A/N: Wow it's been forever since I posted, I swear! This piece was constructed over a few weeks of hard work and me trying to battle the urge to procrastinate. Lockdown is many things, but if I want to look on the more positive side, it's given me a chance to work more on my writing in the very least...

Heather 'Hettie' Grey belongs to me, but everything else is owned by Marvel! She's effectively the kid!version of my oldest, beloved OC - Heather Grey - who is also a longstanding ally/friend/maybe a lil' more to Deadpool. Here though, they're just dumb kids. There is a reference to drugs but it's entirely in a joking capacity, so don't panic!

Hettie's feet were aching by the time she came to a halt. A blister was swelling atop her right ankle, skin having been clawed raw by the well worn faux leather of her boots; the sting's aggression flaring with the slightest twist of her feet. The black of her neck was sticky with sweat, and each time she turned her head, eager strands of her ponytail clung to the slick glue of perspiration.

Above, the sun sang in casual arrogance, and from the distance the chatter of the other girls echoed in cruel bias, as she stood before the pond by herself.

They were laughing at something Logan had gruffly muttered - she presumed - and a shudder of annoyance flared at the back of Hettie's mind. Her sisters' waves of endorphin coated amusement were punching her firm in the stomach, and the whirlpool of despairing nausea was beginning to whip itself into a frenzy. She barely understood why Jean felt so flattered by the boys' attention so much. So what if he had Cool Ranch Doritos and a leather jacket? If she'd saved enough pocket money, she could emulate the whole damn aesthetic! School trips sucked.

Her boots were easy enough to kick off once she'd fought with the tangled knots her laces had scrunched themselves up into (granted the distraction was a nice protector from any rogue thoughts of summer dances or impending homework), and upon sticking her feet into the water; the shadow of social awkwardness receded a little.

Truthfully, the only reason Hettie knew she'd been invited on the outing was because of the recent disaster she'd managed to insert herself in. Ms Frost was determined to keep her and Betsy separated no matter what the cost, even if it resulted in having to drag about a grumpy ten year old who desperately wished to be spared from the terror of her older sisters' peers. She couldn't help but wonder if the headmistress had always been such a ruthless woman. Had teaching once been a career she loved, saw as beneficial to both herself and the girls' she took into her tutelage, before the bitter reality of dysfunctional girls' - each with a more potentially apocalyptic power and longer periods of brooding than the last - rendered her outlook acidic in turn?

It had been an accident... Yes a humiliating accident for the visiting Wisconsin senator - no-one liked their fetish for hairy backs announced by two overzealous psychic preteens - but an accident all the same! She hadn't meant to blurt it out once Betsy sent her the thought...

Hettie kicked the water - droplets splashing upwards to reach as high as her kneecaps - but it did little to quell the frustration. The lecture from Ms Frost had been a little more tolerable than the droning admonishments mom had laid upon her, embarrassment and tension palpable in her voice as she'd warbled at her younger daughter down the phone.

'Why do you always have to do things like this Heather?'

'We spent a lot of time getting you into such a school, and this is how you repay us!?'
'Jean would never!'

No Jean wouldn't embarrass grownups by accidentally unleashing their deepest, darkest sexual preferences to a class of bored twelve year old's. Jean would just soon be gracing the family home with fucking Logan at her heels. Then she'd likely be lambasted with the speech about 'that nice boy Scott Summers', and demanded for an answer why instead it was an unruly boy - half-way to feral, with a forced growl laced upon his words, who talked with his mouth full - seated at the dinner table, making short work of macaroni cheese. It was simple: Logan was 'cool'; Scott wasn't. Whatever 'cool' was supposed to be nowadays...

All Hettie knew was she was not her sisters' definition.

In her bright yellow hiking shorts, fraying violently around the edges, and oversized t-shirt - one of Sara's she'd managed to snag from her closet unseen, some merch from a riot grrrl band the eldest Grey daughter was obsessing over (Dream Wife) - she was the antithesis of cool, apparently. Jean's friends had taken one look at her - Rogue had even rolled her eyes and turned her nose up - before disappearing to titter, no doubt having something to say about one aspect of her outfit. Why did they care what she wore anyways? They weren't her friends.

