A/N: I blame devianart for everything. Including my random writing of a college!Cherik fic. It's set in MIT because 1. I live in Boston and there's already a Harvard one, though I've never read it. 2. In my mind, it makes sense for Tony Stark and Thor to be at MIT

Disclaimer: Duh, I'm totally Stan Lee. The blonde hair and body of a teenage girl are just a cover.

Erik Lensherr is not a stalker, thank you very much.

Okay, there's the fact that he changed his entire way of walking across campus to stare at one guy's ass. And he's taken to detouring on his way to his Construction of Missiles in Germany class just so he can catch a glimpse of the guy and his ass, and that's made him late for that class every day for the last month.

(That's fine though, the professor doesn't care. Because he's the only one in the class who actually speaks German, she's taken to giving him biscuits and spending half the class having discussions solely with him. Erik is reasonably sure that the entire class hates him because of that, and can't bring himself to care.)

But back on topic, Erik is not a stalker. It's raining outside. He has a perfect right to be sitting in a coffeeshop drinking the most awful coffee he's ever had (the barista doesn't understand the meaning of black and doesn't know that her milk has gone sour).

He is most certainly not here because, only a few tables away, the young man whose ass he's been entranced by since the first time he saw it waggling over campus is sitting a few tables away, clutching a cup of Earl Grey tea and chattering about his Humanities course with a blonde girl.

Erik has learned that the man's name is Charles Xavier, that he's not majoring in psychology as Erik suspected, he's actually getting a PhD to go with his two Masters degrees. The gorgeous blonde whom Erik hated the minute she grabbed Charles's arm and demanded that he buy her some sort of unpronounceable coffee is no longer the object of his hatred, because she is Charles's little sister and is getting a degree in cosmetology at MassArt, and just snuck onto the MIT campus to see Charles.

It isn't eavesdropping if they aren't whispering.

After three hours of the two of them talking, Erik realizes that he needs to either do something or go back to his dorm and actually study, because his godawful coffee is cold and the barista is glaring at him.

He wonders whether Charles always takes three hours to talk to his little sister on Friday afternoons, and whether if he brought his own coffee next time the barista would try to kick him out. Probably not. Erik has a Glare of Doom that would take down that pitiful little coffee-ruining hussy in a second.

Charles does not look scary at all. Charles has enormous blue eyes that shouldn't be allowed to exist because they're so blue, and wavy dark brown hair that's begging to be pulled, and a smile that might have made Erik spend five minutes just standing on a path staring the first time he saw it.

Incidentally, that smile was first shown when Charles stopped to give directions to a clearly lost pair of Asian tourists who had somehow stumbled onto the campus. This proves that Charles is ridiculously nice and therefore not at all the type for Erik, who is not nice at all. (see aforementioned Glare of Doom)

Anyways, Erik is now leaving the coffee shop and not going to spend the night contemplating tugging Charles Xavier's hair. There are two reasons.

1. He has never freaking talked to Charles Xavier, and he is not that creepy.

2. There's a new class about WWII he's starting tomorrow taught by some new professor. Erik wants to show up not sleep deprived and make a good impression.

Erik's day is not going well. For a start, he did end up being creepy and thinking about Charles Xavier half the night. As a direct result, he smashed his alarm clock when it beeped, got out of bed late, didn't shower, is wearing a dirty turtleneck, and doesn't have matching shoes.

That's not even the worst. The worst is that, upon walking into the classroom, he observed that sitting in the front row of the class (disgustingly good looking as always) was Charles Xavier.

Erik did not need more opportunities to be a stalker, dammit.

His reaction is to stop walking, get cursed at when someone walks into the classroom and bumps into him, and then snarl an obscenity in German at the bumper. The person-who looks like he was raised in suburbia-squeaks and stammers out an apology.

Erik doesn't feel much better, but he sits in his seat in the front row with a tiny bit more composure. Charles looks fresh and bright and ready to begin the day, dressed in a cardigan and slacks.

This clearly proves that Erik can't pick proper people to ogle, because who the hell wears cardigans? He looks like an old man!

Since his leather jacket covers up the dirtiness of his turtleneck, Erik does feel that he can judge. He puts his books on the table and wishes that he didn't care so much about his education. Then he could be sitting in the back sleeping like a few other students.

The number of students sleeping grows over the next half hour, as the professor does not arrive. After fifteen minutes Charles takes out a thick book and begins to read. Erik takes this as an opportunity to hone his covert staring skills.

After half an hour, a man wearing a leather jacket and jeans and a flannel shirt and boots walks in. He looks like a belligerent woodcutter, so Erik is going to put him down as "janitor who came to tell us we're in the wrong building, and to GTFO".

Charles looks up with sudden interest, closes his thick book, and takes out a pad of paper.

"The bastards didn't tell me I had to teach at nine fucking am." The man growls. Erik's eyes widen, because holy shit, this must be the new professor. The man glares around the room, then takes a deep breath and roars "WAKE UP!"

