Middle School Heroes

Chapter 27 - 1950's and a New Year

After lunch, all the girls excused themselves to go up to their rooms and get ready for the dance. Sam found this to be the most hysterical thing. "What can you all possibly have to do to get ready for the next six hours?"

Natasha looked at him and laughed. "Well, we will need at least half an hour to get ready for the dance, and the other five and a half hours will be spent talking about the dance and all of you, of course."

"She is not lying, Sam. I have been around my sister's room enough to know that there will be lots of giggling and gossip going on," Pietro snorted. "Perhaps we should work on a way to put a bug in their room to listen?"

Wanda gave her brother a severe look. "That depends, brother. Do you wish to see your 13th birthday?"' The idea was dropped immediately, at least while the girls were still around.

Pepper was spending the night with Skye and Wanda again, and soon they were back in their room with Natasha, Jemma, Jane and Peggy showing them her new gauntlets and explaining how they worked. Jemma told Skye that Professor Magneto was originally against helping them, until they explained that they were not trying to inhibit her use in any way. They also had to get permission from Principal Fury, but he approved it quickly.

Soon it was time for dinner and the dance, and Skye was relieved to see that most girls had gone the poodle skirt route. Pepper had a 1950's style polka dot dress, and when the girls met their dates in the lobby, Skye elbowed Wanda and had to stifle a giggle as Bruce Wayne came to collect Pepper in a full 1950's suit and hat. They made quite a couple, but Skye felt a little bit guilty for thinking so when she saw Tony watching them grumpily.

Sam and Peter finally made it down to the lobby, and Uncle Ben was waiting to take pictures. Sam's grandfather let him borrow his high school letter sweater to wear, and it was too big for him, but Sam was extremely proud to be wearing it. During dinner, he told them about how his grandfather was a running back at a segregated high school in the 1950s where he earned his letter. He intended to try to play football professionally, but an injury in college forced him to stop playing. He joined the military instead, and became one of the first black members of the Air Force Pararescue team. Sam admired his grandfather, and hoped to follow in his footsteps one day.

Although there were tables set up in the dining room for two or four people, Sam and Skye opted to sit at a much larger table with Peter and Wanda and most of their other friends, with the exception of Pepper and Bruce, who sat a table by themselves, and Steve and Peggy, who sat with Jean and Scott. After dinner, they all walked over to the school, where the gym had been transformed into something that might have been like a dance at any school in the 50's.

One of the first things she saw when she arrived was a group of STRIKE people already there. She was 100% right about Adrienne and Brock. He was wearing his Danny Zuko Halloween costume, and Adrienne was looking far from sweet little innocent Sandy. Skye also noticed that Ward was there with Sylvie, although she thought that neither of them looked happy about it. Skye was relieved though. It was unlikely that, since they were both there with a date, she'd have to spend the evening avoiding him.

They spent the hours leading up to midnight dancing, talking and having a great time. Sam and Skye danced together most of the time, but he was happy to loan her out to his dateless friends. He jokingly attempted to set up a barter system between himself and anyone who wanted to dance with her before Skye quietly threatened to try out the new present that she had gotten earlier in the day on him, if he didn't stop.

Most of the guys were good sports with their dates. After all, there were so many more boys there than girls that it only made sense. It turned out that Bruce Wayne, however, wasn't too thrilled with the idea of other people dancing with Pepper, especially Tony. Pepper finally had to put her foot down and Bruce grudgingly agreed. Pepper told them later that Tony wisely chose to dance with her without complaining about Bruce.

Skye had just finished dancing a jive with Barry Allen that was more like a freeform dance when the music turned slower and Clint cut in. "Sam had to excuse himself for a moment, so he sent me to entertain you."

"Oh great! Are you going to demonstrate some of those circus skills that you learned?"

"Well, I could, but I might get arrested or kicked out of school," he responded with a grin.

"Hmmm......yeah. We should probably stick to dancing."

He nodded and spun her around. "Probably a good idea. Are you having fun? It's almost midnight."

"I am. You?"

"Sure. I got to have a very interesting conversation, well really I just listened to him rant, with Rocket about the difference between raccoons and whatever he is, and hear all about Groot when he was bigger. That was pretty fun."

"Groot?" Sky asked him curiously.

"Oh yeah, you haven't heard about Groot? He's this little tree sapling that lives in Peter and my room sometimes, only he's alive." He laughed at the look of surprise on Skye's face. "Yeah, so apparently he was a big walking tree at one time, but he got hurt trying to save Peter, Drax, Gamora and Rocket, and now he is a little sapling that will grow back into a big tree one day. You should come meet him. He's actually kind of cute and he loves to dance to Peter's music. He doesn't talk much. Just squeaks, "I am Groot!" Rocket can translate it for us, though."

"Clint? Can I ask you a very serious question?"

"Yeah. Sure." He sounded very unsure, though.

"Tell me. How did we end up here?" She had to bite her lower lip to hold back her laughter at the confused expression on his face. "I mean really. You just told me that you spent part of your evening talking to some sort of alien who looks like a raccoon but isn't one, about a talking tree that used to be huge, but because he saved the raccoon-like alien, the red Christmas looking alien who could probably beat us all up without breaking a sweat, the green girl that lives on the floor below mine, and Peter, he is now very tiny and lives in your dorm room. Seriously. How did this become our lives?"

A smile crept slowly across his face. "I wonder that myself every day. It seems to get weirder and weirder, doesn't it?"

Skye suddenly looked at him and frowned. "You mean like watching me destroy stuff without even touching it this morning and seeing Wanda rooting through my mind for happy thoughts?"

"No! I wasn't thinking about that at all. Really. I promise," he replied defensively. "I think what you can do is really cool. Although I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't interested in what happy memory Wanda found floating around in your head, since she was teasing you about it."

Skye laughed and glanced down at the bracelet on her wrist. "Yeah, that is a secret that I'll never tell."

Sam was back and he cut in. "Sorry buddy. It's 11:55, and I get to be with my date as the clock strikes midnight." Sam grinned between them and Clint just moved aside.

When it was time, the entire room counted down to midnight and balloons fell from the ceiling as they all wished each other Happy New Year. Sam and Skye hugged, before he gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek, causing both of them to turn what Skye suspected was an interesting shade of dark red. Everyone spent the first few minutes of the year hugging and wishing each other a Happy New Year. When Ward approached her, Skye hugged him very quickly before turning her back on him and grabbing Peter away from Wanda to give him a huge hug. Skye saw Natasha give Wade Wilson a hug and then laughed when he kept going back for more. Bucky finally growled at him, and he wandered off into the crowd.

Skye and Sam danced together to a few more songs before the dance ended and they all walked back to the dorms. Skye was exhausted, but sleep would still be a long way off as all of the girls piled into Carol and Diana's room to talk over every detail of the evening.