"Hey!"

The voice snapped Hettie out of her bitter musing, but it wasn't one she immediately recognised. Nasal and grating, with a tone that promised to annoy, there was something vaguely familiar about it; but half the time, all the boys on co-ed trips' voices blended into one pre-pubescent symphony of half-broke voices and forced gruffness. The second she looked up though, there was no mistaking who'd spoken.

Dressed in a Back To The Future t-shirt and denim jeans rife with grass stains, it was the mask pulled over the boys face that proved so iconic. Majoratively red, with black about the eyes - white under layering hiding whatever their true colour could be - it proved to be the closest to a second skin Hettie'd ever been privy to. Wade Winston Wilson. Current bane of Xavier's School For Boys.

"Um, hi..." She didn't quite know what to say.

Wade was alleged to take nothing seriously - it was something that had allowed him to rise through the ranks of unpopularity with such daring swiftness. That and how he'd managed to amount in nearly $200 worth of damage done to the Danger Room after he'd accidentally spilled his slushie upon one of the main switchboards. Hettie found it hard to believe bribery hadn't been involved to allow him onto such a trip, what with how Jean said (thanks to Scott) Professor Xavier already resented the boys' presence. If he wanted to surprise her with his next action though, he succeeded: he sat down next to her.

"So, the angsty type huh?" Wilson was already talking once more, and Hettie couldn't help but stare at him as if he'd grown a second head, "I swear you aren't usually written this way..."

"What?"

"Nothing!" There was no defensiveness to his tone, merely jovial amusement; the sort that was self-contained. "I didn't think I'd see you here...Heather, right?"

Something about the way Wilson said it seemed to tell Hettie he was fully aware of who she was (either through gossip or mere association with Jean Grey, object of desire for both Scott Summers and Logan Howlett). "Yeah...most people call me Hettie though." Even those who didn't like her stuck to that courtesy. "And you're Wade Wilson."

"The one and only!" He bowed, flicking his right hand dramatically in the air before placing it upon his chest, left leg crossed over the right in a final flourish.

She couldn't help but tilt her head in curiosity (a trait burned into Hettie's veins), words spilling out before she could stop them, "shouldn't you be raising hell somewhere?"

Wade Wilson laughed then, tipping his head back as the sound swelled; throwing himself onto the grass in reckless abandon, thrusting grass and petals everywhere. On instinct, a surge of telekinetic energy jumped from Hettie, pushing the influx back to avoid a random flare up of her inconsistent hayfever. "Is that so?" His tone was cocky, but playful, and she knew his eyebrows were raised beneath the mask. "My reputation precedes me...thanks author!"

"What? Who..." Hettie shook her head. Don't get distracted! "Look, it's kinda hard to not know who you are. Everyone at school's been talking about how you almost fried the Danger Room..."

That succeeded in pulling another laugh - this one more of a proud giggle. "Do I become less cool if I trust you with classified information?" He leaned a little closer towards her, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper - with all the forced hiss of a spy thriller B-Movie, "I only dropped the slushie because Logan kicked me in the shin."

Hettie felt her nose wrinkle at the boys' name, but Wade's tone convinced her she was safe to roll her eyes. "Oh, so you've had the outstanding Dorito Lord treatment, huh?"

Logan had never been overtly mean to her: she and Jean had their differences: the middle sister beguiling and graceful, the youngest defensive and awkward; but they were siblings' ultimately..and while Heather may have not particularly liked the company Jean kept, while the redhead despaired over the smaller girls' determined hostility to any form of authority as of late, the love they held for one another never faded.

Still, it didn't stop her sisters' latest aspiring boyfriend from giving her a look as if she were gum stuck to the bottom of his godawful steel-capped boots. The warm, gooey kind in particular - impossible to scrape off without getting plastered across your hands; so you stank of artificial spearmint and fresh spit.

"Someone's into prose..."

"Huh?" Her head tilted up a little more at the sound of Wade's voice, blinking quickly as he began to gesture wildly.