Needless to say, the class is immediately awake. Erik doubts anyone on campus is still asleep. He mumbles a curse under his breath in German and wishes he had chosen different classes.

"You. What's your name?" Crap. The professor, whose Glare of Dismemberment is equal to Erik's own Glare of Doom (if less classy) is pointing at him. Charles is watching.

"Erik Lensherr." The words come out nice and manly, with no squeak. Erik is grateful.

"Excellent pronunciation. You may be a tolerable part of this class." Except he says it in German which, while not flawless, sounds exactly like normal-people German. Erik wishes he had chosen more complimentary words. Then the man turns to the rest of the class. "My name's Logan. You can call me sir. Any insurrection and I'll pin your testicles on the wall over there, are we clear?"

"Sir yes sir." Chants the entire class. Erik suddenly likes Professor Logan, even if he looks like he's on the run from the Mounties. Judging by Charles's little smile, so does he.

After an hour of absolutely brilliant lecturing peppered with swearing and growling, class is dismissed. There's no homework, because Professor Logan glares at them and says he isn't grading some fuck-load of essays, and they'd probably all be crap anyway.

Erik has a newfound adoration for this class.

That adoration is shattered when he sees Charles trotting out, because he has nothing to do for the next hour and really doesn't want to spend it following Charles around. Also, Charles is carrying about a ton of books in his arms, not to mention the satchel stuffed with papers he's slung over his shoulder.

It's the perfect time to introduce himself and not be a creeper anymore. He could hurry forward, tell Charles that he's going to kill himself if he keeps carrying those around (seriously, Charles is tiny and probably weighs as much as the satchel) and then Charles will let Erik ravish him out of gratitude.

Erik is not going to do that. He bolts for the library instead, because even though Professor Logan didn't give them homework, he mentioned a few books that would make great supplementary reading, and what do you mean avoidance?

Erik just can't win today. Only fifteen minutes after he holes himself up in a corner with a copy of SS Hell on the Eastern Front (Logan seems to have morbid taste, and Erik likes him even more) Charles walks in.

Really? Erik isn't allowed to even read a book in peace? He's being forced to stalk through coincidence?

Charles comes in, dumps a few of his books on the librarian's desk and chatters with her for a few minutes. Erik catches snatches about her birthday, her daughter's wedding, and the plans for the library to get new furniture.

Erik just wants to read his book, take his classes and go on to building tanks and other such things (he's got a gift for metal and a tendency towards violence). Erik doesn't really want to examine what that says about himself.

Right now Charles is helping Erik not be introspective by waving goodbye to the librarian and looking for another thick book. Erik is not quite able to keep from staring as Charles drags a footstool over to a bookcase, climbs on top of it, and reaches for a book.

Whatever he's trying to get, he can't reach. With a deep frown that makes Charles look very professorly, he vanishes, comes back with another footstool, and props it on top of the other.

A school full of geniuses, and this is what they resort to.

Charles is balancing on top of the second footstool, straining to get to a shelf that he's just a bit too short to reach. Erik is desperately trying to deep from salivating, because crap, Charles has bared a few inches of pale white back and just edge of his underwear in his quest for a book. It's very distracting.

Erik is two seconds away from just getting up and grabbing the book for Charles when Charles drags the book down. It's even thicker than the one he was reading earlier, and Erik is at a loss as to how Charles intends to carry that around.

He's about to ask when something beeps in Charles's pocket. Charles takes out a phone that doesn't look like it's from this planet, swears, and runs. Literally.

All of Erik's normal indignation that Charles just ran past a librarian at 90mph and didn't even get scolded is lost in how adorable his look of panic was. It's then that it occurs to Erik he should go shower.

He gets up, and notices that there's something on the floor. It looks like it fell out of Charles's satchel. Erik picks it up.

A dark blue scarf.

Erik dashes outside, but Charles is long gone.

This leaves only one course of action available. Erik goes back to his dorm and makes like Sherlock Holmes.

Deduction number one: Charles is pretty well to do. The scarf is made of pure cashmere.

Deduction number two: This definitely belongs to Charles, because embroidered at one end is "To Charles Francis Xavier, from Alice"

Deduction number three: Erik wants to go smash his head into a wall because clearly Charles is involved with someone named Alice who knits him cashmere scarves with great skill, and therefore would have no interest in Erik.

Deduction number four: He's going to want the scarf back, which means Erik must return it, which means Erik might have to actually initiate a conversation.

Erik has not given the scarf back. He's been busy. Professor Logan's lectures leave him exhausted simply because he has to write so fast, and because it's tiring to have a man who threatens to stab the entire class in one breath and makes brilliant points in the next talking in his vicinity.

Also, he's noticed that Logan totally picks favorites.

He picks on most of the males, excepting Erik (but that's only because Erik knows what Logan is saying when he threatens the blonde who has now been named "Bobby Drake" in German and always chuckles darkly). Then he turns around and is the nicest guy ever to the girls-Erik is certain that Marie and Kitty would get As in this class no matter how much information they actually absorbed.

