Thank you everyone for the lovely reviews. Its good to know this story still has a few fans holding on for updates. I apologise for the delays but real life tends to cut into my fan-fiction writing.
Thanks again folks!
Chapter 24 - Solace
Emma gave a disparaged sigh at her reflection. She smoothed a finger against a collection of new white strands that blended into her blonde hair and let her gaze trace every root to tip. Her hair had once been a crowning glory, even in the days after she revoked her life as a member of Apocalypse's hierarchy of New York society. Now, her peroxide blonde hair had lost much of its lustre and was forever plagued by the darker roots of her natural colour and an onset of unbecoming white that bleached her former glory away. In recent months the raids on supply trains throughout the empire had to be altered to better accommodate their flailing numbers. Only food supplies and necessities were retrieved. Hair dye and make-up were a luxury she had long since grown unaccustomed to and every morning, she rued the day the last bottle ran empty on her bathroom shelf.
A pair of warm hands slipped around her waist, followed by a warm embrace that eased the agitation from her stance. A familiar nose nuzzled her neck as a voice rumbled against her skin.
"I hope you're not fretting about your hair again, love."
A smile curled gently in the corner of her mouth as a pair of familiar blue eyes met hers in the mirror. Warren proceeded to move his lips up her neck, lovingly brushing away her hair, like it was as glorious as she once thought. His lips spread in a smile as he held her close and kept their gaze interlocked in the mirror. At his inquiring look, she leant back into his arms a little more and reached up to stroke the side of his face. A sigh passed through her as she spoke.
"I'm always fretting about my hair. As you well know."
"You needn't do so," He pressed a kiss to her ear affectionately. The corners of his blue eyes crinkled as he smiled. "You are you. That's enough."
She rolled her eyes and turned in his arms to face him, her arms sliding around his neck as she spoke.
"You're quite the hypocrite," she teased with a small grin. "Unlike you and your glorious mane of angelic blonde locks…"
She fingered a fledgling lock that fell into his eyes as she spoke. Her eyes softened as a disparaging sigh escaped her. He would have to cut those newly sprung curls off before he left today. An unspoken requirement of being one of the elite protégé Horsemen of Apocalypse was to have no possessions or vanities. And the crowning of curls upon Warren's head was such a vanity. Hatred brewed in her chest but she held back urge to voice it between her thinned lips. Instead, she set a dry tone into her words and tucked the endearing curl from his eyes.
"My hair is in a sorry state of disrepute. And until the retrieval teams begin putting hair dye on the list of essentials, it will be a fretful morning ritual everyday I'm afraid."
Warren only chuckled and cupped the back of her head in one of his large hands to draw her into a delicious kiss that lasted all of five elongated seconds. When he drew back, he tucked her straight hair behind her ears and smoothed out all of the strands that had gone astray. His work complete, he kept his hands around her waist and tucked against her white silk nightgown. She felt the callouses on his hands snag against the fraying silk.
"If it means so much to you, I could try and get some in New York?"
Though he meant well by the offer, the reminder of his leaving caused her smile to splinter and diminish. With a meek shrug in response, she slipped from his arms and moved back towards the bedroom. She began pulling the white rumpled bedding back into place when he followed and stopped behind her. His fingers brushed one of her exposed shoulder blades, his familiar touch expressing what words they rarely needed to use. When she said nothing and continued to make their bed, he uttered but one word and it rang like an echo in her thoughts.
"Emma…"
The pleading note in his voice made her pause before she proceeded to fluff another pillow. Warren ignored her efforts to ignore him and sat on the perfectly made bed, crumpling the duvet she had just straightened. At her annoyed cry, he pulled her to him so that she stood barricaded between his knees. Her hands instinctively rest against his shoulders as he pulled her close enough for their eyes to meet and their foreheads to kiss. After a few moments struggle, she stilled in his arms in defeat but the stiffness in her posture polluted the tenderness he was trying to convey. Her eyes remained stubbornly downcast, but he held her in place. It took a little effort, but when he finally caught her gaze, he held it as he spoke softly into her thoughts. His hands stroked her arms in a subconscious, familiar movement.
