Author's Note: Ok, so I decided to go ahead and post chapter two. Hope you like it! :) Thank you for the reviews! :)
Chapter 2
The sun was not his friend. It didn't matter how he turned the blinds, or how thick the curtains, the red giant always found a way to send its rays though his window. He rolled over and slammed his pillow over his head. It was too early to wake up; he'd just gone to sleep. A heavy knock on his door interrupted his thoughts. That was Lance's wake up call. Anyone who didn't respond 5 minutes after the knock got a nice bath...in bed, and while Pietro was fond of breakfast in bed, baths in bed were not on his top 10 list.
He sat up with a groan surprised at the slight pain in his joints. The boxes he had lifted for Aunt Mae hadn't been that heavy, so that didn't explain his soreness. He massaged the back of his neck and let himself flop back onto his lumpy mattress. He felt a little better lying horizontal with his eyes closed. He heard his door opening. "Pietro?"
"I'm awake, no water..." he muttered, raising a hand to wave at Lance.
"What's wrong?" Pietro opened his eyes and stared at Lance who was now looming over him looking concerned.
"It's too early."
"You're usually up by this time," Lance said. "You were asleep last night before I got home."
"I'm still tired," Pietro muttered, rubbing his eyes then spreading his arms out beside him on the bed. He stared up at Lance and gave him a smile, "So you gonna kiss me or let me up big guy?"
Lance rolled his eyes. "You wanna stay home today?"
"Why?" Pietro quickly got out of bed and went about the delicate task of making it. He had perfect hospital corners in less than a second. He sat back down on the bed blinking at Lance as he stared.
"Look, I know you're Quicksilver and you move at hyper-speed and regular time goes slow for you, so you can do a million things at once and not get tired like the rest of us, but you're still human and you do have limits. You've been looking kind of run down lately, and if you need to take a break..."
"You're gonna let me skip school?" Pietro bounced on the bed. "You'd never let Todd skip school. I knew you liked me more! I bet it's the bath thing. I told Todd he could win more favoritism with people if he didn't smell like old shoes all the time."
"You don't seem so tired anymore," Lance commented wryly, watching Pietro roll off his bed to check himself out in the mirror.
"I never stay tired for long, Lance; tired is boring. But if you want me to skip school and run around town all day, I will. I bet I can find plenty to do."
"If I let you skip school, I'd like for you to stay here and rest. But since you don't need it, you don't get to skip school."
"You're revoking my Get Out Of School Free card? You got my hopes up for nothing?" Pietro whirled to pout at Lance. "You suck, Alvers. Get out."
"Touchy," Lance raised his hands and backed out of the room. "Uh...spaghetti for breakfast."
"Yummy...." Pietro moaned as his door closed. His stomach hadn't handled the spaghetti well when it had been fresh, so he wasn't even going to chance it today. He'd find his own breakfast. He had a stash of snacks hidden away in his closet for such occasions. He had the new bag of Gems he'd purchased a few days ago in mind when he opened his top drawer for a shirt. He felt like wearing blue that day and had the perfect long-sleeved ringer-tee in mind. Miss Samantha had bought it for him. The old ladies from the shop had kept him outfitted all of last semester; he couldn't wait to see what new things he'd get for this one. They bought for their grandchildren, then they bought for him. Some of them didn't have grandchildren, so he got twice as much. He pulled out the blue shirt shaking it out to unfold it and froze as his hand connected with something soft and squishy. He struggled to control his breathing, as he turned the shirt over so he could see what was slathered all over the front of it. Rage flowed through his veins like hot molten rock.
"TODD I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!"
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Todd sat in the backseat of the car looking pleased with himself, as Lance drove with an angry expression on his face, refusing to glance at him in the rearview mirror. Fred sat in the passenger seat humming absently to the country music station Lance had let him choose to listen to on the radio.
Pietro had opted to run to school at a suggestion from Lance. It seemed he needed an outlet for his anger after discovering Todd's present that morning. Todd had been pretending to take a shower, a process of running the water and singing loudly while he sat on the sink reading comics, when he'd heard Pietro's anguished wail. A second later the door to the bathroom was in splinters, and Todd was being pinned down in the shower he wasn't taking by an angry speed demon. Pietro didn't weight much of anything, and Todd had no problem using his legs to kick Pietro off of him, but his grip was surprisingly strong around his neck and Todd ended up nearly strangling himself. Warm water from the shower head flooded his mouth as he desperately gasped for air. He coughed, choked, and begged, but Pietro seemed intent on killing him, his blue eyes practically midnight with passion. He was ranting in hyper-speech the entire time so fast Todd couldn't decipher a word of it.
