Dead Ends and Mean Friends
Liberty's POV
I stomp away from my teammates, away from stupid Sam, who thinks he's so great that he can just—
"Hey! Watch it with the super strength!" Joe exclaims.
"Sorry," I reply, releasing my hold on Joe's wrist. I had been so mad at Sam that I didn't realize I was still dragging Joe along with me, or that my anger was causing me to grip his wrist harder than a normal girl my age.
"Are you ok?" Joe asks.
"I'm fine," I sigh. "I've just been busy lately. Let's just find Dylan."
Being busy lately is an understatement! Since I'm one of only two members in the High School Heroes that is used to talking to reporters, and Sam isn't exactly known for having a way with words, I end up doing all the interviews regarding our team. Every word I say has to be perfect, because if it's not, reporters will find a way to twist it into catchy but lie-filled front page news. Even when I'm not doing an interview, I always have to be on guard, because if I'm late to a fight against supervillains, or even just having a bad hair day, the whole world is going to know.
I've been somewhat of a celebrity ever since I was three. That was when my mom, Black Widow passed away, and the reporters came to interview my dad, Steve Rogers, who wasn't ashamed to shed a few tears for the woman that he loved, and me, the little girl who wouldn't stop crying. Ever since then, the pressure has been on for me to live up to my parents' legacy.
I pause for a moment to review the plan I thought up earlier, wondering if my mom would approve of it. "Follow my lead," I say to Joe, when I'm confident the plan will work. With that, I push open the door to the classroom.
A friend of James told him where Dylan has study hall this period, and I am relieved to find a guy who fits Dylan's description setting his things down on a nearby desk. That's one less thing to worry about. Now to start the interrogation.
I make a show of looking around for a bit, hoping Dylan will notice. He doesn't seem to be paying us much attention, but it can't hurt to be cautious. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Joe looking around as well. It seems like this will go alright.
When I've looked around for as long as I'd expect a student under the circumstances I'm about to explain would, I walk over to Dylan. "Excuse me," I ask, coming to a stop in front of his desk, "do you know where Mrs. Abbey is? She said she'd be here with some papers for us to grade."
Dylan frowns. "Nope, I haven't seen her, sorry."
"That's strange, I wonder if I'm in the wrong classroom? I could have sworn Mrs. Abbey told us student counsel members to go to room 120 to help with grading. Hmm….." I trail off, looking around as though for clues as to whether or not this is the right classroom. Then I allow a surprised look to come over my face, as though I've just realized something. "Wait a minute, are you Dylan Daniels?"
"Yep, that's me. And you're Liberty Rogers," Dylan replies.
"Yes," I reply, making sure my face doesn't show how much his response bothers me. I always get a bit annoyed when strangers know so much about me. I suppose I should expect it by now, being a celebrity and all, but I've never quite come to terms with it. In this particular conversation, it also worries me. What if Dylan already knows this is an interrogation just because I'm here? Should I have sent Joe to interrogate him alone, since Joe actually has a secret identity?
Oh well, it's too late to change my mind now. "I remember hearing your name on the announcements a few times. You're the leader of the robotics club, right?" I ask.
"I sure am," Dylan replies. "We just won a robotics competition recently, which is probably why you heard about us."
"That's great!" I reply. Then I sigh, allowing an anxious look to come over my face. "Well, I'd better go look for those papers, or else I won't have them graded before the end of this class period. It was nice to meet you," I smile, then walk away to fake looking for papers. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I watch Joe to make sure he is continuing the investigation.
"Hey, that's cool that you're into robotics. I like robotics as well." Joe comments.
"Oh yeah? You should join our club," Dylan replies, leaning forward on his desk in a casual manner.
Joe shrugs. "Yeah, that would be cool, but I'm kinda busy right now. Between sports, videogames, and pranking, I don't really have time for another club."
"Videogames and pranking are clubs now? Since when?" Dylan chuckles. "Nah, I'm just messing with you. What kind of videogames do you play?"
