Homecoming Aftermath

It was the start of his friendship with Will Stronghold, a boy he would never have thought of becoming good friends with. The events of homecoming also brought him 4 other friends he would come to see as a family. But it was all because of the advice of a great friend, who urged him to work on his tendencies to push people away from him.

September 19, 2005

Stopping at the bedroom door that had a 'Do Not Enter' sign on it, Mia pushed it open, disregarding the sign as always, and entered the room. She took notice of the disheveled sheets on the bed and a cell phone on the floor.

"Warren?" she called and heard the shower running from the adjacent bathroom.

She walked towards the bathroom door and opened it easily. She poked her head in and called out again.

"Warren?"

Warren poked his head out of the shower curtain on the side and gave Mia an incredulous look.

"Mia can't you see I'm busy?" he asked exasperatedly. "Has it also occurred to you that I'm not wearing any clothes and need something called privacy?"

Mia grinned cheekily at him, head still poking in by the door, "Oh please, there's nothing there I haven't seen before."

Warren gave her a murderous glare before closing the shower curtain again. If she had been anyone else they would be sporting some burns at that moment. Mia, however, could still get away with annoying Warren to no ends.

"You're impossible!" He called out loudly amidst the noise of the water falling.

"Well hurry it up so I can talk to you properly!" she retorted and closed the bathroom door. She headed over to his bed and sat down on it cross-legged.

She waited for a few more minutes, examining the books on his bedside table and flipping through their pages. When Warren finally came out, he rolled his eyes at his friend, lying on her stomach glancing through the pages of his 'Great Expectations' novel. She looked up at him and noted the towel around his waist and his dripping hair.

"Finally, you take longer than me in the shower," she teased as he shook his head at her and rummaged for clothes in his closet.

Finding a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt, he pulled them on as Mia looked away pointedly, fiddling with his bedside clock radio as he dressed.

When he was done dressing, he took his wet towel and threw it at Mia's back, signaling that she could finally turn around.

"Eww!" she exclaimed in reply as she took the towel that fell on her shoulder with two fingers and threw it aside. "Are you done being mean to me now?" she said as she crossed her arms.

"Never," he replied simply as she stood up from the bed and huffed at him.

"Well let's just go downstairs and eat, your mom left breakfast for us," she said as she pushed past him to get to the door. She walked down the wooden staircase with her head held high, a sign that she wasn't too happy with his teasing. Warren on the other hand, only rolled his eyes and followed her down.

Twisting her bacon absentmindedly around her fork, Mia looked at Warren thoughtfully as he drank his orange juice.

"Gwen Grayson as Royal Pain... It still sounds strange when I say it," Mia sighed. "I've met her before you know, like once when Andrew had to do a project with her."

Her brother Andrew was still a little in shock at finding out one of his classmates had turned evil and made all of their comrades into babies.

Warren set down his glass and tapped his fingers on the table, "Well some people can hold grudges for a long time. Gwen thought she would win for once so she went all out."

"Too bad you and your friends were there to save the day eh?" Mia grinned back at him.

"We were just trying to help," Warren simply replied and Mia's smile widened.

"You're being too modest," she commented. "Are you going to tell me what happened? Andrew only knows the general details, he was much too worried about remembering what he saw as a baby."

So Warren started his tale of homecoming, starting with getting his dad's stupid tux from the closet, flying over to Sky High in his mom's jetpack, meeting his date Layla, and then on to Gwen revealing herself as Royal Pain and turning everyone into babies using the Pacifier. He recalled what happened as he helped Will and the others battle Lash, Speed and Penny. He then told Mia what happened as Royal Pain and Will battled it out, and the school fell from the sky.

Mia was a silent listener, widening her eyes at the right parts, and sighing in relief as Warren got to the part where they finally de-pacified everyone and sent Royal Pain and her goonies to jail.

She crossed her arms on the table and looked at Warren interestingly, "Sooo..." she started.

"So what?"

Mia cocked her head to the side, "You're officially a hero now. Congratulations."

Warren crossed his arms across his chest and looked away, pondering her words.

"It was only a school incident."

"And your point is? That it's not the same thing as a mission outside?" Mia asked, as if pointing out the obvious. "Because it totally is. There was a villain, and you helped to save the whole school. Now I think that's a bigger feat than say...a bank robbery."

"Whatever," Warren replied, taking a bite out of his toast. "Stronghold and the others did most of the hero work anyway."

Mia shook her head, "Again, you're being too darn modest. I heard you all worked together as a team."

Warren shrugged and she sighed at him exasperatedly.

"So I'm guessing you don't hate Will Stronghold anymore?"

"I never hated him in the first place," Warren reasoned. "Just...annoyed would be the word for it."

"Okay, you're all friends now I suppose? Nothing brings people closer together than a crisis you know," she grinned back at him.

"I suppose we're sort of friends now, I don't know."

With her eyebrow raised, she questioned, "You don't know? Well aren't you hanging out with them soon?"

Warren stood up to place his empty dishes on the sink to wash them, "They invited me to the mall later on today, so I suppose I'll go for a little bit."

Mia sighed as she too stood up and cleared her dishes after Warren. She knew exactly what was going on in his head, so she was resolved on fixing it straightaway.

"They sound like really great friends," she said, sitting on the table across him and rested her chin on her hands. "Unlike your old friends Lash and Speed, who are by the looks of it spending quite a bit of time in juvi."

Warren smirked at that, "They deserve it."

"But going back to your new friends, everyone except for Will has been keeping close to you for a few weeks right? Ever since you met Layla at the Paper Lantern?"

"Yeah."

"So they liked you even before you all saved the school, and you must have liked them too because you didn't reject Layla's offer to be her date."

"Only because it would annoy Stronghold the most."

Mia rolled her eyes at him, "Yeah, at first you thought that, but you grew to like them eventually."

Warren crossed his arms across his chest and looked at Mia suspiciously.

"Where are you going with all this psychoanalysis?" he finally asked and Mia sighed.

"I'm only stating facts War, and you and I know that you consider the group very likable, only that you're keeping quite a distance from them."

Warren paused at what she said and pondered, "Are you saying that I'm pushing them away? How can I when I'm constantly hanging out with them?"

"I didn't really mean physically, I meant that you haven't really shown them the whole you. They probably just think of you as the tough bad-ass guy in leather who's really a hero on the inside. Which you are," she added hastily. "But they don't know Warren Peace, the friendly person who's smart and caring, but just really introverted."

Warren looked at her, a little surprised at what she really thought of him. Mia read his face and smiled reassuringly.

"If we never knew each other as kids, I don't think we'd ever really be the best of friends now. We can be acquaintances sure, but you wouldn't bother to get to know me and you wouldn't let me get to know you."

"You don't know that Mia," he replied quietly and Mia just looked at him.

"It's just what I would imagine, because that's what you're doing with the gang, you're friends but you don't really know them that well and they don't know you at all."

Warren was quiet and Mia knew he was thinking her words over. Had he really been that introverted all that time? A quick yes resounded in his head as he thought about most of his time at Sky High, with classmates here and there that he knew but never really bothered to get to know. How he sat alone in the cafeteria, alone with his thoughts and hidden behind his books. How everyone assumed he was just as bad as his father because he never really gave them a chance to see that he wasn't.

Mia was right, he needed an attitude change, and it was going to start with being good friends with Will, Layla, Ethan, Zack, and Magenta.

A/N: Review if you liked it and don't hesitate to give me more ideas for next chapters :D