Dating an X-Man is Hazardous to Your Health

Chapter 5: Professor Hawkeye

That morning, Kate had headed outside after coffee while everyone else was teaching. She wanted to go somewhere and just shoot for a while without anybody watching her, because as fun as it was taking down big robots, it was tiring and draining with an audience like Wolverine. She loved to perform when it was just for fun — she was a cellist after all. But sometimes, she just wanted to be alone.

She took a couple quivers of practice arrows that she didn't mind getting a bit worn down and set up some targets on the trunks of a few trees before she started shooting on the front lawn, the repetitive motion relaxing her after the morning chaos that came with so many students and teachers and breakfast .

After the first quiver was done, she took a moment to pull the arrows out of the targets and put them away before she started up again, though this time, she noticed that she had an audience — a few of the kids had wandered out into the yard. It must have been a class break, figured, and so she tipped her head their way in greeting before she went back to shooting.

To her surprise, the kids made their way over to where she was and just settled in to watch, and she couldn't help but try to up her game, going for harder shots, double...triple... She pulled out four arrows at once and spread them out between her fingers with a little smile before she put one in every single one of the four targets.

"Is that hard to learn?" asked one girl with long black hair, her head tilted to one side as she seemed to be studying Kate's technique.

Kate shrugged. "The quadruple shot? Yes. The bow and arrow? Also yes, but not as much."

There was a light muttering among the students before another one spoke up. "Can I try?" asked the olive-skinned girl with short hair.

Kate thought about it for a minute. They were practice arrows anyway, so they couldn't really hurt themselves. "Alright," she said, and the girl's entire face lit up as she showed her how to hold the bow and how to aim at the target without an arrow first.

"Okay, try pulling back on the string," she said, and the girl looked surprised at how hard it was to do so.

"It looks easier," she said in a muted voice.

"And if you think finding feminine shirts for shoulders like mine is easy, you haven't seen my pocketbook recently," she laughed lightly before she adjusted the bow and let her try again. When she could draw the string all the way back, Kate handed her a practice arrow. "If I'd known I needed starter arrows, I'd have brought some with softer tips," she explained with a rueful grin.

"Would you?" broke in another girl in the group, a little blonde. "I mean — would you bring some starter things?" she added in a more subdued, shy tone.

"If you want me to," Kate said, starting to grin. "Archery's not for everybody — but it should be ."

"Can I try next?" asked an older boy in the group, and — well, that was how Kate ended up spending an entire afternoon with one kid or another, repeating the same words and advice on how to hold a bow, how to aim, where to point, how they should never ever point an arrow at someone unless they actually wanted to shoot them.

By the time she headed back inside, she was sure she was running late to grab a bit in time to meet up with Logan and Kurt for the evening's training session, because it had taken her a few tries to get the kids to let her pack up her stuff — something about not everyone getting a turn — and she had to promise to come back with more arrows and things the next day.

She was going to drive to a sporting goods store — or nine sporting goods stores — in the morning and clean them out of archery equipment. One bow and a couple quivers of arrows with rounded-off tips just wasn't going to cut it with these kids.