Timewarp (Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This ((don't) Wake Me Up (you dare)))
pt. III
The school had started up again, but Charles wanted students, not soldiers.
"They'll come for us, eventually," Hank had said. "Probably sooner rather than later. They're coming for mutants out there. The students need to know how to fight, Charles. The world needs the X-Men. These students need the X-Men."
But Charles had just looked at him like he was a sad and misguided child, and given him a speech about how humans and mutants needed to work together peacefully.
"Stop dreaming, Charles!" Hank wanted to shout, but he didn't. "Look at the world around you! It's not happening! We need to defend ourselves!"
He didn't have to say it out loud. Charles was a mindreader, after all.
But he had just kept giving Hank that look, and it made Hank feel sick.
So he had stalked off, and started building a war plane. For when things crashed down around their heads, and Charles couldn't ignore the situation any longer. For when the need for the X-Men became too great to be ignored.
He had started building a war plane, and he had started training himself to fight. He needed to know how. He needed to be better than he was.
And his blue, mutated form was so, so much more powerful than his human form. Stronger. Faster. More agile. Higher reflexes. More stamina. More durability. An accelerated healing factor. Heightened senses. Razor-sharp claws and fangs. He could tie knots in rope with his toes.
He kept himself in human form, most of the time, because he liked working with smaller, human fingers. He was a scientist, after all, and that required precision (and a confidence he still lacked in his more evolved form).
So he worked as a human, but he trained as a mutant.
He watched martial arts and parkour videos, slowing them down, breaking them down, analyzing them. He filmed himself practicing the moves so he could break down what he'd done wrong, what he needed to do better.
Film himself practicing; go to the computer and replay the footage; analyze; film himself practicing; go to the computer and replay the footage; analyze. Repeat.
There had been no one else to help him train, so he'd had to train himself. He wanted to be ready, when the fighting broke out.
And he had been. Fighting the telepathic, telekenetic ninja Psylocke, he'd been incredibly glad he'd put so much time and effort into training. He wouldn't have had stood a chance against her, otherwise.
He'd nearly cried when Charles had started the X-Men. When Mystique had agreed to stay and help train them. When he'd been able to put his war plane and training room to use.
When he didn't have to train alone.
"You didn't use enough power on the jump," Peter said, tapping his pencil on the clipboard. "And your angle was off by a good fifteen degrees. Try again."
It helped, too, having someone who perceived the world at such a different speed that he could walk around Hank while he was flipping through the air, taking notes on his technique.
"And you need to work on your speed," Peter continued, looking at him. "You're still afraid to use your speed and strength to their full extent. As soon as you nail this flip, I'm taking you running with me."
Hank grinned. "You sure you're not just taking me running because I'm the second fastest person here, and therefore the least boring running partner?"
"In your dreams, Blue."
"Why am I called Blue, when Nighcrawler's blue, too?"
"Because Nightcrawler's not blue, he's indigo," Peter said, scoffing. "Therefore, he is Indigo, and you're Blue. Get with the show, Blue, geez. Now come on, perfect this fucking flip so we can go running already!"
"So impatient," Hank said, but he was smiling as he backed up for another try.
"Goddamn right I'm impatient!" Peter said, gesticulating with the pencil and clipboard. "Speedster here, hellooo? As fun as this is watching you do cool flips, I have an agenda, and it involves running! And you're coming!"
"Of course." Hank flipped again, focusing on the corrections.
When he landed, Peter patted him excitedly on the shoulder, grinning and waving the clipboard. "That was perfect, Blue! Do it again!"
Hank grinned and complied.
"Oh my god!" Kitty shrieked with glee, hand over her mouth as she looked around at the mirror-walled room. "You have a ballet studio! That's so cool!"
"Uh, it's actually not a ballet studio," Hank said, smiling sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I used to use this room to practice my fighting technique."
Kitty whirled around and latched onto his arm, hazel eyes wide and pleading. "Hank! You have to put ballet bars in here! Please? Pleeeaaaasse?"
"Uh," Hank said, smiling bemusedly. "I'll see what I can do."
"Oh, thank you!" Kitty cried, letting go of his arm to start twirling and leaping around, laughing delightedly. "This room is perfect! I could teach ballet classes here! Do you think anyone would come?"
"I'm sure you could convince someone—" Hank said, only to utter an "Ooph!" as a certain speedster crashed into him.
"Hide me," Peter said, tucking himself against Hank's chest and looking warily over the other man's shoulder. "Wanda's mad."
Hank sighed. "What did you do this time, Peter?"
"I might have accidentally knocked over some of her make-up containers, and might have failed to catch them, so they might've ended up breaking against the floor," Peter muttered quickly.
"Peter!" Kitty cried, hands on her hips as she glared at him. "How could you do such a thing?!"
"It was an accident!" Peter said, shrinking against Hank's chest. "And besides, I don't get why she needs all that make-up crap anyway!"
"Sometimes a girl just wants to feel pretty," Kitty said, crossing her arms and leveling him with a Look.
"But she's beautiful without the make-up!" Peter protested. "She doesn't need it!"
"That's not the point!" Kitty said, still glaring at him.
"I don't get the point!" Peter said, throwing up his arms, nearly hitting Hank in the face, before Hank grabbed his wrists, sighing.
"Have you tried apologizing to her?" Hank suggested, finding himself with not much choice but to put an arm around the speedster.
"I said I was sorry!" Peter said. "But she was still angry, so I had to come hide!"
"I hate to break this to you, Peter," Hank said, lips twitching as the speedster pressed further against his chest, as if that would really hide him, "but you probably shouldn't have chosen a room with mirrors to hide in. Even with you hiding behind me," well, technically in front of him, but behind him from where someone coming into the room would be, since Hank had his back to the door at the moment, "all the walls are mirrored, in case you didn't notice. So if she walked in through the door, she could still see you via your reflection."
"Yeah, but Wanda likes you," Peter said. "She wouldn't risk hitting you enough to take a shot at me if I'm hiding behind you. In front of you. Whatever." He paused, looking up at the sometimes-blue mutant (Hank was four inches taller than him). "Why the hell do you even have a room with three mirrored walls anyway? It's kinda disconcerting. Is it a sex thing?"
Kitty made a choked, giggling noise, and Hank looked up at the ceiling, sighing. "No, Peter, it's not a sex thing. It's a fighting technique perfecting thing."
"Soon to be a ballet thing," Kitty added, grinning. Her eyes brightened. "Hey, Peter! Will you take my ballet class?"
"Only if Wanda makes me," Peter muttered, twisting to look over Hank's shoulder, making a keening noise and pulling back to hide against him again.
"PETER!" Wanda cried, storming into the room, eyes glowing scarlet. "Don't you dare try to run away!"
"Could you just stop running for one fucking second?!" Wanda yelled from where she was levitating in the air, scarlet energy whipping around her, leaping from her eyes, scarlet cape and long auburn hair fluttering wildly. The living image of fury. "All you ever do is run from your problems!"
"Wanda, please," Pietro said, holding his hands up defensively even as he backed away. "You don't understand—"
"What don't I understand, Pietro?!" Wanda shouted, torrents of scarlet whirling and whipping around her like a hurricane. "That you're too cowardly to ever just face your problems?! That you're so afraid of being failing and being unable to escape it that you panic and run away instead of staying to actually resolve your shit?! That all you're good for is running?! All you ever do is run run run and lie lie LIE!"
"Wanda," Pietro whimpered, face in his hands as he found his back pressed up against the wall. "Sister, please..."
