Alright, so this is a story that I don't know what I'm doing or where I going with, so... I apologize in advance. I am sorry.

I just find this kinda funny so far, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Disclaimer! I do not own X-Men: Evolution, or anything else. Joy.

...

Lance was not a very nosy guy. He liked to keep to his own and wouldn't usually get involved in other people's affairs unless he was forced to. He never got curious about the relationships and pasts and current dealings of those around him. Feelings, interests, talents; his way of thinking was, if it didn't somehow benefit him to know, then what was the point of the knowledge clogging up his brain?

"C'mon, what are you hiding? Huh? What is it? I need to know!"

Needless to say, he was very unlike Pietro.

Pietro, like everything with him, had a fast-paced mind. Not a short attention span, as that would connote he got on a task, got distracted and then left it. Pietro finished just about everything he started on, just very quickly, and he was always looking for other things to occupy his time. He had already found and put together every jigsaw puzzle in the house (and there were quite a few; the guy who previously owned this boarding house of theirs left boxes full of puzzles in the basement), created the Leaning Tower of Toothpicks (it reached the ceiling in his room) and memorized the first thousand digits of pi.

As of right now, his fast-paced mind had fixated on the Toad, or, more specifically, his notebook.

Todd had had the notebook for a while. He never took it to school or anything, but in his downtime he would take it out and hunch close with a pen so no one could see what he was writing, or whatever he was doing in it. Pietro only became interested in it recently (four days ago) when he noticed how Todd had started to flinch away and slam the notebook shut whenever he was near.

Toad had been surprisingly secretive. Most of the time, anyone in the house would just give up privacy and let Pietro know or see or hear whatever it would take to shut him up. But Toad had refused, no matter how much Pietro pleaded or threatened or bargained, to let him see the notebook.

"I bet it's just some stupid lovey poetry or something. 'Oh, my Pork-chop,'" he recited dramatically with his hand over his heart. "'I don't care that there is absolutely no hope for us, seeing as you try to kill me whenever I come within twenty feet of you," he waltzed towards the door as his voice rose, "I love you! Forever and always!'" He finished by banging the door shut behind him, and the sound of him running down the hall filled the room.

Lance watched Todd sigh and loosen the death grip he had on his notebook. He watched as the boy cracked it open and he forced himself to turn his eyes back to the TV in front of him. He still couldn't help but overhear the other's voice, quiet from the other side of the room, "Sappy poetry, as if," and then the sound of him hopping out the door and up the stairs.

And this is where Lance's problem came in. Normally, he never felt interest for other's affairs, as previously stated, but now, Pietro's curiosity was contagious. He had the feeling that he wanted to know what was in that notebook even more than Pietro himself.

He shook it off and settled back into the couch to watch daytime television.

…

"Ooh, that is not a pretty sight."

Pietro's voice broke through his sleepy haze like a flood light through fog. He jerked awake, but alertness never came to him quickly enough in the morning. Or evenings, apparently.

He grumbled out something even he himself couldn't understand, and looked at the clock on top of the TV. 7:00 PM. "Well, damn."

Pietro glanced where he was looking, and sighed. "Yeah, you wasted your day away, sleeping." He said the last word like it left a bitter taste in his mouth. "I don't get how people can do that, myself." He paused to think about this for what must've seemed like an ample amount of time to himself, but was really only two and a half seconds.

"Anyway, move." He dashed forward to lean over Lance, his arms akimbo. "You, your junk food and your drool." Now, Lance may have been tired, and Pietro's words may have been starting to blur together, but he was able to catch that, and he looked down. Pietro's first comment clicked.

Ooh, not a pretty sight.

To raise a hand to wipe the drool off his chin, and shirt and pants (how was that possible?) he had to first remove it from a Doritos bag. And to stand up and walk a step, he had to kick out of the way what looked to be an entire 24 pack of Coke, opened and drunk.

He saw Pietro pick up an empty Honey Bun box with the very tips of his fingers. "Ugh, nasty."

