𝐒𝐖𝐈𝐅𝐓 (X-Men ~ Peter Maximoff)

Congratulations & Jubil(ee)ations

When Jennifer walked into the teachers lounge on Monday morning, everything seemed the same. Fellow staff were sitting around the few tables, sipping fresh coffee from their mugs and sifting through piles of homework. Some were chatting about their classes, tests they were planning and their weekend plans, while others were fully immersed in their marking. 

In total there were twelve teachers that worked at the school. Two for group one, three for group two, and seven shared across three and four. For the most part, the teachers were closest to the other teachers from their group, but they were all friendly with each other and frequently mingled.

Currently, there were eight of them in the lounge, the rest supervising the students that were at recess. It had been a fairly quiet morning, classes running as usual with Hank and Charles back from their home visit with a new student in tow. 

Jennifer stood at the small worktop, waiting for the coffee pot to warm up. After Peter had headed back home last night, she'd stared at her hand for what must've been hours, just taking in the sight of the shining ring on her finger. Wrapping her head around the fact that she was engaged was no easy task. Even despite being in love with Peter for a decade, and frequently dreaming about them being married, it was surreal that it was finally actually happening. What had happened on Saturday was still on repeat in her head, the two of them rolling on the grass, the smile on Peter's face. It was heaven.

Jennifer picked up the pot as the coffee started boiling, quickly pouring the liquid into her mug then passing it to Julie Breckford beside her as she added in some milk and sugar. She often wondered how she had consumed the amount of black coffee as she had during university, because she absolutely despised the bitterness of it now. While dropping the stirrer in the bin, Julie caught sight of Jennifer's new piece of jewellery, shining bright under the florescent lights. 

"Oh my god!," she exclaimed, grabbing Jennifer's hand and tugging it closer to her. "When did this happen?"

Her outburst had gained the attention of everyone else in the room, and soon enough they were all gathered around the two of them, looking at the ring. Among the crowd there was Alex, Hank and Charles. Jennifer felt a flush rise to her cheeks at the sudden attention. 

Words of congratulations were passed around, followed by a string of questions that Jennifer didn't know the answers to, like, when's the wedding?, are you going to get a house together?, who's going to be the maid of honour?. All she could do was smile as her hand was pulled around the group, letting everyone get a good look at the band. Suffice to say that Jennifer was more than grateful to hear the bell ring, signalling the teachers to get back to class. 

It wasn't that she had any grudges against her fellow staff, but instead that everything was suddenly happening all too quickly, and she was ten steps behind, still reliving two days ago over and over. She didn't know what the next step was, and neither did Peter. To them, the important thing was that they were together, and that they were taking a step towards eternity. When the wedding was, where it would be, who would be invited, they hadn't talked about, far too overjoyed to care about technicalities when the guy of her dreams had just proposed. 

A few minutes later, once everyone had bundled up their belongings, the only ones left in the room were Jennifer, Alex, Hank, and Charles. The latter two had a free period, whilst the former were just taking a second longer before heading to class. Looking between them all, not much had changed in twenty years. They were still the same people, perhaps with a bit more trauma and scars, but still the same. Even looks wise they hadn't changed much. They looked a little older, but hardly enough for anyone to assume it had been two decades for three out of four. No one bothered to look into why they aged so well, probably in fear that the studio would end up casting yet another version of them.