Little Lion Man's Daughter:
Wanda's Story
When Wanda was born, she was a month early and three minutes ahead of her brother. Her mother had not expected twins, had only learned there were two children in her womb late into the pregnancy. Later in life, she had found the correspondence between her parents during her mother's second pregnancy.
Charlotte Xavier had asked him—her lover, her friendly enemy, Wanda's father—about names. "Don't name him or her after the dead," he had written. She had asked him about German names, about his middle name and past aliases. He had mentioned using Magnus Maximoff as an alias before and they had agreed it was safer not to put him down as their child's father. He had mentioned liking her name, Wanda.
When she was born, she was not even six pounds and tiny. Pietro was slightly bigger, no smaller than one might expect for a one-month-premature infant. They were both born before their lungs finished developing and so both were put on ventilators.
Her mother was afraid, so worried after the loss of her first child, but it would be years before she fully understood the twins' strength.
When Wanda was four, she asked her mother, "Mum, why can't you walk?"
Charlotte Xavier had never explained to her children why she never stood, why she never walked and played with them, why she was forever trapped to a chair. She had never explained that should couldn't walk, either.
Wanda had realized that by herself.
The professor pulled her daughter into her lap with sadness in her eyes. "Oh, Wanda," she sighed, pressing a kiss to the redheaded girl's forehead. "It was a very long time ago, before you were born. There was an…accident. I got hurt badly. My spine was injured," she tapped a spot on her daughter's back. "And because of that, I can't walk anymore."
"An accident?" Wanda repeated. "What happened?"
The telepath sighed. "A friend…He didn't intent to, but he hurt me."
Wanda's curiosity was undiminished. "Who? Where is he now?"
"You don't know him," Charlotte replied softly. "He…left. When he realized he hurt me, he ran. But he always regretted it." A tear slipped down her cheek.
Her daughter wrapped her little arms around the professor's neck. "I'm sorry, Mum," she whispered. "I didn't mean to make you sad."
"I'll tell you everything one day, sweetie," her mum said gently. "For now, why don't you go find your brother and Auntie Irene?"
When Wanda was six, she first learned about her father.
It was quite by accident, really. It was.
After learning about her mother's paraplegia (she'd looked it up after her mother had told her the basics), she was wary to ask too much about her mother's past. She could see the shadows in it, could sense the skeletons in her closet, could hear the whispered conversations that fell silent when she or her brother came into a room. Her mum and the older ones—Hank, Alex, and Sean—had secrets; they weren't exactly subtle about it.
She and Pietro had long wondered about their absent father. Charlotte Xavier had never hinted at past marriage, at any former paramours or relationships, had never worn a wedding ring, and had never expressed interest in pursuing any type of romantic relationship. They never asked. Wanda had told her twin about the conversation with their mother; they had reluctantly agreed not to press her for information. Charlotte Xavier always had a reason for anything she did. Always.
It happened one day at dinner.
Dinners in the Xavier mansion were big affairs with every teacher and student gathering in the dining room together. The professor sat at the head of the table—the proud matriarch in this strange, motley family.
"Professor, did you notice they're tearing down that old satellite dish?" Scott asked excitedly.
His brother laughed a bit. "That old eyesore—after all this time?"
"How long has it been there?" Pietro asked curiously.
Charlotte looked to her children with a mirthful smile as she laughed. "Oh, that antique has been there for longer than I care to remember! It hasn't even worked properly since your father—"
She went white in a second and closed her mouth with a soft click of her teeth that echoed in the sudden silence of the dining room. The students looked curious and confused, for the professor had never mentioned who the father of the twins were nor gave away any inclination to discuss it. In fact, she had never before mentioned him at all. The older three boys stared in old anger and tense energy. Beside Wanda, Irene was very still—not surprised, but not wanting to interfere.
"I…excuse me," her mum said softly and practically fled the room.
Pietro and Wanda met each other's eyes and nodded. "Excuse us!" Pietro said quickly and they hurried out after the telepath.
Their mother was in the hall, sallow-faced and shaky. She looked to them as they entered and motioned for them to come over.
"Your father…" she paused, searching their faces for a long moment. "He was a very good friend of mine for quite some time before you were born. He was a mutant too. When we first began to gather mutants, he was the first to find us—quite by accident. I grew to love him very quickly but…trouble happened very quickly. We disagreed on many things. He thought—he thinks—mutants are better than humans. Eventually, we could not work together because of that disagreement. He left, but we were still close. We remained in touch for quite some time."
