Chapter 3
Hannah avoided John like the plague after that night. It wasn’t that she was angry with him, or that she wanted to avoid him, but… Well fuck if she knew, honestly. Her emotions were a mess, and the worst part was that she knew this was coming out of nowhere. John was cute, but she wasn’t exactly looking to catch feelings or anything. She was hardly in the right headspace for anything like a relationship. But that night, she’d felt the desire to freaking kiss him, which was not happening. And then when her powers had acted up…
So she was avoiding him. And he probably noticed, because he just seemed to be perceptive like that, but there was no way she was fucking this peace she’d found up with stupid teenage drama.
It wasn’t really that hard. With the arrival of Gambit, everyone was a little too caught up in the boy to think about anything else. He was an instant source of gossip and interest, with his accent, his French, and his flamboyant personality. All the younger girls were half in love with him by his second day there, and their group of older students had welcomed him into the fold only a little slower than they did Hannah.
She had to admit, while he could be a really fucking over the top, he was a charming guy. Kitty tried to hide it- from Piotr at least- but Hannah had noticed that she’d taken to staring at Gambit’s lips when he talked. And he talked a lot.
“What’s New Orleans like?” Jubilee asked one day as they all crowded around the big oak tree out on the lawn. It was the first sunny day in a week and they were all taking it in as much as they could.
Gambit grinned at the question, probably thrilled to have the chance to answer questions about himself and “his city” as he called it. “Oh, Jubilation, it is the best of the best. New Orleans is the gem of de south. Bright lights, loud music, and enough partying to sate the thirstiest reveler.”
Hannah could swear she’d heard Rogue’s eyes roll at his ridiculous description, but Gambit didn’t seem to notice. He never got distracted when he was getting to listen to himself talk.
“No other city holds a fucking candle to N’awlins, mon ami. And Mardi Gras? That’s just the tip, trust me.”
“Get over yourself, swamp rat,” Rogue snorted. Hannah let out a gasp of surprise, expecting some sort of anger from Gambit, but he only laughed.
“Oh, and what’s better dan N’awlins, river rat?” he asked. “Nuthin’ is Mississippi, dats fo’ sho’.”
Rogue rolled her eyes again, sinking more heavily into Bobby’s lap and turning away from him. This might just be the first time Rogue didn’t have a snappy retort. Hannah was surprised by this, to say the least.
“Well my hometown featured a heavily populated Walmart parking lot,” Hannah piped up, mostly because she wasn’t ready to sit by while Gambit waxed poetic about his “gem of the south” for any longer than necessary.
“Oh yes, mon ami?” Gambit asked. “Tell my more!”
She laughed at his false enthusiasm. “Well, not much else to do in such a small place. Mostly people hung out at Walmart or got high behind the Wendys.”
“That sounds fantastic,” Jubilee joked. “Why didn’t you tell us you lived in such a hotspot?”
“Slipped my mind. Not that I’m regretful. I spent about twelve hours in New York and almost got murdered. Not a great first impression.”
“Oh, city life ain’t so bad, femme. Just gotta know da right people!” Gambit assured her.
“Did you know the right people, swamp rat?” Rogue asked, but the insult was softer this time, somehow. She just seemed curious.
“Oui. I knew some of de best people.”
“And yet you are here,” Piotr said. “Why is that?”
“Mutants always end up in trouble, don’t dey?” Gambit asked. But it wasn’t much of an answer. He was right, but that wasn’t what Piotr had asked.
“Where are you from now, Hannah?” Gambit posed the question before any of them could press him for more details. She perked up at the recognition. She’d already told everyone else her story. They’d all been open about the struggles they’d faced at home, so telling it again was pretty easy.
“I’m from Pennsylvania. Scranton, actually. You know, like from the Office?”
“Oui, I’m familiar.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not actually from there, but that’s the nearest place people can usually identify. You already know, but I just got here a few weeks before you…”
They spent most of that day lazing about, talking about themselves, being largely self-interested. John was just another one in a larger group. She could avoid speaking to- or looking at- him for a good deal of the time without anyone noticing, but as soon as classes started again on Monday, avoiding him got harder.
First there was her history class, where he and Jubilee were seated on each side of her. She tried to keep an exorbitant amount of her attention on her notes, but there was only so much she had to write down, and only so long that Storm could lecture, before John was trying to engage her in conversation.
He’d leaned over towards her and waved his pencil under her nose, trying to get her to look at him. Afraid that ignoring him would be too suspicious, she glanced up at him. She shot him a stern look, signaling that she was trying to pay attention, but that was when Storm called out for them to get into pairs. A younger girl had nabbed Jubilee before Hannah had even turned towards the girl, so when John scooted his desk closer to hers she had no escape.