Fred and Lance had burst in just before Todd lost consciousness and had pulled Pietro off. Lance lectured him, of course, about being disgusting and how he was going to have to buy Pietro a new shirt of his choosing...but Todd had been and still was so elated at how deeply he'd gotten under Quickie's skin, he didn't care. He'd buy matching chinos too, as long as he could keep the look of pure outrage on Pietro's face etched into his memory forever.
"Todd, did you finish all of your homework?" Lance asked suddenly, and Todd jumped.
"Uh...well..." after he'd finished the deed in Pietro's room, he'd spend the rest of the night hiding his comic books. He'd forgotten all about his homework; did he even have his math book?
Lance sighed deeply, lines of disappointment appearing in his weary face. He said nothing more to Todd for the duration of the trip.
Getting the last laugh on Pietro suddenly didn't seem as important anymore. He hated letting Lance down, and it was all it seemed he did since the day he'd met the boy. After the jeep was parked, he got out silently pulling his backpack over his shoulders. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't think of anything appropriate. Todd watched Fred pat Lance on the shoulder, and Lance give a pale smile before walking away.
"I screwed up, huh?" Todd asked Fred after Lance had gone.
"We've been getting some notices from the school, Todd. They want to see Mystique. If we don't keep a low profile, they're going to send someone to the house. It's tearing Lance up, and he's doing everything he can to stop that...and you don't seem to want to help him."
"I meant to do the homework, I did! It's just that Quickie..."
"Todd, stop blaming your mistakes on other people."
Todd let his shoulders droop in defeat. Fred was right... as he usually was. Todd was a loser and not trying to do anything about it. "I'll do better, Freddy; I promise."
"We don't want to hear promises. We want to see them," Fred said gravely. "See you at lunch." The giant teenager lumbered away, leaving Todd to himself.
Why couldn't he ever get anything right?
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"You want me to carry that for you Miss Rose; it's kind of heavy," Pietro was watching the elderly lady warily as she struggled with a brown wrapped package.
"No, I've got it baby," the lady grunted, her curly gray wig tilting along with her body as she pushed open the front door with her foot. Pietro shook his head, then hopped over the sales counter to assist her with the door and follow her out to her car.
"I told you I had it baby," Miss Rose grunted as Pietro opened the back door to her car and helped her place the package in the back seat.
"I know you had it. I was just...being a gentleman, you know, opening doors and such," Pietro looked heavenward for guidance with his words. He gave a small quirk of a smile as he felt dry lips on his cheek that would no doubt leave imprints of cherry red lipstick on his pale skin. "Careful, Miss Anne is coming, and she'll get jealous if she sees someone else kissing me."
Miss Rose chuckled throatily and ruffled his feathery hair. "Well you better not let her catch you then. That Anne be a mean one." The brown-skinned old woman let Pietro escort her around the car and open her door. "See you next week, baby."
"Yeah, I'll be here."
He made sure she pulled out of the small private parking lot alright, before going back into the cheerfully lit shop ducking to avoid smacking his head into the hanging green ivy over the door, and on the ledge of most of the front wall. It was a good thing no one who came in the story had allergies, there were so many plants the place could be mistaken as a green house with books.
"Hey kiddo, got some stuff in back you might wanna look at. I'll do the register for a bit," Aunt Mae was already behind the register, she touched his shoulder affectionately. Pietro grinned at the plump ginger haired woman, "You found those scripts?"
Aunt Mae dimpled, her green eyes twinkling, "Go and see for yourself."
Pietro all but zipped to the back storage room, careful not to reveal his inhuman speed. His Aunts didn't need to know everything about him. He skillfully avoided crashing into the imitation statues of Greek gods and goddesses and jumped over the display of ancient board games from the sixties that no one born after 1970 had heard of that lined the back wall. He didn't knock on the white wooden door to the backroom, simply turned the knob and threw it open. The back room was small, windowless, and cluttered. A claustrophobic's nightmare, but Pietro was fine as long as the door remained open, "Aunt Sal, I'll never understand how you can stay back here with the door closed!" He complained pushing a few large cardboard boxes aside to reach the slender graying blond woman. Her blue eyes twinkled.