Wanda tried to wrap her mind around this new information. Her brother asked quietly, "Why isn't he here with us?"
Her eyebrows contracted together in wistfulness as she brushed her hands through their hair. "Oh, my loves. Never think he doesn't care. He does. He simply…he is trying to do what he believes is right. He's trying to pave the road toward a better future for mutants, for you."
The little redhead wasn't sure about it, but she asked no more.
When Wanda was eight, her brother's mutation manifested.
He discovered it quite accidentally, one day. The students were playing basketball outside. Pietro had joined in; Wanda had contented herself with reading a book on genetics that she had filched from her mother's study (never let it be said she had not inherited any of her mother's curiosity).
Wanda glanced up as she turned a page—just in time to see Ororo throw the basketball to Scott—and her brother, halfway across the court, move in a blur to intercept the ball.
As the students on the court skidded to a halt in surprise, the auburn-haired girl called out, Mum! Pietro's discovered his mutation!
She felt her mother breeze through the memory before she replied, I'll be there in a moment with Hank and Alex.
The next day, as she watched Hank and Pietro race around the mansion (Pietro literally did laps around the former-fastest mutant there), Wanda wondered when her mutation would present itself. She ignored the twinge of jealousy as she watched her twin hang out with the older students, talking excitedly amongst each other.
She wondered to herself what her mutation would be.
When Wanda was nine, she still did not know what her mutation was. All she knew was that she would have to wait a while longer.
The adults wondered about her. She could see the thoughts when they looked at her, wondering if she would be a mutant at all.
She wondered the same thing.
When Wanda was ten, she and Pietro met their father.
Their mother had taken them out to the town one afternoon (well, Alex had driven them) to spend some time together as a family outside of the school. The Xavier family was finishing dinner at a small restaurant when the professor stilled, eyes distant.
Wanda met her brother's eyes, both knowing their mother was speaking with someone telepathically.
After a moment, Charlotte Xavier glanced to her children and spoke softly, "Pietro, Wanda, there's someone you need to meet." She signaled the waitress for the check and they left the restaurant. The twins trailed along beside her down the road two blocks before they went into a modest hotel.
The telepath wheeled her chair to a stop before a door to one room. They didn't need to knock before the door opened.
A middle-aged man with silvering brown hair motioned for them to come in. The door shut, seemingly of its own volition, behind them.
He regarded the professor with a long, fond look that gave Wanda the impression he had not seen her in a long time. "Charlotte," he said softly.
Her mum reached up and pulled him into a tight embrace. The man responded gently, as if she was made of glass instead of flesh and blood, as if he was afraid of injuring her.
"It's been far too long, my love," she told him. "Nearly eleven years now."
The explanation was painfully obvious to her as she did the math and compared his face to her brother's. "Dad?"
Slowly, her mum and the man separated, their eyes on her.
"Erik, this is Wanda and Pietro," Charlotte Xavier said quietly. "Children, this is your father."
He knelt on one knee before them, studying them with piercing grey-green eyes. As she met his gaze, she wondered what he saw when he looked at them.
The man himself was not quite as she had hypothesized, but not too far off the mark. He had dark auburn hair—more of a chestnut than actual auburn like Wanda, but close enough—that was turning grey at his temples and silver threaded through his hair. His face was angular, his frame lean and tall. His dark turtleneck and slacks gave away nothing.
So this was where Wanda got her auburn hair (though she was unsure about the origins of the gene for her brother's white-blond hair, which only seemed to grow whiter as he got older). She could see him in her brother's face, in her own lean frame—though she had gotten her mother's shorter height, so it seemed at the moment.
Their father gave a small smile as he looked between them. "You have your mother's eyes, both of you," he noticed. Behind him, the professor smiled as she watched them.
Pietro looked at their father warily—curious, but not trusting the man. (Wanda didn't blame him.) "You're a mutant too," he said neutrally. His sister could recognize the look of restrained curiosity on his face.
The man—Erik, her mum had named him as—smiled with all his teeth. (The effect was rather…shark-like.) He reached into his pocket and held out a couple bolts and screws in his palm before they rose into their air and melted into their liquid state. Wanda studied the metal as it twisted in the air, shining, before reshaping.
