Cheyy: I'm sorry you got confused. I was trying to fluff out that Allison was making friends quickly and probably didn't give enough time to the scene. Don't worry about Justin, you'll never hear of him again. He was literally a fluffing tool. And apparently a failed one at that.

FYI:
I do not own the X-Men, however, I own Allison. *Cracks Knuckles* After a fluffy chapter, it's about time she got busy turning the world upside down again.

Author's Note:

This story is just one of many to take place in my own little AU that will eventually tie the Marvel and DC universes together in what I will lovingly call Earth-WTF? What really stinks is I had this fantastic speech written for Allison. She was going to go and on making DC references and get all of this additional awe factor but then I realized something. While she makes this speech, Clark Kent will only be in third grade and Lois Lane would be in fourth. So, um, oops? Call in the re-write team in the middle of the night and try and figure out what the hell to do to get that wow factor back. I went through quite a few candidates in my mind. Mostly silver age DC characters and then realized that none of them had famous girlfriends. Same thing with the Avengers too. This led to a huge problem in my writing. So, in the end...

Chapter 13: If Only Lois Lane Wasn't Currently in Elementary School...So Pepper Potts will just have to do.

Allison watched Justin's retreat while smiling in the warmth of the laughter that surrounded her. She had her head resting easily in the flat of her hand, her eyes flickering about the table to take in the smiles of the girls she'd just met today. It was as if they'd been friends all along and she was grateful to not feel like an awkward wall flower. Sandra still couldn't get over the fact that her long time stalker had finally taken a hint from a girl she'd only just met in third period history.

Unfortunately for Allison, she wasn't able to hide her blush fast enough when she spotted Sam walking in the direction of their table. All of the girls noticed in turn as their laughter started to come down from a boil to a simmer and they turned to follow Allison's gaze one-by-one. He had a book under his arm and was trying to balance a tray in the other hand, and he looked like he was about to drop one or the other in his attempt to wave to Allison. "Hey," she said as she gazed up at him from her seated position and then bit her lower lip. How lame, she thought realizing that the other girls were watching her and waiting for reaction to set the tone.

"Hey yo'self. Ah jus' heard that coach is makin' us go fo' a run taday. Ah guess Ah should say the real message was 'no pads necessary'." Sam's eyes flickered over the group of girls who'd mostly sobered at his appearance, although Sandra and Patricia were still wearing wide grins as they smiled up at him and even batted their eyelashes a little.

"Yep, that spells a run," Allison sighed before smiling. "At least it gives us a really good excuse to ignore some of the more annoying linebackers."

"Incredibly true," Sam said laughing as his attention was riveted back to her before slowly turning a shade of pink. "Ah'm sorry, Ah'll let ya eat with yo' friends," he added while indicating their audience with a nod of his head.

"Oh...okay," Allison said hesitantly and then followed his gaze to where some of the other kids from the institute were sitting. A small part of her felt like a traitor for not sitting with them instead.

"See ya," Sam said with another awkward half wave with the hand burdened by the textbook.

When Allison swiveled back around to face the table again the girls were all grinning incredibly broadly with the exception of Kaitlyn. "He's cute," Sandra commented as her eyes followed Sam across the room.

"But isn't he one of the, you know, mutants?" Kaitlyn asked in a hushed voice that was almost lost in the low din of the cafeteria. But both Rose and Allison managed to hear her anyway. Rose's gaze also followed Sam as he made his way to sit down with Kitty, Bobby, and the others.

Rose sighed as she reached over and placed her hand on Allison's forearm in what was meant to be a comforting manner and smiled. "Remember those mutants I mentioned earlier? I don't know if you know this already, but he's one of them. You should be careful," Rose warned.

Allison jerkily pulled her arm back as she looked at Rose. "I actually did know. And I don't care. He's a really nice, sweet guy. And I know he wouldn't do a thing to hurt me, not for anything." The girls all exchanged looks with one another as if she were a naive child and would eventually learn for herself the wisdom they were trying to impart on her now. "You think I'm stupid, don't you?" Allison said standing up and grabbed her textbook and tray. She snorted and shook her head. "Well, you guys are the ones missing out. The world would be a better place if more people were like Sam Guthrie. There's nothing wring with being a mutant. If anything, they have to make choices you don't even think about in your wildest dreams." She paused licking her lips before glancing towards the table of her friends from the institute before looking back down at the girls before her. "And the fact that I actually know someone who saved the planet? Damn. And yet you're sitting here trying to tell me to be careful. The only thing I have to be careful of is making sure some other girl doesn't come in and try to snatch him up from under my nose. I get to feel like friggin' Pepper Potts when I'm with him."

