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It's not possible to remain in a deep state of sleep when somebody's face is a hair-width away from your own.
Especially when that face is exhaling a combination of morning breath and Grape Pixy Stix right up your nose.
Peter Maximoff scrunched up his face and, on hearing his nephew bellow that he was awake, flinched into a fighting stance on his bed and sent Tommy tumbling to the floor.
“Dude!” Peter groaned and dropped back onto the mattress. “What is it with you and the watching me sleep thing?”
Tommy giggled. Billy was leaning against the doorframe with his bowl of cereal and smiling.
“I told him you'd headbutt him,” the Minimoff said, before slurping another spoonful of Fruitloops.
Tommy, in one of Peter's t shirts that hung way too loose on him, and ragged sneakers he'd destroyed from super-speeding, grabbed his uncle's shoulders and vibrated with hyperactivity.
“It's Halloween! Uncle P...Halloween!”
“It's...” Peter looked at his digital clock radio, his face dropping as he turned back to his floppy haired ward, “...seven fifteen.”
Billy grinned from the doorway.
“I'm his favorite again,” he taunted in a sing-song voice.
“You are my only nephew, William,” Peter said, still staring at Tommy in disbelief, “Tommy who? Never heard of him.”
Tommy flung himself at Peter and tackled him backwards onto his mattress. Peter lay back with a grunt and ruffled Tommy's hair.
“But it's Halloweeeeeeen!” Tommy whined.
“And we do all that stuff in the eeeeeeeeeevenig!” Peter mimicked.
Tommy propped himself up on his elbow, which dug into Peter's ribs, and pouted.
“We have to get costumes and plot mischief and mayhem,” he looked down at his uncle while adopting his most petulant tone of voice.
Peter dragged Tommy over to lay beside him and took note of his stolen Poison T-shirt.
“I want this back little dude,” he mumbled and Tommy smiled and nodded, “and do you have any idea when I got back from...place with loud bigots and lots of guns?”
“Late?” Tommy cringed.
“Early...like almost five this morning.”
“You're never gonna be his favorite again,” Billy said with wide eyes.
Tommy looked at him, guiltily, brown eyes wide and emotional.
“So could you wake me up again, at around 10 maybe?” Peter copied the pouty face his nephew had used on him. He waited for Tommy to nod, sincerely. “And you know what's really cool? Being an arms' length away from my face when you do it?”
Tommy pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. Billy made no such effort. Tommy nodded again.
“And if you totally love me, maybe you'd have a carton of OJ and a plate full of Pop Tarts for me too.”
Tommy's face lit up and he opened his mouth to speak.
“Yes, you can have a plate full of Pop Tarts too, mix and match 'em between us, 'kay?”
“Awesome!” Tommy zipped out of the room and Peter groaned and rolled over, facing the wall.
“Are you just sleepy, Uncle P?” Billy's voice called from the doorway.
“Just sleepy, not hurt,” Peter responded, muffled into his pillow.
“Not sad either?”
Peter lifted his head and turned awkwardly to look at the boy.
“Nah, not sad, buddy. Thanks for asking.”
Billy grinned and jerked his head, causing the door to swing closed as he walked after his brother.
Peter heaved a sigh and was deep into sleep immediately.
Logan and the Professor were making their way to the rec room, where the youngest students were decorating for Halloween that evening, and discussing the early hours mission.
“I have to admit, the team are very subdued this afternoon,” Xavier said.
“Sleepwalking, Charles, they're sleepwalking.” Logan grunted.
“Low energy,” Charles smiled and wheeled through the doorway, “and gearing up for a group sugar high tonight. I feel tomorrow is going to be the real hangover from this mission.”
“They're all young, they rebound pretty fast,” Logan smirked.
“Speaking of youthful energy,” Charles frowned and called out to either a mini hurricane or Tommy Maximoff, “Tommy?”
The blur of orange and black crepe paper stilled as the boy paused to look at the Professor. He pushed his goggles up on top of his head.
“Hey Professor!”
“Hello, um... you appear to be very spirited about tonight's activities.” Charles smiled, awkwardly.