“Did I piss you off?” he asked, as soon as Storm had explained the group work to them.
She turned a confused stare on him. How could that night have caused her to get mad at him? He hadn’t done anything.
“No. No, why would you think-“
“You’ve been ignoring me for like four days.”
“No I haven’t,” she said.
He only gave her a look of disbelief.
“You- I’m not mad,” she said.
“So you’re…what, uncomfortable?” he asked. “Did I make you feel weird? Cause I didn’t mean to.”
“No, no it wasn’t like that.”
“Oh, ok. So what is it?” he asked. He looked puzzled, a little hurt, and she suddenly realized how stupid she was being. Obviously, it hadn’t been nothing, or her imagination- he was aware it had been something just as much as she was- but maybe she’d read too far into it. Maybe-
“I just, I don’t know. It was… It’s stupid. I’m just weird. I don’t know.”
Wow, really fucking eloquent.
“Oh,” he said after a few moments of silence. “So…alright.”
“Sorry. I’m just…” she trailed off, at a loss for words. She didn’t even know.
“Weird?” he prompted.
“Yeah.”
“So if I were to, I don’t know, try something like that again, you wouldn’t freak out? Zap me?” he asked, giving her a grin.
She flushed, instantly. “I’m not sure- I mean, about the zapping. I swear it was an accident. It just happened, you know?” she asked, voice rushing out of her in one breath.
He nodded, chuckling slightly. “Yeah. No, I didn’t think you were trying to tase me or anything.”
“Good. ‘Cause I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t, if you maybe wanted to…”
“Are you two even working?” Jubilee snapped from a desk over, sending them both a confused look. “This is due by the end of the class period.”
Hannah blushed, hoping, Jubes hadn’t heard any of the details of their conversation. They didn’t bring up the other night again. Instead, Hannah struggled to focus on answering the questions posed by the handout. It was a touch hard, focusing on the Treaty of Versailles when she could acutely feel the heat John put off, their shoulders so close they were almost touching.
It was managed, by the end of class, but she doubted she was gonna win any rewards for her responses. Jubilee kept shooting her strange looks as the class began packing their things up in order to head on to second period.
Once they’d gotten into the corridor, John peeled off to head to his second class and Jubes took Hannah’s arm in a vice like grip.
“Ow!” Hannah complained, but the other girl only gave her a flinty look.
“What the heck is going on with you and John?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?” she hedged, trying at a guileless look.
“Well, you’ve been ignoring him for like a week, and you were looking at him all moony for the entire class.”
“Hannah shrugged her off, trying to pass the girl and start on to her next class, but Jubes was having none of it.
“Do you like him?” she whispered, her face a mixture of confusion, excitement, and a dash of disgust. Hannah rolled her eyes.
“No, Jubes. I zapped him the night Gambit showed up. It was an accident but I felt really bad about it. I’ve gotten so much better with controlling my power, but it slipped, and I was embarrassed, and…”
“That’s it?” Jubes asked.
“Gee, Jubes, sorry to disappoint,” Hannah joked. The girl did look like Hannah had crushed her hopes. Hopes for a juicy tidbit of gossip, probably.
“Sorry, Han. But I gotta keep myself entertained. Best I got at this point is living vicariously through Kitty and Rogue, until someone interesting comes along. Dating pool around here isn’t exactly exciting.”
“What about Gambit,” Hannah teased. She tried to catalogue the exact look of anger and humiliation that swept across Jubilee’s face when she said that, so she could describe it to Rogue later.
“Him? You think I- Him?!” She laughed out loud at Jubilee’s sputtering attempt at a retort.
“Doesn’t feel great, does it Jubes? Let’s just stay out of each other’s imagined love lives, huh?”
“Wow, point taken,” Jubilee snapped, but she wasn’t really angry, just a little outraged at the idea of her liking Gambit.
Unfortunately, history class hadn’t solved the issue entirely. At lunch, while Bobby and Kitty and Gambit were arguing about Freud, for some reason, John sidled up to her, taking the chair usually reserved for Rogue. Hannah shot him a confused glance, but he only offered her an inscrutable smile. When Rogue finally came to the table, tray stacked high with extra fries at the behest of Bobby—the Professor had noticed how many servings he was taking and asked him politely not to eat the rest of the students out of house and home—she sent a confused glance in John’s direction.
Jubilee, noticing the almost non-exchange lit up. She hunched closer to Hannah across the table. “Sitting next to John?” she asked, not even bothering to lower her voice. Kitty’s attention snapped instantly to the three of them at the end of the table, face alight.
“He sat next to me,” Hannah pointed out, sending John a dark look. He only smiled.