It's all very unfair. Erik would like to commiserate with someone over it, but he doesn't have a friend in this class.

Or, really, any friends at all.

He's nerving himself up to talk to Charles, but that's proceeding rather slowly.

This slowness is helped by the fact that last time Erik sort of followed Charles across campus Charles ended up under a willow tree giving a lecture about literature and morality to a bunch of girls. Among them were Kitty and Marie, though Erik also noticed a pretty black girl with white hair, a frosty blonde who was pretending to ignore everything while taking notes, and dark haired girl who did nothing but stare with her mouth open.

Yeah, Erik does not want to get caught up in that. Even if Charles is being fascinating and interesting and has the first button of his shirt undone.

Not that Erik was watching.

It's been two weeks, and Erik really needs to get that scarf back to Charles. In his defense, he's thought about giving it back quite often. He just hasn't actually sucked up the courage to approach Charles.

Unfortunately, the longer he waits to give it back, the more suspicious it will look when he does. Charles is probably missing his scarf, now that the weather is getting chilly. Erik doesn't mind the winds that whip across campus overly much-he's from Germany, where it's far, far, colder, and he wears turtlenecks-but Charles is small and fragile looking and looks likes he's going to topple over whenever a gust of wind hits him.

Charles needs this scarf.

"Lensherr, focus!" Erik snaps back to reality and is embarrassed to realize that he's missed the directions. They're assembling machinery today in one of his non-Charles classes, and there couldn't be a worse place to daydream about Charles than when he's fusing metal.

"On it, sir." Erik glances over the sheets of metal and catches up to the rest of the class. It's not a hard class, in his opinion. But that might be because Erik is excellent at manipulating metal, and he could build this apparatus in his sleep.

The rest of the class passes with Erik finishing easily and mocking the slower students under his breath in German. He's mainly trying incredibly hard not to think about Charles.

It is, for the first time ever, working.

"Why, that's simply brilliant! If you could refine this, you've created the alternative to oil!" The strange thing isn't that Erik heard about the sort of invention that might change the world. It's that he's now got a bad case of whiplash, and why the hell is Charles in the mechanics lab?

Other than the purpose of ruining Erik's plan not to think about him.

Charles is standing in the "genius working here" part of the lab, where there's another disgustingly good looking man talking to him. This particular man has black hair and a scruffy beard. He's also breaking the rule about not eating around dangerous machinery.

Erik hurries over to his professor, who is running his fingers over the perfect engine Erik just made with a look of awe.

"Excuse me, but who is that?" He nods at the scruffy man.

"Oh, that's Tony Stark. One of our most brilliant students in weapons design, though he's keeping his projects more under wraps now." The Professor's mouth turns down. "I guess he figured that after the little accident with his last missile, it would be better to keep his work a bit more private."

None of that particularly matters to Erik. He's generally genius himself, and he's obsessing over a man who's in his early twenties and already has two Masters and is fast on track to earning a PhD. Brains no longer intimidate him.

What he really wanted to know was how well Stark knew Charles, and what their relationship was, and why Charles got to go right past the wall of yellow tape separating Stark's half of lab from everything else. Tony Stark has playboy written all over him, and Charles is smiling at him in a puppy-dog way.

Why is Erik feeling protective over someone he's never talked to?

He chooses to blame the fact that Stark just made a gesture around Charles's ass, which is the wonderful bit of anatomy that got Erik into this mess to begin with. It was a very cupping sort of gesture.

Erik grits his teeth and wonders if perhaps he could sneak into Stark's laboratory and make a few slight adjustments to the metals. There are lots of ways to make invisible changes that cause explosions.

In the meantime, he needs to find a way to get closer to Charles so he can return the damn scarf without looking like a creep.

An opportunity does not arise, because Charles misses the next of Professor Logan's lectures. Professor Logan sweeps his eyes over the empty seat, then glares at Erik.

"Where is he?"

Erik would like to know why, exactly, Professor Logan thinks he should know that.

"I don't know sir." The Prof. glares even more menacingly.

"Aren't you two a couple?" Erik wants to sink down into his seat and die. Since when is his deranged axe-man teacher this perceptive? "Or whatever the abbreviation of fucking is these days."

"No!" Erik manages to splutter out. Professor Logan shoots him one extremely unconvinced look, then drops the subject and begins to talk about the morale of the soldiers in Normandy.

Erik is beginning to realize that he might in fact be a stalker. This is mainly because he, in his quest to find Charles, is finding that he knows a disturbing amount of places the man might be. It's even more disturbing that he's in none of those places.

Library? Nope.

Coffee shop? Nope.

Underneath tree? Nope.

In that dorm house for rich people where Charles goes often and probably sleeps? Nope.

Tony Stark's laboratory? Which is, to Erik's chagrin, bigger than the main science building. It's also extremely locked, with a padlock over a deadbolt and three separate locks.

What if Stark kidnapped Charles and is keeping him there? What if Charles is currently being held hostage so Stark can get more research money from Charles's parents? What if Charles is having mad passionate sex with Stark (cheating on Alice) in that building?

