It was the night of the Tango Teen Couples Dance-Off, and Milo and Amanda were up alongside their competition.
They started dancing, but everything went wrong: Milo constantly stepped on Amanda's toes, they stumbled and tripped over everyone else, and made a hole in the floor right where they landed, right onto a pipe which exploded. Splinters sprang loose and stabbed a live tango music performance. Violin bows flew in the air and activated fire sprinklers, ruining Amanda's makeup and Milo's quiff.
Milo and Amanda were deemed dead last, right as Anthony and Ashley were quite literally dancing circles around them in outstanding class. Roses were being flung to Anthony and Ashley, the two being able to catch one with their mouth each. They were declared the winners.
But as Milo soon found out, the worst was about to happen. The poor boy saw Amanda's face contort from a sad expression to an extremely angry one. An angry one full of spite. He winced when she suddenly turned that angry, spiteful face towards him!
"This is awful", Amanda yelled angrily at Milo as tears began to form in Amanda's eyes, further ruining her mascara. "Thanks to you, we lost! Worse, we lost in the most embarrassing, most humiliating way possible! This is the worst day of my entire life by a long shot!"
Milo stammered: "B-b-but-"
"No buts, mister!" Amanda intercepted. "We are THROUGH! I never want to see your face ever again on this forsaken planet! I'll ask Mamá to move to the moon by tomorrow! Go die in a hole and farewell, you jinx!"
She slapped Milo across the face and stormed off, as Milo began forming tears in his eyes, rubbing against his stinging left cheek, still marked with Amanda's handprint.
"Wow, it looks like you lost your girlfriend... forever!" Anthony suddenly began taunting Milo, as he and Ashley still danced circles around him.
"That's what you get for being a loser of a burden, Murph!" Ashley taunted further.
"Not just a burden... a jinx!" Anthony added. "A pathetic, burdensome jinx that can only make things worse! Who would actually wanna be around him?"
Anthony and Ashley continued circling around Milo, calling him names like "loser", "burden", "jinx", etcetera, as Milo grasped his head. He was crying as tears not just rolled, but streamed down his cheeks, across the hurting mark, making it sting even more.
Milo tried his hardest to ignore the tormenting like he usually does, but this time, it was too difficult, with no thanks to constant barrage of Murphy's Law, Amanda's anger and the very vocal breakup, all of it happening in seconds apart of each other. Add the humiliation of all of those, and the pressure quickly grew to be too much to handle, as Milo screamed.
"AAH!" Milo yelled, as he suddenly found himself in his bedroom.
Milo looked around, slightly confused at the change of scenery and slowly regaining senses.
He puffed out of relief. Turns out all that awful stuff he just experienced was just a bad dream. He hoped he hadn't woke up anyone else with his yell. He felt that explaining his nightmare about Amanda breaking up with him to his parents might get a bit awkward.
Though, he wondered: could it still happen? Would Amanda really forsake and be estranged from him if they would lose like that?
Milo shook his head, shaking off the bad thought. "Naaah, that would never happen", Milo thought, smiling. "Amanda doesn't care about winning, she said so herself. Even if the dance went horribly wrong, she would've still enjoyed it, right?"
But truthfully, Milo was still unable to shake off the uneasy feeling, as it creeped back in his mind.
"...R-right?"
The next morning, Milo was making himself breakfast. Today, he and Amanda would practice tango dancing at her place. Truthfully, he was a bit nervous. This would be the first time he'd enter Amanda's abode, as well as properly meeting her parents. They have seen each other at Cake 'Splosion, but that's about it. They never really talked to each other, so Milo didn't know what they're like. He was actually wondering if Amanda was raised by her parents to be such a perfectionist, and if that's the case, Milo was thinking that they might be very critical of Murphy's Law, just like Melissa's dad.
It's of course a very understandable fear for any parent that their child could get hurt in some way, especially in his case. So, he supposed that if he had to try his hardest to show his commitment for Amanda and in turn win her parents over, then so be it.
There was a tiny voice in his head that hoped Amanda had been very laudatory about Milo to her parents, though. He had a feeling overly critical parents were definitely not going to help him be at ease this week.
Around 12:30, Milo stepped on the porch of the Lopez residence, and rang the doorbell. As the front door opened, he was greeted by a brown-skinned man with short, spiked hair, a goatee equally short, and wearing a cerulean polo shirt. Milo recognized him as Amanda's father.
"Ah, you must be Milo", Mr Lopez noted.
"That's right", Milo nodded.
Soon after, Milo recognized Amanda running towards him and her dad.
"Milo! You're here", she exclaimed, hugging Milo after her dad let her pass.
Amanda was followed by a younger, pig-tailed girl with the same dark purple hair color and olive-colored skintone, wearing cerise overalls and a red and white-striped t-shirt.
"Ooh, is that your boyfriend, Amanda?" the little girl asked. "He looks cute together with you!"
Milo blushed at the girl's comment, but Amanda blushed even harder.
"ARIANA!" Amanda yelled angrily and embarrassedly at the girl, face as red as a tomato, "he's NOT my- I mean, he's just a- um..."