“Sat next to you at history too, didn’t he?” Jubes replied. John chuckled.
“You know I’m sitting right here, don’t you?” he asked.
“I have noticed that, yeah,” Jubes laughed. “But why?”
“Can’t change things up?” he asked.
“We always sit in the same seats,” Kitty called out, lips quirked up. It was obvious she was trying not to laugh.
“Who cares?” Bobby asked, looking a bit put off that Kitty hadn’t bothered responding to his comment about repressed memories.
“Hannah does!” Jubilee sang.
It wouldn’t have meant anything, if they all hadn’t stuck to their unofficial seating arrangement for the two months Hannah had been at the institute. Rogue always sat next to her. John usually sat between Piotr and Bobby. They’d shuffled around only a bit to make allowance for Gambit. She cursed John’s need to kick up suspicion after she’d been so successful at turning Jubes off her trail.
It had just been a kiss. Not even a kiss really. They’d barely brushed lips when she shocked him away. Why it needed to be a whole thing completely escaped her.
“Do John and Hannah li-i-ike each other?” Kitty burst out, jumping up and down in her seat with joy.
“No!” Hannah snapped, but John was irritatingly silent, only offering the table another inscrutable smile. Of course he’d be like this.
“The Lady dost protest too much!” Gambit exclaimed, offering her a wink.
“Shut it, swamp rat,” Rogue said, but there wasn’t much heat behind her words. She was studying Hannah curiously, a smile spreading slowly across her cheeks. God, even Rogue believed this crap.
“It wasn’t even anything!” Hannah exclaimed, turning to glare at Kitty.
“It?” Bobby pondered aloud. “What is it?”
“A kiss,” John offered, with a quick shit eating grin. Hannah felt the flush burn across her cheeks. She wished suddenly that she had Kitty’s power so she could sink into the floor and keep on sinking till she made it all the way to china.
“Not even a kiss,” she argued. “Barely anything.”
“You wound me!” John said, clutching mockingly at his chest.
With a sharp huff, Hannah stood up from the table. Without another look back she stomped out of the caf, barely even noticing the way the lights flickering dim for a moment as she passed.
They called out to her but she didn’t pause, making a beeline for her room.
Why did Jubilee need to push it? It was bad enough that she was new, that they all knew each other so much better than her, but now they had to make her the butt of some joke.
And the kiss, if you could even call it that… yeah, it might have been nice, if it had actually happened. But it hadn’t. And the way he was teasing her, Hannah wondered for longer than a moment if he’d only done it as a joke. Or out of pity, or something. She’d never really been a relationship before, never really had a crush on someone else, and all of this was just embarrassing. She didn’t want them making fun of her. And she certainly didn’t want John trying to kiss her for a laugh.
It was hard enough admitting to herself that she sorta, maybe wished he’d persisted, kissed her through the shock. He was cute, and she was just a normal hormonal teenage girl, despite the superpowers.
“Hannah!”
She’d barely made it down the corridor, hadn’t even escaped the sounds of confusion coming from the caf.
“What?” she snapped, turning to glare at John. He wasn’t smiling any more.
“I didn’t- It wasn’t—“ he began.
“I really don’t want to talk to you right now,” she said. He looked properly contrite, but that wasn’t exactly comforting. “You’re such an asshole.”
“I wasn’t trying to embarrass you. I thought, I mean you said, that you were into me, right? You told me if I tried to kiss you again…”
“Why would you think that meant I wanted you to tell everyone? Was it some kind of joke? Are you making fun of me?”
“What? Of course not,” he said. John rushed towards her. She could see the flush spreading across his cheeks. Whether it was anger or humiliation to mirror her own, she didn’t know. “I like you, a lot. I just-“
“You’re just an arrogant fuck,” she supplied, reveling in the way he flinched away from her words.
“I- I don’t know. But I’m not trying to make fun of you, or whatever. I do…”
“Do what?”
He shrugged, eyes unwilling to meet hers. She straightened up, trying to catch his gaze, finally feeling a smile of her own spreading across her face. She laughed. “Oh.”
“What?” he snapped back, finally meeting her gaze. He looked angry, and confused, and still there was that sparkle of laughter, sardonic as it was.
“I do too,” she said instead of answering.
“Well, that’s good.”
“But that doesn’t mean you get to go back in there and tell everyone.”
“I won’t,” he assured her. She wanted to believe him, so she didn’t press, but Hannah knew John couldn’t resist. Just like Bobby couldn’t resist complaining about his no-touch relationship, or Kitty couldn’t resist making terrible jokes about “polishing” Piotr, or Jubes couldn’t resist reminding them both of just how single she was. They all knew each other too well.