Now Erik isn't sure whether he wants to melt the locks off the door with the extra acid he happened to be carrying around, or to go sit on his bed and bemoan his life. He chooses to go to bed, because Stark is quite clearly Important, and one does not break into the lab of an Important person with acid. It's too easy to trace.

Charles pops back into his life after that blip quite quickly, and much more spectacularly than when he vanished. That spectacularness happens when Erik is innocently walking across campus brooding over his chemistry Professor's last lecture, and there is a sudden outbreak of shouting.

Well, more like roaring. Erik turns and, to his absolute shock, sees that there's a man waving his arms and screaming at the top of his lungs at Professor Logan.

Erik stops and watches, not particularly inclined to help. He likes Professor Logan, but that man is practically turning green and looks ready to kill anyone who gets in his way. If that man is Professor Logan, then so be it.

Plus, the Professor looks like he can take care of himself. At least, he's ignoring the panicked members of staff who swarm nearer with what might possibly be tranquilizers.

No way is Erik getting into that. He prepares himself to watch a full on brawl, and idly wishes he had popcorn. This looks like it'll be better than any movie. (Not that Erik sees movies. He's never been to a cinema.)

Then, like a miracle, the screaming stops. Erik stares.

What the fuck is Charles doing?

Stopping the brawl of the century, clearly. Charles has planted himself in between Professor Logan and the man, who looks like a wimp now that he isn't full of rage, and the staff are all lowering their tranqs.

Erik sneaks closer.

Huh. Charles is in the middle of a lecture about peace and the merits of nonviolence and why both of them should be more mature and not let such little differences almost lose both of them their places at MIT. Erik wonders if it's occurred to Charles that he's lecturing his own Professor.

"And Bruce, you can stay with me. I'm sure there's space in my dorm for you." Charles leads the guilty looking Bruce away. They're talking in undertones, leaving a very irate Professor Logan behind. Erik is wondering whether Charles can control minds or something, because he just talked those two down in three minutes, max.

He's also wondering if starting a fight would get him an invitation to become Charles's roommate. That lucky bastard just got an invite to Charles dorm, didn't he? What if he's in there ravishing Charles right now?

Erik really, really, really, needs to stop being a wimp and just give Charles the scarf back. It's freezing outside now, and it's going to snow soon, and Charles is going to need the damn thing.

Erik has a firm belief that before undertaking any mission-even Mission: Give Charles His Scarf and Carry His Books Before He Breaks His Arms-you need a plan, background information, and strategy.

Erik therefore compiles a list of possibly useful background data, omitting the details which involve only his observations of Charles's face and hands and hair and butt.

1. Charles drinks Earl Grey tea, and because of that his sister calls him an old fart. This means that Erik should have enough money on him constantly to buy that tea, because it is extremely expensive in the crappy little coffee shop wherein he spends every Friday afternoon.

2. Charles does not wear enough clothing. While Erik would love to see Charles prancing around campus naked, that only goes well during summer, and now it's winter and it's cold.

3. Charles's hair looks positively gorgeous being blown about by winter wind, and Erik didn't meant to put that on the list.

4. Charles says the word groovy. Erik knows this because once in class discussion Charles used it to describe a facet of Winston's Churchill's personality, and Professor Logan had a laughing fit. He also used it to describe one of Stark's projects, but Erik wasn't close enough to get the full sentence.

5. Charles will drop everything to help someone. Literally. Erik once watched him drop a hot cup of tea on his front to stop a little old lady from tripping. This is evidence that Erik doesn't deserve contact with Charles.

6. Charles speaks too many languages. Erik has seen him speak Latin fluently, observed that one of the thick books he constantly carries around was written in Greek, became unfortunately turned on in class when Charles made a joke in French (and he swears Professor Logan noticed and was cracking up more because of his state than the joke), heard him directing yet another pair of Asians to the front office in Mandarin, and heard him mock his sister in Spanish. Erik speaks German, French, and Spanish, and thinks that they could have long fascinating conversations about these languages.

7. Charles is devoted to his little sister. Not only do they spend three hours in a coffee shop talking every Friday afternoon, he also talks to her on the phone all the time. Or at least Erik assumes it's Raven, because he can't think of anyone else Charles would call "bratling" in such an affectionate tone of voice.

8. Charles is rich. Erik has only ever seen Stark and Bruce and another person he doesn't know go into the large building where Charles presumably spends his nights. Upon investigation, Erik found that the other person is named Steve, and that he is the captain of every sports team MIT has, and actually believes in "Mens at Manus", and is a patriot, and probably goes with Charles to volunteer at animal shelters in their spare time.

9. Charles reads the paper every day, even when that means walking across campus with his head stuck in the Boston Globe so he doesn't see where he's going and it's a miracle he doesn't spill all of his books on the ground, which by now always has frost on it.

10. Charles Xavier can smile and light up an entire room. Erik isn't sure how this is relevant to his strategy, but it should at least be noted so he isn't blindsided if Charles smiles at him.

