Author's Note:
You guys know how nobody's perfect, right?
Well, the very imperfect author of this story (myself) made a mistake with Danny's age and school year.
She's a senior and about to turn 18. My bad, I really don't know what happened!
And sorry for the EXTREME delay…
On with Chapter 4! The song is "Fireflies" by Owl City, I'm sure a lot of you are sick of this song and I don't know why I titled it this, but it has to do with dreams, so yeah =]
Recess.
There's something about being outside of a classroom and going to a playground that makes a man brave enough to do what he's got to do.
I held the ring in one hand and the bundle of flowers I'd picked from abuela's garden in the other. Mami had tried to talk me out of doing this and my sister had thought it was the cutest thing she had ever heard of, but neither of them could understand. Only my brother had understood, and he had been the one to get me a ring.
My heart beat uncontrollably within my chest, and when I spotted her hanging from the monkey bars, it beat even faster. As always, she fell off once she got to the third bar, and all of her friends laughed. She laughed too, got to her feet, dusted off the pleated skirt of her uniform, and ran for the slides.
Her curly black hair trailed behind her, wild and with a life of its own. Her cheeks were bright red and her mouth was open as she panted for breath. Her worn Mary Jane shoes kicked up dirt as she skidded to a halt, looked at me, and smiled, changing direction so that she could come my way.
Be brave, I told myself, and got to my knees.
"Hey Robbie, come play over here!" she said excitedly, grabbing my arm and pulling me to my feet. She stood a good three inches taller than me, but I didn't care: I had to do this.
"W-w-wait a second!" I stuttered nervously, and got back on my knees. "D-d-Danny, will you--?"
"Wiiii, miraaaa!!!"
Ay Dios...
Angela's voice carried from the other side of the playground, and soon enough, everybody was staring. Danny just looked down at me with a curious look on her sweat-covered face, her hands held behind her back as she waited for me to continue. I opened my mouth to get the words out, but they got lodged in my throat, and suddenly, I couldn't speak. The girls were squealing and singing those annoying love-teasing-songs, and the guys were making gagging noises.
"Roberto's proposing!!" the mean Angela exclaimed, and a chorus of "Eeeew"'s followed. It was common knowledge that Danny didn't know much Spanish, and this wouldn't be the first time that this specific blonde made fun of her because of it.
"Aw shut your fucking pie hole, Angela!" My jaw dropped as Danny turned around and pointed a finger at the girl, continuing her string of reprimanding curses. It seemed that she'd understood the teasing tone and gotten fed up. They couldn't understand her English either, but everyone knew enough curse words to know that she was angry. "You're annoying as shit—I'm getting frickin' proposed to here, and you're running your mouth like a--!"
"Miss Cruz!" We all gasped in unison as the teacher, Mrs. Rodriguez, marched over to us, her cheeks red with anger and her dyed scarlet hair frizzy from the humidity. Danny's eyes widened and she lowered her head in shame. "Come with me to the principal's office!" she snapped in Spanish, grabbing onto Danny's forearm and dragging her away. Our classmates burst into laughter and Danny's face started to redden even more than before as she followed with her head lowered.
"M-m-Miss!" I exclaimed, running after them. The teacher whorled around with an annoyed expression on her face, and for a moment, I remembered exactly why she scared me so much. With the memory of a ruler snapping against my arms, I took a deep breath. "It wasn't her fault!"
"There is no excuse for foul language in this school," she reminded him. "I can understand accidents, but when it's as intentional as what Miss Cruz was saying, I have no choice but to go to the principal." Before she could turn around again, I did something I didn't think I was even capable of doing.
"Fucking shit!" I yelled. Mrs. Rodriguez froze in her tracks. Hurrying up before my fear caught up with me, I continued. "Fuck mom! Ass wipe! Shit cakes--!"
"Roberto, stop that this instant!"
"Motherfucking dog--!" I clamped my mouth shut the moment she grabbed my arm with her free hand and jerked me forward. I looked over at Danny as the teacher started to march us away from the playground. A huge grin lit her face, and then it happened.
She leaned over and kissed my cheek.
Turning a furious red, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the gift I'd been meaning to give her, and finished saying what I'd been wanting to say for the two months since I'd met her.
"Danny, will you--!"
"Wake up, Danny!"
The first thing that struck me was the cold. After that was the fact that I couldn't move my fingers, and when I opened my eyes, I was looking at a small TV screen built into the back of a blue leather chair. Rather than panic, I took a moment to think.
Oh, right.
I was on a plane to Mutant High.
"Danny, Danny! You've gotta see this!"
I groaned and sat up. My neck felt sore from having rested at a strange angle, and when I looked to see what I'd been laying on, I saw Orangey. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye and when I caught him looking, he quickly turned away. Whilst rubbing my sore neck, I smiled carefully at him and shifted away a bit. He hadn't seemed too uncomfortable with the fact that I'd slept on him for the past—I stopped to check my watch—two hours, and suddenly I felt even guiltier that I couldn't remember his name.
