Thanks to the lovely AryYuna for being my beta reader ^^
Enjoy :)
They lay on the ground.
Those little bodies, naked and defenseless.
Children.
Erik took his cloak off, wrapped them both in it and picked them up.
They were so small, so light, almost weightless in his arms.
How many years since he'd felt that, that kind of sorcery of having in his arms something so small and fragile that was at the same time a whole, real human being—exactly as he was.
This one was indeed a sorcery.
Something had gone really wrong with what Wanda intended to do, but at least she didn't appear to be injured. She was just passed out, exactly like Pietro before her. And then—
His children.
Erik shook his head. They were not. That was only a spell.
A mistake.
He tried not to look too much at the children in his arms while taking them somewhere safe. One of them moved and let out a moan. Erik couldn't tell which one, and he honestly didn't want to know.
He didn't want to look at them at all. To a certain extent, they weren't even real.
§ § §
It wouldn't last long, Erik told himself, sitting on a chair next to the bed where he'd put the children.
The last time he'd sat there, the last time Wanda had slept into that bed…
He tried to push the memory back—the book in his hands and his voice reading aloud; the tears that filled his daughter's eyes even in her sleep; the bitterness of being aware that not even Magneto, with all his power, could do something to save her; not from herself—but those images revealed to be stronger than his will, and succeeded in haunting him once again; just like Anya's ghost, in the deepest hour of the night, still used to.
But that was only a spell and it wouldn't last long. Strange was already on his way there, and they'd probably just remain unconscious the whole time.
Erik narrowed his eyes against the glare of the noon sunlight.
There was no point in looking at them. It was foolish and nonsense, it was—
"Cine esti?"
Oh, dear Lord.
Slowly, Erik turned his head to the shy voice coming from the bed. It might have been a spell, but the children were there for real, and now they were even awake, staring at him: his daughter's gaze was open and curious, her brother glared with a furrowed brow. They were scared, and they clung to each other as if that useless and naïve gesture could keep them safe in case he would be a threat.
Erik sighed and prayed that the children spoke German as well—at least a little bit.
"Do you understand me?"
The little girl nodded proudly, even smiling for a moment, but then she must've remembered that she didn't trust him, and put the suspicious look back onto her face. Her brother just continued to sit still, gaze fixed onto him, his lips sealed in a thin line.
Erik knew he was making a mistake—a big one. He shouldn't look at them. He shouldn't look at him.
Pietro.
Erik had hurt him. Erik had hurt him so many times.
"Where are we?" she asked, providentially dragging him away from his thoughts. "And where have Mommy and Daddy gone? And who are you?"
Her eyes became shiny, her voice began to tremble.
No, Erik thought. Don't.
He knew that if she'd start crying the other would inevitably follow, and he just couldn't deal with something like that. He didn't know how to deal with them at all. But —for some miraculous reason—her expression changed at once: she turned to her brother and then to him again; she was puzzled, as if something more important had suddenly come up to her mind.
"Why are we undressed?"
Erik's lips twitched and he scarcely managed to hide a smirk. Then he stood and came closer, realizing too late that he shouldn't have done it: the twins flinched back like two scared kittens, wrapping themselves more tightly in the blanket—their eyes so big, terrified.
In the window glass behind the children Erik saw his reflection: the helmet, he thought. He was still wearing it.
Of course they're afraid of me.
"Don't be scared," he said quietly, taking it off. "See, there's nothing to be afraid of."
The children shared a knowing look and allowed themselves to relax a bit. Pietro made a grimace, almost disappointed that under that helmet hadn't appeared a monster with red eyes and maybe even a couple of demon's horns, but just a man—and an old one.
Of course his son didn't know yet how ordinary a monster could actually look like.
Wanda puffed.
"And so, where have our clothes gone?"
§§§
Wanda was hugging her knees, giggling at her brother who seemed hugely disappointed in wearing what must've felt like a dress. Actually they were both wearing t-shirts that were clearly too big for them, the best that Erik had found with such a short babysitting notice.
A second chance, that's what Charles had told him, playing chess in an autumn afternoon. After the horrors of the war, after Anya, after all the rage and pain and everything he'd lost, he was getting something back. The twins could be a second chance for Erik to have a life, to have a family, to be a father again—to be happy.
A gift.
