A/N: Bathrooms are fun. That being said, just remember to review, and everything will be okay, and I won't cry at night…
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
-----------
Wanda awoke when she felt a very uncomfortable breeze brush against her legs. It was a cold, wintery morning, and some idiot had come in here and opened her damn curtains. Those stupid boys... Hadn't that been one of the rules? No one comes into her room, ever?
The digital clock beside her bed read 11:23 AM. Ordinarily, she wouldn't wake up if it was before noon, but now that she was already conscious, why not?
Wanda groaned as she sat up, caught between the desire to maim someone and the desire to go back to bed and never come out again. Remembering that there was someone in her closet, she pulled some clothes out of her dresser and changed in the room, and actually brushed her hair and groomed herself. Today could be a good day, and her mood was beginning to pick up. Maybe she would even be sort of nice today.
After going downstairs for breakfast, and bringing up a box of cinnamon filled Pop tarts that the boys didn't want, she returned to her room, figuring that it was time to start her hostage's day.
She pulled the door of the closet open, and then forced herself to remain stoic and not become amused. John was asleep. His face was pressed up against an old shoe, and his body was in a very awkward position, with his hands still tied behind him and his ankles tied together. She knelt beside him.
"Pyro," she said, cupping his chin and turning his head to face hers. His eyelashes fluttered, but he didn't make any signal that he was about to wake up. For a moment, she debated, wondering if she should just let him sleep for now and just bother with keeping him alive later. But Wanda didn't want to have to bother with him later on… she just wanted to get all this nonsense out of the way, and not have to wonder if he was still doing all right for the rest of the day.
"Pyro…" she coaxed, lightly shaking him, trying to be kind.
He jerked his head to the side and groaned irritably, almost like he was having a tantrum. Smirking, Wanda prodded his chest. John groaned again, and his body turned so suddenly that she dropped his shoulders, and he began to struggle with some invisible force, like she was attacking him or something. As she tried to lift him back up again, his knee managed to jab painfully into her thigh, and her good mood withered away. And she had intended on being nice! Well, Wanda would not stand for his disrespect, especially if she was trying to be nice! Especially if she was being gentle, and taking her precious time out of her morning to take care of him! He oughta be grateful, and not agitated.
"Pyro!" she exclaimed, and struck him hard in the side of the face to wake him up good.
"Hmph!" he murmured, sounding like he might be saying something unkind. Fortunately the duct tape was still on quite firmly, which served to bring a small portion of her good mood back. He glared furiously at her.
"Come on," she told him, roughly pulling him up to his feet. "Today, we're going on an adventure."
He made a buzzing, groaning sound in his throat. She ignored it, and dragged him to the door and into the bathroom. He eyed her suspiciously as she closed and locked the door.
"Now, listen," she said firmly. "I'm letting you use the toilet. There are some rules here. If you misbehave, I won't ever let you use it again. This is a privilege, and I am very serious. Do you understand?"
He nodded obediently, his blue eyes wide.
She violently tore the tape off of his mouth, as a revenge for being so rude earlier. He had squeezed his eyes shut, preparing for it, and this time he didn't holler like he had done the many times before. Perhaps he was trying to behave. Well, that was good.
"I am going to stand right behind you," she told him. "I won't be looking at anything but your back."
John stared at her in shock. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked, his mouth falling open. "You're not even letting me use the toilet in private?"
"Do you want to go or not?"
He let out a huffy breath of exasperation. He pouted and sulked for a long moment.
"Well, are you going or not?" Wanda asked, getting fed up, and not really minding it if he decided not to go.
"I can't…" he said helplessly, his cheeks pinkening slightly.
"And why not?" Wanda glared dangerously at him.
"I can't unbutton," he said miserably. "And I can't aim if I don't hold it. What if…?"
"Pyro," she said sternly, hating him. "I can't let you free, and I most certainly will not hold your… your… man part while you go to the bathroom!"
"Wanda…" he said weakly. "I really can't… "
"Oh. My. God." Wanda pulled a pocketknife from her back pocket. She went behind him. "If you try any funny stuff, I will not hesitate to knock you out. And you will not eat today. I mean it. You got that?"
John nodded solemnly. "Yes, ma'am."
Wanda sliced through the bindings around his wrists, and released only his right hand, holding tightly to his left hand so he wouldn't have both hands available. She pressed the tip of the knife to his left palm, so he could feel it and be appropriately intimidated, especially now that his right hand was free.
"I'm left-handed," he told her.