Amanda, shifting her eyes back and forth between Milo and her little sister, was struggling what words to choose to describe the Murphy boy.
"He's... he's Milo", she eventually concluded.
Ariana pulled a knowing smirk. "Riiiiiiight..."
"That's quite enough", Mr Lopez intercepted, trying to keep his two daughters from fighting. "Come right in, Milo. We just finished lunch."
Milo took the invitation and followed the Lopezes through the hallway.
"So... you're the boy where anything can and will go wrong around you...?" Mr Lopez asked Milo.
"Yep, it's because I'm a Murphy", Milo replied. "I understand you don't want to get a lot broken around here, so I guess showing me around the house is out of the question-"
"Oh no, we're not going to be rude", Mr Lopez insisted. "If you want to be shown around the house, then we can show you. Just keep your distance and don't touch anything, you know."
"You don't have to worry, Papi", Ariana chimed in. "As a Fireside Girl, I just got my 'Quick 'n Seamless Restoration' patch last week. I can clean up any case of Murphy's Law! No one will be able to tell Amanda's boyfriend has ever been here!"
Amanda grumbled with a tomato red face as her little sister keeps insisting she and Milo are already dating.
"Besides, I can also prevent or fix a lot using the things I've stored in my backpack", Milo stated.
"Ooooh, resourceful", Ariana grinned. "You're really good at picking a soulmate, Amanda!"
"Please stop calling him my boyfriend", Amanda muttered in embarrassment. She turned to Milo. "You'll have to excuse my little sister. She loves romance stories, and loves teasing me about anything you can imagine."
"That's alright, siblings love to tease each other, after all", Milo responded.
Milo then noticed clear tubes hanging around the ceiling. "Hey, what's with those tubes hanging around the house?" he asked.
Suddenly, two mice, one white and another gray, ran through said tubes.
"Well, since I had kept Muffin and Bitey as pet mice, I had devised a tunneling system around the entire house so they'd be able to move around freely", Amanda explained. "Papá helped me build it."
"Wow, that's so cool, Amanda", Milo praised. "Props to the both of you."
Amanda blushed and smiled lightly at the compliment (Ariana took note of her big sister's reaction and smirked to herself, yet decided it would be smarter not to intervene this time). Mr Lopez chuckled in response to Milo. "Por favor, you're giving me too much credit, Milo. All I did was gathering materials and fastening only a few parts. The rest is on Amanda."
As the four entered the living room, they were met with Mrs Lopez sitting on the couch. It was obvious that Amanda and Ariana bared a lot of their appearance from their mother, as the middle-aged woman had the same olive complexion and same dark purple hair color as her daughters, and even had Amanda's burgundy purple eyes, and her distinct nose. Her hair was styled differently, of course: as it was at armpit length with curly ends, and she had curtain bangs, fastened with pink hairclips. She also wore a china pink t-shirt alongside a sky blue and aqua neckpiece, and oblong earrings of the same color, as well as the same kind of lipstick Amanda usually has.
"Ah, so you're Amanda's friend, the Murphy boy... Milo isn't it?" Mrs Lopez asked, as she stuck out her hand.
"Uh, yeah", Milo responded, taking her hand and shaking it, "I'm Milo Murphy."
"Would you like something to eat?" Mrs Lopez offered. "We've just had lunch, but maybe you didn't?"
"I actually ate something before I came here, but thanks anyway", Milo declined.
Milo smiled warmly. There were traces of Amanda's family being like Amanda herself when it comes to perfectionism like he expected, but they still treated him like any other person, instead of a plague or a curse or a nuisance. In fact, Milo felt... welcomed.
This was something Milo had to maintain if he ever wanted to be with Amanda again. A bit of a challenge when you have Murphy's Law like him, but he still got optimistic with such a warm introduction.
Maybe today, the practice session is going as well too.
Milo had just been shown around the Lopez residence. He had to admit that Amanda and her parents had a lovely, and quite refined home. He got to see the master bedroom, where the parents slept, Ariana's bedroom, which already had several Fireside Girl sigils and sashes hanging on the wall, as well as the bathroom, the attic, and a guestroom, among others.
He was probably most impressed with Amanda's bedroom. There was the usual stuff, like a wardrobe and a make-up table, but there were also storage cases chock full CDs of tango, salsa, rumba, flamenco and opera pieces, and even a few video game soundtracks: all neatly organized and categorized by name. Same goes with various Cake 'Splosion DVDs and memorabilia Amanda had collected over the years, and even a poster on the wall.
There was a giant blue teddy bear resting next to the pillow on her bed, and placed atop the bedside table is a spacious cage where those tubes are connected to: Muffin and Bitey's cage. Milo also noted several bookcases, but some are filled with notes Amanda had written herself. There's also a neat desk with a desktop computer and a drawing board, and a stack of to-be-used paper, and a tray full of pens and pencils.
The room was so 'Amanda' and Milo loved it.
There had been a few instances of Murphy's Law during the tour, but they had been averted by Milo's swiftness quite expertly. For example, a wall clock fell off its hook, which had quickly been caught by Milo using a fishing rod, and loose planks have been mended in record time.
