AN: Well, the whacky continues, and I think this will eventually turn into a Rietro, but in the most round about possible way.  Thank you to everyone who's been reading and reviewing, or just reading. 

            It was like she'd been sick, and forgotten how great it felt to be well.  Even the normal memories she retained from previous absorbtions seemed light when compared to the hours she'd spent listening to Pietro's chatter.  God, what if I'd had to go to class like that?  Rogue shuddered at the thought of any attempt at academics with the speed demon's running- no pun intended- commentary.  Rogue shook her head and shut her locker, walking through the hall to her math class, and almost tripping over Quicksilver.

            "Jesus!  Pietro, don't do that!"

            "Am I really that shallow?"  His face was the very picture of righteous indignation, hands on his hips, eyes steady.

            "What?!"  Oh my god, Rogue thought, somehow he talked to the him inside my head or read my mind or somethin' what the hell does he know?  Dammit, I'm gonna have to kill him.

            "Lance said Kitty said you called me shallow.  I just wanna know if you really think that."

            Rogue heaved a mental sigh of relief.  She'd hate to have to find a place to hide Pietro's corpse. 

            "Pietro, I gotta go."

            "No no no no no, this is important!  I'm a sensitive individual, I'm a 90's kinda guy, well, millenial kinda guy, whatever, and just because I'm so fantastically sexy doesn't automatically make me shallow!" 

His righteous indignation was met with equally righteous skepticism.

"Do I have to threaten you, or are you gonna let me go to math?"  Rogue said, stepping around him.  He continued to orbit her like an electron as she walked to class.

"All I'm saying is that I have much more depth than people give me credit for, I have layers, I'm soulful, I'm unique, I'm intelligent, charming, caring, I have dreams, desires, ardent desires, and it doesn't matter if nobody sees it because I know, but if you don't see it that's kind of a problem cause you see things that other people don't what with the whole-"

The door of the classroom shut in Pietro's face.  Through the narrow rectangle of glass, he could see the furry kid in the hologram laughing at him.  He tested the knob, but all it got him was a dirty look from the teacher who'd locked the door. 

"This is not the validation I was looking for, damn it!"  he shouted.  Kurt just laughed harder, and Rogue rubbed her temples in exasperation.  Inside the classroom, the teacher was collecting the homework, and as he accepted paper from the snickering Kurt and the quasi-mortified Rogue, he favored them with an equally withering glance. 

"Friend of yours?" he asked them.  Rogue just took out a pen and wrote the date at the top of her notebook page, muttering,

"I don't see anyone, I don't hear anything, and even if I did, no power on this earth could make me care."

            "This may sound like a stupid question, Kitty, but what do vegetarians put in their sandwiches?"  Rogue asked, trying to imagine how her sandwich would taste without the sliced turkey. 

            "All kinds of stuff.  This one's tomato, Swiss and mozarella with sprouts.  Little mayo, little honey mustar-"

            "I am not that shallow."

            Kitty yelped as her instructional was interupted by Pietro's appearance in the other chair across from Rogue.  Lance arrived much more gradually, though he nearly turned around entirely when it was clear that Pietro was still determined to force a better evaluation out of Rogue.

            "Hi Kitty, hi Rogue," Lance sighed.  "Mind if we sit with you?"

            "Like, sure, if someone can contain himself," Kitty replied, staring pointedly at Pietro, who was staring pointedly at Rogue.

            "Zip it, Pryde, this is between me and the Rogue," Pietro snipped, not taking his eyes off Rogue, and thus not noticing Lance's hand until it smacked him in the back of the head.  "Ow."

            "Pietro, I'm not talking about this anymore.  Believe me, in the past twenty four hours you and I have talked plenty."

            "And in that entire time, I didn't say anything of merit, or depth, or value, or-"

            "Rogue.  I'm begging you.  Tell the boy he's not shallow so we can all move on with our lives, he'll never let it go otherwise," Lance pleaded.

            "Keep out of this Alvers, play footsie with your girlfriend or something.  Ow!  What?!"  Pietro protested as Lance whacked him again. 

            "I only agreed to let you come with me on the condition that you'd be polite," Lance said. 

            "I thought you meant to her!" Pietro said, pointing at Rogue.  "Speaking of which, Rogue, please, give me another chance.  I can be deeper.  I can prove to you that I can brood with the best of them.  Just please, one more chance, pretty please?"

