Never Miss A Beat (Part One)

With everything that happened to us on a regular basis, it was very easy to forget that we went to a school. You know, with actual classes that we had to sit in on. Not classes like 'the best way to take down killer robots', but history or literature.

Whatever else was going on, we were still students. Unless something outrageous was going on, when final exams rolled around, it was basically, 'Suck it up, princess. Pass your tests'.

I put down my pen for a moment to crack my knuckles and rub my eyes. The entirety of the Paladins had gone to the library to try and get some studying done. Eddie, Hisako, Ruth, even Laura figured it would be a good idea to hit the books together.

"That equation is incorrect," Laura said, taking the opportunity to look over my work. She glanced at it for a second and pointed to where I made the mistake, "There. Go back and redo the problem from here."

I stared at the paper in front of me, the book I'd written down the problem from, and then at Laura, "You barely even-. How did you-?" I eventually gave up and pushed my things away, "Goddamn calculus."

Fuck math.

"This is super-lame," Eddie said, thumping his head down on his open book set on the table, "We're superheroes-in-training, stuck here studying for tests."

Hisako rolled her eyes. She was closer to Eddie than she was to the rest of us, but that didn't mean he couldn't irk her sometimes, "Yeah, I can just see it now. Wing, eventually a full-fledged member of the X-Men, helps save the world... and has to head to Biology 2 in the morning with the other sophomores."

Eddie wasn't impressed by that vision of his future, "I'm a junior, thank you. Not like they're gonna drop me a year because I fail anything this year. Leave the precog stuff to Blindfold," He said, gesturing his head Ruth's way, "I'm just saying, some squad work might get my brain juices flowing, right Bel?"

Why he had to bring me into this was beyond me. I was just sitting there doing my time studying, "I've had about enough superhero shit to last me a little while, thank you. The flying ginger has a point though. This is boring."

Hisako pushed a book across the table that hit me in the stomach, "Calculus," She said, "I didn't tutor you just for you to quit on the home stretch."

I didn't want to look down at the book containing my most hated subject, "I have a C in there," Closer to a D actually, but no one needed to know the exact specifics of my grades, "I would have to completely tank the exam to fail the class."

Which wasn't going to happen. Even if I failed, it would be a high F. I could live with that if it meant I wouldn't have to step foot in a calculus class again.

Hisako smirked at me, fist underneath her chin, waving a pen around in her fingers, "Do you want me to lord my better grades over yours until the next time? Come on, Bel, at least make it a challenge for me."

Damn her. I had pretty nice grades. I hovered around the A-B mark. Getting C's was considered struggling by my standards. But Hisako kept. Straight. Goddamn. A's.

The only class I dominated her in was history. And dominated was too strong a word. She worked hard and got high 90's, but I sleepwalked through that class and posted up 100's across the board. It infuriated her, and I loved it.

When I heard names, dates, and events, I could picture the story that went with them in my head. That made it easy to memorize everything. All history was to me was story time, just with real events. I didn't ever have to crack a book. I just listened to the lectures and took notes. Notes that I never looked at. So many dead trees for no good reason.

"I don't remember when this became a GPA contest," I said, not admitting to the fact that I completely accepted it as one months ago, "I just never want to look at a book with numbers ever again. I'm reviewing my Spanish stuff now."

"You have an A in Spanish," Laura said, not looking up from her own studies.

This was true, "I would like to keep that A," I said, "Mejor que perder el tiempo en el cálculo," I said with a wink and a click of my tongue."

Ruth spoke up at that point, "Bellamy thinks it is better not to waste time on calculus, yes."

I looked over at Ruth, who hadn't really touched any of her study materials since we'd gotten to the library. That had been damn close to what I'd actually said. She'd gotten the gist of it, at least, "Huh. Didn't know Ruthie spoke Spanish."

Eddie rolled his eyes, "She doesn't. You think in English, genius. Besides, even if she didn't read minds, it's kind of obvious calculus is on your shit list, seeing as how you fail at it."

"I don't fail at calculus," I said, turning my nose up at the idea of not succeeding at anything, "I just don't get high grades in calculus."

"-Which is the same as failing to you," Hisako said. I hissed at her like a cat for knowing that much about me, "What happened to the Bellamy that didn't accept failure?"

I looked down at the book in front of me with a sense of dread, "He got stuck staring at numbers and symbols that he can't make heads or tails of for two hours a day since April," A stray thought hit me, "Can I just cheat on this thing?" I whispered.

Eddie grinned at the idea, "You say that like it's easy," He said, "You can try, I guess. I don't care. Does anyone here care?"

No one did. Not really. Hisako made an observation, but other than that, no one was offended, "There's no way you're cheating in any class in this school and getting away with it."

A fair point. Most of our teachers were X-Men. They noticed when students tried to sneak cheat sheets in, or write down answers somewhere to help themselves. We had all seen examples of this. That hadn't been where I'd been going with that line of thinking though.

"...What if I just got a psychic to just shove all of that crap into my head?" I asked. Everyone at the table looked over at me, even Laura, who kept to herself most of the time.

Eddie looked around and lowered his head closer to the table, "You're going to use Blindfold to cheat on your test?" He whispered as quietly as he could, "...That's fucking awesome! Why didn't I think of that sooner?"

Hisako looked over at Ruth, who didn't really seem to react much to what I'd said, "I'm pretty sure that if she could do that, she would have already offered, at least to Bellamy," Ruth frowned at her. She might have said something to her telepathically. I didn't know what, "Don't give me that. You know you would have."

"There is a school policy against this," Laura pointed out. This time, all of us looked at her. It seemed like the attention made her want to shrink down in her chair, "...I have read the student handbook before."

Of course she had.

I raised my hand like I was in class, "Wait, a rule against cheating, or a rule against using telepathy to cheat?" I asked Laura to specify.

"Right. Because they're both totally not the same thing," Hisako remarked sarcastically.

"How would even Frost know?" Eddie liked the idea of getting free info shot into his head too much to let it go, "As a matter of fact, why would she even check any of us in particular?"

...Other than my test grade magically (read: suspiciously) shooting up with very little history of progression to reach that point?

Ruth held up a finger and then slowly pointed my way, "Sorry. Yes, Miss Frost does not like Bellamy, no."

Still? I thought we were past that. I was for the most part. I mean, yes, I wasn't going to turn my back on her anytime soon, and I wasn't about to take anything she said to me at face value, but she wasn't the only one. I'd been burned too much by having a 'the adults know how to handle it' kind of mindset.

It wasn't personal. It was more along the lines of get smart or get dead. Never miss a goddamn beat.

And speaking of getting smart, "Do you want to take that chance?" Hisako asked me, "You just said you'd pass, even if you failed the exam."

"Yeah, but..." I wanted to beat her GPA. I didn't say that though. Are you kidding me? No way, "I really don't want to fail the exam."

She didn't need to hear it to know my motivations. Sometimes I wondered if there were two mind readers on the Paladins, "I swear to God, Bel, you're hopeless sometimes."

"Calm down. I'm not gonna do it," It wasn't worth the risk of getting busted, since it would have been just my luck to fall to such a fate. I cracked open the book on the table in front of me, viciously flipping pages to where I'd left off, "...Fucking calculus."