He'd laughed at that, thinking Charles was just an old fool. How could that have possibly been a gift? Actually, Erik had always thought it was only God's twisted way to mock him—giving him those kids when being a father wasn't an option anymore.
Looking at them he'd never been able to see something more than a couple of young mutants: a witch, a speedster. Soldiers.
Erik craved only the war.
"This is like a castle, isn't it?" Wanda had gotten off the bed and started looking around, sighing amazedly every time she discovered a new window or an object she'd never seen before. Pietro hadn't come after her in her explorations yet. He was still on the bed, still frowning and wary, his eyes fixed on his sister, attentively following her everywhere.
Erik was pretty sure they didn't completely believe the story he'd made up to explain why they were there in the first place, but the detail that their parents were on their way to pick them up had had the positive result to calm them down. Plus, Wanda seemed just too curious, as if she simply didn't have time to worry about something boring like being suspicious.
Sometimes, only for a fraction of a second, Pietro's gaze fell on him. Of course he immediately pretended that that never happened, as if he just didn't care about Erik's presence at all.
"Why are you dressed like that?"
"Sorry?" Erik turned to the little girl that was suddenly in front of him.
"Are you a fireman?"
He sighed.
"More or less."
She titled her head, maybe considering if that could have been the truth or not, and then she walked away again.
"How old are you now, exactly?"
Wanda lifted her heels and stood on her tiptoes, her hands and nose pressed on one of the big windows. The desolate landscape she was looking at was once supposed to be a paradise, a promised land.
Instead, it had turned into a grave for millions of mutants, brothers and sisters.
"Five" she answered. "But since we're two, it's ten, right?" she turned to him, gazing. "It's a joke!" She laughed. "I know we're not ten! But I know how to count 'til one-thousand."
Erik stifled a laugh. "Well, my dear, that's very clever of you."
She giggled and ran to another window. Amazed, she turned to her brother.
"Pietro!" she whispered, waving a hand. "Come here!"
Arms crossed and annoyed, Pietro jumped off the bed and reached her.
A second chance.
Erik gazed at them. Their tiny bodies didn't pass in height the first glass wall. They were so small that the both of them could comfortably gaze from the same square of glass.
He never thought about them that way, about them being so young, just like Anya had been.
They whispered secret things into each others' ears, already building that private, locked little world that would be their safety shelter—or their doom.
Or maybe they never built anything. That was just the way they were: they were born together, and they might know no other way.
Pietro was right, her daughter had whispered, cradling her brother's body in her arms. You ruined us before we even had a chance.
Erik swallowed bitterly, incapable of looking away from that white-silvery hair. Despite the furious rage that had blinded him, he remembered each and every moment of that madness: he could still see the blood covering Pietro's hair, the dark red puddle where his body had lain motionless, surrounded by ruins and dust.
Slain.
His son.
You were going to let them kill her! Pietro had shouted, facing his father's fury with nothing but those few words, as if that could have justified what he'd done.
Maybe it did.
But Erik hadn't minded that Pietro was telling the truth. He hadn't minded the desperation in his son's voice when Pietro had come to him, begging on his knees for his sister's life—for a help. He hadn't minded that it had been only his fault, for having been so blind: of course Pietro would have never remained still and do nothing, waiting for them to come and kill his twin.
"That's cool" Pietro said, turning to him. "This is the sea! The real one!"
"Do you want to go down there?"
They looked at him in bewilderment, then at each other, and then at him again. Wanda gave her brother a little encouraging stroke so that he asked, eventually: "Can we?"
Erik opened his arms.
"I don't see why not."
Wanda made a little jump of joy, and Pietro looked straight into his eyes. The child tried to hide his excitement, but his lips curved all the same in a little sly smirk.
There was no hate in his son's eyes. There was no sorrow in his daughter's heart.
There was no pain.
The only pain was the one in his soul. But he'd deserved it.
"Let's go, then."
Erik watched them run, hand in hand, heading towards the door, and wondered who was the one acting like an old fool, now.
That wouldn't change anything. That would never erase his guilt—nor his sins.
That was only a spell.
Wanda had done this—unwillingly, unconsciously. It wasn't real.
A mistake.
The children's laughter echoed in the bay. They ran on the sand chasing one another, splashing water from the foreshore.
A gift.
Erik sat on a rock.
It wouldn't last long.