Unlikely

Chapter Eighteen: The Pain of Heartbreak and the Happiness of Repair

In a slight daze, Mia barely heard the Middle School bell ring.

But Pietro heard it, loud and clear, and it snapped him back to his senses and quickly he straightened and stepped away from Mia, somehow out of breath as he stared at her in horror. She didn't even like him and he had almost kissed her! How could he be so stupid?

His horror soon faded into a scowl as he sneered at her, embarrassed by his recent actions.

"Huh. One minute you're hard as a rock, and the next you're like mud in my hands, soft and easy to mold."

Her expression darkened as her daze was clouded over by anger. As he still stood quite close to her, she kicked him in the shin gruffly, then turned away from him to glare at the school as the Middle School children came flooding out, heading for their buses, while her arms folded over her stomach.

"Stupid, arrogant, bast-."

"Hey! I can still hear you, y'know!" Pietro growled at her, leaning against the stop sign once more but stooping to rub his shin.

"I was mumbling loud enough!" She retorted without looking at him, and he could see the blush rising to her cheeks, probably out of anger.

But it wasn't anger. Mia was embarrassed. She knew how Pietro felt about her. With her powers, how could she not? Yet how was she supposed to react to a guy who had nearly stolen her first kiss, to a guy she wasn't dating but had a crush on? And right in front of her little sister's Middle School no less!

With the thought of Maggie, Mia froze and began looking around in alarm as panic leisurely crept back into her conscience.

Pietro watched the abrupt change in her countenance and could guess why she looked so alert again.

"Calm down. It still could have been just a nightmare."

"It wasn't a nightmare!" She unexpectedly shouted at him.

After all that had just happened, Pietro was not in a good mood, and shouting at him was not the thing to do to get back into his good-graces.

Thus Pietro lost his temper. "It was just a nightmare! Will you calm down, already?"

But Mia wasn't listening. Instead, she was watching in stark terror as the car sped towards her younger sister, whom had seen her from across the street and run out to greet her, but tripped and fallen in the middle of the street. There was no way Maggie would be able to get up and out of the way in time. It was just as in the nightmare…

"No!" Mia screamed, running out into the middle of the street just as her younger sister got back to her feet.

Now Pietro froze, seeing it all in slow motion as Mia pushed Maggie out of the way, as Maggie fell out of the car's path, as the car with the driver unawares of the danger continued towards Mia. It was only five feet from her, a fraction of a second later it was only three feet.

Without thinking, Pietro sped into the street and tackled Mia.

They fell and rolled out of the way as the car rushed past them, only to screech to a halt a second later -- as though the driver had taken notice of the near-miss at the very last second. And without being able to stop themselves, the couple continued to roll, until they stopped, with Mia lying over a very surprised Pietro, who looked just as horrified as she felt. She stared down into his cerulean blue eyes a long second, as though not positive that he was real, as though she were trying to figure out if this were just another vision or not.

"Pietro?" She breathed after a second.

He wrapped his arms around her slim waist as he sighed out in relief, as he was always one quick to recover from just about anything. However, his expression clouded over with undecided emotions.

"What were you thinking?" He shouted into her face. "Diving out into the street like that? You could have been hit, or worse, killed!"

The mention of this seemed to bring Mia back to reality as she looked up and then around her until her panicked gaze found her sister, sitting not far from them, watching them in quiet amusement and concern. Apparently she realized just how close of a deadly call that had been.

In what seemed like one motion, Mia was off Pietro and on Maggie before anyone could blink, her thin arms wrapped around her younger sister's shoulders, hugging her sister affectionately in a near-suffocating embrace. After a few seconds of this Mia pulled back and observed Maggie, scanning her sister for damage and not finding much, and then embraced again, her not as tightly, but just as lovingly nonetheless. Her expression was stern, though her younger sister couldn't see this.

"What have I told you about crossing the street, Maggie?" She reprimanded her sister as tears pooled in her eyes. "Stop and check both ways! Don't you dare ever scare me like that again! Thank everything spiritual you're all right! I don't know what I would do without you, Maggie. Do you understand me? Don't you ever do something like that again!"

Pietro sat up to watch this, pulling his knees up to rest his arms on, and glowered at Mia's back.

"Are you alright?" The driver of the car asked, coming up behind the seated speed demon and looking Mia and her sister over.

Pietro shifted his glare to the big brother of a Middle School kid. It was obvious the guy was only just in college and had come to pick up his younger sibling from the school.  He was about to take all his anger out on the guy, but Mia beat him to it. She was up on her feet in a blink, standing protectively over her sister, and pointing at the college guy in an accusing way with her left black-gloved hand as her pale violet eyes narrowed to a menacing glare on him.

"How dare you?" She yelled, and Pietro was unable to stifle a wince as she continued. "How can you speed like that in a school zone!? You'll be lucky if I don't press charges! Do you have any idea how close you came to hitting my sister? She's only in sixth grade, for heaven's sake, and you nearly killed her!" Maggie leisurely stood and took her sister's black-gloved right hand, which mollified the elder instantly as she looked to the younger with a fond gaze. "You're alright, aren't you, Maggie? I didn't hurt you, did I? You know I didn't mean to. Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?"

"Fine. Let's go." Maggie whispered.

Mia nodded and looked to Pietro, who took the mute hint and stood beside her. Both elders sent the college guy a last glare, and then walked through the crowd that had gathered in the street to watch the exchange, and parted for the trio, lest Mia lose her temper again.

Author's note: Haha! Ain't that cute? I'm listenin' to Avenged Sevenfold right now. I love this CD! Next chapter is the last chapter, and then comes Review Responses. Thanks so much everyone, for reading and hanging in there with me! I hope y' all are enjoying this as much as I am!

Preview of Chapter Nineteen: Happy Denial

Scott's red-tinted sunglasses watched Mia go tensely.

"What does she think she's doing, going to talk to him? Does she not remember how they met?" He grumbled.

"Relax, Scott." Said Jean softly. "I think it's kind of cute."

"Yeah, and like, who knows?" Kitty added, almost always the one to look on the brighter side of things… if given enough time to consider all the options. "Mia might be the one to, like, bring Maximoff over to our side."

"Let's hope not," growled Rogue and Kurt together.

Disclaimer: I don't own any copyrights to X-Men: Evolution. I only own my original characters and this plotline.