With all this in mind, Erik carefully plots out a strategy which is mainly him returning the scarf and then showing off his language skills and buying Charles tea, and then somehow ensuring that Charles is so taken with him he dumps Stark and Bruce and Steve and Alice. Luckily, none of them are really big enough scare Erik, so he feels no hesitance about stealing Charles.

The strategy is meant to go into effect after Professor Logan's class. Erik, with a dry mouth, collects his notebook and walks outside with the scarf in one pocket. He is ready. He is prepared. He is not going to chicken out and…

A new and very unprecedented element is walking next to Charles. That being a six foot three hunk of enormousness and blondeness, who's wearing an open sleeved shirt and doesn't look cold, and who has draped a sweatshirt over Charles's shoulders (Erik has to assume the jacket belongs to the enormous man, because it certainly doesn't belong to Charles) and who is now carrying all of Charles's books, with one hand.

The other hand is holding the shaft of a very large hammer.

What in the actual fuck?

Erik hadn't counted on a freaking Viking coming into the picture. Charles and his Viking buddy walk past, chatting animatedly in what sounds like Norwegian. Charles pauses to smile at him.

"Hello, Erik."

"Uh. Hi." Well there you go Lensherr, sound like cro magnon. It's not like you want to impress the guy or anything. Erik blinks at Charles and tries to think of something else to say, and fails.

"I'll see you around." Charles flashes him another smile and drifts off with the large and blonde and Viking fellow, leaving Erik to wonder how his perfectly constructed strategy had been turned to dust.

"Mr. Lensherr, I was wondering if I could speak to you!" Erik stops and looks at his mechanics professor. He's hoping that this talking doesn't have to do with the fact that he accidentally ripped the thin sheet of platinum they were meant to be working on in half and had to fuse it together again.

(For the record, that fusing was flawless)

"What?" Erik is in a bad mood because now the large and Viking man is always carrying Charles's books. And he still has no idea what's up with the hammer.

The professor, rather than glaring and threatening to lower his grade if he didn't quit being a little bitch (Professor Logan's words, obviously) gulps.

"I was wondering if you would be willing to assist Mr. Stark. He's doing a project and could use a bit of help, but I haven't the time and the only one I know of who truly has a gift with the metals is you, and I would offer extra credit?" It's on the tip of Erik's tongue to refuse on principle because he considers himself better than a stupid intern helping stupid Stark do stupid things.

But this is Stark. He goes in and out of the Den of Iniquity that is Charles's dorm. He might be intimidated into sharing what secrets go on there, if prompted by the Glare of Doom.

At the very least, Erik will be able to sabotage his equipment in vengeance for the ass cupping gesture.

It's his first day of helping Stark, and Erik is probably not making a good impression. That's fine, because Stark is definitely making a worse one.

The lab has empty pizza boxes and beer bottles strewn round it. Some of the equipment might actually be rusting. Erik resolves right at that minute that he is cleaning this up, dammit, because metal shouldn't be abused this way.

Oh, and there's the fact that Stark is strapped into some kind of contraption with his arms and legs flailing as he fails at balance, and there's a glowy thing in his chest, but that's not nearly as relevant as the molding box of doughnuts.

"Kinky." Erik comments, then looks around. "Don't you have a broom?"

"Very freaking funny." Stark tries to move his hands. "Little help?"

Erik pauses and studies the picture presented to him.

"No, I don't think so. You built it, you can find your own way out." Stark breaks into swearing so colorful even Erik doesn't know the definitions of a few words. "Bravo, your mastery of the English language is quite impressive."

"I can see why you're so popular." Stark mutters under his breath. He raises his voice. "I'll give you a thousand dollars to get me out of here."

Erik is disliking Stark more and more each time he opens his mouth. Still, he steps forward and frowns at the control panel.

"It's complicated, you have to-" Erik holds up a hand and thinks. Stark actually shuts up, possibly only because no one has ever actually done the "talk to the hand" thing with him before.

"Got it." Erik yanks two wires, and the manacle-ish things around Stark's hands unclasp. The man falls to the floor in a heap. Erik is glad to see that he was smart enough to put some padding on the floor for that purpose, which seems to be the only proper part of this lab. "So, you actually work."

"You're hilarious, and yes I do." Stark growls, and rubs his chest. He reaches into his pants pocket and fishes out a wallet. "Here."

"Keep the money." Erik scowls at him. "I was sent here to help anyway, I just hadn't anticipated the first task being one that demeaned both of our intelligences."

"I thought you were Erik Lensherr?" Stark is still rubbing his chest-where the glowy thing is-in an absentminded way, but his attention is on Erik.

"How do you know my name, and why did you expect someone else?" Stark rolls his eyes and heads over to a table where, surprise surprise, there is pizza and beer. He picks up a slice of pizza and takes a bite, then answers with his mouth full.

"I didn't know that Prof. Stone's brilliant student was the same Erik Lensherr Charles has told me about."

