collegegurl12, you wanted to see Angela and Magda meet again? Here you are. It's multi-chapter but I doubt it's going to go to a dozen this time. I really couldn't just put Angela in a box and forget her, she's way too much fun.
1
Radio playing quietly, check, hot cup of tea, check, comfortable slippers, check – Magda was certain that she had everything she needed to settle down for a pleasant late afternoon by herself. She'd taken a few hours at the local library since her son moved away, finding the house quiet and lonely sometimes. It helped her to get out and talk to people, stopped her from thinking every waking hour about her little boy out there in the big world, gave her space to bring herself round to the thought that he was turning 30 in four years' time and really she should loosen up those apron-strings a little. Even so, retreating to the peace of her little house was a welcome comfort at the end of the day. She sipped her tea, smiled at a terrible joke the radio host made, sunk a little further into the cushions. Nothing could possibly shatter this peace.
Except of course for the front door banging open and the whirlwind that was her son blowing into the house, of course, which was exactly what happened right at that moment.
Forgetting the tea (removed from her hand without a drop spilled, placed on the table across the room before she had time to think) she flung her arms around Peter in delight and squeezed him so hard she felt joints pop. She would never get used to the fact that she only came up to his shoulder now, reaching up to pinch his cheeks, beam at him, and scoop him up into another cuddle.
"Hey Mom?" Peter gasped, "I'm glad to see you too but I kinda need to breathe"
She allowed him to move, but left her hands resting on his shoulders, still grinning with the thrill of having her handsome boy back so unexpectedly. It was payback, she supposed, for all those times she showed up without telling him first. Looking him up and down as if to make sure he was real
"You look thin" she chided. He scoffed at her, allowed yet another hug,
"I don't. I look exactly the same, in fact I think I put on a couple pounds"
He was probably right, she thought, he did seem to have just a tiny touch more muscle on him. It wasn't going to stop her spoiling him rotten whilst he was here, though. As he moved to take his jacket off and throw it on a chair (terrible habit, when would he ever break it?) Magda looked out into the hallway and saw a familiar girl standing there behind her son.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, surprised to see her. "Hello, Angela"
"Hi… umm, Magda. I mean, Ms Maximoff"
Peter looked confused as hell, Looking first at one woman then the other. He'd even stopped still, he was so puzzled
"You've met?" he asked, incredulous, "When did that happen?!"
"At the Academy," Angela answered for her, "last Summer"
Magda smiled at the memory of the girl in the ankle-length flowered skirt sitting alone under a tree reading Goethe aloud to herself. She'd grown her hair since then, and the streaks in the front were purple now, but she still had that same sweet prettiness that had made the older woman a little sad at the loss of her own vivacious youth.
"Well, you're very welcome here, it's lovely to see you again. I didn't know that you and Peter were friends"
A glance passed between them, a pause during which both coloured a little and quickly looked away. Magda understood perfectly, and her heart skipped a beat. Finally! she thought. She'd been dying for Peter to bring a girl home for years, and almost given up on the poor boy ever finding someone. It seemed highly unlikely, when he'd been unable to stop still long enough to talk to anyone, bombarding them with a flood of words when he did speak. Then those years he'd spent cloistered in the basement getting sadder and more lonely all the time. It had hurt her to see him turning his back on the world like that, but she understood – the world had turned its back first, after all. She looked up at her son proudly, and made a mental note to remember Professor Xavier in her evening prayers. Peter would never have come out of himself like this if it hadn't been for the Academy. To her surprise he was standing watching her, chewing a thumbnail the way he used to when he was really young and had just broken something very important. Then it hit her. He was nervous about bringing Angela here. She smiled fondly, crossed the room and enveloped Angela in a hug too, planted a small but very warm kiss on her cheek, took her hand to lead her into the room properly.
