Chapter 6 'The Fifth Visit'

Zach had done something he shouldn't have

He had known it wasn't his place to, but he went and did because he knew the alternative was going to be worse. Right?

Fuck, he knew he had to tell Magenta eventually, especially since this sorta, kinda involves her.

Who was he kidding- it had everything to do with her.

It had been a whirlwind past few weeks, first of all.

For one thing, the whole school knew about him and Magenta spending the night together. And he knew how that fucking sounded. But it hadn't been like that. And he had tried to set the record straight numerous times but everyone thought he was trying to save face. He had even found Larry and tried to tell him but all he got was a wink and a, "Sure buddy, whatever you say."

Also, it turned out Magenta hadn't been caught by her dad when she got home the morning after Thanksgiving. Thank god. He hadn't had the chance to meet Mr. Lewis and he was pretty sure he wouldn't be too keen on meeting the boy he thought had slept with his daughter… But she had been put under a pseudo-lockdown, not really hanging out with their friends and been spending more time studying with her tutor who just so happened to be Ethan.

Speaking of Ethan, Zach had to deal with the constant questions from not only their beloved genius but from Will too. Layla had already known about Magenta's visits since she had been brought along that one time and he had been so grateful that she never brought it up to the others. He didn't like keeping secrets from his friends, but he liked that there was something that was just between him and Magenta- something special. He had this irrational thought that if he told anyone, it was like, breaking the spell- like if everyone knew then it would be… different?

And it had been.

He was currently planted in his desk chair, finishing up his playlist for his latest stream while Magenta was sitting criss-cross-applesauce on his bed making adjustments to their Hero Support diorama. They had this big final group project for their last week before Winter break and it was Magenta and Zach's turn with the mini reconstruction of the city's financial district. She had come home with him from the bus since she didn't have to supervise her mom and brother today and they were the ones who needed to finish their work for the project.

He was distracted, to say the least, hoping that Magenta didn't catch him slipping and inadvertently show his typical signs of distress. He thought by getting his tracks together would be enough for him to center himself before he could face her.

Seeming to appear by the thought of her, Magenta came up from behind and gently peeled the headphones off of him, "I bet it sounds good, Glowworm. But we need to finish this up. We got to present this tomorrow."

He nodded, pointing to his screen in the midst of setting up the stream, "Need to make sure it's gonna be good,"

"It will be. Isn't most of it that one band that you just got into? The Monkeyz or whatever?"

"It's Gorillaz, Maj!"

He knew she was messing with him. He had been talking her ear off about Gorillaz ever since 'Feel Good Inc.' dropped on the charts. It was like nothing he ever heard and when he bought the album some weeks ago, it blew his mind. The genre-hopping, the exploration of new thresholds with no fear- of course he was hooked.

"I'll be done in a minute, promise," he assured.

She was still hovering over him from behind, rubbing his shoulders. She dropped down to whisper in his ear, "Fine. But if you don't get over here in the next 5 minutes, I'm crossing your name off on the byline." She accompanied the threat with a soft kiss on his cheek before returning to her spot on the bed.

Zach reached over to where she had kissed him and internally swore, knowing that she was making it hard for him to come forward with what he had done this morning.

There were some upsides during these past few weeks. When Magenta had been finally allowed to leave the house, she would choose to spend that time with him. And only him. They had been going to the mall, chilling at the park, and making frequent trips to the Tubthump. There hadn't been a moment when they had these kinds of outings without holding hands or one of them leaning their head against the others' and it was nice. Although, they never do any of these things at school. Zach had figured Magenta didn't want to add fuel to the fire with all the buzz about them, but they never really got to talk about what they were...

He had been getting to know more about her and her situation at home too. During their private time, she would divulge about her family and he slowly discovered the particulars regarding the incident that left Magenta's mom mentally incapacitated.

It had been some big bad who had rigged a building to blow. Out of a group of small time Supers that went to stop him- only Maj's mom had made it out in one piece. But at a cost. Magenta never really never told him about the extent of her mother's current condition, but there were times when she would cut their phone calls short to tend to her- making sure she ate dinner and making sure she took her medication.