"I've lived in apartments smaller than this, Honey. Back in my theater days a place this size was paradise! Come on help me kick some of this junk aside so I can show you what we just got in."
"What-did-we-get?" Pietro asked excitedly, forgetting to slow his words. It was ok though, Aunt Sally was from Brooklyn and used to people talking fast. He shoved a few larger boxes aside and stacked smaller boxes on top of them.
"The original scripts....or rather copies... for our Audrey Hepburn movie collection."
Pietro's eyes widened and his heart leapt with glee. "You got Sabrina? Can we act it out?"
"Of course," Aunt Sally replied, "who could I get to play a better David than you?"
One of his secret passions was acting. He loved watching old black and white movies and reenacting the characters. Aunt Sally had been an actress in her younger years; she was on Broadway a few times, but always in the chorus. She faired better in the regional theaters and had a decent supporting role in an off-Broadway production once. Acting never brought home the big bucks; lucky she was her somewhat wealthy father's favorite child and had inherited most of his semi-fortune when he'd passed away. Unfortunately, her siblings and most of her family resented her for that fact, and she seldom spoke to any of them. Aunt Mae, Ian (her calico), Pietro, and the bookstore crones were her family. In her opinion, she often said, they were much better than her gold-digging blood relatives anyway.
"I wanted to be Henry."
"You'll play both," a small space had been cleared for the two of them to sit down cross-legged in. Aunt Sally placed a thick binder down in front in between them. "Here it is. The pages have been laminated."
She opened the binder and scanned the table of contents to find Sabrina, "You know, it would be fun to watch the movie and follow along with the script to see how much they improved."
"We can take it out in the shop, and I'll pull out the TV/VCR combo?" Pietro suggested.
"Hmm..."
"Nah," they both decided, wanting to read through it first themselves and reenact the scenes.
"Thanks a lot for this Aunt Sal," Pietro said after a few minutes of scanning lines and reading stage direction. His day had started off pretty dismal, but he was always put in a more optimistic mood after spending a few hours in the shop. The strange weariness and soreness of the morning still hadn't quite worn off, but it was bearable now.
Aunt Sally smiled at him, smoothing a wisp of platinum hair from his forehead, "You're welcome. You've been looking a little...washed out, lately. I figured you needed a fun break. Are things going alright at home?"
Pietro blinked, taken a little off guard. That was the second time someone had asked him that question in the span of two days. "Everything's fine."
He was studied for a moment by intense blue eyes, there was a sigh, "Alright kid, I believe you, but if there's anything me or Mae can do for you don't be scared to ask us."
Pietro nodded, and couldn't help the frown that crept onto his face. He was beginning to feel sluggish again. He'd been reminded of home; dream worlds weren't quite so pretty when one could see home just beyond it and knew the time to go back to it was drawing near. A cool dry palm was placed against his forehead. "I'm fine, Aunt Sal."
"Hmm," the woman hummed suspiciously, and removed her hand. "Well alright then, David, lets get back to our play, shall we?"
"Sure Sabrina."
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Lance rolled his eyes as he spied who was coming down the dairy aisle he was currently stocking. He looked to the unpacked crates of milk realizing there would be no way he could finish before Scott Summers and Jean Gray reached him. Since Asteroid M, he and Summers, and Gray hadn't exactly been enemies. They hadn't had a skirmish with the X-Mem since Mystique disappeared. He even partially owed his life and lives of his team to some of the X-Men when the pseudo-asteroid had self-destructed. He still remembered Evan Daniels carrying Pietro's unconscious form onto the X-jet and slinging him into a chair. Lance couldn't believe he'd forgotten about the speedster until then.
He did his best to ignore them as they approached. What were they doing in a grocery store anyway? Didn't their teachers do this sort of thing for them?
"Hey Lance," Jean's pleasant voice called to him, as he concentrated on gallon jugs of whole and 2% milk. His back stiffened a bit, so she definitely knew he had heard her.
"Hi."
"Alvers," Scott greeted.
They never used to give him the time of day, but after Mystique had gone, a pity party seemed to have been arranged in the Brotherhood's honor. Lance didn't like it at all, and he knew it bothered the others as well. He could feel their eyes on him as he continued to work, something they'd never have to do. If any of the X-men got jobs it would be for experience, they'd never actually need them while they were in school, or ever he didn't think. Wolverine and Storm didn't seem to have jobs outside of the Institute.
