X-Men Evolution and all of its characters are the property of Marvel Comics, Warner Bros. and that beautiful beautiful mind of Stan Lee.

Looking back, Wanda should have noticed that her life had taken a turn for the strange the night she woke up to the sound of her twin brother arguing with someone whose voice she didn't recognize. Now, Wanda was accustomed to sleeping through the various crashes and general rowdiness of her housemates. She had to adjust to their noise, or resign herself to never sleeping again. Instead of just eliminating the noise all together (which she was sure she was more than capable of doing through threats and intimidation), she slept with headphones on, and with padding around the cracks in her bedroom door.

It was easy enough to tune out the familiar sounds, such as Fred preparing food in the kitchen, or Todd bouncing around in the living room. However the sound of a new voice, and the fact that her brother sounded rather desperate, forced Wanda to get out of bed and investigate. She followed the voices to the dining room and concealed herself just outside the door.

"The choice is yours, Pietro. You can either take my offer, and all your little troubles will go away. Or, you can carry on with this little life you've made for yourself, and wait for the local authorities to catch on to what you've been up to," the strange voice said calmly and evenly. He sounded like an older man, possibly in his late forties? "Pheh, you don't have anything on me." Wanda heard Pietro respond with contempt.

"I have a lot more than you could ever imagine, Mr. Maximoff. Sitting on my desk right now is a file so packed with evidence against you, it's thicker than The Blob's right arm. All I need to do is drop it off at the Bayville police department, and you'll be shipped off to where it won't matter how fast you can run." There was a pause, and then the sound of something being set on the wooden table. "Besides, I'm not thinking of you. What would you do if something were to happen to that sister of yours? It seems to me that Magneto worked pretty hard to fix that little problem she'd been having."

Wanda scowled to herself. She was prepared to storm into the dining room, but before she could get up she heard Pietro slam his fist down and shout at the older man in the room. "You leave Wanda the hell alone! She's been through enough!"

Wanda was shocked back into sitting and decided to wait this one out. She'd been through enough what? The only thing she could think of was Pietro was referring to the battle against Apocalypse. But that had been three years ago. She'd well gotten over that.

Pietro let out a frustrated sigh. "Alright, fine. What else do you need me to do…"

"Just talk to your people. You're pretty good at getting them to follow your lead." The voice sounded irritatingly pleased with Pietro's resignation. "I'm glad we could come to a mutual understanding, Mr. Maximoff. Next time you see me I'll have your first set of tasks. Enjoy the rest of your evening."

Wanda braced herself against the wall as she heard the sound of heavy footsteps leave the other room. A long moment passed while Wanda waited for it to be safe to move again without being detected. She listened for any chance of the other man to return. When it became obvious that Pietro wasn't going to be revisited, she finally got to her feet and stepped into the dining room to confront her brother.

She walked into an empty room. Pietro had taken off. The only evidence that remained of the strange visit was a framed picture on the dining room table, a picture Wanda had never seen before, of herself and Pietro as children.

The following morning Pietro seemed irritable and even more impatient than usual. Wanda wanted to question him about it, but not while the ears of the other boarders could hear them. The last thing she wanted was the constant barrage of inane questions from Todd that were inevitable to follow, along with Fred's confusion and Lance's paranoia. An opportunity would present itself eventually, of that Wanda was confident. In the meantime however, she hurried to get her coffee and a muffin before the boys claimed the rest of the contents of the kitchen.

Pietro wasn't the only one in the house in a foul mood that morning either. Lance had been out with Kitty Pryde the night before, and when he came home it was clear to everyone - if the tremors were any indication - that the date hadn't ended well. It wasn't a great surprise to anyone. Kitty and Lance's relationship was anything but stable. They had more break-ups than anyone could count, and fought constantly. It was actually a wonder that they always seemed to work things out for those few weeks in between arguments. Wanda's best guess was this time the conflict was caused by the reappearance of the mutant named Colossus.