But she had to do all this while wrangling her younger brother, Sky, who seemed quite rambunctious from what Zach has heard about him, apparently also prone to getting up to mischief at school. And he had already met Amber, who was definitely not the touchy feely type and was especially hard on Magenta.

He had already known that it hadn't been easy for her this whole year, having to sacrifice a lot in order to do her part in taking care of her family. But now he got a better idea of what she was dealing with, from all sides. She could never take a break except for when she could hang out with him. Maybe that was why he did his best to make sure Magenta had a great time whenever they were out. It was his part in trying to help her. But he knew that if he had the chance, he could try to help her even more, try to relieve some of that stress she had been going through...

Once he had his songs up and running, he shuffled over to kneel in front of his bed, admiring the work that him and his friends had put together over the past few weeks. Mr. Boy had them putting together a visual presentation for their battle strategy for a simple bank robbery. It was interesting stuff, but it was practically done. Just a few things here and there. Apparently, Magenta had to tend to a broken clay figure.

"Do you think Mr. Boy's gonna mind if Ethan didn't have a head?"

"I think Ethan would say a thing or two," he remarked, exchanging her empty plate of chicken fritters for a bottle of rubber cement, "Want anymore?"

"My heart screams yes but my stomach says no," she rubbed her belly, "Your stepmom seemed so excited to see me today."

Zach knew it was probably because it was the first time Magenta had been over since they started being a thing. And naturally, he had told Steph, and naturally, she was thrilled for him. He loved Steph, really, but she could be over-doting at times. The moment they had walked through the door, she was already offering every food and beverage they had in the fridge.

"Sorry, she's just really… animated,"

"It's fine. I don't think she'd be as thrilled if she knew that this is the first time I, and only I, came over… using the front door," she whispered the last part because the door to his room was wide open- Steph's rules. He had broken out in a light flush when she had explained it to the both of them before climbing the stairs, which earned a loud laugh from Magenta.

"Let's hope she never finds out," He double backed for his desk, trying to find the bank blueprint diagrams they were gonna use in their presentation, "Uh..speaking of parents. Have you told yours yet?"

Magenta hummed while concentrating on putting Ethan's head back together, "About what?"

"Um… about us?"

"Oh. No, I haven't really gotten around to it yet,"

"Haven't really gotten around to it?"

Zach knew that it was a hard topic to broach at the moment with her family, with everything going on and her now just getting back into her dad's good graces. But he had figured since they had been going out on dates and stuff right? But the thing was, they never really did make it official, they had never really talked about whether or not he could bust out the word 'girlfriend' yet.

"I mean, it's been some weeks now that we've been… well you know…,"

"... what, Zach?" He couldn't tell with his back turned if she was teasing or if she was just curious on how he was labeling them.

"Well.. dating," He swiveled on his heel and watched Magenta purse her lips and nodded.

"Are we though?" she asked, somewhat amused.

"I mean… we've been going out and like, we, like, do things…"

"-You can say the word 'kissing', Zach-"

"- and like everyone at school already thinks we are, so might as well," he meant it to come off as a joke but Magenta shut her eyes and groaned.

"So that automatically makes us a couple?" she tried to resume her focus on Clay Ethan, "Please don't mention those perverted nimrods here. Safe space and all that shit," she grumbled.

"It hasn't been that bad, right?"

"Well for you," she said, a dark tone washing over her, "Don't pretend that you didn't get some newfound respect from upperclassmen tools."

Zach didn't flinch at her abrasive tone but stayed silent. They didn't talk about all the attention they were getting the Monday after Thanksgiving because he honestly wanted to put it all behind them and keep his head low about it. He had heard the comments, the insinuations of what they thought he and Magenta did- some of the comments turning him beet red (and glowing green) if he pondered about them long enough.

As embarrassing as it was, he couldn't exactly refute that some of the seniors had been conversing with him suddenly since the news broke out. And if no one, not even Dwayne who had returned to school, had been messing with him since, then he could see why Magenta would think he wouldn't want to spill the beans on what really happened that night.

"To be fair, I was trying to tell Larry what happened but he didn't believe me. And it's not like I can stop it. Once rumors fly around, it's tough to do damage control because everyone's gonna think you're lying to save face," Screw the papers. He was at her side, kneeling beside her on the floor, "What happened to not caring what they think?"

