A/N: The finished prize for animeluvr1 – a one-shot of her choice. To that said person: So sorry for taking…an immensely long time… to write this. Hope you like!
Winner's Original Prompt: [Magneto tries to hire a babysitter for the twins, pre- Wanda goes to the looney bin. And the two are little DEVILS. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!]
Here's hoping I didn't stray too far off from that plot, eh? Please don't laugh at me for making that title. I couldn't think of anything else.
Disclaimers: Blahblahblah I don't own anything BLAHBLAHBLAH.
The Tale of Baldie and the Maximoffs
There are many things in this world people are afraid of. As humans, we struggle to survive in the ecosystem, but not nearly to the extent of other mammals. We consider ourselves more intelligent, more advanced, more powerful and thus, worthier of living.
You see, people want power. But when they see someone else with more power than they can ever hope to attain, they fear it. That is the way of the world. They fear what they can not have, or what they do not know.
It is a vicious cycle that has shown itself throughout the years of human history. But I know more. I have more knowledge than them, therefore I am superior. I have control over power that they can not hope to ever have.
Therefore, I am worthier of living than they are.
My name is Magneto. In the many years that I have liv-
"DAAAAA-AAAAAD! PIETRO'S EATING MY GLUE!!!"
"Mm nthh!"
I flinched at the high-pitched yell of my 7-year old daughter, Wanda. And that muffled sound of her twin brother couldn't be good news.
"Pietro, stop eating your sister's glue. Wanda, stop trying to glue your brother to the wall."
I waited for a second or two, and upon hearing no protesting, resumed my inner-monologue.
My name? I am the Master of Magnetism. I am Lord of the higher revolutionaries that the insipid lower human race calls "mutants". Fear strikes into the hearts of my enemies when one even utters a syllable of my pseudonym, and with good reason. For I have experienced many years of suffering and torture and pain, and have managed to live through them and eventually become stronger. For that, I have seen the truth in the world, and the truth is-
"DADADADADAAAAADDD!!"
"Oh, WHAT IS IT?" I said loudly in a deep voice that I made sure would resonate, so as to strike fear into my offspring's hearts, with a hint of annoyance. Of course, it was for naught. I find it mystifying that Mystique flinches every time I open my mouth, yet Wanda and Pietro hardly noticed it.
Probably the shared genes. We Lensherrs are impregnable and fearless. With that in mind, I walked outside of my den into the hallway to find a truly unusual sight. Pietro's pale frost-like hair – a trait he inherited from his father – was impossibly thoroughly kneaded all over with white paste and attached to the wall he was leaning – unintentionally - against. But that was not the most surprising thing. Pietro's slimey glue-covered mouth was currently biting at Wanda's hand. Of course, my daughter is hardly what you could call the typical 6-year old girl, who would ordinarily be bawling her head off by now. There were streaks of white in a lesser copious amount than Pietro's spreaded around Wanda's raven hair that probably was a result from an engaging struggle that involved hair. Wanda's hand was obviously stuck to Pietro's biting mouth, so in return, she had her own respective jaw gnawing away at Pietro's arm. Their sharp infant teeth were probably leaving marks everywhere, but the fierce children paid no heed and kept on chewing away at each other.
"WHAT IS GOING ON? STOP THIS AT ONCE." I rumbled from the gutters of my stomach, producing a very baritone voice. Wanda took away her molars on skin first – well, she was the only one who could, as Pietro's own was currently stuck to her hand.
"Pietro won't let me gooooo-ooooo!" Wanda screamed.
"WWMMMNNNHH wnn nnmmm ghhhhrrrr MIRRRRRH!!" Pietro screamed through his muffled hold on his sister's fingers.
"STOP SCREAMING AND LISTEN TO YOUR FATHER. I AM GOING OUT TONIGHT, AND I HAVE PAID FOR A BABYSITTER. YOU MUST BE KIND TO THIS ONE, UNLIKE THE LAST ONE."