On the trip to Mexico, where Wanda had to face off against Magneto while he was being controlled by Apocalypse, Kitty talked about various things and people. One subject that kept coming up was Colossus. Wanda didn't have a great understanding of such things, but she gathered that Kitty was rather infatuated with the large Russian mutant, though Kitty thought that he was far too shy for her liking, and probably had a girlfriend anyway.

Rumour had it that the Russian had recently accepted Xavier's offer to stay at the Institute and joined the X-Men.

Wanda sipped her coffee and contemplated what she was going to do for the day. She had a six hour shift at the café, and then she had to go to the grocery store. She had long ago determined that if she wasn't around, the boys would die of starvation. Absolutely none of them put any thought into where food came from or considered when it might be necessary to get more. It had been a fight, but two years ago Wanda managed to convince everyone that they needed to get jobs, so they could at least maintain the house and keep themselves fed. Wanda took care of most of the bills, and managed their combined finances. Out of all of them, Lance made the steadiest money at his construction job. Pietro never talked about what he did, and quite frankly, Wanda didn't really care to know. Fred and Todd both worked at a junk yard, and would often bring home random scrap that Todd used to work on the 'top secret projects' that he kept in the basement.

She was almost out of shampoo.

Wanda finished her coffee and set the empty mug in the sink before she snatched up her purse and double checked her pants pocket for her keys. "I'm going to work," she announced to nobody in particular, getting incoherent grunts from those who heard her and/or didn't care.

At the conclusion of John's meeting, he was given very specific instructions as to where he needed to go for coffee. The whole situation was ludicrous really, which was probably the only reason he was following along with it. Bayville was certainly the last place he would ever expect to find himself again, especially after spending the last three years home in Australia trying to support himself as a freelance journalist, and working on his masterpiece manuscript that was going to make him millions of dollars. It was about a lusty barmaid with magic powers, and a blind poet who was hiding a dark secret about his past. Bloody brilliant.

He had been on the verge of a creative breakthrough when he was contacted by some top secret American Government organization with a once-in-a-lifetime offer. It had reminded him of the day he was approached by Magneto, and offered a job as one of his flunkies. John had composed a witty and well worded response to this Nick Fury, delicately declining his job offer. He had really no interest in getting tangled up with those crazy American mutants again - not that his life in Brisbane was so thrilling he really couldn't think of anything he'd rather be doing. John lived his life the way he wanted to, just as it suited him.

Nick Fury responded to John's letter with a stealth chopper and five heavily armed soldiers at his doorstep at three in the morning. When he woke up again he found himself sitting in the driver's seat of his pick-up truck, which was loaded with all of his meagre belongings, and staring at a note taped to his steering wheel. It informed him that he was in Bayville, New York, and that he was supposed to meet his contact at Ange's Café and Bookstore on Harrison and Fifth. So really, it hadn't been much of a meeting… and John was following along with it because he was stranded, homeless and he had no other options.

Coffee didn't seem like such a bad idea. As John parked his pick-up outside the little café, he was actually starting to think this would be a great way to get his bearings, and maybe an oatmeal cookie.

Ange didn't keep a large shop, which suited John enough. The location of the café probably meant that they weren't overly crowded, even during peak hours, tucked away as it was between a furniture store and a locksmith shop. The café reminded him of a place round the corner from his apartment… well, his former apartment, past tense… where he spent several hours writing. He smiled. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all. It smelled of fresh coffee and baking bread. All that was missing was a portly middle-aged woman with ginger hair, and John would have sworn he was back in his Grandmother's house.

Gran had mostly lost her mind when John was still a child, but she was a sweet woman and loved to bake fresh bread. She also liked to put the cat in the dishwasher. John suddenly recalled that was supposed to visit her sometime this week. He would have to call her when next he found a payphone.

John found an unoccupied couch in the corner of the café, next to a potted plant and a table covered in a mural of stickers and magazine clippings. He carefully set down the rucksack he'd been carrying and extracted from it his laptop computer and a pad of yellow note paper. If he had to wait for this contact of his, he wasn't going to waste his time with not working.

