The island seemed calm now. All seven kids were still huddled together by the plane watching as the teachers milled about inside and outside of the building. Occasionally, one of them would walk out with a box or an item that would be taken toward the dock or on to the plane. Professor Richards passed out bottled waters and snacks to the kids, which was nice since they hadn't eaten since breakfast.
Professor Coulson stood close by, keeping an eye on them, and Dr. Storm hovered over each of them in turn, looking for any wounds that needed to be treated immediately. She inspected Skye's hands before moving on to Rogue. When she got to him, Brock insisted that he was fine, but she handed him an ice pack for his head.
"You know that cut is going to need stitches when we get off this island. You need to keep the swelling down," Dr. Storm insisted.
"Really, I don't need this. The bleeding's stopped and I'm fine," he argued, holding the ice pack in his hand.
"Just use the ice pack and stop complaining, Brock," Skye chided him. She took the pack from him, and held it up to his forehead. He flinched at the cold, but didn't argue as she held it there.
"Looks like they are rounding everyone up now and moving them toward the boat." Clark was using his x-ray vision to give the kids an update on what was going on in the building. "Jim and Joe too."
Skye was relieved that they were not going to have to ride with their captors, dead or alive, but she noticed that Rumlow tensed at Clark's words. She looked at him with concern. "What's wrong? You don't actually want to ride back with them, do you?"
Surprisingly, he looked at her like he might be sick. He glanced back at the plane behind them and grimaced. "No, it's just that I've never been on a plane before." He looked down at the ground. "Never been on a boat before either, but I'm not afraid of water."
Skye had to bite her lip to keep herself from laughing. She leaned closer to him and whispered, "Why Brock Rumlow. Is there actually something that you might be afraid of?"
He looked at her sourly. "I'm not afraid. I'm just not real excited about the idea of hurling through the sky in a metal container, that's all."
She smiled kindly at him and patted his arm with the hand that was not holding the ice pack on his head. "It's okay. I've flown a few times. It is actually pretty fun once you get used to it. We'll get you through it. I promise."
Before he could respond, Coach Garrett walked outside from the building and Rumlow immediately grabbed the ice pack from Skye and pushed her hand away. "Get off it, Sunshine. I can handle it myself," he grumbled. Skye gave him a look of understanding and turned her attention back to Dr. Storm, who was now looking over Clark.
Coach Garrett made his way over to them, and stopped in front of Rumlow, looking down at him. "I'm going back in the boat with some of the other teachers to keep an eye on the prisoners, so I will see you when you get back to school. If you need anything, you let me know, alright?"
"Yes, sir," he replied.
He turned his attention to Skye. "What about you, Sunshine? You doing okay?"
Skye nodded. "Yes. I'm fine, thank you."
"Good. Glad to hear it. Any messages that you want to pass on to anyone back at school?"
She shook her head. "No, thank you." She shuddered and wondered if he thought she'd want to send a message to Ward.
"Okay then. See you all soon." He turned and walked back toward the building.
Once Coach Garrett was gone, Rumlow handed her the ice pack back and she gave him a perplexed look. He just shrugged and grumbled, "It's not as uncomfortable when you do it." She rolled her eyes at him, but resumed holding the ice pack to his head, silently. A short time later, she saw the boat pulling away from the island and Skye followed it with her eyes until it disappeared.
The other teachers all started coming out of the building, and Professor Coulson stood in front of Skye. "Principal Fury wants the place destroyed, Skye. We thought maybe you'd like to help? If not, we can do it without you, it will just take longer."
"Really? What if I lose control or something? Wanda isn't here."
"Well, we can just have Mr. Kent hit you very hard and knock you out if it comes to that." Seeing both of their shocked expressions, he laughed. "I'm kidding. We can handle it, Skye. It's up to you, though."
Skye thought about it for a minute. The other kids already knew what she could do, and she had never actually tried to use her power on something as big as this, so it was a pretty exciting proposition. Not to mention the pleasure that getting to destroy that horrible building could bring her. She shrugged. "Sure. Sounds fun, A.C."
Professor Coulson called for verification that everyone was clear of the building. Once he was sure that it was safe, he gave Skye the go ahead. She handed Rumlow the ice pack back and stood up, moving closer to the building before taking a deep breath. Holding her hands out slightly, she focused on the building in front of her and tried to tune out the curious stares of the other kids and teachers, who had joined the kids close to the plane's entrance to watch her.
This time, the ground around her didn't move at all. She could feel the building easily and it started to shake almost immediately. A low sound started somewhere deep inside the rock and soon the outside walls were crumbling. It started slowly at first, but as she felt more comfortable with it, the building moved quicker and the sound got louder. After a few moments, she smiled to herself as the outside walls collapsed and the roof came tumbling down around it. Rock dust was pouring off the pile of rubble like smoke. The building had completely fallen apart.
Knowing that she needed to stop now, or risk the whole island collapsing, Skye discovered that in this moment, she didn't need Wanda to root around in her brain for a happy memory to help her stop. She had one right at the surface. They were all safe and she was going back to school.