"Love, we do this every time. You know what I have to do to help our cause. Just as I know what you must do here."
Emma nodded but her heart thumped wildly against her ribs as she rest a hand back in its place against his bared chest. Her fingers traced the ridges of muscle and scarred tissue that trailed across them. Without thinking, she slipped into his lap and rested her head against his shoulder, and bit down against the vulnerability that constricted her chest. She was not comfortable with nor in the habit of showing vulnerability to anyone, not even herself. And Warren had an unnatural ability to draw it out, little by little until she could do nothing but allow the flood to flow. Her arms wrapped around his back to trace the familiar scars on his shoulder blades and the metal plugs that stuck out at the tip of each scar. Anger swelled in her at the cold touch of the metal. She felt his back muscles flex instinctively, as if moving the ghostly apparitions of his former wings. Her eyes closed shut for a moment before she planted a kiss against his shoulder and nodded.
"It doesn't make it any easier," she spoke aloud.
No sooner had they a taste life together, they were reminded that they both had a part to play and that they were in separate places. While she remained in Avalon and aided Charles to protect their own, Warren had a more dangerous task; he was their eyes and ears amongst the ranks of Apocalypse' elite. Archangel, as he was called these days, was a double agent working in the guise of an Apocalypse' protégé, in line to become one of the many elite Horsemen of Apocalypse. The fact drew a grim smile across Emma's lips. He was, for all purposes, an angel amongst demons though he looked much the part of the latter these days. Her hands absently traced the scars down his back. The ghostly paleness of his skin took some getting used to. After six months in training within the ranks of the Apocalypse elite, he had returned to her in this new form. Head shaven, eyes a ghostly shade of blue that was almost entirely white. His once sun-kissed skin was now a startling pallid colour. The worst of it was the patterns of indigo ink tattoos- the brands of Apocalypse' followers, which marred the majority of his flesh. She had spent nights staring at his skin as he slept, naming every kind of harm she wished to inflict on the monster that changedhim. Nathaniel Essex, the renowned Doctor made a parade of his work through the Horsemen whose powers and bodies he tampered with. Many of who, in their new transformation, forgot themselves entirely, becoming new people who were single-minded in their malice and determination to follow Apocalypse and do his bidding.
Warren, while physically altered, was still Warren underneath. Magneto and the inner circle had established round the clock surveillance to monitor his safety while he was in the Apocalypse ranks. Charles kept his mind set in place as was, leaving a small essence of his own mind to keep track so they would know if something was amiss. She herself had trained Warren in building his mind shields to defend himself against an enemy's telepathic interference. And now, nearly eighteen months had passed and he still came back safely. He still came back to her.
"It is not forever, Emma."
Emma opened her eyes, her hands pausing against his back as she turned to face him. She stroked his face, her hands lingering at his lips as she spoke in voice so frail, she hardly recognised it herself.
"Are we foolish? Living like this? You could be caught one day, trying to come see me, and all for what? A few days in bed together, eating meals and forgetting the fact that we are on borrowed time? You are already put at risk…and I can't…"
A frustrated sigh escaped her as she closed her eyes for a moment. Her hands against his skin were the only things keeping her together as she pushed the words out.
"I can't wake up one day to hear it from Charles that you've been caught."
Warren's gaze did not waver as he shook his head.
"You're not called one of the most powerful telepaths for nothing, darling. You've taught me well to hold my mental shields. And Charles is always somewhere in my head. You know that. I won't be caught. I won't take any unnecessary risks."
She gave him a pointed look.
"This is a necessary risk, Emma. I can't spend months there at a time without the thought that at some point I can come back home, to you. If I didn't risk a little to be here, I'd be going crazy regardless of what Nathan Essex inflicts on me."
She winced but finally conceded a slight shrug of acknowledgement. Warren pressed a kiss to her forehead and replied firmly.
