"You two twats jus' gonna stand there an' stare at me," Eddie grumbled before spitting out a tiny puddle of saliva and blood onto the floor. The restaurant had fallen beneath the domineering boot of tense silence, as Allie and Peter had no idea what to make of the incident they witnessed. Hell, they might as well call it a crime.

And that made Allie's heart sink.

That battered chef was going to go straight to the news with his story and it'll be yet another tale to condemn mutants. Eddie was a bloody fool.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" She seethed from above Eddie, watching his uncaring eyes flick to her for a moment before they rolled back in his skull.

"Feels like it… Say… Are my brains on the floor?"

As she kneeled beside him and got in his face, Allie gritted out, "They're about to be. Do you even understand what you've done?"

"Allie," Peter said from above her, then she felt his hand on her shoulder but she didn't budge, "Don't get near him."

She was getting overwhelmed. Didn't either of them grasp the severity of this?

Allie shrugged off Peter's hand and then stood, pacing through the aisle between the booths and tables, throwing her arms up periodically as she yelled at them.

"I can't be the only one here who knows how this is going to go. This is not fucking good! Eddie, you're going to get charged for assault- or hah- hell- maybe they'll start making new laws to punish us when we commit crimes and then it'll be a life sentence for you in the slammer and anyone else who dares use their powers, self defence or not. You're so fucking dumb, so fucking dumb…"

As she faded off in a series of furious mumbles, Peter flung his arms out, telling her seriously, "You need to relax."

Allie swung around to face him, pointing at him. "Don't. You know I'm right. I've always been right about this shit."

"Okay but bitching about it isn't going to change anything."

From the floor, Eddie broke through their arguing to say, "Who's we?"

They both looked down at him, which was when Allie scoffed and crossed her arms, muttering, "No one said 'we', dumbass."

"Earlier," Eddie grunted, twisting his swollen head to peer up at them from the tiles, "You said, 'they'll make new laws to punish us when we commit crimes'..."

"Nice. Sherlock Holms arrived," Allie spat bitterly as she returned to her pacing, "Yeah, Eddie, we're mutants too- Which is why I'm fucking pissed right now."

"Allie!" Peter said loudly, making her, yet again, twirl around to glare at him, "Do I need to take you home and put you in the corner like you're ten?"

"Ain't that something," Eddie whispered beneath his breath in shock while the other two continued in their heated engagement.

"Peter!" She mimicked him, "No! I don't need to be put in the fucking corner. You're the one acting like you're ten. 'Oh it's okay, life is just butterflies and green meadows, nothing bad ever happens'-"

"I never said that-"

"You didn't need to, this is how you always are-" Her words were cut completely off when the world around her blurred and she was being flung into her bed not a second later. Allie steadied herself and glanced at her surroundings, seeing the pale walls of her bedroom with Peter standing in the center of its clutter.

She stood up angrily. "Take me back! We need to talk to him!"

"You weren't doing much of that, just yelling at me," He told her calmly, though she could see the irritation in his eyes and hear it in the stiffness of his voice, "If you're so worried about all of this then shouldn't we just stay home?"

"I want to talk to him and try to get him to fix this, in the least tell him to never do that shit again!"

"You said it yourself, the guy's a hot head," He told her in exasperation, "Why bother. He's just going to keep making the same mistakes. The best thing to do is not associate with him- and way to go, you told him we were mutants too. So what if he gets in trouble and drags us into it?"

Peter was starting to sound like her; grasping at the worst possible scenario. It only deepened the state of fear she found herself trapped in because she hadn't even thought about the possibility of him outing them.

She quieted, slumping onto the bed with her head in her hands, "Shit…"

"The world made it through the whole White House thing… If they all can do that, then they can deal with some delinquent kid almost barbecuing a guy," Peter said in a soft voice, trying to comfort her. She didn't say anything after. So he sat down beside her on the bed, though he wasn't dwelling on the whole Eddie fiasco anymore.

That was made apparent when he eventually whispered to her, "Why do you get like that?"

"Like what?"

"So mad."

Allie sighed through her hands. "I have a lot of things to be angry about."

Peter took a few moments to really think about that, but then he quietly asked, "Am I one of those things?"

The way his voice sounded so hurt made Allie sit up and look at him, though he kept his gaze trained on her closet doors.

"No, you're not one of those things. You'll never be one of those things," She consoled him, speaking only the truth. As the tension of the earlier incident fell away, it was being replaced by a whole other beast that Allie would've liked to run away from. But there would be none of that, she realized, as she'd been the one to cause the problem that now existed between her and Peter. She was being a bad friend… wasn't she? Raising her voice and getting heated like that should never have been something she directed at him. She just was so… depressed and anxious. The slightest things set her off. She wasn't always like that.

Ever since the Pentagon, it felt like Allie's life had been turned upside down. She felt sick in her stomach, like things were gravely out of her control. The world she grew up in was so different than the one she now traversed. Like she was out of touch with reality. Someone pulled the rug from beneath her feet and she didn't have a chance to brace for the fall.

Now she was letting it get in the way of her friendship with Peter, which felt like the only good thing she'd achieved in life.

