Piotr would feel less lonely if he wasn't such an idiot, Illyana allowed herself the thought. But she did not say as much aloud.

Nor did she point out that the odds were decidedly set against Parker ever attending Harvard.

She just eased herself back upright, into the correct posture that had become natural to her, and rested a hand at her hip. "Make your own reasons your motivation," Illyana advised. "I don't especially care what they are, so long as you prove a good student. And I'll be teaching you Moscow Russian. Don't pick up the touch of backwater Siberia in Piotr's dialect."

It was her native dialect, too. But that was beside the point, and Illyana wouldn't be sloppy about her instruction.