Author's Note: Hey everyone! I want to say thanks for the response last chapter. I forgive you Sporks, lol :P. J/K, any time you review is great! Please enjoy the chapter and I hope to hear from you guys again!
Chapter 10
"So, that's it. You do what he says, no matter how wrong it is, because he's your dad," I say, my voice sounds soft but I feel… I don't know how I feel. Torn apart because I kinda understand… torn apart because I can't help him now... torn apart because I can see Bruce glaring at me.
"No," Pietro says, his voice quivering with the rest of him. "I'm in this shit, because I couldn't do what he said. He wanted me to set off a bomb. There were people in the building and he wouldn't let me tell them to get out." His pitch soars and his voice cracks in places. "I said 'no', in front of the rest of his Acolytes." Pietro swallows. "I embarrassed him. He wants to—he has to make an example out of me. I was just supposed to stand there and take it like a man, right? Hell no. Hell. No. I ran."
And never stopped. He's been running from his father this whole time, not the shapeshifter or the mutant in red.
Pietro's eyes are bright again and he blinks like he's keeping tears at bay. Real men can't cry twice, I guess, which sucks because sometimes things are so shitty what's left to do but cry or go crazy? Crying might make you feel a little better (aside from the headache after); going crazy might get you put in Arkham by your friendly neighborhood Bat.
"What do you think he's gonna do to you?" I ask. It's his dad after all, how bad could it really be? If I was Pietro, I'd be more scared of the shapeshifter woman, or that mutant in red. They'd showed malice; Magneto had sent Lance, Toad, Billy Blob to bust Pietro out of police custody. Magneto, at least, doesn't want his son in jail.
Tears spike Pietro's silver lashes. "I don't know. I don't think he'll kill me, living examples are better. They're walking reminders. So, it's gonna be something painful and permanent. And because I'm his son, it's gotta be memorable because I insulted his bloodline. I make people think the House of Magnus is weak." He sneers as he talks. "Fuckin' bastard. I wish I did know where he was so I coulda told Wanda when she asked. They can kill each other for all I care. Fuck them!"
Whoa—whoa… "Calm down, Pietro. No one's talking about killing… and what do you mean about wanting Magneto and Wanda to kill each other and you not caring?" I grip his shoulder and cringe. The whole bed's shaking with him and his bony little shoulder feels ready to fall apart in my hand.
My cousin laughs. The sound is hard and ugly. "Well—it's hard to love people who'd sooner see you dead, huh? How do you think I ended up in that prison truck? Wanda gift-wrapped me for Magneto, and was probably watching somewhere close to see if he showed up for me so she could jump him. I know she was there. I could fuckin' feel her. Did she try to stop me from going over that cliff? Did she try to do anything when all those bullets were flyin'?"
"I heard someone screaming for those bullets to stop—it was you, wasn't it? And when the truck went over, you tried to stop it. And you had your friend come down and get me, instead of letting me go to that mutant prison." His face contorts and he puts his back to me, as he cries again. "Why can't you be my real family? I wouldn't be so fucked up."
I rub his back, feeling sick and at a loss for what to say. What can I say to make this better? If he's telling me the complete truth, and I really, really think he is this time (my gut, the one Wally trusts with his permanent record, says he is), then Wanda is the mutant in red and she doesn't care if he lives or dies. His blood father wants to seriously hurt him so badly the scars will show for the rest of his life.
"I'm so sorry." I lean over him and press my cheek to his. "But I am your real family, okay? You got that. I'm going to help you." But there are some facts I need, and he's in no shape to give them to me now.
Pietro hiccups between gasps and whimpers. "Put yourself between me and Magneto or Wanda, and you'll get hurt, Dickie. Don't. If you want to help," he keeps staring at the wall, "let me go. I'll hide better. I don't know how Wanda found me, but she won't again."
"You can't run forever," I say. "And I'm not scared of Magneto… or Wanda. I'll protect you, the Team will. You're in the protective custody of Young Justice now." And I'm going to get Bruce on this. He'll help me, he has to. It means too much to me for him to say no. "In a little while, it'll be the protective custody of the Justice League. No one's getting you here."