"Haven't seen you around much; how have you been?" Lance glanced up at the red-haired girl finally. It was becoming more and more apparent that these people weren't going anywhere until he made small talk with them.
"Alright," Lance shrugged straightening and wiping his hands on his apron.
"That's good to hear," Jean said, a smile brightening her pretty face. She made a face at Scott, who looked rather nervous.
Lance followed the silent exchange between the two, and frowned suspiciously. These people really didn't do their own grocery shopping...they were there to talk to him.
"Um, look Lance. We know Mystique is still gone, and she was the one kind of supporting you guys. I've, well, we've all noticed you working around here, long hours. You're not trying to support yourself and 3 others, are you? I mean, you don't have any other sources of income in the Brotherhood, do you?"
Lance narrowed his eyes, "Why are you so curious, Summers? Make a point fast; I'm on the clock, and I ain't getting fired for you."
"Professor Xavier is extending an invitation to the Brotherhood for you to come and live at the mansion, maybe join our team. You don't have to be X-Men, if you don't want to be though...but it beats fending for yourselves. That is what you've been doing?"
"Yeah, we have. It's what we know, and what we're all used to. None of us have ever had anyone to take care of us and give us everything like your Professor."
"It doesn't have to be that way anymore. We've got more than enough room."
"We don't need your charity Summers."
"Look Lance, you're not being fair. It's not just you we're talking about. What about Todd, Pietro, and Fred?"
"None of us like hand-outs, Summers," Lance sighed, placing a hand on his stomach and rubbing it soothingly. He would have to remember to grab some Mylanta on his way out that night.
"Why do you have to see it that way? The Professor does not give out charity! He wants to teach you, as he has all of us. None of us are charity cases."
"No, you're not," Lance said looking Scott up and down, from his shiny shoes to his preppy blue sweater.
"Oh come off it Lance! You're not the only people in the world who have or have had it hard, and you're being stupid turning down such a generous offer! Do you know how many people would jump at an opportunity like this?"
"And we're just going to ignore the past; pretend like we never tried to hurt each other?" Lance raised an eyebrow.
"No one ever really wanted to hurt anyone. We just had different ideals.."
"Have different ideals," Lance said brusquely. "We're fine Summers; now let me get back to work...unless you wanted one of these jugs here?"
"No," Scott shook his head, "we don't want any milk."
"Please think about it Lance," Jean said softly.
"Yeah, whatever," Lance said off-handedly; he spotted the manager by the apples, pretending he wasn't looking at him. "I'll think about it. See ya."
He went back to shelving the milk, ignoring Scott and Jean who hoovered a minute more before leaving.
He hated feeling beneath them.
His stomach burned as he continued to work, and he prayed he wouldn't be ill. It wouldn't be the first time. It worried him that there might be something wrong with him. Not because he feared illness, but if he was sick he couldn't work. If he didn't work, they couldn't pay bills. No bills no lights, no heat, no food...
Would living with Xavier and his saints really be worse than that?
The others would never go for it, he knew. Todd still reeled over his first almost induction into the X-Men when he'd been attacked. Fred still harbored anger over his ordeal with Jean Gray. Pietro... he couldn't think of anything Pietro had against the X-Men really since he and Daniels had come to that understanding after Asteroid M. But then the platinum haired boy was too proud to admit when he needed help and would die of shame before he moved into the X-manor because they were too poor to live on their own.
Lance shook his head, no living with the X's wasn't an option, which meant he couldn't be sick. He stocked the last of the milk and stretched his back with a groan as his stomach churned. He glanced at his watch; only a few hours before he could go home, skip dinner again, and sleep.
That had become his existence, and it sucked.
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Fred stared at his roommates over dinner. He'd already eaten his portion of the family sized can of ravioli he'd heated up and was kindly waiting for everyone else to finish before he claimed seconds.
Todd poked at his food, guiltily gazing up at Lance. He'd had a math quiz over the homework he hadn't done, and he'd failed it. Another note had come home, and he'd given it to Lance as soon as he walked in the door.
Lance was haggard, his face showing lines that didn't belong on teenage faces. He had taken a small portion of the pasta and had eaten only a few bites. He'd glanced at the note Todd had given him sadly and placed it on the kitchen counter to deal with later.
Pietro was just finishing the meat stuffed pasta shells on his plate and guzzling down his glass of water. Fred doubt he tasted any of it though, not that the meal was any culinary delight. The speedster looked worn and distracted. He ate only to satisfy his super-efficient metabolism; it would bring him pain to skip a meal.