"Why can't you ever just stay and deal with the consequences of your actions, like the rest of us?!"
"Wanda," Pietro pleaded.
Wanda screamed wordlessly, unleashing her powers at him.
In the blink of an eye, Pietro was gone, running away again.
Always, always running away, so fast that nobody could keep up with him, not even her.
Wanda collapsed to her knees, head hung low as long auburn hair obscured her face, hiding her tears as she sobbed.
"I said I was sorry!" Peter cried, clutching Hanks shirt, face hidden against the other man's chest. "It was an accident, okay?! I can go steal—get you new ones!"
Hank sighed.
Wanda stood there for several moments, scarlet energy looping around her clenched fists, before the power dissipated and she burst out laughing, Kitty bursting out in giggles as well, for some reason.
"What?" Peter asked, peeking out over Hank's shoulder at his sister, narrowing his eyes. "What's so funny?!"
"You are," Wanda said, giggling and wiping her eyes. "Oh, this is precious."
"What?!" Peter whined, hands loosening slightly in Hank's shirt. "You're scary when you're angry!"
"Hey, Wanda," Kitty interrupted, prancing over to the older girl and bouncing on the balls of her feet, hands clasped behind her as she smiled excitedly. "Will you take my ballet class, once Hank installs ballet bars into this room? And will you make Peter take my class, too?"
Wanda's smile turned wicked. "Why, of course I would, Kitty! I would love to learn ballet! And I'm sure Peter would benefit from it, too."
Peter groaned, closing his eyes and banging his forehead on Hank's chest. "Women," he grumbled, "are conspiring against me."
Hank patted his back. "There there," he said, smiling amusedly, "I'm sure you'll be alright."
Peter had been missing for days now.
Hank rubbed his eyes, dark bags beneath them from sleepless nights spent searching: analyzing security footage from the fight, hacking government computers, trying to upgrade Cerebro. "Do you think Peter is…?"
Charles patted his arm and tried to offer him a reassuring smile. It mostly came off as worried. "I'm sure he's alright."
Hank stared into the distance over Charles's shoulder, exhaustion radiating from his form. "Don't lie to me, Professor. I'm too old for that. We both know it was likely Stryker's men who took him." Anger in his voice, then. Frustration. "It's been eight days and seventeen hours since he went missing." Desperation. Fear. "He's not going to be alright."
"We'll find him," Charles said. "I promise."
"But when we do, will he be…?" Hank trailed off, looking down and clenching his hands.
"I don't know, Hank," Charles said quietly. "But whatever has happened to him, we'll help him through it."
Hank didn't dare to look up. "And what if…?"
"Don't," Charles said evenly. "Don't think like that."
"Right," Hank said, pulling away, heading back over to his computer. "Of course."
"Hank," Charles said gently. "You need to sleep."
Hank shook his head. "I can't, Professor."
"We need you at your best, Hank. And I don't think you need me to tell you what sleep-deprivation does to the brain. Go rest. We'll keep searching for Peter."
"No, Charles," Hank said, shaking his head again, already typing commands into the computer. "You don't understand. I can't sleep." His fingers flew across the keys. "I can't."
Charles sighed, wheeling over next to the scientist, reaching out to touch his fingers lightly to Hank's temple. "We need you to sleep, Hank," he said, and Hank's head would have hit the keyboard as he fell unconscious, had Charles not grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back to lean in the chair.
Charles sighed again. Kurt, he projected. Could you come down to the lab and help move Hank to his bed?
Ja, of course, came the response, and then Kurt was there in a puff of purple, sulfuric smoke, grabbing Hank's arm and them teleporting away in another bright and pungent poof.
Erik wrinkled his nose at the smell of sulfur, turning to see Kurt, Hank, and Charles now standing behind him.
At least he was currently walking down an alley, rather than inside a building, and the sulfuric smell was quickly dispersing.
"Charles," Erik drawled, disregarding the other two. "To what do I owe this unexpected and unappreciated visit?"
Charles looked tired and harried, but not nearly as bad as Hank, who looked like he hadn't slept more than a few hours in the past week.
"We need your help, Erik," Charles said, looking at him in a way that made Erik's stomach coil uncomfortably.
"What is it?" he demanded, already knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
"It's Peter," Hank said, looking at him with eyes devoid of their usual hatred for him, only exhaustion left in the absent emotion's place. "He's missing."
Erik's blood ran cold, an icy vice clamping down on his heart.
Peter could fight. He was good at fighting.
He had to be, growing up with silver hair. He was a neon target for the all the bullies. So he'd had to learn to run, and he'd had to learn to fight.
Usually he ran. It was easier, and faster. Fighting was such a waste of his time, and it always worried his mother when he came home bloody. She enrolled him and his sister in karate classes, saying they needed to know how to defend themselves, and it helped. It helped a lot.
But it was still easier to run.
He was good at running. Fast. He'd been a track star since middle school. Nobody else was ever within meters of him. He was a star player in soccer and basketball, and even the boys on his own team hated him for it. But he was still a star a player, even while having to dodge all the elbows and kicks aimed his way, from both sides.
They hated that he was better than them at sports, and they hated that he was better than them in class, and they couldn't even steal his homework because he did it all at the very last second, scribbling it down in class right before he had to turn it in. And he still got A's most of the time (except on essays—he hated essays), even giving it his minimal effort.
"You're just jealous 'cause you're slow," he'd taunt them, watching them go red in the face as they tried to catch him and failed horribly.
Sometimes they cornered him, though, and he couldn't run. So he fought, and as long as he had some room to maneuver, he could win, because the karate classes gave him fighting skills, and his speed helped him execute them, such that even when five of them ganged up on him at once, he was still the one who tended to walk away from the fight while the bullies moaned on the ground.
He could take care of himself just fine. He was fine. Completely fine. It didn't matter that he didn't have any friends, and nobody talked to him aside from his sister and Evan Daniels, the black kid with dyed blond hair who played basketball with him—the only other player who could hold a candle to him, really—and liked to skateboard next to him on the street while he was running down the sidewalk and try to strike up a conversation, probably to try to incriminate him for something or other (why would he try to talk to Peter, otherwise?).
He ate lunch with his sister, who all the other students were scared of, and just tried to remain untouchable.
He let their insults roll off him, the words of, "Freak," "Mutie," "Faggot," "Old man." (They really were creative.) Because Wanda said the words didn't matter, and if Wanda said they didn't matter, then they didn't.
"Your father left when you were born and he saw what a freak you were," they'd say sometimes, and that was a little harder to shake off, but Magda assured him that his father had left before he'd known that she was even pregnant.
"Would he have loved me?" Peter had asked once.
"Of course he'd love you, darling."
"Even with the silver hair?" (Peter thought it was gray, but Wanda said it was silver, and if it Wanda said it was silver then it was silver.)
"Especially with the silver hair," Magada had assured him, but there had been an odd tilt to her smile when she'd said it.
He'd thought about dying his hair, a few times, but his sister had told him that would be cowardice, and he was perfect as he was and should flaunt it in front of everyone, and if they didn't like him because of his hair color then they weren't good people and he shouldn't be friends with them anyway.
And she stuck by her own rule, refusing to hang out with anyone who cared about his hair color, which meant she basically didn't have any friends, either.
"We'll show them one day, Petie," she said, and he believed her. Because if Wanda said it, then it had to be true.
But now, curled on the ground trying to protect his head, shoes kicking him soundly from all sides, he couldn't help but doubt it.