"Metal and magnetic fields," he told them. "My mutation allows me to manipulate them."
Beside her, Pietro's mouth twitched slightly—he was holding back a grin. "I'm fast," he told their father. "Really fast. Hank clocked me at one-fifty yesterday."
"Impressive," their father said proudly. "And what about you, Wanda? What is your mutation?"
"Erik—"
"She doesn't have one."
Her face flushed, but she ignored her father's look of surprise as he leaned back on his heel. "I don't know yet."
"Ah," he said calmly, though there was something akin to disappointment in his eyes.
Words from her mother—from years ago—came to the forefront of her mind. "He thought—he thinks—mutants are better than humans."
And he thought Wanda was human.
Staring at her father, she willed away the tears that burned in her eyes.
When Wanda was thirteen, she took a blood sample from herself and looked for the X-gene in her DNA.
She was in Hank's lab, alone, as she worked. The other students were out playing ultimate frisbee (with their powers) on the lawn. Wanda hadn't felt like being singled out as the only one without a power and so went to work on her secret project.
Despite this, her brother had tried to convince her to join in, or at least watch. "Come on, Wanda. You're our good luck charm!" he had said, but she had shaken her head and promised to participate next time. (She had turned down Jean's offer to work on the project for Hank's physics class.)
And so Wanda found herself alone in the lab and she extracted her DNA from the blood sample and set to work with the tests.
Though there was no telling when it would finally manifest, the gene was present.
It felt like a victory.
When Wanda was fifteen, she learned who her father actually was.
Neither her mother nor father had told her or Pietro. Wanda discovered it by herself.
Since the initial first meeting between the twins and their father, they had met three times since in the past five years. In the last meeting, he had rolled up the sleeve of his shirt slightly and Wanda had caught a glimpse of numbers tattooed into his skin. 214782. No one needed to explain to her what they meant.
But she had memorized them and, once back at the school, had delved into researching the concentration camp manifests and records. The camps had been destroyed fifty years ago and many records (the ones not destroyed) were public, in museums and archives now. It only took her a couple phone calls.
Erik Lehnsherr.
The name was familiar but Wanda didn't even have to go searching through old newspapers for the name before she heard it on the news.
And then she realized why her mother was so secretive about it all.
It was a Saturday and they had no classes, but the headmistress was ensconced in her office as usual. Wanda shut the door behind her before she stared at her mother.
"Magneto?"
Her mother wilted slightly. "You did your research well," she commented, laying aside the paperwork. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything."
When Wanda was sixteen, she found the letters.
It was an accident, really, it was.
Her mother was in DC to speak at a Senate hearing (or something like that) and Wanda had picked the lock to her office. She was looking for another of the professor's books (this particular volume had disappeared from her private study) when she found the bottom desk drawer on the left hand side was filled with letters—from her father to Mum.
Carefully, she gathered them and set about putting an order to them.
And then, the auburn-haired teenager took them to her room and began reading.
She was surprised at what she found.
In my life, Charlotte, I have never been close to anyone after my mother's death. That was by choice; if nothing else, Shaw taught me that being close to someone was a vulnerability. It was safer to keep my distance. I never had friends, lovers—never anything more than enemies or acquaintances.
Until a petite genetics professor in tweed dived off a Coast Guard ship into the ocean to stop me from drowning myself in a futile attempt to catch Shaw.
Standing on the deck after they fished us out of the water, I couldn't quite believe you were real, were sincere. You, standing there shivering in your soaked tweed suit, grinning and beaming to everyone—because of me. Because, by some chance, you stumbled upon me. You weren't even fazed that Shaw had escaped; you were too happy to find me. You grinned like I was a treasure you had saved, a vein of gold found in the earth, a personal miracle just for you. I've never forgotten that expression.
And I…I couldn't believe that someone would do that for me, would care about me dying, would risk trying to save me like that. No one had ever attempted something like that before. You seemed too good to be true, too impossible to actually be sincere.
You could have stopped me leaving the CIA facility…but you didn't. You could, you even wanted to, but you didn't. That alone was enough to make me stay. "Shaw's got friends. You could deal with some," you told me. There you were again, trusting me so flippantly—offering a hand of friendship to a killer you'd known for all of a day.
"You're not alone," you told me. For the first time since my mother's death, I allowed myself to believe it.
I hope you are well.
Erik.