"Charles talks about me?" Erik rather wished that sentence hadn't come out so fast and 13ish. Tony shrugs and offers him a beer and the pizza box. "I prefer to work sober."

"Suit yourself, but all I've got left to do is some documentation." Erik sniffs the pizza suspiciously, then starts to eat. "You should look over the charts though, see if you want me to explain anything."

Erik raises his eyebrows. "I thought you were keeping this under wraps."

"Charles seems to like you, that's good enough." Stark negligently waves a hand and burps. Erik takes a piece of paper, and finds that the gears and levers alone are enough to give him some trouble.

Stark designed this? Holy shit, he must actually be a genius.

"You said this was meant to be used in flight, didn't you?" Starks eyes him and nods. Erik taps the paper. "It doesn't account for temperature change."

"For what?" Stark hurries over, and suddenly looks a lot more scientific. Erik gestures to the chest plate.

"You go high enough, it ices over, power source fails, armor gets weighed down, you fall, you die." Stark's mouth opens and closes before he yanks the papers out of Erik's hands and begins muttering to himself.

Yeah. Mad scientist is fitting Stark pretty well right now.

"Thanks, hadn't caught that." Stark plops down at one of the tables and begins fiddling with things. His attention has gone entirely to a few sheets of red metal. Erik grudgingly concedes that Stark might not be all bad, and proceeds to clean the laboratory.

Erik considers this karmic justice for being too wimpy to ask Charles out for the first part of the year, and too busy cleaning gunk from tables to ask Tony about Charles for the second part.

He hadn't bothered checking his phone to find out that class was cancelled, and then trooping all the way over to Professor Logan's classroom in the middle of a blizzard. The building is locked, the snow is flying and Erik is hopelessly lost.

How could he go through miles of Polish wilderness and crowded German cities only to end up lost on a college campus, of all places? Seriously, if he dies being frozen to death and it turns out he's only steps away from someone's dorm, Erik will haunt this campus so hard that it'll make the Grudge look like Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Anyways. Erik grits his teeth and ploughs forward. Why did it have to be Professor Logan's class? For any other class wherein Charles was not present he would have just skipped and stayed in the dorm, but no, he had to go out, in a blizzard, and not be able to find his way back.

Freaking New England weather.

Erik glares into the wind. It looks like some sort of shelter is coming up in front of him, hopefully an unlocked building with kindly people inside who would take pity on a poor freezing student and let him stay in the hallway.

"Erik!" Did someone just say his name? He peers around. "Erik!"

"Hello?" He shouts. It's lost in the wind. Erik just barely sees the silhouette of a man walking towards him.

"Erik, come with me." The silhouette resolves itself into a definite human, just not one Erik can see well enough to identify. A freezing cold hand latches onto his wrist. "Come on!"

Well, far be it from him to argue with strange people who came from blizzards. Erik lets himself be dragged along, until there's a door opening in front of them and a booming voice saying "You idiots!"

Erik feels himself get grabbed by the collar and yanked into a warm place. He shakes snow out of his hair, and realizes he's staring into the chest of the Large Viking Person.

"You should have sent me! The blizzards here are mild for my country, but you pathetic Americans will freeze to death!" Erik can definitely believe that the weather is worse in Norway, because Viking Person is wearing a t shirt and barefoot.

"Well I saw him from the window, and I could hardly leave him out there while I fetched you! It's not as though I was out there for a very long time anyway." Erik glances at the man beside him, and holy shit, it's Charles. Who is, apart from being coated in snow, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie.

He went outside in that?

"Are you insane?" Erik asks incredulously.

"Which one?" Oh, and now Stark is here. That doesn't surprise Erik in the least, because he's realized that he's standing in a gourmet kitchen that's bigger than his entire house back in Germany. Who else but Tony Stark would live here?

"I believe the question applies to both." Erik responds. Large Viking Person and Charles laugh.

"Well Erik, that's debatable." Charles stretches out a hand. "I'm Charles Xavier, we have a class together?"

"I know. I was going to that class, actually, until I found that the building was locked."

"They do tend to cancel things when it's snowing like this." Charles agrees amiably.

"Bah." Charles rolls his eyes at Large Viking Person.

"Erik, this is Thor." Erik wonders if either of them take Norse Mythology. "He's one of the Princes of Norway, and he finds our silly American reactions to weather wimpy."

"In Norway, my brother and I would go jogging in this weather." Thor pauses. "Well, no. Loki stays inside and laughs and says that I am a fool to run outside when it is snowing and we have track space in the palace, but he will run if there is visibility."

Seriously, who named them that? Erik sort of hopes that Thor knows nothing of his country's myths.

"Well speaking as a pathetic American nerd, I'm a bit cold." Charles rubs his arms, where snow is melting. "I'm going to change. Erik, would you like anything to eat?"

Erik is busy wondering whether or not he's going to be allowed to stay.