Magenta looked down, setting down Clay Ethan, "That was before I became the face of the new gossip block."

He remembered the first day back, remembering that he didn't even get to school before the whispers started. Having everyone's eyes on him when he piled on the bus, then he recalled when Magenta and Ethan had got on and it was almost a sort of relief when the stares were redirected at her- well almost.

He had to stomach the sight of Magenta being visually prodded at by their freshman class- she had maintained her usual composure, but as she went over to sit next to him he could see her knuckles nearly turning white at how hard she was gripping her messenger bag strap.

Of course, she hadn't been handling it well. She had used to be the girl who flew under everyone's radar, even with her purple highlights, dark clothes, and her unusual name. But even as the rumors were some weeks old, people couldn't help now but to stare at the two of them as they walked down the hall. Even today.

"I'd rather have them think nothing of me when I'm actually something, than to have them think of me as something else than what I really am," Zach almost got lost in the wording of that, but he was pretty sure he understood. Sorta.

Magenta's face softened seeing as her words were leaving him with a dumb look on his face, "Sorry. It's just… I don't really care if people thought we hooked up. It's just, I don't want there to be a big deal about it. I don't like all this attention."

He nodded, bringing his hand to blanket hers, "I get it. I get it. Hopefully, with the new semester they would find new shit to talk about."

"Can we have Warren and Will wreck the cafeteria again? People were on that shit for weeks,"

"Why stop there? They should wreck the library too,"

"We do need new computers," They shared a grin whilst contemplating on setting their friends loose to damage more school property.

"Hey," Magenta shifted to face him. It was a weird sort of position hierarchy with her on the platform of his bed and him on the floor, craning his head slightly to look up at her, "I'm gonna tell my folks… eventually. You know how it is. Can't exactly spring it on them."

"Still not exactly springing it on them if it's been happening for weeks," He went to sit beside her on his bed. If he had come off of as slightly miffed, then he sorta was. All the stuff that Magenta had been bringing up, was stirring some unpleasant feelings that he really didn't want to get into right now, especially when he was planning on confessing something to her today...

"It's just there's a lot of things I don't really talk to them about. My family don't really know much about my personal life. I'm not like you and your stepmom," she explained.

"It's not because you're… embarrassed by me, right?"

Magenta frowned, "No. Not at all,"

"Then, why don't you wanna hold my hand at school?" he shot back, "I mean, it's one thing to not tell your parents but it's not like anything we do at school is gonna get back to them."

He couldn't help but let that tidbit bother him. He knew he had said to himself that he kinda wanted to keep their little secret visits, well… a secret. He thought it was nice being alone with her, it would be better to get to know her in this kind of setting than any other. And now that they knew each other pretty well at this point, even with some of the ugly parts of themselves put on display- it kinda hurt his feelings that she seemed to not want to tell anyone about them. Fuck, even their friends had never seen them like this together.

He knew from some rational part of his body that she wasn't embarrassed by him. Maybe it was his fucking insecurities, and him just making sure that it wasn't about him and that she had her own reasons. He had figured that since everyone knew about them then they might as well roll with it.

It didn't help that Magenta was quiet and pulling her hand from right under his, "Can we not talk about this right now?"

"Maj," he called for her, but she was already moving away from him and digging through her bag to try to find her copy of the assignment instructions, tossing items onto his bed in the midst of her search.

"I can't be out for too long and we need to get our work done,"

He sighed then rose to his feet, "Fine," he conceded before retreating to the desk and grabbing the papers he needed before.

Zach gradually immersed himself in their work although with intruding thoughts fluttering into his focus every now and then. He and Magenta hashed out the particulars about the presentation and overall clearing up any confusion on which parts are whose.

"So… Layla is extraction?"

Zach shuffled through his notes and scanned their timeline, "Uh… yes. And she's going to be securing an exit for the hostages which would be from the roof."

Magenta hummed, not getting the full picture yet, "She's going to be using her vines and I know she said ladder-"

"-Yup a ladder-"

"But that's an accessibility issue," she pointed out, "The handicapped and disabled can't climb. Or what if someone got injured?"