Liebling,
You have no idea how much it pains me to know of your grief but be unable to comfort you, to hold you, to be with you now. I wish I could, but I know it is better—for both of us—that I do not return to Westchester.
I'm sorry. I am so sorry. You will doubtlessly tell me it is not my fault, but I feel no less horrible and guilty for your loss.
I can't…I can't promise I would have stayed, had I known in Cuba. I can't be certain, but I think…I think I would have. For you, for our child. I wish we had known then.
Anya would have been beautiful and brilliant like you, I'm sure. I'm sorry.
Yours,
Erik
Mum found her in her room once she had returned from DC. Her eyes went from the letters spread across the bed to her daughter, sitting against the headboard, her knees pulled to her chest. "Oh, Wanda," she sighed softly and wheeled to the side of the bed.
"You didn't explain everything, Mum," her daughter said, eyes damp. "What happened in Cuba? And…why did you never tell us about Anya?"
When Wanda was seventeen, she finally found out the whole truth from her mother of their pasts.
It didn't take much prodding, really. The only impediment, really, was Wanda's hesitation. The subject was a painful one for Charlotte Xavier; that much was obvious. Eventually, she plucked up the courage and asked. Her mother locked her office door to prevent interruptions, pulled out a collection of letters and a bullet, and explained to her two children her past, their father's past, and the history of their school.
Wanda didn't really know how to feel about her mother or her father after hearing everything.
When Wanda was nineteen, she wrote a letter to her father.
She was an adult and wanted to get to know this mysterious man that she never really got to know before. Her brother followed her example.
And so there would often be three letters waiting for the teleporter to take, unseen, and give to Magneto.
Wanda asked him about his powers and how he had strengthened them to such a degree. She mentioned that she was enrolled in online classes with Columbia University and working toward a Bachelor's degree in British Literature. That she was teaching a few lit classes now because the previous teacher quit.
In return, she began to learn about her father—his thoughts and ideas, his history and life, his preferences and opinions. At his recommendation, she read The Once and Future King; she loved it.
It took her quite a while to begin asking him about his philosophies and opinions about politics and mutants. She didn't argue with him, only as his opinions; he didn't force the issue. Even longer, still, did it take her to ask him about when he had met her mother and their past. She'd heard her mother's side of it. She wanted more.
Your mother was the first of many things for me, he told her. After my time in Auschwitz, I began searching for my captors and Sebastian Shaw, then Klaus Schmit to me. I was a renegade Nazi hunter for many years until, one day, when I tried attacking Shaw, I met her.
She read my mind and my life story. She knew everything—all that I had done, all I had seen, all I had killed—but did not care. She was my first friend, the first person to give me a chance knowing my past, the first person I let in. She was the first—and only—woman I loved. She was my foremost and deepest source of regret.
Despite knowing who he was, what he was…Wanda found herself growing more fond of her father than she had previously expected.
When Wanda was twenty, she discovered her mutation.
As they realized, Pietro's nickname for her, his 'good luck charm', was more accurate than anyone thought.
She wondered, idly, what her father would think.
When Wanda was twenty-two, she fell in love for the first time.
He was a guy from town, going to a local college, and he was completely ordinary. She met him by accident one day but had enjoyed his company. Wanda had not had a friend outside of the school before.
A few months into their friendship, he'd asked her on a date and she'd accepted nervously. It went well and they began dating.
Despite herself, she fell in love.
She didn't want to, not really. She'd seen the aftereffects of love and loyalty and clashing beliefs intertwined into a painful strand that tied her parents together. She'd spent her entire life watching the daily pain and heartache her mother endured because she loved and would not let go of that love. She didn't want to end up in a relationship like that.
Perhaps he sensed her hesitation for full commitment. Perhaps he simply didn't return her affection as much anymore. Either way, he ended it after several months together.
In her room alone, Wanda cried for a while before she reminded herself that this pain, this loneliness and rejection that she felt, was nothing.
She moved on.
When Wanda was twenty-five, she fought her father for the first time.
There was a widely-discussed Senate meeting and heretical politicians and so-called experts and frightened witnesses and one calm professor. Wanda herself had come with her mother and Scott.
And that was the scene before the Brotherhood attempted to attack.
Waiting for others to arrive from the school, it was only the two of them against the team of the Brotherhood.
