A/N: The general opinion was that an epilogue would rock. And I had more ideas. Yay!

Dedication goes to Missy the Least, of whom I thought while writing much of this. Hope it makes you laugh!

Also, Bruce=The Hulk. He was in the trailer. (A couple people didn't know him)

Holy. Crap. So many reviews! I love you all.

I didn't bother to watch the Captain America movie (at least not the whole thing), so I drew my whole characterization from a you tube video. Which forced me to buy "Good Life" by OneRepublic. Which is now forever in my head.

Disclaimer: I don't own ze MARVEL.

Erik has never really been part of a couple before. He's had one night stands, awkward high school dates, and one accidental encounter with a prostitute, but he's never really been in a relationship that's a relationship-relationship. He didn't think it would be this…awesome.

Charles has a tendency to pounce on him while he's walking across campus, so that one minute Erik is walking along cursing a teacher who decided to give his class a surprise quiz, the next he's got his arms full of cheerful brunette, who often has coffee. Charles has declared that since it's his fault Erik gets less sleep, he ought to make sure Erik can stay awake in class.

And really, it's totally Charles's fault that Erik is up all night. He's never had sex like that in his entire life-Charles definitely knows what he's doing. This results in Erik staying at his dorm very late and being too tired to go back to his dorm. This results in the migration of Erik's textbooks and clothing to Charles's room, which results in Charles shamelessly stealing Erik's turtlenecks whenever he doesn't have clean clothing.

Professor Logan, of course, notices this at once, makes a lewd comment in German, and laughs when Charles blushes. Erik notices him collecting money from several students after class, and feels as though he should have gotten a cut. He also wonders if that's entirely legal.

Oh, well. Erik had had fantastic shower sex an hour ago, he'll be generous to his Professor. Plus, Prof. Logan could kick his ass.

It's sort of debatable whether Prof. Logan could kick Charles's ass. Charles surrounds himself with tall and muscular men, and while something about the Prof. makes Erik think he could take all of them down individually, he's not quite sure about them all combined.

Because really, Charles's roommates are pretty kickass. Erik still works with Tony, and recently Tony blew up half his lab by accident. Judging by the response time from the fire department and the wary looks on the faces of the firefighters, Tony has done this before.

At least Erik got out of class and got a look at some tightly controlled military weapons, which was quite interesting, and got an evening of Charles fussing over him, thus forcing his roommates to fuss as well. Tony received no fussing except a pat on the back from Steve. Apparently, Tony has been the cause of so many explosions that no one really notices any more.

Also, he was busy yelling at his phone for spraying him with chemicals.

Wait. This merits a bit of description.

Tony's phone. There are no words for Tony's phone. It has a name. It can talk. It can talk in a British accent. Despite this accent, Erik doubts the phone came from planet earth. It seems to have a positronic brain, and independent thought. It can hack into the Pentagon without Tony pressing a key. It gets a signal in elevators.

That phone will take over the world. Erik is certain of it, and he would accidentally dump acid over it if it wasn't for the fact that Tony probably couldn't dress himself without Jarvis (Tony named his phone. It's extraordinarily phallic, according to Charles).

But back to the ways of Charles's roommates and asskicking.

Steve is the only badass Erik has ever known who is incredibly nice. It's suspicious, how sincere he is. He pops up with snacks, with clothing, with mail, with girl scout cookies, with umbrellas, with condoms (that was a very awkward conversation) and with all manner of patriotic slogans. Steve is doing some kind of thing with shields and the army and history, and can recite every bit of American history ever recorded.

Also, he's captain of the crew team. And he volunteers in soup kitchens. Erik has no idea how he has time to both do that and the time to sprawl on a couch and get his ass kicked by Tony at video games.

Then there's Thor, who could benchpress most of MIT. That doesn't need explaining.

Bruce, under normal circumstances, is the least scary. But that's when he's calm. When he isn't calm, it's an entirely different story, because on the rare occasions that Bruce flies into a fit of rage, even Professor Logan would have difficulty restraining him. But under all other circumstances Bruce works with radiation and is scary in a "I can get my hands on isomers which will kill you in seconds" way.

This all sinks in about two weeks into Erik dating Charles. Erik is rooting through the basement of Charles's building trying to find a wrench, because they were a tiny bit too enthusiastic last night and managed to bump a screw out of the bed, and Tony's wrench is stained with unmentionable things.