On the track earlier that day, he'd run faster than he'd ever run before, only to collapse and vomit just shy of the 200 meter mark.
He'd been sent to the nurse's office, amid yells and jeers, but the nurse hadn't found anything wrong, he didn't have a fever or anything, and had sent him on his way, saying he'd be fine.
But the nausea had gotten worse, and he'd had to keep stepping out of class to vomit bile in the bathroom. And then he gotten cold, so, so cold, shivering violently.
When school finally let out, he leaned against the wall of the school, waiting for Wanda, when the bullies found him. He couldn't run, and he couldn't fight, shivering, his vision go in and out of focus, feeling like he was going to vomit yet again even though there'd long been anything left in his stomach. He couldn't do anything but try to protect his head as the jocks beat him.
"Hey, dudes! Get the fuck off him!"
The sound of yells and punches could be heard, the scuffle of a fight, and then it quieted and someone was kneeling down next to him saying, "Yo, Peter. You okay, dude?"
Peter slowly uncurled, pain exploding all over, opening his eyes to make out the blurry form of Evan's face, which cleared to razor sharpness, only to blur again.
"Evan?" Peter mumbled in disbelief, forcing himself into a sitting position, only to lurch forward and throw up bile again.
"Whoa, dude, take it easy," Evan said, pulling too-long silver hair out of Peter's face. "Where's your sister, man?"
"I don't…" Peter wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket. "Don't know. I don't… don't know…"
"You don't have a concussion, do you, man?" Evan said, crouching down to look into his eyes, trying to see if they were dilating the same.
Peter stared at him, vision blurring and sharpening, blurring and sharpening. "Hey," he rasped out. "Do you dye your hair blond like that? 'Cause I'd assumed you did, but up close it's not looking very dyed…"
"You don't look concussed," Evan said, leaning back and brushing a dark hand through maybe-dyed blond hair, "but you sure sound like you are."
"Are you…" Peter rasped out, pausing to spit out blood, a hand coming up to shakily wipe his mouth. "Are you… like me?"
"Like you?" Evan asked, raising a dark eyebrow. "What, you mean an idiot?"
Peter would have said something, but he was hit with another wave of nausea, leaning over and dry-retching, the movement causing his bruised body to throb painfully, tears clustering in the corners of his eyes.
"Hey, come on," Evan said when Peter had stopped retching, helping him to his feet. "I'll help you find your sister."
"Peter's been missing for over a week and you didn't think to inform me until now?!" Erik roared. "You promised you would protect him, Charles! I trusted you to protect him, and you betrayed me!"
"You're not angry at me, Erik," Charles said tiredly. "You're angry at yourself for not being there to protect him."
"I trusted you, Charles!" Erik yelled, and there were tears in his eyes, now. "You were supposed to keep him safe!"
"I did everything I could, Erik," Charles said softly. "Now, please, old friend. Stop shouting and help me find him."
"I have something to show you," Stryker said, and there was an evil smirk on his face.
"Well then, let's see it," Peter sighed as longsufferingly as any person could in his position, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, wrists chained to the wall above his head, ankles chained to the floor, a heavy power-dampening collar around his neck.
Stryker was grinning like a shark as he gave a signal and the door to Peter's cell opened, a two guards walking in with Wanda staggering between them, her head down, long auburn hair obscuring her face.
The guards forced Wanda to her knees in the middle of the cell, a third man stepping out of the shadows with a large knife glinting in his hand.
"Last chance, Peter," Stryker said maliciously. "Either you comply with us, or we torture your sister while you watch, helpless to stop it. What was that you had been saying about her 'wiping the floor of the universe' with out asses?"
It took all the meager amount of energy Peter had to keep the grin off his face. "I'll never comply," he managed to spit, voice choking from the effort not to laugh in giddy delight.
"We'll see if you still feel that way in an hour," Stryker smirked, gesturing for one of the guards to grab Wanda's hair, pulling it back, so she was forced to look up, the power-dampening collar on her neck on full display.
Peter was going to laugh his ass off about this, just as soon as he was able.
"Hey, Wanda," he managed, weak with pain and restrained giggles.
Wanda looked at him, no trace of concern on her face as her eyes scanned his unsightly condition, shirtless and barefoot in torn jeans, cuts, bruises, and burn marks all over his body and face, covered in blood both fresh and old.
She'd always been an amazing actor.
"So this is where you've been hiding, Pete," she said smoothly, narrowing her eyes. "What, do you really hate taking out the trash that much?"
"Yeah, it's at the very top of my list of things I hate to do," Peter said. "Right above getting tortured and turned into a living weapon. I'd take this over taking out the trash any day."
"Don't think you're going to get out of your brotherly duties that easily," Wanda said, eyes narrowed at him, ignoring the two men holding her in place while the third walked over with the knife.
"You think that inane banter will make you any less scared?" Stryker asked, looking between them in amusement.
Wanda's eyes never left Peter's. "Do you think asking oblivious questions will make you any less scared, Stryker?"
The knife whipped towards her face, and in a flash of scarlet light the guards and Stryker were all blasted away from her and Wanda was standing up, collar and handcuffs clicking open and clattering to the floor as she walked forward.
"I am going to cry really hard as soon as we get you somewhere safe," she informed him, not a crack in her composure as she carefully undid his bonds with a touch, catching him as he slumped forward, ignoring the fact that his blood was soaking into her clothing.
"Aww, do you have to?" he whined, even as he clung to her desperately. "Crying is gross."
"Crying is very necessary," Wanda said, pulling back slightly to look at him. "It helps release damaging emotions in an nondestructive manner. Can you walk?"
"I can run," Peter said, even as he leaned most of his weight on her. But the release of the power-dampener had returned at least some of his energy. "I have at least fifty miles left in me."
"No need," Wanda said, wrapping an arm around his waist, supporting him as they exited the cell, the door crumpling out of existence in front of them. "Now come on, brother. Let's get you out of here."
Warren needed to get out of the mansion.
It was stifling, inside, crowded, all the students running around and shrieking at each other. Never a silent moment, never a still moment, never a moment of peace.
Warren needed to get out.
Fly safely, Warren, came Xavier's voice in his head as he stormed out the door, nearly slamming it behind him. Kurt, Peter, and Wanda are signed up to make dinner tonight, and are planning to cook a meal of Bratwurst and Salzkartoffeln, with Rote Grütze for dessert.
You play dirty, Professor, Warren thought, unfurling his metallic wings. But fine, I'll be back in time for dinner. Only because I know Kurt knows his way around deutsche Küche and that Wanda can keep Peter in check enough that he won't ruin all the food again.
I'll let them know they can expect you in attendance, Xavier thought, before his mind retreated.
Several mighty flaps took Warren up above the mansion, and he glided for a moment, circling, before started beating his wings again, diving higher, higher, higher, till the mansion was a speck below him and the sun was harsh on his back (he was no Icarus), high above the realm of the eagles, rocketing in the airspace of jets faster than the speed of sound (only Quicksilver could go faster, only spaceships could higher).
A shout of exhilaration left his lips as he flew faster, tucking his wings close to his body as he rolled repeatedly, zooming faster, before throwing his wings out, slowing, gliding, nothing but elation on his face and nothing but the air to support him.
Wand supported Peter as they walked out of the Weapon Plus facility, the bullets from the guards' guns hitting only Wanda's forcefield, the facility caving in on itself right behind them.
