A/N: this is episode 2 of my season 5 (following Jamie and the Argonauts). In case you missed it...
Polaris, Mirage, Havok, X-23, Angel, Colossus, and Gambit have all joined the Institute, and Boom Boom has returned.
Pyro has joined the Brotherhood, who have not heard from Mystique since the Apocalypse incident.
She had helped save the world. Just a few months ago, she had been fighting her own father alongside her brother and her enemies, and she had helped defeat Apocalypse. It was so big, she was sure that things would change. And some things had, that was true. Bayville was now sending tutors to the boarding house to help get her and the rest of her team caught up with their studies. Nick Fury was calling every so often. Not as much as in the beginning, but enough to know that he was keeping an eye on them.
But still, when you got right down to it, Wanda still lived in the same room, still had the same friends, and still had the same jerk of a father as before.
Wanda mulled over these sad inevitabilities as she stared at her ceiling, and then slowly sat up in bed. Her room looked just as before. It was empty save her bed, dresser, mirror, and the one photograph hanging on the wall. It was of her and Kitty, and the X-Man had presented it to her not long ago.
That was something that had changed: Wanda and Kitty were friends. Wanda had fought it at first, but she had slowly warmed to the bubbly girl, and Kitty talked happily of the day Wanda would finally graduate from being tutored to joining Kitty at high school.
Trying not to grumble, Wanda crawled out of bed, dressed, and headed downstairs to find some breakfast. She was greeted outside by two more things that were different: one pleasant and one not. First, it was clean. There were no stains on the walls or the floors, and no clutter in the corners; that was nice. Then there was the pyromaniac…
"Morning, Wanda," John said, standing awkwardly close to her closed door.
"What are you doing here?" Wanda grumbled, pushing past him and heading down the stairs. "Isn't that Todd's post?"
"Yeah… turns out our resident little ratbag isn't too keen on fire." He laughed as he flicked open the lighter that seemed to always be at the ready in his hand.
"And neither am I," Wanda scoffed as she turned into the kitchen, leaving John standing awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs.
"You… you don't mean it. Do you?" he cried after her pitifully, his face screwed up in an expression of utmost dejection. The look was gone in an instant, replaced by glee at his ability to look so dejected, and a small fire display that was preceded by a flick of his wrist.
His audience, however, was paying him no attention, and, in fact was already in the kitchen working on making some breakfast.
"Cereal this morning? Really?" John asked, following her into the kitchen. "You sure you don't want anything that needs to be warmed up or heated?" He smiled at her at that, like a schoolboy asking for a piece of candy or a present.
"I think you mean 'burnt' or 'singed,'" Wanda replied, trying to hide a slight smirk under a scowl. "And no. " She finished with her cereal and brusquely left the room, heading to the living room to turn on the news while she ate her breakfast.
"C'mon, Sheila," John pleaded, following her into the room. "One of these days I am going to get more out of you than just grunts and signs of annoyance, right?"
"Good luck," she said, turning the television up louder.
Sighing despondently, John hung his head and turned out of the room, then headed out of the kitchen and into the backyard. Wanda enjoyed the peace for only a few minutes before it was interrupted by a loud bang, and Wanda dropped her cereal on the floor in shock, breaking the bowl into several pieces and throwing Captain Crunch about the room.
A pinkish energy started to emanate from Wanda's eyes and hands as she slowly looked up from the milk-splattered carpet to the direction from which the sound had come. Standing and walking as calmly as she could, Wanda was practically seething with anger as she made her way out to where she knew she would find John and some new mess that he had created.
John was sitting on the grass, right on the edge of a circle of burnt grass that was still smoking. "Wanda!" John cried happily as soon as he saw her, trying to stifle to laughter that was pouring out of him. "You know," he said, haltingly, "I never… stop being… amazed… at what you… can do… with… gasoline!"
"And I never stop being amazed at what you seem to be able to get yourself into with too much time on your hands!" Wanda felt so mad she could scream; suddenly all the little things were adding up and… and…
"Holy dooley!" John yelped, jumping to his feet as a tree not too far from him starting twisting and cracking, and then falling straight towards him… and the house. Wanda cried out, moving forward, unsure of what she could do to help, but certain that she had to do something.