"We're lucky. We can help the cause and still come back to each other. And one day…"
He tucked a loose strand of white and blonde hair behind her ear as he spoke.
"One day, I won't have to leave again."
Emma swallowed and felt her throat burn with the action. She was not an emotional person, not the sentimental kind. But Warren had made her care, more since the day she had heard him speak in her thoughts in that dark prison cell.
As if the thought had entered his mind, though she was certain she hadn't put it there, he reached for her left wrist and turned it over to reveal a mark tattooed into her skin. He traced the markings, the pad of his finger rough but gentle in the action. Her gaze shifted to the matching mark etched into his wrist, though it was partially hidden by the newer markings. Three interlocked chains with an identification number were tattooed into their skin, unchanged since the day they were marked.
"We promised each other that we would not stop until we were both free of their chains."
Emma didn't need to peek into Warren's thoughts to understand his meaning. A shudder trickled down her spine. In response, Warren moved backwards onto the bed, taking her down with him. She closed her eyes and nestled her head against his chest, comforted by the steady beat of his heart against her ear and the continuous stroke of his fingers through her hair. But the memories stirred by the acknowledgment of their matching brands proved too potent.
Nearly a decade ago, Emma had a change of conscience that had cost her position, her freedom and the lives of her family. She had been apprehended and placed into the confines of a mutant work camp for three months. After an incident where several guards went mad from the voices screaming in their heads, she was placed in a maximum-security prison and set to other tasks that better fit her so-called potential. When she had refused to aid their interrogations by breaking the minds of her fellow inmates, they locked a powerful suppressor collar around her neck and locked her away in a dark cell. They branded her wrist, and stripped away any semblance of dignity from her along with her powers. Even in the camps, she had never known the true meaning of living in squalor, or what it was for one to feel their stomach turn inside out with starvation. She also gained a collection of scars from many of the unexpected visits from the prison guards; the permanent slight bend in her nose was from the particularly beating she suffered when she fought back.
As if he could see where her mind drifted, Warren pulled her flush against him and pressed a gentle kiss to the bend in her nose.
"Don't go back into the dark darling. It belongs in the past remember?"
She managed a small smile as she replied.
"I don't think about it very often. But every now and then, it helps to think about it. It centres me and reminds me why it's so important that we keep doing what we have pledged to do."
She had been rotting for nearly a year in her cell while they routinely broke her body, when her mental barriers finally achieved what her body could not. Freedom. After months of strengthening her mental barriers, and pushing with quiet resilience against the impenetrable barrier of the power suppressor, her powers grew strong enough to push back and flex their unused muscles… and heard the most angelic voice; Warren's voice. He had been exhausted, the strain of a recent beating from the guards addling his conscious thoughts, but he had enough awareness left to be thinking about the pretty blonde woman that had been moved into the cell next to his. In the weeks that passed, she indulgently listened to Warren's thoughts and began a kind of one-way companionship. But that was not enough. After a year, her telepathic abilities developed so that the minds and thoughts of the inmates and guards began to open to her and her own voice could finally be heard. She spoke to Warren, who at first thought her a figment of delusion, and slowly, day-by-day, they began to trust each other. Their pasts were similar in that they had both come from a privileged existence only to realise that their privileges were built on the pain and disadvantages of others. Thinking on it now, Emma realised that she had loved Warren from the first sound of his mental voice in her head.
Within a year, she was able to openly communicate with him and learn how he had come to such a place. Gradually, their bond formed. Now, nearly a decade after stepping into hell, she clutched her fallen angel to her and took solace from his closeness.
.
Remy didn't know what to expect when he entered Rogue's room. The first step through the threshold revealed a spacious bedroom. It was tidy in the way a room looked when it was barely lived in, with the exception of a few small personal items that accented the single bookcase, bed and vanity table. Old photo frames and a few small keepsakes lined the mantel above the corner fireplace that crackled heartily as it warmed the room. He turned his gaze over the furnishings until he found her amongst the window panels.