"Everyone sure is quiet," Fred said aloud.
Lance looked at him and swallowed hard, "Sorry Freddy." He looked back down at his plate and set his fork down. He stood abruptly suddenly looking very pale, and left the table quickly, hand over his mouth.
Todd bit his lip as the table shook from Lance's departure. "I think he's sick, yo."
"I saw that note. I thought you said you were studying," Pietro shot a glare at Todd. "Lance has got enough to worry about without you screwing up all the time."
Todd pushed his plate away too, "I'm sorry, yo. I said I'm sorry."
"They want a meeting with our guardian, Todd," Pietro spat. "How are we gonna produce Raven Darkholme, when we haven't seen her in months?"
"Look, leave me alone! I messed up big time; I know it!" Todd tugged at his hair. He looked at Pietro pleadingly.
Pietro let out a heavy sigh and pushed away from the table. "I can tutor you Todd; all you have to do is ask."
"You talk too fast and get too mad at me, when I don't get stuff!"
"The homework gets done though, doesn't it!" Pietro collected his dishes and took them to the sink. "Thanks for dinner, Freddy." He zipped out of the kitchen before Fred could say, "You're welcome."
"I so totally screwed everything up," Todd moaned holding his head. "Fred, how do I fix this?"
Fred blinked, "I don't know Todd, but for what it's worth, I'm not too mad at you. You can't undo what you done, and there's no use in making you feel even worse than you already do."
"Thanks, Fred," Todd said softly, and Fred smiled. He ruffled the boy's messy hair, ignoring the greasy feel of it.
"I'll clean up in here; why don't you go check on Lance?" Fred shooed Todd from the table. Once the younger mutant left, Fred helped himself to seconds of the ravioli, finishing off all of it. He put both Todd and Lance's plates in the fridge. He wiped down the table and the counter tops, and washed all of the dishes. He thought about mopping, then wondered why he was doing so many chores. He wasn't a complete slob, but he was not normally so orderly. That was Pietro's job. He had a strange obsessive compulsive disorder when it came to cleanliness and frequently threw small temper tantrums at the state of the house and went on mass cleaning sprees. The results were always ruined hours later, but it never stopped him.
He was worried... he was worried about Lance. Lance wasn't eating right. Fred had noticed him skipping meals, or not taking as much food as the others. He was working later and later hours, and at odd hours of the night, Fred heard him being sick. His grades in school were slipping, despite his efforts to study and keep up with his homework. Many times Fred could open the door to his room and find him sleeping at his desk with his head face down in an open book. Pietro thought Lance was going to give himself ulcers; Freddy figured he already had.
Todd. Todd really hadn't changed much, still immature, still lazy...but lately he was starting to open his eyes and see the repercussions of his actions, or rather lack of actions. He wasn't really worried about Todd. What was happening to him was perhaps a good thing. Maybe Todd was finally growing up.
Pietro was like a life line to him. He helped around the house and helped Freddy clean up his mistakes before Lance saw them and got upset. He was the one that sat down while Freddy prepared dinner and listened to him ramble about Todd and Lance, and himself. But lately, Pietro had been looking so tired. He only worked a few hours a week; it didn't take him long to complete his homework, or study... so why did he look so wrung out? It was probably mental; Pietro always had so much to think about, at such high speeds. Maybe his dealing with his own fast-paced mind was tiring him out. He was losing weight and going to bed very early, then rising reluctantly in the mornings. It bothered Lance, and it was another thing, next to Todd's poor scholastic record, that he had to worry about.
Fred sighed; things were less complicated in his life before, when he was a freak show, and he had no family. It was easy to care for only yourself and forget
about the world. When you had people to care about, life became hard. But would he give it up to go back to his simpler existence? Never.
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Todd knocked on the bathroom door and stood outside listening the groan of the pipes as the sink ran water. The groaning stopped, and the door opened slowly. Lance peered at him, wiping his mouth, "What?"
"Are you ok, yo? You ran out of the kitchen like you were gonna blow chunks or something. I'm guessing you did."
Lance looked at him in annoyance, "I'm fine Todd. Why don't you start on some homework, ok? I'm gonna go..."
