Zoom, Academy for Superheroes: Part 3

New Romantics

"I could build a castle out of all the bricks they threw at me. Every day is like a battle, but every night with us is like a dream. Baby we're the new romantics, the best people in life are free."
-Taylor Swift

*****

Jack and Marsha were simply in shock. At first, they were unsure whether they had heard Dylan correctly when he announced that he would be asking Summer to marry him. After the silence had went on for a bit too long, Marsha was wide eyed but had a small smile playing on her mouth, Jack raised his eyebrows and looked from Dylan to Marsha.
"Are you serious?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'm dead serious!" Dylan chuckled a bit as he spoke, amused by how shocked he'd rendered the two adults in front of him. "It might seem like a huge, complicated move, but honestly it's very simple to me. I love her and we both know we want to spend the rest of our lives together, so why not start now?"
Jack didn't really know how to feel. Time had shown that it was clear that the love Summer and Dylan shared was very real, but he still had his doubts. They were both very young, they had the rest of their lives ahead of themselves, Jack couldn't see why they would want to do something so big and mature so quickly. But there was something else nagging at the back of his mind, it was an experience of his. Jack had also thought that he had been in love when he was young, he believed he'd met the person that he would spend the rest of his life with. But he was young and stupid, and it turned out to be one big delusion. He just didn't want Summer and Dylan to experience the same thing that he did.
A bitter feeling rose up inside of him, and he was rendered speechless once more, he didn't want to ruin this big moment for Dylan, but he knew that sometimes he couldn't help but speak his mind, and he felt the disapproving words form in his head. But before he spoke, he unwillingly glanced to his right, where Marsha stood and looked back at him when he felt his gaze on her with a look in her eyes that was so hopeful and content, Jack wondered if he was wrong. He suddenly thought that maybe love didn't always have to go wrong, and when you're in love, when you're really in love, you know.
        So, finally, he turned his attention back to Dylan with a small smirk, "How are you going to do it?"
        Dylan's eyes widened and he gestured with his hands wildly as he explained exactly how he was going to pop the question. The conversation took longer than expected, as Marsha kept asking questions and Jack repeatedly wanted detail. The three of them were all seated around the living room almost an hour later when there was finally nothing left to possible talk about where the proposal was concerned.
        It had gotten late, and Jack and Marsha were pleased with the amount of information they'd been given, so Dylan had decided to call it a night and had left the two of them alone in the lounge as he went off to his room. At first, Jack didn't even notice her silence, and he just picked up the magazine he had been reading before Dylan's announcement and examined it once more. But she suddenly shifted beside him, and he glanced over at her questioningly. A teasing smile formed on his mouth immediately following him noticing the tears filling in her blue eyes.
        He shook his head with a smile, he should have known that this announcement would lead to an emotional outburst from her. He raised an eyebrow, hoping that it would prompt an explanation, and Marsha smiled tiredly and wiped a tear from her eye before it could smudge her makeup. "They really did it." She said simply, and he knew exactly what she meant.
        "It seems like it was just yesterday that we first met all of them and they were just shamelessly flirting with each other during training." She said with a small laugh.
        Jack chuckled sarcastically, "I wonder if that's what they think about us."
        Marsha just rolled her eyes, "Well, we're not getting married, Jack." She blinked away another tear that had been threatening to stream down her cheek, "How did they do it?"
        "How'd they do what?"
        "They just found each other, they found the person that they're meant to be with on their first try, when they were teenagers. How could they get so lucky?"
        Jack sighed and stared at the wall, contemplating her words, "It's not really fair is it?" He cleared his throat, "They've never even gone through a breakup, they probably never will."
        They sat in silence for a while as both of their pasts came flooding back to them. After Jack's disaster of a relationship with Alex, he had been the problem in all of his relationships after that. He'd been scared of commitment, never wanting anything serious, and looking for a relationship in all the wrong women. After Marsha's hellish relationship with Justin in her teenage years, it had taken her a few years to begin dating again, and when she did she chose all the wrong people to be with. Summer and Dylan would never go through any of that, they'd already found each other.
        Jack glanced down at the magazine once more before folding it and putting it back on the coffee table, chuckling lightly. "I still can't believe you were a model."
        Marsha rolled her eyes, annoyed at his teasing but almost thankful for a lighter conversation topic. "Oh, get over it." She laughed silently, before he looked at her as if he'd just remembered something.
        "You suck at keeping secrets." The confusion in her eyes caused him to elaborate, "The proposal is a secret, Summer can't find out, but you're a terrible liar." He lowered his eyebrows, wondering how the proposal would remain a secret for more than a few hours.
        Marsha looked offended, "I can keep secrets just fine, thank you."
        "No you can't and you know it. I'm serious, Cindy or Tucker find out it's make it's way back to Summer eventually, and that's if you don't tell her directly." Marsha rolled her eyes and was about to argue, but he spoke before she could. "This has all got to be perfect, so no one can find out that isn't supposed to find out."
        Her argument was still on the tip of her tongue when she looked at him and suddenly a small smile formed on her lips.
        "What?" He asked bluntly.
        "What?" She sat up straighter.
        "Why are you smiling like that?"
        Her smile grew slightly, "Oh, nothing... " she began, and he knew damn well that it was something. "... I just had no idea that you were such a hopeless romantic." She said with a sly look in her eyes.
        He looked defensive, "I am not. I'm not even remotely romantic."
        Marsha sat back in the couch, her moment of teasing had passed, but a defeated smile remained on her mouth as she agreed with what he'd just said. "Believe me, I know."
        Suddenly, just as Jack had felt the need to defend himself against being called romantic, he felt the need to defend himself against being called unromantic. "Hold on," he began matter-of-factly, "I could be very romantic if I tried, you wouldn't even be able to handle it."
        Marsha raised an unconvinced eyebrow, but Jack had more to say. "I flirted with you since day one, and you were so incredibly oblivious it was ridiculous!"
        "Flirting is not romance, Jack, romance is about charm and - "
        "Charm? Well, in that case, I guarantee I've heard you yourself refer to me as charming a few times."
        "Oh please, I'm sure whatever I said was something along the lines of 'he may be rude, arrogant and sarcastic but he is charming,' which is far from a compliment if you ask me."
        "Well, Sweetheart, compliment or not, you said I was charming."

