Taylor placed her coffee cup inside her locker and dropped her backpack to her feet. Around her, the clang of lockers, the rise and fall of conversations interjected with laughter was a dull roar in her ears.

Slipping off her jacket, she shoved it inside her locker, on top of her teetering line of textbooks. Her body ached from the day before but Taylor did her best to ignore it, adding it to the list of things she couldn't focus on.

Without warning, a girl appeared by her side. The girl was thin as a pole with almost translucent skin, wispy whitish blonde hair and a pair of glasses that were taped on one side.

"Hi, I'm Bailey," she said, her voice as airy as the realm she seemed to have escaped from.

Without responding, Taylor went back to sifting through her textbooks.

"We have physics together," Bailey went on.

"I'll take your word for it," Taylor said, managing to dislodge her copy of Pride and Prejudice from the group.

Bailey fidgeted and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, which escaped a second later.

"I wanted to warn you about Elena," she said.

Frowning, Taylor faced the girl.

"Who?"

"The girl you embarrassed yesterday."

Taylor dropped to a crouch, stuffing the book into the confines of her cramped backpack.

"I didn't embarrass anyone yesterday," she said.

"The girl who was talking to Dominic."

Finding a tinge of annoyance in the circular motion of the conversation, Taylor paused and tilted her head up. The angle only accentuated the slight frame of the girl.

"I asked her to give me a minute to talk to Dominic," she said.

Bailey offered a vague shrug of her shoulders as if she didn't see the offense either.

"Well, it's going around that she's going to return the embarrassment."

"Okay." Taylor dropped her gaze, ejecting the information from her mind. "Thanks for the warning."

Bailey shuffled her feet as if more words were trapped inside, but instead of speaking she spun away and was swallowed by the crowd. Taylor's eyes flickered to the retreating figure, before falling back to the task at hand. Sliding her backpack onto her shoulders, she snatched her coffee and batted the locker door closed.

As Taylor cut around a group of rowdy boys, Dominic popped up in front of her. Startled, she jerked to a halt, her coffee sloshing out of the opening. She jumped back, hoping to avoid the worst of the spill.

When she looked down to access the damage, she was surprised that there were no stains on her open flannel shirt, her white tank top beneath, or her pants. She raised her head and found Dominic watching her as he brushed his hand on the side of his jeans like he was wiping something off.

"Got a minute?" he asked.

Taylor let out a sigh, it was too early to deal with one of her top problems. Though awake and her mind relatively clear, saying she was up for dealing with this issue was like saying since she was standing on two legs she could run a marathon. Still, it was a problem that had to be handled.

"Sure."

She followed as Dominic led them to a storage closet and closed them inside. This particular closet had a strong scent of paint, the array of tin cans on the shelves acting as the source. The pair took spots opposite each other.

"Look, yesterday didn't go as I planned?" Dominic said.

"So you weren't trying to blackmail me for a favor?"

"No, not at all. I would never tell anyone about your secret."

Taylor sipped her coffee not sure she believed this, but willing to hear more. Dominic opened his mouth then closed it, tense with apprehension.

"Look...I wouldn't give away your secret because...well...I have an ability."

Taylor blinked at him. "I would agree. You have an ability to be very vague."

"No, that's not what I meant." He let out a growl of frustration, running his hand down his face. "What I'm saying is..."

He balled his fist as if his words were trapped inside him and he didn't have the strength to set them free. Taylor silently regarded him, waiting for any of what was going on to start making sense.

"Icanstoptime."

The words rushed from Dominic's mouth like escaped prisoners. Taylor froze, her cup halfway to her lips. Not sure about what she heard, she lowered her hand.

"What?"

Dominic held his arms out to the side, the first admittance taking away all his nerves.

"I can stop time."

"You're serious?"

Taylor blinked and stumbled back, bumping into the metal shelf. Where one millisecond ago, Dominic stood with his arms out, he now held up a sheet of paper. On it was scrawled a note.

"Look, I just stopped time to write you this note proving to you that I can stop time. Also, I stopped time to keep you from getting coffee on yourself."

Taylor's mind short-circuited. All she was able to do was stare at the message; breathing even seemed to be optional. When Dominic balled the piece of paper and shoved it into his pocket, she snapped out of it. She swore under her breath and sank to the ground.

"You can stop time," she said, eyes wide and unseeing.

A line of concern creased Dominic's face as he crouched down before her. She blinked rapidly, meeting his green eyes.

"I'm not alone," she whispered.

Though she had always known this, seeing the real heroes in the news, it was like famous people, they existed on screens and magazines, not real life. Dominic smiled softly, the conclusion hitting him as well.

"Yeah, you're not alone."

The bell rang, reminding them that they were still labeled as teenagers. Taylor swore and leaned her head back. Her mind wheeled with this new reality and the last thing she wanted to do was try to stuff useless information into her brain.

"Here," Dominic said.

He reached out and rested a hand on her shoulder. The world stopped. It wasn't as if anything changed in appearance around them, but there was this sense that someone had hit pause on the moment. The sensation wasn't new to Taylor, but her understanding of what it meant was.

