everybody chill

“so it’s a strategic play. interesting. is he actually some kind of weird math genius, then?” harry can’t help but feel slightly amused at the concept, but it’s not a bad idea. flunk the class, spend time with the cute tutor, win win. he’d be destroyed if he’d ever tried a move like that himself, but it’s amusing all the same. nice to know - other kids have easier times when it comes to their schooling, in a way. “ouch, poor kid. maybe try and offer like - advanced tutoring? like, if he can prove he’s actually good at the class, malik can take on some more advanced stuff with him. win win?”

he shrugs his shoulders absently, trying not to delve too far into the question. it’s been.. well, so far it’s been fine, but it’s only been a week. really it’s too early to be sure. “not too bad, i guess. i’m waiting for stark to lose his shit when he realises i brought some oscorp tech with me.”

“What qualifies as a genius around here is not what qualifies as a genius in the real world, but I can confidently say he’s smart enough to easily swing an A on this test.” Bobby worried about his students from time to time, there was a lot of talent within these walls, and it was hard not to compare oneself when the chips were down. “Yeahhhh, we’ll have to talk about it. Top tip, always make group project assignments based on which of your students’ relationships you do and do not approve of.”

John groans and tips his head back to stare at the ceiling.  He’s been doing this for years, the writing, so why does it still make him want to jump out a window when he knows that someone’s read one of the shitty little books.  “Figures that’s the one you like.”  There’s definitely a scene or two inspired, if not lifted entirely, from a personal encounter Bobby was present for.  When he thinks some of the blood has left his face, he looks back at Bobby. 

“No reason, none. I mean – ”  He sighs, scrubs his hand over his face.  “I don’t know.  I do like it.”  It feels weird to say that aloud.  Better to change courses – “Maybe I’m just, like, doing field research for a new book I’m writing.  This one’s about a sexy teacher, and his slightly less sexy coworker.”

Bobby is celebrating his thirty-second birthday this year, which means, objectively, he should spend less time messing around with morally ambiguous not-boyfriends and more time trying to find his soulmate or whatever. That’s definitely the smart thing to do. 

john is suddenly incredibly preoccupied with everything that doesn’t take looking at bobby.  he’s reminded of watching that boring, gay movie with bobby during his tender teenage years, sweating at the prospect that bobby might see through him, might notice something off.  it has him flushing, like he’s a kid again.  “ – it’s not boring, you’re boring, ” he defends distractedly, glancing back with his own slight smile.

john follows bobby’s line of sight to the stack of papers.  “ would you believe me if i said a few of them were actually pretty talented ??  actually, all of it’s got potential, but… ” he sifts through the stack and pulls out a couple he flagged.  “ i mean, some of it’s like really good. ”  john leans against the desk next to bobby and passes him one of the papers.  “ so, ” he begins, casual as anything, “ you like teaching, don’t you ?? ”

Frankly, Bobby knew jack shit about whether or not a piece of writing was good, but he peruses the paper John hands him anyway. After a silent pause, in which he concedes the images evoked are pretty vivid, he looks up at John with a barely restrained grin. “Pretty good,” he starts, dropping his shoulder in a shrug. “I mean, it’s nothing compared to my favorite novel of all time, Secrets in the Mist by Johnny Longstaff, but I’m sure they’ll get there eventually.”

      snickering softly at the toast, he didn’t waste much time to take a sip from his beer. peter was pretty sure nothing out in the galaxy was ever going to top the beer from terra. no matter what concoctions they came up with. not that he’d really know what beer from his home planet had tasted like prior to returning. he’d been a good kid, thank you very much. “oh, ha, ha. funny that you’d even doubt that.” even if it was more than fair for bobby to think so.

   leaning back in his chair as he took another sip, quill gave a small shrug. “didn’t misplace or dismember any students which i know is probably a miracle for me. who the flark thought it was a good idea to let me teach has to be a complete moron. might have incinerated a desk or two with my quad blasters. or, element guns i guess is the technical term. it was set to fire, which, my bad.”

Bobby offers an encouraging nod. Not dismembering or misplacing students was actually way harder than anyone gave them credit for, especially if at least half your students possessed superhuman abilities. “Trust me, man, I had far less qualified teacher than you growing up, and I still turned out fine! My philosophy is, as long as there’s at least one other faculty member they hate more than you, you’re doing a great job.” Bobby couldn’t deny that the subjects Peter was teaching were a hell of a lot more interesting than his. Guess that’s what he got for living a life on the straight and narrow. “Who taught you how to shoot like that anyway, outlaw?”

Over the past decade, Bobby had bothered Jean enough times that he’d basically turned the practice into a fine art. It’s why he felt completely and totally confident turning up unannounced in the doorway of her classroom on her lunch break.  

“I come bearing banana bread and a really important question,” Bobby informed, plopping down into the chair opposite to Jean. He apart the foil and set it between them, then supplied his phone from his back pocket and put up a photo. He set it down in front of Jean. “Is this guy actually hot or am I reaching new levels of lonely single desperation? Keep in mind that I know, like, two things about his personality, and both of them are related to reality television.”

john turns his attention to bobby now, and he has to roll his eyes so he doesn’t smile at bobby’s perch on his desk, or his stupidly open && shit-eating expression.  fucker.  he chucks a capped marker at bobby’s head and looks around at the room, where all the desks have been left in disarray.  “ i think i hate kids, man. ”  he doesn’t.  

