Age Of Magneto

Long Overdue

The Guthrie kids didn't take hardly any time at all settling in when they got to Westchester. Jean had already peeked to see what their story was as far as how the Assassin's Guild had gotten them in the first place, and as they'd told K in Savannah, Remy was on it already - and his preliminary reports weren't very good.

It appeared as though the Guthries neighbors had gotten fed up with the family's peaceful outlook - and their cheerful reassurance to friends and neighbors that 'God didn't make mistakes' in reference to mutants in the current climate had half the town or better up in arms.

They'd sent a rookie apprentice to do the job. And the man had come back with the three kids in tow with no explanation as to why. They had considered turning the kids into assassins, but Sam had blocked them from stepping near his siblings and had quoted the commandments whenever they tried to find a way to get them to join the guild. He had apparently seen his parents fate - and he wasn't happy about it.

A few dozen times of 'Thou shalt not kill' shouted at them by a pair of preschoolers- not to mention six defecting guild members - had them rethinking the indoctrination idea. But in the meantime, they had tested all three kids - and all three had turned up positive for the X-gene. Only time would tell if it was active, but that was enough for them to decide to try and win Magneto's favor. They had no way of knowing that K would turn the kids over to Xavier instead.

But more important to the immediate matters at Xavier's ... the tables had turned on Peter and Kurt.

At first, both Peter and Kurt had been tickled to get another boy to play with, but the first time that they tried to keep Kitty out of the loop, Sam had immediately stood up for her - and then taken it a step further to keep her close to himself and his sister. He had even gone so far as to block the two troublemaking wall crawlers from getting too close to her to pick on her again.

"If you can't treat her nice, you don't get to be around 'er," Sam had said with his arms crossed. Which, was exactly the right thing to draw Clint's attention.

"Hey bud. You wanna go shoot some arrows?" Clint said - which was something else, considering that the X-Men hadn't quite gotten used to having small kids around when the whole of the Avengers moved in - and immediately started helping in any way they could. Jan had started helping in a few classes, and when Tony was around, he was amazingly good at teaching computer sciences and electronics.

But Clint was a clear rock star when it came to the kids. He was willing to let them tackle him, and he wasn't above getting down to their level. Charles was openly impressed - and wasn't afraid to let him know how much he appreciated someone that was such a natural with the kids.

Of course, Clint had no idea how to really process that other than to blush at the tips of his ears before he awkwardly shrugged and found himself outside with Sam - setting up targets.

Aside from that, the Guthrie kids were more than happy to play with anyone, but in particular, the loved to play with Kitty. She was kind and open to games, and not only did Paige happily dance around the studio with her in their tutus, but Sam was the best big brother imaginable - and joined them to help them dance - though his lifts were more hugs that spun them around.

Not that either girl was complaining. Though it was Jean that caught the particular shade of red that Kitty's ears turned just after Sam gave her a 'lift'. And how quickly she rushed off giggling madly. Paige didn't seem to notice, and if Sam saw it, he didn't realize what was going on. The two little girls were giggling hard as they ran around in circles - all the way up until Natasha stepped into the room and cleared her throat. All at once, the two little girls straightened right up.