After knocking two of his men aside, unconscious, with a blast of energy (no matter what Pietro said, it wasn't magic), she found herself facing her father, who regarded her with warning eyes. "You don't belong here, Wanda," he told her.
The lines in her face around her frown deepened. "Neither do you."
They fought. Father and daughter, so estranged and different, fought with the same stubborn nature burning in their veins and shared blood. He had years of experience on his side, but luck was quite literally with Wanda.
A stalemate came when they heard the familiar sound of the X-Men's jet approaching: back up.
Magneto frowned, knowing when to retreat, but he cast his gaze to his resolute daughter. "Why do you side with them?" he asked. "The humans. They'd have you, your brother, your mother—all of your family, all of us—killed if they had the choice."
"Because it's right," she told him. "Defending them like this—it helps. It makes them think better of mutants. You and your Brotherhood…All you ever do is give them more reason to hate us!" she screamed.
Sighing, Erik turned away. "One day," he said over his shoulder to her, "You'll realize how naïve that is."
The redhead watched the Brotherhood retreat and disappear. "No," she murmured to herself and turned to find her mother. "One day you'll realize how foolishly you've made your priorities."
It is the first time she fights her father, but far from the last.
When Wanda was twenty-eight, the correspondence between the family ended abruptly.
Azazel—one of her father's most trusted lieutenants and the secret-keeping messenger between them—was killed in a skirmish by a stray bullet.
They had no safe alternative means of communication and so they went on without it.
For ten years, the only communication from the twins and their mother to Erik was that on battlefields.
The thing that absolutely tortured Wanda about the years of separation between her parents was that it was a period of disappointment, even during their correspondence. They were forced to work against each other—constantly disappointed in the other, waiting for them to come and join them. We could have been so great together, her father had once written in a letter. In another life, they might have been. They could have sided together and prevented the war entirely…or won it in a day.
Instead, they had to live for years, for decades, waiting for the other, hoping. Her mother had constantly waited patiently in hopes that he would see that acts of violence and terrorism weren't the answer. Her father waited for her to understand that it would take more than pacifism and negotiations to get mutant equality. And so they were only disappointed—in each other, in the world, in themselves.
Most people would only ever see the political divide between them, the differences in their beliefs, the differentiations between their groups and leadership. No one would ever see the emotional ties and fissure: how much they loved each other, how much this political divide disappointed them, how much that separation hurt them every day.
And it only worsened after their letters end.
It troubled her mother more than the twins. As the months past and the violence between humans and mutants continued, she watched as the Professor grew thinner and paler, withdrawing in depression, eating and sleeping less.
Wanda had never truly believed that heartbreak could kill a person. But watching her mother begin to waste away in that time without word to their father…she began to fear it could.
When Wanda was thirty-one, her father was imprisoned.
Erik Lehnsherr was sealed in a neat and tidy plastic prison deep underground and that news troubled her more than she'd admit. Upon receiving the news, Pietro had shaken his head and muttered, "Good."
Their mother, on the other hand, began to visit him weekly and, despite his imprisonment, Wanda was relieved to know that the Professor was slowly regaining her health and her depression was receding, though she'd deny ever being depressed.
Despite that her mother had invited her to accompany her many times, Wanda never accepted. She didn't know what she'd say or do when she was faced with her father again.
Apologize, she came to doubt. Ask him to stop hurting Charlotte, as he had been unintentionally doing for years more than Wanda had been alive. Hug him, maybe. Strangle him, perhaps.
She didn't trust herself or him. After all that had occurred between them, she didn't know if the familial bond between them could be repaired but she knew that she didn't want to hurt herself in the attempt.
Wanda wasn't yet a year older when her mother is taken by William Stryker.
It's the most terrifying experience in her life.
They found her father shortly after—or rather, he found them. In the ensuing conversation there in the woods, all the secrets came out.
Logan stared at she and Pietro like they were aliens as she explained, "The Professor is our mother, Logan." She hesitated, glancing to her twin. Their companions and allies deserved to know the truth, but she was unsure if Magneto would want to claim them as his own in front of his lieutenant and usual-enemies.
"They're mine," he cut in abruptly, taking the decision from her. "They're my children, Logan. Do I need to put that in simpler terms for you?"
Again, the metal-infused mutant regarded the twins in astonishment, but Wanda met his eyes without a shred of shame.
It warmed her heart to see that her father's face was shameless as well, merely impatient. A shadow lurked in his gaze, however—a crease in his brow, the stiffness of his bearing. It made her wonder just how much worry he was concealing.