“Yeah!” Tommy yelled and fist pumped.
Charles looked at Billy, who was less hyperactive, but grinning wider than his usual good mood would present.
“It's our anniversary!” Billy beamed.
Charles looked puzzled and blinked a few times before turning to look up at Logan.
“Your birthdays' already happened, boys. I remember it well. The migraine just ended.” Logan winked at them.
Tommy rolled his eyes and huffed, dramatically. Billy levitated a pumpkin over to them, ahead of his own progress on foot, still looking delighted about something.
“No, our anniversary with Uncle P!” Billy explained and gave a flourish with his index finger, causing the pumpkin to rotate and show an impressive likeness of Peter.
Charles narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to one side.
“Still not quite with you.”
A chain of tinfoil spiderwebs floated into view and connected themselves to the rafters, as Eric stepped into view and turned his attention to his oldest friend.
“The first time the boys met Peter was on the morning of Halloween last year...well a year ago, it wasn't really last year,” he shrugged to himself about the warped timeline his grandsons lived through.
Charles nodded his understanding just as Eric brushed loose glitter off his clothing and onto Charles. The man sputtered.
“Oh, not intentional, sorry.” The man smirked.
“It wouldn't be you without any unwanted shrapnel,” Charles muttered and brushed at himself with his hands.
“So you kids havin' a Peter party?” Logan asked the twins.
“We're having a Halloween party but it's extra special because it means we've had Uncle P for a whole year!” Billy could barely contain himself.
“We're making him a cake!” Tommy yelled.
Charles face dropped.
“Kitty's making him a cake while they...assist.” Eric mumbled to Charles, who found himself able to breathe again.
“Well that's lovely,” Charles said with visible relief.
“And we've learned his favorite song,” Billy began.
“One of his favorite songs,” Eric corrected.
“Yeah, one of his fifty favorite songs,” Billy agreed, “to play for him at the party. The band's gonna play!”
Tommy whooped and the other children winced and cringed.
'The band' was the younger music students from Peter's class, performing without Peter. They were accomplished with their instruments for their age, but hectic. Hank had once described it as a jazz quartet being fed into a thresher by a heavy metal group, with their respective instruments being played the entire time.
“He'll be stoked, I'm sure,” Logan chuckled.
Later in the day Raven strode, with more haste than usual, into Hank's lab. She was clearly trying to look unperturbed to keep up appearances.
“So Peter just chugged six cans of Jolt Cola,” she said with a shrug and a shake of the head, “I don't know if that needs some defibrillators or anything.” She shrugged again. “Just giving you a heads up.”
She then pressed herself flat against the door frame as Hank, predictably, ran out of the lab with his emergency bag and an Ace bandage dragging along behind him, from where it had caught around his ankle in his haste.
Peter was holding a huge container of Elmers School paste in one hand and a pair of pinking shears in the other, while Tommy was shaking a spray can of something black and holding it over his light brown hair.
“Nobody move!” Hank bellowed. “Nobody glue anything or cut anything, or spray anything.” Hank panted and approached Peter with his hands up.
Peter nodded to the trail of bandage behind him.
“You collecting dust bunnies?” Peter asked.
Hank glanced back and then shook his leg to try to dislodge the bandage, which had managed to collect every piece of debris he'd passed along the way. He looked Peter up and down and then grabbed him by the shoulders to keep him in one place.
“What are you doing?”
Peter's eyes widened and he looked around the room for someone to 'what the hell is up with this guy' with, but there was noone but the twins.
“Uh...Halloween costumes? The boys have been hyper about it all day.” Peter shrugged.
“So you mainlined a six pack of speed to join them?” Hank's mind boggled.
Peter looked to the crumpled cans in the trash and shrugged as much as he could under Hank's grip.
“Just cola.”
“Not just cola, Pete. We've been through this after the Mountain Dew incident.” Hank released Peter to rub at the vein throbbing at the side of his forehead.
“I always flatline when you hook me up to your machines! It's the speed my heart's supposed to go.” Peter huffed.
“Yes, but you're not usually shaking so much you become out of focus to the human eye...while standing still!” Hank growled.