"Shit, you're right. We'll text her that and hopefully she can come up with something. I mean, you saw what she did to Penny. Maybe they can wrap around each person,"

"I don't want it to wear her out. In case it goes real sideways,"

"Yeah, but this is an exercise in which we are sidekicks. We're planning around our assigned hero's tactics,"

"Still can't believe we got Jetstream,"

"Made researching her tactics easier when we just simply asked her,"

Zach was pretty grateful that Mrs. Stronghold agreed to help them with the project. And since she had a more diplomatic approach to these tense situations, they had to make a much more intricate plan that tried to avoid as much combat as possible especially since they were planning around a bank robbery. Good thing too. Pretty much none of them were well versed in that field.

Zach peered over at the now lopsided clay figure, "I feel bad for Ethan. He's pretty much bait."

"But if they leveraged his life, it'd be better than the hostages'," Magenta reminded him, and it was hard for Zach to imagine Ethan putting his life on the line, being held at gunpoint but hopefully melting before they could put a bullet in his head. But at least Ethan was getting a piece of the action, all Zach would be doing is flash a light here or there to distract the robbers while Jetstream did most of the work. Typical of him to be dumped with glowstick work.

Zach picked up the purple figure in the security room, "You finally get to show off your gifts of sneaking into places."

Magenta huffed jovially, "Not really impressive since you caught me that first time."

"Yeah, but you're good at sneaking out of last period without me noticing for like the first few months,"

"I guess I almost never get caught," she smirked.

Zach's stomach turned at her statement, "Yup," he managed to croak out.

He set down Clay Magenta to quickly jot down his final notes on the blueprints when his pencil tip broke. He recognized his backpack set against his nightstand, "Uh… do you mind going through my bag and grabbing my sharpener? It's in the front pocket."

Magenta crawled a bit to the end of the bed to retrieve Zach's bag. She dug through the mess that was his frontmost pocket to find his sharpener. She managed to get it and toss it over it to him.

"Thanks," he was about to continue with the notes when he heard Magenta remarking on how cluttered his pocket was and proceeding to pull out the papers, gum wrappers, and other miscellaneous items.

"Everything but the kitchen sink here, Glowworm. Like what even is this stuff?"

"Sorry. I'll throw it out," Zach said whilst getting up from his chair.

She pulled out a crumpled yellow piece of paper and opened it up to see if it was worth keeping, "A late pass?"

Zach blanched. Shit. Shit. Shit.

He advanced at her, scooping up his bag and swiping the paper from her hands before she could read further, "Yeah. That was from a while ago, just gonna throw that away now." He backpedaled to retrieve the remaining trash that Magenta had pulled out from the pocket to dispose of.

Magenta sat up straighter, zeroing in on his face. He immediately went to find the trash can. Yeah. the trash can so he could get rid of the evidence. This was not how he wanted her to find out. He just had to tuck it in his bag and not throw it out at school.

"But I swore that slip said it was for today,"

Zach panicked, but kept his back towards her while hunched over the trash can, ripping up the yellow slip, "Oh really?" He tried to be nonchalant.

"Yeah. Today. December 19th,"

"I… may have been a little late this morning,"

"A little? You basically missed half of first period," Zach turned around to immediately be face to face with Magenta, "You ok?"

"I mean… I, uh, had one of my… uh… episodes. Had to get to the nurses' for a bit. But it's all good. All good," He had inwardly cringed at using his panic attacks as an excuse, that was a lowball thing to do. Outwardly, Zach feigned a smile, trying really hard maybe more for his own benefit rather than Magenta's because he could tell that he wasn't pulling it off.

"Zach, that slip said you were at the Principal's office,"

He was full on sweating now, "Oh that- um… listen, Maj-"

"Fuck, is it Dwayne again?" Magenta's face scrunched up in disgust, rattling off: "I swear to God, Powers let that asshole off so easy. Suspension? How about expulsion? Because they in no way should let a dick like that graduate and become a Hero-"

"-Maj-"

"You know what, I'm fucking glad that the likes of Lash and Speed are pretty much lowkey incarcerated right now. I wouldn't be able to stomach seeing them graduate and gearing up to 'save' the world-"

"-I, uh, need to tell you-,"

"Like it's the equivalent of seeing that girl in your school, you know that never partakes in P.E and bullies the shit out of the other girls, studying to be a nurse. I never understood that! I swear if he gives you anymore trouble, me and the others are gonna take care of it-"

"ARGHH!" Zach let out a frustrated scream that scared the both of them. It ushered a small window of silence afterwards that a string of words flew out of his mouth before Magenta could interrupt him, and before he lost the nerve.

