Disclaimer- Don't own anything you recognize. I don't even own Trojan.

I know I'm a week late. I'm PMSing, I have cramps, I had homework- I think we're even.

Crystal's family history is being changed a teensy bit from the comics, but it's basically the same.

Chapter Seventeen- You're a What Now?

Crystal had a horrible week. She was peeing and puking all over the place (ok, she was doing both in the bathroom, not "all over the place"), she had been late for both work (she only worked part-time at waitressing, since her parents and sister liked to provide her with the money) and her classes, and she spent her whole time at Lorna's sulking. Not that her friends helped with the sulking, either; they kept bringing up Pietro (only because she was sulking, although she wouldn't admit to that).

"Oh shut up and stop moaning and call him already!" Damita had snapped at her when Crystal had given a rather long and wistful sigh after seeing a Trojan commercial. She had complained how close the couple seemed to be and how they never seemed to fight and the only thing that was missing in their relationship was in the bedroom. Still, they looked happy and that put Crystal in a mood. Val had pointed out that the couple had been talking to each other for five seconds before the Trojan Man came and that she would have no idea about how their relationship was.

A fight had ensued. It ended fairly quickly, after declaring a truce with ice cream.

After spending that lovely evening at her friend's place, Crystal had driven herself home and dialed His home number (he had told her that he smashed his cell and that he hadn't bothered to order a new one yet). After letting it ring once, she hung up. The second time, she let it ring twice before she hung up. The third time, she got as far as Toad answering the phone before she hung up again.

'Why the hell am I so nervous?' she thought. She let out a shaky breath and put the portable back onto its device, deciding to call later before she pissed off any more of the boarding house's occupants.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone rang. With a hand on her chest in an attempt to steady her racing heartbeat, she peered at the Caller ID.

Bayville Boarding House.

'Crap, crap, crap, crap.' She chanted in her head. She had forgotten that they had Caller ID too.

Her hand hovered above the phone, and on the fourth ring, she picked it up, turned it on, and then quickly hung it back up. Letting out a breath of relief, Crystal turned to relax on the couch.

It rang again.

Nearly crying, Crystal threw a tantrum (which meant that she stomped her feet and gave an irritated cry at the back of her throat) on the five steps back to where the phone was.

Gathering up all the nerves and courage that she had left, Crystal turned on the phone and spoke.

"Hello?"

"What're you calling the boarding house three times for and hanging up?" it was His voice.

She tried to sound offended. "I did no such thing."

"Yes you did." Was that a chuckle in his tone? Was he laughing at her?

'That means he's not mad so no shouting matches then,' she thought to herself.

"Look, we need to talk," she said, resting her hand on the end table the phone had rested on and looking down at its surface.

"So that's why you called," he said, now seeming to understand, "and that's why you hung up. Because of course it's talking when you hang up on the person you want to talk to-"

"Just shut up, this is serious," she snapped. "Come over as soon as you can."

There was a pause.

"Pietro?"

Pause.

"Pietro?"

"Yeah alright," he said irritably, "Don't get your panties all bunched up. Give me a minute, I need to do something first."

There was a click, followed by the dial tone. She slammed the phone back on its hook.

"Arrogant bastard," she said, almost as if realizing it now.

Crystal went to look for something to do while she waited for him to come over, but before she had the chance to find anything she heard the balcony door slide open and close.

He was standing there with his white hair windswept. There was an impassive expression on his face as he looked at her with his arms crossed against his chest and his back leaning against the wall next to the sliding glass doors.

He was wearing his uniform.

Her brows furrowed as she took in this new bit of information. His uniform was almost a dark teal (or was it blue-green? She couldn't tell at the moment) in places, with a lighter tone in others. It was tight- Lordy was it tight- especially at his torso, arms, and legs. She tried to control where her eyes roamed.

She licked her dry lips as he waited for her to start talking, and she opened her mouth but only to close it again. Shutting her eyes for a brief moment to calm the gutter thoughts racing through her head, which only intensified the more she tried to calm them; she attempted to speak again. Her voice sounded a little hoarser than usual.