The whimpers and hiccups fade after a minute but he's still shaking like a rabbit in a trap. "Your good guys will help me?"
I clear my throat and work off my heavy boots. I remove the cape next and then the belt and the gloves. I kick them all over the side of the bed and hear them hit the floor with multiple thumps and clinks. He stiffens at the noises but relaxes when I lie down next to him. It feels a little strange. When we were kids, we slept in the same bed all the time and thought nothing of it. Now, I wonder what Wally or Connor will think if they walk in on me spooning another guy?
Geez. But, you know what, screw them. I roll onto my side, tucking one arm under my head and draping the other around Pietro's bony waist. "As long as you tell me the truth and answer all of my questions, you'll get all the help you need."
"Promise?"
"Cross my heart, hope to die," I say with a giggle that turns into a laugh when he gives a snorting laugh back.
His breathing patterns changes as he falls back asleep and I lie here, staring at the bandage taped to the base of his skull. How the hell am I going to explain all of this to Bruce and how am I going to get Bruce to listen past the fact that I hijacked a juvenile delinquent on his way to lock-up?
An "IOU" is not gonna keep me out of shit this time.
(~*~)
"…after the fire, we just—Wanda and me—we kinda wandered. Nobody wanted a couple of gypsy kids around. If something went missing, hey—those gypsy bastards took it. Crops died, hey—those gypsy demons killed them. People friggin' spat on us. We were seven—shit, I know we coulda passed for younger than that—but nobody cared. We slept wherever. And, yeah, we did steal. We needed stuff…" Pietro trails off, a faraway look in his glassy eyes. He sits with his knees to his chest, hugging them and rocking slightly. A light smile touches his lips. "We were too fast to catch. We stole a whole roast duck off a spit and the pie that went with it. I'll never forget how good it tasted, juicy and hot. Any kinda hot food was fuckin' ambrosia."
I shift my sitting position, folding my legs underneath me to get more comfortable, but I really need to talk to someone about getting better mattresses in this place. The infirmary beds are almost as bad as a hospital beds.
I watch Pietro absently massage his free wrists. I'd unlocked his cuffs after I'd woken up this morning to find him watching me sleep. As fast as he is, if he'd really wanted out of the cuffs, he probably could have freed himself while I was knocked out for the night.
He really trusts me.
"When Magneto came for us," Pietro's voice is as far away as his eyes, "I thought it was the best thing ever. He just showed up one day, out of nowhere. We were in some dirty city, I don't know where, we couldn't read the signs. We were sleeping in a shed or a cellar…I'm not sure, just know it had a door we could close. It was so cold, and I couldn't get warm and Wanda made me sit in her lap and we just held each other. And when everything went black… I remember thinking I was dead."
"Then the door opened, and there was a man in a black, leather trench coat. He looked so clean, so rich, and his eyes were just like mine and his hair, too. And he just reached in and picked us up, like dolls. And he brought us to his rich car and buckled us in back and covered us in blankets and turned on the heat. There was a lady with him, and she gave us food and hot water to drink. And we drove off together."
I keep quiet, not wanting him to stop, but his lips are trembling, like he's fighting the need to cry again. I scoot closer to him, my side touching his and he relaxes against me.
"First thing they did was give us a bath. Then, we got new clothes and a new last name, and plane tickets to New York. The house—it was the biggest house we'd ever seen and no one lived there, but us… and Father. It was so…so empty and quiet. And Magneto was so serious. He didn't like when we spoke anything but English. He didn't like when we sang or played."
"He made us go to school and the kids made fun of us, because we our English sucked. It was okay after a while, though. I got used to it. I liked being around a lot of people, but Wanda…" Pietro shook his head, smiling again. "She hated everything about being there, and she hated Magneto, too."
My smile matches Pietro's as I think about my dark-haired cousin. She had been a spitfire. If we played with her, she was boss. She picked the games, she decided the rules, and if we didn't play right, we were out.
