, that look that said you’d better start talking or I’m gonna start talking and it’s gonna be a loooooong boring lecture.
She sighed heavily, little shoulders moving up and down in an exaggerated motion.
“I had to go to the bathroom and when I was walking back I heard them talking about me and saying…stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Said my code name should be Guinea Pig cuz I was made in a lab.” She looked up at the sound of scraping metal to see the fork in his hand bent nearly in half. His jaw was clenched in that “I’m about to tell you to close your eyes because I’m going to hurt someone” kinda way he got when there were bad guys around.
She didn’t want to tell the rest — the part that was gonna get her in trouble — but if she didn’t it was basically lying and she wasn’t supposed to lie.
“They were all laughing and then I kinda maybe popped their basketball with my claw and Imighthavethreatenedtosettheirhomeworkonfire,” she mumbled the last part super fast hoping her dad wouldn’t hear.
Fat chance. He heard everything.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That meant she wasn’t getting yelled at, but she was probably getting the “disappointed” talk which was way worse cuz it made daddy sad.
She chewed her pancake without really tasting it, staring down at her plate.
“Hey,” he tipped her chin up to look at him. “Those kids are idiots; you don’t wanna spend time with people like that anyway. Proud of you for not following through with the threat this time.”
She beamed at him.
“Really?”
“Really. I know how hard it is to stay in control, especially when people are being mean and deserve it. You did good, kid.” He kissed the top of her head. “You happen to remember all of their names?”
Ellie
The school was huge and fancy, way different from her other ones. It was basically a giant house on a bunch of land and she couldn’t wait to explore it all.
The teachers were nice; they all seemed happier than her last ones. Way less grumpy, even the art history teacher who frowned a lot and had scary eyebrows.
And the classes were fun. She already knew some of the stuff, but there was a whole class on mutations and the history of mutants! Her old school barely even mentioned them except the occasional anti-bullying sign or that one banner Mrs. Greene had of a bunch of kids holding hands and one of them was blue.
Her first class of the day was math, which was boring but easy to catch up with. Starting in the middle of the semester meant she was on the back foot with everything, but never for long. She was good at figuring stuff out.
There were a couple free seats, mostly around a girl with shoulder length black hair and scars on her face. They weren’t like her papi’s, they were long slashes straight across both eyes. They looked kinda badass. Maybe that was why she was sitting alone? That plus the scowl.
Ellie wasn’t deterred in the slightest.
Taking one of the desks next to her in the back of the room she stuck out her hand and introduced herself.
“Hi. I’m Ellie.”
The girl blinked at her for a few seconds before giving her a toothy grin and replying.
“I’m Gabby.”
Turned out, there was a free seat next to Gabby in every class, which worked out perfectly for Ellie because she was pretty sure they were best friends now.
Sure enough, by the end of the week she had decided Gabby was the coolest person in the whole school and fate had gotten her kicked out of all those other schools so that they could meet and become the coolest superhero duo to ever exist.
When Friday rolled around she was actually sad to not have school the next day.
Crazy.
But that was easily solved by convincing her papi to take her to the park to meet up with Gabby so she could teach her how to roller skate. How was she a whole eight years old and she’d never been roller skating! Ellie was going to fix that. Stat.
Logan
Logan watched Gabby brighten up over the last couple of days. He’d been worried about her after she’d told him about the incident with those kids; you’d think with all of them being mutants they’d be a little more accepting, but Logan knew all too well that cliques formed even in the smallest of groups and sometimes the only thing you needed to have in common was that you were less different than someone else.
He’d taken the mature route and had a talk with Chuck about it — after ‘Roro had spent a couple hours talking him down.
Since then, he’d kept an extra close eye on her, but she seemed to have bounced back. The new girl, Ellie, had a lot to do with that.
They spent most of his class passing notes back and forth while he pretended not to notice, and apparently every other class too. Gabby talked about her nonstop at dinner and had even eaten lunch in the main hall the entire week, tucked away at the end of one of the tables, the two of them giggling and trading snacks back and forth.
Most students who lived off campus were legacies; kids whose parents were mutants and had worked with or learned from the X-Men in some capacity. He knew most of them; he’d been around a while. But this one was different. He didn’t recognize the last name — Camacho — but there was something about her scent that he couldn’t quite place, but was deeply familiar. It was driving him crazy. He knew better than to ask though. Most of these kids — including his own — had a rough start in life. Many were living in single-parent homes, if they had parents at all. Plenty didn’t. That’s how most of them came to live at the school.
No, he’d figure it out on his own eventually. Or he’d get frustrated enough and just go read her file. He avoided doing that whenever possible though because Chuck always editorialized in the margins and he didn’t want to be swayed on his opinion of any of them before they had a chance to show him who they were.
As far as he was concerned, Ellie was a bright, polite little girl who didn’t so much as flinch when Gabby’s bone claws came out the first time, and that was enough to put her in his good books. And to have him waking up at eight in the morning on a Saturday to take his daughter to the store to buy roller skates before heading to the park.
He’d barely put the truck in park before Gabby was jumping out, skates dangling from one arm.
His phone rang the moment he opened the door, Laura’s name popping up on the screen along with a photo of her and Gabby sticking their tongues out at the camera.
“I’ll be right there sweetie, your sister’s calling. Go on and find your friend.”
He answered the phone, watching Gabby run off in the other direction toward the paved skate area of the park.
A few minutes into the conversation he froze, a familiar scent stinging his nostrils.
“Hey, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up and spun around, body tense and ready for a fight.
“The fuck’re you doing here, Wilson?”
The mercenary blinked, clearly startled by his presence.
“That’s a rude way to greet an old friend,” he snarked, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked ridiculous in cargo pants and an eyesore of a Hawaiian shirt over long sleeves, somehow standing out more than if he’d been wearing his usual red and black leather getup.
“We’re not friends.”
“You are old though,” Wade said, snapping finger guns and winking.
Logan growled and let his claws slip out just a tiny bit. Just enough for Wade to see and no one else. They were in public.
“Down boy, I’m not here for you. Swear on Stan Lee’s grave, I’m just as surprised to see you as you are to see me.” He held his hands up in a placating fashion. Logan wasn’t fully convinced.
“Then why the fuck are you here?” He asked again. He wanted to look for Gabby, but he didn’t want to draw attention to her if this was some kind of ambush.
He was in the middle of assessing three different exit strategies when Wade’s response short circuited his brain.
“I’m chaperoning my daughter’s play date, like a responsible parent. What are you doing lurking around a playground in broad day— ohmyshitfuckingchrist. Please tell me you do not have a child named —”