Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution. Do you think I'd be writing these if I did?

REVIEW$# ! I'm going crazy here. What do I have to do to make you idiots review?

Oh, but I would like to think Raven-takes-flight for all of her support. :D

Chapter Six –

"Kitty, I've got to tell you something," Brianna sang, swinging her friend's bedroom door wide open.

"Oh, like, Brianna…" Kitty yawned, lying in her bed. She appeared to be very tired – her eyelids were droopy and everything, threatening to collapse any second now. "You're home late, huh? The Professor, like, wanted to talk to you about something…"

"First, I wanna talk to you!" Next, she squealed, "You'll never guess what happened to me tonight!"

"Oh my Gosh, like, no way!" Rogue mocked the two, shifting in her bed. "That is, like, totally awesome! Oh my Gosh, Golly, Gee whiz!"

Kitty rolled her eyes at her roommate, with difficulty, before propping herself up on her elbows. "L—What?" She had forced the 'like' from coming up her throat, in fear of Rogue mocking them any further.

"Well, I used my powers… but I guess I'll tell you more about it later. I should let you and the Devil's incarnate over there get some rest."

Rogue snorted, as Brianna made her way out. Upon stepping into the hallway, Professor X sent her a telepathic message, being rather short and temperamental with his words, 'Brianna, I need to see you in my chambers immediately.'

Before she could even think up an answer, he exited her mind. "What's his problem?" Why did everyone have to rain on her parade? This was the longest time she had ever spent working towards a goal, and once she achieved it, everyone decided that this was the time to bring her down. Even after her friends had booted her out of their clique, Brianna had managed to maintain her high spirits, but she didn't know if she would be able to take much more of this.

"Yes?" she said, trying to keep calm as she entered the rather large room that was Xavier's office. When she took a glance around, she noticed Wolverine leaning against one of the walls.

Brianna was surprised – surprised enough to jump a little. There she was, getting in trouble, and Logan was there to see it all go down. The object of her affection would probably think of her as such a little kid. What worsened this was the expression Logan wore – it looked as if he was going to be joining in on the disciplinary actions, also. This was going to be just fantastic, she could already tell.

"Take a seat," Charles Xavier demanded, and to then soften the impression he had made, he slowly added, "Please."

Brianna did as she was told, hesitantly. She was trying to avoid any thoughts of trouble she my have caused that evening, fearing the Professor might hear them and call her out on them, but when it proved to be nearly impossible, she gave in to the thoughts.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" Xavier asked her, reminding Brianna of the dad on Seventh Heaven, and just about every other fictional parent to grace her television screen. This was odd, because he had never acted like this before… he always seemed to be calm and collected.

"Uh…" She squinted, reading the grandfather clock behind him. "Twelve… uh, thirteen."

"This isn't funny, Brianna. I know that you are relatively new here, but you have stayed long enough to realize that my faculty and I have set up rules and guidelines. One of those happens to be that no child is to be out past 10:30, unless they are given permission otherwise."

"But, Professor, I ran into some trouble!" Brianna tried.

"I know all about that. I just hope that the alcohol affected your judgment, tricking you into believing that it is acceptable to frighten an innocent young civilian for such a foolish reason."

Brianna shuttered – it was going to be impossible to hide anything from this guy. At least, back at home, there was always the option of making up some gigantic lie to cover herself up. Brianna was a great liar, though she never lied unless it was completely necessary in keeping out of trouble. It's not that it mattered much, anyway, because her mother never paid much mind to the time her daughter returned home after nights out with her friends. Hah, and her stepfather-of-the-week sure hadn't cared much, either.

"Goodnight." Charles then left for bed.

Logan hadn't left with the man in the wheel chair. "That's where I come in."

They had finally been left alone in a room together, but Brianna hadn't pictured it like this at all.

"Let's see – breaking curfew, underage drinking, and using your powers to skip out on a bill." Logan stopped for a few moments, cooking up her punishment in his mind.

It killed Brianna, seeing how ecstatic Logan was about disciplining her – as if he was superior or something. Well, he was an adult, but he shouldn't but punishing her, he should be taking her places and kissing her, in her opinion, anyways.