Mr and Mrs Lopez were perplexed but impressed at Milo's handiwork, probably expected worse, and little Ariana was a bit huffish that she couldn't show off her own handiwork.
This sounded like good news to Milo, because it meant his reaction time on Murphy's Law was in check and on point. Moreover, it appeared that Milo's a keeper. Hopefully, this was a good omen for the upcoming tango session with Amanda.
Amanda brought Milo to the basement of the Lopez residence, the one place Milo hadn't visited yet. It looked just as classy as the rest of the house.
"This is where we're going to to have our tango rehearsals", Amanda explained. "Papá and Mamá don't want to take any risks just yet, so we will have to dance here in the basement... preferably in the center."
"That's okay with me", Milo smiled.
Amanda pulled out her cellphone and played the Mi rosa roja track again. Milo and Amanda tried mimicking the steps from the video from yesterday, or at least from what they could remember.
Some improvisations were made as the song continued, but so far, their dancing seemed flawless, putting Milo at ease.
As Milo and Amanda began making complicated poses during their dance without a hitch, Milo's smile got brighter. "Alright, this is going better than yesterday", he thought. "Murphy's Law may have meddled with my dancing last time, but today I'll prove that I'm not a-"
"-burden!"
Milo cringed. He suddenly thought of Ashley's insult yet again. And just like yesterday, he was thinking about it on loop.
"And Murph being your burden!"
"And Murph being your burden!"
"And Murph being your burden!"
"WHOA!"
Amanda's yelp brought Milo back to reality, as it turned out Milo was stumbling a bit during his thoughts on Ashley's nasty statement. Fortunately, he was brought back to reality just in time to improvise a promenade step, in order to prevent him from falling. Even better: he didn't step on Amanda's toes this time!
"¡Oof! Nice save, Milo", Amanda complimented, causing Milo to blush slightly.
"Sorry about that", Milo apologized. "At the very least I haven't stepped on your toe-"
"Go die in a hole and farewell, you jinx!"
Milo flinched yet again as a buried thought made its way to his thought process. Shockingly, it was the cruel statement by Amanda from his bad dream!
This nasty surprise from his mind caught Milo completely off-guard, causing him to misstep on-
"!AY!"
...Amanda's toes.
Milo ceased his dance immediately, kneeling down to hold Amanda's foot. "Oh gosh, I shouldn't have tempted fate! Are you alright?"
"Milo, it's fine", Amanda insisted. "It's just Murphy's Law, remember? Your dancing skills were excellent before!"
"Yeah, you two were so perfect until that moment! Like a romantic couple perfectly in sync!"
Amanda blushed red like a tomato again when the voice of the uninvited Ariana made her presence known.
"ARIANA! You shouldn't sneak upon us!" she yelled.
"Come on, you didn't think I was gonna pass up on my big sister and her boyfriend dancing together, did you?" Ariana asked in a rhetorical fashion.
"Oh, dios mío..." Amanda muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Can I at least keep watching", Ariana asked. "I really want to see you two dance, por favor."
Amanda thought a bit, before deciding: "Fine. But please, no word of commentary of any kind, until we're finished. Promise?"
"I promise! I'll be good!" Ariana begged.
Amanda peered at her little sister's face to identify if she's being honest.
"...Buen", she finally said. "Sorry about that, Milo. Let's continue."
Milo nodded, as he assumed position with Amanda. From the outside, Milo seemed as cool as a cucumber, but from the inside, his anxiety returned ten-fold.
"I didn't know my own nightmares could still plague me like this", he thought worriedly. "I really gotta be careful this time..."
Unfortunately, despite Milo trying so hard to improve, he had accidentally stepped on Amanda's toes sixteen times during the session. That is one time more than yesterday! Milo felt a bit worse because of that.
"Wow, tango must be really difficult for you, Milo", Ariana commented.
It didn't help to improve Milo's mood.
"Well, it is a complicated dance", Amanda noted, "and we only begun practicing yesterday. I'm sure we will improve."
"...I certainly hope we will", Milo added, "but right now, it feels more like a 'one step forward, two steps back' situation."
"Maybe so, but that's because of Murphy's Law, right?" Amanda replied. "Just keep fighting it and stay alert, and soon enough we will be the ones that trounce Anthony and Ashley at their own game!"
"Yeah, sure", Milo mumbled as he checked on Melissa and Zack, having received a text. Apparently, their footwork has improved, albeit by a little. Melissa stepped on Zack's toes eleven times, and Zack stepped on Melissa's toes eleven times too. Milo couldn't help to feel a little jealous.
Milo really did hope he could manage to flip his outcome by next week, but him being haunted by Ashley's remark and his nightmare don't make him all too optimistic.
But why should that matter? It was Murphy's Law, right?
...Right?
Author's Note: This chapter shows a bit of Amanda's family! Since that never was really focused on in the show, I had to make some stuff up, like Amanda's little sister Ariana (age 10). However, since Milo Murphy's Law TECHNICALLY hasn't ended properly, this means that a potential Season 3 still has a high chance of retconning all of this. Wouldn't be the first time one of my fanfics got retconned by canon material. Well, see ya around! |
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