Reunion (A Punch Out Fic)

.: Chapter 3 - You Can't Fix Everything :.

The clock on the wall slowly ticked away as the students scribbled down sentences as their teacher, Mr. Peregrine, or as Mac called him, The Falcon, explained the history behind the Egyptian empire. Mac continued to scribble down the teacher's ramblings down on his pad. The talk however began to slowly fade into the background as Mac's mind traveled elsewhere. His pen stopped and he stared at his page of words with blank, glazed over eyes. His head was devoid of anything coherent but the imagined screams of Kid Quick as he cried for help. His view slowly came back to focus on his written words, and each letter, syllable, and small punctuation mark on the page began to move and change to form a very scribble image of Quick in the ropes, dangling and suffocating as they tightened their grip around him. Mac moaned in frustration as he grabbed his head and gripped at his own hair, trying to make the image disappear. "I…c..n't…br..eath..e" he mumbled. 

"I…I can't…b-breathe…" He said a little louder this time.

His mind began to race and soon everything started to slowly go dark. Mac felt like his body grew weak and felt he was going to collapse. He brought his head closer to his desk and leant it against his forearms. He stayed that way for a few minutes until he heard a tap on his desk. Looking up, he saw The Falcon leaning above him with a worried look. "Jay, you alright?" Mr Peregrine asked, kneeling down to meet the boy's eye level, Mac took a look around to see some of the class's attention had turned to him. "I…uh" Mac began, twiddling his fingers around, "...Y-yeah I'm alright…I just….why do you ask?"

"You were saying earlier that you couldn't breathe…what's going on?"

"Oh…I was…thinking about something Doc told me"

The Teacher gave a nod and slipped Mac a paper before returning to the front of the class and writing on the board. The boy grabbed it and flipped it over to see it read: "Stay behind after class" 

Damnit

Mac sighed as he continued writing the teacher's ramblings once again. A few minutes passed before the bell rang and Mr Peregrine set his chalk down on his desk. "...And that's a wrap on Ancient Egypt,'' The Teacher said, "Tomorrow we move onto the French Empire" The whole class quietly groaned in unison as they stood up and slipped their books and pencils into their bags, then proceeded to make their way to the classroom door. Each said their goodbyes and some even high fived the teacher in their own unique ways. Only one student remained in the class, and that was Mac. Per the teacher's request of course. His bag was packed and slung over his back and he sat on his desk, as Mr Peregrine came over. "Okay what's up?" He asked, "Well…" Mac began, "...a lot has been happening, see I got my training for my fight coming up against Bull, yeah?"

"Yeah?"

"Right, and I was tryna invite my friends to come watch! V.I.P tickets!"

"Okay?"

"But one of them says he can't go, because he has uncomfortable memories. And that's understandable but he won't ever elaborate beyond that!" 

"I see, go on"

"Yeah and then, I tell Aran and then I accidentally knock him into the ropes and then EVERYONE gets on my case about it! And then when I ask why I get told that apparently someone DIED that way!"

"Kid Quick?"

"You heard about it too?"

"Was an old friend of mine…anyways go on"

Mac sighed as he gripped his head, "And it's understandable, I get that it's sad but no one ever elaborates! No one ever goes beyond the whole "IT JUST HURTS MAC" and it's pissing me off!"

The teen took a deep breath and sighed, looking at his hands and holding his elbows tightly. "I just want them to be honest with me…It's all I've been thinking about since yesterday and I can't stop…" He explained. Mr Peregrine nodded , “I understand Mac, you want to have all the answers” he said, quietly, “You want to know what’s the right thing, how to help, because everyone around you is hurt…but you need to understand that some things take time to fix…some answers may not come to you all at once..”, “But why?” Mac asked, desperately.