"It was her fault! She should've known we hate PBS!" Wanda pouted. Pietro nodded, with a bit difficulty.
"THAT MAY BE SO, BUT I WAS THE ONE WHO HAD TO PAY FOR HER MEDICAL BILLS." I took a deep breath in, trying to hide my cough. It was hard work talking like this all the time; being all fatherly and authoritative at once. Any day now, I was going to come down with bronchitis and completely lose my voice so that I'll have to talk through a computer. Actually, that isn't such a bad idea. I must think to invest in one later.
"I WILL NOT BE BACK UNTIL LATE. I'VE GIVEN THE SITTER EXPLICIT ORDERS TO SEND YOU TO BED PROMPTLY AT 8, AND TELEVISION FOR ONLY 1 HOUR."
"Mmm nn nnnm mrrrrwwwmm?" Pietro inquired.
"SPEAK CLEARLY. PEOPLE DO NOT LISTEN AND OBEY TO MUMBLING DICTATORS."
"He's asking if you're going to go on another date with Miss Daaaarrkhoooolme." Wanda said in a sing-songy voice.
"THAT IS NOT FOR YOUR KNOWLEDGE. I WILL BE LEAVING NOW. BE OBEDIENT, AND EAT THE VEGETABLES THAT THE BABYSITTER MAKES FOR DINNER. THEY'RE GOOD FOR YOUR COLON. PEOPLE DO NOT OBEY SICK, UNHEALTHY DICTATORS."
Wanda merely blew a raspberry. I was about to give her a stern telling-off when the doorbell rang. Aah, my novelty doorbell, which sings the "La Cucaracha" song. Now that was a good investment. Mm mm mm mmm, mm! Mm mm mm mmm, mm! Mm mm mm mm mm mm mmmmm, mmn..
"Dad, you were humming the song again." Wanda said very plaintively.
"I WAS? OH, DAMN IT. ER – WELL, I'M OFF." I opened the door to meet my good friend slash arch-nemesis Charles Xavier. It is a complicated relationship we have.
"AH, CHARLES. YOU ARE HERE."
"You don't have to be psychic to realize that, good friend." Charles said. I pretended not to hear that comment, for the sake of not having to go through the trouble of getting another sitter after smiting Charles. It is very good-natured of me, I think. I joined him outside of our doorstep at our New York apartment flat.
"YOU HAD NO TROUBLE GETTING HERE?"
"Not at all. Though the elevator ride was a bit rickety, I have to say."
"THAT IS UNFORTUNATE. I WILL INFORM THE OWNER OF THIS COMPLEX IMMEDIATELY."
Charles chuckled appreciatively, and turned his head a bit to see the insignificant beings that he would have to look over for the evening. He knitted his stark black eyebrows in concerns at the sight he was met with. "Err… is that healthy?" I assumed he was referring to the paste.
"I DO NOT THINK SO, BUT THEN, THEY ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS."
Charles rolled his eyes. "Again with your mutant superiority rantings -"
"NO, REALLY. THEY ARE NOT HUMANS. THEY ARE ANIMALS. SUBHUMANS, PERHAPS."
"You must be exaggerating, Erik -"
"I AM NOT. ALL I WILL LEAVE YOU WITH ARE THESE WORDS, AND PAY HEED TO THEM, CHARLES: YOU WILL WOE THE DAY YOU EVER LOST THAT GAME OF PARCHEESI TO ME. YOUR DEMAND OF ME DOING YOUR DRY CLEANING FOR A MONTH IF YOU WON PALES CONSIDERABLY TO THIS. I BID YOU FAREWELL. PERHAPS SOME DAY, WE WILL MEET AGAIN, SUCKER."
"I -" Charles began, but I quickly hopped into my portable circular-metal-ball-thingy of DOOM! and rode away into the sunset, never looking back, not even once. I'm sorry, but it was either me or you, Charles. The survival of the fittest is ever present in this world that we live in. Godspeed, my friend. Godspeed.