Then, out of nowhere, a hammer whizzes past his head. It actually, through some miracle, hits the wall, rebounds, and flies back into Thor's hand.

Okay. His boyfriend's roommate is a wackjob and wants to kill him. He can deal with this.

"I think we're experiencing cultural differences." Let no man say Erik will be intimidated by a hammer and a lot of brawn.

A light suddenly glares down on him and Tony stalks forward, bedecked in government weapons that are probably supposed to be locked away in his lab. Steve advances from another corner with a trashcan lid, and Erik wonders what in the world he expects to do with a trashcan lid. Of all the ridiculous…even Bruce has showed up, with a lead box and a homicidal gleam in his eyes.

"We wanted to speak with you." Tony drawls.

"So I gathered." In the unlikely event that Erik is picturing how easy it would be for these people to hide his body, he won't let any of that fear into his voice.

"To impress upon you the pain you will go through should you hurt Charles." Bruce says softly. Erik thinks that this must be the equivalent of the father-daughter's boyfriend intimidation talk.

"Right, so you trapped me in a basement." Erik pauses. This is either the stupidest thing any person has ever done for their bro, or the nicest. "Well, rest assured, I have no intention of harming Charles."

The roommates sort of glance at each other.

"You didn't have any plans beyond the threat, did you?" A somewhat sheepish silence ensues. "Am I allowed to go now?"

"Sure." Thor says, looking sort of embarrassed. Clearly, no one in this group is a planner.

"Excellent. I'm glad we had this talk." Erik finally finds the wrench. This has been, despite the initial fear, a not very intimidating encounter.

"One other thing." Tony growls. Erik, already on his way out, turns to raise his eyebrows at the inventor. "We may not be able to protect Charles heart. But you can be damn sure we'll avenge him."

Erik stares at him. And then busts up.

"I cannot believe that you said that." Erik wheezes out. Thor begins to giggle. Bruce is snickering. Steve is shaking his head, trying not to laugh. "That was the most dramatic…"

"Are we comparing Charles to an endangered rainforest?" Thor manages.

"You make it sound like he's under attack from aliens!" Steve's already terrible poker face cracks and he dissolves into laughter. Erik suddenly has the picture of Charles on an asteroid with little green men, while his roommates zoom around on tiny rocket ships blasting at them.

That sets him to even more laughter, and before Erik knows it he's on the couch, cracking up while Tony and Bruce set up simulations for Project Protect Charles on the computer, and when Charles walks into the dorm carrying a load of textbooks, everyone takes one look at him and can't stop laughing.

Charles, to his credit, merely smiles, gives Erik a kiss, and sits down to read a book.

By next morning, all of Erik's things have mysteriously moved to Charles's room.

Erik feels obligated, one day when Charles is curled up at his side trying to review his notes but actually watching Tony kick Steve's ass at Call of Duty, to ask whether anyone in this place actually studies.

"Oh, yes." Charles yawns and snuggles closer to him. "We do."

"Hmm." Erik wonders what this place looks like at finals. It's not long before he finds out, and really, it shouldn't have shocked him so. He knows that these people are strange under normal circumstances, and everything reacts under pressure.

But come finals week, he's still amazed. It somehow didn't register that all of these people take really hard classes and lots of them, and that all of those classes require people to take tests and write essays. Not to mention the fact that Steve has his sports practices.

Erik is very, very, glad that he's a relatively normal student. He just has to do the twenty page paper (which, because he's a smart person, he already started) and pass some exams. Everyone else has gone psychotic.

No, seriously. Steve, as soon as he gets back from practice (always with his Ipod on and a lecture blaring in his ears) collapses on the couch and dives into an essay about America he's writing. Erik gets to watch as he fills paper with writing, then tears them up and hurls them in the trash. The truly scary part, to Erik, is that he does it while humming the National Anthem.

Without ceasing.

It's enough to drive one mad.

To escape from that, and thus avoid stabbing Steve, Erik helps Thor with his project. It's some kind of physics thing, and Erik doesn't understand physics on this level, but it involves Thor throwing the hammer at various objects and writing down equations. The important thing is that they're outside while this happens and though Erik is cold, he's not committing murder.

"But the X should correlate with the Y…" Thor trails off into babbling in Norwegian. Also with great gesticulation and much waving about of the hammer. Erik prudently stays near cover. "It doesn't work! The figures are all wrong! It doesn't make sense!"

