Wanda had been pleasantly surprised at how fast the room had cleared out. Hank was still puttering around in the back, creating additional doses of the serum. Her brother had been a victim of the Summers radiation longer than her sister, and he was going to need a few more doses of Hank's drug before he was fit to start walking.
Magneto had, under some sign of protest, gone to one of the side rooms to discuss something with Charles. Her sister, Alex, and her mother had cleared out a while ago. She supposed that they needed some time to rest. The sun would be up soon, and the school day would begin. Wanda was exhausted, and she couldn't imagine facing children to teach in her current condition.
However, she couldn't sleep. It wasn't just that she was in the house of her enemies, seeing her mother again, or what Lorna had said to her, all but accusing her of taking advantage of her, trying to keep her a child. Those were all valid reasons to be unable to sleep, but they were not the reason.
No. It was what her brother had said when she'd asked what they were. There was no hesitation in his answer, only a dead, cold certainty.
"I think you know what that makes us."
Peter hadn't spoken since, his eyes glued on the ceiling. His hands were folded on his chest, a thin sheen of sweat still on his forehead, caused by the pain from his injury. Wanda kept an eye on Hank, waiting for him to leave again, waiting for another opportunity to talk to the only person in the world that she knew she could talk to.
She wondered, yet again, if this was what Lorna had felt like in the Brotherhood. Had she felt this trapped, this isolated? Lorna hadn't even believed that she could trust her siblings with her thoughts. It must have felt so cold, so isolated.
Had they really misunderstood her so badly? Their own childhoods had been so strange, their father ignoring them and their mother fearing them. Wanda and Peter had clung to each other, only making room for Lorna in their world. Had they been so determined to stay safe that they had tried to make it impossible for her to leave?
Eventually, Hank walked into one of the back room, two beakers in his hand. She watched the door close, counting the very seconds until she could talk to her brother.
"I'm not sure if it makes us the bad guys," she said, "I can't see it that way."
"What else do you call people who are evil?" he asked.
"We're not evil Peter," she murmured.
He took a shuddering breath.
"Not so sure about that any more," Peter said, his tone still dead.
"Everything we've done, it's all been about trying to do the right thing," said Wanda, "That's what you told me, what I believed."
Peter didn't answer, but his jaw was getting tighter. It seemed like something was winding him up. Wanda didn't want to see what happened when the spring stuck.
"Peter, we did the wrong thing with Lorna," she said, the words almost choking her, "I know that. I don't know how or when-"
"I think I know both," Peter said, "And they're both my fault. I screwed her up."
Words formed on Wanda's tongue, but she forced them away. It wasn't time to argue semantics.
"Peter, don't be so dramatic," said Wanda, "If we screwed her up, we screwed her up together."
"You tried to protect her," said Peter, "I'm the one that brought her to the Brotherhood. I'm the one who told her...I'm the one who kept talking over her that night. I'm the one who told you that we needed to stay with the Brotherhood. How do we equally share the blame for that?"
Wanda ran a hand through her hair, trying to make sense of it all. Yes, a lot of what Peter was saying was true. If it had just been her, she might have stayed with Lorna at Westchester all those years ago. Instead, she had reasoned with herself, reasoned with her brother, that they needed to stay in the Brotherhood.
She wasn't going to let him drown in guilt though. They had come to the Brotherhood as broke, scared children, looking to fight back against a world that they were scared of. All they'd had was each other and, yes, they had failed each other.
But that had just been the hand that they'd been dealt. It had been Peter's idea to go to the Brotherhood, but they hadn't had any other choice at the time. If they had stayed on the run, without money, without knowledge of the streets, with a young child with them, they would've been caught. Peter would have most likely been executed, eventually, and, given the type of people who had been chasing them, Wanda would have been due for experimentation. Lorna would have likely faced the same fate if they'd found out what she was.
"We didn't have any other choice when we were seventeen," she said, "I mean, you shouldn't have broken into the Pentagon, but I wasn't going to leave you in the hands of those...people. Lorna wasn't either."
She shook her head.
"Don't you see?" she asked, "We did what we did to protect each other. And with the Brotherhood, there wasn't any other choice Peter."
"You keep saying that," Peter said, his voice raspy, "Because you don't know any better."
Wanda paused, furrowing her brow.
"What...Peter...what are you talking about?" she asked.
"There was another choice," he said.
"What other choice?" Wanda demanded, "Running to Canada? How long do you think that would've lasted?"
"I'm not talking about Canada," Peter said.
"Then what are you talking about?' asked Wanda.
