Haruka's Fanfiction

WARNING: Although it uses the X-Men: Evolution characters, THIS IS AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE!! In this world, same-sex relationships are accepted without prejudice because everyone is bisexual. Also, corporal punishment is common here as part of loving family discipline. If either of these facts about our AU bothers you, DO NOT READ this fic and then complain about same-sex couples or spankings being part of it. It is loosely based on an RPG plotline that Michiru and I started playing in August 2001. If anything is canon here, it's probably an accident.


The X-Men Family

Part 56

By Haruka (haruka@ymail.com)

--

Jean sighed, trying to be patient. “Scott, please. There’s no reason to be embarrassed.”

“Jean, I’m not taking my pants off while you’re here!” Scott exclaimed. He was laying face-down on his bed, while the beautiful redhead stood over him with a jar of cream in her hand.

“How am I supposed to apply this if you keep your pants on?” she asked reasonably.

“You can’t,” Scott said firmly. “I’ll just have to suffer along without it.”

“Are you in much pain?” Jean sat in a chair beside his bed.

“No, my pride hurts more,” Scott admitted. “Logan only hit me three times.”

“That’s not much,” Jean said. “I thought Rogue and Kurt said they usually get ten swats.”

“Yeah, well, this was in front of three witnesses and I didn’t do anything wrong.” He looked up at Jean. “The truth is, this was an idea of Mystique’s to trick Pietro into confessing.”

“So _he’s_ responsible for the discrepancy you mentioned?” she asked.

“Yeah, and they think my being punished will guilt-trip him into admitting it.” Scott shook his head ruefully. “I thought I was just going to have to fake it when I agreed to do this. Logan actually spanking me took me by surprise.”

“Hmm,” Jean said knowingly, “I’ll bet he was only half thinking about the plan, and the other half thinking about how you let Pietro get hold of your card in the first place.”

Scott blinked, then sighed. “Guess I should consider myself lucky I _only_ got three swats, huh?”

“I’d say.” Jean smiled.

“I didn’t even apologize to the Professor for what happened with the card,” Scott realized. “I know it’s tough to keep up with Pietro, but if I hadn’t let him out of my sight, he wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

“Well, don’t berate yourself too much – you were already punished for it,” Jean advised.

“And with any luck, so will Pietro be,” Scott said. “If Lance told him, that is.”

A knock at the door preceded Rogue walking in cautiously. “Hey Scott, you okay?”

“Uh,” Scott said uneasily, “yeah, why?”

“Um, no reason. See ya!” Rogue shut the door on her way out.

“That was weird,” Jean remarked.

“Yeah, I wonder – “

Kurt teleported into the room. “Scott! Oh, hi Jean,” he said, turning back to the other boy. “I’m really sorry, Scott. I know how you must feel.”

“About _what_, Kurt?” Scott asked.

“Um, you know. Everything,” Kurt said, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “I guess I should go and let you recov – uh, rest!” He disappeared.

Jean waved the smoke away. “I’m beginning to suspect that Lance told more people than just Pietro.”

A firm knock was heard, but this time the door didn’t open. “Hey, Scott, it’s Lance. Uh, listen, don’t be mad, okay? Everybody knows what happened, but it wasn’t my fault. It just sort of spread. Pietro knows, too, and he’s run off somewhere.”

“Let him in,” Scott told Jean. She opened the door telekinetically. Lance had his hands stuffed in his pockets and was looking contrite.

“Come in,” Jean invited.

He did, giving Scott an embarrassed look. “I meant to just tell Pietro – so he’d know what he’d done to you – but Rogue wouldn’t leave and Remy was there, then everyone else just sort of showed up. I’m really sorry.”

“_Everyone_ knows?!” Scott said in dismay. He buried his face in the pillow. “I’d like to die now.”

“Is Pietro at least going to own up to it?” Jean asked Lance.

“He refuses,” Lance said. “And no offense, Scott, but I don’t blame him.”

“You didn’t tell him that, did you?” Jean stared.

“The vote was split equally, anyway.” Lance shrugged. “Half of us thought he should keep quiet, the other half wanted him to confess.”

“And Pietro refuses.” Scott sighed. “Great.”

“Again, I’m sorry. I-I’ll see you later.” Lance walked out. Jean reached over and patted Scott’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry. “Maybe he’ll come around.”

“And maybe I’ll have to throttle both Pietro _and_ Mystique,” Scott muttered.

“Now, now.” Jean wagged a finger at him. “Remember, you deserved those three swats for losing the card.”

Scott sighed and smiled wanly. “Doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

--


Pietro came to a stop under a street light. He’d been running flat out for a while, getting as far from the Xavier Institute as he could and still be within Bayville limits.

He didn’t feel guilty. He didn’t. Why should he? Just because Scott was careless enough to let him get hold of the card in the first place ….

There you go, he thought smugly. It was all Scott’s fault anyway, and he already got spanked. Case closed. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore.

But … if he hadn’t even _attempted_ to take the card, Scott wouldn’t have been punished.

Oh God, he groaned inwardly. It _is_ my fault.

“Great,” he muttered. Reluctantly, he could now see where Rogue was coming from. Sort of. Even though Scott had already been punished and it couldn’t be taken back, the X-Men leader might feel a _little_ better if Pietro admitted his own guilt.