When they finally made it out, very last of the place crumbled into rubble, but Wanda still turned around and wound her fingers into a fist, folding the entire place out of existence, leaving nothing but a peaceful meadow.
Peter collapsed against her in a fit of giggles. "I can't believe they were so stupid!" he said hysterically, hiccuping and shaking in her arms.
"Yeah, it was pretty stupid of them to bring me right to you, wasn't it?" she said, lips curling, watching as the Blackbird touched down in the field where the Weapon Plus facility used to be. "I even beat the X-Men here."
Peter tilted his head on her shoulder to see the door of the Blackbird open, the X-Men piling out in confusion, Wolverine wrinkling his nose and growling. They stopped when they saw Peter and Wanda standing there at the edge of the woods.
Peter snickered. "Bet you they think you're an angel," he murmured, closing his eyes.
"No, I'm Angel," said a voice, and Peter opened his eyes to see a shirtless guy standing next to them, curly blond hair and metal wings, frowning at the X-Men's plane. "What the hell did you do, Frau? One moment I'm trapped in a cell I can't cut my way out of, and the next out I'm out here standing in a fucking meadow."
"You may have the wings," Peter said, smirking, arms tightening around his sister's waist, "but she's the one who performs miracles."
The X-Men were hurrying over to them, and Wanda asked, "We're safe with the X-Men, right?"
"Uh-huh," Peter murmured into her shoulder. "Why ya ask?"
And then Wanda was crumpling to her knees, pulling him into her lap and sobbing heavily, tears streaming down her face as she clutched her brother to her. "You absolute dummkopf!"
"Wanda," Peter murmured, and she sobbed all the harder, and then Angel was kneeling next to her, confused and trying to calm her down in quiet German, and then the X-Men were gathered around them, even more confused.
"What the hell happened here?!" Scott and Logan demanded and growled at the same time, respectively.
And then Scott was asking Wanda, "Who are you?!" and Logan was asking Peter, "Why the hell didn't ya tell us you had a sister?!" and Kurt was looking at Angel with guilt on his face and trying to apologize, and Angel was still trying to get Wanda to stop crying, and Wanda was still sobbing, and Hank was trying to see how badly Peter was injured, and Jean looked overwhelmed, and Storm looked furious, and Professor X was trying to get everyone to calm down.
And Peter just cracked open an eye and said, "Well, this is awkward," and then promptly passed out.
Wanda sat in the back of the jail cell, her wrists handcuffed behind her, giggling drunkenly.
The police officer sighed. "Do you have someone to call to come get you and pay your bail, miss?" he asked.
A pause, and then, "I have a brother," she said, and rattled off his phone number even in her drunken state.
Hardly had the police officer called her brother and explained the situation when there was a breeze and a silver-haired man was standing there, making the police officer nearly yell in surprise.
The man looked at his giggling sister and sighed. "Wanda, darling, you should know better than to drink and drive," he said, clucking his tongue, before turning to the officer and saying, "Thank you so much for pulling her over and not letting her get into a car accident. I don't know what I would do if that happened."
The man reached into his pocket, flipped through his wallet, pulled out the bail money and handed it to the stunned officer. "There's your bail money. I trust you won't tell anyone what you've seen tonight. I mean, it's not like anyone would believe you if you did. They would think that you were the one on drugs."
And then the handcuffs clattered to the floor at his feet, and the silver-haired man and the drunk woman were gone, along with the bail money that had been in the man's hand.
He scratched his head. What the hell was that? He was pretty sure he wasn't high on anything…
"Peter, what the hell?! Stop being so annoying!"
I can't help it! I'm fucking bored!
"God, Peter, stop bothering me! Don't you ever shut up?!"
I've been silent for an entire fucking MINUTE! Do you know how long that is for me?! I just memorized the entire song "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer and ran down to the beach and I found this really cool seashell and I wanted to show you because I thought you liked that sort of thing, but whatever, I guess you don't appreciate cool stuff.
"Peter, stop stealing my stuff!"
There's nothing else to DO in this boring place. Please, tell me, what ELSE am I supposed to be doing with my time? There's only so many times one can read and reorganize all the books in the mansion. Would you rather I stole from someone else? A convenience store, maybe? A museum? Think I could steal the Captain America suit from the Smithsonian?
"You need to slow down, Peter. Take deep, slow breaths. Calm yourself."
I'm very calm. My breathing and heartrate just happen to be like a zillion times faster than yours.
"You need to have patience, Peter."
I AM PATIENT. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR AN ENTIRE FUCKING HOUR DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG THAT IS FOR ME?! I TAUGHT MYSELF HOW TO PLAY THE CHOPIN-GODOWSKY ETUDES ON THE PIANO IN LESS TIME THAN I'VE BEEN WAITING!
"You need to listen to me, Peter! You have to follow orders!"
Well excuse ME for moving so fast that I can't even hear what you're saying, because in the time it took you to give whatever order you're talking about, I just disassembled an entire fucking Sentinel, saved twenty-seven civilians, and kept you from getting shot. Wow I'm SORRY I didn't hear what you were saying, would you rather be dead?!
"Control yourself, Peter!"
Oh yeah? Like you can control your eye-blasts? You're not the only one who can't turn their powers off, you know.
"Hit 'em hard and hit 'em fast!" Cyclops yelled, blasting one of the many government-created superhumans they were fighting. "Wanda, where the hell is Quicksilver?"
"Beast is still trying to resuscitate him," Scarlet Witch said, hands held out in front of her as she shot hexes at the mob of soldiers, keeping them away from Beast and the unconscious Quicksilver. "But when he wakes up—"
"He's not going to wake up, Scarlet Wtich," one of the soldiers snarled, a woman with scaled skin and ram horns. "Don't you know we have a speedster of our own?"
"What's the matter, Cyclops?" the other speedster taunted, a woman with dark skin, wearing a white suit, goggles, and helmet, darting around Scott as she punched him. "No good with moving targets?"
Cyclops tried to reach for his visor, but the speedster kicked him in the face.
"C'mon! C'mon!" she taunted, a smirk on her lips. "I thought they said you were fast!"
Quicksilver's eyes snapped open.
And then he was out of Beast's grip, grabbing the other speedster by her shoulders and pushing her away from Cyclops, snarling, "Touch him again and I take your head off." He punched her in the face. "Don't pretend you can't hear me, bitch, I can tell you've been kitted-out."
"Oh, I can hear you, Quicksilver," she said, engaging him in hand-to-hand combat, their fists and feet flying. "And I've been looking forward to this since they first sliced me open. We know all about you and that strange sister fixation you seem to have." She smirked as punched her in the jaw especially viciously.
"What's the matter, Pietro? Didn't daddy ever tell you he loved you or something?" she taunted as Quicksilver grabbed her by the collar, snarling in her face. "Speed we're moving at, I could blow Cyclops up just by touching this dolt."
"You want fast, Hurricane?" Quicksilver growled, picking her up and running with her held in front of him by her collar. "I'll give you fast. What kind of limits did they take you up to back home? Mach five? Mach ten?" A supercilious snarl. "I was hitting those numbers when I still had pimples!"
"P-Pietro, please!" she begged, closing her eyes as he ran even faster.
"Feel your bones rumbling like you're riding a freight train?" Quicksilver asked, dark eyes glinting behind his goggles as she started coming apart in front of him. "That's molecules dancing—that's what happens when you threaten my friends!"
And then she was no more, the speed having torn her very atoms apart.
Back at the battleground, Cyclops hit the ground from being kicked by Hurricane, letting out an "Ugh!"
