Chapter Five: Getting To Know You
The characters in this fic, by and large, do not belong to me. The X-Men, and related characters, are the property of Marvel Comics. GI Joe, and related characters, belong to Hasbro. The Delgado children (Althea, Brittany, Daria, Quinn, and Claudius), Xi, Sgt Snuffles, and the Eloi belong to Red Witch.
L1701E- Trinity and Jamie are good at double-dealing? Oh, yeah. They'd do well on Wall Street? Well, yeah, but what would they do the day after they took control of everything- otherwise known as their second day. I hope to get some more of the four of them plotting if I can.
The music could be heard outside the club as Pietro came to a halt. It was packed, as always.
"Seems like a fun place," Elisabeth observed.
"Ah, it's okay," Pietro said, "considering it's a second choice. It's more fun than sitting through most movies, anyway."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
Finally, after waiting through the line-up, it was time for them to get in.
"Not bad," Elisabeth said approvingly. "For a place like Bayville, it's not bad at all."
"I knew you'd like it," Pietro grinned.
They danced for a while, and finally found an empty table.
"Something to drink?" Pietro asked.
"A Coke or a Pepsi would be great, thanks." Pietro zipped off. Within two minutes, he was back, with two Pepsis.
"To uninterrupted dates," Pietro toasted. Elisabeth toasted back.
"You know, I'm the one that asked you out on the date. It's not fair that you pay for anything."
"You bought Xi all those cookies," Pietro reminded her. "The stiff I had to get wasn't that expensive. It's only fair I pay for something."
"I guess," she said, slowly.
"So," Pietro said, quickly appearing beside her, "why don't you tell me a bit about yourself."
"What would you like to know?"
"Whatever you wanna tell me."
"Okay. Let's see… my father is Sir James Braddock, and my mother is Lady Elisabeth Braddock. I have two older brothers- my oldest brother is Jamie, and he's nineteen. My other brother, who is only older than me by a few minutes, is Brian."
"So he's your twin, huh? Wanda's my twin, too. She's only three minutes older than me."
"Well, it's a small world, isn't it? Let's see- what else… you already know my cousin and cousin-in-law."
"Bree and Lifeline? Yeah," Pietro smiled. "They're great! They're kinda unofficial Misfits too, like the rest of our adults. I heard that they were gonna stay with us, but they were too important to the rest of the Joes to be with us all the time."
"Well, I'm sure they would have loved to be with you. Brittany loves children- and the rest of us keep badgering Edwin to get her pregnant, so we can have children to dandle on our knees and spoil rotten."
Pietro snickered.
"What? That's what we do! And of course, his face goes bright red whenever we do, and one then one of my brothers or me makes a comment about where his blood should be flowing, and that only causes him to blush more, and usually stammer something about mixed company. I swear you Americans are so repressed!"
Pietro burst out laughing.
"This coming from a Brit!" he finally managed to get out. Elisabeth looked offended.
"What? You think we're all uptight tightarses? Look at our history! Our greatest poets were almost uniformly sex-crazed! Haven't you ever read The Canterbury Tales? Or much of Shakespeare's work? We're so sex-conscious that, all the way back in Victorian times, we even made trousers to cover table legs, to prevent us from having ideas- not that it worked! Speaking of Queen Victoria- are you aware of how many children she had? Do you know how much sexual effort that requires? My God, man- we gave the world Benny Hill! What further proof do you need that we're a nation of the perpetually horny? Just because we traditionally didn't advertise the fact doesn't mean we're monks!"
Pietro was a little stunned. "There goes my pre-conceptions about British noblewomen," he sighed.
"Oh don't be too upset. Most of them are quite thrilled to seem to publicly live up to said pre-conception. I just happen to be honest, is all."
Pietro looked at her for a moment. When she was going on and on just now, she looked passionate- and so damn hot.
"Y'know," he said after a moment, "last night I overheard you talking to Al about Lifeline. Was it true?"
"That I saw him naked? Yeah."
"Oh my God," Pietro breathed. "How?"
"Well, it was quite innocent, really. Of course, he didn't look at it that way. It happened last summer. He and Bree somehow managed to get some leave time together, and as Edwin had never been to England- while not on business- that's where they went. They stayed with us, of course. On the grounds, there's this lovely pond that my family has traditionally used for swimming."