Morning light streamed in through the bay window and outlined Rogue's form as she sat on the cushioned window seat. He released a sharp deep breath as he took in her appearance. She looked exhausted; her eyes were lined with shadows while a few scratches accented her skin. With her arms locked around her knees, she sat while staring through the window into the bleak courtyard below. The baggy long-sleave shirt she wore had a neckline that was so stretched it hung high on one shoulder and bared the other. He watched her hands fidget ever so slightly under the long sleaves. Her fingers fixated on the frayed cuff edges of her sleaves.
When she did not notice him in the room, he gently tugged on the tether that linked him to her emotions. It was the empath's version of a knock at the door. Her head titled up slowly, her green gaze shifting to meet his. When the surprise across her face diminished, her bow-shaped mouth attempted a smile as she spoke in quiet rasping voice.
"Hi."
His lips curled in a smile.
"Hey chére…"
He closed the door behind him and lingered in her emotions for a few moments; relieved to feel the bundle of immediate nerves that clustered around the armour of calmness within her. It told him the mental dampeners were still in place. But the sheen of nervousness he felt at the surface of her emotions made the corner of his mouth turn upwards in approval. He recognised it as the same kind of nervousness he felt tinging in his belly whenever they were in close proximity.
A shaky sigh shuddered through him as he came to stand before her, suddenly unsure of what to do now that he was there.
Not twenty minutes after her abrupt departure he had felt her emotions strain and constrict with pain and fear that had wrecked through his body as if it were his own. The weight of it had bowed him over until his body hit the floor. The minutes passed in a daze of pain and confusion until he managed to push through the blackness coveting his vision and pull himself to his feet. Normally he could hold back the emotions of other people so that it did not affect him, but when he had tethered himself to Rogue through their emotional link, it was a different sort of connection. Everything she felt, he felt in kind. It wasn't an unused technique. Whenever he was on a heist or working in a team, he kept a chain of empathetic links to his comrades. It was a safety net and a tracking system all in one. If one of his team was in trouble, their emotions rang true through their link at one point or another whether they knew it or not. When his cousin Etienne had been on his maiden heist, he had tethered a link between them. The tether had saved his cousin's life. One of their own people had turned traitor and had sought to make a prize out of Etienne's capture for the enemy. The shock and anger that had flooded the empathetic link from Etienne's end had lead Remy straight to him before he could be carted away by one of the sentinel drones. And when Rogue's control snapped in the danger room, her terror had erupted like an electrical surge through the link. The ghostly memory of the emotional surge still left him feeling raw and his knees aching from the fall. But he was certain if Emma had not appeared shorty after he regained consciousness, he would have broken another leg trying to get to Rogue.
"Back on your feet again?"
Her words broke him out of the dark thoughts roving in his head. He managed a vague nod before sitting himself down beside her. The heaviness of the metal brace Forge had presented him with at the crack of dawn had been a welcome gift. He couldn't suffer another waking minute in a wheelchair when he was so used to being quick on his feet. And while the metal brace did slow him down, it was better than relying on others to tend to him in the wheelchair.
After he had adjusted the deadweight that was his metal-cast leg, he realised Rogue had switched her gaze back to those fascinating frayed sleaves. When he couldn't catch her gaze again, he spoke.
"Y' going t' look at moi some time soon chére?"
Rogue bit her lower lip and finally, with a hint of hesitance, turned to face him. She let out a small breath before her brow knit together and she spoke. That fluttery feeling in his belly returned as he waited for her to begin. She opened her mouth to say something, but hesitated long enough to grapple with something else to say. She landed on-
"Ya look like hell."
Remy uttered a low chuckle and leant back until his head thud against a window panel while he faced her. He crossed his arms across his chest as he spoke.
"Y' should try a mirror ma belle. Might make y' less quick t' judge dis poor Cajun."
She uttered a small chuckle and shook her head as she leant back against the window frame, as if to appear as at ease as he was.
"Ever the charmer."
"With y'? Always."
