Middle School Heroes

Chapter 48 - Treadmills and Red Buttons

When her alarm went off, Skye turned it off quickly and quietly tossed on her running clothes before leaving the room. Since they weren't allowed outside, she made her way down to the exercise room hoping to grab a treadmill before they were all taken.

There was no one in the room when she got there, so she got her choice of treadmills. Steve was right about running on the treadmill. It was kind of boring. The scenery never changed and there was very little to look at. Sam, Steve and Bucky showed up halfway through her run and took the other three treadmills. Sam and Skye spent the rest of her run joking and laughing, which at least made it go by quicker. She ran for four miles before walking a bit to cool down, and then passed the machine on to Wade Eiling.

Sam was still running and she knew that Bucky and Steve would be there for quite a while, so she said goodbye to all of them, planning to go back to her room to shower and rest a little bit before breakfast. As she exited the room though, she ran headlong into Rumlow.

"Oof! Are you okay?" He backed away from the door to let her get by.

"Yep. Guess I need to slow down. All the treadmills are taken right now, by the way." She gestured to the room.

"Oh that's okay. I can use a bike. Did you have fun yesterday? I mean even with coming in second and all," he teased her.

"It was a lot of fun. Second wasn't the goal for sure, but it wasn't third like you in shooting and what was it? Fourth or fifth in sparring? That has to be humiliating." She smiled sweetly at him.

"Uh huh. Drax, he is hard to beat. It looks like this is just the year of me getting my butt kicked in contests. I'll have to work harder over the summer to make sure it doesn't happen next year. I'm actually surprised that Rollins beat Drax, but I guess after our fight, Drax was tired."

"Yeah, you wore Drax out for him," she giggled. "Rollins was pretty amazing, though. He deserved to win for sure."

"He's feeling pretty good about it. So are you ready for today? I thought of you when we saw those boxes at practice a few weeks ago. It seemed like it was right up your alley."

"You know I'm not gonna comment on that, Brock." She winked at him. "I will tell you that I have a brand new shirt to wear today, though."

"Good for you," he smiled at her proudly. "You'll do a great job, I'm sure. If something happens though, I'll be sure to come visit you in the medical wing."

"Yeah? Bring a game or something instead of what you brought last time," she giggled.

He looked confused briefly before it obviously dawned on him that she meant Ward. "That, I can try to do."

"I should get back upstairs. I'm in desperate need of a shower. Good luck later today, Brock."

"Sure. You too." He lifted his arm up like he might hug her, but then appeared to think better of it and put his hand out instead. "Sorry. Forgot myself for a second there," he shrugged.

She grabbed his hand and shook it. "No problem. Shaking hands is much safer. Have a good work out." She turned to walk down the hallway. As she got to the corner, she was surprised to find Ward standing just beyond them, obviously listening to their whole conversation. He looked from Skye to Rumlow curiously, as she walked past him without a word.

**********

An hour later, Skye was sitting on the floor while Pepper braided her hair into one long ponytail and affixed the bow she'd given her back in the fall at the top. Skye had on her new shirt, and left her hair down to cover the name on the back, but Pepper insisted it would be better up and out of the way. If Pepper was anything, she was determined and after a talk about how Quake wasn't really that horrible of a code name, she won the argument. She finished right as Natasha and Jemma knocked on the door to go to breakfast.