Joe shrugs. "Skyrim, or my brother's videogames when he's not around." Joe frowns. "'Course, I haven't had much time to play lately 'cause I've been spending all my time thinking up pranks for the prank war. My girlfriend and I are having a contest to see who can pull the best pranks," Joe explains. You wouldn't happen to have any cool prank ideas, would you, because I'm all out of them!"
Dylan shakes his head. "Not unless programming a robot to say dirty words counts."
Joe snorts. "You did that?"
"Yep," Dylan replies.
"Have you done any other cool robot pranks?"
Internally, I slap myself. Joe is being way too obvious. Dylan is going to figure out what's going on.
"Nope, that was it," Dylan replies. Then he frowns. "Wait a sec, wasn't that your girlfriend that got hurt by that malfunctioning robot glove? You don't think I did that, do you?" Then he looks over at me and his eyes widen. "You do think I did it, don't you? That's why she's here!"
Other students are turning to look at us now, making the whole process harder. "Why don't we step out in the hallway?" I coax, hoping that Dylan won't put up a fuss, because he would just be embarrassing himself. To my relief, Dylan and Joe quietly follow me out into the hall.
"So, what, you're going to beat me up just because I might have messed with some robot gloves because I'm on the robotics team?!" Dylan yells, trying to sound tough, but I can tell he's really just scared. "If I knew how to build Iron Man gloves, don't you think I'd be a billionaire by now?!"
I sigh. "Look, here are the facts. We have evidence that suggests you pulled the school's fire alarm, and if you are willing to break that rule, perhaps you are willing to break others."
Dylan pales. "Shit! I didn't think anyone knew about that."
"So you did pull the fire alarm. Did you think that was funny?"
"No!" Dylan exclaims. "I was trying to help a friend get out of class, but it didn't even work. Sure, I didn't get caught, but the whole thing was stupid. I'm not going to do that again, and I would never hurt anyone!"
Joe and I share a look, and in that look, I know we agree. "Thank you for your cooperation. You can go back to study hall now," I say, in my best imitation of my mom.
Dylan looks confused. "So… you're not going to beat me up?"
"Of course not!" I exclaim. "I also won't tell anyone you pulled the fire alarm as long as you promise never to do it again."
"I promise," Dylan agrees.
"Ok, then you're good to go." I wait until Dylan has closed the door to his classroom before turning to Joe. "So, when did you realize Dylan was telling the truth?"
Joe shrugs. "I dunno, it was just a feeling."
I nod. "You have good basic spy instincts, but could use some more training. The reason I knew Dylan was telling the truth was his facial expressions. There are slight differences in a person's face if they are lying or telling the truth. That is probably what you noticed, you just didn't realize it."
Joe nods. "I'll keep that in mind."
I nod as well. "I'm glad we didn't have to fight another supervillain in the middle of school, but I just wish this interrogation lead somewhere. Now we're back to square one."
Joe and I just stand there for a moment, letting that sink in. Then I sigh. "Come on, we'd better go tell the others." I text the others to meet us at the cafeteria after the class period ends, since lunch is over, so no one else will be there. After finishing up the class period in my own class, where I get yelled at for being late, I arrive at the cafeteria expecting everyone to listen while I break the news. Instead, I am surprised to find Laura and Sam having a fist fight in the middle of the cafeteria! As I watch, Sam tries to punch Laura, but Laura teleports behind him and knocks Sam's legs out from under him!
"BREAK IT UP, YOU TWO!" I yell, standing between them to prevent them from hurting each other, all the while wondering how this fight started. I know Sam and Laura have never been very friendly towards each other, but they usually just ignored each other. What caused them to get into a fight?
AN: Next chapter will answer this question. Anyways, what do you think of this story so far? I know that lokilover901 liked at least the beginning of this story, and PotterAvenge-X Kane thought the Sarah with superpowers idea was interesting, but what do you guys think?
Also, I think this is about the halfway point of the story, but since I haven't written any chapters past this one, it's hard to know for sure. My goal back in December was to finish this story by the time school lets out in May, but considering it's already April and I'm only about halfway done, I might not finish until sometime this summer.