Later that night, it bothered her to eavesdrop, but her brother grasped her arm, preventing her from leaving. She glared at first but reluctantly settled as their father's deep tone and Emma Frost's light-as-ice voice caught her ear.
The blond woman's insinuations made her skin crawl, but his stubborn refusals comforted her doubts.
"…So, are you still in love with her?" Emma's curious tone was firm, demanding an answer.
Wanda could imagine the magnetokinetic's glare in the moment after. Finally, he sighed softly. "Yes, I am," he replied. The tenderness in his voice is a balm to the distrust in her heart toward him.
Later, he sat with a hunched back and weighted shoulder and mournful eyes.
"I've never been unfaithful to your mother, even though our relationship is…unusual. If that was what you were asking." His voice was pained and raw in his honesty.
Pietro, leaning against the far wall, studied him distrustfully. "You still love her," he commented.
Their father met his blue eyes calmly and he nodded in confirmation. "Yes, I've always loved her," Erik said. His voice took a bitter edge. "No matter what she or you or anyone else thinks."
Pain—more of it—flashed in his eyes and she added two and two. Her eyebrows furrowed. "She doubts it?" Wanda asked uncertainly before reaching her own conclusions. "You argued, didn't you?"
It's regret that filled his gaze as he nodded. "We said many things in anger," he explained sorrowfully. "Things I fear I may not have the chance to take back.
"After I informed her that Stryker had gotten the information out of me. I had no choice in that; he had drugs—powerful drugs that I suspect came from one of his mutational experiments. I had no choice. Charlotte was furious at my betrayal, however unwilling it may have been," he added bitterly. "People think your mother is a forgiving saint, you know. She's not. I'm not blind to her faults, nor is she to mine. She has too much faith."
Pietro shifted curiously against the wall, uncomfortable with the emotional subject matter, but nevertheless insightful. "Too much faith in general or too much faith in you?"
Something flashes in his eyes and Wanda sees it as it is: a ghost.
Of what, she didn't know. Of a beach in Cuba with her mother's blood upon the sand. Of a wheelchair that was a prison he had caused to the woman he loved. Of a too-small grave in a garden. Of a home in Westchester where he belonged but could never be. Of letters exchanged between the woman he loved and nothing more. Of children he had not gotten the chance to raise nor love as he wanted. Of a family that he was so often forced to fight in order to protect them and make a better world for them.
But she knew that it haunted him still.
"Both…but mainly in me."
She thought of the letters she had read through the years and the letters she'd never seen. She thought of the flowers left at her sister's grave that no one remembered placing. She thought of the warmth in his smile toward her mother. She thought of the pain and sorrow in his eyes and posture at that very moment. She thought of the fury and hatred in his voice when he spoke of her mother's captor. She thought of many things but only one really mattered: that whatever doubts she had in her mind and her heart were unfounded and untrue.
For if she has ever witnessed love in her life, this—they—were it.
The realization nearly choked her as her throat tightened and she blinked back tears. Without a thought, she reached for and squeezed his hand. Words were not needed to convey her understanding and support.
"We're going to get her back," her brother said firmly. It was a promise, an oath. "We are."
Erik nodded. "We must."
They did.
When Wanda was thirty-three, her world nearly collapsed.
When Wanda was thirty-three, her mother died.
Rather, she hadn't, but the twins had no knowledge of it at the time.
After learning of it, and even during her mother's funeral, Wanda was in shock. The Scarlet Witch stared into space, trying to understand the incomprehensible fact that her mother—her mother, Charlotte Xavier, Professor and Headmistress of the Xavier School, her mother—was dead.
When the twins were informed by a grim Logan and a horrified Storm, Wanda's knees had promptly given out and she'd collapsed to her knees. Pietro was seized by fury and had not let it go since.
She was numb to the funeral. The only thing she had eyes for was the headstone; her eyes had not once left it during all of the proceedings until Pietro and she were shuffled inside by Hank.
The first words she said after her mother's death were to her father, who she and Pietro found in their mother's office.
"What are you doing here, Dad?" she interrupted her brother's tirade with a guarded, hoarse tone.
He looked up from the letter in his shaking hands, eyes red and cheeks wet. He looked like a broken man, a man who had been destroyed and was only just alive.
