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Youth of Tomorrow, Shaping the Future	By : Gianni1968 Category: X-men Comics > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2433 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
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(Un-named)

Chapter 04

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Starring, in order of appearance or as they are mentioned:
Jon (Babe) Rustin

Jon Rustin

1:14 pm, Thursday, August 17th, 1995

East End of the Senior Hall, Springville High School, Emmons St., Springville, AR
I see a tall dark-haired blur out of the corner of my eye, as I put a book in my locker. I was hoping to set a window in the back, behind the books, so I could get at them from home or my bookbag, and don't have to have the silly things spread all over my bed while I'm at school; it drives mom crazy for me to leave them there. She has fits about me using my powers in public, like here at school.
It stands there behind me, quietly. I assume that it’s Drew or Theron behind me. That turns out to be a mistake, and one I won’t make again any time soon. He reaches out and taps on my locker door.
“Hey, you found me. Something you want to talk to me about?” I'm being flip because it's been a pretty good day so far, and I'm in a good mood.
“Yeah!” The blur replies in a voice that isn’t Drew’s or Theron’s. A hand on my shoulder takes me by surprise and shoves me into the locker, where I hit my forehead on the metal back. I can feel my glasses frames beginning to bend, so I start to push myself out, but I’m pushed back in. “Stay there, if you don’t want worse!”
I stop; I’m not into bruising, and this guy seems enthusiastic enough to try to do more than that. I recognize his kind of bully. He’s not even confident enough to stand and deny things to the principal. He likes a helpless victim. And right now, because of the circumstances, because I can’t see anything but the inside of this locker, that’s what I have to be. There goes my good mood.
“A guy likes to know why he’s being abused for the second time in one week.” I say aloud.
“Stop talking to my girl, or I’ll stuff you in there and lock the door.” Ah yes, a girl. He's doing this to assuage his bruised ego, and assert his manhood. As a means to further that end he pushes me harder against the back of the locker. Obviously he doesn’t want me to see his face.
“It would help if you told me her name.” I say loudly enough for him to hear outside the locker. Before I can even brace for it, he lands a hard fist right on the point of my shoulder, and my arm goes momentarily numb. He's got some muscle behind that swing, and knows just where to hit. The pain is shooting into my neck like an electric shock, and I gasp. He’s building up quite an account here.
“Don’t fuck with me! I know you know her name. She’s told me about you.” I quickly rattle off the names of the girls I’ve met so far this week, in alphabetical order.
“Alyssa, Amy, Barb, Becky, Carrie, Chara, Dani, Delia, Ginger, Jan, Lessie, Lynn, Megan –“ He hammers my shoulder again when I say Lynn’s name, but this time I’m expecting it, and I can slow reach out to slow his hand down enough to keep him from doing added damage to the nerves in my shoulder.
It’s basically the same trick I’d used on the football player Monday after school, just used in reversed. He’d felt confident he wouldn’t hurt his hand on my head, so I hurried his fist into the wall, just to give him an idea why hitting people wasn’t the way to settle differences of opinion.
But instead I slowed this guys’ fist down until it didn’t add much to the pain in my shoulder and neck. I hissed, gasped, and let my arm and hand go slack anyway, letting him think he was doing damage to me. It’s the only thing bullies really understand want to know, and the only way to satisfy one who has you in a tight spot.
He keeps it up for another few seconds, blow after hard quick blow, and I protect myself while feeding his ego. He responds to whimpering and sobbing best. Finally he slows down, grabbing my shirt and shaking me in the locker, thumping my head on the back and walls several more times.
“You got it?” He growls near my neck. So this is the guy that's asked Lynn out? I'm deeply disappointed in him. He's pathetically inconfident, and she deserves better than a bully. I mean, yeah, it's to be expected that there are other guys interested in her; older guys, taller guys, guys without enough self-assurance to be comfortable with competition, but ... Wait. Wait one second. He thinks I'm competition?! He thinks Lynn likes me? She told him about me?
“Y-yeah.” I swallow loudly. “I got it. D-don’t talk to your girl.” He unexpectedly kicks me in the thigh, a short vicious blow, connecting in the underside of the muscle and bruising the abductor. Then he turns and dashes away, ducking out a side door before I can pull my head out of the locker.
What he doesn’t know is that I’ll be able to identify him by his voice. And I won’t go to the authorities to get my justice, I'll be getting that for myself. This should be fun.
I limp back into the cafeteria, after gently shaping my glasses back the way they had been.
I think on the locker incident for a while in bed that night. Steely Dan is 'Do'ing 'It Again' from my stereo speakers, which is kinda appropriate to my mood, considering this won't be my first bully, or even my tenth.
Here’s what I finally decide: I hate being beaten on. Never ever again will anyone hit me, or even touch me that I don’t want them to. I have that power, and I’m not afraid to use it. Even in front of people, if I have to; there are lots of ways to stop them without giving away my powers. A loud noise would do it; anything that startles them, really.
In fact, it has occurred to me (somewhat belatedly) that there are things precariously perched or hanging above our heads all the time in public school buildings, I could have easily pulled something down on him. It wouldn't have to be heavy; a couple of ceiling tiles or a bit of ductwork, lots of dust and noise, and I've gotten out of reach before they realize.
I roll over and go to sleep, satisfied if not happy.
Dani Boatman