"TOO BAD!!" she exclaimed, ready to burst with aggravation. How dare he be so difficult?
While he proceeded to use the bathroom, Wanda examined his hand, the one she held in her own. His left wrist looked reddish from the rubbing of the bonds on his skin. Perhaps she should loosen them… but no. He had already escaped once, and she couldn't deal with that trouble again. He wiggled his fingers, and she noticed faint scars on the tips of the first two. She prodded his palm with the blade, and noticed that he was looking over his shoulder at her.
"I'm done now," he said. Wanda led him to the sink and squirted a glob of hand soap into his right palm. She turned on the faucet and went on to help him wash his hand.
"Here," she said, handing him an apparently unused toothbrush with a blob of toothpaste on it. He made a face at her, but she slapped the brush into his free hand. "Brush your teeth."
John did as he was told, and Wanda watched him with the eyes of a parent that has caught their child robbing the cookie jar. Sighing, she ran her fingers through his hair in a half-hearted attempt to tame it, but she liked the way it stuck up, wild and free, so she gave up her futile attempt, and began to smooth out wrinkles in his shirt.
"Whatcha doing?" John asked, putting the toothbrush next to the sink and drying his mouth off with the back of his hand.
"I don't know," Wanda snapped. "Grooming you. You're starting to look grimy."
"It's because I haven't showered," he explained.
"And you're not going to either, not till Magneto gets over here." She pursed her lips to keep herself stoic. "Now, give me your hand."
He whined, "Oh, come on…"
"Pyro," she warned.
"Right…" he sighed reluctantly and gave her his free hand. Wanda pressed his two palms together behind him and used the twine still hanging on his other wrist to temporarily fasten his two hands together until she could get more.
She led John back into her room, after checking to make sure the coast was clear, and she sat him in the chair he had sat in where she had fed him the night prior.
"I'm feeding you again," she informed him, pulling a Pop Tart out of the box she had and showing him.
He frowned. "Oh, bloody hell…"
Wanda ignored his look of distaste and broke one in half. She brought a half to his mouth and pushed it in without allowing him a chance to protest.
"Wanda!" he exclaimed, and spit it right back out.
Infuriated, Wanda slapped him hard across the face, with enough force to wobble the chair he was on. "I don't care if you don't like these," she told him viciously, prodding a piece in his face. "You are going to eat them, and you are going to like it."
"I can't eat that," he said, pressing his lips tight together so she wouldn't force another one into his mouth. "I'll get sick."
"And why is that?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.
"I'm allergic to cinnamon," he dared to look up in her raging eyes. "I swear, I'm not even having you on. I'll get all itchy and red and get a fever and I might even chunder."
"What's that?" she asked.
"Like this." He pretended to gag, very dramatically.
"Oh." Wanda scowled, angry that the food she had for him was no good. "What else are you allergic to?"
"Just pears and shrimp and cinnamon," he said. "One time, my mum made my family this meal of shrimp, and pears with cinnamon on top as a desert." He laughed reminiscently. "It was an amusing day."
"Well that's fucking great…" she growled sarcastically. A very large part of her wanted to force feed him this food anyway, no matter how hard he struggled or protested or threw up. She broke off a small piece of the middle section, the part that was the most filled with cinnamon, and examined it, weighing her options. He bit his lip anxiously, watching her.
She impulsively grabbed his chin and tried to pry his mouth open, but he threw himself backwards, away, only succeeding in pitching his chair over and knocking himself to the floor. Wanda pressed her hand to his forehead and tipped his head back.
John clamped his mouth shut, clenching his teeth together and squeezing his eyes closed. Enraged, Wanda smashed the pastry into his mouth, smothering it all over the lower half of his face until it was nothing but debris of cinnamon and crumbs. It shouldn't have been fun to do this, to smash these Pop Tart guts into his face, but it was. For a moment, he represented everyone who had ever wronged her, everyone who deserved to be thrown to the ground and smothered by a Pop Tart that they were allergic to.
Even when there was nothing left, she continued to rub her palm roughly against his mouth, squashing some non existent thing into him …rub, rub, rub… pat, pat… stroke…
Wanda's hand rested against his lips, and she wondered why on earth she was doing this. Magneto was the one she wanted revenge against. Not Pyro. She thoughtfully drummed her fingers over his chin, knowing that she had gotten carried away, but there was nothing she could do to make it up to him because he was the hostage, and she was the captor, and Magneto had to be taken care of before she could move on. She picked at a blob of cinnamon right by his bottom lip, hoping he wouldn't get sick. The last thing she needed was to have to care for a sick person in her closet. Sighing, Wanda vaguely became aware that while her thoughts wandered, her index finger was running a little circle around his soft mouth. The other mouth she had known was solid and tough, and it hurt sometimes. Everything hurt at the asylum, even breathing, because sometimes, the jackets were too tight.