"Lie down?" Todd interrupted. "Yeah, that's all you do. I just wanna tell you, before you go rest, that I'm sorry. I didn't mean to not do my homework, and I'm sorry I got us in this mess." He shuddered a bit, and gazed at Lance imploringly, "What's gonna happen, yo? We can't jut magically produce Mystique. If no one shows up to that thing on Tuesday..."
Lance shrugged, "I'll think of something."
"I should be the one thinking of something... I did it."
"It's too late for you to think of doing anything that may have helped, Todd," Lance said sharply. He began moving toward his room, then had second thoughts. He ventured back toward Todd and Pietro's rooms and opened Pietro's door a crack to peek inside. The lights were off, "It's 8 o'clock..."
Todd frowned; Pietro had been going to bed very early lately. "Lance," he got his older roommate's attention again, as he closed the door to Pietro's room quietly. "I'm real sorry, yo."
"I know," Lance rolled his eyes. "Now can I go to bed?"
"Yeah...yeah sure. I just wanted to make sure that you..."
"If you say you're 'sorry' one more time, I'll throw up again! I get it! Now show me you mean it by getting out of my face, and doing your homework!" The floors shook a bit, and Pietro was at his door in an instant, glaring at the both of them through bleary eyes.
"Have your lover's quarrel away from my door, PLEASE!" He said acidly.
Lance was about to reply, when a familiar voice shouted, echoing throughout the house, "Look at what you idiots have done to my house!!"
"Mystique?" They all stared at each other, before racing downstairs to confirm their suspicions.
Pietro beat them all down, no surprise there, and he rammed into Fred instead of coming to a neat halt as he stared at Mystique and the second presence behind her.
"Hey, who's the chic?" Todd asked hopping down from the last step and checking the tall dark haired girl out. She wore black leather pants and a blood red slinky top, her shoulder length black hair was wild, and her blue eyes blazed. Though there were 4 other people in the room besides her and Mystique, her eyes seemed to settle on one person. Todd followed her gaze to Quickie and wanted to kick the carpet. Why did all the girls always go for Pietro?
He looked to see if Pietro's flirtatious smile was in place as it always was when pretty girls were in the same vicinity as he was and frowned. Instead of grinning and dishing out clever lines, Pietro's mouth was agape in shock, his blue eyes wide. He choked on his words, uttering small noises then becoming quiet again. Finally, he asked in a high voice full of disbelief and wonder, "Wanda?"
"Pietro," the girl's voice was lethal as poison as she spat his name. Large blue sparks of energy crackled between her fingers, and delicate items around the house began to shatter. Furniture and other heavy objects launched themselves at Pietro, who was too stunned to move. Lance knocked him out of the way of the hurtling couch, as Fred tried to block the rest of the oncoming traffic with the bulk of his body. Todd stood useless, watching on the sidelines. The endless torrent of destruction wasn't letting up, wherever Pietro was dragged more mayhem followed.
"Hey Mystique, do something yo! She's gonna kill him!"
The front door blew open again as Todd stood stock still in horror, and an older woman came in. She held a hand out in front of her, and spoke words Todd couldn't hear in a soothing voice, and slowly the chaos stopped.
The girl called Wanda fell to her knees in front of the smiling woman who placed a hand on her shoulder. She asked the girl to stand, and then led her out of the foyer into another room of the house.
Mystique stood smirking with her hands on her hips, "Well...how do you all like the new edition to our little team?"
Todd moved to his friends, helping Lance pull Pietro off the floor. Pietro's eyes were wide and dilated, and he trembled so violently Lance had to keep a steadying hand on his shoulder.
"How do we like her...she tried to kill Pietro!" Lance was stammering incredulously. He stared at Mystique, "Where have you been, anyway?"
"Finding this little treasure," Mystique smirked; she dimpled at Pietro. "I thought you'd be pleased, Quicksilver."
Todd glanced up at Pietro's waning complexion; he was already pale to begin with so it was unnerving to see him go even whiter. "How?"
"Wasn't too hard."
"Who is she to you , Pi? An ex-girl friend? I mean she was really trying to take you out," Todd asked, nudging his ribs gently. He flinched a bit as he brushed against the delicate bones of Pietro's rib cage. Pietro had bird bones, and it always made him nervous to grip or hit him too hard.
"Worse...she's my sister," Pietro uttered, finally shaking free of his daze. He looked at the damage she'd done to the room while trying to maim him. "We're twins."`
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Author's Note: That's it for chapter 2; I hope you enjoyed it. Please review and tell me what you think! Take care!