"Uh-huh." Erik begins gathering debris, which is the only way he's really helping. Thor doesn't actually need a response to his babbling most of the time, he just wants to yell and terrify freshmen.

Well Thor might not have been intending to terrify the little brats, but Erik thought it was hilarious to see how one wet his pants.

"The numbers, they don't and ohmygawd it's all wrong!" Thor is tearing his hair own and pacing a rut in their little bit of campus. "Wrong! I want beer! I want food! I want lightening to strike my" he says a word in Norwegian that Erik is definitely looking up later "Professor!"

Erik doubts that lightning will strike down this professor just because Thor said so, but he's still going to warn the man to stay inside for the next few days.

Thor's backpack buzzes. Erik slides around Thor, who is quite possibly frothing at the mouth, and begins to rummage through it. That might be Charles texting them (Erik lost his phone awhile back, and Charles has taken to just texting whomever he's with to get hold of him.)

Thor has way too much food in here. Finally, Erik gets to his phone and opens it.

From: L'il Bro

I do hope this hasn't inconvenienced you, dear brother, but it seems I sent you the wrong weight for your hammer. Add 1.43 lbs for the correct formulas.

"Hey, Thor." Erik calls. "Your brother texted you."

"Eeeeh?" Thor snatches the phone, his eyes huge. He reads the text. He looks from the phone to the hammer to his papers.

Back at the hammer.

Back at the phone.

Back at the papers.

"Eeeeeeh?" Thor drops the phone and grabs the paper. He flicks through them with a crazed look in his eyes, scribbling down revisions to the numbers and ripping away entire papers. Then he throws his head back and roars with laughter.

Erik wonders if that's the sign Thor has actually cracked.

Thor's laughter peters off after about five minutes of Erik being very, very, confused.

"Everything makes sense now!" Thor says with a grin. Erik nods carefully. "I just must type everything done!" It's always obvious when Thor is excited, because his language breaks down. "I go make food!"

They walk back across campus with Thor still chuckling and shaking his head, and Erik still wondering what the hell just happened.

They return to what could best be described as a war zone. Steve, still in the uniform he wore to practice yesterday, is pacing and writing in a notebook. He's still humming The Star Spangled Banner. The couch upon which Steve normally sprawls is covered in notes, books, and a laptop.

Bruce is in his chair with a pair of bright green earbuds in his ears, tinkering with something. Erik can see a vein slowly popping in his forehead.

"Say nothing." Thor mutters. "Best to stay as far away as possible."

Erik is forced to agree that for once, Thor is being wise, as Bruce abruptly grabs a pillow, screams into it until the veins goes down, then resumes tinkering.

"Weirdos." Tony comments. Tony is sprawled over the chair, reading a magazine about cars.

"Why aren't you studying?" Erik knows Tony is smart, but come on. It's finals week.

"I get all my grades from my projects." Tony turns a page. "And Stark Industries funds a great deal of MIT's inner workings."

Erik wonders if he could move fast enough to throttle Tony before Thor could stop him. Probably not, plus Charles wouldn't approve…where is Charles anyway?

Erik can't see him at all. All that's visible is a large, very scary, wall of books. It rises around their couch like a fortress, and only the barest trace of chocolate locks is visible.

"Don't even try to move him." Says Tony, still disgustingly chill. "He has like five million tests. I don't know how you mortals do it." Tony opens a soda, and Erik resists the urge to kill him in favor of peering through the fortress at Charles. His boyfriend is sitting on the couch, reading a book.

"Charles?" Erik asks tentatively. Charles doesn't respond. He does turn one of the pages. "Are you…feeling well?"

"It's a genius thing." Thor offers. He's moved to the kitchen and is mixing some kind of food. "They go…what is the American word?"

"Neurotic." Tony mutters. Erik sighs, sits down on the floor (as his normal place of sit is unreachable) and begins to study for Professor Logan's exam. The Professor implied it would be rather difficult.

The exact words in fact, were "This test is going to destroy you and leave your mangled carcasses hanging outside my office as a warning to freshmen." Said with a manic gleam in his eye and a straight face.

Erik thinks he should probably study a lot.

About two hours later, when Erik's head is starting to swim, he looks up from his notes. Thor hands him a plate of food and a cup of coffee. Nothing much has changed. Charles is in the exact same position but with a different book, Bruce is tinkering, Thor is typing up his experiment, Tony is snoring. Steve has vanished, hopefully to go sleep.