Lance had to snort at that. "Says the guy who eats onion and horseradish sandwiches." He was more alert now, and sat forward, brushing chip crumbs and pixie stick wrappers off his lap.

Pietro scoffed in an affronted manner. "I'll have you know that onions and horseradish are loaded with calcium, phosphorus, and potassium. This, on the other hand," he held up the Honey Bun box accusingly, "has nothing but saturated fats and processed sugar."

"But they taste good." Lance retorted without hesitation. He stood up and started to pick up the remnants of the food stuffs around him. Twinkie and burger wrappers, Twizzlers and Atomic Fireballs. How did they get all this stuff? "Besides, sugar? I thought that would be your thing or… somethin'." He was a bit distracted by what appeared to be and entire deli pickle in between the couch cushions.

"Uh, no. That much sugar messes me up." Pietro paused to stare at the pickle Lance had just picked up and Lance filed that information away for later usage. "Besides," he went on casually, turning away from the pickle, "I need to watch my figure."

Lance deemed the couch clean enough and his job done as he kicked the last of the soda cans out of the way and threw the pickle into a nearby garbage can, and turned to look back at the TV. When he turned back, Pietro was on the just cleared spot on the couch, hand on the remote to change the channel. A narrator came on, recapping the last episode of some reality show. Lance raised an eyebrow disbelievingly at Pietro. "'The Amazing Race'?"

Pietro nodded in a long-suffering manner, and then impatiently motioned for Lance to get out of his line of sight. He rolled his eyes and moved to sit down in a chair next to the couch. "Figures." He settled down once again, deciding to watch Pietro's show and ask him as many questions as possible about it to annoy him.

Pietro, surprisingly, was very amiable about his questions and humored every single one, no matter how stupid. He found himself unwillingly becoming just a little interested in the show. Once it was over an hour later, Lance was in a good mood, but hungry, and Pietro seemed to feel the same. He got up to go to the kitchen, and stopped to offer to get something for the both of them.

"Hey, man, you want anything?" Pietro opened his mouth to order something undoubtedly complicated, but Lance cut him off. "Keep it simple, or you'll get nothing outta me. I don't have Blob's culinary skills."

Pietro sighed disappointedly, and settled for a ham sandwich.

Walking back into the living room, arms loaded with the sandwiches and some more chips and drinks, Lance started to feel the suspicion he should have felt when Pietro first woke him up. It only got stronger as he set the food down and they began to eat. It tried to eat in peace, but the wondering what exactly Pietro could be being so friendly with him for gnawed at him. It made him uncomfortable. Like, a lot. Once he had finished his sandwich, he watched the boy next to him eat slowly. Slowly. Slowly.

Oh, this was just evil.

"What do you want from me?" He asked apprehensively, and Pietro swallowed and turned to look at him quickly. "Oh, I though you'd never ask!" He said exasperatedly, and then stood up and put his hands behind his back.

"I… want you to find out what's in Toad's notebook."

He said it like he was asking Lance to steal the Hope Diamond, and Lance had to laugh. Partly because the apprehension was alleviated and mostly because it was funny. "Are you that desperate?" He sniggered out.

Pietro tried to continue to look dignified as Lance laughed at him, and waited a moment to let him finish. He snorted elegantly once Lance calmed down. "Well, I suppose I am, seeing as I came to you."

Lance sobered a bit at the snub, and sat up straighter. "Oh, c'mon. It's probably nothing. Just poetry or whatever, like you said." He was trying to convince himself as well as Pietro, and Pietro picked up on it.

"You know it's not, and I know you wanna know what he's hiding just as much as I do." He took a step forward. "He doesn't trust me, but he does trust you." Lance snorted, and Pietro corrected himself. "Okay, so he doesn't exactly trust you, but you've got a chance and I don't."

Lance still had his reservations. "Pietro, you might not understand the concept of 'privacy', but I do. Toad may not look it, but he is human, and he deserves the ability to keep secrets. You don't have to know everything about everyone."