"Go on."
"Well, the weather during their visit was wonderfully hot, and one afternoon before dinner, I decided to go take a cooling dip. When I got there, there they were, splashing around."
"Bree and Lifeline?"
"Yes. They were skinny-dipping. Well, Edwin decided to take a little break, and got out of the pool, just as I went down for a swim. It's not a big deal, in my family- the naked body, I mean. If I saw any indication it was more than just a dip I would have left them in privacy, but there was no such hint, so I went down for a swim. And Edwin saw me."
"You weren't-"
"No, I had a bathing suit on. But when Edwin saw me, well… he blushed, and then he did the gentlemanly thing."
"He looked away?"
"In a manner of speaking. He closed his eyes- as he fainted."
Pietro burst out laughing.
"And, I did the ladylike thing," Elisabeth smirked. "I checked him out- I mean, I checked him over to see if he was okay."
Pietro laughed harder.
"Of course, Bree got out of the water when she realised what happened, and when we found that Edwin was okay we had a laugh out of it. When he finally came around, I made a little comment to Bree about sharing- and poor, dear Edwin fainted again. He's never quite been able to look me in the eye since."
Pietro laughed so hard he started to cry. He could actually see Lifeline doing that! Elisabeth started laughing too, and they sat there for a few minutes, laughing.
"Oh, that is priceless," Pietro said when he could finally form coherent words.
"I know," Elisabeth chuckled. "Well, I've told you a bit about me. What can you tell me about you?"
"Oh, where to begin? There's so much to choose from. You met my sister Wanda- she's incredibly powerful, and completely insane- just like the rest of the Misfits, except me of course. You have no idea how difficult it is to be the only sane person in a house full of loonies!"
"Tell me that again if you ever meet my family. Go on, please."
"Well, I've been a Misfit for a while now- we train a lot, and we get an okay education- considering we don't have a real teacher."
"And that's it?"
"Well, we fight terrorists," Pietro said, a trace uncomfortably. This was hitting a little too close to home- Cobra was one thing to talk about, but the Acolytes…
"You mean- you don't get out much?"
"Like we are right now? Not as such, no."
"Well that's terrible."
"It's not so bad- we do more than just train. Wanda's got her dancing lessons, Fred's starting to enter in cooking competitions, Lance moons over the kitty cat, I don't even want to know about Toad and Al, Xi doesn't have much of a life, and the Triplets drive us all nuts. We have our movie nights, and we go into town now and then."
"What does your family think about all of this?"
The dreaded question.
"I take it Baldy hasn't told you about us, has he?"
Elisabeth looked at him.
"Apparently not," she frowned. Pietro gave her a brief explanation of the old Brotherhood and how they came to be the Misfits.
"Your own father!" Elisabeth gasped. She could hardly believe her ears.
"Yeah," he sighed. He didn't want to be the one to tell her all this, but better she get the real truth from him than some biased half-truth from one of the X-Geeks.
"You poor dear," she whispered, taking his hand.
"I really don't wanna talk about this anymore," he said, uncomfortably.
"Then we won't," Elisabeth said firmly. "I just… well, for what its worth- you made the right choice leaving your father, even though you still love him."
They were silent for a few moments.
"So- do you wanna dance again?" Pietro finally asked.
"Love to," Elisabeth smiled.
***
Meanwhile, Back At the Ponderosa (Er… the Bayville Galleria) (Sorry- I had to do that once)
"I can't believe we lost them!" Lance and Scott fumed in synch. "Stop that you jerk! No, you stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"
"Both of you stop it!" Althea snapped. "Arguing isn't gonna get us anywhere!"
The two teams silently fumed. They hated being thwarted.
"So just who did dump that slushie on Duncan anyway?" Jean asked. "Not that I'm complaining."
"Not me!" Fred said loudly. "I didn't even have a sip of it…"
"And it wasn't me! Although I wish it was," Jean added.
"Well somebody did it!" Wanda proclaimed. "Not that I mind, but it caused us to lose track of my brother, who is inflicting God knows what horrors on Psylocke!"
"Some sister you are," Remy remarked.