This is the most silent the dorm has ever been.

Erik goes back to studying.

It takes another two hours before he's sure that if he reads another fact his head will explode. He simply cannot study any more. The pressure building in his cranium will become to much. But then he wouldn't have to take this stupid test. Erik gets to his feet and puts down the book.

Thor retreated to bed an hour ago. Tony is still snoring. Steve is still absent. Charles is…in the same pose, scanning a binder.

"I hate finals." Bruce says quietly. He's cleaning up whatever the tinkering thingy was. "Hate them."

"Me too." Erik says darkly. They both glare at Tony.

Then Erik gets an idea. A brilliant idea. A evil, magnificent, perfect idea. He picks up one of the sharpies which have been strewn about the room and puts a dot on Tony's face. Bruce giggles.

"That is brilliant." Erik is sort of surprised that none of these people have done this before. Bruce turns Tony's mustache into an enormous seventies porno stache. Erik makes his eyebrows bigger. Bruce adds monster sideburns. "We really should stop before he wakes up."

"One more thing." Erik writes, in as neat handwriting as he can manage, a message on Tony's forehead.

I don't have to study.

With an evil chuckle, Erik heads to bed.

It's morning, and they are going to be late for Professor Logan's exam. Erik yanks on his turtleneck as he dashes through the dorm, noting with dismay that Charles hasn't moved since last night.

"Charles! Come on!" Like one in a trance, Charles gets to his feet and puts his feet in his shoes. He actually puts his feet into Tony's patent leathers, which don't need to be laced, and walks out the door. He doesn't look up from his book. Erik stares.

"Weirdos." Tony says, yawning. He's sitting eating cereal with Steve and Thor, both of whom are trying very hard not to laugh. Erik feels much better at the sight, and hurries after his boyfriend.

Miraculously, Charles bumps into nothing as he walks across campus reading. This is partially due to the fact that Erik glares at everyone who walks near them, and also because Charles is in some kind of bubble of knowledge that makes him impervious to the outside world.

He walks into the classroom, which is full of extraordinarily nervous looking students, and sits down. Erik sits next to him and realizes that he remembers absolutely nothing about this class.

"Are you all ready?" Professor Logan walks in with an absolutely evil grin on his face, and Charles puts his book on the floor. The exams are passed out and from then on everything is a blur of information and depth and Erik looks up hours later and somehow the allotted time is almost out and he's frantically scribbling out the answer to an essay question.

When Professor Logan says, still looking evil (he's been sitting with his feet on a desk reading a book this whole time) that their time is up, Erik turns in his exam with a mixture of nausea and relief.

"What did you think-" He's going to ask Charles what he thought of the essay question. But Charles is already buried in a new pile of notes, for another class Erik doesn't take.

Erik is seriously worried now. Charles is in the exact same position on the couch except with a laptop, typing up an essay, and there are different books making a fortress around him. Even when most of the rest of them are finished with everything Charles, overachiever that he is, is still working.

Without like, sleeping. He barely even eats except when Thor literally puts food in his hand, and then it's a very distracted way of eating. He hasn't shaved, or showered, or changed his clothes.

True, his stubble is quite appealing, but since Charles isn't looking up from his books, Erik isn't getting any sex. He's just hovering about being worried as Charles takes tests and writes essays and doesn't waver in his concentration.

He doesn't even waver enough to laugh when Tony flees to their dorm after a mob of stressed students start throwing calculators at him.

It's on Friday that Charles walks in and smiles at Erik. He's stubbly and uncouth and probably smells, but Erik can't stop his heart from fluttering anyway.

"I." Charles announces. "Am done with my finals." He collapses on the couch.

"Charles?" Erik scrambles forward and pokes at him.

Charles is asleep. Absolutely, completely, asleep. Everyone in the room breathes a sigh of relief.

"Right." Erik picks him up. "I'm just going to get him to bed."

Thirty four hours later, Charles wakes up. And bad things begin to happen.

Erik finds it interesting that, while the combined IQ of Charles's rommates could overthrow the government and set up a new republic (probably one where everyone wore Armani suits and unicorns frolicked about with puppies and hammers were sacred objects), they're really a group of idiots.

True, finals are over and they're all rejoicing, but still, getting this drunk is something Erik expects of moron frat boys, not young men of such a high caliber.

