A/N: Background info: these three have become my new OT3 and I recently got an idea for a fic where they want to buy a car. I mentioned this to delightisadream as I didn't have a storyline, and she immediately came up with this right off the bat. I added some of my own ideas/flare and typed it up. Enjoy.
Mia and Andi strolled into Joe's Used Cars on a Monday. They'd left Daniel outside in his family's minivan as 1) they didn't trust him to follow their plan and 2) he was still a bit miffed at how they'd gotten there. He'd only been home from swim practice for a few minutes when he heard a car horn honking. Upon stepping outside, he saw his girlfriend and his childhood best friend waiting for him—in his parents' vehicle. Andi was behind the wheel, and while she'd driven plenty of forklifts with her dad, she still didn't have her license. None of them did, but at least Daniel had his permit. He'd barely gotten a word out when the two girls peer pressured him into the back seat.
"If we're gonna take that road trip in a few months once school's out," Andi said over her shoulder, "we're gonna need a car."
"The three of us have been bitching about this for weeks, Daniel," Mia added. "Andi and I decided to finally do something about it."
"Yes, but we also came to the conclusion that we'll need money!" Daniel protested. "I'm the only one who's been saving up, and—why did we have to steal my parents' minivan?!"
"Don't worry," was all Andi said. "We've thought this allll through."
Daniel spent the rest of the ride with his head in his hands.
"Can I help you ladies with something?" a gruff guy asked. He was standing behind the front desk and his nametag read Joe. Must've been the owner.
"Yeah, you can help us with something," Mia replied, confidently striding up to the man, Andi in tow. "We'll give you fifty bucks for that white Sedan in the back."
Joe looked back and forth between the two girls and laughed. "You're not serious."
Mia glowered and Andi cracked her knuckles. "We're serious."
"No," he snorted. "Get out."
"Okay, fine, fine," Andi relented. "A hundred. Because that's crap."
Joe's face darkened.
Mia glanced at her friend out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't very well use her Kanay powers in front of this man, and Andi had left her chainsaw at home.
Andi smiled nervously. "On second thought, we'll just be leaving." She linked Mia's thin arm with her own and speed walked out the door.
As they approached the Miller family's minivan, they could see Daniel tilting his head back, dozing off. The moment the girls opened and slammed their doors, his head snapped forward as he started with a fright. "Oh, hey, so how'd it go?" he asked, stretching out his legs.
Andi growled. "Don't talk about it!"
A little recklessly, the feisty girl drove them back into Daniel's neighborhood. When they pulled into his driveway, the athlete realized Andi wasn't slowing down as they approached the car garage his dad had added onto their house last year...
"Andi! Wait!" he exclaimed. "You have to raise the—"
The next thing they knew, they were inside the Millers' car garage. Literally. Andi had just driven through the door. Bits and pieces of the structure poured down all around the now damaged minivan. One particularly long piece of wood broke through the windshield.
All three teens' mouths dropped.
"Did you just..." Mia spluttered.
"YOU JUST BROKE MY HOUSE!" Daniel roared.
Andi shrugged. "Accidents happen," she offered as her explanation. She then promptly climbed out of the car, called over her shoulder, "Good luck with that, Daniel," and raced down the street.
Mia turned around to face her boyfriend, mouth still ajar. "Wanna stay over at my aunt's tonight?"
Daniel unbuckled his seat belt and hyper-nodded as he flung open his door. "Yep."
Homeroom on Tuesday morning brought an irritated Daniel and an apologetic Andi. Daniel's parents had called his cell phone an hour after he arrived at Mia's. To say they'd been furious when they got home from work would be an understatement. Daniel had taken the fall as Andi didn't even have her permit, and even if she had, she'd still stolen their vehicle. He figured there would be less drama and fewer parents involved if he just let his mom and dad think he'd been practicing alone and had misjudged the distance between the end of the driveway and their car garage's door.
He was grounded for a month, and he had to help repair the damages. Mia had volunteered to help, and after being kicked a few times under the desk, so had Andi.
"Don't worry, Daniel," she promised. "You'll forget all about being mad at me once you see what I came up with last night."
"I doubt it...," he grumbled.
"I'm serious," Andi pressed. "I know how we're gonna get our car. We just gotta get tough."
Since the Miller family's minivan was being worked on in the shop, and Daniel was banned from using any of his family's vehicles until further notice, not to mention he only had his permit, the gang arrived at Joe's Used Cars after school on foot.