"You're doing it now," she said.

He nodded. "I figure you could use a few minutes to process. I freaked out yesterday when you teleported outside the office."

"You stopped time then," she said, remembering the way the air felt when he had touched her.

"Yeah, I didn't know what else to do."

Taylor nodded, but half her mind raced around in circles trying to wrap around it all.

"Why were you in the office?" she asked, needing something normal to ground her.

Dominic shifted to the ground, his hand moving from her shoulder to her forearm.

"I fell asleep in Nelson's class. The night before-"

"You were rescuing people from a fire," Taylor said.

The hooded figure now had a face, the larger number of rescues made sense, and the confusion over seeing the hooded figure disappear was gone. It had been him.

He cocked his head at her, the same realization dawning on him. "You were there as well. You were the person in the hood that teleported me outside."

They stared at each other as if finally seeing the other for the first time. It was a strange feeling, knowing the biggest secret in a person's life but not knowing them at all.

"Why didn't you tell me yesterday?" she asked.

Dominic rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, like I said yesterday didn't go as planned. I never meant for you to feel like I was blackmailing you. I figured we could help each other out, an exchange."

"What kind?"

The question came out calm, but Taylor's thoughts were repeating over and over one phrase: He can stop time, he can stop time, he can stop time.

"I was thinking that if you teleport me to school each morning, during lunch I could stop time and you could do homework or whatever."

"That's it?"

She turned over what she could do with just a little bit more time. Sleep was the first thought that came to her. Sleep that was uninterrupted by someone needing help.

"Yeah," Dominic said. "I don't own a car, which means I have to ride my bike to school and doing that in the morning sucks, I can never get a lift to school, but I can usually find someone to take me home."

He let go of her arm and the world rushed back into motion, the bell ringing out.

"Think it over," he said, standing.

Taylor rose and nodded, but said nothing. After he slipped out, she leaned back against the shelves, unconscious of the metal edge digging into her spine. All she could focus on was one thing: she wasn't alone anymore.

********

The mayhem of the cafeteria had little effect on Taylor's thoughts. It was a thunder of noise tuned out before it could be deciphered into actual words. She bent over the table, head resting on her fist. Before her sat an uneaten sandwich and a test with a red D written over the top.

She knew why the D was there. Halfway through the test she'd felt The Pull, excused herself to the bathroom and jumped to a house where a husband had been beating up his wife. Even with letting the police know and teleporting back to school only fifteen minutes later, she'd run out of time to complete the test and missed more than half the answers.

Taylor lifted her gaze, finding Dominic across the way. The morning had given her enough time to come to terms with Dominic's ability as well as mull over his offer. The page that stared determinedly back at her acted as another incentive.

Without the aid of sound, it was still easy to see Dominic was at the center of a joke, his friends all laughing as he waved his hands. A couple of girls paused beside the table and spoke, their words lost in the chaos of neighboring conversations. Dominic crossed his arms and grinned at them.

"You won't have much luck there."

Taylor was torn from her observing by Bailey's comment. The wispy girl sat a couple of spots over at the table, a book open before her.

"What?" Taylor asked, not sure what she was referring to.

"Dominic doesn't date much," she said.

The idea that Taylor had been admiring Dominic for his looks instead of the shocking knowledge of what he could actually do almost made her laugh. Almost.

"Really?" she asked, mildly intrigued by the information.

The idea struck her as odd given his looks, his social status, and his identity of being a teenage boy. Bailey nodded, glancing over to the table. There was no longing in her eyes, no desire to be part of a crowd at ease where ever they went. Instead, her gaze was merely a direct connection to the conversation but nothing more.

"That's what people say," she said, turning back to her book.

Taylor let that be the death of the topic, though she let herself continue watching. One of the girls playfully pushed Dominic's shoulder as he winked at her, clearly enjoying the flirtatious interaction, negating the obvious option of why he wouldn't date.

Lost in the typical teenage proceedings, Taylor didn't notice as a group of girls stopped next to her. Neither did she register the trickle of liquid falling onto her head until it ran down her forehead onto the table and headed for her lunch.

The threat of damage to her sandwich was what snapped her out of her thoughts. She pushed it away from the sticky, amber liquid, thinking only of the fact that Clint wouldn't train her if she didn't eat.

On the tail end of that thought was the realization that soda was being dumped on her head. She looked up, only to get a splash of it in her face just as Elena stopped. This received a ripple of laughs from the girls around Elena. A victorious smile curled the girl's lips.

"Whoops," she said.

Taylor blinked the soda from her eyes and stood, removing her flannel shirt, leaving her only in her tank top. She wiped her face dry, the smell of cherry filling her nose. Bailey watched stunned, a chip halfway to her mouth. She wasn't alone, the whole cafeteria watched as the drama unfolding before them.

"Maybe next time you'll think twice about who you talk to," Elena said.

