THIRD TIME A CHARM
Wanda lowered herself into the bedside chair; a willing, stoic surrender. Whatever pain this exchange brought would be a welcome reprieve from the guilt that had tormented her through the long night before.
"Hello, big brother."
"Hi."
She surveyed his appearance in the infirmary bed where he half-sat, relieved that he at least seemed somewhat improved since yesterday when the doctors took him in. A miracle he had survived at all.
'Find perch within the blood of my blood - Crush their bones - Boil their blood dry in their veins - Rupture their souls - End the line - Strike my family down!'
It was her invocation to the Lords of Chaos: she will never forget, even if he forgives.
She knew better than to ask how Pietro felt, if he hungered, or any other silly thing.
"How do you feel?" she asked anyway, and then wincing, handed over the protein shake she had brought. "Sorry – loaded question. Here, I made this for you – it has bananas."
He eyed her not unsuspiciously, but accepted the peace offering and took a swallow, never blinking.
Wanda pretended very hard that things were fine, and tried for small talk, "I passed your doctor on my way in. He must be new, I have not met him before. He said you would make a full recovery – ah, but then he refused to say more, can you believe it? Said he could not disclose 'private patient information'. Huh. Clearly he must not know we are-" was she going to say 'close'? (Are they still close?) "-related," her awkward conclusion.
The silence stretched slow and glum as the sun's shadow across the floor.
"Anyway, I… well, I'm just so glad that there will be no lasting damage." She winced anew. Of course there would be lasting damage: she had tried to slay her only brother.
"Yes," he nodded once towards her, "I should be back to my old self again in no time. What's that like, by the way?"
She answered with eyes closed, recalling her madness that day - "Horrible. I would sooner that someone had managed to put me out of my misery in that wretched state, rather than live to remember trying to kill my own brother."
A noise originated deep in his throat. "How dramatic. Tell me, were you out practicing that in the hallway just now?"
"Pietro…" instinctively she reached towards him, and pulled away with effort. He did not wish to be touched, she sensed it. He still hurt, in every way possible, and he must hurt a lot, enough to lash out at her. "Forgive me, I beg you. I'm so very sorry. What more can I say? I would never intentionally hurt you, you must know that - I was not in my right mind, I was out of my mind completely, I…. my dear brother, please. Please?"
"Well." He studied some irrelevant spot on the floor. "I suppose I have no right to judge, in this regard. Seems I've spent more time being out of my own mind than anyplace else." He sighed. "Sorry. I don't mean to be curt with you. You know painkillers have little effect on- I mean, it's just that I haven't slept much."
She waved her hand, as if the motion could erase all of the depraved acts committed during all of their combined bouts of insanity through the years. "It's fine, it's fine," she said, still pretending it were true, trying to believe it, trying to think of something with no tragedies associated to talk about. Crystal? Divorced. Luna? Gone. The Knights? Dead. Pietro? Oh, the unmentionable things she knew about Pietro now.
The silence grew into an elephant in the room that they both ignored. Wanda realized her hand had found its place palm-up on the side of his bed, falling asleep now as it waited empty and unacknowledged.
"Foolish," her brother said at long last.
"What?"
"To answer your question. I feel utterly foolish."
"Oh. Why?"
"Why… are seriously asking?" He shifted to glare at a different portion of the floor on the opposite side of his bed. "Because all it would have taken is for us to double check, Wanda. One simple blood test and we could have known the truth and not lived all these years-"
"We still do not know the truth," she reminded him needlessly.
"Better to never know the truth, than falsely believe ourselves to be children of his!" He shifted again, scowling, a foul taste throughout his whole body. He had the same reaction, Wanda noted, upon first learning that Magneto was their father to begin with. Maybe her brother is destined to never be at peace inside of his own skin. Maybe that is why he tried to end it – which is maybe why she really came and could think of nothing else to say.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, before she could convince herself not to this time. "I spoke with Lorna – she wasn't gossiping, it just came up. Crystal told her about what happened, after…. M-Day."
He held unnaturally still.