-----
"So, who wants to tell me what happened here?" Charles said kindly to the two tiny children before him, after closing the door behind him. Both Pietro and Wanda stared up at him with blank, glossy blue eyes. They eerily resembled a pair of china dolls – impossibly cute but scary as hell too.
"Er, right." Charles clasped his hands together nervously. "I suppose I will…just get the…erm… Wanda, will you get the scissors for me? Perhaps we'll be able to get Pietro down before he is permanently cemented to the wall."
A completely different expression took over on Wanda's face that did not fare well for Charles, as he would find out. He would soon learn to counteract Wanda's acts of malicious intent by observing her emotions, which were constantly clearly displayed upon her tiny porcelain face. It was the opposite with Pietro – he concealed them like an expert con, never allowing any more emotions to escape from underneath his innocent façade than just the ones he wanted to.
But as for the moment, Charles was befuddled by the evilly pleased look on Wanda's face as she quickly scampered away to the kitchen towards the utilities drawer until it was too late. Erik's parting words echoed in his head as he wheeled down the narrow hallway at a furious speed, not knowing the strength his arms produced. He turned a sharp corner that was impressively in control, and his wheelchair produced a shrill "squeeaaak" that you often get when abruptly turning and stopping a car.
"Wanda, I don't-" Charles began hurriedly, until two elliptical plastic shapes were produced in front of him. The safety scissors, which Wanda was now politely holding up to him below his nose. She had even handed them to him sharp side pointing away from him, like your 2nd grade teacher always advised all of us to do.
"Here you go, Mr. Xavier sir!" Wanda chirped peppily. "Let's go help my brother Pietro!"
"Err…yes…right." He turned around again and wheeled his way back to where Pietro was chewing on a silver strand of his own hair.
"Now, Pietro, that isn't good for your hair." Charles gently admonished. He continued until he was parked right next to Pietro, against the wall. Wanda watched innocently with large, curious eyes as the aged psychic began snipping very carefully at the ends of her brother's prized silky hair. He furrowed his dark eyebrows, bewildered by the question of how exactly did these two get into this situation. More importantly, how had he landed up babysitting these two tiny beings, the apparent offspring of his arch-nemesis slash good friend. (Theirs is a complicated relationship…)
A last clot of hair was still stubbornly permeated to the wall; all that was left. Tiny bristles of silky soft hair clinging to the white paste smeared on the surface were eminent reminders of this. One final snip was all it would take. Pietro had been mellow and quiet during the whole affair – a surprising, but welcome, attitude. All that was changed the moment Charles Xavier cut off the last of the victimized hair strands.
"FREEDOM!" Pietro immediately disappeared, his legs propelling him to take a distance at an impressive speed for a child of his height and stature. Charles just barely caught a glimpse of him taking Wanda's hand; otherwise he might've considered the possibility of Wanda vanishing into thin air, or even being kidnapped. He grimaced at the imminent chase lying before him. Both of them were gawky and skinny, scanty-looking children – the type to be especially prone to all sorts of sicknesses and conditions like asthma, and to be hopelessly awful at physical education in school. Surely they wouldn't be able to last long.
"Wanda, Pietro, please come back. Your father would be displeased to hear about this." He called out, wheeling himself leisurely towards the corner, taking his sweet time. There was no need to exert his stamina now, when there was no immediate cause. Carefully, he measured out the apartment and mentally reached out towards all of the dark corners within the dwelling, a metaphorical hand groping and scraping in the dark for a sign of life. A quick flash – there! In the nursery. The professor focused in on it, eliminating other improbable locations to better look through and have a better resolution. Two tiny figures, pulsating with life and energy and whirling brain activity, hiding in the closet.
He smiled delicately, breaking off contact. It wasn't hard to figure out, and would be a waste of energy to investigate further. A simple game of hide-and-seek. Those were the days.