12:03 pm, Thursday, August 17th, 1995

West End of the Senior Hall, Springville High School, Emmons St., Springville, AR
I’m so scared I can hardly breathe. I’m hurrying as fast as I can, but I’m only half way through the third and biggest of my three packets, and the other girls in my hall are done and leaving, walking past me and out the door.
Any minute, any second, someone could look out a door and catch me in the act. My stomach lurches as I think what mom would say if I got suspended for this.
The last pages go by in a rush. And I drop the tape stripper in the trash by the door, and rip the envelopes like the guys said to do. I’m about to go out the door when I finally read what I’ve been taping to the locker doors.
'Krome-Dome Klobbers Kid'
Fascinated, I wander down the hall reading the slogans on either side of the hall. Safety is getting farther away as I go.
'Hairless Hypocrite Backhands Boy'
'Math Tutor Fingered for Football Fumble'
'Teacher + Student + Locked Door = Jail Time'
'Practice What You Preach Mr. Assistant Principal'
The ‘a’ in ‘principal’ is on my locker. I stare at it. There are more slogans, some longer, some even harsher along this hall. I’ve wondered since he told us about it when he’s going to pull the punch-line on us, because I really do want this to be a joke. But these slogans tell me that what I’ve pushed to the back of my mind is true. This is real; really real. Babe hadn’t been joking. The look in his eyes, the tone of his voice as he told it to us; Mr. Jennings had threatened him physically, and he wasn’t going to let it go. He can't.
I hate being here, and I’m not sure I like having helped do this. But I really, really can’t complain. He hadn’t asked us to do it; we’d volunteered. No, we’d insisted he let us help. Insisted hard, too. I’m here because I wanted to impress him. I look at the slogans again. This is big, important stuff, to everybody. Okay, if I had this to do all over again, I’d do it again.
Because just like Babe, I can't let it go. If what the newspaper calls the ‘Anti-Violence Assistant Principal’ is going to hit someone so upbeat, so positive, such an absolute doll as Babe, no one is really safe here, even from the faculty. Just thinking about it makes me mad. I’m already three kinds of scared, and this makes me so all over furious that I can’t help but start crying. And that's the moment a teacher decides to step out into the hall and sees me there.
"What's the matter dear?' She asks me, as she walks over. I still have the gloves and the baggie wadded up in my hand; wiping my eyes with my other hand, I stuff them in my back pocket.