   “ don’t get all tickled yet – this is just a temporary sell-out.  i’ve gone straight before.  never sticks. ”  he can’t stay in one place long without getting antsy.  john’s happy right now, but hes going to leave this place behind, and he’ll probably make a couple enemies before he does so.  it’s sort of the pattern of john’s life.  it’s a wonder, really, that bobby still talks to him.  he’s glad, though, really for bobby’s influence.  as fucking annoying as it is sometimes, it’s also an annoyingly comforting constant.  “ how was…math today? ” he asks, sure to lace the question with plenty of distaste.  

Bobby feels his heart sink a little at the notion, but tries not to let it show on his face. He knew he was an idiot for praying it might be different this time around. He just couldn’t seem to snuff out the hope anyway. “Oh, come on,” he starts, mouth tilting in a half-hearted smile. “You gotta give the kids a chance to get really attached to you first. Then when you leave, they might do that ‘oh captain my captain’ thing from that boring, gay movie you like.”

it’s weird, actually – john’s kind of loving this new gig.  sure, like half the kids are unbearable by virtue of being kids, but the job kind of rocks?  it’s his secret dead poets society fantasy come true, kinda.  sure, yeah, the world is probably ending, but they’re mutants. the world ends annually.  and as much as things change, bobby’s cruising for a brusin’, so things really do remain the same.  

   play dumb –  “ who the fuck is depeche mode ?? ” he asks loud enough that the last couple of kids in the back can hear him, too.  “ didn’t you have frosted tips ?? ”  john snorts and wipes the white-board clean haphazardly.  “ trust me, they don’t think i’m cool.  we did a fuckin’ feather circle today.  i’m basically a sell out now, ice-guy. ”

“Hey, language,” Bobby faux-reprimands, as if he doesn’t regularly drop the f-bomb in front of his stats students. He ventures into the classroom as the last couple of students are leaving, coming over to perch on the edge of John’s desk. “Anyway, in defense of the frosted tips, JT was doing it! How could I not, when they had the king’s stamp of approval.”

more often than not, harry feels like he shouldn’t really be teaching here. he’s way too young and he has absolutely no teaching experience as such, and he’s probably got bigger responsibilities to think about. it hits especially hard when he’s around the other teachers - so many of them are older, wiser, have more experience, more of a fucking idea of what they’re doing. harry kind of envies them.

“seriously? don’t.. you teach maths? how do your students get submarines out of maths?” harry asks with a laugh as he observes the so-called artwork. while it’s not half-bad, it’s definitely not the correct answer. “oh i don’t know, some of my classes are younger. maybe not young enough for that, but..” harry pauses, tilting his head to the side a little. he’s pretty sure it’s something he’d see peter do, even now. “i guess there’s no real age limit for that kinda thing, so you never know. it might be my turn next week.”

“Not with their brains. This is Bo’s test, and Bo likes Malik, who is a tutor for my class. Someone obviously let him watch Mean Girls sometime in the past couple weeks, ‘cause he knows this stuff and appears to be purposefully bunking so he gets to talk to his crush.” Bobby could appreciate the strategy -- Bo definitely had more game than Bobby did when he was that age. He physically winces every time he remembers making Kitty an ice sculpture of her own face for her birthday. “It’s pretty cute, actually. Still gonna have to talk to him and crush some teenybopper dreams though.”

Bobby can’t lie, being back in school with John again had him feeling a touch nostalgic for their teenage years. He remembers it all too clearly -- knocking shoulders on the way to class, showing off because he knew John was in the room, cracking a joke and glancing sideways to see if it made John laugh. His stint at the Institute had been brief, but Bobby could never forget that initial meeting, not when John was the first person to make Bobby’s cheeks warm and set off butterflies in his stomach. 

Bobby turns up in the doorway of his classroom just as John’s last lesson of the day is wrapping up. (So he memorized his schedule. It’s not weird. It’s totally normal.) “Hey, listen,” he addresses the students filtering out, “It’s really important to me that you guys don’t think he’s cool. He listened to Depeche Mode in high school and he wore enough hair gel to entirely coat an average-sized squirrel. True story. Don’t be fooled.”

Though Bobby privately thought the Institute had a much homier feel than the Academy, he was reasonably excited about the move anyways. Prof X’s joint was pretty small scale in comparison, and there were only so many times you could foist friendship upon (annoy, prank, whatever) the 15 other teachers on staff before they started to unionize. The Academy provided some much needed fresh meat. 

“Here’s to another week passed without accidentally misplacing and/or dismembering a student,” Bobby triumphantly knocks his beer against Peter’s. “Actually, might’ve spoken too soon, I don’t actually know how your week went. Fill me in?”

Bobby tries not to make a habit of grading during his lunch break, but he, as usual, finds himself just a liittle behind on all things work related. Luckily there were a bunch of younger, nerdier teachers who actually got their assignments back to students in a timely manner, and thus served as pretty quality working buddies.

 “Oh my god,” Bobby exhales a laugh, squinting for a second at the quiz in front of him. He elbows Harry in the side and tilts the test in his hand so he can see the page. “Look at this. One of my students didn’t solve a single question on this test -- he just drew, like, thirteen different types of submarines and then a cat saying hi. It’s pretty good!” He draws a little smiley face next to the answer in red pen. “Guess yours might be too mature for that kind of thing, huh?”