Suddenly she noticed that his blue eyes were looking up at her, a mixture of confusion, shock, unease, mirth, and suspicion all quite distinctive in his gaze. She watched the corners of his mouth turn up in a nervous little smile.
"Are you—?"
"Shhh!" Wanda pressed her index finger against his lips, forcefully hushing him. There was the sound of footsteps outside of her bedroom door, and Wanda realized what kind of a racket she must have made knocking him around and being so violent, and she said quietly, "Hush."
John gave her a bold smile and puckered his lips, momentarily kissing the finger that covered his mouth.
Wanda scowled, feeling her cheeks grow hot.
"Cut it out," she said darkly. "Or I will."
John pouted, and Wanda got to her feet, listening to the shuffling sounds outside of her door, the sounds that sounded like footsteps and talking.
Someone was outside her bedroom door. The question was, were they planning to enter, or were they just standing around?
After another moment of waiting, Wanda's non-existent patience reached its final capacity, and she yelled, "Rule Number Three!!" She threw the door open. "No loitering!"
She began to slam the door closed again, when she realized that there were two people lurking by the doorway. And neither of them were in the Brotherhood.
One was made of metal, and the other had black and red eyes, and a long, long staff in his hand. As Wanda closed the door, the strange-eyed man stuck the staff in door, not allowing it to close.
"Pardon me, child," he said. "You must be Miss Wanda Maximoff. And I do believe you have something we're looking for."
"And what might that be?" Wanda asked, sticking her head out of the only partially opened door, making sure to keep her hostage from sight.
He smiled. "He looks like this." From his pocket, the strange-eyed man pulled an enlarged photograph of a red-headed pyromaniac, smiling insolently at the camera with his head at a slight angle, like he was just some innocent kid, but the expression in his eyes was perfectly wicked. Behind him was a height measurement going vertically up, and around his neck was a sign that read: "St. John Allerdyce." It was a mug shot.
Wanda laughed out loud, taking the picture in her own hands to better examine it. She wasn't sure if she could really believe that the person in this picture was really the one she had kidnapped.
"You can keep that," said the strange-eyed man. "You see, I know he's here."
"You don't know that," Wanda said, taking the picture and setting it on top of her dresser by the door. "I don't know where you'd get such a notion. Now, I suggest you leave before I call the other boys over here."
The man smirked at her, and hit the door with the end of the staff, knocking it open.
"Remy!" John exclaimed, sounding overjoyed. "Piotr! Are you blokes here to rescue me?"
"Just what the hell do you two think you're doing?" Wanda demanded, throwing her arms out to block them from entering. "I'm not letting you take Pyro. Only Magneto can have him."
"We're here to take him to Magneto," Remy said, in a tone of voice that told her that he was used to people trusting him, and he thought she ought to just take his word on the matter.
"Yeah, right," Wanda scoffed. "Get the hell out."
"Now, now… we don't wanna fight you, child," Remy told her, glancing at the giant Piotr for his affirmation. "No, no. We just wanna take him and go off peacefully."
"I said no," Wanda said, folding her arms across her chest.
The two of them exchanged glances, and then, at the same time, they pushed themselves through the door together, knocking her aside as they entered the room.
Appalled, Wanda stepped back and slammed the door shut on them, using her powers. However, since Piotr the metal man was standing nearer to the side where the door was slamming, it crashed on his metallic body and shattered on impact. Piotr glanced at the door, barely seeming affected.
"Great," Wanda said sarcastically, not too concerned because they had a few spares in the hallway closet for just these types of occasions. She went to John and lifted him easily off the ground and roughly threw him onto her bed, on his face.
"My, my, my…" he muttered, lifting his head. "What an aggressive shiela you are…"
"Shut up," she growled, and turned to the intruders who had come for John, raising her glowing blue fists. "So, remind me again who you clowns are?"
"Us?" Remy asked, holding a glowing playing card in between his two fingers, like a cigarette. "Why, can't you tell? We are the Acolytes of Magneto."
-----------
A/N: I'm kind of glad that nobody here knows who I am in this real world we live in. Then perhaps I might be ashamed of myself. And perhaps you would all be afraid of me. Perhaps.
REVIEW!!! REVIEW!! REVIEW! PLEASE!!!