"Hank, what happened?" Wanda asked, looking over her shoulder at where Hank still had his hands poised above the empty air where Quicksilver had been. "Where's Peter?"
Several feet away, Cyclops looked up to see Quicksilver standing bent over with his hands on his knees, panting.
"Quicksilver! Stop messing around and give me a hand here, huh?" Cyclops said, pushing himself to his feet.
Quicksilver turned his head, sweat dripping from his face in rivulets, dark eyes looking at him like, Are you fucking kidding me?
But saying, "Do I look like I was messing around, to you?" or, "I just saved your fucking life, you ingrate," would have taken too much time, so Quicksilver just straightened, wiping the sweat from his face with a shaking hand and then dove back into the fight.
Peter rubbed his thumb over the card with Magneto's number.
"You're a very powerful mutant, Quicksilver," Erik had said "I know what what that feels like, to be more powerful than anyone knows, and to be held back by peoples' limited expectations. If you ever get tired of it at Xavier's school, that's my number. You are always free to join my Brotherhood. We could use a powerful mutant like you, and we'd treat you with the respect you deserve."
Fuck the X-Men. They didn't want him around, anyway.
Peter picked up his huge, clunky cellphone, dialing the number, waiting impatiently the ages and ages the phone was ringing.
"This is Magneto."
"Give me an address," Peter said, crumpling the card in his hand. "I'll be there in an eye-blink."
There was a smile in Magneto's voice as he gave Peter the address of the Brotherhood's base. Which was actually an island in the Indian Ocean called Genosha that was its own sovereign country. Because yes, apparently the Brotherhood of Mutants really had taken over an entire country, albeit not a particularly large country, but still. "Welcome to—"
Peter was standing in front of him, silver hair settling into place.
"—the Brotherhood of Mutants," Magneto finished, clapping the speedster on the shoulder, looking genuinely pleased. "We're happy you decided to join us."
"Yeah yeah, save me the welcome speech," Peter said, crossing his arms and looking up at the Master of Magnetism. "When do I get to do stuff?"
Apparently that was the right thing to say, because Magneto looked even more pleased. "Come inside," he said, making a grand gesture to his castle. "I have a job you can do that I believe you'll enjoy. First, though, I'd like to introduce you to the other members of the team."
On the other side of the line, Peter could hear Wanda crying.
"Wanda?!" he asked, panicking, jumping to his feet and pacing the castle hall. "Wanda, what's wrong?! Where are you?!"
"I… I lost control of my powers, Pete," she said, and he could hardly understand her through her sobs. "I lost control of my powers and, and all the cameras on the set were r-ruined, and, and now they all know I'm a mutant and someone called the p-police and I can hear the sirens, P-Pete, I'm hiding but they'll find me, and l-lock me up, and oh god, Peter, th-they all know, and I'm never going to be able to act again, n-nobody will hire me—"
"Wanda, take a deep breath," he finally managed to interrupt. "Just stay calm. Tell me where you are. I'll get you out of there."
Almost as soon as the location was out of her mouth, Wanda looked up to see Peter standing in front of her, a sheen of sweat on his skin and concern written all over his face.
"I'm here, Wanda," he said, kneeling down beside her and picking her up, an arm around her back and an arm around her knees. "I'll take you somewhere safe, okay?"
Wanda nodded, burying her face in his chest and sobbing as she heard the sirens getting closer.
And then the sirens were gone, and she was sitting on a bed, Peter's arms around her. "You're safe now," he promised her. "I won't let anything happen to you." A pause as he ran his fingers gently through her auburn hair as she buried her face in his chest. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Once Wanda had calmed down, Peter led her to a large, high-ceilinged room, a TV on the wall, four large couches around, several mutants sitting there.
"Sorry to bust this on you so soon after you've just had an incredibly emotional experience," Peter told her as the other mutants looked up at them in surprise, "but I'm kinda hoping to distract you," which made Wanda laugh slightly, rubbing at the tears dried on her cheeks.
"Everyone, this is my sister, Wanda," Peter said, looking at the others and wrapping his arm protectively around Wanda's waist. "If you so much as look at her funny, either she will blast you with your hexes, or I will punch you in the face very fast, and either way you will be very deeply regret your actions. Even you, Sabretooth."
The large man with amber eyes and long, scraggly blond hair and wearing brown pants and a whit muscle shirt gave a nod and a fanged grin, waving clawed fingers.
"That's Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth," Peter said to Wanda. "He's an alright guy unless you mention Logan, aka Wolverine of the X-Men, so don't. Also, he has a healing factor, so if he bothers him you can just throw him in the ocean or kill him, it's okay, he always comes back."
He ignored when Sabretooth growled at him, nodding instead to the man with jaw-length brown hair, eerie red and black eyes, dark jeans, a purple shirt, and a long brown coat. "That's Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit. He has a molecular energy acceleration here that allows him to create explosions, kind of like what I can do, except he can actually imbue objects with the energy and throw them to make things blow up. He always wins at card games, though you might be able to beat him because of that probability thing you do."
That made Gambit raise his eyebrows with interest. "Bonjour, ma chérie," he nodded, smiling. He looked like he was about to get up and come over to kiss her hand or something like that, but Peter glared at him, and he remained where he was.
"He's kind of a womanizer, so be careful," Peter continued. "Also, his ability to tap energy gives him a degree of superhuman speed, strength, reflexes, durability, the works—though nowhere near what I have—so if he bothers you you can throw him around a bit, too. Just don't kill him, because he doesn't come back to life like Creed does."
Gambit started protesting, but Peter talked right over him, nodding instead at man with blue eyes and strawberry blond hair that stuck up from his fingers running through it. He was grinning and playing with a lighter, the flames dancing in impossible shapes.
"That's St. John Allerdyce, aka Pyro," Peter said, and Pyro waved distractedly.
"'Allo."
"He's Australian, so he talks funny," Peter said, making Wanda snort slightly. "He can manipulate fire. And he's kind of crazy. But he has normal human physiology, so be kinda careful with him."
Peter nodded at the woman with green eyes, long brown hair with a white streak, wearing dark green from head to toe to the tips of her fingers, hood pulled down over her face. "That's Anna Marie, but don't call her that, she hates it. She goes by Rogue. She absorbs people's powers through skin contact, so don't let her touch you. Also, she's from the American South, so she also talks funny."
"Careful, sugah, or Ah'll break that pretty little face o' yours," Rogue said, tilting her head to glare at him.
Peter ignored her. "Also, Tabitha Smith, aka Boom-Boom, Lance Alvers, aka Avalanche, and Raven Darkholme, aka Mystique, are around here somewhere. Tabitha has short blond hair and can create balls of plasma that blow up. Normal human physiology. Lance Alvers, brunette, surly teenager, can create earthquakes. Normal human physiology. You can't miss Mystique when she's in her normal form, 'cause she's blue with yellow eyes and orange hair, and she likes to walk around naked in that form, I guess 'cause she kinda has scales and stuff. But she's a shapeshifter, so she could be anyone, anytime, so you never truly know who you're talking to when she's around."
Wanda had her lips pursed. "And these are all your teammates?"
"Yep! Jolly bunch, huh?" Peter said, grinning slightly. "Also, there's Erik Lensherr, aka Magneto, who's the team leader. Tall guy, very serious-looking, likes to wear a cape and dorky helmet everywhere."
"And he's yer father," Sabretooth said, examining his clawed fingernails.