"Of course, you can stay until it's safe to go outside again. There are only five of us here, so we have plenty of room." Charles claps his shoulder. "I'll introduce you as soon as we find you some dry clothing-I bet Bruce's stuff would fit you, I'll go find some. Come on!"

Charles drags him away, and Erik is pretty sure that this what being swept off your feet feels like. In two minutes he's had an MIT sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and a white t-shirt hurled at him by Charles, and has been shoved into a room with a bed and a bathroom leading off it.

The clothing is loose, but Erik isn't going to complain. He trots from the hallway and hesitantly knocks on the door marked "Professor X, mutant ruler of the universe". It's written in girly handwriting, and Erik suspects Raven.

"Come in!" Erik opens the door.

…

…

…

It takes a few moments for his neurons to start firing again. Charles is smiling cheerfully, holding a shirt in his hands. His hair is dripping water on his face and he's shirtless and his sweatpants are hanging off his hips and Erik needs to say something or do something or stop staring.

"The clothing is fine." He finally forces the words from his mouth. "Are you sure you don't mind me staying here?"

"Erik." Charles says severely. He finally puts his shirt on, and then pulls a sweatshirt over it. The sweatshirt proclaims in rainbow letters that "some metal benders marry telepaths", and Erik doesn't even want to know what that means. "We have plenty of room, and none of us want you to go out there and freeze. Now come on, I'll introduce you to the others."

Charles does the grabby thing again, and Erik feels his whole arm tingle. Then Charles drags him into the living room.

"This is Steve, you can just call him Captain." There's a tall and muscley man sprawled over a couch who looks up and grins at Charles. He's holding a textbook, and looks like he was studying.

"Nice to meet you. I hope you don't mind if I don't get up, I've gotten perfect alignment with the couch cushions." Erik hasn't ever met someone who owned red and white sweatpants. Or who would couple it with a sweatshirt with a star on it, and thus looks like he's wearing the American Flag.

"Likewise." Erik manages. This guy looks a bit like he could snap Erik's spine in half with one hand, regardless of the bowl of chips balanced on his stomach.

"And the one over there in the chair is Bruce, he loaned you the clothes. I would have gone after Tony because he actually owns a couple of turtlenecks and that's what you always wear, but Tony doesn't own anything clean." Bruce smiles at him. Erik takes careful note of the book he's reading-it's by Isaac Newton. Is everyone here a genius?

"It's nice to see what you actually look like."

"And anyway, you already know Thor and Tony." Thor appears in the doorway to the kitchen, holding a massive bag of popcorn, and a tray of fresh chocolate chip cookies. They teach Nordic Princes to make cookies?

"Take all you want, I was bored." Thor informs him. He pours popcorn into Captain's bowl and hands a few cookies to Bruce. He then sits down in an enormous red armchair that looks too high class for this room.

The room is actually quite interesting. A television with way too many wires connecting to it to be normal is in the center, and there things aligned it would tell any follower of Sherlock Holmes all they needed to know about the inhabitants.

At the Captain's couch there are piles of textbooks, discarded bowls, and lots of coasters.

At the La-Z-boy closest to the television, where Tony is sprawled, there are pizza boxes piled on top of each other, and beer cases make a table, over which is tossed a lot of sensitive equipment. And a beer. And a plate of cookies. Also tossed haphazardly on the floor are flash drives, two dissected Iphones, and graphs covered in scribbles.

Erik doesn't even want to comment on the fact that while Tony eats with one hand, the other is scribbling numbers on another graph.

There's another La-Z-Boy next to that one, where Bruce is curled up with a book. Around him are heaped…more books. And a microscope. And two large calculators. And a glowing lead box.

Thor's large red armchair is actually the least chaotic. There's an open laptop on a shelf at about eyelevel, several large furs draped around the area, magazines, textbooks, an enormous heap of letters written in Norwegian, a large hammer…

"Seriously, why do you have a hammer?" Thor grins and hefts the thing in one hand. Erik notices that it's bigger than his head.

"It's from my country! I am in experimental physics, and this is a tool!" He pats it fondly. "Also makes an excellent lucky charm."

"For the insane." Erik mutters. Tony makes a sound of agreement, Bruce buries his nose in his book, Charles snickers.

"My friend, make yourself comfortable on the couch." Ah, there's the space Erik assumes is Charles's. It's a smaller couch than the one Steve is crushing, and around it, in neat stacks, are enough books to fill a small library. And that's not even mentioning the bookcase behind it, which stretches to the ceiling.

"Ignore his miniature library." Bruce says with a smile. "Charles has a fetish for books."

Tony crows. Charles makes an exasperated noise.

"Bruce, I need to stop overestimating your maturity." He bends down to rummage in the wires around the television. "Erik, do you mind watching Star Wars? We desperately need to get the Captain away from that textbook before he melds with it."

"And they become one being, a shared consciousness, the sole defense of America against rumors of idiocy." Tony adds. Steve shoots him a glare, and Erik sits down on the couch, deciding not to get involved.