"Are you comfortable in that?"

Okay…that was not what she had meant to say!

He raised his left eyebrow, the corners of his lips twitching. He seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek.

"I get around fairly well in it," he managed to get out with only the barest hint of amusement in his voice (she applauded him silently for that). "It…" he was trying very hard not to grin, "stretches. S' little tight, but not uncomfortably so. Why? Wanted to try it on?"

"No," she squeaked, feeling her face heat up. This time he did grin and started to pull it down at his shoulder as if to take it off for her.

"Sure?" he asked. She nodded vigorously. He sighed, still grinning, and pulled it back up.

"Well, you wanted to talk?" he said, raising his eyebrow again in question.

She nodded. "Yes. Um...sit down."

He obliged, sitting on the couch with his right leg (rather ankle) resting on his left knee.

'Why, oh, WHY did he do that?' she began to gnaw viciously on her tongue to keep herself from saying anything.

He seemed to think nothing of his position, however, as he rested his arms on the back of the sofa; he looked at his fingernails nonchalantly- his uniform covered his hands too, with holes for his fingers and thumbs.

"Um, there's something I need to tell you," she averted her eyes up to his face and tried to keep them there. He looked at her expectantly, pausing in his examination of his nails. "I'm not exactly uh…I'm not exactly," Oh how to put this, "human."

His expression clearly said, 'What the fuck?'

He blinked. She took that as a sign for her to continue.

"Yeah, well y'see…I'm an Inhuman," she looked at him again for a reaction. There seemed to be none, but she knew that was because he still had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

"It's-it's uh, sort of like a mutant, I guess." He blinked twice more. "My family…we all have powers. But uh, we weren't born with a mutant gene like you were. We have this ritual where uh…we go into this thing called the Terrigan Mists, which gives us our powers. My family…they're rich as heck. My brother-in-law Black Bolt is sort of the…king I guess you can say- or president of the Inhumans."

He still stared at her blankly. She sighed, knowing she had to explain even further. "My father's sister married the leader of the Inhumans and they had two children: Blackagar Boltagon and-"

She stopped when he settled both feet on the floor, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands. She knew she lost him there.

"Are you listening?" she asked. She did not want to explain this again if he was not.

"Blackagar Boltagon. And you call him Black Bolt? What in the hell…" he trailed off, shaking his head and motioned for her to continue.

"Anyways, my aunt and uncle had two children: Blackagar Boltagon and Maximus. Black Bolt was the elder of the two, so he would take the place of his father. Until he turned nineteen, however, he was isolated because his power is dangerous. If he speaks, he, er, obliterates you, literally. Not fun, not safe. Anyways-"

"Wait," he suddenly interrupted, "I thought you said Black Bolt was your brother-in-law? Now he's your cousin?"

She threw back her head and stared at the ceiling, silently counting slowly to ten. "Let me finish."

There was a slight pause, and then, "Fine."

"My sister Medusa happened upon him when they were both young. They grew very close, and soon she was able to interpret hand signals from him to understand what he was saying. They married soon after Medusa turned eighteen, three years after Black Bolt was released."

"…So you're hicks?"

She growled, grabbed the small pillow nearest to her and hurled it at him. "It's not their fault they fell in love, idiot!"

He easily caught the pillow. "Yeah but she knew he was your cousin! And then she married him anyway! That's siiiiiick, Crystal!"

"Shut up and let me finish."

He glowered at her. "Fine."

"My cousin Maximus was always a little tweaked in his head. He went ballistic when Black Bolt became our leader. He killed ten Inhumans and left Attilan. None of us have seen him since."

"What the fuck is Attilan?" Pietro growled, frustrated.

"A small, remote island in the Atlantic Ocean," she told him. "I came here to New York when I was fourteen during my freshman year of high school. Meanwhile, my cousin moved the Inhumans to a remote place in the Himalayans. It's clean there, and Inhumans are susceptible to disease. I've been taking vaccinations for years so I wouldn't get horribly sick."