An oddly comfortable silence spread between them. Eventually however, the smile slipped off Rogue's face and her emotions took a turn for the darker as she tugged on a loose thread from her sleeve. Her bared fingers caused him to stare until she noticed. Alarm lit her eyes until anxiety worried her brow. Before he could stop her, she had slipped out of his reach and headed to the small table beside her bed. When she finally turned back to face him, her hands were gloved in a pair of a black silk gloves. Wordlessly, Remy stood and reached forward to grasp one of her hands. When she flinched at his touch, he gently moved until they sat side by side. Though her emotions sparked with annoyance, she didn't fight him when he wrapped her hand between his. A few moments later he felt her body shudder against his as she took an unsteady breath.
"When the dampeners stop working, my powers will be on overdrive. If- if I touch anyone, the skin on skin contact could hurt them."
Her fingers clenched, causing the silk to ripple and fold. Her words were so small and fragile that Remy wasn't sure it was the same person he met at the bar in Paris talking to him. He squeezed her hands between his as he spoke.
"Gloves, no gloves. We'll work around dat chére. Mais, de self pity doesn't suit y'…"
She shook her head as she turned to face him again.
"Don't tease. Ah'm not safe, not even with the dampeners working... Ah'm just a time bomb ticking away and eventually-"
"Y' grasp on idioms is impeccable though."
She bit down the surprised chortle that caught in her throat at his words. It turned bitter in her mouth as she shook her head and pulled her hands out of his grasp. She seemed to put as much distance between them as the room would allow. She stood with her back to him and faced towards the vanity mirror. Her expression in the reflection grew taught with the self-hatred and guilt he felt polluting their link as she spoke.
"If Emma hadn't put dampeners in my head… Ah'd be trying t' get as far away from here as possible...the last time ah lost control, it didn't end well."
Emma had assured him that Rogue would be settled with the dampeners in place for at least a few days; enough for her to recuperate and for her and Charles to work on a more long-term solution to counter the post-traumatic stress symptoms, which were causing her powers to override her control. Carefully, he came to stand behind her and rest a hand on her covered shoulder. She barely flinched as he spoke and gently turned her to face him on the spot.
"Running won't help y' get better chére, y' must realise dat…"
Her lower lip shook as she bit down on it. The poisonous emotions swelled beneath the surface of her gaze as the word slipped out.
"It would be safer for everyone if ah wasn't here for a while. You didn't see what happened last time I lost control. People got hurt and ah-"
His brow furrowed with worry but he spoke firmly with an edge of anger he knew would make her respond a hell of a lot better than any mountain of sympathy or pity.
"Stop dat, chére. Don't do dat t' y'self. I know what y' doing et I don't have t' have empathy t' understand dat y' scared. It's okay t' be scared, oui? Y' just can't go running away from it."
She managed an indignant scoff.
"You're not a danger t' anyone Remy. How could you possibly understand…"
She shifted awkwardly under his gaze for a short time, until the burning gaze she felt on her finally urged her to look back at his face. His eyes took on a sort of glow that matched his emotions as he spoke in a rough whisper. As if every word and admission was a hardship fought.
"I spent de best part of a year after my powers manifested pushing everyone and everyt'ing away from moi after my powers manifested. Six months in a small shack in de bayou half mad, refusing t' let anyone help, not even my family. Thinking I was a danger t' dem et t' mself. Dat it was better dat I stay away or die trying t' control what I was."
Rogue couldn't miss the slight waver in his last words. The words hit cords, and every reverberation cracked the wall holding back the flood within her until it was near to bursting from the strain. But before she knew it, he was taking her hand, one at a time, and gently taking off the gloves and with it her armour. He held her hands in his, skin to skin, and gave not shred of fear as he did so. When he spoke again, his eyes were locked with hers.
"I'm not a monster, chére. Y' know dat. Oui?"
She knew her head tilted back and forth in a nodding motion but felt nothing except the burning of tears and her heart thudding like a hammer against her chest. His eyes remained locked, sincerity and strength warming the link between them.