"When we turned nine, things changed more. We didn't just have to speak English and go to school; we had to go to his lab, too. He had one in the basement." Pietro closes his eyes. "He didn't want kids that weren't mutants and he couldn't just wait, you know? Mutant powers come out when you go through puberty, but we were nine, it would be years before we did anything cool. So, he… if you're really scared… think you're gonna die… your body might do what it can to save you."
He's shaking again. I should tell him he can stop, to take a break, but I can't. My body is tense with anticipation and I think I might explode if I don't hear it all now.
"He had this psychic bastard come in every day to screw with our heads. And there were tests with lots of needles and machines that shocked us. I remember being shot up with so much caffeine I couldn't sleep for a week."
His voice is light, conversational even, but mouth is tight. "Then one day, I pissed him off so bad. I couldn't stop stuttering when he asked me stuff and he smacked me across the face. I barely had time to taste the blood on my lips before Wanda went bonkers, and her powers just kinda exploded out of her. She pinned Magneto to the wall and all the needles on the lab table flew up in the air and pointed right at him. Then, like that, it was over. Magneto hit the floor and so did all the needles. I freaked out. I didn't know what was going on, but Wanda, she was glaring at Magneto like she hated him more than anything in the world."
Pietro's shaking so hard against me now, he's making me seasick. I wrap my arms around him, rubbing his back. "Tro, you can stop now." My voice is unsteady. I feel like a wrung towel from just hearing his story; I can't imagine what he must feel like.
I… I can't help but think, when all of this awful stuff was happening to Pietro and Wanda, where was I? For some of it, I was on tour with the circus, hugging my parents, eating ice cream and turning quadruples for audiences. For some of it, I was grieving and stumbling around Bruce's place like a zombie. For some of it, I was happy again, because Bruce took me and started training me to help people… but I didn't help Pietro. It's like it doesn't matter what I do; I can never save my family. Helpless, hopeless, failure… I hate it.
Pietro clears his throat a few times and he scrubs his eyes with the heels of his palms. "Magneto let us skip the lab for a week. He let us play outside and watch TV, like normal kids. We shoulda known something was up. One day, he said he was taking us horseback riding in the country. We got in the car and we drove a long time. We stopped at a mental hospital." He licks his lips.
"It looked like one of those places out of the horror movies where the people inside all moan and wear straight-jackets. These guys in white scrubs came out and they took Wanda, and Father… he held me back, he picked me up and kept my feet off the ground… and Wanda was taken inside. She was kicking and screaming and crying. I thought that she'd use her powers again, but she didn't. The doors closed and Father put me back in the car and it was over. He drove us back to his house like nothing happened, and he made me go to school like nothing happened, and he kept testing me."
I stare in horror as Pietro looks straight ahead, eyes vacant.
"Don't worry, she's out now," Pietro says airily. "She's got great powers, you know? Magneto loves that about her, but everything else?" He shakes his head. "He was excited, back then, about me. Wanda was amazing, so I should have been, too." A dark chuckle. "When my powers finally came out and… well they aren't like Wanda's or his, he didn't have much use for me anymore. After a few months, he said he had to leave and I couldn't go with him. He took me to a building and signed me over to strangers."
"My new daddy was the State of New York. God, I hate foster homes. I kinda lucked out compared to some people, 'cause I was a cute little kid. The first family I went with didn't have any kids at all. The second family only had one other foster kid. The third had a real kid of their own—asshole. The fourth—crazy Jesus freaks… the fifth…" His laughter chills me to the bone.
"The fifth." He sighs. "I was an only child there. Mommy couldn't wait to be on a PTA; Daddy coached high school basketball. I was a gift, I'm good at sports, I'm smart, and I'm one handsome son of a bitch. Coach was really into that last one. They were gonna adopt me and nothin' was gonna stop it. They were perfect… and I was ungrateful and I needed to stop telling ugly lies about Coach, because he'd never ever do those things."
Oh God.
"I got myself arrested to get out of being Coach's bitch. Juvenile delinquents don't make good adoptees, and I figured juvie couldn't be worse than Coach. Never got to juvie though, Magneto came back for me and took care of the paperwork again."
