Middle School Heroes

Chapter 45 - Men in Black and Baby Steps

With only eight weeks of school left, the amount of work the teachers were giving seemed to increase significantly in preparation for final exams. There was very little time throughout the week to do much but study and do homework, so the majority of practice for the competition happened on the weekends.

OPs was a lot more fun this time around. Not only was it actually a nice break from classwork, but a lot of her team was taking it, as it gave them extra practice for the competition. Since Skye wasn't doing any of these events, she could just take part in the activities and have fun. When they sparred, she found herself partnering a lot with Harleen, who was competing in sparring for the Suicide Squad, and Adrienne, who was bound and determined to beat her, and had thus far been unsuccessful.

One person who didn't seem to be enjoying OPs as much as usual was Brock. He was stressed out and grumpy, and Skye wondered if he was under a lot of pressure for STRIKE to do well in the competition. They hadn't talked at all in a while, and even when she'd catch him looking over at her, he'd only barely smile before looking away quickly. They hadn't really seen each other much during runs either, but when they did, they just exchanged polite hellos before running off in different directions. She wasn't sure why they were back to barely speaking, but she figured he had his reasons, and she left it alone.

The competition getting closer meant that the dance was also getting closer. Aunt May, Dr. Storm and Vice Principal Hill loaded up the bus and took the girls dress shopping the Sunday before the competition. Skye chose a short dark fuchsia colored dress with a satin bow on the empire waist that Aunt May picked out, much to the sadness of her friends who kept insisting that she get something purple since it was Clint's favorite color. Hope was teasing Skye while some of the girls sat in the coffee shop having a drink, waiting for the other girls to finish.

"Oh come on. Clint doesn't care what color dress I pick," she protested. "He's a boy. He'll probably barely even realize that I'm in a dress, let alone what the color is. Besides, fuchsia is close to purple and I doubt he'd have anything bad to say about a dress that Aunt May picked out for me."

Hope laughed. "Oh believe me, he'll notice what you wear. It's a cute dress. It just should have been purple."

"Whatever. Did you pick Scott's favorite color? What about you, Felicity? I noticed you got a blue dress. Couldn't find one in green?"

"I did actually find a really cute green one, but Sylvie grabbed it before I could even try it on," Felicity grinned.

"Well, it's different anyway, isn't it? You guys are trying to impress your boyfriends. I'm just going to the dance with my friend."

Natasha, who had picked out a navy blue dress with absolutely nothing frilly or bow-like for herself, just laughed at Skye. "You know, if you and Clint keep repeating that whole, 'We're just friends' silliness enough, someone might believe you. Not any of us, of course, but someone," she smirked.

Skye just rolled her eyes. She and Clint had been spending a lot of time together lately, but then again, they had History and Home Economics to study for, and going to archery on Saturday mornings or sitting together for movie nights was nothing unusual for them at all. It was true that they were sitting together at meals more, and maybe he had started meeting her in the mornings to walk to school together, but really, that wasn't a big deal. It was also true that he was going out of his way to make her laugh or sit closer to her when they were in large groups, but she kind of wondered if that was his way of answering Ward's dirty looks and grumbling about them going to the dance together, even though he did it a lot when Ward wasn't even around as well.