            "One more chance to what?" Rogue cried, throwing her hands in the air.  "Jesus, it's not like I broke up with you or something."

            "Ah ha!  Then I must not be shallow, or you would have!"

            "We were never going out!" Rogue shouted, as Lance smacked his forehead and then took another shot at the back of Pietro's head, which he ignored.

            "Hm.  You have a point.  Fine.  Date me."

            "Are you completely insane?" Pietro just looked at her.  Rogue sighed.  "If I tell you you're not shallow, will you let this go?"

            "Yes."

            "You're not shallow."

            "I don't believe you."

            Rogue got up, crumbling up her lunch bag and stalking out of the cafeteria. 

            "Wow, Pietro, you sure have a way with girls," Kitty sighed.

            "She's just playing hard to get," Pietro replied.  "I just have to play it cool, and she'll come around."

            He managed to play it cool for about twenty five seconds before leaping up and running after her.

            "This is like, totally not gonna end well," Kitty sighed. 

            "I'm thinking foreign exchange program.  But he'd just run back."

            The second Rogue walked out of her English class, Pietro was on top of her again.

            "We could go see a movie."

            "You can sit still for ninety minutes?"

            "Or we could just get a pizza.  I'll steal Todd's coupon."

            Rogue shook her head and kept walking. 

            "I know what this is about!  This is about your whole not touching thing.  I don't care about that, I don't, really!"

            "Suuure you don't.  We'll just hold hands all night, I'll keep my gloves on."

            "That sounds like a yes."

            "It's not.  I told you you're not shallow."

            "That's not what you told Kitty," Pietro sulked.

            "Look, I just touched you for a second, that's not enough time for me to absorb any deeper memories, just your powers temporarily.  Just surface stuff.  So I have no idea if you're shallow or not, all right?"

            "What class do you have now?"  Pietro asked innocently.

            "Study hall, why?"

            She regretted having answered the second the words came out of her mouth. 

            "No reason," he grinned.  He grabbed her arm, shoved the sleeve of her gauze shirt out of the way, and grabbed onto her bare arm. "Tag."  He held on for an impressive ten seconds, despite her attempts to break his grip, before he passed out cold.

            "Pietro.  Pietro!" Rogue shook the boy and slapped his face a couple times, gloved of course.  It had been two minutes already and he still wasn't responding.  She glanced up and down the empty hallway and picked him up, grunting.

            "DammitQuicksilver yougottalayoff themdamnpixiestix."  She took a deep breath and used the power he'd forced on her to run him back to the Brotherhood House.  About halfway there, she heard him mutter and stir, and she came to a halt, kneeling down and setting him on the sidewalk, supporting his upper body.  It was all very sweet, until she smacked him again.

            "Up and at 'em, Pietro, I know you're in there."

            That's not the only place I'm in, Stripes.

            Rogue looked down at the mostly unconscious Pietro, then looked around.  She could just strangle him now, no one was around, and she was already wearing gloves.  He shifted again, muttering something about hypoglycemia, and she sighed, shaking him a little.

            "What?" he grumbled.

            Aw, let him sleep, mind-Pietro protested.

            "Wake up, Maximoff." 

            He blinked up at her, then stretched happily.

            "Oh yeah, now I remember."

            "Do you now?"  Rogue snapped.  Pietro yawned and draped his arms around her neck.

            "I'm not the kind of guy who'd forget his own girlfriend!"

            Not that kind of guy at all! Wow, I'm even more handsome in person… Pietro's voice echoed in her head. 

            "Iam not yourgirlfriend," she growled, yanking his arms off and picking him up by his shirt.  "NowI'mgoingbacktotheInstitute," she took a deep breath, forcing herself to slow down,  "you are going back to the Brotherhood house, and as soon as I get your voice out of my head, I am never talking to you again."  She stepped away from him and he started to fall.  Reflexively, she caught him, against her better judgment, which was to let him eat pavement.

            "See now, it's not just any girl who can make me weak in the knees," Pietro said, as his voice echoed the same thing.  Rogue sighed, pulling Pietro's arm over her shoulders and helping him walk.

            "One of you has got to shut up, or at least stop simulcasting."

            "Still think I'm shallow?"

            "I think you're crazy."

            "That's a step in the right direction."