It had all started off with a bet, an outrageously common thing in the Brotherhood house. Not dares. Dares were for pussies. Bets were for real men. And Tabitha, of course. Wanda didn't give a shit.

Get Rogue to confess her undying love, or something along those lines. Which was a bit difficult, seeing as she hated his guts.

But he was Pietro Maximoff! He failed at nothing! Except for that one time when the X-Men caught him and he was sent to jail, but that was only because the whole team ganged up on just him! It was a mockery of a battle! A sham! He refused to accept that as a failure!

There was also that other time when Wanda locked him up and he was sent to jail, but that didn't count. Nobody won against Wanda when she was rightfully pissed.

He would seduce the Rogue, dammit! No matter how scary she looked, or that she had already lived with him and the others and saw them worthless enough to abandon for the X-Men. Tabitha had volunteered, at first, to be the one to seduce the Rogue, but despite several fantasies that sprung up in the boys' head at that suggestion, they finally teased Pietro into agreeing to the bet.

The whole bet had started from a conversation over Southern hospitality. Wanda was upstairs painting her nails red or something. Then it led to how Rogue, who was Southern, seemed to have none of the sugary sweet manners that the television led them to believe all Southerners had. Especially ones from Mississippi. There was that one Southern dweeb in the X-Mansion, the one who wore denim vests and was said to be a dense blond Lance, which made Lance automatically hate the poser, but they never spoke to him before. Not even Tabitha, who lived with him. So they didn't care about him.

Then it was a conversation over whether Rogue could actually feel anything other than depression or rage. They had experienced a lot of both emo-ness and anger living with her, and had not once seen her smile. That turned into a debate, and it was blonds versus other. The other, lesser mutants with the inferior hair color argued that there was no way that Rogue could ever fall in love. The blonds, being Fred, Tabitha, and Pietro, (since even though he had silver hair everyone knew he was a blond at heart) argued that everyone was capable of falling in love. Every, last freakish ugly deformed mutant in Bayville had the capacity for love. Every, last one.

And so one of the shittiest blows to Pietro's ego had begun.

Goodie.

Author's Note: It's set after the show is over, but Tabitha, for some reason, is still living with them and not the X-Men. It's more fun there? Maybe?