Unlikely

Chapter Fifteen: Unexpected Kindness

She had fallen asleep. It made Pietro want to laugh, though since the movie was at a pretty dramatic part, he held the urge back. Instead he let his thoughts wander. He wasn't into foreign-films anyway, and hadn't even been paying attention to which movie he picked when he came in here. As long as he didn't have to sit by that fat smelly bloke, he was happy.

The thought of smell brought the scent of Mia's perfume to his attention. Pietro glimpsed her as he thought a little more about this. It was pretty, whatever it was. Like lots of flowers, but also minty, like she had been chewing gum recently. At the same time he noticed she had fallen back asleep, and absently his thoughts shifted onto why she seemed so tired. He had noticed her lack of energy at the mall earlier, too. She had definitely been on her guard, the rare times he did see her of late she seldom seemed off her guard, but even during the fountain incident, a certain fatigue had lingered about her.

It was the same as he had sometimes seen the other X-geeks of Xavier's, yet at the same time it was different, like more of a mental fatigue. And abruptly Pietro understood. That baldy professor must have been trying to improve Mia's powers, and since she was almost a telepath, it would give reason to why her body seemed alert, but her mind lagged a bit.

Thinking of her body, Pietro let his blue eyes drift over her fit form.

Damn it! Why did she have to be so damn pretty? If she was just ugly maybe it would be easier to forget her… but then he had to continue to wonder. Maybe it was her mysterious-defiant persona that attracted him so much. After all, it was only after she had kicked him that he had really taken an interest in her. Not that all girls who came up and kicked or tackled him attracted him, but maybe it was just that he liked a challenge like Mia – deny it as he had tried.

Her left arm, which her head rested on, shifted suddenly and her head dropped a bit before her eyes snapped open and she seemed to abruptly become alert as her pale violet gaze darted about, but Pietro had already looked back to the movie when her arm had shifted.

After a little while, he glanced over at her again and was slightly alarmed to find she had shifted positions. She now sat with her legs in the empty chair on the other side of her, with her head nearly leaning against his left shoulder, except that her head rested on her right hand that was curled into a fist with her elbow being propping up using the armrest. He couldn't see her facial expression without shifting positions, but on the off chance that she had fallen back asleep – which he highly doubted as her relaxed but slightly tense posture told him otherwise – he didn't want to move to disturb her. For one thing, he didn't know what mood she would be in if abruptly awaken, and secondly, what would she think if she was already awake and saw him lean forward just to check and see that she was?

But as though in answer to his preoccupied thoughts, her head gently touched his shoulder as her arm shifted and then fell listlessly beside her, telling him she had been barely awake before, and was lightly asleep now.

For a while Pietro stayed tense and immobile and kept his thoughts blank, waiting for her to wake up and realize the situation and probably slap him for it, but instead she only seemed to drift off deeper into sleep. Finally deciding she wasn't going to wake up this time until someone awoke her, he relaxed a bit and decided to concentrate on the movie. He hadn't forgotten what she had said about seeing his fantasies, and even as she seemed asleep, he wasn't going to make it easier for her to get access to them, though he wasn't really sure of how her power worked.

Soon enough he relaxed completely and absently noticed Mia was shivering. Her hair was still damp and the air conditioning in this theatre was probably making her freeze. As he had changed earlier into another pair of his loose light blue jeans, a dark maroon sweater, and brought along a gray sweatshirt since his jacket was drying off at the Brotherhood house, he took his sweatshirt he had taken off much earlier and only been carrying around inadvertently, and covered her with it – not really thinking of his actions.

When the movie was over, Pietro looked to Mia as the credits rolled by on the big screen. She was still sound asleep, and somehow he didn't feel like moving or waking her. In addition, he finally took stock of his gray sweatshirt that hung over her, acting as an improvised blanket that covered only her upper body, but seemed to be keeping her warm. As he realized this, his actions of covering her came back to mind, and he caught himself before he smirked, and instead scowled at her as he shrugged gruffly, which awoke her instantly.

As she sat up a bit, he stood, and she seemed to become more alert as they watched each other warily once more.

"Movie done?" She murmured, standing slowly also. When she fully stood, Pietro became conscious of just how short Mia really was – her large pale violet eyes were barely level with his shoulder! As he nodded, she stretched a bit and his sweatshirt fell off from her trim shoulders, but she caught it deftly and looked it over with a puzzled expression. "This yours?" She mumbled, looking up at him as she offered it back.

He took it. "Yeah," he muttered as his eyebrows rose. "I thought you said you could see stuff when you touched something another person had touched recently?"

"Sometimes," she answered calmly. "Usually it needs to be skin-on-skin, or skin-on-object contact. If the vision is powerful enough, then they just come to me randomly."

"Then if they come anyway, why do you still wear the gloves?"

"The gloves act like a filter," she explained quietly as people got up to leave around them and the room began to lighten. "Only some visions can get through, the ones that really matter – usually just fate visions. If I don't keep myself covered, then people's memories flood into me and I get an overload. I can still see people's memories when I'm covered, but only when they touch me."

"Even in sleep?" Pietro asked guardedly.

She smiled tiredly at him. "Relax, I only saw what you were seeing – I think. You must have been really into the movie, unless that was all just a very detailed nightmare with subtitles." Her eyes wandered to a middle-aged man passing with a middle-aged woman. "And you were there, and you," she added mockingly as they eyed she and Pietro dubiously.

Pietro smirked at this as the couple quickly averted their gazes and moved away.

"A nightmare with subtitles, huh? So you didn't like what we saw of the movie?" He asked calmly now.

"No, but your fantasies were sure interesting," Mia said offhandedly as she turned and began heading leisurely towards the exit. He blushed scarlet as he hesitantly followed her, slipping his hands in his pockets as he went.

Once outside their theatre, Pietro brushed past her and headed for the theatre their friends were still in. He took Mia's seat beside Rogue, ignoring the suspicious glare she sent him. She could glare all she wanted to, even knock him unconscious with a touch of her hand, but no matter what, he wasn't about to go and sit near that fat smelly old bloke and his girlfriend again.

"What'd you do with Mia?" She growled at length.

"Her body's in a dumpster out back," Pietro muttered with a small smirk.

His small smirk faded into a fretful expression, however, when he saw Rogue preparing to take off her right-hand glove. Just as she was about to touch him, though, a small bag of popcorn and a medium-sized soft drink was shoved in front of Pietro's face, and both he and Rogue looked up and over to see Mia standing there, smirking calmly at them. Rogue snatched the small bag of popcorn and the medium-sized soft drink and sent another suspicious glare, this time aimed at Mia.

"It took you an hour to get these?" She snapped in her southern accent.

Mia only continued to smirk calmly. "That, and sneak into another movie."  She murmured then pushed past Pietro's legs and walked over Rogue's, Kitty's, and Lance's, before plopping down in the seat beside the fat smelly old bloke and Lance.

Pietro decidedly ignored Rogue and everyone else as he forced his full attention onto the pretty fake horror movie they watched now.