A/N: Alright well I really should be sleeping since I've retracted the plague, but I got a nice comment and story alert + tonight, and those encourage me to write, so seriously, keep 'em up. Also, I'm on spring break before a whomping spring quarter at UCLA so goddamn I'd better make good use of this time. Punctuation may be sparse since I'm running on reserve brain power right now. You know what bugs me a lot about ? Its web layout—makes a lot of writing look like a little… :P (TOTALLY stole a bit from Black Books… though it's an insult I hope soon mainstreams.)
Enjoy and please comment
Years earlier.
Pietro sat at the sad excuse for a desk, which was nearly raw wood nailed together, but it was something. One couldn't expect the finest of things all the time, though on could hope. His elbows rested on the desk, his fingers woven in his hair as he stared down intently through the wood surface. His eyes were glazed over and vacant. On the desk in front of him was a leather journal opened to a fresh page. Where to start. What do you say after it's been this long? Does it even matter by then, or would you be heard? She must hate me by now he thought. He ran his fingers through his hair again and took a painfully slow sigh. He picked up the pen and began to write.
"I miss you, Wanda." He set the pen back down. Another deep breath. He picked up the pen again, and began to write fervently.
"I can't begin to say. I miss the carefree childhood days we had, when life was still simple. When we had a father. Perhaps you were lucky to be removed from him sooner—I'd endured too much before I realized I should go. I wouldn't call you lucky, though." He paused. "I have seen what it's like in the asylum. I tried to figure out ways to free you but I just couldn't find a way. I was afraid to even get your attention. So many years have gone by, I wonder if you'd even want me as your brother. Hell, after all that's happened, I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't. I wasn't there for you, but I hope you understand that I couldn't do anything. Erik just got too powerful. He's become obsessed with his Magneto personage, and I think he hardly remembers who he once was… then again, it's blurry for me too… As time passed, he became more resentful of us, Wanda. He said our mother was scum, and his one true regret, since she was his one and only 'moment of weakness' with a homo sapien. He's completely lost all love for the things around him and loses more of himself each day. He would ramble on about what would be in his superior new world, creating his own mutant language. He lost himself to this conquest, Wanda. I think forever. I want no part in it. I see what it's done to him. And so I ran. Like I always do. Except I didn't have you to run to. So I'm still running.
Please. Remember how much I love you and who we used to be. The past is still a bright place—maybe the light will carry on in the future. I hope you're safe. I will come for you once I find a way. I promise."
He closed the brown leather book and tied it shut. He took only a moment to examine it before shoving it into a small bag behind him.
The room was large, a loft with no ownership in the corner of the city. He didn't know which city, but it was home for now, and it was far from wherever home used to be. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all concrete. Light flooded in through single paned windows that had seen better days. A single shower head jutted from the wall and a toilet sat in the corner of the room. Against one of the walls lay a solitary mattress. This was home for now and it felt right. This neighborhood fit. There were plenty of mutants, and plenty of mutant haters. The city was a living model of Darwin's theories. Those who would survive would not only be the fittest, but the cleverest.
Most of each kind traveled in packs. If one were out on their own, another of their kind was close behind for backup. It's just how things were done. Pietro wanted nothing to do with it, though, and tried best to tread alone, until he was forced to pick a side.
Both sides knew him.
Both sides hated him.
Both sides wanted him.
Did they know he was a mutant? Who cared? They rarely saw him at all. Only when he felt like being noticed, when he walked the streets at normal pace, just to be seen. This was one of those times.
Pietro thrust his hands into his pockets and walked confidently. Purposefully. At least that's what it looked like to those around him, though he was completely lost. He walked down the streets by the shore front, past the market stands, past the thugs smoking on the staircases to run down buildings, and past the whores in the alley. He'd try to look normal to see what it was like, but only look it—never be it. Never wanted to be normal. Maybe accepted, but not normal. Normal meant you were slow. Dim. Expendable.
Curiosity. The young and the free. There for all to see.
Glares.
Entranced, burned by the flame. Have your senses taken leave into the fire of true belief. It's the orgy of the free.
Well, it wasn't all trying to look normal.
"Hey, gramps!" Bingo. He closed his steely blue eyes and flickered a smirk to himself, and then turned. Show time. He turned around. Three guys. Oh, this was the best way to spend an afternoon.
It was at first as if they were shadows.
Big muscles. Shaved heads. Small dicks. Thugs. Pietro cocked his head. The hardest part now—waiting. "Yeah, gramps! How'd you get such white hair? Does the carpet match the drapes?" They jeered. Still waiting. Not enough.
"What's the matter, gramps, can't hear us? Better turn up your hearing aid!" They highfived. Good enough. Pietro walked closer. "Actually, I have a question for you all." They all perked up with his boldness. Each side expected a fun time. PIetro fingered the butterfly knife in his pocket. He knew he was going to have more fun.
Shimmering visions by the light of the dancing flame Bodies in motion, the sound of the ocean Came into vision on the night of the dancing flame
He leaned against the lamppost near the thugs and spoke up, "Hey, you know when you're doing your normal threesome thing over the weekend and the moonlight's bouncing off your heads and your asses, does that not get a bit confusing?" He grinned to himself.
One of them stood up in protest. Another pulled the first down and asked "Just what are you implying, slim? We look fruity to you?"