Tony decided that they needed alcohol to celebrate, and it turned out that Thor has this amazing stash of Norweigian liquor in his room, and this situation is still not justified.

"Time to remove another layer Thor." Charles says, cackling. Thor groans and begins to wiggle out of his jeans. Tony laughs and sprays beer over his notes by accident.

Their room looks like the set of a porno. There's Steve, in nothing but an undershirt and tighty whities, lolling against the couch and waving about a beer bottle. Thor is busy trying (and failing) to extract himself from his jeans. Bruce is huddled against a chair in his undershirt and jeans, looking relieved that he decided to wear so many layers today. Tony, of course, is buck naked.

Erik can't believe they agreed to play strip chess. He's shirtless and, after Thor, the least drunk of the lot. Not because Thor hasn't been drinking though, Thor managed to consume more alcohol than Erik thought humanely possible. He just has a high tolerance for it, and mocks the silly Americans whenever someone hiccups.

He still sucks at chess.

"Your move." Charles is grinning. He's only had to take off his socks, which Erik considers unfair since Charles is barefoot half the time anyway. Charles is a scarily good chess player even while so drunk that he can't stand up properly.

Erik isn't going to complain about that bit. Charles is sitting in his lap and keeps patting his chest, which is quite pleasant, plus Erik is playing Bruce and he's winning. That means that Bruce will soon have to either lose his shirt, or his pants.

Erik does sort of wonder what type of underwear Bruce wears. He's learned from this game that Steve wears tighty whities with an American flag on them, that Thor actually has boxers with a fancy crest on them that were made in his country, and that Tony goes commando.

…he didn't actually want to know any of those things, especially the last one.

On the plus side, this has probably honed his chess skills. Erik is not going to lose and reveal that he's wearing boxers with hearts on them because he was out of any other clean underwear.

"Heh, heh, heh." Charles has gone back to his evil laughter. That's probably because he's managed to beat Thor yet again (these games don't last very long) and soon he'll be against Steve, who is now playing Tony. Erik doesn't know exactly how the system works, but there are three chessboards and they're all battling someone. Loser has to take off one article of clothing, and you take a swallow of Thor's Norwegian beer whenever you lose a piece.

It's the worst game ever, and Erik doesn't know what he was thinking when agreed to it.

"D'you know tht we are in America?" Steve slurs. He waves his beer bottle. "Ooooh say doooes thaaat staaar spaaaaaangled baaaneeeer yeeeet waaave…"

Erik notices that Charles has his Iphone out. He's recording and grinning.

That devious bastard. Erik reaches over and grabs it from his hand. Charles pouts at him.

Good Lord, there are a lot of pictures on this. There's Thor falling over trying to get out of his jeans, there's Tony sobbing over his lost castle (Erik thinks there's a deeper meaning to that, but he's too drunk to figure it out) and Bruce trying to balance a tower of beer bottles.

"Erik…" Charles whines. "I want my phone."

"This thing should be burned."

"Issa blackmail." Charles turns around so that he's straddling Erik, having clearly forgotten that they're in a room with a bunch of other guys. This is carrying the porn set metaphor a bit far, in Erik's view. "Can't you give it back? I'll make it wooorth it…"

"Uh." Erik tries to scramble back. Charles wiggles forward, practically purring, and as good at grinding as Charles is (he really can do a lot of things while drunk), Erik would rather not do this in public. "Uh."

"Ha!" Charles grabs his phone from Erik's hand and turns around to resume playing. Bruce has apparently been defeated by Steve despite the fact that Steve is still warbling a twisted version of the national anthem, and apparently wears fuzzy dark green underwear, with a little symbol on it which indicates radioactive materials.

Erik so does not want to know.

This is going to end up with all of them sprawled around naked and nobody remembering what happened, Erik can just tell. Thor, going by the increasingly desperate look on his face, agrees and doesn't want to deal with that again.

(No one will tell him, but Erik has heard vague mentions of something like this happening before, and pictures ending up online, and Tony and Steve ending up spooning. Erik wonders if this inability to stay on one train of thought is a sign that he's had too much whiskey.)

That's funny. Thor seems to have stolen Jarvis. And to be jabbering at the phone in Norwegian. Erik hopes he isn't drunk dialing his father.