"You are not a monster, chére. Not t' moi et not t' dem. Y' have t' remember dat…"
Something snapped and constricted within her, but it was a few elongated moments before she noticed the tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. Her lower lip stung from biting it so hard to supress the sob lodged in her throat. The words came out through a strangle hold, strained in a voice she didn't quite recognise as her own.
"What if ah can't?"
Unspoken questions and fears radiated off her, clear and crisp as if she had put the words into his head. But they were already in his head, dimmed in the time it took him to banish them as a child. He heard each one, as they reflected many of his own fears and uncertainty surrounding what she now faced. He affirmed his own answer as he closed the gap between them, wrapping his arms around her waist. He felt his own heart rapidly beating against his ribcage as the questions echoed through his mind until they faded, and all became silent. All that remained was the certainty of what was left to do.
Tenderly, he cupped her face between his hands as he bent to meet her gaze. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he uttered the words gently.
"Den I will remind y' everyday until y' do."
Her eyes fluttered shut of their own accord as a sob vibrated through her like an earthquake gently rumbling to life.
"Remy…"
His forehead met hers as his arms swept around her to keep her standing. His name trailed off her lips, full of everything that had hung between them like a clothes hoist strung with questions, unsung hopes and fears. His eyes shut, his chest aching with the release of her freed emotions. Her shaking hands clung to his back as she held onto him. His lips pressed to her brow as he whispered gentle reassurances.
Beyond the door, a solitary figure turned until his back hit the wall. With his heart in his throat, Logan ran a hand down his face and heaved a silent sigh. He swore under his breath and shook his head before moving from the spot he had taken since the heedless Cajun had stepped into the room. As he began a quiet march down the corridor, he opened his mind and spoke.
"Charles. We need to talk."
.
Pietro strode out of the locker room and smoothed his silver hair back as drops of water trickled down his neck. Anger still trailed behind him like a shadow as he weaved through the many corridors leading away from the Danger Room. Before he knew it, he was out of the main training hall and shifting quickly between the dotted crowds of Avalonians. His temper flared with a fever that trickled into the quickness of his movements. Wanda's last reprimands continued to rattle and agitate him as he effortlessly dodged on-comers until he reached the very edge of the North hallway on the ground floor, only to stop when the blue flashing light of his communicator vibrated against his wrist. A rift of dust billowed after him as he came to a stop. Wincing with irritation, he held the communicator up to his mouth to speak in a cool steeled tone.
"What is it?"
Static impregnated the pause before a familiar voice spoke. Sage's eloquent voice rang true.
"Magneto has made contact. You and your team are summoned to Edinburgh. The jet will be prepared to leave at 18:00 hours."
Pietro forced back the anger behind his usual armour of control. A sneer curled his lips as he responded.
"What is the situation?"
"You are to receive orders once you are within range of Edinburgh base. Your team will be debriefed within the hour."
Pietro begrudgingly made his way towards the underground aircraft hanger but made sure to walk at a deliberately steady, slow pace.His boots hit the ground like a hammer to metal. With his powers, there was nothing so easy as manoeuvring himself between the crowds without touching a soul. It was like a puzzle code that he subconsciously knew the answers to. Deliberate and purposely-slow movements were a more concentrated task that better matched his foul mood. When he reached the elevator in the North wing however, a familiar figure came into view and his quiet anger doubled over as he came to a deliberate stop.
Wanda's glare matched his as she approached at a brisk pace until they stood toe to toe. Her hands poised against her hips as she spoke.
"Father has called you to the base in Edinburgh I hear."
He narrowed his gaze at her.
"You heard correct, Warden. It seems you won't have to act upon your threat of incarcerating me after all. I am summoned by the General, I shall be out of your way, won't I?"
To add salt to the wound he wished to inflict, he sidestepped his twin with cruel shove that had her staggering for balance. Before he made the elevator door however, she had him frozen in place by a quick hex that turned him around to face her in mid-step. Her fixated glare didn't so much as shift as she spoke in a steely tone.
"You should be outgrowing your temper tantrums by now, brother. That little shove was a little excessive. Even for you."