Suddenly a blur came whizzing out of the house, pushing Wanda back before she could get in harm's way, and snatching John out from under the tree's looming shadow. The tree was still falling toward the house, however, and there was no way that Pietro would be able to move the house out from the tree's path.
"Hey, do I smell Bar-b-qu… hey!" Fred exclaimed, as he came outside and saw what was happening. Moving forward as fast as he could, Fred was able to grab the tree near its base just in time to keep it from hitting the house. "What's going on out here?" he asked accusingly as he pushed the tree in the other direction, letting it fall in the middle of a clump of other trees.
Hanging her head and avoiding eye contact with anyone, Wanda groaned and stomped away. John shrugged at Fred, an innocent grin on his face, making Fred shake his head, and turn back inside.
"What did you do to her?" Pietro asked John, watching Wanda's retreating back.
"Nothing to her," John replied sheepishly. "Just… being me. Around her."
"I see the problem then," Pietro muttered, and went to catch up with his sister.
She was already almost half a block away, but it only took Pietro half a second to catch up with her. "Hey," he said, stopping in front of her so that she had to stop too. "You okay?"
"What do you care?" she retorted, trying to push past him. He quickly zipped back in front of her.
"I care, okay? Let me care," he commanded, a little annoyed, before calming down and asking her again, "Are you okay?"
"What do you think?" Wanda replied, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms. "You see what I did back there?"
Pietro asked, "That was you?" confusion playing over his features.
Wanda assumed he was being sarcastic, and answered in kind, "No, John magically has the ability to make trees fall down."
"You don't need to be like that; I know you're smarter than me," Pietro said, frowning. "And weirder things have happened," he continued, the frown morphing into a grin in an instant.
"What's with you?" she asked, skeptically. "Why don't you just leave me alone like before? You've never shown interest."
"I'm a jerk. I know I'm a jerk. I'm not just a jerk, I'm a huge jerk, and I'm probably going to continue to be a jerk. But that doesn't mean I can't try to be a halfway decent brother."
"You can't if I don't let you." Wanda pushed passed him again, moving toward town. She was surprised that this time Pietro did not zip in front of her again, and after a few steps she couldn't resist the urge to turn, and she saw him standing where he had been, looking expectantly at her. Rolling her eyes, groaning, and kicking herself mentally, Wanda jerked her head in a way that told him that he could come along.
Smiling, Pietro resisted using his power, and caught up to Wanda, who began walking beside him. "So… where are we going?" he asked after a few minutes.
"I don't know," she said. "Just… away. From all that."
"Do you really hate living at the boarding house?"
"Yes."
"Well, at least I know you'll never sugarcoat things," Pietro replied dryly under his breath.
"That's true," Wanda said flatly, then sighed and turned to him. "Look, I am messed up. You know what I've been through. You watched a lot of it happen. Even if I hadn't had my memories tampered with, I would be messed up emotionally, so with everything: being locked away, Mastermind, our dad; with everything that has happened I have trust issues."
"I know."
"Don't say that," she cried, turning on Pietro with fire burning in her eyes. "You don't know. You have no idea! He chose you; he discarded me the moment I became too much of a burden."
"Yes, I do know. Our father is a bastard. We grew up inseparable from one another, Wanda. When he locked you up I lost my sister and my best friend, as well as the father I thought I knew." Wanda's eyes softened at that, and she stepped back from her verbal attack. She wasn't the only victim of their father… she should have realized.
"You know he gave up on me too, right?" Pietro said, finally. "Not long after you. I guess he was tired of waiting for me to gain my powers, while you had already proved to have too much power. I was in a foster home before Mystique found me and recruited me for the team."
"I'm… I'm sorry."
He gave a short laugh and shook his head. "No you're not. You still hate me, and you still blame me. I know it's not going to go away for a while. It sucks that I'm not a very patient person…"
Wanda couldn't help but smile faintly at that, but the smile gave way to a frown and glistening, distant eyes very quickly.