About five minutes after that, Thor has won his chess match and Erik is wondering when the hell Thor became that smart. Also wondering who will win, because now Thor is locked into a death match with Charles (Steve is curled up on the couch blushing and with a coaster to hide his privates).

It's an intense game. Charles has suddenly undrunkified (that's a word, Erik is totally sure of it, and he'll look it up when he's sober) himself. Thor has Jarvis pressed to his ear and keeps nodding, moving his pieces without hesitation.

Seriously, what the hell? Not in a million years could Thor play chess on Charles's level.

"Wait…" Charles blinks at the board. Clearly, he's come to the same conclusion. "Cheater!"

Thor looks like a deer caught in the headlights. "Um."

"Well someone had to help out this bunch of idiots." The voice that comes from Jarvis isn't slurred at all. It's calm and clear and somehow really, really, scary. "It makes the games interesting, doesn't it Charles?"

Charles flips the phone off. Because Jarvis is weird and whoever is on the other end must be seeing that, laughter comes from the phone. It's evil laughter.

"Right." Erik gets to his feet and hauls Charles up. "We're going to bed."

Tony leers. Bruce burps. Steve snores, because he's actually passed out, and it looks like the coaster is going to slip. Thor nods and begins to talk in Norwegian with Jarvis, and Erik is getting Charles away from that evil person from Norway as soon as possible.

The hangovers fade in time for the holidays, but only barely. As far as the holidays go, no one seemed to be eager to go home. Tony just sort of shrugged and muttered something about this being just as comfortable. Steve said cheerfully that he might as well stay here, since his family is vacationing in Florida and no snow on Christmas is just un-American. Thor grunted something about his country and his father. Bruce doesn't want to deal with the headache caused by hours of transit. Charles points out that since they've got enough room for Raven, no reason to move. Erik doesn't have the money to go to Germany and visit his mother.

So they're all there hanging out, with Raven curled up next to Charles and the two of them plotting, when the phone rings. Everyone eyes each other and wonders which one of them has to get up.

Inevitably, it is Steve.

"Hello?" Steve blinks. "I beg your pardon? Ma'am, I'm sorry, we must have a bad connection…excuse me? Ma'am? Ma'am, I can't understand what you're saying."

Tony snatches the phone and says into it "We can trace this call, find your number, find your address, and send snipers after you, do you understand?" Then he looks at Steve. "She's speaking German. Charles, Erik, Thor, which one of you is expecting a call?"

Then Erik remembers that after he damaged his phone, he told his mother she could reach him at his dorm phone and gave her the number. He quickly gets up and grabs the phone, shooting Tony an evil look.

"Mama?" Tony cracks up. Charles looks suddenly interested. Erik pushes Tony toward his chair. "Ja, Ja."

"Interesting roommates." Erik laughs. Thankfully, his mother sounds more amused.

"They're…very special. How are you?"

"Oh, fine. I thought I would call to wish you a happy Chanukah, make sure finals didn't kill you." Erik leans against the wall and wishes the phone was cordless.

"Thanks. And I think I passed." Erik paused. He'd mentioned that he had a new boyfriend to his mother but hadn't really said much, and his roommates were all prowling around watching him talk.

"And Charles?"

"He studied…wait, how do you know his name?" He could hear his mother's dry tone from halfway round the world.

"Well, one would think my dear son would tell me about the new man in his life, but no, I saw it on your facebook."

"My facebook?" Erik sort of sputters. He set up that stupid thing upon coming to America, because a friend told him everyone in America had face book, but other than a futile attempt to change the setting so it would stop spamming him, he hasn't been on it since.

"Ja. And I must say, I'm rather offended at not being invited to the wedding."

"Wait, what wedding?"

"At least he sounds like a nice young man, though I can't see his profile. Tell him to friend me."

"Wait, what?" His mother has a face book. Erik can hear the horsemen of the Apocalypse coming nearer.

"Your husband's profile dear." His mother tuts. "Silly boy, you must have been up late studying. Call me when you can think properly."

Click. Erik stares at the phone.

"Erik, you look confused." Thor comments. "Did she say you were going home for the holidays?"

"No…" Erik keeps staring at the phone. "She has a facebook."

Tony goes oddly still. Erik frowns and opens Charles's laptop, logging onto his face book page. Last he checked, he didn't even have a profile picture.

Well. That's changed. Now he has a profile picture, a whole new slew of personal information, and a new relationship status. Also, he's been renamed Erik Xavier.