"Yes, thank you for that," Peter said, sighing as Wanda's eyes widened in shock. "I forgot to mention that Sabretooth there has heightened senses, so he can always hear you, and also he can tell with his nose that we're related because we have the same blood-scent or something weird and creepy like that."
Wanda's mouth closed, and her shocked expression turned to one of amusement. "What you forgot to mention was that Sabretooth has heightened senses, not that our father is running this team?"
"Father?" Erik asked, stepping into the hall, raising a dark eyebrow, Wanda looking at him with wide eyes.
Erik froze when he was her, his mouth dropping open slightly. "You… you look like…" his voice dropped to hardly a breath. "You…"
Peter hummed, tilting his head, expression perfectly innocent. "Did I forget to tell either of you that we're all related? Yeah, Wanda, this is our dad. Erik, I'm your son, and this is my sister, Wanda, who is thereby your daughter."
Erik and Wanda looked stunned.
The mutants on the couch could not stop laughing.
Peter just grinned sheepishly. "Now you know?"
"Reinforcements appearing at the southwest of the facility, dear brother," Wanda said as she stood on the roof, looking out over the grounds, hands on her hips. "Do you want to neutralize them or shall I?"
"Just follow the plan and make your way towards the missile silos, Wanda," came Pietro's voice over the comms. "By the time sound carries these words to your eardrums, I should have taken care of them anyway."
"Show-off!" Wanda said, laughing slightly as she saw the soldiers suddenly fall to the ground, all tied up.
Pietro was making his through a room filled with criss-crossing laser-triggers, avoiding them with acrobatics superior to anything that could be done by the finest human athlete. "Would—"
Jump.
"—you really—"
Flip, forward-tuck.
"—have me—"
Hand-spring.
"—any other—"
Vault, tucked forward.
"—way?"
Run, ducked low, through the circular door, hit the button.
He was already out of there by the time Wanda had laughed and said, "Never, Pietro. Never."
Wanda found Pietro sitting at the edge of Genosha, legs dangling over the cliff-face, a hand rubbing his shoulder.
She sat down next to him, feet joining his dangling hundreds of feet above the ravenous ocean waves.
"Does it still hurt?" she asked, fingers tracing over his shoulder where she knew the scar from Magneto impaling him lay dark on his pale skin.
He shook his head. "It's long since healed."
"But it still bothers you," she said, and watched him stare straight ahead toward where the blue water met blue sky at the horizon, saying nothing.
She loved the way the ocean breeze blew his silver hair away from his face, a cruelly gentle parody of when he was running. He always seemed so beautifully tragic when he was standing still.
"Poor Pietro," she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder, interlacing her fingers with his. "All you want is for your father to be proud of you."
He stiffened impossibly further. He was always so tense, even when he seemed to be relaxed, always ready to run away.
He should have been a predator, but he was nothing but a scared little jackrabbit.
And she had done this to him.
She traced a finger along the back of his pale hand. "Pietro, my pet. Does it really matter so much to you?"
He was vibrating against her, practically quivering. "He doesn't have to treat me like I'm dirt beneath his fingernails," Pietro said, every word painfully slow and controlled, like it was taking all his focus to force his thoughts to an understandable speed. "He sets me tasks that seem designed for me to fail, then criticizes me in front of the others." His head lowered, silver hair falling into his face. "What does he expect from me, Wanda?" he said, voice quiet, shaking.
Wanda hummed, placing her hand over his. "Don't be sad, darling. It doesn't matter what he thinks. All we need is each other." Her voice lowered, her mouth breathing warm air over his ear, his hand in her own. "I'm here for you. From now until forever."
"Then why, Wanda," he said, and his voice was choked. "Why did you leave me? I waited for you. For years, I waited."
She sat up, looking at him. His face was turned away. Gently, she took his chin, forcing him to turn his head to look at her, dark eyes meeting green.
"I had to protect you," she said, a hand against his cheek. He leaned into the touch. "I didn't have control over my powers, and I'd nearly killed you. Waiting there next to your hospital bed, waiting for you to wake up from your coma, I made myself a promise. I needed to leave, and I couldn't come back until I had full control." Her thumb brushed across his cold skin. "It would have killed me if I'd hurt you like that again."
"I forgave you," Pietro said, and there was a keen in his voice, a desperation in his gaze as his dark eyes searched hers. "I never blamed you for what happened."
"I know," Wanda whispered, looking down. Her thumb stilled on his cheek. "That's why I had to leave."
"You were so angry, Wanda," Pietro said, and she didn't dare meet his broken gaze. "I thought you hated me. I thought that was why you left. I thought I'd done something wrong."
"No, never," Wanda said, shaking her head. Her bottom lip trembled. "I never hated you, Pietro. I loved you. I never stopped loving you. But I had to make you think I hated you so you wouldn't follow me."
"You have no idea how much I hated myself for making you leave," Pietro whispered. "How many nights I couldn't sleep, thinking about everything I did that I thought drove you away, all the things I could have done differently to make you stay. All the nights I spent stealing random shit just to give myself something to do so I could stop thinking, stop hurting."
"I'm sorry, Pietro," she said, looking up at him with tears glittering in her green eyes, moving her arms around his neck. "I'm sorry."
There was no hatred in his eyes; no anger, no bitterness. "I forgive you, Wanda," he said, and all that was in his gaze was a softness.
Her heart thumped, and she pulled him closer, her lips on his, a hand in his beautiful, silver hair.
His kissed her back, his arms around her waist, as they ignored the rest of the world around them, only coming up for air when Genosha's alarms started wailing.
"The X-Men are here," he said, catching his breather quicker than she did. "They'll try to destroy everything we've been working for."
"Well, we can't let them do that, now can we?" Wanda smiled, standing and pulling her brother to his feet, before winding her arms around his neck again.
"No," he agreed, one arm around her back, the other under her knees, "we can't."
He ran back to the castle where Magneto was waiting, setting his sister down just outside the door.
"You were wrong," he told her, not meeting her eyes. "I'm not doing this for Magneto. I'm doing this for you."
He pushed open the door, and they walked into the room hand-in-hand.
"Poor Pietro," she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder, interlacing her fingers with his. "All you want is for your father to be proud of you."
He stiffened impossibly further. He was always so tense, even when he seemed to be relaxed, always ready to run away.
He should have been a predator, but he was nothing but a scared little jackrabbit.
He always had been. Even when they were younger.
She traced a finger along the back of his pale hand. "Pietro, my pet. Are you scared you might open your mouth, and feel the horror if nothing comes out?"
He was vibrating against her, practically quivering. "He doesn't have to treat me like I'm dirt beneath his fingernails," Pietro said, every word painfully slow and controlled, like it was taking all his focus to force his thoughts to an understandable speed. "He sets me tasks that seem designed for me to fail, then criticizes me in front of the others." His head lowered, silver hair falling into his face. "What does he expect from me, Wanda?" he said, voice quiet, shaking.
Wanda hummed, placing her hand over his. "Oh, darling. All eyes on you, we're watching you." Her voice lowered, her mouth breathing warm air over his ear, his hand in her own. "It's too bad you're too stuck to move. Too bad you don't know what to do."
Genosha's alarm started wailing, and Pietro jerked his head away, looking out to the horizon. Always the jumpy little jackrabbit. She pitied him, sometimes, how obviously vulnerable he was even with the devil-may-car front he wrapped around himself like an armor that didn't even go skin-deep.
"The X-Men are here," he said, and his voice was dead with nerves.
