Pythagoras' Theorem (Part Six)

Despite everything that had happened, there was still one more person I needed to deal with. There was one more person deeply intertwined in this that would wrongly be confused if any of this got to her before I could – Megan. As a preemptive strike, I didn't want it to blow back on me that I was keeping anything from her if this happened to blow up any bigger.

When the Paragons practice started rounding to an end, I made my way to the locker rooms and waited outside for Megan to come out. Ben, Nicky, and Mark all gave me a 'what's up' when they came out of the men's side. When Megan came out of the women's side, her reaction to seeing me was much more enthusiastic.

"Bel-Bel!" She flew the short distance across the hall to where I'd been standing and threw her arms around my neck, "You came to pick me up from practice?"

She hit me with some force, but I'd seen her coming. With a good step forward to meet her, and liberal application of my powers to fortify my body, I was fine to catch her, "Yep. Unfortunately, this isn't just a social call though," I put her down and slipped my hand into hers, "Come on. Let's walk and talk. You want to go back to your room?"

Megan shook her head and shouted over at her friends, "I'll be back later, Hope. See you later, Jessie!" She bid her friends farewell, before switching gears once she realized that something was going on, "Oh. We're gonna have a real talk, aren't we?" She asked soberly.

I replied idly as we walked down the hall to the elevators, "Yeah, we-. Wait, why are you jumpy?"

"What? I'm not jumpy," She tried to feign disinterest, and badly.

I called her on it, "What your words are saying, and what your body is saying, are two different things, babe," Her wings were flicking. Also, there was an extra little bounce to her step.

She admitted it, but took a moment to defend herself, "It's just that we never have real talks! We go out a lot and play all the time, and you kick poor Saberwolf out so we can sleep with each other-."

My interruption was swift and merciless, "-I can handle him being at the foot of the bed while I'm inside you if you can," I interjected vulgarly.

Her cheeks went red, but much to her credit, she otherwise ignored me and soldiered on regardless, "-Buuuut... we never talk about anything serious. I know you don't want to bum me out, 'cuz you're a sweetie, but I'm a big girl. I promise, I can handle it," She asserted, bumping her hip against mine.

We would see about that, wouldn't we?

I took her to the library, which wasn't the most romantic place to go on the surface, but in reality, it was a pretty good place for privacy. Not a whole lot of people came through the library, and if people were in one area, it made others want to go somewhere else. That, and the big window on the upper level had a great view outside of the sunset. I chose to set us up there.

We sat down together, and Megan kicked her feet, waiting patiently for me to come up with what I wanted to say, "Well, Pix. It's not a big deal, but I figure you should know about it," A look of alarm came to her face, which I couldn't blame her for. It didn't sound good right off the bat, "Someone very close to me has a thing for me, so in case things get weird I want to get it out there."

Instead of being intrigued, she seemed more embarrassed, "I... kinda already know where you're going with this."

"You do?" Had someone already smartened her up? Damn it, if I'd missed my chance...

Megan nodded and wrung her hands in her lap fitfully, "It's Laura, right?" She identified correctly, "When I found out the two of you were in San Francisco by yourselves... I mean, I know you said you two never did anything, but I couldn't shake the thought. In the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think about you cheating on me."

"I never-," I came up to defend myself before she settled me back down by the shoulder.

"I know you didn't, silly. But that didn't stop me from thinking about it," Megan said, "So, right after we came back to school... I might have brought it up with Laura," She explained sheepishly.

My mind immediately began illustrating the scene through what I knew, and filled in the blanks with my expectations, "You were going to go and have a 'stay away from my man' argument with Laura," I accused.

The thought of Megan getting at Laura in the courtyard like a bad World Star video both intrigued and horrified me. Imagination was a wondrous thing.

Megan already knew what that must have seemed like, which was why this had only come up now, "I mean, I had Hope and Jessie with me, just to make sure I didn't make her mad," Or to try and help bail her out in case she did make Laura mad, "Her claws are kind of scary. They look like they hurt. Are they longer than Logan's? Because-," The bemused smile on my face must have let her know that she was starting to ramble, "Oh, right. Supposed to be making a point here."

No, she could feel free to continue to do that whenever the notion took her. I would never not find it adorable. Unless maybe if she did it during a life-or-death situation. But we hadn't crossed that bridge just yet.

"So, about her having a thing for you," Megan continued, looking remarkably like a kid admitting guilt to a parent, "We got to talking for a while. A lot of it was about you. And I sort of think I might have put the bug in her head, kind of, in the first place. Maybe."

I knew things couldn't have gotten so strange between Laura and I for nothing. I couldn't remember doing anything to set Laura off, or really to get her thinking about me in a romantic sense, "Alright, let me get this straight. It's NOT that I've been leading her on this whole time? It's that you went and had a heart-to-heart with her and made her read the writing on the wall inside her head?"

"Heh-heh... whoops?" Megan said, with nothing more to defend herself, "Are you mad?"

"I don't think so," I replied honestly. More like confused, "So, one more time, just to make sure. None of this is because I was leading her on?"