What the hell…

Erik bets that someone whose roommates weren't all super geniuses wouldn't have to deal with this. Charles looks over his shoulder, sees it, and laughs, wiggling into position so Erik's arm is draped over his shoulder.

"My friend, you must find a better way to propose."

"I didn't…I'm not…I wouldn't…" Tony breaks down into giggles. Thor is making the room vibrate with his manly chuckles. Steve is frowning.

"I believe that's illegal." He says darkly. Charles laughs.

"Don't worry, I'll call Mark and have it fixed." Tony rolls his eyes. Erik tries to process the fact that Charles is on first name terms with the founder of face book. "I've attended a couple of benefits with him." Charles explains, as he takes out his Iphone.

"Well it's not like it's not true." Tony grumbles. "Honestly, you two have been married since the first time Erik spent the night, and you're just disgustingly domestic."

"We are not!"

"You sort of are." Bruce says apologetically. "Like, he's wearing your turtleneck and you share books and cuddle and talk about inside jokes and he bothers you about your nutritional intake and you play chess for hours.

Erik glares at them and can find no adequate rebuttal.

"Yes. Yes. Mmmhm. Oh, don't worry, I'm keeping them in hand." Erik walks into the living room and tosses his bag on the floor, thoroughly disgusted with the weather. He notices immediately that Thor looks vaguely disgruntled and that Charles is cheerfully chattering into his Iphone. "He has. Carrots on Monday and green beans yesterday. Oh my god, really? The entire thing? Well that's certainly clever, I'll give him that, but was anyone hurt? Good." Charles puts a hand over the bottom of the phone and smiles at Erik. "There's not much food in the fridge hon, but Steve said he'd bring back take out."

"Right." Erik, who was on the normal meal plan before this whole "rooming with rich nutcases" thing, sort of wonders how they afford all this.

"Oh, that was just Erik coming in. Ah. I see you're on facebook. Why, thank you. Bye Mr. Vadderung. I'll tell Tony, Steve, Bruce, and Erik that you say hello." Charles slips the phone into his pocket as Erik opens the fridge to see if there's any sort of food here. He's starving.

"Charles." No, food per se. There's just a head. A human head. In his fridge.

"Oh ignore the head, it's just some experiment Bruce read about online and decided he would try." Erik sighs, grabs a beer (with Tony around, there's always some form of alcohol) and slams the door shut on the head. Normal frat boys probably don't have to deal with this.

"Who was on the phone?" Erik asks as he sits on the couch. Charles snuggles up to him.

"Thor's father." Huh. That might explain Thor's expression.

"You two talk?"

"He loves me." Charles laughs. Thor rolls his eyes.

"Father would adopt Charles if he could get dual citizenship. As it is, he's been appointed my live in Nanny, after father found out about that one party." Thor scowls. "I still don't know how he finds out about these things. It's like he can spy on me all the way from Norway."

"For heaven's sake, the reason he knows about everything you do is because you decided that accepting a friend request from a parent was a good idea, and Loki hacks your account whenever he's bored." Charles says, with a sort of familiar exasperation.

"He what?"

"Nevermind." Charles says quickly. "Anyway, Erik, if we ever get married, Thor's dad says we can have the ceremony and reception at his castle for free." Erik takes a gulp of beer and thinks that at least his mother would approve.

"Why-are-we-talking-about-marriage-did-Erik-pop-the-question?" Tony bursts into the room. Steve follows, carrying a steaming bag of Chinese food. Thank god. Erik is starving.

"No, we were kidding." Charles rolls his eyes. "Did you run all the way up here?"

"Yes, he did." Steve says. "He had that creepy earbud in that hooks into Jarvis and lets him tap into the audio on the cameras in here."

Erik quietly resolves to search his and Charles's room later. Also the bathroom. That's fricking creepy.

"Maybe." Tony mutters.

"They've been dating for a few months, for God's sake." Steve sighs. "People need a respectable amount of time for courtship-"

"Steve is going to start talking about swearing in movies and tattooes soon." Charles mutters in his ear. "Grab whatever carton you want and meet me in the bedroom. We can watch cat videos on my phone until they shut up."

In a small part of his brain, Erik knows that this is irrational and stupid and an incredibly bad idea.