"Both of you shut up, or Thor will shut you up with his hammer." Charles calls over his shoulder. Silence reigns, and Erik understands why this house hasn't spontaneously combusted yet. "Tony, did you have to put so many buttons on this?"

"It does more stuff!"

"It's insanely complicated." The picture screen goes fuzzy, then displays the outside of the building. It looks like it's from creepily well placed high definition security cameras. "Damn, wrong feed."

Well, that isn't scary at all.

"Try typing JV2334." Tony burps at the end of the sentence. Large yellow letters begin to scroll over a starry backdrop. "Aha!"

"Excellent! Erik, you'll love these." Steve and Bruce both put down their books. Tony stops making calculations. Thor grins and leans forward in anticipation. Erik tries to focus on something other than the fact that Charles has just sat down right next to him on the couch, which really isn't very big.

The movie is brilliant, and Erik hasn't been so enthralled by fiction in years. The only problem is that Charles is being distracting. First he insists on stealing the popcorn Thor gives Erik rather than getting his own, which means they sit inches from each other. Then Steve dims the lights, claiming that he can't see the picture, and Erik is even more uncomfortable.

And of course Thor hurls a large furry blanket at them and demands that they use it so they don't freeze to death like most wimpy Americans. Bruce giggles in his chair and makes weird eye contact with Charles that Erik doesn't particularly understand.

The culmination of this all is that Erik really needs to see the next movie in the Saga, and Charles is asleep on his shoulder.

"Well I'm going to bed. You two kids have fun." Tony says, and navigates his way out of his corner of chaos without knocking over a single beer bottle. Bruce hurries after him, pausing to shoot Erik and Charles an amused look.

Thor leaves next, muttering under his breath in Norwegian. He takes his hammer with him.

"I think I'll head off." The Captain gets up. He pauses, then makes deep meaningful eye contact with Erik. "Be safe."

That leaves Erik blushing like he hasn't since he was 13, and glad that Charles is asleep. He nudges Charles.

"Charles, wake up. The movie is over." Charles yawns and shakes his head. "Come on."

"Fine." Charles grumbles. He pads after Erik to where his room and the one assigned to Erik are. On the threshold to the room, he pauses. "Goodnight Erik. I hope you sleep well."

Erik won't sleep well. He'll go to sleep after hours of fantasizing about how good Charles looks with that tousled hair and sleepy eyes. And that is simply no longer acceptable.

"Goodnight." Erik steps forward and brushes his lips against Charles's. It's probably the most innocent (and nervous) kiss of his entire life.

Charles moans against his mouth and flings his arms around Erik's neck. Erik doesn't even have time to grunt before Charles has invaded his mouth, and moved one hand down to caress the area just above Erik's pants.

"Eh?" he manages when Charles draws back.

Charles no longer looks sleep tousled and unintentionally sexy. His eyes are glinting in a "sex you up" fashion, he's panting, and dear God, no one has a right to look that ravishable.

"Finally! I was beginning to think you were straight."

"What do you mean finally?" Erik demands. Charles sighs loudly.

"I have been drinking bad and expensive tea for months because for some reason you go to that stupid coffee place, lost a scarf my dear friend Alex knitted me in an attempt to gain your attention, strained every muscle in my arms trying to provoke chivalry from you and bothered Tony incessantly for the opportunity to watch you be sexy with metal. Plus the fact that you didn't respond at all to the obvious seduction tactic of being shirtless." Charles pauses. "I do hope that doesn't sound creepy."

"…not at all." Erik grabs Charles's waist and pushes him into the room, kicks the door shut behind them, and is thankful Charles chose to wear easy to wiggle from sweatpants. "I was only going to that stupid shop because I was under the impression you enjoyed the tea."

"Worst tea I've had in my life." Charles pants out, while ridding Erik of his shirt and sweatshirt in one move. In an impressive display of skill, he's gotten Erik onto the bed and himself straddling him in barely a minute.

After that, conversation is unnecessary.

Line break

"Hey, Charles." Erik rests his chin on Charles's shoulder. He's sleepy and comfortable and has just had truly amazing sex.

"Hmm?"

"Is that a chess set in the corner?"

A/N: Why did I write this. Why. I have 4 mini essays and a writing for history and a dog to walk, and other writing to do (I'm working on Domestics, and there will be updates soon I swear, and I'm writing a BAMF!Evil!PhoenixForce!Charles right now) and I haven't even seen any of the Marvel movies except all the X-Men movies, Iron Man 1, and Thor. But then an idea struck me and I started to write and I looked up and four hours had passed, and I'd better get some reviews. Because this entire piece is one long expansion of my original "Thor is carrying heavy things for Charles and he has a hammer and Erik is like WTF" idea that spiraled out of control and somehow all the Avengers turned up for no reason.

Oh, and sorry if any of the Avengers are OOC. I just sort of guessed with the Hulk, and watched the trailer for Captain America, and yeah…that's about it. Sorry that there isn't enough Loki. Sorry it isn't very well revised, I just want to post it and go do my homework.

Would anyone want to see an epilogue for this?