It was shortly after his computer (finally) loaded when John was approached by someone in his corner and asked him what he wanted to order. For a moment John didn't look up. He was trying to recall if this was part of the cryptic directions he'd received from Fury. It certainly seemed like the sort of super secret spy movie-type thing SHIELD was so fond of putting their pawns through. Without glancing up at the waitress he said in his best super-spy voice, "I'll have the white fish and asparagus, but hold the mustard."

"What?"

"Damn, that wasn't the right code, was it?" John glanced up and met the scowling face of his waitress.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, sir." She frowned.

"It's alright, luv. I'm waiting on someone."

"So am I. You need to order something, or you can't sit here."

John blinked. "Erm… alright then. I'll have a coffee and an oatmeal cookie."

"Chocolate or raisin?"

"Raisin." He watched her turn and stalk off to the coffee bar. "Please," he added as an afterthought. He continued to watch her as she poured out coffee from a glass carafe into an oversized blue mug with "Ange's" scrawled across its side. There was something disturbing about the waitress, other than her surly attitude and her dark make-up. He couldn't put his finger on it, but she somehow seemed familiar.

Another woman in a uniform approached his waitress and muttered something to her while placing a hand on her shoulder. His waitress nodded and said something like "not a problem" before she finished getting his order together on a tray. The other waitress smiled broadly at her. "Thanks Wanda! I owe you one!"

The second waitress hurried away to the back of the café to presumably get ready to leave while the woman called Wanda came around the counter carrying John's tray. The realization hit John like a Mack truck. Wanda as in Magneto's Wanda, as in the Scarlet Witch Wanda, as in he was in big trouble if she recognized him Wanda. It was no wonder he didn't see it before. She looked much different from the last time he saw her. She'd gotten taller. Her breasts and gotten a bit larger too, not that John had noticed that in particular. The biggest change was her hair. John remembered Wanda having short-cropped hair. His waitress Wanda had hair that probably hung well past her shoulders when it wasn't tied back like it was. It was difficult to describe her without using some derivative of attractive, that was certain.

Wanda set the tray on the end table next John. "Can I get anything else for you?" she asked sounding bored. Clearly she was hoping his answer would be 'no' so she could get back to whatever other mundane tasks she had to perform.

"When do you get off?" John blurted out without thinking. He was panicking.

Wanda nearly tripped from surprise. "What?"

"Work! When do you get off work? Just makin' conversation. I figure it's one of those American etiquette things. You bring me coffee, I ask you when you get off work, you smile and blush, then I go herd cattle with a shot gun."

Wanda glared at him.

"No? Bloody hell, I thought I had that one. Never mind then. How's your father?"

John saw Wanda's jaw clench, and the lights above their heads flickered slightly. She was trying very hard not to keep her cool. Well that was a plus. From what John could recall from the last time he faced off against her, Wanda had a tendency to shoot first then ask questions later if she felt like it. "It's $3.78 for the coffee and cookie. You can pay when you're done." She set the bill on the tray with a little more force than was necessary and stormed off.

Interesting. John immediately felt better once she was out of sight. Wanda didn't remember him in the slightest. On one hand this was very good news for him. On the other hand he felt a bit miffed that he was so unremarkable. Oh well. If this was the only time he was going to run into her, then all the better. With any luck, he'd finish up with whatever it was that Fury wanted him to do, get back to his life in Brisbane and avoid this café like the plague in the meantime. He need never run into Wanda again.

John slipped his laptop back into his rucksack, pulled a five dollar bill out of his pocket (Fury had at some point replaced all the money in John's wallet with American bills) and set it underneath his half-finished cup of coffee. As he was about to leave, another customer bumped into him from behind and took off without so much as a quick apology. John was going to shout at him, but he noticed that his once empty hand was now clutching a crumpled piece of paper. He carefully untwisted the note and swore immediately after reading what was written on it.

You will find Quicksilver at the Brotherhood Boarding House. Welcome to Bayville. - Fury

There you have it. I've recently been bitten by a writing bug, and seem to have gotten an EVO infection. I'm not entirely sure where this is going yet, if it does go anywhere. I haven't written anything in a long time. Hopefully the life experience I've gained between highschool and now will assist me in bringing out something worth reading.

I appreciate hearing from you guys. Drop me a review and let me know what you think.