“Technically that was down to the suppressors you had me on so the dentist could give me anaesthesia for my broken tooth.”
“And how did you break the tooth, Pete?”
Peter's head lowered and his mumbled.
“Excuse me?” Hank put a hand to his ear, purely as a performance because he knew exactly what his friend had just said.
“Trying to take off bottle caps with my teeth.”
Hank looked at the twins and spread his arms wide.
“He looks after you but who looks after him?”
Tommy giggled and Billy levitated up to look Hank in the eye.
“I will, Doctor Hank.”
This melted away some of the man's anxiety and he ruffled Billy's hair.
“You know what? I believe you will.”
Peter vanished and reappeared with orange segments, sliced apples and a bunch of bananas.
“Look, snack break, healthy snacks.” Peter gave his friend a doe-eyed look of sincerity. “Come boys, eat fruit with me for Hank and his nerves.”
“Okay,” Billy smiled and took a banana.
“Cool!” Tommy ate half the orange segments and then paused with the bowl of apple slices in his hand to whisper to his uncle in that way that everybody can hear just as clearly as if he'd just spoken normally. “This'll get him off our back when we get all the candy tonight!”
Peter forced a laugh and put Tommy into a loose headlock.
“Haha, kids huh? Saying any old shit even when it's not true, right? Damn kids.”
“Don't swear in front of the children,” Hank groaned as he gave up and trudged back to his lab. “I'll ready the stomach pump for this evening.”
“Good call.” Peter nodded.
Tommy laughed again.
“Dude, do you ever think before you speak?” Peter huffed as he released his nephew and poked him in the ribs.
“No,” Billy answered for him.
“Thinking's for chumps!” Tommy said, zipping in a blur back to the aerosol can. “Now let's get my hair all black!”
“I think this stuff makes it all stiff like hairspray too, so we should get your yellow spandex on first, don't ya think?”
“Good call, Uncle P!” Tommy agreed.
“Okay,” Peter ate two bananas and some apple slices before clapping is hands together and continuing, “so we've got a little Logan on the go right here. Billy boy, little bitty baby Billy boy, lay it on me.”
“I still wanna be Auntie Raven, but everyone says boys can't be girls, even for Halloween.” Billy sighed.
“Excuse me, can Raven be a boy any time she wants?” Peter threw an arm around Billy's shoulders.
“Yeah but...”
“And we both know girls rock way harder than boys, am I right?”
“Of course!” Billy rolled his eyes as if the question was stupid.
“We got your mom, Ororo, Aunt Wendy, Jubilee... I mean come on, Jubilation Lee! Who isn't going to go to this thing in a bright yellow raincoat and dishwashing gloves?”
Billy suddenly hugged Peter, smiling widely.
“Anyone smack talking you for going Trick or Treating as a girl has to answer to me, remember?”
“And nobody gets to answer Uncle P!” Billy grinned.
“They can't get a word in Billiam!” Peter squatted before him and tilted his head to one side in thought. “But you know...? There's a way. Where there's a will there's a way and you're the Will so we got a way.”
“What?” Billy scrunched up his nose.
“You can go as Mystique...pretending to be you.”
Billy's shoulders slumped and he pouted.
“That's just me going as myself.”
“No, no, no,” Peter corrected. “We use that spray in hair stuff to do half your hair red and slicked back, the other half your hair, like normal. We can put blue face paint in scale shapes down your face here, like cover a third of your face. I don't think anyone's gonna let me put a lens in your eye, so we'll avoid that.”
Peter looked down his nephew's neck and drew a line with his finger where the blue face paint would go.
“Then we get you a blue body suit and one of your shirts you've grown out of. We cut that in half and sew it on, so half of you is Raven and half is Billy.”
“You can sew it?” Billy asked.
“I...will find out who's good at sewing and find out their price.” Peter winked. “You go dig out a shirt to sacrifice.”
“Okay!” Billy ran off to do exactly that.
“What's your costume, Uncle P?” Tommy whooshed over to him and jiggled around on the balls of his feet.