Pietro took on a distressed look. "But don't you know what it could be?" Lance rolled his eyes and said 'no'. "It could be conspiracy theories, or plots to kill us all, or all about Toad's past! All the secrets and skeletons in his closet…" Pietro sighed at the thought of it, and Lance was a bit amazed.

"Wow, you really are that desperate." Pietro looked insulted, but Lance ignored it. "Whatever, if you get off on that, alright, but don't drag me into it." Lance stood up, intent on going outside for a bit. "Besides, why Toad? There are others you could be hounding for their secrets and skeletons."

"Because," Pietro said like it was obvious. "Because why?" Lance replied impatiently; he didn't like this game.

"Because," Pietro went on, clearly aggravated, "no one here knows the first thing about Toad."

"Yes we do." Lance supplied. "We know his name, that he's a mutant, that he's crushing on Wanda," Pietro growled, "and that he's a member of the Brotherhood. That's plenty." He was getting tired of this conversation and was ready to leave.

Pietro stomped his foot, and Lance turned towards him. "No it's not. You know who my family is and where I'm from and what I've done. I know the same about you and everyone else I've lived with. Except Toad; he's- he's a mystery and I don't like that."

Alright, so Pietro had a point there, but Lance refused to admit that. "What, so one person decides not to let you know something and you freak out? That's an issue if I've ever heard one."

Pietro calmed down a bit. "It's not just me, it's everyone. I know you want to know about him. Maybe more than me, even. I've talked to Blob, Toad spends all his time with him, and even he doesn't know where Toad's from or what he was doing before we found him. What is he hiding?"

Lance sighed and looked Pietro in the eyes. He saw something that surprised him. "This really isn't just about finding out what he's hiding and using it against him, is it?" Pietro's eyes widened, and Lance groaned. "Alright, I'll do it."

Pietro forgot what Lance had said and grinned. "I knew it."

…

Lance felt like a snake.

Pietro had told him his plan last night to get him and Toad alone ("You need to bond," had been Pietro's explanation) and this morning it was unfolding.

Pietro had snuck into Toad's room in the middle of the night to unset his alarm clock, so Toad would miss the bus and, consequently, need a ride to school. Which Lance was to offer. Which he did. And now Toad was smiling at him gratefully and thanking him hesitantly and he felt horrible. But he couldn't let it show.

"Uh, yeah." His hand went to the back of his head. "It's nothin'. We should probably get going, you ready?" Toad thought for a second and then shook his head no quickly. Watching him bound up the stairs to his room, Lance sighed and slumped. He closed his eyes tiredly, and when he opened them he yelped, "Pietro!" Quickly he righted himself and growled, "I thought we talked about doing that." No appearing in front of people without warning was a rule that Pietro didn't mind breaking at all.

Pietro tsk'ed disapprovingly. "You're looking a little pathetic there, Avalanche," he said offhandedly. "Don't tell me you feel so bad about this." He was drawing out his words and Lance was getting riled. "I'm sorry I don't have your heart of ice, Quicksilver, there's just something about deceiving and betraying people to satisfy curiosity that gets to me."

Pietro waved his hand dismissively. "People? You mean just Toad, right?" Lance's eyes widened, confused. "What?"

Pietro smiled knowingly. "C'mon, you gotta soft spot for the kid. It's kinda obvious." His voice sounded strangely sympathetic. He paused to click his tongue and sigh, a brief reprieve before his unspeakable energy came back to the fore. "Besides," his voice was speeding up with excitement, "it doesn't have to be fake. It doesn't have to be 'betrayal'-" he made quotation marks in the air, "-it can be real. You're curious about him, it's obvious you gotta thing fer him-"

"Whoa, whoa, huh?" Lance interrupted Pietro, waving his arms in front of him. There was a bang from upstairs and his eyes widened. Pietro's voice lowered accordingly as they heard Todd coming down the stairs. "In a friend way, you idiot, a friend way." He snorted at the look on Lance's face. "Your mind went there, not mine."