"Uh... mornin'," I greeted.
"Morning," he said back, and fit a pair of headphones over his ears to listen to the movie. I wanted to see what movie he was watching, but then the voice that woke me up spoke again.
"Danny!" the voice insisted. The back of my chair was rocking with the sole purpose of getting my attention, so with much protest from my tired muscles, I turned around to meet the excited face of Bobby Drake.
"Yes, Bobby?"
"Were you sleeping?"
"Well—"
"Because we're on the news, and you have to see it!" He reached forward and changed the channel with the controls on the armrest. "Well, technically it's not us, it's just Jean and Scott, but they've got some footage from—there!"
I didn't recognize the news channel, but I pulled on my headphones anyway to listen. A perfectly groomed brunette with a Dolly Parton hairstyle was speaking into a microphone, and behind her, two men were hanging from a lamppost by their jacket hoods.
"...where local teen mutants, Miss Jean Grey and Mister Scott Summers, were able to neutralize the burglars and get the hostages out safely..."
"See, I knew we all should've gone on the X-Jet!" Bobby whined, cutting off whatever the reporter was going to say before the channel went to commercial break. "It's no fair that they got to go with the Professor early while we had to take the connecting flights on these hot planes!"
"Remember your manners, Drake," Logan snapped, shoving the energetic teenager back into his seat. I bit my lip to suppress a laugh at his annoyance and turned towards Orangey so that Logan wouldn't see my face. He had a small grin on his face, but before I could say anything to him, something clicked in my head.
"Hot planes?" I repeated, taking off my seatbelt. I got on my knees on the chair and leaned over so that I could see Bobby more clearly. Cannonball (or Sam) was fast asleep in the window seat, his mouth hanging open slightly. The small bottle of complimentary water in his hand was frozen solid, and his hair was stiff with frost. I raised a brow and looked at Bobby expectantly, and surely enough, he looked like the epitome of innocence under my stare.
"Whaaaat...?" he said casually. I held out my hand for inspection. "I don't get it."
"My fingers are blue, Bobby," I stated meaningfully. He shrugged, but didn't meet my eyes.
"Well, that's a shame..."
Logan growled.
"Fine!" he said in surrender, throwing up his hands. "But when you guys start sweating, don't come crying to me!"
In the couple of seconds that it took for me to get comfortable again, the air became noticeably warmer, or at the very least, above freezing. I smiled contentedly and wrapped my jacket tighter around myself, settling down to sleep a bit more. I heard somebody shuffling in the row behind us, but I ignored it and instead focused on the dream I'd had.
The dream had been a flashback from back in Kindergarten when Robby had proposed in the playground, then got demerits for defending me with his cussing. Distractedly I reached up to the silver chain hanging from my neck and felt for the ring dangling from it, passing my fingertips softly over the deep blue stone and small star engravings. I wondered if I'd had the dream because it was something he'd dreamed of or if it was a memory that I'd taken from him. We'd been close friends ever since that incident, staying in and out of contact between moves, breakups and hookups, so it could be considered a significant event.
I made a mental note to call him once I'd settled down at the Institute.
Sam inhaled as if to sneeze, and in the blink of an eye, I was knocked against the chair in front of me. My forehead collided with the TV screen and my seat belt cut into my stomach, jerking me back like a rubber band.
There was a split second when I didn't realize what had happened, but it ended when some of the passengers started screaming, and then the pain kicked in. "Aw shit," I muttered, groaning as I dropped my head into the palm of my hand. I undid my seatbelt and held an arm against my abdomen, hoping to somehow ease the pain.
"Cannonball, what the hell happened?" Logan demanded.
"Dude…" Bobby groaned, and even through the pounding in my head, I could sense that he was feeling nauseous. "Get off!"
"I'm sorry!" Cannonball whispered, obviously embarrassed.
"Come on, man," Ray murmured, and I felt a hurried hand on my shoulder. "You okay?"
I moaned quietly and nodded. "What the hell happened?"
"Cannonball sneezed," he answered. To this, I lifted my head and looked at him disbelievingly.
"He sneezed?" I repeated.
"The seatbelt stopped him from shooting out of the plane, but… yeah." I looked in the direction he was signaling to, and my jaw dropped. Sam's seat had been completely ripped out of the floor, the back was reclined much farther than it was meant to, and now the whole set rested on top of the seat that was behind Bobby. Sam himself had been thrown over the back of Bobby's chair, and in an attempt to get off, he ended up falling onto the teenager's lap.
"Oh, come on!"
"I'm sorry!" he repeated, and hurriedly got to his feet.
