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Year Four: A Busy Night
Darwin Library - 11:48 PM
Angela lost track of time while sitting with James, Keith, and Naomi in the library. All four of them with their lidded drinks and their study notes open despite no studying taking place. She was dozing off on James' shoulder while his arm is snakes around her waist, resting on her hip. James and Keith talk about a show she probably watched with James a while back that escaped her memory.
Angela looks across the table where Naomi slouches in her chair, glasses on and she can catch the reflection of Naomi's phone screen where her eyes are fixated. She sees a small white square that flickers whenever Naomi taps her phone. Angela guesses she's reading a book rather than texting someone or swiping on a dating app. Naomi's other hand picks up her empty coffee cup and she holds it to her lips, biting the rim.
-o-
Hudson Residence - Time Unknown
Xavier's eyes flutter open seeing red and blue. He yawns, turning around in his bed thinking it's just his dad in uniform probably reminding him to mow the lawn and clean the gutters later. Maybe he'll add something about the car. Then he'll drone on about how he should be up by now despite it probably being only 4 AM and he would've been up soon anyways.
His eyes shoot up at the realization that he's in his dorm, not his bedroom back home. A blaring alarm and sirens instantly hit his ears and he scrambles out of bed.
Xavier opens his curtains and the red and blue lights blind him as opposed to when they were just burning through the shades, as did his father's uniform from time to time. Firetrucks are parked outside his building where he sees cadets assembled outside and others still making their way out.
It must've been going off for a while if that's the scene outside. And here he is standing here in a building that's probably (not) burning after having slept through the fire alarm, cadets marching out of the building, and likely hassling one another against the walls on their way outside.
Xavier throws on some snow booths and runs down his hall, yelling over the alarm in case anyone was still asleep like he would've been. He skips down the stairs and pushes through the door where the winter breeze hits him. The snow pricks his skin as he trudges through the cadets piled outside. He scans the crowd for his floor and sees most of them, the others are either around or didn't spend the night here.
He's only in pyjama pants and snow boots. Not the only one, but still. Great. The other RAs are wearing their bright blue RA vests and Xavier hasn't touched his since he got it over the summer. He's pretty sure it's in the very back of his closet.
"There you are!" Brody says, wearing an unzipped jacket and his RA vest over his pyjama pants with flip-flops. "I saw you leave. At least it looks like you were making sure the building was clear before heading out."
Angela approaches him with Brody, laughing to herself. "Be realistic. Idiot probably would've been sleeping there until a fireman lugged him out."
Xavier narrows his eyes at her. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I came to do this."
Angela smashes a snowball on his head and skips off. Just as Xavier fires one back at her, they get the all-clear to return inside from the fire chief. If he has to guess, some drunk cadet accidentally pulled the alarm coming back from a bar thinking they were pushing the elevator's call button.
"You have your key, don't you?" Brody asks him as they let in their cadets first.
"Grabbed it on the way out," Xavier responds, instinctively feeling it in his pocket.
"We'll be up for another hour opening locked doors."
Xavier sighs. "I know."
-o-
Edison Residence - 2:49 AM
"What?" Daniel yells as he opens his door.
He immediately turns on the light and clears his throat, muttering apologies as he puts on his glasses to see Angela crying more clearly. She was pounding on his door for five minutes and now that he sees her, he's surprised she didn't have James' key or knocked the door down.
"I need your help," Angela says.
"What is it?" Daniel asks. "What happened?"
Angela holds out her laptop which has a lot of windows open. Not tabs, windows. Daniel's eyes wince at the brightness before he taps a key on her keyboard to dim it. Even after that, he has no clue what he's looking at on her screen.
"I don't know how to do this tech thing," Angela shoves her laptop in his arms. "I called Stark but she's getting drunk somewhere in Thailand with her classmates. Merida is getting drunk somewhere here with James. My whole floor is either asleep or out and I'm not close enough with them to knock maniacally on their door. I tried looking up what to do but nothing was working and I was confused."
Daniel brinks, eyes narrowed. "So I'm your chance after your whole floor and the internet?"
Angela shrugs a little. "You're ahead of Xavier because he's stupid and I think his dorm was on fire or something."
Daniel smirks, unsure if that's a compliment but he's taking it as one. "Okay, so what do you need?"
At that moment, Angela freezes. She just points to her screen and makes it brighter to which he dims immediately.
Daniel squints at the screen, trying to piece together what Angela has to do. She has a file on herself opened with questions that someone, her SO, have filled out and another window with an upload portal. "Angela, you just have to drag your file there. Is there anything else because I don't even know how to add page numbers to a document."
