Chapter 48 - The truth, the fight, and the recompense.

                                    

                                          


                          


                          
After a few weeks of school, Seven was beginning to feel happier overall. She found herself thinking consciously of the Red Room less and less, it only appeared to her in bad dreams and when she was daydreaming and something reminded her of it.
                          
She was acing her art, gym and language classes, catching up in maths, science, and English and just beginning to learn everything she needed to know in computer science and history. Unlike Ned, she loved doing her homework and would sit with Peter most days at the huge brown table in the dining area in the evening, doing their homework together.
                          
She was beginning to feel closer to Ned, and even MJ. They always sat at lunch together and even if they didn't talk, (MJ reading a new book and Seven reading one MJ had recommended to her, Peter and Ned working on homework or drawing up plans for their next big lego build), they would sit in their content silence. 
                          
Something Seven did notice after three weeks was that peter was accumulating more and more bruises than normal, she knew what Peter looked like and it sure wasn't like an apple someone kept dropping on the floor, which is what he was looking like lately. He would always look the worst when he got into the car a few minutes after school ended and on the twenty-five-minute journey home his super healing would kick in and reduce it to some faded bruising, or a cut that looked as if it had been there for weeks and had scarred over. 
                          
When it was especially bad, Seven would sit there silently, her headphones in as she used her powers to heal his face. She would search for any injuries she could sense on his body and heal those mostly too. She never asked any questions as she figured that if he wanted her to know then she would. 
                          
Because of the back to school pile-up of work, they had very little time to go out patrolling and had only been able to go a total of ten times in the twenty-one days; six at the weekends and four on scattered weekdays, so she knew the bruises weren't from that.
                          
It wasn't until the fourth Monday when she walked into the hallway, having asked to go to the toilet in Geography class, that she knew what was actually happening.
                          
Flash had asked to go to the bathroom ten minutes prior so Seven wasn't at all expecting him to be holding someone up to the lockers and punching them over and over again, their face was looking away from her and all she could see was their brown hair. 

                          
Seven wasn't going to just walk the other way, she could see the person failing to fight back and she could hear Flash making snide comments.
                          
"Hey!" Seven called out as she began running over but Flash didn't hear her, he was too busy focusing on getting as many hits in as possible.
                          
Seven grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him to the floor, not even watching his body hit the ground as she was focused on catching the person as they fell too.
                          
The brown hair moved the other way and a pair of brown eyes were staring back at her, Seven almost dropped him in shock.
                          
"Pete?" She hissed, already seeing the yellow/greenish areas form onto his face. He had a few cuts too but still managed a smile just for her.
                          
"Hey" 
                          
What made Seven angry was that it was her best friend Flash was beating the hell out of, what made her angrier was that he wasn't fighting back. 
                          
'Well,' she thought, 'if he won't fight for himself then I will.'
                          
Seven gently put a dazed Peter onto the floor before turning and grabbing Flash by the front of his shirt this time, back onto his feet.