She had managed to garner the attention of a heavy proportion of the cafeteria and she turned on her heel and walked straight to the trash can and dumped the contents of her tray before heading for the exit. Someone shouted out "Mutie lover!" and Allison turned to look back to see a plum aimed at her head.

She caught it easily and lofted it into the nearby trash can. "Anymore trash someone would like me to throw out for them?" she asked loud enough for everyone to hear and a hush fell over the cafeteria. "I didn't think so," she snapped before leaving the room and slammed the door shut behind her.

Sam could feel his face burning as he forced himself to stare into his tray of food. "Dude," Bobby said leaning over, "Did she just compare you to Iron Man?"

Sam just nodded weakly and Kitty squealed as she clapped her hands together. "I knew she liked you!"

Ray was leaning back in his chair and gazing at the now closed door thoughtfully. "She didn't really give any of us credit though. I mean, I nearly got myself killed too," he said playfully pouting as Amara rolled her eyes.

"Really? That's the only thing you picked up on?" Amara asked. "How about the part where she called out our entire school for being prejudiced."

Tabitha quickly sat down at the table and stretched out her long legs before giving Sam a gentle elbow in the ribs. "I really dig your girlfriend, Sammy. She's a keeper." She gave him a playful wink and he seemed to snap out of his trance as he blinked at her. "I'm definitely giving her some props for laying her claim over you so quickly. Just when I was considering making a move and everything." She picked up her milk and began to drink as if she'd said nothing of consequence while every other girl at the table just stared at her with wide eyes. "What? He's cute. I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to call him Iron Man or nothing, but still..."

"Ah'm still sittin' here," Sam muttered looking at the girls in turn and they gave him sheepish smiles in return.

"Yeah, why is that?" Bobby asked before taking a sip of his milk. "Shouldn't you have gone running after her or something to make sure she didn't get beat up in the hall, Iron Man?"

Sam stood up slowly and could feel the eyes of every student in Bayville turn on him. Meanwhile the girls continued to talk oblivious to Sam's departure. "Seriously, Tabby?"

"Well, yeah...but the real reason I came over is I wanted to ask if it'd be cool if I could move back in."

Sam shook his head at the girls prattle before taking a deep breath and slowly exiting the cafeteria and as soon as he was through the door, the room erupted into noise.

He eventually found Allison leaning back against his locker as she hugged her textbook to her chest. she looked up once he was more or less standing at her elbow and gave him a tiny smile before it fell. "Sorry," she murmured. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"Ah do usually handle that pretty well on mah own. Jus' not used ta gettin' help," he joked as she sidestepped away from his locker so that he could put his book away. He slowly peeled her fingers away from the book she was holding in a death grip and dropped it into his locker as well. "Ah'm still tryin' ta decide if what ya did was really brave or really stupid. Ah think the others have all voted on brave, so Ah'm probably gonna agree."

She looked down at her shoes and tapped her toe off the linoleum. "I probably made things worse," she sighed.

"Actually, Ah think ya made ev'ryone in there stop an' think. The professor would probably be really proud."

"What about you?" she asked glancing at him sideways.

He hesitated for a moment and Allison took to staring at her feet again as she leaned back against the lockers. "Are we datin'?" he asked instead of answering her question.

Her eyes flickered up to meet his gaze and she gave him a one shouldered shrug. "I guess. I told you, I'm not good at this."

He leaned down and kissed her quickly on the lips and she stared up at him blinking in surprise. She wasn't sure which surprised her more, the fact that it hadn't rained on them or that he'd even kissed her. "Ah couldn'a asked fo' a better girlfriend," he said brushing back strands of hair from her face. "Ah'm proud ya stood up like that in front of ev'ryone. If they didn' like it, they can take it up with Iron Man," he joked and she smiled in return. "Don' e'er be sorry fo' how ya feel. S'what makes us human still."

"Right," she said still trying to recover from her surprise at his kiss.