"I'm sorry," She told him without any of the sugar coating or excuses, "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"It's okay," He said, sounding far too dejected for that to be true. She'd really done it this time, hadn't she? Instead of repeating the same words to mend the issue, Allie leaned in and wrapped her arm around his shoulders, resting her warm palm on his collar bone. She imagined he would relax beneath her touch, instead he stiffened to a degree that she thought had only upset him more, so she reeled her arm away. She deliberated taking in a dip in his mind to see what was going on, however that never felt right. It'd been a long, long time since she looked in there and the reason for that was Allie didn't exactly think it was appropriate to breach those boundaries, especially when it came to a friend.

So she was left with no other choice.

"Please forgive me?" She asked in a hopeful voice.

He leaned up and shed his frown, slowly replacing it with a grin that made his dimples pop mischievously.

"Only if you bow down and kiss my shoes," He said with a long sigh, prompting her to slap his arm while she laughed.

"In your dreams," She joked, satisfied that she got him back to himself.

With their brief quarrel having reached its conclusion, Peter took off for the evening to have dinner with his family, despite having devoured the majority of the food at Red Melvin. They'd never paid their bill, though the place would probably get shut down sooner or later once the chef had his way with the press. Allie hated the idea of hawking over the television again, just waiting to hear about the bad news. But she needed to stay diligent. Even if Peter wanted to say she was paranoid or overdramatic, Allie would continue to keep her head on a swivel.

It was a scary world they were living in. Even worse if you were one of them.

The days leading up to the first day of school were out of balance. Peter hadn't called as much, nor visited in the same frequency as before. When he would swing by, he lacked enthusiasm; seemed to slink around her room looking like he didn't belong, which was so strange considering how comfortable he had been all summer. It was practically his second home. Given the shift in his demeanor, Allie had a weird feeling in her belly. She didn't like it. It made her feel nervous and fidgety. Most of all, guilty.

She spent her mornings in bed trying to do some self reflection, thinking about the things she could do to change her uninspiring attitude. Allie didn't want to be labeled as the loose cannon who could snap at any moment if she was pushed too hard, which was exactly how Peter was making her feel. By the time she would wrap up her meditating and go in for a shower, she would feel like a million bucks. But then came the nighttime. No matter how good of a day she had, Allie would always gulp at the sight of the shadows around her. They isolated her. Left no warmth to shield her from the embarrassing moments that followed her.

All she could envision was yelling at Peter, freaking out over Eddie and just being an overall jerk. The cycle of being taunted by her memories found its way into her daily routine, all the way up until the night before starting back up at school. Instead of worrying about herself, she had the first day-eve jitters to contend with. Lucky her. The lesser of two evils, she supposed.

It had been around 8pm that night when her phone began to ring. Figuring it was Peter, Allie crawled out of her bed like a zombie and plodded over to the telephone, lazily bringing it to her ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey." Yep, it was Peter.

"What's up?"

"You won't believe this."

"What'd you do this time?'

"It's a long story. But I got dragged into taking Wanda to a party yesterday and while we were there, I noticed one of the seniors walk up to her and offer her something. Come to find out he was trying to sell her uppers-"

Allie gasped, continuing to listen to the story with a hand over her mouth.

"-And so I, rightfully, got pissed and beat the shit out of him. And now I have good news."

"What on earth could that be?" She asked.

"I got expelled."

"Peter. School didn't even start yet and you got expelled?"

"Yeah."

"Well I don't understand, this didn't happen at school-"

"His dad is on the board. Some pansy with a bunch of money, I don't know why his kid is selling drugs like he needs the extra cash. Needless to say, the guy put his foot down with me."

"How is this good news?"

"Because… Now I'm enrolled at Jefferson."

Allie stared off into space as the statement lingered in the phone line. He was going to be going to school with her now?

"Your silence is encouraging," He said dryly.

"Sorry I'm just- That's a lot to take in."

"Aren't you happy?"

"Well yeah, of course. I'm glad I'll have you around now. But like, holy shit. I can't believe you got expelled. How's your mom with all of it?"

"Pissed."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Wanda's mad at me too. Guess this is somehow gonna put a damper on her promising cheerleading career."

"The uppers would've done that."

"She wasn't gonna buy them anyway. At least I hope not. But it was just the fact that he even offered. Hope he enjoys his double black eye."

"He definitely deserves it."

"Yeah… He does."

"Is he pressing charges?"

"No, because I know about the drugs."

"Couldn't you have used that as leverage to stay at your school?"

"I mean yeah, I guess. But the thought of making you miserable for seven hours a day, five days a week sounded too good to pass up."

"How thoughtful of you."

"I thought so too."

They wound up in a brief silence.

Then Allie said, "... So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Uh huh. We have almost the same schedule. There's only a couple classes I don't have with you."

She thought about it for a few seconds, until asking, "What's your motive?"

"Huh?"

"At the Red Melvin, remember you were off your rocker about guys checking rosters, and you said that they only do it if they have a motive. So what's yours, Maximoff?"

White noise overtook the line as he thought on what to say.

"Like I said, I'm just trying to make you miserable," He eventually crooned through the static.

"Okay," She replied with a laugh, feeling sleepiness tugging at her lids, "I need to get to bed in order to prepare for all of this… misery."

"If you must."

"Yeah, I'm not like you. It takes more than an occasional cat nap to get me through life."

"You're just not as cool as me."

"Keep telling yourself that."

They shared a laugh, then bid each other good night like actual normal people do, the conversation ending as Allie gently mounted the phone. As she slipped back into bed, Allie couldn't help but to smile.

She was looking forward to tomorrow.