They were approaching the front door when Andi elbowed Mia in the side. The Kanay turned around and grabbed her boyfriend's arm to stop him in his tracks.
"Why'd we stop?" he asked.
"We think it'd be best if you waited outside," Mia said bluntly.
"What's she gonna do?" Daniel demanded, giving Andi a look that hung somewhere between irritation and apprehension.
"Don't worry about it," Andi said in a relaxed tone that did nothing but make him more suspicious. "Just wait on the sidewalk and let us handle this."
"Did she bring her chainsaw?"
"No!" Mia rolled her eyes. "You know her parents don't allow her to do that anymore."
"Then why—"
Mia sighed with exasperation. Standing on her tiptoes, she wrapped her arms around her boyfriend's neck and yanked him down until his lips met hers. She kissed him until she was out of breath then pulled away and innocently blinked up at him. "Just do it?"
He smiled that goofy, male smile. "Okay."
Once he was around the corner and out of their line of vision, the girls got prepared: Mia held Andi's bag while the female Shark pulled her hair back into a slick ponytail then extracted her dad's boxing gloves out of said bag. She slipped them onto her hands, cracked her neck a few times, then said in her toughest voice, "Let's do this."
The girls began to close the short distance remaining between them and the front door, but when Andi pushed on the glass, nothing happened. "What…" She looked through to find a few of the workers watching her suspiciously. Those dicks locked me out?!
"Mia!" she hissed. "Help!"
Mia cracked her knuckles and blew a strong wind toward the door. Immediately, the glass was jolted forward so forcefully it nearly flew off its hinges.
Andi smirked and whipped her ponytail around cockily, her purple streak adding a badass touch. She strode forward at a leisurely pace, Mia in tow.
One of the men behind the front desk looked confused beyond belief. The other, a teen, looked impressed and a little turned on. He seemed to compose himself rather quickly as he promptly swaggered forward and leaned his lanky frame over the desk. "Can I help you find something?" he asked, eyes locked on Andi. "Possibly me?"
"Whoa whoa whoa, keep it in your pants, big boy," Andi barked. "We're here about a white Sedan..."
Just then, Joe rounded the corner, hollering about "all the commotion" and "that door better not have come off its hinges again." But the moment he saw the two girls standing in his dealership, he cut himself off and pointed accusingly. "Hey! I told you to leave yesterday!"
Andi's eyes went wide. "Uh..."
"Take those off!" Mia hissed, motioning to the boxing gloves.
"Right, right." Andi struggled to remove the objects from her hands. "I'll just—help!"
Mia yanked on the glove covering her friend's right hand, but unfortunately her strength combined with Andi's was too much: her glove-clad fist slipped out of their grasp and soared forward, socking the teenage employee right in the face. The impact must have loosened the glove up because it slid off of Andi's small fist and fell down, along with the boy, behind the counter.
Joe gasped. "Billy!"
"Run!" Mia yelled.
"HEY!" the other employee called, but it was too late: the girls were out the door.
"Mia, get the car!" Andi said as they ran toward the parking lot.
"We didn't BRING a car today!"
"Then run faster!"
"WAIT!" Mia skidded to a stop. "Daniel!"
The girls bolted it back toward the dealership and followed the sidewalk until they found her boyfriend sitting on the curb, looking thoroughly bored.
"Hey," he said when he saw them coming. "Did you guys—WHOA!" He was cut off when Mia grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar and yanked him up. "What's happening?!"
"Run!"
"What did you guys—?"
"I punched some kid in the face with a boxing glove and knocked him out," Andi filled him in.
Daniel's eyes grew wide. "You what?!"
"JUST GO!" Mia said, propelling herself forward even faster.
Both Daniel and Andi stayed over at Mia's that night: Daniel because he was still afraid to go home; Andi because when her dad found out she'd lost one of his boxing gloves, she would be in more trouble than she was the last time she brought her chainsaw to a family gathering, which just so happened to have been his sister's wedding.
They found themselves at Maddie's on Sunday afternoon.
After five miserable days of hopeless scheming, and ignoring Daniel every time he suggested they just save up for the car the honest way, the trio had concluded they needed some help. Under any other circumstance, turning to a Van Pelt for help would have been considered beneath them. But after taking into consideration that Maddie was a total shopaholic and an ace at getting her own way, as well as slightly more tolerable than she had been in years past, they figured she would have a few shopping tricks she'd be willing to share.
That's how they ended up crashing Maddie and Diego's day in. Andi, Daniel, and Mia were sitting on one couch in the Van Pelts' living room while Maddie and Diego sat across from them on another. They had just finished telling their tale to a scoffing Maddie and a concerned Diego.