Powersknowsaboutyoucuttingclass!"

The shapeshifter couldn't decipher what had just been yelled out, "What?"

The blonde took a deep breath before reiterating, much slower this time with a slight quiver in his voice, "Powers knows about you cutting class…'

"Wait, what?!"

Magenta's face registered as pure shock. She gripped her forehead and she had to sit down. Zach had to look away, he knew that the news was gonna rattle her and he didn't want to be the one to tell her. But, he had found out this week that the Math robots got an early Christmas upgrade when, yesterday, after Magenta had made her escape to get home to her family, their teacher noted her absence at the end of class time.

"The teacher marked it down, I tried talking to him, but… I made it worse,"

Zach had tried to cover for her, saying that she had gone to the bathroom, but the robot indeed had gotten smarter and noted the hall pass still hanging by the door. He even had tried to stay behind after class, nearly making him miss the bus, to try and convince him that she was there and she hadn't been missing class, which made Mr. Calc pore over past footage and detected all the other incidents where she had sneaked out. Well, then cue Zach face palming himself for inadvertently making him check.

"You're telling me this now?!" Magenta crossed her arms" This happened yesterday- Fuck!" She marched to the trash can, pointing to the remnants of the late slip, "Then what was this then? Why were you in Powers' office, huh?"

Here comes the nail in the coffin.

"She knew about all the times you cut class. She knew. She was gonna expel you. So… I went there this morning… to plead your case….," he exhaled, "I had to tell her about your commitment to your family-"

Magenta was on him in a second, gripping at his shirt with unbridled anger in her eyes, "That's not your- your thing to tell!" she blinked. Zach could see tears were forming in her eyes as she barely got through the sentence, "I-I can't believe you!"

He gently tried to pry her hands off of him, all the while trying to push the matter forward. Might as well, "You were gonna get expelled. What was I supposed to do?"

"Let me get expelled! We both know how that would make things much easier- I wouldn't have to hitchike on a fucking flying garbage truck,"

"Try explaining that to your dad then? How are you gonna hide not going to school?" Magenta gaped at him, "Don't give me that look, you would so do that! I was trying to help you!" Why couldn't she see that? He did it to protect her. He knew that she wanted to keep things under wraps but this was an extenuating circumstance!

"You help me when I ask you to. If I wanted you to completely obliterate my home life then I would have asked!" She was referring to the high chance of Powers calling her dad and revealing what Magenta had spent the last few months keeping from him.

"I'm sorry!" He yelled, getting increasingly defensive, "Maybe this all could have been avoided if you told your dad in the first place! He-he could have figured something out. No amount of risking your grades- your life for all of this!"

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Magenta had to step away from him as if she couldn't be in the same room as him anymore. She gravitated towards the bed, grabbing her backpack and stuffing her things back inside, "God, Zach. Do you take some sick pleasure at trying to be my savior, my white, glowing knight all the fucking time?"

"What? No!"

"You've been patient with me. More than most people in my life. I'll give you that. But let's be honest, you're just waiting for me to 'come around'. As if, the way I've been living my life is just wrong compared to how you live yours. I'm not open. Or sociable. Or affectionate all the time. So stop expecting that one day I would be and treat as though every time I tried to be as some sort of 'progress',"

"I'm not asking for you to be any of those things," he insisted, "But what I'm asking is for you to be straight up with me."

"Well you weren't with me ! You couldn't be honest with me !"

"Hey, I was going to tell you alright!" All of the bitterness from earlier in the night bubbling up into his words, "But if you think I take sick pleasure at playing hero then you need to be honest with yourself."

"About what?"