Peter suddenly fell silent. He swallowed and, for the first time, looked at her. She saw fear in his eyes, and something began to burn in her heart.
"What are you talking about?" she asked, her voice low.
"Nothing," he said, "I just...I don't feel like talking about it."
She crossed her arms. Wanda had heard that explanation for so many years that it was almost second nature to her to fall silent in its face. However, the past twenty-four hours had changed everything.
"No," she said, "You are going to explain this time Peter. What do you mean?"
He swallowed again, his eyes darting around.
"You...I never told you...that day, when I broke out Magneto...the people who hired me..." he said.
His voice became stuttering, almost as though he was only now realizing what he was saying. Wanda grasped the edge of his bed. It felt like something else was taking over her, twisting the inside of her heart.
Peter looked away, but Wanda wasn't going to let him get off that easy.
"Peter," she growled.
"One of them was Xavier," Peter said, "I...he told me if anything happened, if I needed him, I should call. He gave me his number-"
"What?" Wanda shouted.
Peter winced.
"Wanda, I didn't trust him-" he began.
"And you trusted Magneto?" she snarled.
She pushed away from his bed. Hank came back into the room, looking alarmed, but she put a hand out to stay him. He'd been a witness to so much of their family's dirty laundry, this last piece couldn't hurt.
"I just...he looked like he was doing more for mutants-" Peter said.
"He was a terrorist!" screamed Wanda, "You knew that by joining him we'd never live another normal day in our lives! You knew that it would make everything worse! We had another option, and you never told me!?"
Another door opened. Perhaps Xavier and Magneto were watching, but she didn't give a damn anymore.
"I didn't think it would matter," Peter said, looking desperate.
"Why?" she said, "Why wouldn't it have mattered? Peter, our lives could've been different! They could've been completely different!"
"We wouldn't have been fighting," said Peter, trying to push himself up, "Wanda, everything we've done, we've done for our cause!"
His words felt like a bucket of gasoline poured on a fire. It spluttered up into her throat, her very fingers. The rage burned so hot that her tongue abandoned her, and all she could do was breathe, her hands shaking with rage.
"Think about all the good we've done," he said.
"I've killed so many people," Wanda whispered, "For nothing."
"Not for nothing!" said Peter, "We're the only ones out there fighting for mutants!"
"We've been fighting for ourselves," said Wanda, "That's what it was always about. I accepted that explanation because I thought...I thought we didn't have any choice..."
Her lungs refused to take any more air. She clutched the edge of Peter's bed, leaning over, trying to breathe. Her mind flickered with the images of the men she'd killed, of the years she'd spent fighting and running.
"Oh God...oh God..." she said.
"It seemed like the best choice," Peter said.
He put a hand on her shoulder, but she jerked away. Red sparks and light danced around her. She could feel the nervousness from Xavier and Hank, the calm calculation of Magneto. Damn him. Damn them all.
"It wasn't a choice Peter," she said, "It was a choice you made for me, like we tried to make a choice for Lorna."
"Wanda, we've become a force for good in the world," Peter said.
"Do you really believe that?" she asked.
"Yes!" Peter said, "Just think for a few minutes! Everything we've done, we've done for mutants everywhere! Even if Lorna can't see it, everything we've done, we did for her and every mutant like her-"
"For her?" shrieked Wanda, "For her? We lost her Peter! We didn't screw her up, we lost her! She's gone Peter! She's gone! She'll never trust or love us like she did, and it all started with you being too selfish to tell me that there was a second option!"
Wanda turned away from him, clutching the sides of her head. Red sparks danced in front of her eyes, and she closed them, breathing harshly, bringing her powers under control.
"And I was too stupid to ask," Wanda said, "I'm to blame too, and I hate myself for it."
She opened her eyes and glared at her brother.
"Almost as much as I hate you," she said, "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life now, where I'm going to go, but there is one thing I know."
Peter's eyes were rimmed with red, gathering there. That desperation was back in his face, desperation that would have stopped her in her tracks weeks ago. Now it felt like air washing over her: something that happened, but didn't matter.
"You disgust me," she said.
She turned on her heel and went to one of the side doors.
"Wanda!" Peter yelled.
She slammed the door behind her, pressing her palm to the door knob, locking it. She could still hear her brother calling for her, hear the raised voices of Hank, of Xavier, of Magneto. It felt like being stabbed by knives, even through the flimsy protection of the door.
Wanda placed her head on the wood, her hands fisted on either side of her. She began crying then, tears that had been slowly building since she was seventeen. Wanda slid down the door and collapsed on the floor, her voice too raw to even scream.