Lance growled but quieted when he saw Todd out of his peripheral vision. "Be good to him, maybe he'll let you get to second base." Pietro hissed out with a grin, and then was a blur going out of the room.

Todd looked confused, papers in hand and book bag on shoulder. "Hey, what was he-" Lance turned to look at him and Todd shrunk back a bit. "Alright, yo. I'm sorry."

Lance calmed down at Todd's fear, and checked himself. "Ah, it's nothin'. Guy's just a jerk, s'all." Todd tilted his head disbelievingly, before he smiled at the apology and stepped forward. "S'alright, dawg. You ready ta go?"

Lance said yes and made for the door. "What'cha got there?" He motioned with his head towards the papers in Todd's hand. The boy shot him a winning grin, and waved them about a bit. "Absence excuses. Lifted 'em from a doctor's office."

Lance's eyebrows raised in appreciation. "Nice one. You got any to spare?" Todd flashed a smaller smile. "A' course. Need one?" Lance nodded, and Todd handed him a few. One was already filled out for last Friday in a looping, feminine cursive. Todd saw him looking at it closely, and spoke as he opened the front door, "My ma's handwriting. Easy enough ta copy."

Lance looked up at him, watching as he walked towards his jeep. This was the first he had heard Todd say of family in any way, and it surprised him a bit. He realized then that Pietro really was right; he didn't know much about the Toad. Nothing more than what was on the surface.

He followed out the door and to his jeep.

…

The ride to school was filled was awkward fumbling for conversation on his part and confused responses from Todd until the kid said, "Hey, you sound like yerself wheneva' that Kitty X-Man is near." and then he shut up.

And he felt like that, too. Trying to befriend Todd and get him to open up a bit was not unlike trying to win a girl like Kitty over. You kept it calm, you were doing alright, you said something funny, you were doing good, and you shook a building down and you were back to square one. Earthquake-inducing powers could be a bit of a deal breaker.

Well, after that morning, he found that it wasn't really like that with Toad. At least the last part.

After dropping Todd off, he quickly went to get ready for his own classes. Rebel mutant or not, Mystique had made it quite clear that they were to miss no more school (unless they had legitimate excuses, of course) or else. Or else what? He didn't need to know for the Fear of Their Boss-Lady to be instilled in him.

He sort of liked his first few classes of the day, so he was feeling fine. The looming knowledge that he was going to actually have to attend Math class that afternoon for a change kind of dampened his spirits, but overall, he was feeling good about the day ahead of him. Everything went fine until lunch, really.

So, the Brotherhood was sitting in their usual spot, minding their own business (alright, admittedly terrifying a few of their fellow students, but whatever) and the X-Panties-in-a-Bunch-Men show up to flex their sense of justice. Jerks.

"Hey, Alvers, why don't you cool it? I know you haven't been here for a while, but some of us are here trying to learn something." Cyclops had said in his best authoritative voice. Lance was about to reply but the sound of Toad laughing at something distracted him. He turned to see what it was and had to chuckle himself.

The blue guy was hiding under a table fiddling frantically with his watch which had apparently just been caked with slime (courtesy of the Toad) and fizzed out. Kurt glared at Todd and he quieted down a bit, and when a string of German swears came from under the table, he sighed and hopped down, effectively blocking Kurt from view. As well as what he was doing.

But a minute or so later, they were both crawling out, Kurt dusting himself (now without the fur, fangs and tail) off and Todd standing hunched next to him. They were beginning to say something to each other when they noticed that everyone at the table was staring at them. The German blushed and then left to go back to his own table quickly, with the rest of the X-Men following slowly, shooting glares at the group they were leaving.

The silence that followed was even more awkward than the one in the car, with Pietro, Fred and Lance staring at Todd. He shuffled his feet and eventually shrugged. "It was funny, but it'd be messed up to bring the blue dude to light like dat."

And then the bell rang before anyone could question anything. Todd quickly hopped off away from them to get lost in the crowd of trundling bodies, and the rest of the Brotherhood glanced at each other, puzzled. Toad and that bamfing German had just effectively defused a potential fight with their enemies and they didn't quite understand how.