"I loved her," Erik told them. His voice was raw in his grief and it made something tremble in her chest. "I really did. I always have, always will. It doesn't…it doesn't matter if you believe me or not when I say it now, but it is true. I never wanted her dead, not for a moment. I never intended to see her dead; it was always supposed to be me who died in this infernal war we were both sucked into.
"I have never been the man she deserved to love her or been the father you two deserve. And I regret that. But I won't apologize for doing what I think is best for all mutants. My only regret…my only regret is this." His voice broke as he finished.
Her heart in the past days had been crushed and broken but now, his words were like an iron band, squeezing the remains of it in her chest.
Something in her heart tightened painfully and she, suddenly, could not possibly imagine being this man before her.
There was a lifetime of regrets and hardships and grief in his eyes, a thousand tales of loss and misery upon his tongue, and immeasurable guilt and self-loathing in his slumped shoulders, weighed down more than those of Atlas himself.
Here was a man who had everything he had ever loved stolen from him or destroyed by his own hand. Here was a man who brought about destruction on every thing and one he loved. Here was a man who had lived a life of misery and struggle wanting for naught but a world safe for those he loved. Here was a man who had been destroyed by his heart.
The years had not been kind nor generous to Charlotte and Erik but their love had never faltered. They'd been together so briefly, so fleetingly, until forced apart. Fifty years they had loved and remained ever faithful.
Looking into her father's tortured gaze, a pit formed in her stomach as she realized that—likely as soon as his plans were finished and his affairs settled—he would seek to join her. Whether by simply wasting away with grief, pursuing some suicidal scheme, or choosing a more direct action…she doubted he would want to live long.
Her hands were steady for the first time since that dreadful news as she knelt beside her father and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"I believe that you loved her," she told him gently. "I know she loved you. She always had; you must know this. She always told us to never blame you for what you do for the mutant cause. And we don't."
He stared at them in confusion.
"We only ever blamed you for what you did to Mum," she explained softly.
His hand went to his breast pocket from which he pulled a small, crumpled bullet. Old, old blood was still in the creases and folds of the metal. She knew instantly that it was this bullet—this tiny piece of metal—that had caused so many of their troubles and pains. "So have I," he replied softly, sorrowfully.
A moment later, Pietro spoke, "Go, Dad—before people realize there is an unexpected visitor in the school."
Their father nodded and stood. "You both take after your mother far more than I," he observed. "Good. Keep it that way. Now…stay safe. And away from San Francisco. If you go there, you will be in danger. For me—for your mother—stay out of that fight please."
With that, he swept from the office.
Pietro came to her side and hugged her tightly.
"I don't—I don't think he'll be around much longer," she whispered sorrowfully.
Her brother's arms tightened around her. "No. Honestly, I…I've always thought that we'd lose them both within a very brief time span. Whatever business he has in San Francisco, I think he means to die in the attempt or to see it finished and kill himself."
Wanda's throat tightened at the prospect. "I think…that was him telling us goodbye for the last time."
"I…" Pietro was wordless for a long moment, before straightening and nodding. "We'll have to be sure that…if he does…well. If he dies, we'll have to make sure we bring him home one last time. He'd want to be there, with Anya and Mum."
Only then did tears finally fall down her cheeks.
A month later—a battle later, the end of an era later—her world again changed.
Charlotte Xavier was alive and she brought Erik back to the school with her. Wanda was weeping with joy as her parents came through the school gate. Even as Pietro punched their father before embracing him tightly, nothing could remove the smile from her face.
The only one with a wider smile was the Professor herself as their family reunited—permanently this time. The last time.
When Wanda was thirty-four, she was the maid of honor in a wedding.
When Wanda was thirty-four, she was the maid of honor in her parent's wedding.
When Wanda was thirty-four, her family was finally together.
For this story being finished and posted, you have tuila to thank. She's been a marvelous reviewer-turned-friend.
The title is from a marvelous song called "Little Lion Man" by Mumford & Sons. It's a beautiful, passionate song that gave a lot of inspiration for Charlotte and Erik's relationship.
"Weep for yourself, my man, But it was not your fault but mine
You'll never be what is in your heart
Weep, little lion man,
You're not as brave as you were at the start
Rate yourself and rake yourself
Take all the courage you have left
Wasted on fixing all the problems that you made in your own head
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn't I, my dear?
Didn't I, my dear?"