"Guys, you should probably stop this…," the male Kanay began, but his girlfriend spoke over him.
"You amateurs are pathetic," Maddie drawled, fanning her fingers out in front of her for emphasis. "Look, you just have to know how to play it. Sometimes you just have to go in there and act really, really sweet, and they'll be like, 'Um, no, we can't give you that,' at which point you want to start screaming and throwing a tantrum, at which point they'll generally give you a little bit of what you want. If not, they'll probably send you outside." Her face darkened. "I ended up outside of a mental hospital once. Still don't know how that happened!" She crossed her arms in a huff at the unpleasant memory.
Diego placed a hand to his temple. "You guys can't—"
Daniel shook his head. "Maddie, that's a terrible—"
"Okay," Mia interrupted.
"Okay?" Andi asked, looking around the boy in between them and raising an eyebrow.
Mia pointedly caught her friend's eye. "Uh-huh."
Catching that she was supposed to play along with whatever her pal was cooking up inside that devious head of hers, Andi 'causally' said, "Uh, yeah, good advice, Maddie."
The blonde preened and twirled a curl around her finger. "I know."
"What?!" Daniel turned to his best female friend in exasperation. "Andi, that's not good advice!"
"Sure it is," Mia said easily. "All we need is someone innocent."
Daniel looked around the room and noticed all four sets of eyes were suddenly on him. He looked from Mia to Maddie to Diego to Andi and back to Mia before he said, "NO."
His girlfriend smiled that evil smile of hers.
The next day, Daniel found himself standing in front of Joe's Used Cars. Andi hadn't even asked when she arrived to homeroom that morning; the smug look on Mia's face and Daniel's noticeably better mood told her all she'd needed to know. And while she had made a few wise cracks throughout the day ("If I'd known you were that easy to bribe, I woulda jumped in your bed years ago, Miller."), it was clear all she cared about was that he'd agreed to the plan.
Speaking of Andi, she and Mia were currently taking a stroll around the block. The way they'd explained it to him was they wanted to be close enough to see what was going on, but far enough away to avoid suspicion. It had sounded good when Mia's shirt was off and his hormones were running wild, but now that Daniel was in his right mind and the plan was actually underway, it was clear something was up.
Daniel glanced over his shoulder and across the street. The two girls were standing in front of a decent-sized brick house and already looking his way. Andi pointed to him, then slammed her fist into the open palm of her other hand, clearly indicating that if he didn't do this, she would beat him up. Considering she'd driven through his garage and knocked out some innocent kid the week before, Daniel decided not to take any chances.
He faced forward and took a deep breath. "Be cool," he muttered to himself. "Be casual." He shoved his hands into his pockets and started whistling as he strolled toward the door. He stopped two feet away when he realized that wasn't cool or casual at all. He whipped around once more and found that, not only had the girls barely moved, but Andi was making even more obscene gestures than before. Eyes wide, he turned around once more and slightly slumped his shoulders as though bored. That seemed casual, right? He hoped so...
Upon entering the dealership, Daniel saw two men in uniforms. Joe was sitting in a chair slightly in front of the front desk and off to the side, messing with a screw driver and snacking on some Oreos. A man who was maybe in his early twenties named Peter was manning the front desk. Daniel looked him over and gave him a head nod. "Sup."
Peter looked up and made a face. "Bro, I don't swing that way, but what do you want?"
Daniel felt his face redden. He didn't even bother correcting the man. At this point, he just wanted to avoid Andi ripping his dick off. "I, um, wanted a car?"
Peter didn't bat an eye. "Which one?"
Suddenly, the athlete began to panic. "Well, not your own personal cars! I mean, they're really nice, but I meant... the ones that... are for sale?"
Now Peter blinked. "Yeah, I got that, dude. Which one did you want? Did you have something specific in mind?"
Daniel gulped and blurted, "White Sedan."
A few feet away, Joe narrowed his eyes and chomped down loudly on an Oreo, watching the scene before him intently.
Peter was beginning to look slightly concerned. "Okay, but we have three of those. Is there a particular one you wanted, or do you not care which—"
"Um, I don't know, I just saw one outside, like, you know, around the corner, and..."
Peter glanced over at his boss and, seeing that he too was suspicious, held out his hand. "Can I see your driver's license, sir?"