"Please, you two, stop fooling around. It would not be good for me to have your father return home to find his children gone." Charles said, making sure to project his voice out very loudly. He traveled through the apartment slowly and deliberately, trying to goad the children into believing they had him stumped.
The nursery was just ahead. He jerkily moved up and pushed the door open. The rusty hinges creaked loudly behind him. He took this chance to survey the room thoroughly; not in jest or for playing along, but for real interest. It was an amusing sight. Half of the wall was painted a bright pink while the other half was coated with sky blue. The funniest thing, though, was the odd-colored handprints hastily imprinted in their wrong color groups. Tiny blue handprints the size of an ordinary 6-year old decorated the feminine pink of the room, while in reverse, pink handprints were smeared all along the walls of the blue side of the area. It seemed that at some point, a patron, frustrated by the events that had occurred during this impulsive interior-decorating, had drawn a straight black line with a black marker in stubby width, straight across the center of the room, dividing the space in two equal parts.
"Goodness, I wonder where those two ran off to." Charles pondered loudly to "himself" inside the nursery. He paused for dramatic effect, and smiled to himself when he heard giggling. "Maybe if I take some toys out of the closet, I'll be able to lure them out!" Even as he spoke, Charles pushed his wheels forward, closing the distance between himself and the closet. He slowly moved his hand forward to pull the sliding door back. Just a second before he jerked it open, he exclaimed, "AHAH!"
Just a second after pulling it open – his mouth still open from the cry, Wanda and Pietro acted quickly, their reflexes as their guide. They answered back with war cries of their own. And a soccer net, freshly stolen from the community center downstairs in the recreation area just last Tuesday. The net soared up and collapsed on top of the befuddled babysitter.
"Score!" Pietro cheered. Immediately upon saying that, he squeaked, having been given a sharp pinch and look by his twin sister Wanda.
"It's GOAL, silly." Wanda said.
-----
"Children, please," Charles pleaded, trying hard to keep the desperation out of his voice. "It would not do to have your father come home and find us like this." Meaning, it would not do to have Eric laughing at me. I hate his laugh. It's all evil and like.
"Chidwen, pwease!" Wanda mimicked in a silly, dopey voice. "It would not do to have your father come and BLAH BLAH BLAH!" Wanda finished by blowing a thick raspberry at the man's face, her cheeks bloated up from the pressure. "Shut yer trap, old man!" Charles sighed at the response, and once more tried at his futile efforts of wiggling free from his cage – a soccer net wrapped uncomfortably around the length of his body, held together by an abundant use of duck tape. Wanda laughed evilly at the sight of him.
Pietro walked closer to Charles, sucking his thumb and dragging his worn-out teddy bear behind him by two fingers. A look of innocence was reflected on his large blue eyes. Charles almost felt his heart warm up at the sight of him – that perhaps Wanda was the bad egg; the evil twin; and Pietro was the angel of the pair that would help him escape the second Wanda looked away…
"GAH!" Charles managed to get out from his throat before Pietro's tiny, cold fingers of death and evil things seized his cheeks in one of the most painful cheek pinching holds in the history of cheek pinching holds. Almost expertly, the boy gathered the most skin he could get from each cheek in his two fists, and began playing with them – stretching them out; shaking and jiggling; twisting the skin like it was the cheek version of the titty twister…
"Had enough, worm?" Wanda cackled as Pietro grinned, flashing his sharp little pearls. Charles attempted to reply. "Mmmnnrrff!" Wanda rolled her eyes, and motioned for her brother to back off. Pietro retreated until he was at the same distance away as his sister, and matched her evil smirk while idly playing with some of the stuffing that peeked out in tiny patches from the old, beat up teddy bear in his hands. Charles realized in horror that the tiny holes where the stuffing was visible looked as if it had been done by hand...a tiny hand that had ripped out the weaker seams on the toy.
"What is the meaning of this?" Charles said in a pained voice, his cheeks still throbbing in ache. "What have I ever done to you children?"
