A/N: This chapter equals ANGST. Also, I saw like, five movies about people with extreme psychological disorders, and if Wanda seems to go a bit overboard or something, then I blame it on that. Sorry I've been gone for so long. I had some extreme bad times. Anyway, read and review!
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I am not going to sit around here and be a pansy, Wanda said to herself, and she reluctantly climbed out of her bed and threw open her bedroom door, fuming at her weaknesses, forgetting that it was 4 AM, and only a crazy person would be awake this early.
She heard the sound of a sitcom laugh from the living room, from a TV. Hmm. One of the boys must have recently acquired a new TV, seeing as how she had exploded the last one not so long ago.
Wanda took in a deep breath. She really was not very keen on the idea of having to interact with anyone, especially so early in the morning. But, she knew that if she wanted to go down there, she was going to have to deal with it. She could feel a great sense of foreboding. The boys would hear her, and then would pester her for long enough for her to inadvertently blow up the new TV. She didn't want to get so pissed off that she wrecked something again.
Wanda crept down the stairs, her hand against the handrail. She heard the sound of a TV's channel being changed, and then changed again. And then a familiar giggle from the boy who called himself her brother.
What an idiot.
She entered the kitchen and quietly opened the cabinets, surprised to see that there was actually food in there. Hmm. So Pietro and the boys had actually gone out and bought some things for them to survive on. Well… that certainly had been nice of them.
Not very hungry, Wanda ate a few graham crackers, and needing something to do, she began searching through the drawers to see if there was anything worth rifling through in here. The drawers were old and didn't want to budge, so she used most of her strength to yank it back, accidentally ramming it into her stomach.
"Dammit," Wanda growled, angry that there wasn't at least something worthwhile in here. Just a roll of what had once been tape, but now was only the cardboard part with nothing on it. There was a soft rush of air around her and when she looked up, it was just as she had suspected. The one person here with the capability to piss her off more than screaming children, aside from their father.
Pietro.
"What?" Wanda demanded, slamming the drawer violently shut, more peeved than she should be, probably due to the dull ache in her stomach from the drawer. "You want something?"
"No," Pietro held up his two hands in defense. "I heard you in here, and then I started wondering what you were doing up so early. You rarely get up before noon."
"Well, today I couldn't sleep," she informed him.
"Oh." He glanced at the drawer. "What're you looking for? Maybe I can help?"
"I don't need your help," Wanda said flatly, turning to the next drawer and yanking it open. Placemats. Untouched placemats. Who knew they had placemats?
"What about—"
Suddenly, the phone rang. Wanda and Pietro glanced at it in wonder. It was a rare occasion that the phone at the Brotherhood rang. Not only that, but it was about 4:15 in the morning now, and while the likelihood of anyone knowing their number was slim, the chance of them calling so early in the morning was even slimmer.
"It could be a wrong number," Pietro suggested, as the two of them approached the ringing phone together.
"Well, go ahead and answer it," Wanda instructed. "It'll wake up the whole house if we just let it ring."
"It says, 'Unavailable'," he observed, picking up the caller ID box.
"So what? Answer it already," she told him, putting her hands on her hips.
Pietro snatched the phone up. "Hello," he said professionally. "Thank you for phoning the Brotherhood; how may I help you?" A pause. "This is he; may I ask who is calling?"
Wanda rolled her eyes, opening the next drawer. Something shiny caught her eyes, and she grasped at it, only vaguely hearing Pietro's conversation.
"Oh, you." Pietro obviously knew the person, and probably wasn't fond of them. "No… I said no. Look, if you want him so badly… no, I'm not doing it… yes, and I mean it!"
Wanda smirked, holding up the shiny pair of handcuffs between her forefingers and thumb. Handcuffs. This was almost amusing. Or inspiring. She certainly had ideas now.
Pietro folded his arms across his chest, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder. "I said no, and that's final. I don't care what you do, but if you…" A pause. "…What?"
Wanda turned to look at her brother, aware a sudden shift in his mood. Something had upset him, something that the person on the other line had said. She frowned at him, catching his eye and noticing a twinge of guilt.
"Pietro," Wanda said firmly. "Who are you talking to?"
He frowned. "Nobody."
She heard a loud voice speak on the other line. It distinctively said, "Who's there?"
"Nobody…" He turned so his back faced her. She rolled her eyes, blatantly eavesdropping. "I know that. Well, what do you want me to—yes, father," Pietro said quietly, but Wanda had heard, and, suddenly enraged, she reached over and snatched the phone out of his hands.
"Where are you?" Wanda practically yelled, as the lights in the kitchen flickered and creaked ominously. "Don't you want John back?!"