Allison got to her last period class and found the only remaining seat left was in front of Rose. She hesitated before taking it and did her best to not look backwards at the girl. She was hoping to avoid awkward tension but it seemed she'd had nothing but awkward tension with everyone in the school since lunch. And this class seemed to be packed with nothing but some of the more obnoxious football players and apparently all of their cheerleader girlfriends.

"I'm sorry," Rose said softly and Allison looked back over her shoulder to see the girl was gazing down at her desk.

"I'm sorry too," Allison said and after a moment she held her hand out. "Truce?"

Rose nodded and shook her hand and let out a sigh of relief. "I didn't realize you knew...or that you were dating. I knew another girl, Amanda, who graduated last year who was dating one of the kids from that institute too. You remind me a little of her because she hated it when other people got on her case for dating Kurt too."

Allison lowered her gaze a little and considered telling Rose that she was a mutant too but decided that it would be pushing her luck for the day. "You wanna be lab partners?" Allison asked and Rose nodded eagerly. "Great. Because there's not a single other person in this room I would trust to handle chemicals," she joked, a little, a least as much as she could considering that she fully meant that statement.

They got through the brief introductory experiment without any incidents, at least at their bench and now stood side by side washing their glassware. "So, you've know Sam's a mutant then?" Rose asked finally deciding it was safe to venture the topic again. Allison nodded in response as she accepted one of the beakers Rose handed her to dry. "So, what's he do? I mean, is it weird or creepy?"

Allison laughed and shook her head. "He can fly," she said looking up for Rose's expression which was now intrigued. "Really, really fast," she added then and laughed. "It actually scares me to death but luckily he can't get hurt while he's flying."

"I guess that's actually pretty cool, huh? No wonder you like him," Rose joked as she washed another beaker. "A real life superhero for a boyfriend. Not many girls can make that claim." Allison just smirked as she looked down to hide her blush. "So how long have you been dating now?"

"Just a week. But we met pretty much right after I moved here. So we've been hanging out a lot with football practices."

"You two must be unbearably cute for the rest of the football team."

Allison just shrugged. "It's not like we make out at practice," she said blushing.

"You should," Rose suggested causing Allison to blush harder. Allison shot her a horrified look as Rose indicated to their classmates that surrounded them. "Can you imagine how these guys would react? It'd be totally worth any trouble you might get in from your coach."

Allison just shook her head in the negative but inwardly contemplated it. Depending on how long of a run the coach told them to take, she and Sam would have a pretty solid lead on most of the team. "I wouldn't want to jeopardize Sam's chance to start on Friday though. He's really fast and really good. He deserves to start," Allison said softly just in case one of their classmates might have a drastically differing opinion. Mutant or not, Sam was still a junior.

"Well, I'm jealous," Rose declared as she dried her hands and rinsed out the sink. "I spend every single day at school with the guy I like and he's clueless."

"Really?" Allison said raising her eyebrows as she grabbed her book and followed Rose into the hall. She was surprised by how close Rose's locker ended being to her own.

"Yeah, we've had art classes together since he was a freshman and we always share a table. We can talk through the entire period and yet nothing has come of it. And once again, we're back in the same rut," she sighed as she grabbed her backpack.

"Why don't you ask him out?" Allison asked and Rose paused looking up at her. "What? Something simple like going for ice cream after school or to the game Friday night."

"You're right," Rose said closing her locker. "It's my senior year. I either make a move now or never. Thanks."

"No problem," Allison said grinning. "Look, I gotta get going for practice. I'll see you tomorrow," she said waving goodbye as she jogged backwards before taking off at a near sprint towards the gym.

She turned the corner and nearly ran Sam over as he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to a stop. "What's the rush?" he asked laughing. "We're gonna run plenty soon."

"I just didn't want to be late," Allison said, her cheeks flushed from the exertion and happiness that Rose wasn't mad at her. Rose reminded her a lot of Kelly and it made her a little less homesick. "That and Rose doesn't hate me," she added. "I guess she just doesn't know how to talk about mutants. Probably no one does. But she understood why I'd gotten upset. So it's all worked out," she said in a rush.

"Ah'm glad," Sam said stealing another brief kiss. "Now le's go put yo' newly founded manic energy ta use."

Allison was right that she and Sam would be far ahead of the pack by the time they finished their run that afternoon. Meanwhile, he'd told her about the other students from the institute and their reaction to her little speech and she'd shared her afternoon of awkward moments with just about every student at Bayville High. Her lesson learned: apparently no one liked to be called out as a bigot. Allison was having a little trouble swallowing Tabitha's comments to the situation and made a mental note to further assert herself later.