"No, old man, that's not what I wanted to hear." Wanda said venomously. Pietro finished for her. "The real question is, what have you ever done for us? And that would be NOTHING!"
"Preposterous!" Charles exclaimed. "Remember your 5th birthday? I was't able to make it, but I sent over that Lion King puzzle!"
Wanda and Pietro gasped simultaneously. "That was you?" Wanda said, aghast.
Tearfully, Pietro barked out, "It was MISSING A PIECE!"
This was uncertain territory for Charles. "Er…it was? Um…sorry, then."
"SORRY DOESN'T TAKE AWAY THOSE HOURS SPENT TRYING TO FIND THAT PIECE!" Wanda roared. "Days…wasted away… both of us wondering in vain desperation what the missing piece held…whether the face was Simba or Mufasa…"
"Timone and Pumba looked so sad – they never knew either!" Pietro wailed.
"Well, in any case. Now that you've told us this, we can determine what punishment you truly deserve! Your fate is in our hands, old man." Wanda revealed from what seemed out of nowhere numerous utensils that were dangerous in the hands of a 7-year old, and especially one like Wanda. Scissors – real scissors, not dinky safety ones, forks, butter knifes, lighters – was that a lighter???
"How…" Charles gaped, unable to comprehend how she had gathered that much and stuffed it wherever she stuffed it in that short time.
"We're Maximoffs, Mr. Xavier." Wanda said sweetly. "My daddy's the Master of Manliness."
"Magnetism, Wanda." Pietro corrected. "Whatever that is."
"Right." A troubled look suddenly entered Wanda's eyes. "'Tro…"
"Yeah, Wandy?" Pietro asked.
"He…doesn't have any hair." The twins looked at Xavier's head, then down at the lighter in Wanda's hands, then up, then down again.
"Aw man!" Pietro groaned.
-----
"I AM HOME. WANDA, PIETRO. WHERE ARE YOU? CHARLES! I DEMAND SOMEONE ANSWER."
Squeals. "Daddy!" Pietro and Wanda raced down the hallway. They jumped and latched onto respective legs – Wanda on the right, Pietro on the left.
"Hi Daddy!" Wanda and Pietro chorused. "How did your date go?"
"I TOLD YOU, IT WAS NOT A DATE. WHERE IS THE SITTER?"
"Oh." Wanda and Pietro smiled cheerily. "Mr. Xavier! Daddy would like to see you!"
I was startled when I saw Charles come around from the corner, fully seeing his deadpan face. He did not look amused by the least. But at the same time…I wasn't quite surprised. Sure, it was a new tactic, but then, I should've known. They had already done the hair trick to the last sitter. And God knows my offspring hate doing the same trick twice. A creative bunch, they were.
Charles wheeled slowly towards me, and met my eyes in a lockdown stare. I stared with as much impassiveness as I could muster.
"SO," I tried to keep my voice level. "HOW WAS IT?"
"Fine." Charles said dryly. "I suppose we're on for the Twister match in two weeks?"
"I SUPPOSE."
"Then I'll see you then." Charles rolled past me. I cleared my throat – oh dear, it sounded like I had the beginnings of laryngitis. Better check with the doctor about that.
"Don't you want a tip? Some kind of reward?" I inquired, this time keeping my voice down.
"Believe you me," Charles said with a hint of sarcasm, "Those two little lights of joy and life are reward enough. I'll be seeing you." He closed the door behind him very firmly. I looked down at the two, big blue-eyed demon children before me.
"What, Daddy?" Wanda asked naively.
"DON'T YOU 'WHAT, DADDY?' ME. BURNING OFF HIS EYEBROWS? HONESTLY. I THOUGHT MAGDA RAISED YOU TWO TO BE MORE CIVIL THAN THAT."
Pietro shrugged nonchalantly. "We were gonna do his legs, but it looks like he already shaves them himself."
FIN.
-----
A/N: I am so weird. Not that that's anything new, of course.