As the dust settled, Professor Coulson came up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder. He was beaming at her. "Great job, Skye. That was really impressive, and we didn't even need to worry about you losing control. I'm proud of you."
She grinned. "Yeah, good thing too because if this island collapsed, I don't know how to swim!"
He laughed at her. "I'll send a picture of this to you for your scrapbook."
"Sure, A.C., but let's hope that it is a very small scrapbook. Maybe one page?"
"Well, you could always get a job as a one person wrecking crew."
"Something to keep in mind as I explore future careers, I guess." She smiled at him.
"I think you might have just scared the rest of the kids, and quite possibly the teachers, a little bit though."
Skye turned around and saw all six kids staring from her to the pile of rubble with shocked expressions. Even Rumlow, who knew exactly what she was capable of, seemed shocked to actually see it on such a large scale. Professor Richards, Dr. Storm, Johnny, Mr. Grimm and Professor Pym were staring at what was left of the building in disbelief as well.
"Seriously?" She shouted as Professor Coulson led her back toward the plane. "What are you people staring at me for? Professor Pym can shrink down to the size of a bee…sorry Professor….yellow jacket and fly, Professor Richards can become a human Stretch Armstrong, Johnny turns into a ball of fire and we don't always see Dr. Storm, because she can be invisible. Then there is Mr. Grimm, who is…..well sir, I'm not quite sure what you are yet, but you are really awesome."
He grinned at her. "You don't need to call me Mr. Grimm. I'm not a teacher. I go by the Thing."
"Oh, I guess we could call you Mr. Thing?" Skye giggled.
The teachers all started laughing, but the kids were still staring. "Don't even get me started on you guys. We all know what Rogue can do and how awesome she was today, and Scott and his suit are amazing. Diana, Dick and Brock are three of the best fighters the school has, taking on grown adults and winning." She continued toward them, and stopped in front of Clark. "Then there is you, Clark. X-ray vision, super speed and strength, melting things with your eyes, ice balls and flying. Is there anything you can't do?"
"Yes," Clark grinned at her and nodded. "I can't do that," he said as he pointed to what was left of the building.
Skye giggled and patted him on the back. "Sure you could, buddy. It would just take you longer."
At that, all of the kids stopped staring and started laughing too. Soon, Professor Coulson was herding them all onto the plane. Skye sat in an empty seat next to Rumlow, who had taken a seat by a window. He immediately took her hands and began inspecting them for new bruises. "That didn't hurt you, did it?"
"Nope. It didn't hurt at all. I didn't lose control and well, it was kind of fun."
"Yeah? Fun is an interesting word choice. I still say that you are scary."
"Whatever. I'm no scarier than anyone else here." The plane engines fired up. "Oh, it looks like we are about to take off."
Rumlow tensed as the engine hummed and Skye reached over and grabbed his seatbelt. He frowned as he took it from her and buckled it himself. She just shrugged and buckled her own belt. He began fidgeting nervously in his seat, his eyes on the floor.
"Everything is going to be fine," she said soothingly. "Sure. There is a giant rock man flying this baby, and his hands are probably four times as big as the controls, but I'm sure he knows what he is doing." Skye stifled a giggle as he looked up at her in horror. "I'm sorry, that was really mean of me. We'll be fine. I promise." She reached over and took his hand.
A few minutes later, as the plane took off; Skye had to press her lips together to keep from groaning in pain as he gripped her hand tightly. He seemed to have sensed that he was hurting her, because he relaxed his grip a little bit and closed his eyes.
As the plane leveled out, Skye leaned over him to look out the window. There were fluffy white clouds all around them, and water everywhere below them. It was still daylight, but she could see ahead of them where the sun was already setting and it was getting darker. It was beautiful.
She patted his arm with her other hand. "Hey Brock? Open your eyes. Seriously, you should look."
"I'd rather not," he replied quietly, keeping his head down and his eyes closed.
"Please? Trust me. You can always close them again." She squeezed his hand encouragingly.
He slowly opened his eyes and glanced out of the window. She waited for him to jerk his head back and close his eyes again, but he didn't. Instead, he continued to stare out of the window and after a few minutes, he relaxed his grip on her hand even more. "This is amazing," he sighed as he watched the clouds roll by.
They all settled in for the flight and Dick and Scott jokingly inquired about when the drink and dinner service would begin. Neither would be necessary, though, because within minutes, the plane was completely silent as all seven kids fell fast asleep.
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
A quiet and peaceful plane ride to take us into the weekend. Next week we return back to school and start to deal with the aftermath of all of this.
Thank you so much for reading!
Also, thank you to those that have left comments lately! I wish there was an easy way to respond.
TigerRebel – I'm so glad that you are enjoying it! This has been a lot of fun for my first attempt at fan fiction. Thank you for reading it!
a-really-angry-sorceress – My response to your awesome review got very long winded, so I sent it through the PM system. Hope that was okay!