*****

        The next morning, Marsha had much more important things to think about than her conversation with Jack about romance the night before. She was close to being late for a meeting, she needed to get some files ready, and the only thing she could think about was Dylan's proposal. But Jack, on the other hand, had taken her accusation of him not being charming as a challenge. And he intended to prove her wrong.
        Which is why he was making his way down the hallway towards her room at half past seven in the morning with a single rose in his hand. He'd swiped it from a bouquet he'd seen in the common area of the facility that morning and had decided that it would prove him to be a romantic after all. Marsha came out of her room just as he rounded the corner, and they almost ran right into each other, but managed to avoid that painful way to begin the day.
        She was about to say good morning, but noticed the teasing look on his face and wondered what he was up to. "Now," he said, the teasing was thick in his voice as he produced the rose from behind his back. "if I wasn't romantic, would I have shown up at your door first thing in the morning to offer you a flower?"
        She remembered their conversation last night, and raised an eyebrow. "Maybe... " She said cautiously, but never took the flower from him.
        "And if I really was romantic, I might say something like... " He put his hand on the wall beside them as he towered over her and realized that her heels must not have been as high as usual that day. "... this rose is beautiful but it's nothing in comparison to you." He continued to tease, and finally got what he wanted when a small blush came to her cheeks and she took the rose with an impatient smile.
        She looked at him with exasperation but had a smile on her face. He just winked at her before he continued down the hallway towards the training gymnasium where the kids would be waiting for and she found herself absentmindedly twirling the rose around with her fingers as she made her way to her meeting.

        The team didn't see much of Dylan outside of training for the next few days. Jack and Marsha knew the reasoning behind this, and Tucker and Cindy didn't really notice, but Summer was beginning to worry. She usually spent every minute of her time with Dylan, and she always thought that he didn't mind this, but if all of a sudden things were different, she was worried about what that would mean for their relationship.
        The big day was on Friday, there was a small little banquet planned in the old Gamma 13 room, even though they'd just had Summer's birthday party in there less than a week ago, celebrating some kind of milestone for the facility, and Dylan decided that this would be the perfect location to propose to Summer.
        While Summer spent the days worrying and obsessing over Dylan's absences and distant manor, Jack had tried a few more tricks on Marsha to make her take back ever even thinking that he couldn't be romantic. He quite enjoyed seeing her try to mask the blush on her cheeks with a look of irritation whenever he tossed a flirtatious comment her way.
        Marsha herself couldn't say that she didn't like being complimented and romanced every now and then by Jack, but she wouldn't dare tell him that. He would become even more full of himself than he already was, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to handle that.