"Um." Daniel pulled at the collar of his shirt. He could feel that he was starting to sweat through the material. He could also hear his voice getting louder. "I don't have my driver's license—YET! I—my parents told me I need to save up for my own car, and I just have my permit—though I don't have it with me—not because I'm a bad driver! My parents confiscated it temporarily because they think I did something that my friend actually did, but I took the fall because—"
Taking pity on the boy, Peter held up his hands. "Alright, alright. Come out back with me and you can show me which—"
Right at that moment, Joe barked out, "Wait!"
Daniel could literally feel the sweat slipping down his back. He was beginning to understand why he had been asked to wait outside the last two times Andi and Mia dragged him here. He pushed his damp hair up off his forehead, incidentally airing out his armpit in the process.
"This wouldn't happen to be the same white Sedan these two girls have been coming in and asking for over the past week?"
"Um, wh-what two girls? I-I've-I'VE ONLY BEEN HERE TODAY."
Joe leaned back in his seat, clearly enjoying himself. "Oh, you know. About your age. Short, really skinny, even though one of them can surprisingly pack a punch seeing as she struck my son in the face."
Daniel audibly gulped.
It was clear Joe could smell his fear. He stared him down mercilessly. "You wouldn't happen to know these two girls, would you?"
"Uh..."
And then Daniel did the only reasonable thing left to do: he ran. He burst out the front door and hauled ass through the parking lot and across the street to the block where Andi and Mia were supposed to be walking. But they were nowhere to be found.
He was full-on flipping out now. Outside of detention and driving through the garage, neither of which were actually his fault (well, the detentions mostly weren't his fault), he had a spotless record. The last thing he needed was for a used car dealership to call the cops and have him arrested for suspicious behavior.
Where could they be?! They had been lingering in front of that one house for a rather long time... Could they have broken in? He wouldn't really put it past them at this point...
Suddenly, the sound of tires screeching to a halt filled his ears. He turned around to find none other than the now infamous white Sedan. Mia was behind the wheel while Andi was in the passenger's seat, feet propped up on the dash. All four windows were rolled down.
Daniel's mouth dropped. "What are you—?"
"Get in the car," his girlfriend told him.
"Did you just steal this?!"
"Yes, we did, and I don't have my license. Get in the car."
Ignoring his conscience, Daniel got a running start and placed his hands together like he was about to jump off the diving board. He ran forward and dove through the back window, landing in a sprawled-out position over the back seats.
Mia spun around, just missing a fire hydrant, revved their new car's engine, and got the hell out of there.
USED CAR STOLEN: WE KNOW WHO TOOK IT
Daniel rested his head against his folded hands the next day in homeroom while the girls looked over the headline of that day's paper.
"Sketchy behavior from three teenagers over the past two weeks, blah blah blah... white Sedan missing, blah blah blah... HA!" Andi jumped in her seat and pointed to the next sentence in the article. "'Mysteriously, all footage of the two girls and one boy has been erased, and the only proof we have that they exist is a lone boxing glove.'" She grinned victoriously at her friends. "My dad doesn't read the paper. He'll never know!"
"You stole a car," Daniel stated. "You tricked me into helping you steal a car."
"It's not like we'll ever get caught," Mia reasoned. "Maddie changed the color to a nice, sleek black this morning."
"I never thought I'd enjoy having Maddie's approval," Andi mused, crinkling her nose slightly.
"You're wel-come!" called a sing-song voice. They all turned to see Maddie and Diego and the Panthers walking toward them. The blonde clasped her hands together and beamed. "I am tres proud. You did what you had to do to get what you wanted."
"You stole a car!" Diego cried.
"Thank you!" Daniel held his hand out to his pal.
"Don't get hung up on the details," Sophie recommended, waving her hand dismissively. "I find that life is much more enjoyable when you focus on the big picture."
As Maddie led her boyfriend and friends away, Mia grabbed Daniel's notebook off his desk and began flipping through it. "Cheer up," she said. "No one will ever know, and now..." She found her intended page and grinned, lifting it up to show him. "We can continue planning for our summer road trip."
"With a vehicle under our belt," Andi added, taking out her pencil and making a little check mark next to that item on their "To Acquire" list.
Daniel looked back and forth between his girlfriend and his childhood friend and said, "You're both getting your permits before we go."
"Mayyybeee..." Mia smirked at him.
He playfully rolled his eyes and slightly smirked himself.
Andi looked back and forth between the two. "Is this another inside joke? Do I want to know?"
Daniel only plucked her pencil out of her fingers, moved the notebook back to his side of the desk, and said, "Gimme more possible destinations for this road trip of a lifetime."