There was a pause. "…Wanda?"
"Yeah, Wanda!" she shouted, gripping the phone hard enough to snap it in two. "Remember me? I know you got my ransom note! We have to talk, father dearest. Don't you want your Acolyte back? I beat him up. I practically broke his rib. Don't you want to come get him?!"
Another pause. Then… a click.
Wanda slammed the receiver down, her powers amplifying her strength somehow and smashing the poor phone to bits. She whirled around and snatched Pietro up by the front of his shirt, dragging him close before he had the opportunity to run.
"What did he want?" she growled, shaking him a little to make him more willing to talk.
"Nothing!" Pietro put his hands up to her wrists. "Really, nothing! I swear, I didn't—"
"You're LYING!" Wanda bellowed, shaking him again. The sound of an explosion was heard from the living room area.
"I just got that TV today!" Pietro complained, and Wanda waved her hand to smother the small fire that had started. She glared at her brother.
"The next thing to blow up is you," she threatened, "if you don't tell me what the fuck is going on here."
"I told him no," he began to admit, seeming quite nervous. "Just remember that, okay? I told him no."
"Get to the point!" Wanda yelled, dropping him on the floor. He landed unceremoniously on his bottom.
Rubbing his rear, he sighed. "He wants me to speed into your room and take Allerdyce back to him. He's getting annoyed."
"WHAT?!"
"I said no!" Pietro said hastily. "I told him if he wants him back so much, then he should come for him!" Wanda yanked him back up by his shirt. "But, he doesn't care about you or Pyro or even me, only himself, and so he's never going to come. All he wants is his protection squad of Acolytes and people to train all the time. We don't even matter."
"If you ever…" she growled, pressing her forehead against his. "If you dare to ruin my plans…"
"I won't!" he reminded her. "I told him no! He even told me that this was my chance to prove my loyalty to him, but I still said no." He reached up and lightly patted her on the side of her face, trying to calm her down. "See? I can be a good brother."
"Don't touch me," she snapped, and waved her hands to push him away. Scowling, she shoved him with a hex bolt, out of the room. The sound of him crashing into the wall was satisfying, and she looked at the shiny silver handcuffs that had wound up on the floor.
Wanda took a deep breath to steady herself, although she felt very much like breaking something. That coward… that dirty coward… He doesn't care?
She stormed up to her room, clutching the handcuffs in angry fists as she arrived in the hallway where the bedrooms were. How could her own father be such a horrible person? Wanda slammed her door loudly shut, groaning loudly and covering her eyes to stop herself from being overtaken by her emotions. So he had the audacity to call the house she was living at, but not to show up to meet her? He had kept her out in the cold almost an entire night, and then called for Pietro to go and do the job he was supposed to do? How could he do that? Where was the justice? Sure, it wasn't a surprise, thinking logically; after all, he had abandoned her in an insane asylum for ten years, she shouldn't expect any extra sympathies now… but it didn't make it hurt any less. My father doesn't care about me or anyone but himself… She had never wanted to believe it, no matter how often the very thoughts had crossed her mind.
She faced her dresser, looking at her face in the mirror. This wasn't where she wanted to be. She wanted love. She wanted a warm, happy family, a family who didn't send her away or plot behind her back. She wanted someone to tell her that she was a wonderful person and that they would love her forever. She didn't want to be the girl who looked destroyed, with splotchy make up trailing in tears down her face, with a dirty shirt, rumpled hair. Why, why, why was life so tremendously unfair?
The lights dimmed and then flickered brightly.
She gripped the sides of the dresser, bowing her head so she wouldn't have to see who she was, who her father had made her, who she had become. She closed her eyes for a moment, and imagined a place that was warm and comforting and friendly. And she opened her eyes to glare at the hardwood of the dresser top, she found herself glaring at the mischievous mug shot of a man who was tied up on her bed.
John.
She snatched the picture up, feeling a surge of rage flow through her veins as she looked at him. He seemed pleased in this photo. She did not remember being very happy, ever, in her childhood. How dare he have been happy? She set the picture back down, knowing she had to calm down a bit, before anything else exploded.
She needed so badly to release her energy in some way. She needed to break something, hurt someone; she wanted someone to know what she felt like and tell her that it was going to be okay and not to worry. She wanted comfort.
But she wasn't getting it.
Without thinking, Wanda reached back and drove her fist straight into the mirror in front of her, shattering it into millions of tiny, painful pieces. She glared at her bleeding hand, dripping blood on shards of broken glass, the wooden tabletop, and the corner of the photograph.
She was not happy. And now her hand hurt.
"Erg!" Wanda slammed her already throbbing hand down onto the dresser and swept the shards of glass and the picture off of the dresser and onto the floor. She hated everything.