"Just talking to myself!" He shrugged, but she could sense his anxiety without trying. Beneath the bravado - like me, she could admit - was lingering doubt. The inescapable fear of rejection and ridicule, being deemed completely socially worthless; pushed into a bleak cell of loneliness... Without Betsy Braddock at her side, it was twice as frightening to Heather... "Yeah, I'm his brandspanking, shiny Public Enemy Numero Uno!"

"How'd you get that title? I thought it was Summers he hated most?"

"I called his stupid haircut out," another shrug, followed by his palms raking through the grass, fingers twitching with a rhythmic impulsivity. "Said it made him look like he had a crappy D&D helmet on his head. Because it does!"

Hettie couldn't help but laugh, kicking the water gracelessly as she leant back, cheeks flushing with the surge of emotion. "I need to tell my sister that! Maybe then she'll stop fawning over him so much..."

"Yeah but Summers' is a weiner!"

"I'd rather have her be with a weiner than a straight up asshole." The girl protested, a deluge of water jumping upwards as she stomped against the pond's surface, splattering against her bare legs in soothing coolness. Hettie let out a dramatic sigh, "but I can't stop her if she really wants to be with Logan."

"Can't you use your mind powers to talk her out of it?" Wade was kicking off his own shoes now, barely pausing to rip off his Strawberry Shortcake socks and roll up his jeans before plunging his own feet into the water, splashing enthusiastically alongside her. "Or does the Psychic Honour Code mean you don't do that?"

"I follow the code, duh!" Hettie stuck her tongue out and they both burst into laughter then. She wasn't quite sure what amused him so much about it - the playful childishness being enough on her end - but pride had bloomed in her stomach...

"Like you'd be any different about that in this universe..." Wade was shaking his head as the laughter tapered off. "Wait!" He turned to her sharply then, "didn't you spill about that senator's fetish?"

Hettie reddened spectacularly, a grin creeping across her face as she only just managed to meet his eyes (well, those on his mask). "Yeah...that was me."

"Dude that's brilliant!" The boy declared, throwing his arms in the air. It was only then that Heather sensed his longing...as if her reactions were something he'd craved for quite some time, but this was the first occasion where he hadn't been spurned by someone... But that made no sense. Wade was friendly and bold - a little weird perhaps, but wasn't everyone? - throwing himself head first into their conversation with not a hint of regret. "Can you read anyone's mind?"

"I'm not sure..." Hettie admitted. "Ms Frost is kinda strict about it? You can only get away with it properly when she's distracted..."

"Bummer," Wade sighed. "I thought you could find out what dirty thoughts Xavier has about her!"

"Gross!" Her nose wrinkled but she couldn't help laugh, shaking her head. "That's something no-one wants to know, Wade-"

"I do!" He insisted. "It could be my blackmail material y'know? So I don't have to do more homework and can get out of detention! Please, Heather?" He pushed his hands together like he was in prayer, leaning towards her once more.

"It's Hettie, and no!"

"Pretty please?"

"No!"

"The prettiest of pleases with sprinkles and marshmallows and cocaine on top-"

"Wade! I said no." Her small smile no doubt ruined the effect of the rebuttal, but she couldn't help be content with successfully standing her ground.

It appeared Wade was not deterred though, pushing his mask up to expose his mouth and chin, summoning the most melodramatic pout Hettie had ever seen. He even accompanied it by a pathetic whimpering sound, released from his throat in a grating wail, as delicate in sound as a siren. Unfortunately for him, she had reasoned to not back down.

"How about I buy you an ice-cream for a truce?" Came the offer, smile brightening a little as the sound abruptly paused mid-whine. "I hear the stand over there even does tea flavour."

Wade's mouth promptly dropped open in horror. "Ew! What the hell is wrong with you, Miss Author? Is this just because you're British? Is it a legal requirement you mention tea?"

"What?"

"Doesn't matter!" He gestured widely, shaking his head with such strength she was surprised a creaking sound didn't accompany the motion; followed by his teeth appearing to bite his bottom lip. "Can I get sprinkles?"

"Deal."

Her shoes were on in record time - Wade's socks stuffed into his back pocket - and as they raced off to get their ice-creams, Hettie found even the dampness coating the inside of her boots couldn't hinder the warm thrum of delight rippling through her chest.