"Do I love my brother? Yeah- but don't any of you dare tell him that!" The ground shook. "But do I know my brother? Yeah! He's probably going on and on about how perfect he is and how lucky she is to be dating him! We all know what she can to do somebody as an accident- who knows what she can do when she really wants to hurt somebody?"
"You mean you're vorried about Pietro?" Kurt asked.
"No. Wanda is more worried that she will miss the show." All eyes turned to Xi. "Somebody had to say it," he shrugged, "and Pietro is not here."
"Well, if you want, I can, like, phase back into the movie theatre and see if I can find them," Kitty offered.
"Do it," Althea said. "Five bucks says she's already dumped her drink on him."
"Ten says she's publicly kicking his ass," Rogue added.
"Fifteen says she has nailed him in the testicles," Xi put in. All the men shuddered.
"Can't I be allowed to forget that?" Scott moaned.
"You wouldn't say that so easily if you knew how much it hurts, yo," Todd told his friend.
Within minutes, Kitty had returned.
"They're, like, not watching any of the movies," Kitty said when she returned.
"You're sure?" Scott asked.
"Where could they have gone?" Peter demanded. "Could they have seen us and gone somewhere else?"
"That fight was pretty public," Jean said. "Or maybe…"
"What, Jean?" Scott asked.
"Maybe they saw us, and Pietro-"
"Got my slurpee and spilled it all over Duncan, and left us to take the blame!" Fred realized.
"That's exactly the sort of underhanded thing Pietro would do," Wanda agreed.
"Dat little white ferret!" Remy said, almost admiringly.
"Don't you mean rat?"
"No, not after Remy read 'Harry Potter and De Goblet of Fire.' You brother, he's a lot like Draco Malfoy, no?"
"Conceited, nasty, vengeful," Fred mused. "Yeah- yeah! He is, isn't he?"
"Well, with
that watch, they could be anywhere by now!" Scott moaned. "I'd like to turn
Quicksilver into a ferret and make him bounce! We've just gotten kicked out of
the mall for nothing!"
"Welcome to our world," Lance groaned.
***
A few hours later…
"Well, thanks for asking me out!" Pietro said as he brought Elisabeth back.
"Thanks for saying yes," Elisabeth smiled. "Well."
"Well."
"They're watching us, you know," Elisabeth said.
"Why don't we give them something to watch, then?"
They kissed again. Elisabeth lowered a hand and pinched Pietro's bum. The mental screams she heard from inside the mansion were very satisfying.
"Even firmer than it looks," she purred.
Pietro grinned.
"Oh, yeah. Good night, Elisabeth."
"Good night, Pietro."
He teleported away. Elisabeth entered the mansion. She looked at all the shocked faces staring at her. The X-Men and the New Mutants were all assembled. Not all were shocked- Jamie (her little multiplying guardian angel) was grinning, and (surprisingly) Tabitha was grinning and giving her the 'thumbs up.'
"Well," she said matter-of-factly, "we do have a Danger Room session tomorrow, so we'd best be turning in." She went straight upstairs, purposely not looking back. At the top of the stairs, the headmaster and all three teachers were waiting for her.
"Nothing happened," she said quickly. "I just thought that if they were going to watch, they may as well have something to see."
"I see," Professor Xavier said, eyebrows raised. He didn't want to let her know that he had been watching.
***
Next morning, after the Danger Room session was over, the X-Men returned to the upper levels to find that the mansion had been redecorated.
"Looks like the Misfits have struck again," Logan groaned.
Elisabeth surveyed the damage as she went back to her room. Maybe the complaints that she had heard about the Misfits actually had some merit after all.
In her room, on her bed, lay a dozen freshly cut roses. A note was attached to them.
"Last night was wonderful. Can I see you again? –Pietro 'Quicksilver' Maximoff," it read.
Elisabeth couldn't help but smile. Definitely.
Well, that's how the date goes down. What do you think? Too fluffy? Not fluffy enough (although I don't think that's a problem)? R&R, please. Next up- we finally get back to the plot, as a certain bestial sociopath asks for a vacation, and we find out a bit more about two estranged old friends. Stay tuned for "The Mutant Massacre:"
Chapter Six: Confrontations