"Pietro, I know we are not… our lives are very different now, so much has changed since we first got our fresh start here together, many absurd and terrible things have happened, we are not the same people as we were and we are not close as we were, and I regret that as much as you do. But I will always be your sister, I will always love you. Why did you not tell me?"
"Wanda," his arms were crossed now and his expression carefully disinterested, proof that he knew exactly what she referred to, "I have no idea what you're even going on about, but I wish you would quit. You tried to kill me while you were crazy and you're sorry, I get it, apology accepted. Enough with the theatrics."
Not derailed in the least, she picked back up from the original question, "Okay, I can spell it out. Why didn't you tell me you tried to commit suicide?"
"Simple," he clearly expected the question, "because I didn't."
"Stop it, Pietro."
"Stop what? I fell."
"Stop it – please."
"Look, Wanda, this isn't complicated. I was stinking drunk and depowered with no business being on a rooftop and like an idiot I fell. End of story."
"Crystal was there. She said you jumped."
"Crystal was not there!" Suddenly his arms splayed out to each side like some creature threatened into a corner, the sheets twisted between his clenched fists. "If Crystal had been there with me I probably would never have- never-"
"Jumped?"
"Fallen!" He caught himself. Shed the emotion immediately. Breathed. Forced his spine to bend into the pillows without actually relaxing. Noticed Wanda's open hand by his waist and patted it in a gesture meant to comfort that failed, his skin clammy against hers. She felt in their brief contact that his hand trembled, but his voice did not (he was good at that).
"No- that is, yes, Crystal was there, she arrived right at the end – thankfully, just in time. She saved my life by bringing me to the healers in Attilan. Of course I'm very grateful." He took to straightening the blankets that covered his body, somehow both casual and forced. "Now, no more talk of these things in the past, Wanda. Please. It serves no purpose. So. What else is new?"
"I wasn't there for you either. Is that it? Is that why you didn't tell me?"
Her brother made a low noise, rubbing his face with both hands. His aversion tactics never did work on her regardless, and she could tell he did not have enough stamina right now to keep at it.
Wanda went on, "I was the reason you were depowered and fugitive, the reason you had fallen to such a low place. And I wasn't there for you either."
"Ididtrytotellyou." There was no fight left in his voice, no pretense.
"What?"
"I said…" he lowered his hands to his lap, starting into the web of lines marring both palms like a scrying pool, "I did try to tell you. I searched for you for a year – years? I don't even know how long. I searched for you at every available opportunity, in every way that I could. My entire life revolved around finding you, and when I finally managed that, when I saved you from becoming Doctor Doom's amnesiac bride, you-" he shook his head, interlocked his fingers to form a miniature wall between them, saying calmly, "Never mind. You had other concerns. But I would have told you all that I had been through, if we… but you had other concerns. It's fine."
Her children. Pietro did find her in Latvia, rescued her from Victor, and in return she hugged him, left him, and departed with her children instead. Not her real children, not born of her body or raised from her experiences. Reincarnated souls of her children, connected to her now as ever thanks to magic and mystery, and themselves teenagers already, older than she and Pietro were when they lost their own family and became tiny adults by default. Alone together against the world at its worst.
"I didn't know," she said. "I had no idea. If only you had told me-" she stopped herself, starting over, "I know you would have told me, you meant to do so, I understand. I'm sorry. I thought my children needed me more. I thought they needed me at all, and I needed to feel useful. But I had no idea what you went through. You should have-" stop blaming him for things he did not do, "you could have come with us, your nephews and me. I wish that you had. I wish I had offered."
"It's fine."
"Is it?" She stretched her hand out again, opening and closing to beckon his attention (he pretended not to see). "Honestly, are you all right now?"
"Oh, I don't know, Wanda." He had reverted to looking away over crossed arms. "Why don't you ask Lorna?"
"Because Lorna wouldn't know – you don't confide in her. I doubt you confide in anyone, these days."
He shrugged. It was true.
"We may not be close as we once were, my brother, but I still know you better than anyone. So you can confide in me – you might as well actually, since I will know anyway. Shall I prove it to you?"