“Well I was gonna shave my head and go as the Professor, but when I tried to tip him out of his wheelchair he got real angry with me!” Peter's eyes widened to exaggerate his reaction.
Tommy laughed and slapped him on the arm.
“No really!”
“Oh really? Really I'm going to go as Magneto. I'm gonna wear a maroon bathrobe and a tin bucket on my head.”
“Uncle Peter!” Tommy punched his shoulder.
“You will know who I am when you see me,” he smiled as he narrowed his eyes and leaned in to his nephew's face.
“You will know me from my trail of dead,” Tommy's eyes flickered with mischief as he spoke.
“Either you've been reading the Professor's older books or you've heard one of Grandpa's motivational speeches...either way do NOT tell your mother.” Peter shivered as he spoke.
“Mom loves grandpa,” Tommy said with a smile.
“Which is why we should live in eternal fear.” Peter explained.
Later Peter pushed temporary aburn colouring through his hair and inhaled deeply while Ororo fastened his fuchsia body armour around him.
“It's so strange,” she said, looking at his hair, “not you.”
“That's the point of Halloween,” Peter said, before admiring the Rush T-shirt she was wearing.
He grabbed his silver jacket and held it out for her to put on. Ororo smiled as she adjusted the collar and looked at herself in the mirror.
“Would it be vain of me to say you look really hot right now?” Peter asked her. She laughed and put on the old superspeed glasses he used to wear for the danger room, before they got cracked, and adopted a running pose.
“What about now?”
“Especially now.” Peter grinned.
He pushed his feet into knee high metal boots and paced up and down, wincing at every clunk they made.
“How does he creep up on anyone with these things on?”
“You'll have to ask him.”
Peter went to his bathroom and made several hisses and curses before re-emerging, blinking his watering eyes and tousling his hair.
“Well?” He said, arms spreading wide and red iris' blinking back at her.
“You need more swagger,” Ororo looked down his form fitting costume with approval, and of course the accent.
“Oh oui, oui, mon petit chou. Lazez les bon tems roller.”
“Laissez les bons temps rouler,” she corrected.
“That's what I said!”
Peter turned and reached into a large paper bag from his trip to the thrift store. He heard a hum of approval behind him and looked back to smirk at Ororo.
“Enjoy the ass while you can,” he teased and pulled a long brown coat out of the bag, “because I'm covering it up all night with this baby.”
He pulled the coat on and struck a number of Gambit-like poses, making Ororo laugh louder with each one, then grabbed a stack of Uno cards and put them in various pockets.
“Come chere,” Peter bowed to Ororo and then offered his arm to her, which she took with a giggle, “let us bless the people wit' our beauty!”
When they walked into the rec room for the party they were greeted by Tommy, as Wolverine, with tinfoil claws attached to his fingerless gloves.
“Logan said I was just like him but smaller!”
“And not much smaller either!” Peter grinned before looking at Logan and winking.
The man looked down at Peter's full costume and back to his face.
“Way to turn from my most favorite person to my least favorite in one night,” the man grumbled.
“Ah, mon ami, you know you love dat Cajun t'ief, your brother...or would be lover...if you just asked Gambit nice.”
Logan snorted a laugh and shoved Peter in the chest.
“Jeez, stop that crap, I'm gonna have to punch you!”
“Yeah, swamp rat,” Tommy did his best to rough up his voice and imitate Logan, “I'll send you back to the bayou with a one way ticket...or maybe just tie you to the back of the bus and let it drag you there.”
“Tommy!” Wendy gasped.
“Relax,” Remy said, stepping forward in his dapper Jesse James costume, “he just repeatin', word for word I might add,” he paused to compliment Tommy, “what Logan said to me when I arrived.”
Peter stepped up and tilted his head, looking at Remy in his outfit.
“I see you come as a low life t'ief, de difference between yo outlaw self and my...” Peter posed and gestured down at himself, “my dis, is style and not getting' caught.”
Remy smirked and gave a flick of the finger at the collar of the brown coat.
“See the real Remy got style, you got Columbo's raincoat.”