They shrugged once most of the students had vacated the room, and made for the door out of the mess hall and into the sunlight. They had gym next.

…

In gym, the only people who had to do anything were the ones the coach deemed 'football material'. Unfortunately, Lance was included in that. The coach had singled him out of the Brotherhood, and no one was about to help him out.

Everyone else sat on the rafters, talking, reading, catching up on schoolwork, or taking a nap. Blob was doing the latter, with Toad by his side listening to Pietro hassle the boys and girls who were actually participating in gym.

They were playing a game of keep away, where the coach chose a few people who were to try to take balls from the rest of the group. Lance was one of the few. Spyke was one of the rest.

Now, the coach had a strict 'anything goes as long as I don't see it' policy, and, well, if other people were taking advantage of that, you had to as well. And Spyke was definitely using that policy to his benefit. Lance's eyes were on the ball the X-Man held, and as they were, he saw the spikes covertly coming out to help him pull off some seriously impossible moves.

Lance was corralled by other players close to the rafters, and as he was looking for an opening out he heard Pietro's voice just behind him. "Don't you see Daniels? X-Man, and using his powers for his own gain." He snorted disdainfully. "What would Daddy Cyclops think?" Lance snickered and Pietro's voice lowered, "If he's using powers, why don't you even it up? Wipe that look off his face."

Pietro reminded him strikingly of a bad friend who persuaded him to do stupid things just then (he'd talk to him about that later) but it sounded like a good idea. His hand twitched and the boys in front of him lost their footing, and he moved forward to position himself with a straight shot to Daniels. His hand came up to shake the ground around the X-Man, not much, barely above 2.0 on the Richter scale, just enough for him to lose the ball. Which he did. In spectacular style.

He shook and waved on one foot before falling on his face with a loud 'thunk' and the ball flew from his hands to bounce and roll to Lance's feet. It was quiet for a moment before Pietro cracked up from the rafters and everybody followed his example. The laughter echoed in the large building even after it stopped a few moments later, and Lance watched, still chuckling, and Spyke pulled himself up, red-faced.

He glared at the Brotherhood member, and Lance waved his hands in front of him, grinning, before pointing behind himself with his thumb at Pietro, still cackling in the lower rafters. He mouthed, 'It was his idea.' and Daniels took a few intimidating steps forward.

"Funny, Maximoff. And here I thought you didn't mind coach refusing to have you down here, seeing as you're good for nothin' but track."

Now it was Pietro's turn to glare and redden. Everyone knew Pietro had a thing against track and anyone affiliated with it. Apparently he was too good for it, and of the opinion that track was for dorks and girls.

Oh, and Daniels stuck a nerve.

Suddenly, Pietro was in Spyke's face, and Lance looked around quickly to see if anyone had seen. Amazingly, no one had, but heads started turning at the confrontation that was unfolding. Pietro was hissing things out, and Spyke's responses were getting louder and louder.

Lance had turned around to look at Toad and Blob, who was slowly waking up, and what happened next is slightly blurry to him. There was a rushing sound and then he was on the ground, eyes going back in his head and the building shaking terribly. He remembered Todd's voice, shouting over the noise, "Get him, man! We gotta get outta here!" and being picked up.

Next he remembered, he was outside in Freddie's arms, being set down carefully, with all the Brotherhood and Daniels looking at him worriedly. Especially Daniels.

"What's wrong with you guys?" He got out, and was surprised at the difficulty he had with it. He saw Todd reach a hand down to his shoulder and when he pulled it back a moment later it was coated in red. He looked down where Todd's hand had been, "Oh." and then passed out again.

...

I've got some more after this written out, but it was a wee bit long. So...

I was wondering if anyone else noticed the utter lack of dicernable motivation for what the characters do. I don't know, it just glared out at me, and I found it funny. I guess, "It needs no explanation, it's fun!" applies to me very well.