"And you all have powers?" there was a slight edge to his tone.

"Yes," Crystal said reluctantly, nodding. "I control the Earth's elements: fire, water, air, and earth. I can only do so for an hour though, and if I'm controlling multiple elements, I can only do it up to forty-five minutes. I haven't used my powers since I was seventeen. I hadn't needed to."

"And you decided to tell me all this now because…?"

"Because I was afraid at how you would react," she admitted, looking at her hands in her lap guiltily.

He let out the most exasperated, irritated, and angry sigh she had ever heard. "Crystal… I'm a mutant! My friends are nuts and Pyro is a Grade A psycho! And I live with them!. How could I react any differently than asking you what the hell is an Inhuman?" He stared intensely at her. She smiled at him a little.

"Now- what the hell is an Inhuman?"

"A being that has superior strength over humans, but humans are superior to us in their immunity to diseases. That's the easiest and most understandable way I can explain it." Crystal told him.

He nodded, processing all of this newfound information in his overactive brain. He took a deep breath, glanced at the clock on the VCR and sighed. Gazing at her, he smiled a fraction and leaned forward, giving her a short, chaste kiss on the lips.

"I need to go, alright?" he said, pulling away a few inches. "I'll call you in…two days. I'm busy today and tomorrow and I need some time to take in all this."

"Why are you busy?" Crystal asked suspiciously. Pietro was hardly busy, with his superspeed he could get everything he needed to do in three days done in an hour at the most.

He opened his mouth, and then closed it for a second before saying hesitantly, "It's Brotherhood business, Crystal. Nothing important."

He leaned over to peck her cheek and muttered a quick, "See you later," before zipping off to do whatever it was that he needed to do.

The weight on Crystal's shoulders lifted dramatically, but she couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed.


I don't really like this chapter. I find it sort of boring with all the explanations and stuff but it needed to be done. Sorry if there's a lot of mistakes and stuff in this chapter, I'm tired and I don't feel up to reading it over. I did for the first three pages, but I usually always miss something. It's only 9:35. That worries me. Anyways! On to the replies!

Sona Camdyn- Ah ha! Now I know I have lurkers, which makes me feel a lot better! About Crystal being pregnant…you'll find out if she is or isn't in the next chapter, which is always the last. Whether she is or not, it all works out in the sequel. Like the chapter "Engagement" is set up for Lance and Kitty's wedding, which is in the sequel. I hope I'm not being clichéd. Thanks for dropping in to review, though!

Zee4- Yeah, I missed last week's deadline for this chapter. Oh well. Hopefully the next (and last) one will be up by the end of the month. It might not be, because I have a research paper on the Titanic due at the end of Feb. in English and a ten to twelve-page report on Poland due in Geography some time in March and I'm not even done with the first page. In the words of Ron White "I'm lo-o-o-o-o-o-a-a-a-a-d-d-d-d-e-d-d-d-d"(that's suppose to sound like a goat or a sheep or something similar) but with homework. Not money.

The Uncanny R-Man- Hope this chapter answered your question ;-) Thanks for reviewing!

Kyuushi- About characterizing Mags right…I'm definitely not going to have him rape his children or beat them senseless if that's what you mean ;-) I make him cold and indifferent, but loving at the same time. Does that make sense? He's not going to be in it a lot, but he'll sure as heck be mentioned a lot more. Oh there's this scene with him in it that I really like! Buuut you'll have to wait!

InsaneBunneh- Whaa- how can Shippou be the biggest? He's suppose to be the smallest-( I want the figurines puh-leeeaaassee! I drew you a great Mir/San! On special paper! Aww.

Darkstorm5000- I love Luna. She's such a cutie and totally a Daddy's girl. I dunno, you might be right about that… you might not. We'll have to see next chapter! Mwahahahaha!

Like it? Hate it? Either way, review!