He looked down at his frozen limbs and looked up with a raised-brow expression.
"Aren't you being a hypocrite today."
With a final glare, she released her hold on him and he sputtered mid-air towards the ground only to catch himself a nanosecond before impact. With an irritated snarl, he smoothed a stray strand of silver hair over the crown of his head as he straightened before her. They stood at an impasse, their matching gazes set in a stubborn scowl. The twins had been close once upon a time; almost inseparable from each other when they were children. But a void had begun to form between them over the years that grew more tangible and vast by the day. While Wanda blamed it on his souring relationship with their father and the almost fanatical belief of mutant superiority he had developed, Pietro had an all-together different idea of who and what was to blame for their suffering relationship. And Wanda was not altogether unaware of whom he placed the blame.
Finally, when her lack of patience outgrew her anger, Wanda took a step closer and offered a gentler, albeit curtly spoken truce.
"Marie is doing better. Charles and Emma are going to have to monitor her abilities for a time, but she is stable for now."
The genuine look of surprise across his face was quick to meld into another scowl.
"And this is of interest to me, why?"
Wanda gave him an incredulous look and sighed.
"Pietro, she's our little sister. I cannot believe the boy who used to cart her around in his arms as a baby and berate anyone who made her cry can forget that so easily."
Pietro managed a haughty sniff as he shook his head and began to walk away.
"I wouldn't hold my breath Wanda."
Before he knew it, oddly enough, Wanda was stepping in front of him. Gently, she rested a hand against his shoulder to hold him in place. He was actually surprised to find genuine pleading in his sister's eyes as she spoke only loud enough for him to hear.
"Don't be like that. Please. Just for a moment, stop thinking I'm the enemy. And whatever differences we have, don't you dare talk like that about her. About any of us."
Pain reflected in her identical silverly blue eyes before she heaved a deep sigh that trembled in her shoulders. A mild sense of shock froze him in place, seeing his otherwise strong tempered sister showing such emotion.
"You are still our brother- still my brother. And I know, deep down, under that superiority complex you cling to, you still care."
Pietro hesitated. For a matter of seconds, which was no trifle of time to him, he was motionless and silent as Wanda reached for his hand and clasped it tenderly between hers. They had not so much as spoken kindly to each other in years, so the contact was almost a foreign to him. But then the realisation dawned from the back of his mind, the reason why he was so cold and alienated himself from his family's inclusion. He could no longer deny that the cause he fought for rose higher than the regard of his family, and that if he was to succeed, sacrifice was imminent. In his mind, the sacrifice would be his alone.
Gently, he squeezed Wanda's hand. Her response was fluid; her lips curled in a small, hopeful smile. An ache formed in his chest as he took her hand and removed it from his. His softened expression grew hard and steeled against the hurt that flashed across his sister's face at the action. He stepped away from her and shook his head, as if to cast off the conflicting emotions he felt.
"I am what I am Wanda, I won't change. I won't be persuaded. You will not stop what I know I must do for our people."
Wanda's brow knitted with confusion before her anger returned.
"And what would that be? To ensure that the humans are purged from our ranks to appease your sense of mutant superiority?"
Pietro shook his head, as his words escaped in a gravely tone.
"You don't understand. You probably never will-"
"Try me."
He met her gaze and was surprised to find sincerity mirrored in her eyes. At that look, Pietro broke his isolation to reach for her face. He cupped her cheek gently, and felt the shock that pulsed through her at the action.
"One day, I swear, you will understand. And I hope…"
He removed his hand and clenched his fists at his side. His voice was low, almost pleading as the words left his mouth.
"I hope you will not think ill of me then."
With that said, he turned and speeded away before he could see the look of bewilderment across his sister's face. He tried to find solace in the righteousness of his cause, but it held no reprieve for him this day.
Apologies for the delay in updates. I've had a lot going on, including a death in the family. Hopefully be able to put a few more updates out soon.
Thanks for reading folks!
Please remember to REVIEW!
-Gams