"Stop that," Pietro ordered. "We have one thing to look forward to. Anything that goes wrong in our lives, any shortcomings we have, we can just blame them on our father! I mean, what else can people expect when we were raised by such a bastard."
"Pietro," she warned.
"Sorry," he said, throwing his hands up and continuing walking toward town, with Wanda stepping in beside him. "You know, I don't get you, sis. You hate the man, and you still get defensive whenever anyone else talks bad about him. That's a serious conflict of interest right there."
"Wow, don't you sound smart. Maybe those tutors they've been sending over here are miracle workers."
"Hey…" Pietro warned, looking like he was thinking about being hurt.
"Sorry," she sighed. "I'm a basket case, okay? We both are. And it's all because of our bastard father." She hit the word "bastard" with relish, giving it new meaning in her hate and letting Pietro see her enjoy using it.
"We just need to forget about him and move on," Pietro said. "Well, forget almost all about him." Wanda looked at him curiously, wondering what he was getting at. "I still remember his credit card number," he continued with a smirk. "I think some injudicious spending might help heal a few wounds."
Wanda shook her head, fighting a smile. She didn't care about having things or shopping or things like that, but it was nice to know that her brother was trying to make her feel better.
"Why don't we do a little shopping while we're out…" Pietro started, only to trail off as he noticed his sister staring with a mortified expression past him. There was a bridge on the other side of the trees there, they both knew, and there was a column of smoke rising from where the bridge was.
Wanda knew they supposedly weren't the heroes, but she could not have imagined behaving any differently faced with the situation again. She began asking Pietro "Can you-"
"On it," he said, zipping away, already knowing what he needed to do. Wanda ran after him, looking like she was moving through molasses by comparison. She couldn't help but be reminded of the bridge fire she had been in the middle of earlier. How long ago had that been? A few months? It was right before… no. She pushed the thought out of her mind, not letting herself be distracted from the task at hand. The bridge came into view gradually, and Wanda was able to make some sense of what was going on. Evidently there had been an accident in front of a trailer truck. It had tried to stop, but ended up rolling over, crushing cars in its way and pushing some toward the edge. There was one in particular that could not seem to make up its mind about whether it would settle where it was or fall into the water below. The inhabitants were inaccessible.
Wanda could see the blur of Pietro moving around on the wreckage, grabbing people that he found and moving them to safety, and she felt proud. He had saved her just that morning, after she had made a mess of things. Now was the time to redeem herself.
Getting close to the edge of the bridge, Wanda pulled her power up inside of her, making her hands and eyes glow pink again. Extending them out slowly, she felt around the space of the car that was in peril. She felt all of the possibilities in the air, the ones that ended in death and the ones that ended in celebration. Gritting her teeth, she concentrated on the car staying where it was until rescue could come, pushing that prospect forward until it was reality. Feeling it take hold and become inevitable, she let her powers slip away again, sighing with relief.
"I got everyone I could," Pietro said, skidding to a stop beside Wanda.
"And that car isn't going anywhere until rescue crews come," she added, letting a small smile play on her lips with satisfaction.
"Wait, there's a car, are you kidding?" he asked, becoming panicked, amazed that he had missed it in his rush. "Wanda, they'd have a better chance in the water! The gas tank of the truck was punctured and it's gonna blow?"
"Are you serious?" she asked in turn, panicked as well. In feeling around the car she had forgotten about the surrounding area, never thinking it could be dangerous. Throwing her powers out again, she could see the explosion, yes, and the fall and the death and there wasn't a way to stop it now, it was already there. "Get down!" she cried to Pietro, pulling him onto the ground as the area exploded, sending bits of shrapnel in their direction.
Wanda looked up as soon as it was safe, a cry stuck in her throat at the thought of the family that she had failed to save. The car had been thrown and was now plummeting toward the water. She turned away, not wanting to watch it hit the ground. But the splash never came.
"Wanda, look," Pietro said, nudging his sister and pointing out over the water. The car had stopped and was hanging above the bay. Slowly it began to rise and move toward them, finally being dropped onto the bank. The family clambered out, amazed at their good fortune, and Wanda stared, astonished at what she was seeing. It was a miracle, and it couldn't have been her.