"That guy, your foster father, he hurt you?" Hurt—touched—raped. The fifth home… I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to recall the name of the family…the Donahues! They're picture perfect on paper.
Pietro shrugged. "He never did anything; I guess he was new at being a pedophile or somethin'. He just… he liked to look. It was like he had radar for when I was naked and he would just come in, into the bathroom, into my room—the only locks in that house were on the front and back doors—and he'd just stare and say things. He didn't like it when I talked to girls, he didn't like it when I hung out with guys, and I don't think he was banging the wife."
My heart is pounding in my chest. "That guy—there's no record at all about him being a possible pedophile."
"I told you, Coach would never do those ugly things," Pietro says. "Can't write a report about what can't possibly be true." He shrugs again, and he shifts in my lose embrace, wrapping his arms around me. "It's okay, DG. It's all in the past; nothing you can do about it now."
He lets me go and brushes my arms from his shoulders. With a sad smile, he speaks again, "So, Magneto came back and I ended up in Bayville with the Brotherhood. Magneto set it up to look like a boys' home, but it was just a front. The Brotherhood is like bad guys in training. He left Mystique—the shapeshifter bitch you met—in charge, but he didn't trust her, so he planted me there. She actually really was devoted to Magneto, but he screwed her over really bad, and yanno… woman scorned and all, she came up with his whole plan to bring him down." Pietro shudders.
"Part of her plan was breaking Wanda outta that asylum to use against Magneto. It was a good plan. Wanda was… is… she's crazy, DG, and she hates Magneto—and me now, too." He stops talking and bites his lip, big blue eyes on me. He looks guiltier than I feel on a bad day. "I tricked her, DG. I tricked Wanda. I tried to keep her outta the way, but she was set on getting back at Magneto, and… I couldn't let it happen. I gave Mystique's plan and Wanda up to Magneto and led them and the rest of the Brotherhood into a trap."
His voice is high and thin. "The Brotherhood, I wasn't supposed to care about them at all, but I lived with those guys. It's hard to live with people, young guys who've been screwed over just like you, and not care a little bit. I fucked up there. I started thinking of them as friends… I know they don't think of me like that anymore. Not after what I did to them."
"They all got exposed as mutants on live TV, and Freddy and Todd got caught by the sentinels and put in a mutant facility. The X-Men must have busted them out, but I don't really know what's going on with them now. Magneto doesn't think much of them, so I doubt he's gonna do anything with them for real. So, they're probably on their own. But what does it matter to me, right? I did my job for Magneto." He covers his face with his hands, just breathing. I stay quiet, watching.
"I didn't expect a medal, but I didn't expect things to be so shitty after either. Magneto still wasn't happy, everyone was pissed at me, and then I fucked up Magneto's mission, and I've been running for almost two months now. Every time I stopped for too long, somebody showed up. I can't even stop to sleep for more than a few hours. I catch naps on buses, so I'm always moving. I stopped too long in Gotham."
"Because you were lonely," I say and my heart breaks when he nods and rests his head on my shoulder.
"Lonely and tired," he breathes. "If you had pretended not to know me—and I really thought you were going to—I don't know. I really, really needed you right then. I told you 'thanks', right?"
I ruffle his hair, but I can't make myself laugh or smile. The muscles around my mouth just don't have it in them right now. "Yeah, you did."
We sit there, him breathing and me thinking. Wally and SB are still here, and I love them for not bothering me and Pietro, but I'm going to have to go out and talk to them soon because I think I know what I'm gonna do now.
"So… what next?" Pietro asks, sounding worn-out. "Your Team and that J-League are gonna protect me how? "
My fingers are still in his hair. "I don't think it's going to be the Team or the Justice League protecting you, Tro. I think… I think we're gonna keep this in the family."
Pietro lifts his head off my shoulder and turns to frown at me. "What do you mean?"
"How would you like a tour of the Bat Cave?"
Author's Note: So, what's the verdict? Like it? Hate it? Don't care about it either way? Any way you liked it, let me know! Please review! :)