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The school had the silhouette of a monster, ready to swallow me whole. Not really, but to me it did, Midtown high would be worse than any monster I’d encounter. I had been on the team for a bit, Spider-Man, White Tiger and everyone had been kind to me. I even knew all their secret identities at just a few months in. They really trusted me, and I wish I could say the same.
Inside the school, the tiles lined up with each other perfectly and I felt myself stepping purposefully to avoid stepping on the lines where they met. Some had cracks from the school being attacked several times, some from it just being an old school. I felt myself become comfortable following the cracks and lines, my eyes glazing over, as I kept my head down to watch. Worlds of ideas flooded past my mind as I followed them. I hadn’t told the team who I was behind the magic, as I just wasn’t ready for that yet. If they got to know me behind the scenes, I feared my worlds as civilian, and superhero would crash into one-and-other. I would never be able to separate the girl from the demi-goddess.
Well, demi-goddess as in a vessel for one. I am an avatar so to speak, encountered by the god Apollo as a child and having a power set specific to his dominion. Needless to say, I’ve had a lot of complicated Zoom conversations with Moon Knight. Nevertheless, I have always been able to separate the work, from school, from home. However, after a year in and them still not knowing who I am, the team is starting to wonder if I had something to hide. Fury decided to send me to their school to get me equipped to seeing them around as normal people, so that hopefully I can tell them who I am at the end of the term.
This is when I realized having your head down to make friends with the tile doesn’t help you make friends in real life. I feel the top of my head run into a rather toned back. We both make a surprised noise upon impact and I back off to walk to the side of them.
“Sorry, wasn’t looking,” I say before trying to run off.
“Y/N L/N?” the person questions as he reaches for my wrists, not fully grabbing it but grazing it.
I stop, turn, and immediately recognize them. Luke Cage, or as I professionally know him, Power Man leaned against a locker and studied me. That I won't ding him for, I was being pretty evasive and weird. The guy he was talking to was Iron Fist, or Danny Rand as he appeared in front of me. I had seen them like this in training, normal looking and non-spandexed, but in public it felt strange. Like some taboo, like I was looking into their personal lives when I shouldn’t.
“Yeah?” I answer.
“I’m Luke Cage,” He says.
Yeah no duh.
“Principle Colson asked me to tour you around today. Get you acclimated to the school” He tells me, getting up from leaning against the lockers to stand fully.
Oh shit, Colson. If they know I’m coming to the school this is super obvious.
“Actually uh… C-can I speak with Colson- Principle Colson!” I corrected myself, realizing that just calling him Colson sounded too casual. My hands became clammy and awful clammed around my phone and headphones.
Luke’s face flooded with confusion towards my outburst but nodded nonetheless.
“Yeah sure, you gotta talk to him anyway, you got some stuff to pick up,” He says as he walks off, supposedly to talk me to Colson. As I am about to follow him, I look at Danny for a second. When we lock eyes he gives me a polite, almost delicate smile, and nods to me.
“Welcome to Midtown,” He says, in the peaceful way he always talks.
“You too-“ I start before stopping myself halfway through at my realization of my answer’s stupidity.
Fuck me, oh my gosh, what the hell Y/N!
I’m still kicking myself about my answer when we are sitting in the office, waiting for Colson to know we’re here. I threw my headphones on at some point down the hall, even though I knew this was Colson’s attempt at making me talk to Luke as Y/N and not Knightengale. I slouch in my chair next to him, who has his elbow on his knees in that football guy kinda man-spread. I sneak glances at him from time to time, only locking eyes once awkwardly until I give up all efforts to get myself to talk.
“So you from Townsend?” I fuzzily hear through my headphones. I take them off to actually understand the question.
“Hmm?”
“You a transfer?” He asks more clearly. It’s then I realize he was talking about Townsend High School, a school in Queens that I did actually go to before this.
“Oh yeah, uh, my family moved so we just thought it would be easier for me to move schools’ closure to our new place,” I answered him, who nodded in that nonchalant demeanor I knew him for.
“Word,” he says. “So, you’re family close with Colson? Or is this just the new courtesy for new students?” he says, most likely referencing how he had probably, actually defiantly, never been asked to show a student around. It was usually Ava or Peter because they were good students, good representatives. It wasn’t that Luke didn’t have good grades, it's just that Peter and Ava were stellar.
I feel myself swallow at the notion of being familiar with Colson.
“Haha, yeah my mom’s like… family friends with him,” I lie through muffled speech, which doesn’t help my case.
Eventually, the lady once at the admin desk comes back with Colson in tow. He had that stupid look of a smug, balding man because his little plan worked.
“Ah, Mr. Cage! And Ms. L/N! Thank you for bringing her here again I just have some papers for you,” He says waving his hand for me to follow him into his office.
“And I have some questions for you,” I say as casually as possible though I look at him with eyes that say how pissed I am. Colson looks nervous but shrugs it off until we get to the office. I drop my bag on the floor and throw myself into one of the seats.
“Do they know I’m going to their school!” I yelled at him. Colson had his office soundproofed for SHEILD security so I am allowed to let him have it.
“Yes, they do, they have the right to know their collogue is around them. If someone attacks the school, they need to know someone is designated to call for SHEILD back up so they can fight and you stay covered essentially,” he says with a blank, company policy expression.
“So I don’t deserve to keep my school life and work life separate but they deserve to know how I was forced to go to school with them in the most vulnerable version of me ever,” I yell, making it clear to him how unhappy I was at this whole situation.
“Agent Knightengale,” He says blankly, using my hero name and making my spine straighten up in surprise. It felt like getting called you’re full name by your mother, although Colson was far from maternal.
“Might I remind you that the whole point of sending you here was to strengthen the trust between you and you’re teammates? How is that possible if they aren’t aware that you are here,” He spits out in stagnant phrases littered with purposeful pauses. It was much like a typewriter getting words onto paper one sentence at a time. I look at Colson and then pick a photo to look at on the wall instead, knowing I was cornered and certainly wasn’t happy about it.
“None of this is fair, it’s completely reasonable I want a work-life separation” I spit at the wall but deliver it to Colson’s ears. It is here his face softens and he gives me a little sympathy. He sits behind his desk finally, folding his hands together and linking his fingers.
“It isn’t, and I’m sorry we had to do this. Keeping secrets is not just your job but your right, and if it weren’t for the tension it is causing between you and your team, I would gladly be upholding that right, right now” He says keeping a strong gaze at me until I finally peel my eyes off the wall and look at him.
“But, for what it’s worth, these are good people Y/N. Good kids who probably understand you in ways no one else could because they also have a double life.”
I think back to how Luke, who can lift a building while stopping a car, is sitting out in a too-small office chair waiting to show me around the school. I think back to how Danny offered me a welcome while wearing tattered-up sandals as a millionaire going to public school. I think about how I was specifically put into Ava and Peters' chemistry class, so I didn’t dig my own grave while trying to catch up. I think about Sam… and know he’s probably doing something stupid right now.
“Just try to accept it and make the most of it. It’s going to be a lot more painful if you spent the rest of the year rejecting the school than if you just… joined some clubs and… made some friends,” Colson said, slowly presenting me a printed copy of my schedule and a map of the school. Eventually, I take it into my hand and give him a nod.
Time passes with or without you, all I can do is try to be a good running buddy.