Music is "Love Lies" by Khalid feat. Normani.

Picture is Civil War High School AU by Arielle Jovellanos & Janet Sungart (jovaline and janetsungart on Tumblr).

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Apinae Bombini

Commonly known as bumble bees, Apinae Bombini are social insects that form colonies with a single queen. Female worker bees can sting repeatedly, being one of the few genus to be able to do so. They are found all over the world and are recognized by their furry or fuzzy appearance. The weight-to-wing ratio is still a mystery to scientists, and no one can say for sure how A. Bombini is able to fly.

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Chapter Three: Bombini

"Tell me, Carol. I need to know."

"All right. Finish your breakfast. I'll spill on the way to class."

Our table talks about other things over the remainder of the meal. Over the half-hour, I learn a lot about each of my classmates, mostly that Tony Stark has daddy issues and that Carol is the best person I could've met my first day back. Part of me is surprised that I never ran into any of them in my first year at Violet Hill, but the other part isn't so shocked. None of them are in my degree, and I didn't start living on campus until this semester. Before that, I lived at home.

But I don't have that anymore. Hal's accident made sure of that.

Carol claps a hand on my shoulder and grins at me. "Ready to head to class?"

Tony waves us on before I can sign a reply. "I'm getting something to go. You gals go on ahead."

"We were," Carol smirks.

Tony rolls his eyes. Pepper, Rhodey, and Vision remain back with him, while Bruce scurries off to another part of the cafeteria. I grab my backpack and sling it over my shoulder as Carol and I head for the classroom in Building 616.

"Wanda immigrated with her twin brother Pietro just before high school," Carol starts, keeping her voice low enough so only I can hear it. "They came from Sokovia as part of an asylum project. Sokovia has been fighting civil wars for nearly twenty years. It's a tiny country over in the Balkan area. Y'know, Romania, former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, the eastern bloc."

"With their parents?" I sign.

She shakes her head. "Their parents died in Sokovia after a bomb went off near their apartment. The building collapsed, killing their parents and trapping the Maximoff twins."

Curses fly through my head, and my attention shifts to my feet as we walk into Building 616. Empathy for Wanda and her brother surges within me. I know what it's like to lose your parents in a war; I lost my entire family in Lebanon after a radical targeted the hotel they were staying in. My mother, father, and three younger siblings: all of them died because of some mad-man with a vendetta. It's the reason I left Beirut when I was barely twelve.

"They were put with a foster family for a while," Carol continues, "but they ran away after the guy started threatening Wanda. Her brother took them both, and they lived on the streets for a while. Eventually, Pietro got a job at some warehouse on the coast, and Wanda got her job at the local occult shop. She still works there."

"What happened to Pietro?" I sign, having using the sign for "brother" and the letter P to symbolize "Pietro."

Carol bites her lip and hesitates at the entrance to our math classroom. "There was a robbery at the warehouse where he worked. Being the idiot he was, Pietro tried to stop it. He got shot. He's been in a coma for almost two years."

My eyes widen, and I quickly move my hands to respond. "Two fucking years?"

She laughs at the colorful language in my signing. "Yeah, long time. Wanda's up to her neck in medical bills and government loans. A friend of a friend told me that she's here at Violet Hill on a full ride. Straight-A student, near perfect grades, always the top of her class. If it weren't for that, I'm not sure she'd be able to handle it. You said she was up before you this morning? She was probably at the hospital to visit him."

I shake my head as Carol opens the door. "How do you know all this?"

The blonde grins and places a finger to her lips.

I push into the classroom, seeing only a few people already seated inside. It's a fluorescent-lit space, with around fifteen desks with two chairs at each. When I signed up for this class, I saw that it was at full capacity, so I might as well find my perfect spot now before it fills up.

Carol and I sit towards the back, each at our own desk. As I place my pencil and paper on the metal surface, I spot the professor enter with a scowl. Professor Fury, the most sarcastic and miserable math teacher I've ever seen. He plops his manual on the professor's desk in front of the white board and sighs heavily. He turns and write the title of the class on the white board with a red marker: Basic Mathematics -- MAT115.

"Hope you're in the right classroom," he mutters before slouching into his desk chair.

Carol leans over the side of her desk and taps me on the shoulder. When I turn, she nods towards the group of four at the front of the class, specifically the two men on the left. One is a dark-haired, pale-skinned guy with an attitude problem, and the man next to him is his exact opposite: blonde hair, tan skin, and a cheerful appearance.

"That's Loki and his brother Thor," she says. "They're from Scandinavia, moved here a few years ago to attend school. Loki's the greasy one. He's Wanda's best friend and majoring in theater. His brother is the big, dumb one. He's studying history I think, but no one really knows why. He's pretty funny, though. I see him in comedy club occasionally, and he's always at the gym. I can out-lift him. I'm very proud of that."

"What about the other two?" I ask, nodding to the brunette man in a blue tunic and the man with an African accent.

"Stephen Strange and T'Challa Udaku. Stephen is in the medical program, and T'Challa is here as an exchange student from Wakanda. He's the crown prince, but he's always insisted on being just a regular student. He's in a lot of Rhodey's politics classes. They're good friends."

The classroom door opens again, and more students flood into the room. I recognize a lot of them from the cafeteria. Bruce, Vision, Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey sit together on the left side of the class. After them come Steve, Natasha, Bucky, Sam, Clint, and Peggy, whom take seats on the right.

As Steve walks to his desk, his eyes catch mine and widen in surprise. He walks over to my desk with a sweet smile. He hasn't changed a bit. "Hi," he greets. "Long time, no see."

I shrug, returning the smile as I sign, "Right back at you."

"I didn't know you'd be coming back to school so soon," he states, referring to the difficult summer I had. "One semester, that's not much of a break, Sarai."

"I could say the same for you, soldier. I thought you'd be our of basic training by now."

"Steve laughs softly at the nickname. "Yeah, well, that didn't work out like I'd hoped, but then again, a lot of things this year haven't." I avert my eyes, guilt pricking at my heart. "It's good to see you, though. You look good."

I sigh. "Look, Steve...what I did was what was best for us both, but how I did it was wrong. I shouldn't have shut you out. I shouldn't have cut you off. I should've let you make your own decisions. I'm sorry. I was losing Hal and I wasn't in a good place, at all."

"'S all right," he replies, placing a friendly hand on my shoulder. "Maybe now that we're both at Violet Hill again, maybe we can be friends? We were better as friends anyways."

A genuine, relieved smile crosses my face, and I nod. "I'd love that."

Steve drops his hand and moves back to his desk. A weight lifts off my shoulders, and my mood improves almost instantly. Break-ups are never easy, especially when no one has done anything wrong and the other person is as good as Steve Rogers, but I'm glad we've moved past it.

Just as Professor Fury stands and starts taking the roll, Wanda Maximoff bursts through the door. Though clearly frazzled and in a rush, she nearly takes my breath away. Her brown hair is long and in a loose braid over her shoulder. She wears a flowing black dress with a scarlet shawl over top. Her face is flawless, and the ruby tint on her lips brings out the green in her eyes.

"Nice of you to join us, Ms. Maximoff," Professor Fury states, not looking away from the roll.

Wanda adjusts her shawl as she moves into the classroom. All of the desks are taken except for the one directly in front of me. She plops down, setting her shoulder bag on the chair next to her. From it, she fishes her textbook and notebook, and for a moment, I thought I saw the book move into her hand without her touching it.

END CHAPTER THREE.