Which, of course, would immediately make Pietro feel worse, as his butt was personally introduced to Logan’s adamantium-boned hand.

“I can’t do it!” he said, then yelled back in the general direction of the Institute miles away. ‘You hear me, Summers? I can’t do it! No way, no how, no chance!”

Silence was the reply he received, and yet he had the odd feeling that _someone_ heard him. He looked around. The street was deserted, but ….

Come on, Pietro, he told himself firmly. Don’t go getting paranoid. You’ve got enough problems.

He remembered Rogue’s face, and her voice telling him that it was only
‘right’ that he confess. Didn’t she care if _he_ got punished? Remy, Lance, and Todd understood, why didn’t she?

Because she’d been with the X-Men too long and was now one of the ‘good’ guys. Now he understood the problem Lance had been dealing with all along with Kitty. Could a good girl and a bad boy (or in Rogue’s case, a good girl and _two_ bad boys) really have a steady relationship? Were he and Lance really that bad anymore?

Well, yeah, sorta. Not bad bad, more like naughty bad. And he _really_ didn’t want to admit his guilt to the adults. How could he even go home? Now that all the kids knew the truth, even without confessing himself, someone was bound to let it slip or maybe even tell them outright.

“What are you doing, Maximoff? Soliciting customers?”

Pietro spun around, his heart in his throat. Duncan Matthews was sitting in his car, smirking at him. When had he pulled up?

“What are you talking about, Matthews?” he asked in annoyance.

“Well, you’re parading around under a street lamp – what do _you_ think it looks like?”

Pietro turned red and glared at him. “It’s none of your business _what_ I’m doing! And why are you all the way across town, anyhow?!”

“The team had a night game at another school,” Duncan said. He paused for a moment. “You want a ride home?”

“Why?” Pietro asked suspiciously.

Duncan rolled his eyes. “Because you’re far from the Institute, I don’t see a car waiting for you anywhere, and it’s getting late. I know the curfew there – you’re going to miss it if you don’t leave now.”

“Why should you care if I do?” Pietro asked. “This is the first time we’ve ever exchanged words before.” He gave Duncan a smirk of his own. “Or are you tired of Kurt already and have decided _I’m_ your next conquest?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Duncan snapped. “You want a ride or not?”

Pietro knew he could _run_ home faster than Duncan could drive him, so the curfew wasn’t a big worry. However, there wasn’t really any reason to stay where he was any longer. He shuddered slightly and frowned. Besides, he still had that funny feeling that someone else was nearby, watching both he and Duncan. It was giving him the creeps. He hopped over the door into the passenger seat. “Let’s go,” he said, a little more urgently than he meant to.

Duncan looked at him strangely, then shrugged and started driving back toward town. “You’re dating Kurt’s twin sister, right?”

“We’re going steady, yep,” Pietro replied, enjoying the cool breeze. It was soothing, and now that they were on the move, he felt a little more relaxed.

“How’s she taking us? And the others at the Institute? I don’t want Kurt to be put through a lot of hassle over this.”

“Well, what’d you expect?” Pietro laughed. “Jean and Kurt live together, you know.”

“Yes, but Jean has other interests, too.”

“Oh yeah, Scott,” Pietro said knowingly. “She’s probably comforting him right now. He needs it after getting spanked.”

Duncan stared at him. “Did you just say Scott Summers got _spanked_?!”

“Uh, yeah,” Pietro admitted. But I wish I hadn’t, he added with a mental groan. Man, for someone whose brain is supposed to work so fast, my mouth has it beat hands down ….

Duncan shook his head in disbelief. “Anyway, about Kurt,” he said, “I’m more worried about his parents getting on his back because of our age difference than anything else.”

“Believe me, Dunckie-boy, that’s the least of their concerns,” Pietro said blithely. “And anyway, you two won’t be seeing each other much longer.”

Duncan looked at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

“Kurt’s going to break it off with you tomorrow.”

“What?!” Duncan exclaimed. “How do you know that?!”

“Kurt told Rogue, Rogue told me.” Pietro shrugged. “Tough luck. You just chose the wrong guy to get interested in.”

“I don’t understand – why would he do this already? We haven’t even gone on a real date yet! And he sounded interested in going to the country club – we actually would have gone today if I hadn’t heard Scott tell him to get home early.”

“So it was _you_ who got him to come home?” Pietro said in surprise. “Go figure – everyone was blaming you for making him late!”

Duncan sighed. “Maybe that’s why he’s breaking it off. If he’s going to get into trouble for being with me ….” He frowned. “But it doesn’t make sense. If the age difference doesn’t matter to his folks, what does?”

“Uhhh ….” Pietro mentally kicked himself. He shouldn’t have dismissed the age difference so quickly. He was pretty sure it _did_ matter to Logan and Mystique, although nowhere near as much as Kurt’s being a mutant and Duncan being human. “He just lost interest.” He shrugged finally. “It wasn’t his parents’ decision – it was his. Decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, I guess.”

Duncan’s jaw tightened and he faced the road. “I hope you’ll understand if I’d rather hear this from Kurt before I believe it.”

“No prob,” Pietro said lightly. “As I said, he’ll be talking to you tomorrow.”

They rode the rest of the way home in silence.

--

End of part 56

X-Men belongs to Marvel.

(2001)

This fic is not to be re-posted.