I couldn't help but stare, even as nearby passengers got up and yelled for the captain and stewardesses. Nobody got out of their seats except for those directly behind the incident, but even so, the tension in the air was making my head pound. One of the baggage compartments suddenly opened, and several dark-colored suitcases cascaded out and onto the aisles.
Mr. Logan sighed tiredly. "You kids stay together," he ordered as he got to his feet. "I'll take care of this. And somebody get the Cannonball a handkerchief before he breaks the plane." I watched him make his way to the control room, completely ignoring the stares and questions people were throwing at him.
I turned to Sam. "So, that's why they call you Cannonball?" He nodded mutely, but his cheeks started to flush. I grinned. "Well, then… God bless you, Cannonball."
19:30
Xavier Institute
Ever since my family had firmly established itself in PR, I'd had a dream of the next time I would move. I was certain that it would be on my own terms, but in the dream, I was accepted into some prestigious university like Harvard or Oxford, or a really big one like University of Florida or Duke. In that dream, I'd arrive in my own car filled with boxes, pull up to my dorm building, become fast friends with some girl who had just arrived as well, and then we'd start bringing our stuff into the building together. We'd just happen to be roommates, and then everything else would carry out its course.
I wouldn't have imagined at the beginning of the school year that I'd be transferring only a couple of months before graduation, much less to a mutant-training institution.
Actually, I never would've thought that I'd be going to an institution at all, much less after all that had happened over the years.
Shaking away the memories, I stared wide-eyed as Scott drove the X-Van up to the Institute's entrance, pulling to a stop in front of a glass entrance. Even through the windows and tall doors, the grand staircase and artwork on the elegant walls could be seen perfectly, and I began to get the feeling that I was in over my head.
I truly believed this when I stepped out of the car.
Several things happened at once: first, Scott reminded Orangey and Bobby to help with the luggage. Next, something exploded several feet in front of me, and a black creature leaped out of the smoke. For a wild moment I was reminded of a Pokemon, but then the thing (shaped very loosely after a human with a tail) yelled and jumped on me, reaching out to grab my shoulders with weirdly shaped hands. Using me as impulse, the creature back flipped onto the X-Van.
"Run!" it yelled, and just as there was another explosion of smoke, it disappeared.
"What did he do to her now?" Scott muttered, obviously annoyed. I stood frozen, and Bobby looked expectantly at me. He came in front of me and waved a hand, grinning.
"Hey, guys," he said excitedly, "I think she's gonna pass out!"
"Shut up, Bobby!" Scott snapped, shoving him away from me. "Don't worry Danny, that was just Kurt."
"Kurt?" I repeated, coming back to earth. "As in, a student here?"
"Yep," he replied. "You'll get used to him. He's actually a pretty cool dude."
"A really energetic guy, you mean." I looked down and saw that my hands were twitching from the aftershocks of his very open aura. "He seemed like a nice guy, but what was he so afraid of?"
"KURT!!!"
The shriek came from well inside the mansion, but we heard it very clearly. Scott seemed to brace himself as a petite brunette in a red T-shirt and denim Capri pants came running down the stairs, a determined look on her face. Rather than feel relieved that I had finally spotted another girl, I felt worried because of her expression: A mutant that pissed off had to be dangerous.
"Forget this, man-- I'm out of here," Bobby stated, and pointed at his feet. A stream of ice promptly formed beneath him and shot upwards, carrying him with it to the second floor. Orangey and Cannonball quickly followed suit, only they simply grabbed the boxes they'd been handed and hurried inside. Just as I was going to follow, the girl spotted us and came in our direction.
"Scott, have you seen Kurt?" she demanded angrily, walking through the door. I stared in disbelief as my mind tried to register that she had not, in fact, opened the door, but gone straight through it. "He used up all of my conditioner, again!"
"Well, actually--"
He was interrupted by another "poof" sound, this one from a balcony on the second floor. We all looked up and I caught a glimpse of yellow eyes before the culprit let out a cry and disappeared again. A growl escaped the angered girl.
"That elf is so gonna get it! Kurt, get down here!" she yelled, making a break back inside. She, of course, didn't open the door this time, either. On top of feeling pretty invisible, I also felt somewhat intimidated: who was to stop her from sneaking into someone's room at night and getting revenge?
"So… freaked out yet?"
I turned to Scott and took a moment to really look at him. The sun was almost completely hidden behind the horizon, and yet he still wore those red sunglasses. Something gave me the feeling that they held a great significance to him, but it didn't seem my place to ask. Out of everyone I'd met so far, he seemed to be the one who was trying his hardest to understand me, and yet, he was one of the ones who'd said the least (Cannonball not included). I smiled a genuine smile at him and made sure my thanks were projected, but then I struck my poker face.
"This, freak me out?" I grinned and shook my head. "This is nothing compared to living with my family."