"I know," she said, taking his chin and guiding him to look at her again. She leaned forward, kissing his lips softly. "This is it, 'Tro," she murmured, a force in her words. "No time left to play it safe, no time to bend."
"I know," he said, and she scoffed.
"Fake a brave face, I see right through you," she said, watching him cower away from her gaze.
"I'm not a coward," he said, quiet, defiant, but he wouldn't meet her eyes.
Wanda stood, tossing long auburn hair out of her face. "The worst mistake you'll ever make is trying to blend," she said, and started walking back to the castle where she knew Magneto was waiting. "Be careful in this upcoming fight, Pietro. You better up the ante, up the drive. You don't want to mess up, now do you?"
Pietro didn't move, but she knew he'd be there in time.
He always was.
And she knew, even as she walked away, that for her, he always would be.
No matter how many times she left him.
Thrice struck with lightning, and Pietro was lying on the ground facedown in the snow, burnt and steaming as the raindrops hit him.
"Pietro? Pietro please…" Wanda said, kneeling next to him, taking his hand. "You're the only one who can do this, darling. The only one fast enough to snatch that wretched belt of his..."
"I can't, Wanda," he gasped out, trying vainly to push himself up to his hands and knees, a task made more difficult by the pouring rain. "I can't even stand up any more."
"He hurt me, Pietro," Wanda said, voice trembling slightly as Pietro managed to push himself to his knees. "I was trying to disable him and he hit me with Wolverine."
"He hurt you?" Pietro growled, voice laced with fury.
"He really hurt me," Wanda said. "Do you know how heavy Wolverine is? He almost broke my nose."
Pietro's face was murderous as he looked toward the crazy man floating in the sky, bellowing and striking out at the X-Men with hammer and lightning.
And then he was no longer by Wanda's side, racing through the snow and rain, dodging the lightning bolts that earlier had struck him and brought him to the ground, leaping dozens of meters into the air, unclasping the super-ionized man's belt as he sped by him in the air.
"Quicksilver to anyone," Pietro said as he tumbled through the air, belt in his grip. "Catch."
"Ah gotcha, sugah," Rogue said as she caught him in the air. They watched as the man, powerless, fell dozens of meters to the snow-covered ground, yelling either for or at his father before hitting the ground.
When he'd finished vomiting, he looked up to find the X-Men standing around him, murder on their faces.
"You—" Logan growled, stalking forward, adamantium claws glinting.
"Let him be, Logan," Professor Xavier said, his wheelchair levitating over the snow as he came to look down at the large man kneeling in a puddle of his own stomach contents. "He's done."
Behind the circle of other X-Men, Wanda ran over as Rogue set Pietro down, catching him when his knees started to buckle.
"Thank you, Pietro," she whispered against his neck, carefully taking the belt from his weakening grip. "You saved me. You saved us all."
His arms wrapped weakly around her waist, leaning his head on her shoulder, body trembling with pain and exhaustion. "He hurt you. And I promised I would protect you."
The fight between the X-Men and the Brotherhood was chaos.
Crumbling buildings, the air filled with dust and flying debris, cars and hunks of concrete chucked through the air by those with telekenesis or superstrength. Beams of colorful light, thick smoke, so many explosions. The screeching of metal. Yells of attempted strategy, shouted insults, pained screams.
In the middle of it all, Magneto and Professor X, and the fighting wouldn't stop until one of them was dead.
Wanda laughed as she touched the blood streaming heavily from the three deep slash marks across her abs, the scarlet only a few shades away from that of her outfit. "Is this how you feel inside?" she asked her brother, even as she fell to her knees, feeling lightheaded. "Torn in the middle like you can't decide, can't step up to save your life."
There was a breeze, and then Pietro's steady hands were wrapping her torso in bandages, slowing the flow of blood.
"I'm not afraid to fall," he said once he was done, and when he looked up his eyes were adamant-hard. "You can watch me lose it all."
He stood up, straightening his shoulders, chin up, dark eyes narrowed as he appraised the chaos in front of him. He shifted his weight, a starving wolf preparing to give chase, sending her a final glance over his shoulder, and his lips moved.
"Watch me."
But he was gone, too fast to be seen, before she'd even registered the words.
"GuysthisisreallybadholyfuckIthinkeveryoneisdeadtherearebodieseverywhereandsomuchbloodholyshitthisisreallybadtheywerelikeeatenIthinkitsthatthinghaveyouguyseverheardofPredatorXIthinkitscomingforus," Peter said, speaking so fast his words were all compressed together into one slurred sound.
"Whoa, man, calm down," Scott said, putting a hand on the speedster's shoulder, calming his shaking. "We can't understand you, Peter. Slow down. What happened?"
Peter's dark eyes were wide, afraid, dilated in the dark of the abandoned subway tunnel they were hiding in. "We're not safe here. It's coming."
"Do you think you're safe, frozen in place?" Pietro said, appearing in front of her wearing the expression of a killer and the pallor of the dying. He glanced behind him, fists clenching. Blood dripping. Magneto's helmet was under his arm. "Run for cover just in case."
Precious seconds were ticking by.
"I'd never make it alone," she said, holding out her hand. Her lips curled, but her eyes were desperate. "Come with me?"
His weight shifted. Blood dripped. "I should go back, finish what I—"
"Please," she said, and hardly was the word out of her mouth before his bloody hand was in hers. "Take me away from here."
"As you wish, sister," came his quiet voice, and then there was nothing but the rush of wind and the blinding white of all the colors of the world blurring together.
And then she was in a hospital waiting room, and Pietro was nowhere to be found.
She wanted to scream. So she did.
It wasn't till an hour later, once she was all stitched up and forced to rest in a hospital bed, that her brother collapsed next to her, breathing fast and shallow in a growing pool of blood, his costume in tatters.
"Pietro!" she cried, swinging her legs out of the bed and kneeling in the blood beside him, rolling him over onto his back. She placed a hand to his chest, a scarlet glow around her fingers.
"What are you doing?" he gasped out, eyelids dragging open as he struggled to focus on her.
"Increasing the probability that you'll survive this," she grit out, and he gave a few little chuckles that quickly turned into pained gasps.
"Don't think… I'm going to…" his eyes fluttered closed. "Sorry…"
"No, you're not going to die!" she said, a pain even worse than the claw slashes erupting in her chest as she shook his shoulders, his head lolling limply. "Wake up, Pietro!" she shouted at him, shaking him harder, tears streaming down her face. "WAKE UP!"
You are awake.
You think.
You think this is what being awake feels like. Flashes of images before your eyes, pulses of pain behind them.
The images are sharp at the point directly where your eyes are looking, and everything around that blurs and you can't quite focus on it.
You're distantly aware of your body moving, but it feels disconnected from you, like you're behind a pane of glass and watching the feeling of your blood pumping and the air moving in your lungs from behind that glass, and you can kind of feel it all moving past you but not through you.
You think that maybe that's something to be concerned about, except you forget that thought a moment after you have it.
You're some place different, you think, but you don't know how you got there. You're not even sure of the difference, really, but you think that you're not in the same place. You think your body moved but you don't remember feeling it.
You're distracted by something shiny.
Metal, right. That's metal? You don't think metal moves on its own, as it shifts in your vision from the sharp spot to the blur of vague colors and motions
And then you're looking at a man, and there is a hand in a black sleeve and black glove stretched in front of you and gripping the man's neck. You can't see who the arm's attached to, so maybe it's yours.