Pietro shrugged innocently and ran a hand through his hair. "Oh, I wouldn't know. But really," he gestured to one of them "why don't you look at your friend and tell me?" The thug scowled and looked over at his cohort in the center, then looked back at Pietro. He was now chuckling, his white teeth flashing in the light, eyes silhouetted in shadow. The thug did a double-take back to his friend, eyes bugged. The center thug's throat was slit from ear to ear, spurting blood. The thugs instantly panicked and were terrified, trying to tend to their fallen comrade. Pietro thumbed off the blood on the blade in his pocket. He knew what had happened, but to them, it looked like he'd hardly moved.
One of the thugs looked up from his dying friend, eyes flared. "I'll kill you!" he screamed at Pietro, but he didn't move from the lamppost. His amusement was so great, he just stood their watching with raised eyebrows, chuckling to himself. The skin head got up and began to charge at him, but was warned by his friend not to. "Why?! He's just an old man! He's not going anywhere!" And he swung his fists at the speed demon. By the time his fists reached the lamppost, there was no target there to hit, but the lamppost itself. Pietro ducked under his arm and stood nose to nose in front of the skin head. He smirked and held the thug's neck with one hand to keep him from running. The look in the skin head's eyes was identical to the vagabond that had tried to mug him years before. It didn't scare him. It was liberating.
What of your own free will Bodies are writhing still There in the moonlight with my head up held high Wish I could keep on walking by, but I Find myself drawn to you I let you do what you want to do You had your wicked way There on the site of the dancing flame
"First off," he thrust the knife into the man's gut. "I'm not old." He spun around him and put his head right against the thug's head from behind with his knife to his throat and mouth to his ear. "I'm a mutant," he hissed. Slice. He dropped the skinhead. "And secondly…" he looked over his shoulder to the other thug, who still hovered over his dead friend. Pietro sped beside him, crouching on the stairs above the dead thug. The last live skinhead looked up, petrified. He held the thug's chin with one hand and pierced his eyes with his own. "I'm looking for someone. It'd be your pleasure to help me find him." The skin head nodded quickly. "Good boy." Pietro patted his cheek.
Jean pulled her hands from Pietro's temples.
"What are you doing? That's not all of it." Pietro heaved breaths, worn out from remembering so much. "There's still more. I need your help to remember."
Jean rubbed her hands together and looked away. "Pietro, I can't! If I push any more, your entire consciousness could crack in two! It's too much for me, too. Your memory is so rapid, I can hardly keep up with it and try and mend it at the same time. I just can't." She wrapped her hands around her shoulders. "It's been hard enough seeing you mutilated…let alone seeing you mutilate others."
"Wait wait wait, what?" Tabitha asked, shocked.
"For the love of… could you all please give us some privacy? Jean, come on. I need to know what happened next." Pietro snapped at her, still strapped to the stretcher.
"Pietro, no! You just woke up from a damn coma! No more! Besides, the Professor would be furious if he knew I even pushed your memories to this point. Look at how exhausted you are." Jean gestured to him.
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not. I'm not doing any more until the Professor says it's ok. I don't see what's so urgent about these random memories anyway. You can wait."
"Mewaitareyoujoking?!" He shook against his binds then hissed in pain when the pulled against his wounds. He closed his eyes and sighed. "Please, Jean."
"I'm sorry, Pietro. I can't. At least not yet." He sighed and closed his eyes in frustration.
Suddenly he felt fingers running through his hair. He looked up to see Wanda hovering over him. She smiled lightly, but he could see right past her calm countenance and see her fear for him. He raised an eyebrow. "I'm fine." He reassured her. She smiled lightly and shook her head. She looked up at the others.
"Could we have a little privacy just for a moment?" The others left.
"Pietro… why did you leave? What were you even doing?" she asked him, looking over his charts.
"Wanda, don't ask me that when I'm pinned down…"
"Why not? So you can run away from me? You need to stop these secrets now."
"I can't."
"What were you doing?"
"I can't tell you." He clenched his eyes shut and sighed. "Just believe me when I say I had to."
"Pietro! This isn't a joke! You nearly died and you can't tell me what even for?" She clenched her fists.
He shut his eyes tightly again and sighed. "No."
She pulled her hair back with both hands, exasperated. "Was it the sentinels?"
"No."
"Was it Father?"
"Wanda, I can't tell you."
"So it was Father."
"I didn't say that. Stop guessing. It's better you don't know."
Before she could retort, Doctor McCoy and the Professor entered the room. "That's enough, Wanda. He'll tell us when he's ready. For now he has much more grave healing to do." Xavier tapped into Pietro's head, making him suddenly feel very groggy. Pietro yawned and fell asleep. "I trust you and your friends will not be going back out into the storm today. Rooms have been prepared for you. Jean will show you to them." Wanda knew that he meant for her to leave. She picked up her mahogany chest and bag, and left the room.
A/N: Kinda short chappy, iono you tell me. Song (the words in italics) this time was "Night of the Dancing Flame" by Róisín Murphy. I think it fits the scene's mood perfectly. Definitely or it to hear it, or play it while you read. I played it on repeat as I wrote it :P
Once again please read, review, or critique if you feel like it. Suggestions, concerns, etc. whatever. Sorry for the late post, but it's all I can do these days. I won't end this fic, though, so keep checking in! :D