Taylor had no reply, it felt pointless to go into the psychology of why it mattered to this girl who she talked to. Instead of answering, she bent forward and fashioned the shirt around her hair to keep the rest of the soda from dipping down. The result was a strange, lumpy turban.

"Still don't have a fashion sense I see," Elena said.

Again Taylor remained clueless as to why it mattered and what this girl was trying to get at. The lack of response snatched away Elena's smirk, twisting her lips into annoyance.

"What? Do you not have a backbone as well?"

The words were like a stick, jabbing at Taylor, searching for a weakness, but they only glanced off her.

"I do," Taylor said, sliding her backpack onto her shoulders.

"Oh? Why not prove it?"

The cafeteria hummed with lowered voices as students tingled with anticipation. They were all prepared for a fight, but none of them realized a fight had to involve two opponents.

"All right," Taylor said. She gathered up her sandwich and test sheet. "Everyone saw you dump soda on my head and I'm guessing some even recorded it, so I'm just going to the principal."

Elena tensed, this result not one she had foreseen.

"You can't fight your own battles," she taunted, voice strained.

"I am."

Taylor walked away, becoming aware of exactly how many people were watching the exchange. She rounded the corner towards the main office but stopped. It struck her then how much energy it would take to explain what had happened, wait while Elena was summoned, listen to the drivel that came out as her excuse, and bear what followed.

Letting it all go, she sank to the floor and rested back on a set of lockers. The cold metal pressed  against her bare shoulder blades. She examined her sandwich, annoyed to find, that despite her quick reaction, some of the soda had managed to get to it. One half was soaked, but the other was salvageable.

She had eaten the good portion and was looking over the remaining half, wondering if any parts of it could be saved when Clint appeared. He halted, staring down at her.

"What happened to your sandwich?" he asked.

"Soda." She raised her head. "Would it make a difference if I told you that besides one half of a sandwich I also had a sliced apple?"

Clint crouched before her and sifted through his backpack, taking out a bag of carrots and a power-bar. She accepted both.

"Why do you care?" she asked.

Clint contemplated his hands, picking through his words. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes were soft but direct.

"I'm not going to lie to you," he said. "You look like a mess."

There was no judgment behind his words and so Taylor found it hard to be offended. She cocked her head.

"What would make you say that?"

"You're sitting on the floor, you have a soggy sandwich, and you're wearing a shirt on your head."

"Fair point."

Clint's eyes shifted to the bruise on Taylor's face as she ripped the plastic of the protein bar.

"Are you going to tell me how you got that bruise?" he asked.

"Are you going to tell me why you quit karate competitions?"

They regarded each other for another second then Clint smoothly rose to his feet. It was an action that betrayed the strength and control of his body.

"I'll see you in training, Taylor," he said.

She bit off a piece of protein bar. "See you there, Clint."

He walked away, leaving Taylor to her empty hallway. As she ate, she stared at the wrinkled paper beside her and the taunting red D. It, along with Clint's statement, were the answer to Dominic's offer.

When the bell rang, she balled up her trash and moved back to the cafeteria. She waited, scanning the stream of students that flowed out of the doors. Dominic exited with his friends, laughing at something one of them said. When she approached him, he took in the shirt on her head with a raised eyebrow.

"You got something on your head," one of his friends said.

The group laughed as if this was comedic gold. Taylor looked at the group blankly, making some of them stop. Dominic shoved the shoulder of the comedian.

"Shut up, Chad," he said, then focused on Taylor. "What's up?"

Before she could reconsider, she spoke. "I'm in."

**********************************************************************

"My spidey senses are tingling!"

(Yes, don't worry, I'll quote the Peter Tingle later, I'm going with some classic phrases to begin with, you know pay respect to the heroes of old)

With that said! What spidey sense is tingling and what thoughts do you have on this new team up development that you want to share with Sunshine Girl? 🦸🏻🦸🏿‍♂️🦹🏾

Also what are our theories on Clint's history??? 🧐

My thoughts: WOOHOO!! First superhero team up! Does this mean that Dominic is pulling ahead in the ship department? Though I don't know Clint has a soft side that might lead him forward in a way that Dominic can't. My giddiness is tingling with anticipation! 🙈

So, I need your help! I'm flashing a sign into the night sky, calling for your assistance! Usually for every book I have some aspect of the author's note be in a different language, because I know you readers are from all over the world and I love that and want to acknowledge it!

But! I don't know what should be in a different language for this book. To help you out in previous books I've had the 'greeting', the 'vote, comment, follow', 'question time', and 'the question of the chapter' in different languages.

What should I put in another language for this book? If you had ideas let me know and make sure to put down your language so I can use it!

Also, hear me out, I know it's early in the book, I know that you might have reservations, but...I think it's time for a double update. Woah woah woah! Don't freak out, I know it's our first in the book, but I think we can handle. I don't think it's something we have to be frightened up but can face with confidence.

Are you with me? Can we get through this DOUBLE UPDATE together?

Vote, comment, follow but only if you fight for the peace and harmony!