Keeping up the good work
It was a quiet Friday morning in the library, mostly because the majority of the kids were in class right now. Summer was supposed to be grading the physics tests from one of Hank’s classes.
Once it was settled that Summer wouldn’t be an X-Men, Hank offered her a position as his assistant, helping him with his physics classes. Working with Hank was a great way for her to feel like she was contributing to the institute, instead of just laying around eating their food for free. She also got to geek out about physics with him, something they both were very enthusiastic about, which was a plus.
Summer had acquired an extensive knowledge in general physics, and an even more impressive one in gravity, it’s implications and laws – for obvious reasons. Whoever managed the white room thought she’d be able to better control her abilities if she understood how they worked. And so, they made her study.
If she had gone to university, she would have no trouble getting herself a PhD with all the knowledge she had acquired during her time in the white room. That’s how much she knew. She was more than qualified for the job.
Hank just wouldn’t admit it, but between giving lectures, training the X-Men and essentially running the school, he really could use the help. And she was doing a great job so far. She loved physics, loved the kids and discovered that she really liked teaching, though she was just Hank’s assistant for now. If she kept the good work, Hank would gladly give her a couple of classes of her own in the next term. He was even trying to convince her to help out in Flying 101, even though she insisted that what she does is more floating than flying.
But that morning, instead of keeping up the good work, Summer got herself distracted. On the table in front of her, the once blank page now featured a bucket list of sorts. Entitled things I want to do the list diverted from the traditional sky diving, write a book, learn to sail. Having spent most of her life caged up, her list featured the simplest things, like go to the movies, learn to bake, go bowling. Things anyone would have done a thousand times already, but she had been missing out.
A now familiar gush of wind threatened to send her papers flying in the air, but Summer somehow managed to catch them before they set flight. She was getting way too used to those kinds of things happening. She knew by now that gush of wind had a name, a tempting smirk, beautiful eyes and perfect skin. She quickly covered the list, hoping it wasn’t an obvious movement.
“How do I look?” Peter asked.
Summer looked up to find him in an all-spandex outfit and, oh boy did it do things to her. For example, it made her cheeks go red at light-speed, which might as well have been one of is super abilities with how often he made her get all flustered with five words or less. She thought he looked good in his everyday looks of baggy t-shirts and silver jackets, but that outfit left no room for imagination. And yet, it really awakened her imagination somehow.
While Summer had busied herself with her newfound love for teaching, Peter had begun training as a proper X-Men. It has been tiring, but the boy had tons of energy to spend. And, by the looks of it, his suit just got ready.
“Do I look like a superhero?”
“Oh, definitely.” Her voice sounded breathy. She needed a fan.
It was Peter’s turn to go all red and he shifted his eyes to his boots in an attempt to hide it. Summer was eating him alive with her big brown eyes and he didn’t know how to cope with that. The fact that she was into him at all was a concept that he was still trying to grasp.
That whole scene might be deceiving, but those two weren’t together. Their heated kisses happened nine days ago, and they haven’t shared a bed in eight nights. Nothing else had happened, romantically, since then. They were now, for all effects, friends, something neither of them wanted to be. It was clear that there was something there and that the other felt the same, and yet neither one had acted upon it.
Peter was trying to give her space and time to figure out her life. She had spent her life stuck in a white room and now that she had the whole world within reach, he couldn’t possibly expect her to settle for him of all people.
But Summer didn’t necessarily want that space and time he was giving her. She wanted his lips on hers.
After what happened on that day, trusting him became a conscious choice, one she did knowing all the consequences; and one she renewed every day. She was very damn aware that, if Peter ever betrayed her, she’d be done with. She was way too enamoured by him to ever see it coming, to in love to ever recover from it. She might just surrender herself to Tracker, let him take her back and erase her memory, just for it to stop hurting. Still, Peter was yet to let her down, and she had the courage to doubt he ever would.
“What are you doing?” Peter asked with a smile, pointing at the papers in the desk.
He was really just asking with the intent of making conversation; Even though he felt like he could listen to her talk for hours, he always got confused when she went on and on about physics. Usually, she loved how he always seemed interested in her stuff, as silly as they were. But not this time.
“Nothing!” Her hand slapped the pages loudly, trying to cover it from his view just in case the list wasn’t that well-hidden underneath a few tests. She realised it was the wrong move when he smirked.
“Why don’t you show me?”
“It’s just some tests I’m grading, its nothing.”
“Why are you so nervous then?”
“I’m not!” She was.
Before she could protest, Peter yanked the papers from her and raced out of her reach. There was no point in running after Peter Maximoff, so she didn’t even try. She just stared at him as he read through her silly and embarrassing little list. She could pinpoint the exact moment he read the one she really didn’t want him to, just from the way his expression shifted slightly. It was right at the top, number 6 go on a date. She’s never been to a proper one.
No one had ever asked her out, mainly because she spent her teen years in a high security facility. But that never stopped her from dreaming of the whole shebang: she wanted to spend hours getting ready, change outfits seven hundred times, get picked up by a cute guy and everything else. But Peter didn’t have to know about that. Sure, they had an unspoken thing but he didn’t need that extra pressure on him.
And she certainly didn’t want him to ask her out just because of it.
“You should do it” he said
“What?”
“All of it” he replied “You should do all of it. And I think I can help.” He walked over to her and placed the list back on the table. “Starting with this one.” She looked at where he was pointing:
#3 Go Bowling.