Megan shrugged, "Not any more than you do to any other girl," I had no idea what she was talking about, prompting her to roll her eyes, "Bel, you're super-friendly to most girls, unless they give you a reason not to be."

"That's how I was raised," I deadpanned.

"Mm-hmm," Megan droned, smiling through half-lidded eyes, "It could also be considered flirting by the uninitiated. It's why a lot of people are convinced you're a player. How dare you? You big stud, you."

Hisako and Cessily kind of alluded to something similar back when we'd had our earlier conversation, "Give me a break. Who have I ever pulled being this way, other than you?"

"Laura," Megan said, happily going for low-hanging fruit.

"I-, you-," I stammered, trying to come up with something in my favor, only to give up in the end, "Oh, whatever. Just as long as everything is out there."

"It's definitely out there," Megan confirmed, letting out a sigh, "It might sound bad, but all of this was kind of a relief."

"Only for you, most definitely," I mumbled, before speaking up, "Why?"

Megan looked a little forlorn as she told me what was up, "Laura assured me you never did anything bad, and then you came to talk to me yourself about all of this stuff all on your own. I was a little nervous when we first sat down. I thought you might want to break up with me."

And that was my fault. Because I wasn't the 'can't live without you' romantic type, "...Have you ever heard 'Cold Cold Man', by Saint Motel?"

"I'm aware of Saint Motel," Megan said, raising an eyebrow at me, "Better yet, why do you know what Saint Motel is?"

I waved off her question, "Gonna to need you to stick to relevant questions here, Pix," There was no need to go down that track today, "Anyway, the guy singing that song? That's who I am. But I'm trying to be better, because I don't want you to break up with me."

Megan looked at me like I was insane, "Why would I break up with you?"

Why wouldn't she? God, the day she realized that she was too good for me would hit her like a ton of bricks, "Because I suck at this. I'm shit at showing that I care," Eventually any minuscule amount of care I could show her wouldn't be enough compared to all of the other bullshit that would complicate everything, "And you're so passionate. You've got so much energy! It's awesome."

I didn't want to fuck up and steal that sunshine away from her. I wanted to leave things the way I found them, or better. That went for Megan especially. A raincloud overhead could only help a flower grow so much before it started to drown it.

Megan, bless her heart, she didn't see things my way at all, "So, we're different! That's fine!" She grabbed my cheeks in both hands and smiled up at me brightly, "I want you to be you. I like you. You're a big, grumpy, glowing teddy bear," She stopped to give me a reassuring kiss on the lips, "You frown and you snarl, but you don't really mean it."

Didn't really mean it? Au contraire. I was a hateful son of a bitch, "Woman, I dislike everyone and everything not in my direct circle of influence," I deadpanned.

"A direct circle that keeps getting bigger," Megan argued in return, "Admit it! You've got a lot of love in you, and everyone around you is starting to figure out what it looks like."

"Grrrr... let go of me, girl," I growled at her. I was Bellamy Marcher, the kid with a track record of dropping supervillains' faces in the sand. The last thing I needed was anyone making me look soft, even if Megan's hands were fucking warm and soft, and her thumbs were rubbing in that same spot, and it was really comfortable-.

"Aww, he's trying to look tough."

Goddamn it.

"I am tough," I disputed, trying to shake my head out of her grasp like a dog. I lost all fight when she kept stroking my cheeks with her thumbs and giggling, "You're so lucky no one's around to see this. I mean it. You'd kill my X-Men street cred," Hanging around a literal pixie with bubblegum-colored hair did that enough on its own without letting her baby me in public, "I worked hard to get people to take me seriously."

My complaints were promptly ignored, "Hey, sing that song," She asked quietly with a big grin, "That Saint Motel song you talked about. Sing it for me. I want to hear it."

Was she listening to me? I was trying not to kill my credibility, "Right now? In the library?"

Megan gestured to the empty tables around us, "No one's paying attention to us. No one's even here."

Sure, not on the second level. But there were still people using wi-fi on the first floor, and the staff, "The librarian lady is here."

"Oh, hush. Xi'an isn't paying any attention to us."

"Yes, she is."

"Yes, I am," Said librarian, Xi'an Coy Mahn, announced from where she was leaning on a desk on the ground level, "Listening to you two is literally the only entertaining thing that's happened in here all afternoon. You're both adorable," She looked up at us with a teasing smirk, "Megan, your boyfriend is so shy for being a big a tough guy with X-Men street cred."

So, she'd heard that, had she?

I narrowed my eyes at Xi'an through the bars of the upper level guard rail. I wasn't shy about anything. The day I got called out by a teacher that wasn't mine, or a senior staff member that I didn't answer to, would be the damn day. It only occurred to me after the fact that I'd been goaded into taking action.

Now, I'm not going to say I was proud that I knew all the words to 'Cold Cold Man' well enough to sing them back to Megan at that moment, but I won't say I wasn't not proud. I mean, from the angle of the video on Facebook, if you watched it on a small enough screen, you couldn't even tell it was me.