Breathing heavily, Wanda almost didn't hear the tentative, almost nervous voice that broke through her dark thoughts.
"Umm… you okay?"
Wanda whirled around and impulsively raced over, wrapping her hands around John's neck, squeezing him tightly, strangling him. She dug her fingernails into his flesh, almost pleased with his choking and his pathetic attempts to get free. His face was turning red and his eyes were filling with water, like hers. He was in pain like she was. He was going to die.
She drew her hands back, suddenly panicked. What was she doing? While he gasped with relief, Wanda felt herself tremble with guilt and fright. What had she done? She could have killed him! She needed him, for Magneto of course, but killing him was definitely not an acceptable way to release anger. He was fairly innocent here. His neck was bleeding slightly from where her fingernails had cut him, but where her bloody hand had grabbed him looked really bad.
I am a bad person. Wanda bit her lips, feeling especially horrible when she remembered that he had only asked about her well-being. The amount of emotions that consumed her was overwhelming, and Wanda did something that she hated to do in front of other people, that she would have rather died than do in front of her very own hostage.
She burst into tears and covered her face with her hands so he wouldn't see.
John made a soft sound of disbelief. "Wanda," he said hoarsely. Wanda turned away from him, trying to wipe her eyes, trying to keep him from seeing her break down. She put a scowl on to hide the sad trembling of her mouth.
She inhaled shakily, removing her hands and attempting to relax and control herself more, unconsciously perfecting her glare. If it weren't for the flow of tears, she would be perfectly plausable. "I'm okay," she said, more to herself than to him. "I'm fine. Go back to sleep, John. It's barely five. I'm sorry I woke you up." She swallowed, gingerly reaching out to him, touching his neck softly with her thumb.
"Come on," he said gently, and his nice tone just about killed her. Why was he being so damn nice? "Quit crying. You don't have to cry."
"I'm not," Wanda said, clenching her teeth, hiccupping violently. She peered at him from the corner of her eye. He was trying to sit up.
She turned, grabbing him from under his arms and pulling him up.
He smiled weakly up at her. "Thank you."
Wanda shrugged, not moving her hands from his sides. She sniffled, watching John try to pull his arms free. It was pitiful. They both knew he wasn't going to get out.
"I never know what to do when people cry," he ventured. "It actually makes me quite anxious. So I wish you wouldn't."
"Be quiet," she murmured, wiping her eyes again, keeping one hand against his side. He was warm. Warmth was all she wanted right now.
John inclined his head slowly. "What would you do if I started crying?"
Wanda frowned at him. "Just leave me alone."
"Wouldn't that bug you?" he pressed, leaning slightly forward. "I could do it too, if I thought of my saddest memory hard enough."
"John, don't," she snapped, feeling a great sense of apprehension. She didn't know how she would handle her guilt levels if he did such a thing.
"So, will you stop?" he asked.
She bit her lip, wiping her eyes again. "I can't."
John looked down to the floor and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath that sounded like a shudder.
"John, stop," she demanded, grabbing him by both of his shoulders.
He didn't respond, just bowed his head low. His eyebrows contracted in the middle and the corners of his mouth turned down despondently. For one terrible second, Wanda feared that he really was going to burst into tears, much like she had. She just knew that this would just make her worse. She gently shook him. "John," she said firmly, desperately... almost tenderly. "No. Please, don't."
"Why?" he asked, almost taunting, almost as if he was testing her. His eyes stayed closed. "I have more of a reason to cry here than you do, I think."
"Come on…" Wanda swallowed, reminded that all of this was her fault: all his pain, all her stress. "John, you just have to hold on. Come on, you're optomistic. Magneto will come soon, and then this will all be over, for both of us."
There was a small pause.
John cracked one eye open, peering up at her timidly. "Do you feel any better?"
Wanda pursed her lips. She was vaguely irritated with him for making her think he was going to break down like she was, but in truth she felt a good percent better, and it was enough to neutralize her agitation. Through him, she had somehow assured herself. Somehow, in trying to "comfort" him, she had comforted herself.
She absently patted his shoulder, deciding to push this whole thing away from her mind. She stared at his face for a long moment, very unexpectedly remembering a certain soft sensation associated with him and his mouth in particular.
"Do you have to go to the bathroom?" she asked suddenly.
John smiled faintly. "A little bit."
"Okay," she said, putting her arm around him and helping him stand. She sighed wearily. "Let's go."
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A/N: http:// valoofle. deviantart. com --- A magical land with my growing Jonda art. Visit if you please.
I'm hoping that it didn't sound crazy and sappy to you all. NOW REVIEW, please!
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