You wonder what the arm is doing and why it appears to be doing so without your knowledge. Do your legs and arms think for themselves?
You watch as the arm picks the man into the air and throws him out of the sharp spot into the blur, and then the sharp spot is filled with different features, a face that is softer and younger and prettier with a halo of red around it, you think but you're not really sure why you thought of this face is pretty because you're not quite sure what that means, and you don't know what a halo is, and you're not quite sure that the color is actually red. Is it orange?
A black fist is stretching out from where you can't see it coming from, and you think that maybe it's going to snap the neck of the girl in front of you and you think maybe you shouldn't do that because it feels wrong, somehow, in some way that you can't define.
You try to yank the arm back towards you, and then you're just curious to see if you can control it.
The arm slows down, fighting against you, but ultimately it wins and you're left feeling oddly empty with the feeling that you lost to something that shouldn't be able to win because it doesn't have a brain.
It strikes you, then, that maybe there's something else beyond the glass that has control, that must be like you, somehow, and that thought brings a sense of having forgotten something important but having no idea what it is.
You can only watch and feel discomforted as more people flash sharp in front of you only to fall into the blur that you think maybe wouldn't be a blur if you could just focus, but you can't, your vision disconnected from you in a similar way to your body.
It takes everything you have just to slow down that hand to a speed and strength you think is probably nonlethal, but you're not really sure. But it takes all your effort and you feel like you're straining, but the glass feels embedded somewhere in your forehead between the world and wherever you are outside of it. Or within it, you're not sure.
Time is moving in explicable ways, coiling and stretching around you like a slinky.
The slinky is traveling down a stairway of glass, going down, down, down, coiling and stretching, coiling and stretching, coiling and stretching.
You think, vaguely, strangely, that the glass is some kind of protection, and you shouldn't break it or bad things will happen.
Something sharp zig-zags jagged within you, striking somewhere you think might be your chest, if you could feel that part of you, which you can't. But the feeling seems to hit somewhere below you and reverberate up to you, still.
Something tells you it's a bad idea to try to break the glass. That it's necessary.
Something else, that feels visceral and angry, rears it head, seemingly from within what you currently feel is what form you're contained in. Something that doesn't want to be caged. Something like wind, but with teeth, and there's a cold press of a blade into your hand.
It stings, and you look to see a reflection of dark, flashing eyes,silver hair ruffling, lips pulled away sharp from teeth that are also too sharp.
He looks familiar, and you think you know him. Or knew him. Like a best friend from childhood that you part ways with, not meeting again until you both have jobs and families.
Someone you used to know intimately, but you've both been changed by time.
Wake up, Peter, the lips move, and the blade slides further into your hand.
You thought you were already awake. You think this is different from being asleep, somehow. Not as dark and not as filled with a lurking, undefinable fear.
Beyond the glass, the hand extending from a shoulder you can't see is lifting a man whose hair appeared to have gotten up, curled into a ball like an armadillo and rolled away, leaving nothing but a smooth scalp.
What the fuck is an armadillo.
The blade is no longer in your hand, but pressed to the side of your face, and you feel something wet dripping down your cheek as your head is slowly forced to the side.
There's someone else in your vision, and her face is fierce and she's entirely surrounded by a glow of red.
Maybe more scarlet than red, except you're pretty sure it's just a fancier-sounding synonym, not like the difference between orange and red, which is a matter of fact, but a matter of style.
There's a pulse, a feeling of something striking from the top of your head and lancing all the way down to the toes that you're suddenly aware that you have.
Wake up, moves the lips of the thing with the knife pressed into your face, the thing you think might be some kind of reflection, some kind of ghost that had been folded away into your shadow. For her.
But you don't know who she is.
The blade is driven into your chest, and you gasp, eyes flying wide. She's everything in the world to you, loser.
Who am I? you wonder.
Break the glass and find out.
The grin is sharp, and riles you like it always has.
I dare you.
The knife is left in your gut, and you pull it free covered in scarlet.
Something about the feel of it in your hand feels right as you maneuver it so the blood-slick blade is between your first and middle finger, and you drive it into the glass, the scarlet running through the surface in lightning cracks.
The glass shatters, along with the weird bright light that you didn't notice until the darkness and pain crashed over you, a tsunami of memories ripping violently through you like high-voltage electricity.
Suddenly you're a young boy again, drowning in the nightmares and crying for your sister, except that this time the nightmares are real, and your sister can't protect you.
It all happened so fast.
One moment, the X-Men were striding to the Blackbird to fly to the government base that the hirsute wolf-man had described.
The next, Peter was standing there, blocking their path, dressed in a black suit, black goggles, black half-mask over his nose and mouth and chin, only his silver hair to show that it was him.
Erik reached for the metal around him, but in the next moment he was lifted up and thrown across the room, into the wall.
The other X-Men were all on the floor, either out cold or dead, who knew, and through the throbbing in his head—there's hot blood flowing down the back of his skull, his neck, and he's probably concussed—Erik could barely make out Peter frozen in the hangar, Charles lifted up by his neck.
Why did Peter stop?
Why did Peter take them down in the first place?
What had those bastards done to him?
Charles had a hand to his temple, a look of concentration on his face, blood leaking from his nose.
And then Charles was falling to the ground, and Peter was gone, and Erik tried to stand, only for everything to fall into blackness.
You feel your sharp-grinning shadow slide back into you, the shattered and scattered pieces clicking into place, reassembling what had been broken.
The child is huddled on the floor of the hallway, crying, and you kneel down in front of him, a hand on his shoulder.
He looks up, dark eyes wide, terrified, hurting. The look is familiar, too familiar, and it makes you feel sick.
You don't flinch as you slip the switch knife from your back pocket, flip it open, and slit the child's throat, too fast for the boy to even see it coming, only a split second of panic in his eyes before the life leaves them.
You get up and keep walking, memories leaping out from the shadows to attack you, stab you, bite you, scratch you, whip you, punch you, kick you, shred you, tear you, electrocute you, cut you, try to re-break you.
You let them.
The knife is in your back pocket, and you're waiting your turn.
"Why aren't they dead?!" Stryker yelled furiously, backhanding Weapon XII across the face, getting no reaction. Just dead, dark eyes in a pale, cold face. "You were supposed to kill the X-Men! Why aren't they dead?!"
Weapon XII gave no response.
Stryker stood back, panting in fury, glaring at the thoughtless weapon in front of him that somehow, nevertheless, hadn't followed orders.
The boy was still in there somewhere, after all.
"Put him in the chair again," Stryker said, watching as his men strapped Weapon XII into the chair, watching the thing's body twitch and convulse as electricity ripped through him, mouth open in a silent scream.
There was no point in gagging him when he never made any noise.
You're walking down the hallway, like you did in your childhood, but this time your feet are tracking blood behind you and the demons are cowering away from you, trying to retreat further into the shadows and corners.
You grin sharply.
Fear is a cage, you think, taking bloodied, agonizing step after bloodied, agonizing step, your spine straight and your shoulders square, but pain doesn't have to be.
Translations:
Bratwurst - a type of sausage usually made of ground pork and spices
Salzkartoffeln - potatoes boiled in salt water
Rote Grütze - red fruit pudding, which is made with black and red currants, raspberries and sometimes strawberries or cherries cooked in juice with corn starch as a thickener. It is traditionally served with cream, but also is served with vanilla sauce, milk or whipped cream.
deutsche Küche - German cuisine
Frau - Woman
dummkopf - idiot; fool