"Th-those." I nod at the lockers all down the hallway. "Did someone get ... hurt?" She stops and looks closely at the fluorescent papers taped up near her. She starts down the hall slowly, then faster. Soon she's jogging quickly. When she reaches the far end she turns and hurries straight back to me.
"Did you see anyone in this hall?" I shake my head, tears still running from my eyes.
"No - no one. I haven't seen anyone. Is - is it true? Did an a-adult hit a student?" She has worry in her eyes, and she rests a hand on my shoulder.
"I don't know, dear. I hope not, for everyone's sake." We stand there looking at the signs for a few seconds.
"Why are you here now, dear? No one should be in this hall during lunch." Teri and I had worked hard to think up a good excuse for being in the hall if we got caught leaving, so I've been waiting kinda anxiously for her to ask me that.
"I have to get something from my locker." I wipe my eyes again, and motion her to lean closer and whisper in her ear. She listens carefully, and looks at me.
"Of course, dear. I'm sorry. No wonder you're upset over these things." She looks at the slogans again. "Go ahead." She stands there watching as I open my locker, and pull the little pink package from the box at the back.
With her watching me, I walk down the hall to the girl’s bathroom. She waits in the hall as I go into the stall and close the door. I pull the baggie and gloves out of my pocket and drop them in the toilet before I do everything I would normally do, just as if I really had started. Then I flush the toilet, and watch the baggie and gloves disappear down the hole. I run water in the sink, wash my hands, and splash my face.
"Better now?" She asks kindly when I come out again. She has an armful of bright-colored paper with her, and two other adults are pulling letters from locker doors. I nod, and wipe my eyes again. "Good. I need you to come to the office with me and tell the principal how you found the hall covered with these papers." Ooookay. That hadn't been in the plan, but I don't really have a choice but to go through with it.
I follow the teacher quietly along the halls, across the lobby and into the office. Lunch is in full roar, and the others watch me from a table as I pass them. Teri clouds up, a sure sign she's going to begin crying, and the others look like the bottom is dropping out of their world. Sitting on the bench outside Mr. Jennings’ office, I wait as the teacher knocks and goes in. A few minutes later the new senior counselor hurries past me, smiling just before she opens the door and goes in too.
I hear Bald- er, ah, Mr. Jennings begin to yell, and then a door slams and he gets fainter. Less than a minute later the teacher comes for me, and leads me to a little conference room at the end of the hall.
"Hi, I'm Cecelia." It's the councelor with the dreadlocks. She has a nice voice, but a weird accent, like from Boston.
"I'm Dani." I whisper. I can't help it. I'm scared spitless; if I get caught mom is gonna have a fit.
"Let's set down, Dani, and get comfortable. I understand your being confused and upset. It's a terrible thing to think that someone is accusing one of the faculty of violence toward a student, and that's on top of mid-monthly mood swings." She smiles and takes my hand to lead me to a couch against the wall. On a little table beside the couch there's an intercom phone, with a lit button.
"So let's not think about what the signs said, okay?" I nod slowly. "Do you think you could tell me about the hall? That's what I really want to know about." Oh wow! She wants to know if I saw someone hanging the signs.
"O-okay." She smiles.
It's really easy to tell her that I didn't see anyone in the hall. The first time. The other three times she asks for more and more details about things I saw, and before she's done I really don't know what else there could be to say. Finally I start crying, and babbling, and she gives up on me. I'm pretty sure I sound convincing, and she doesn't press me again. In all, she's done with me in just about thirty minutes. I'm damn glad she's not my counselor.
When I come back out of the offices, it's still between lunches, and Teri is sitting on the sophomore bench. Babe and his friends walk in the lobby doors and right up to her before I can walk over there.
I almost walk over to them, then think better of it; I'm sure they believe me back in the principal’s office (my excuse for being in the hall isn’t likely to be argued with) but I could be wrong, and if I am, they could be watching me to see where I go and who I talk to.
So I walk over to the cookie and Kool-aid table and get some chocolate chip cookies to nibble on. Chocolate in a crisis; they’ll believe that every time. Standing next to the table, I turn casually and look back towards the attendance office. Nothing. No one is watching me from any of the windows.
Glancing over at Babe and my sister I see them sitting together and looking at me. Teri has her arm around his neck again and leaning on him, while she stares at me, trying to decide if I ratted them out or not, but Babe is smiling broadly and nodding as he rubs her back with one hand.
Grinning at them, I walk their way, passing them as I crook a finger at them behind my back while walking toward the front doors and the benches in front of the building.
"So officially I discovered the slogans and showed them to the teacher who found me crying in the senior hallway." The last few minutes have been about as good as any I can remember: I'm sitting on one of the benches out front with Babe's knees spread around my shoulders and him sitting on the seatback behind me rubbing my back with his incredibly strong hands. Teri is miffed at me, but I don't care; she wasn't questioned in the faculty lounge.
I guess now he knows that I don't wear a bra to school most days. I think I like that he knows. So now every time I hug him he'll know that just my shirt and his is between us.
He's almost as good at back rubs as that lady massage therapist who rubs us down after gymnastics competitions. But loads cuter, and it doesn't creep me out as much when I look over my shoulder and he smiles at me as he does it.
It takes a lot of concentration not to stop talking and just moan or lean back into him. I can tell from the almost jealous grin on Teri's face that my nibs are standing out. Much more of this and I'll just pull him down on the seat and start making out.
"That's perfect!" He says, like he's agreeing with my thoughts, and I turn bright red. Teri gives me a funny look as my knees wobble.
"How is that perfect?" The tall guy, Drew, asks. "Doesn't that draw attention to the girls?"
"Well, actually, it diverts suspicion from them. Dani being upset by the slogans points away from any involvement by her or the others, and at the same time gives them an artificial boost of seriousness. The faculty is going nuts about it right now, all but Baldy and Reyes."
"What about them?" The other guy asks.
"He's having an apoplectic fit, and still doesn't recognize that he's been put on notice. She's trying to figure out how we did it, and how to get him to understand what it means to have even some of the rest of the faculty know. And those that do won't be able to not tell the ones that don't read it for themselves."
(Obviously this chapter isn't finished. Keep checking back. I try to add something major to a chapter each day!)
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Youth of Tomorrow, Shaping the Future