"And you have your fucking hair products which you leave all over the bathroom-"

"I'm a slob? Oh excuse me, Mr. I don't pick up my papers Lensherr!" Charles yells at him. They're standing on opposite sides of the living room, screaming at each other, and Erik isn't quite sure why. It might have to do with Erik being grumpy from a failed assignment and Charles not having had any tea that morning.

"Those are important! Maybe if you weren't a bloody richboy who has no idea what real life is like-"

"I have no idea what life is like! You barely have a plan past college!"

"At least I don't live in a delusional little world where everybody loves everybody and the whole world just wants to be peaceful!"

"Delusional? Excuse me for having faith in the universe!" Erik is about to retort without something really nasty when Thor (he's been cowering in a chair this entire time, looking absolutely terrified) raises his hand.

"What?" Erik snarls at him.

"Do you think that maybe you two are really-"

"Shut up!" Charles and Erik say in unison. Then they glare at each other.

"If that's how you feel about everything I believe in, then maybe you should get out." Charles finally says, acid coating the words.

"Fine." Erik grabs his coat and storms out, slamming the door behind him. Charles storms into his room and slams the door. Thor keeps cowering and thinks that the people in his country were never this insane. Except possibly one...

It takes maybe fifteen minutes are walking around in a huff for Erik to realize that he's being an idiot. For one, he doesn't think Charles is delusional, just a tad idealistic, and it's actually sweet and gives Erik hope for the world, and he still doesn't feel like going back and apologizing. This may suggest he has issues with stubbornness.

Erik ignores that little voice that keeps spouting off clichés about letting go of pride. He feels like an idiot sleeping on a bench, but it's not like he's never done idiotic things before (the memory of the strip chess comes back).

Come morning, Erik's back really hurts, he's really really cold and he thinks that this quite frankly even more stupid than the chess.

Also, there's a man sitting on his bench staring at him.

"What do you want?" Erik grunts. Thank God he has no money on him. Or a phone. Or internet access. Or food.

He really didn't think this thing through, did he?

"This might be a dream." The man says calmly. "Or another reality."

Great. Erik is probably about to get mugged by a drug addict. Why did he have to leave the apartment?

"Do you realize what a sad, lonely, existence you would live, if you didn't have Charles?" And then it passes from drug addict to very, very, creepy. "Do you even remember where on campus you're supposed to be living?"

"…I am not discussing my boyfriend with a drug addict stalker."

"So he is still your boyfriend?" The man looks a bit disgusted. "Well that blondie did over exaggerate." The man sighs. "I suppose you're just going to back without my even needing to go into the elaborate oration."

"…dude." Erik groans. "If you're a hallucination, please leave. I have to go home and talk to my boyfriend."

"Ugh." The strange man glares. "Why do you want to talk to that idealistic, prudish, irritating know-it all?"

Huh. Erik wonders if the fact that he can punch his own hallucination in the nose means he's insane. Either way, the man glares at him and mumbles something about the worst brother ever. Then he hurried off into the morning mists and it occurs to Erik that since he's willing to punch people who insult Charles, he ought to swallow his pride and apologize as soon as he gets home.

Erik hesitantly walks through the dorm. Thus far, all of his roommates are mysteriously absent, but hopefully Charles is still around.

"Erik!" Charles scrambles to his feet and flings himself at Erik. Erik catches him and kisses him. Charles's arms snake around his neck, and Erik is so incredibly thankful that they're making up. Charles leans back a bit, separating them. "I am so sorry, I don't know what I was thinking-"

"Me too." Erik sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "I don't even remember what started that fight. Let's not do it again."

"Mmmhmm." Charles leans forward and kisses him again. Awesome. They can totally have make up sex now.

"Yes!" Then he hears rejoicing in the hallway. And then the roommates burst into the room.

"Thank God!" Tony says, thumping Erik on the back. "Good for you! Good!"

Thor crushes them both in a hug. Bruce claps his hands and grins in a rather relieved way.

"Your roommates are stalkers." Erik mutters to Charles. Charles shrugs, sort of wheezing, because Thor has essentially crushed all of his ribs.

"Now listen." Steve says severely. "Never, ever, ever, do that again. You two aren't allowed to break up." The others back him up with a chorus of nods. Erik stares at them and realizes that he is stuck with these people for ever and ever. "You are the people who give other couples hope."

A/N: I had to do it, okay? And watch me end up writing more of this. It's the best thing to do rather than work in class ever.

Review? Please?