"That you love, just love, making me look stupid everytime I get too close," There he said it. And when all the shapeshifter could do was glower at him, he went off:

"You can't help but launch this mental warfare in any conversation and you know, you know- that I'm too naive to defend myself every single time. I thought we were friends. I thought we were…" his voice cracked and he had to take a breath, "I can't think of a single time when I'm with my friends and that I had to choose my words so carefully, worried that they would be used against me!"

It had been true since the day they met, her putting him at arm's length and it didn't bother him before but it was just getting ridiculous at this point. After all they had been through together these past months, that she would think so lowly of him, that she thought he was that stupid to figure out what she was doing to him to keep herself in tact. And he was absolutely sick of it.

Magenta belted out a harsh laugh, "Oh, how about I help you out then? Just like you were trying to 'help' me, my fucking hero-"

"-Just because I thought you shouldn't be expelled, my bad-

"-And let's just not even talk anymore-"

"-I am not apologizing for trying to do the right thing-"

"-You know what?" she yelled through their overlapping words, "Just because you weren't cut out for being a 'Hero' doesn't mean you have to appoint yourself as mine!"

Zach stepped back, stunned. Magenta was staring back at him, resolute in what she had said. He searched for any form of regret in her eyes, in her stance- but nothing. She wanted it to hurt him. The tightness he had carried during their screaming match fell away but just for a moment.

He wasn't sure what possessed him to do what he did next, but he began to laugh. Bitterly. That was all he knew how to do whenever he became the butt of the joke, he had concluded. And she was well aware how many times he had been the joke- of the school, of their friend group, of his fucking family. Always the fool but never the hero.

He knew deep down that the sudden laughing wasn't going to unnerve Magenta- nothing would. But oh he so badly wanted to, to spite her, to let her know how it felt, so he settled for dealing the final, crushing blow.

"Oh my god," he got out after his last mirthless laugh, "At least I'm not someone who expects the worst out of people and wonders why they're alone."

That seemed to have jar Magenta out of her self-righteous stupor because they both stood there in silence. And when Zach watched her fiery gaze morph into one just utter betrayal, mouth slightly agape in disbelief on what she had just heard, he knew it was done. Whatever relationship they had forged for the past few months was over.

"You know what? J-Just go. Just go, Magenta. I can't deal with this anymore,"

Magenta sniffled, but still managed to jutt her chin at him with gusto, "Gladly!" She swiped her jacket and her messenger bag and booked it for the stairs, slamming his door and fled from his house, not even considering using the window.

He had surprised himself. He didn't think he could have been so ruthless, but he was tired of being Magenta's emotional punching bag. How dare she say that to him? That everything he had done for her was to boast his own ego? How lowly did she think of him? He had done the right thing. He had to stand up for himself just this once.

Well at least he thought he did.

He plopped onto his chair, his Gorillaz stream still blasting away, 2-D's voice burrowing into his ears and into his mind. The satisfaction at getting the final word faded away and regret began to fester.

The day had started off good, he had been doing the right thing, right? This had been for her. To keep her at Sky High, to keep her in his life. But what good was it now? He had made sure that she wouldn't want anything to do with him now.

The tears spilled out not at the hurt that Magenta threw his way, but more on the hurt he threw her way. Something ugly came out of him tonight… something so awful and now he wasn't sure how he could fix it. Did he want to fix it? After everything she had put him through? After everything she had said?

She left him with all this stuff to figure out. All the shit for their diorama was still there. He quickly moved it, dumping the rest of the supplies onto the floor in a rage. He reached for his sheets when he discovered a purple composition book tangled up in his blanket.

Oh the fucking irony. The thing that started it all. He wished she didn't leave this behind the first time, so maybe this wouldn't happen, his life wouldn't have gotten more complicated than it already was and he wouldn't have to feel this myriad of messy feelings.

He chucked the book across the room and collapsed onto his bed, sobbing into his pillows. He was tired. So fucking tired. He ended up turning in for an early night, maybe hoping that it was all a bad dream and he could hopefully wake up to something better. The last thing he remembered was Gorillaz crooning out into the night:

Dreams are bad, our heads are mad

love the girl

But God only knows it's

Getting hard to see the sun coming through

I love you...

But what are we going to do?

A/N:

Song: Every Planet We Reach is Dead- Gorillaz