People said 'ooh' and laughed. Peter drew one of his Uno cards and struck Remy in the forehead with it.
“Reverse!” He declared and then adopted a Gambit style move as if ready to parry an oncoming attack.
Everybody burst out laughing and the real Remy turned his back on Peter and held out an arm to Ororo.
“Lady Quicksilver, I be the t'ief and there you go stealin' my heart. Come, lemme tell you about how I learn to wrestle 'gators before I learn to write my own name.”
“But what else you do last week, chere?” Peter teased.
“Oh God stop that, you're too good at it,” Erik's hand landed heavily on Peter's shoulder.
“Uncle P!” Billy rushed over, well half of Billy.
“Ah nice try Raven, you can't fool me.” Peter teased.
Billy beamed at the compliment of his costume.
“Aunt Raven said flattery is the sincerest form of compliment...no wait...that wasn't it.” He stalled and tried to remember what she'd said.
“Imitation,” Eric helped him out.
“Yeah that,” Billy said, a little embarrassed.
“And she's totally right little dude,” Peter agreed, “flattery is the sincerest form of imitation.”
Billy cackled at the mistake and hugged Peter around the waist.
“Come, we've got something for you.”
“You do? Is it a trick or a treat?” Peter let his nephew lead him by the hand across the room. “Keep in mind I put raw egg on my head for hair maintenance so egging me isn't really much of a trick.”
As Scott and Jean, dressed as Danny and Sandy from Grease, parted to let him through Peter saw a familiar costume from the back.
“Uh...Sokovian fortune teller?” He asked and Wanda turned around and did her weird little mime, then laughed and threw her arms around him. “Hey!” Peter hugged her back.
“This was just for the bit,” Wanda said, before waggling her fingers so the costume dissolved away in 'red wiggly woos' and she was revealed to be dressed like Molly Ringwald from The Breakfast Club. “I did something 80s for you guys!”
Wanda found herself immediately adored by every teenager at the party, while the Professor and Hank tried to understand why what she was wearing was deemed a costume, and Tommy appeared in a yellow spandex blur with an oversized envelope in his hands.
“For you!” He said as he thrust it at his uncle.
“Halloween has cards now?” Peter looked confused as he opened it.
As he read the misspelled anniversary message on the front of the card a banner full of glitter unfurled and landed in a clump on the heads of Hank and Logan, who looked as resigned yet annoyed as possible, while Raven lost her mind with laughter at the sight.
“Happy first anniversary Uncle P!” The boys yelled and tackled him.
“First anniversary of what?” He asked, winded.
“Halloween was your first day of being an uncle,” Wanda smiled and conjured a handful of glitter into her palm and then dumped it onto Peter's temporarily auburn hair.
“Oh shit it is!” Peter gaped.
He was swatted by somebody for swearing in front of the children, but nobody was that bothered.
“A whole year huh?” He put both boys in loose headlocks. “Time flies like red headed Maximoff.” He shook his head in wonder.
Wanda laughed and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you for being the best Uncle ever.”
“Thank you for not blasting me into a haystack!” Peter beamed.
“And now, we're going to play for you,” Billy broke away and gestured to where the instruments were set up.
“The whole band is gonna play!” Tommy flailed.
“Ah, I had the treat and now the trick.” He teased.
“We're good, you said so.” Tommy was almost warning his uncle to like the performance.
“I think you'll find I said you were great, but if you're not gonna try for my big anniversary show then...”
“Oh shut up and let them rip,” Wendy shoved him.
The band played, pretty well for them, and Peter danced with Ororo, then Remy...then Ororo and Remy at the same time.
He slithered out from them, leaving them dancing with each other, and joined his twins to have a Maximoff dance off over who got to eat the majority of the cake.
“Your family,” Charles said, warmly to Erik.
“Nearly all of them,” Erik smiled, wistfully.
“Anya and Nina would have loved them, loved this.” Charles looked on a little sadly.
“Well actually I meant Lorna was away on a mission.” Erik muttered. “But, as Peter would say, way to drop a bummer bomb Charles.”
Raven, overhearing this, was lost to hysterics once again.