But then, what was she expecting. Their situations were so different from the norm. Of Bobby didn’t complain, he’d probably say something to Rogue and they’d break up. If Kitty didn’t joke, no doubt she was afraid everyone else would. They weren’t normal teenagers, and it weighed on a person.
Hannah had only been aware of her mutant-ness for two months and some change, but she could now acutely feel her own otherness. Even in a school full of people like her, the way she’d felt before would never return. Once, Hannah had been confident in her ability to blend into a crowd. She was a young, slim white girl in a predominately white place, she’d grown up with a roof over her head and food on the table every night. It didn’t matter how lucky she’d been to find the Professor so soon. The world hated mutants, and she was a mutant. She had it better than most, but if the time ever came…
She couldn’t turn back, couldn’t go home to her parents and be normal. If the mansion became a place she didn’t love living, she had nowhere else to go. It was a terrifying, achingly new feeling. And John had put her comfort to the test. Hannah could recognize the overreaction, being so upset about a simple joke, the teasing of a teenage boy, but they were all out of their depths, truly.
“Hannah?” he was still there, waiting for an affirmation, waiting for her to tell him it was alright. For a moment she thought about saying nothing, letting him stew, but then she remembered. They were all going through shit. It wasn’t fair for her to be so…so vindictive. “Not to be an asshole, but what does this mean?” John pressed when she wa silent for too long.
“Means nothing. Not right now anyway. But maybe if you behave youself…” Hannah smiled up at him, letting him know she was joking.
“Can you please come back to the cafeteria?” he asked. She shook her head. It wasn’t because of embarrassment anymore though. All this introspection made her want to splash some water on her face.
“No. I’ll eat later. I’m gonna head to the bathroom, maybe sit in my room for a little while.”
“Can we talk later?” he asked, hesitant in a way he never was.
“After classes are out,” she promised.
“Good.” He was smiling again.
“Good.”
She turned over the events of that evening for a while after Rogue had gone to bed, smirking at the irony of her situation, under the same circumstances as just a few nights ago once again because of John. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.
The rest of her friends had migrated to their usual spot in front of the television in the rec room but Hannah had headed straight to her room, knowing Rogue would be sitting right next to Bobby on their couch just like always. There, she’d waited nervously for John to make his way over, sitting on her bed and going through the motions of reading a book without even bothering to take in what was on the page.
In the end, she didn’t have to wait very long at all. Not five minutes after they’d reached her room, he’d popped his head around the doorframe, scanning the room with his eyes, searching for her. When he found her, she was sitting their staring at him. She’d squinted, trying to figure out why his hair look so small before she’d realized that he had attempted to slick it back. Now he just looked wet. She was touched by the effort though.
“Hey,” she greeted him, voice soft. He smiled, and she was comforted by the observation that he looked just as nervous as she did.
“So, we’re talking. Having a talk,” he said. He stayed in the doorway, arms swinging back and forth again and again, as if he was working to keep himself constantly in motion. Hannah wondered what he would do if she stood up and stopped his fidgeting.
“Yeah.”
“What do we want to talk about?” he asked.
She laughed. “You’re the one who called the summit, asshole.”
“Oh, yeah,” he agreed, a look of profound discomfort flashing quickly across his face. Sympathy killed her smile. She probably wasn’t making this any easier.
“What do you want to talk about?”
He was silent, probably for the stretch of time she’d ever witnessed. His eyes scanned her face, looking for what, she wasn’t sure. Hannah found herself fidgeting under such intense scrutiny. Still, she didn’t speak. She wanted him to start, needed him to start. Once again, she was reminded of her relative inexperience when it came to stuff like this. If one of them was going to mess this up, she’d make sure it was him.
“I like you,” he said, finally, and she blushed furiously, letting out a nervous laugh that came from high in her throat and made her sound like an absolute idiot. “Not like- I mean- For a bunch of reasons. Not just like how Remy likes everyone he sees. You’re funny, and smart. And mean sometimes… That’s a good thing, by the way. You haven’t had your powers for very long but you’re already really good, ya know?”
Hannah swung off her bed in one fluid motion, followed by several unsteady ones as she rushed toward him, standing awkwardly in her doorway. She was kissing him before she’d really had a chance to think that through, but that was fine. This kiss was nothing to write home about. It was short, and awkward, and he broke away pretty quickly simply from shock. But it was enough. Better than the first by far, the way he’d melted into her, hands flying to her waist before immediately retreating. He was hesitant in this like he was nowhere else.
She’d been thinking about it for a while he’d left a stuttering mess, her laughter following him down the hall. There was no desire in her to go down stairs and act normally, like she hadn’t just had her first real kiss.