She was so busy thinking up things she'd rather be doing with Logan other than this that she almost missed him saying, "Well, you'll be spendin' a good two months cleanin' whatever needs to be cleaned, and doin' whatever it is that needs to be done – kind of like a maid, kid, only no pay. I'll be lookin' over your work, bein' the disciplinarian around here. Oh, and no leaving the Mansion, other than school." Then, he left the office, as well, leaving her all alone in this unfamiliar room.

Brianna knew that that was supposed to be terrible news, but she couldn't help but be happy to hear that this whole thing had earned her some alone time with Wolverine. After all, he did say he would be 'looking over' her work, right? But he had also called her 'kid.' What was he thinking? Brianna thought herself out to be a mature woman, not some little runt whose hair was there for him to playfully tousle, as if she was his own child or something. She was going to have to change the way he saw her if she planned on getting anywhere with him.

She let herself out of the office, after poking around a little, and made her way up the stairs and into her room. Throughout the whole trip, which happened to be a lengthy one, she had been thinking about this whole grounded thing – she had a lot to learn, because Brianna hadn't even so much as made contact with dish soap. Maybe Logan could teach her, giving her even more time with him. This thought caused a joyous look to creep upon her face.

The thought was soothing because it made her imagine all of the cute little things that could happen between her and Logan as he taught her how to clean things or whatever it is that he wanted her to do. It had aided her in falling asleep faster than she was usually able to. It had knocked her into one of those deep slumbers – a deep, enjoyable slumber where she dreamt of her and Logan even more. That kind of sleep could only be ruined by one thing.

That one thing was the screeching of the alarm clock. Actually, it wasn't exactly screeching, now that Brianna had set it to play a certain radio station whenever the clock struck six forty-five A.M. A more accurate description of the noise would be the blaring of some recent chart topping, hit single. Even if she happened to like the song that had been pounding into her ears, the sound was always far from lovable.

"School?" she asked herself. The clock was only set to go off at six forty-five on school day mornings. On weekends, it gave her fifteen more minutes of sleep. Brianna hated Mondays.

And, normally hitting the sack at nine, she hadn't got as much sleep as she liked. The majority of her 'getting ready' time had been spent trying to conceal the bags underneath her eyes, and slurping down multiple cups of coffee.

She had completely forgotten about the previous night, even after school started – she was too busy sneaking glances into her compact whenever the teacher looked away, to make sure her make-up hadn't worn off.

That is, until Pietro was kind enough to bring up the subject. "Hey, you're a mutant?"

Baffled, she stuttered, "W-What?" She regained her composure, pronouncing the rest of her words flawlessly. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, stop acting clueless," Pietro ordered. "Besides, you should be proud. I am. But I can't believe you're an X-Geek! I never would have guessed, though I should have, because it's no big secret that Kitty's only friends live at the X-Mansion or whatever you guys call it."

Brianna fumed, "It's better than being part of the Brotherhood. I mean, all you guys do is slump around that filthy shack all day. If it wasn't for that lunatic sister of your's, you guys wouldn't stand a chance against us." She said 'us' as if she was actually a member of Professor's team of mutants, when she had just started Danger Room sessions with the New Mutants around two days ago. Oh, well… she was going to be an X-Man someday. Maybe it wasn't going to be soon, but it was going to happen in the future.

"You, especially, wouldn't stand a chance," Brianna added.

That's when Ms. Wilson met Brianna's eye, wearily, before stopping her lesson to ask, though it didn't seem like much of a question, "Do I need to move you two?"

"No, no, no!" Pietro insisted. "I mean, she can't control herself around me, but I'll make her stop, and that's a promise."

"Oh, okay…" Brianna said, twirling a single strand of her hair around her right index finger. She took her hand out of her hair, slapping it back onto her desk, furiously.

"Okay, Brianna!" Pietro said, loudly. "For the last time, I don't wanna go out with you! Don't worry about it, Ms. Wilkin! I've got it under control!"

"It's Wilson, Mr. Maximoff, but I don't expect you to know any better, since you've only attended around half of my classes this semester!" their teacher huffed.