He's taking it to his grave that it took him an hour to figure out how to number pages. He almost threw his laptop out the window. He made sure to write the instructions on how to do it. Don't ask him where the instructions are.
Angela starts to sob. "I'm supposed to upload this, but they have a 2 MB limit and I don't know how to lessen it without ruining its quality. I stared at my screen for an hour and then it was midnight and nobody was here, and I haven't eaten since dinner."
"Can't the school obtain it themselves?"
"I almost punched through my laptop. Bonnie just had to write a lot about me." Angela scoffs. "You should hold this away from my fists."
Angela hands over her laptop, closing it. Daniel holds it like a tray as he thinks for a moment before looking down the hall. A lot of fellow cadets are still awake, playing video games while studying or writing lab reports.
"I have a plan," Daniel says.
Daniel turns off his light and closes the door. He leads Angela down the hallway where they step over some card games and he knocks on a door with a go-away sign. If he let Angela knock, then she would've let herself in.
"What?" Keith asks mid-yawn although Daniel knows that Keith wasn't asleep. He straightens when he sees Angela in an oversized button-up and bicycle shorts beside him and his stupid Captain America pyjamas. "I mean, hey."
"Can you help her reduce a file?" Daniel asks him.
Keith scoffs a bit. "That's preschool shit." He immediately opens his door wider and turns on the light before they walk inside. Angela's crying face will forever be in his nightmares. "I mean it's super complicated. Don't worry about my roommate. He's… I don't care where he is but it's not here."
Keith goes into his fridge and pauses when he sees Angela sitting on his bed with her laptop open and typing on her keyboard. She wipes her cheeks and Keith looks at Daniel. His eyes widen in alarm that Angela Freaking Rogers is sitting on his bed and Daniel waves it off.
"You want a Shirley Temple?" Keith takes some cans of ginger ale out with cherry syrup. He hands Daniel three plastic cups.
"I can't get drunk because my dad's a fossil on fancy steroids," Angela mumbles.
"Yeah, there's no booze in this."
Angela glances up at them. "Thank you."
Keith opens three cans of ginger ale and pours one into each glass. Daniel throws the cans out as Keith mixes in some cherry syrup. Daniel takes a cup as Keith claims one and gives the remaining cup to Angela.
Angela sniffles. "Thank you again." She pats the spot next to her on his bed as if it wasn't his bed. Keith hesitantly sits next to her with enough space for Daniel to sit in the middle but he sits at Keith's roommate's desk. "Nice PJs, by the way. Stark told me that was her first impression of you over a year or two ago. If only this had booze for the taste."
Angela grins a little as she points at the spangled shield pattern on Keith's pyjama pants. Daniel grins as Keith's face reddens, trying to hide behind his drink with a sip.
"Okay, here."
She hands him her laptop and scoots closer to him to watch. Daniel could tell by Keith's perplexed face that he blanked out at Angela's lack of personal space. He's grown up with her so he's used to and comfortable with her. Keith considers her a friend so he knows that he's more jolted by the idea of a hot girl, a hot Angela Freaking Rogers, in extremely close proximity to him in her PJs.
So he clears his throat and starts typing on her keyboard, clicking around and explaining the process of reducing a file. Even Daniel pays attention because he'll never know. He also keeps an eye out in case Keith would eventually need his inhaler.
Daniel didn't even lower his cup before Keith finished it. Angela cheers and downs her cup, shooting it into the trash, before submitting her document and closing her computer in victory.
"My dad is a literal fossil so there's no way he could help me with this," Angela exclaims. "Thank you."
Angela moves her laptop to the side and hugs Keith tightly. He winces and flails his arms around so Daniel has to stand and pry her off of him for the sake of his spine.
"You get used to those," Daniel says before recognizing Keith's grin. That means she'll hug him again.
"Hey, so what are you submitting, if it's not personal," Keith asks. "I didn't read it but it seemed important."
Angela shakes her head. "Nah, it's just paperwork for the field. It's due tomorrow morning — or in a few hours — and I forgot about it until Orchid reminded me before she left for whatever. I think my SO is letting me go right after grad. She cleared me to go effective immediately after."
"Wow, Angela, congrats," Daniel says, sitting beside her.
"Yeah, wow, that's huge," Keith adds. The two boys raise their nearly empty cups for her.
Angela smiles. "Thanks, um, it's surreal. I don't know any other words to describe it." She sighs contently. "I'm assuming Xavier submitted his before his dorm caught fire and I have to hunt for James and Merida wherever the hell they're partying. If you ask me, they're probably with Orchid. I bet she also got hers in."
Angela winks at them before heading out.
"That Pym is a lucky, lucky man," Keith states.
Allegedly, the uploading doc moment is based on true events.