His eyes circled to the ceiling momentarily, unamused by her game – but he never could resist the temptation of intrigue. "By all means, take full advantage of your captive audience." Under his breath, "It's not as if I'm in any shape to run away, after all."
Wanda smiled. "Oh, on the contrary; you intend to do just that."
It got his attention.
She continued, "While I'm occupied elsewhere, probably as soon as I left here today, you meant to scour the databases and formulate your plan. You might even have gone tonight, despite your condition, if you could manage it undetected. Am I wrong?"
"Depends." He still would not look at her - she would see each and every hidden thing if he looked at her, which is cheating. "What is this grand scheme of mine, pray tell?"
"You are going to leave this place and discover who our real father is, once and for all." Whatever the cost, she left unsaid.
"Yes." Everything about him seemed to cinch tight - jaw clenched, eyes shut, every exposed muscle flexed taught. "Yes, I am." He spoke softly, stark contrast to the unspoken danger in his eyes when he met her gaze square on, "Do not try to stop me, Wanda."
"Stop you? Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to help you. Pietro…" she raised up her hand, ever waiting, "I swear it. Let me help you. We owe it to ourselves to do this together."
Eventually, finally, he took her hand. His filled hers overfull, comfortable like a too-big sweater, warm and familiar.
"Third time is the charm?"
"God willing."
~fin~
NOTES:
So, a few things.
In Son Of M, Pietro was in a deep depression after losing his powers on M-day and threw himself off of a roof after an altercation with Spider-man. He had tried calling Crystal before, who showed up after the incident and spirited him away to Attilan for healing. I can't concisely explain how terrible Son Of M proceeds to be, but, I was and will eternally remain extremely bothered that Pietro's attempted suicide was completely ignored for the rest of forever. (By the way, canonically it isn't said whether Crystal shared this information with anyone outside Attilan or not. All we know is that she wasn't concerned enough to actually bring it up with her husband at the time or anything, so.)
In Uncanny Avengers, Wanda says her brother is coming undone at the latest revelation that Magneto is not their father after all. She also says she made him a promise to find out the truth. I kinda wondered how all of that and their little solo adventure to Counter-Earth came about...
Oh, and the Knights of Wundagore, who basically served as Pietro's surrogate family after the heroes (including Wanda and Crystal) 'died' battling Onslaught, were killed rather off-handedly in Mighty Avengers when Chthon possessed Quicksilver briefly. Again, this was never mentioned again, although we should reasonably assume it would have, you know, kind of bothered SIR PIETRO somewhat (yup, he was actually Knighted). I guess for me, I feel like if I have to suffer through a Quicksilver solo title being stuffed full of goofy animal-men that I don't give much of a damn about, at least take a minute to show me that HE cared at all. Otherwise... can we just have a GOOD Quicksilver story, ever, please?
I enjoyed the Children's Crusade, actually (love love love the art). But I did a double, triple, quadruple check when Wanda totally blew off her brother to "be there for her children". I mean, I get it: these young, modern, cool new versions of Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were created, and we'll all pretend Wanda had something to do with reincarnating their souls (even though they're too old to be the reincarnated souls of the children she actually gave birth to) so that she can be their "mother", and blah blah, because comics. Fine. It just strikes me as oddly cold of her - and I say this is as a Wanda fan. I'm all for Wanda blazing her own trail (and certainly following her own heart), but it's heartbreaking to know her brother has had two full-on nervous breakdowns since M-Day, which was the last time she saw him, and instead of cashing in on their decades-long history with each other, her reaction here seemed contrived to deliver street cred for the knock-off twins. Whatever. I don't wike it. (Meanwhile, poor Pietro cannot ever get a break. Not one.)
Lastly, just pointing out because I notice that in recent storylines, it seems the original retcon of Pietro and Wanda's parentage (which made them the children of the Whizzer and Miss America) is pretty much not being mentioned at all anymore in the books. So rolling with the dice that is the moving target of comic canon, that would make this most recent retcon the third time the twins are finding out who their real daddy is (not the fourth). Hence the title of this story, ha.