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Charles had eleven Valentine's Day cards, one from every person in his class. He'd given out eleven cards of his own, tucking each one into the heart-shaped pocket hanging at the bottom edge of the chalkboard. He'd sorted through the pre-printed valentines carefully, each of the boys and girls in his class getting a valentine with a robot on it.
His valentines were nearly equally divided between three different sentiments that made no sense to Charles whatsoever. The first one was "UR GR8", which made Charles cringe-- just because something had only artificial intelligence to work with didn't mean it couldn't spell words in English! The second one was "I'm nuts and bolts about you", which Charles didn't care for very much, either. Nuts and bolts meant the bare essentials, colloquially; shouldn't the recipient be the 'nuts and bolts' to the giver's robot? Otherwise it was just making assumptions. The third one just read "You make my heart beep", which Charles supposed a robot's heart might, if for some reason one were to design it with a heart... and happened to give that heart a piezoelectric buzzer.
But he'd picked out this box of ridiculous robot Valentine's Day cards because one of the four designs read "You're Magnetic, Valentine!", and had a picture of a robot being forcibly drawn over to a horseshoe magnet... a horseshoe magnet with little cartoon eyes and a big smile.
And Erik Lehnsherr was in Charles's class this year.
Erik had been so convinced his Valentine's Day cards would be the best ever. When his mom agreed to buy them, he'd hugged her around the waist right there in the drugstore. The box said his cards were foil-printed, and the picture made it look like they were plated with silver and gold... or more realistically, brass and steel, but who cared? Metal Valentine's Day cards!
Of course, by the time he got them home, he knew the "foil-printed" part just meant the cards were decorated with a little metallic ink-- he would have been able to feel real metal ones. He opened the box anyway, just in case he was wrong, but no. Some of the metallic ink was even scraped off. It didn't look or feel anything like metal at all. Worse than that, all the cards said sappy things like BE MINE and YOU'RE THE BEST and WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?
He was tempted not to pass them out at all, but then the teacher would tell him to hand-write some last-minute notes or something. So he signed 'Erik" on eleven cards and jammed them into his classmates' heart-shaped pockets more or less at random.
The cards from his classmates were all just as stupid, though. That was a relief. Armando's cards all had animals on them. The one he'd given Erik had a frog on it, and it said "HOP YOUR VALENTINE'S DAY IS SPECIAL!" Janos's cards didn't say anything at all; they just had hearts printed on them on both sides.
But the card from Charles was different. Erik's eyes went wide when he saw the magnet. "You're Magnetic, Valentine!"
It wasn't generic at all. It was just for him. Erik clutched the little cardboard Valentine and looked over at Charles.
Charles supposed he should feel bad about glancing through the valentines and ignoring them all in favor of the one from Erik. If there was one thing he'd learned in his six years at The Lee Institute For Mutant Youth, it was that having favorites just got you more attention from people whose mutations weren't, shall we say, enhancing their minds.
But Erik was his favorite, and when Charles pulled Erik's silver-toned valentine out of its sleeve, he smiled.
And then smiled even more broadly when he saw what the valentine said.
He turned to look at Erik and mouthed, Yes!
Erik frowned at him in mild confusion. "Yes, what?" he whispered, while the rest of their sixth-grade class continued looking through their own valentines.
«Yes, I'll be your valentine!»
It took Erik by surprise-- telepathy always did-- but then Erik straightened, and nodded, still holding onto Charles's valentine like it was the most important thing in the world.
He'd given Charles a "WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?" card? This was news to Erik. But he wasn't going to argue with the results-- if Charles was willing to reach out with his telepathy in order to say yes, he must actually mean it.
After school, Erik lingered in the coat closet until nearly everyone had gotten their things and left. Charles was taking a long time to zip up his backpack, too.
"Do you want to come to my house after school today?" Charles asked. "We could look at my rock collection. Some of my rocks are metal ore..."
"I should ask my mother first," Erik said. "She'll get worried if I don't show up on the bus."
"Oh." Charles nodded. "You could ask about tomorrow. You could come home with me. My driver's really nice, he won't mind."
Erik knew Charles meant the man who drove Charles home in a car, not another bus driver. He'd always wondered what it would be like to live in Charles Xavier's house, having his own driver and cook and parents who were away on business more often than not.
He'd also been wondering this whole year what kissing felt like, and whether it was as nice as the older kids said.
The last of the kids in their class filed out of the coat closet, and Erik took his chances, stepping right up to Charles and kissing him full on the lips-- no going halfsies on this, if he was going to steal a kiss it was going to be a good one. Charles pulled back, a little startled, but he smiled and smiled at Erik, and a moment later he pressed his lips against Erik's and kissed him back.
"I'm going to miss my bus," Erik said breathlessly. He almost didn't care.
"I can give you a ride!" Charles burst out. "I mean... we can. My driver can."
It took the bus forever to get to Erik's house. A car could take him straight there. His mother wouldn't even have time to get worried, and this way he could introduce Charles to his mom...
He kissed Charles again, and again, and yes, he was definitely going to miss his bus. But he could feel Charles's lips curved into a smile whenever he kissed him, and Charles kissed him back, and really, it was worth missing his bus to get more kisses. And he was really, really, incredibly glad he'd given Charles that stupid fake-foil Valentine's Day card.
-end-