"I'll go and fix us all something to drink. You two make yourselves comfortable"
Once in the kitchen, she put the kettle on to boil then raised both fists in the air and silently mouthed thank you! to any passing spirit that happened to be listening. It was probably too soon for such joy, but she knew that little flush of the cheeks, that shy smile, she wasn't so old as to not remember how it felt to be dizzy over someone, and the idea that someone was dizzy over her son was just amazing to her. Peter was a cocky little motor-mouth with a ready wit and a charming smile, and despite his unusual colour of hair and the pallor of his skin, he was quite the good looking young man. Magda was biased, she knew, but she could see that her son's handsome face and slim, athletic figure was easy on anyone's eyes. Despite all that, before he had gone away to the Academy he'd had no self-confidence at all, his bluster and snark was a good disguise but it didn't conceal that undertone of pleading for someone, anyone, to look past it and like him for who he was. At last, it would seem that someone had managed to do that. Magda couldn't have been happier if she tried.
Carrying the tray of tea through she heard voices from down in the basement for the first time in months, and descended the stairs to see the pair over by the arcade cabinet. Angela laughing delightedly as she watched Peter blaze through a level of Ms Pac-Man in record time.
"It's so cool that you have an arcade machine in your house," she said admiringly, "Where did you get it from?"
"He stole it," Magda said, setting the tray down on the table and making herself comfortable on the sofa. Peter gave her a look as if to say Mom! How could you? And she simply smiled sweetly in response. "Oh not by himself, of course. His sister helped"
Angela looked around the basement. There were quite a few road signs, traffic cones, a few more TVs than was usual, some still with price stickers on the screens. She raised an eyebrow at Peter who only shrugged and looked a little embarrassed.
"It's a quiet neighbourhood," Magda continued as the two came to join her on the sofa, poured them all some tea "You were bored, weren't you honey?"
Peter nodded, drew breath, and gave both Angela and his mother an anguished look
"I don't do that sort of thing any more, I promise" he babbled, "I was really young and really confused and I'd just been expelled and I didn't have any friends and yeah I was kinda bored but really I was just kinda bad too and honestly, I never did anything worse than steal stuff and sometimes graffiti and this one time I did break someone out of the Pentagon but honestly I've never broken a law that wasn't just waiting to be broken and –"
He stopped dead, wide eyed, trembling slightly. Two hands rested on his shoulders – one Angela's and the other his mother's
"Hush, Peter" Angela said kindly, squeezing his shoulder, "You're prattling"
Magda gave her an admiring look. She'd never seen anybody else cut her son off in mid-flow like that, and to her surprise he didn't immediately begin again but instead picked up his cup and sipped his tea quietly for a minute. That was astounding. Could this girl actually… handle him?
"So you must be, umm, 'gifted' too, Angela" she said, feeling a little awkward. It felt strange to pry, perhaps she was shy about it, "Are you – are you fast, like Peter?"
"Oh! No… I can barely run at all!" Angela laughed, but it sounded strained, "I'm… I can…."
"She manipulates electricity" Peter explained, taking her gloved hand. She gave him a grateful smile, "Like Dad can do with metal"
"How interesting" Magda sipped her tea, regarded the girl. She forgot that some Mutants looked so totally ordinary, not like her boy who had always been different in every way. He played up to it these days with flashy clothes and attitude, but it hadn't always been that way. Once, she'd even had to restrain her laughter whilst she took a bottle of dye-stripper to his beautiful silver locks, Peter having dyed it what was intended to be brown. It had gone a bright firetruck red instead, but came out easily enough. After that he'd just put up with his unusual hair, eventually coming to like it and match it with metallic silver jackets and trainers which would have looked ridiculous on an ordinary brown-haired boy.
"Peter tells me you work in the library" Angela said, "That must be awesome, do you get to take out more books than other people?"
Magda laughed outright at that. How could working in a library be interesting to a girl who went to a school for super-powered kids? She sobered quickly though, remembering how badly Peter had wanted to be normal. Maybe normality was fascinating to those who couldn't achieve it.
"It's nice, it's just a few hours a week though. Just to get me out of the house. And no, I can only take out as many books as an ordinary member," she smiled gently, "But I do get to read them when it's quiet"
She finished her cup, and gave them both a fond smile as she stood
"Peter would you please put out the folding bed? It's going to be very late for you to get back the Westchester tonight, you should stay"
"The… one folding bed?" he asked, uncertainly
"You're a grown man," Magda laughed, "I can cope with the two of you sharing a bed. If that's alright with both of you of course?"
They agreed too quickly. Shared another blush. Peter mouthed a curse and got a hard look from Magda.
"Get on with it then, and mind your language. I'm going to start dinner"