They passed the coach by the bleachers and he waved them off, they were free to go as he turned impatiently to look for the remaining players to come. No one else was even in sight yet from the five mile run. They continued at a jog until they reached the door to the school and walked inside. Passing by the locker rooms, he pulled her in for a quick kiss and then playfully pushed her through the swinging door for the girls' locker room. She glanced back contemplatively but decided against her more rash thoughts as she went in and showered.

As she stood under the warm, running water, she ran her fingers back through her hair brushing out some of the knots now that her hair had been conditioned. Something in the pit of her stomach told her that she'd just missed an opportunity back there with Sam but she shook her head and forcefully dislodged the thought again brushing it off as just Rose's silly suggestion rearing its ugly head. But it was a hard mental image to be rid of.

The silly, irrational part of her brain wondered if Sam was in the shower as well. The boys' locker room and the girls' locker room shared that wall with each other. If he as, he was standing no more than a few feet away from her. There was that strange feeling in the pit of her stomach again and she licked her lips as she rinsed her hair out. She quickly snapped off the water but it didn't shut off. She turned the knob back into its 'on' position again and tried once more with the same failed results. Suddenly the other other three showers in the girls' locker room spat, coughing up air before water began to spout. She jumped even though she knew deep down that she was responsible for it. She left the shower area quickly but the showers did not turn back off and she wrapped a towel around her body as she stared back to watch the steam rising to form a thick fog. Exiting the area, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror to see that her eyes were a bright, shimmering green.

Sam was getting dressed in one of the back sections of the locker room and his ears perked up when he heard the showers start going. He hadn't heard anyone come into the locker room at all and it sounded like every shower was running at once. He finished tying his shoes and walked around the wall to look into the empty shower where every shower head was running. He was about to run in and turn them off when he noticed they were all already in the 'off' position.

He doubled back to grab his duffel bag with his sweaty practice clothes and quickly exited the locker room and found Allison standing in the hallway barely put together herself and looking more than a little spooked. "I couldn't get the showers to turn off," she murmured as her gaze lifted to the locker room doors.

"S'okay," he said placing a hand on her shoulder. "Ah bet with some distance they'll shut off jus' fine." He led her out towards the parking lot and noticed that she kept glancing back over her shoulder as if she was waiting for someone to come after them or perhaps for the water to flood out after them. "Y' okay?"

She shook her head a little and then glanced sideways at him. "I think I scared myself a little. Nothing like that's happened before."

Sam's expression turned a little grim as he gazed down at her studying her closely. "Yo' eyes are really green," he commented.

"Now's really not the time for flattery," she sighed and gave him an exasperated look.

"That ain't what Ah meant, an Ah think ya know that," he said and she started for a moment before picking up her pace a little. "Yo' eyes were that shade when we kissed on yo' birthday too. When ya made it rain without tryin'."

She stopped and turned to stare back at him, her eyes wide and he could see that they were dimming now to her usual shade of steel green. "Really?" He nodded in earnest and she frowned slightly. "Damn," she murmured as she looked down to study the pavement, her eyes flickering side to side a little with thought. "I was hoping that was a one time thing."

His expression grew serious, his lips drawing thin as his mouth shifted to the side slightly. He gently tilted her face up to look at him and he pressed his forehead to hers. "An' if it ain't?"

"It might rain a lot if we keep dating. Or I should say kissing to be more specific."

"So?"

Her gaze lowered as she sighed. "It'll get old, I'm sure."

"Not likely," he said in response before kissing her. This time it wasn't quick like the times before. He held his lips against hers, pressing with the firmness of his teeth until she reacted. She dropped her bag at her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck holding him still as she deepened the kiss and it wasn't long before drops of rain began to fall on their shoulders. They parted and the rain just as quickly stopped leaving them standing in the center of a darkened patch of pavement. "Definitely not going to get old," he said placing another long kiss on her lips.

Author's Note:

See what I mean about the pop culture reference? Lois Lane & Superman would have been soo much better. But sadly in my universe they're in friggin' elementary school right now. *Grumbles* Me and my anal OCD tendencies that won't allow me to screw up my own timeline by making a twenty-some-year mistake with a character that will eventually be relatively important in a later story.