"Ms. Wilson, may I switch spots, please?" Brianna requested, her hand wiggling around in the air.

"If it will make you two lovebirds hush up, then yes." She signed to some guy with a skyscraper of a pink Mohawk to switch seats with Brianna.

After she snatched up her purse and took her new seat, Brianna felt better. She wasn't as far away from him as she had wished, but at least she didn't have to deal with seeing him every time she turned to her left.

It was obvious to her that she would never be able to escape him when she felt something lightly hit the back of her head, then drifting to the floor. It was a note shaped like a cat's head. Who would've guessed? Pietro knew origami.

She picked it up, despite the voice in her head that told her it was a better idea to just ignore him.

Brianna had to squint in order to see what had been scribbled on the inside. After about a minute of reading it over and over, she had put the puzzle pieces together and figured out what it said.

'How about I show you what the Brotherhood's really about? Come over on Friday at seven.' After that, he had given the phone number.

Crumpling up the piece of college-ruled notebook paper, she turned herself around and gave him a dirty look.

'Is that a no?' Pietro mouthed, to which Brianna nodded, then turned herself back around.

When class was over, she wasn't the least bit taken aback when Pietro tried talking to her again.

"You wanna know how I know you're a mutant, don't you?" he questioned.

She tried speeding up to lose him, but she was no match for Pietro.

"What – are you a telepath, too?" Brianna snapped. "Stay out of my head, you perverted freak."

"Nah," Pietro said. "It's just that Taryn girl has been telling everyone about it… about your eyes turning black and everything, but she never really said what you could do."

"You really want to know?" she threatened, trying to create an illusion of someone coming up to him with a knife, and then stabbing him in the chest repeatedly. That'd make him stay away.

It wasn't working, so she was relieved to hear him say, "Now, there's no need for that! You can show me on Friday, and you will be there." Next, he had pecked her on the lips, making her blood boil.

Before she could even blink, he was off. Who did he think he was – telling her where she would or would not be going? Besides, she wasn't going, anyways… she couldn't even think of anything worse than being cooped up in some dump of a house with those idiots.

If she went, she knew that Pietro would be all over her – probably even worse than he was every day after school, and after school was bad. There wouldn't even be adult supervision at the Brotherhood home! She already had her eye on someone else – Wolverine. Brianna was planning on making her move sometime soon, while he was explaining to her how to mop the floors or something like that. This brought her to another reason why she wouldn't be able to go with Pietro that Friday – she was grounded.

Another issue arose when it came to be time for lunch. Who was she going to sit with? She sure wasn't going to sit with them after what they had done to her – called her 'mutie trash' and then revealed her secret to the entire student body of Bayville High School.

Pietro had invited her to sit with him and the members of his fan club, which happened to be four or five giggling freshman girls. This was an invitation that she was quick to decline.

There was Sam and Bobby, but she couldn't even imagine how many awkward silences they would share. She barely knew them, and had just learned their names.

Finally, she settled on a girl she knew from her art class. Her name was Mary, and she reminded Brianna of Natalie Portman, now that the actress had her hair styled in a pixie cut. Only… Natalie Portman was prettier.

The rest of the girls and Mary were very into art, and that's what most of their discussion revolved around.

They tried to include her, after noticing how silent Brianna was.

One girl with a Harry Potter-like pair of glasses questioned, "So, Brianna… Mary tells me you're in her art class. What do you like most about art?"

"Well, it's an easy 'A,'" she replied, rather flatly.

When she saw the painful looks on the other girls' faces, Brianna knew that she could never again return to that table. She just didn't fit in. She asked herself who else she could possibly sit with as she took a look around the cafeteria. There had to be at least two hundred kids in the room, and more eating outside, and she couldn't find a single table to sit at? This was the first time in her life that she considered herself pathetic.

She knew what she had to do. From then on, she was forcing herself to sit with Pietro. She didn't even have to talk to him or the other girls, but she would sit with him, to avoid sitting all alone like a loser.

Once the nightmare of a lunch had finished, she didn't think there could be anything to cheer her up – especially after all of her old friends had decided to make fun of her outfit right in her face. That's until she realized that Logan would be waiting back at the Mansion.