A/N: ok, so it's the first in a series of shorts about the characters in X Men: Evolution series. Please forgive me if I've missed some part of the show or got info messed up, I'm from Canada and haven't seen the series yet, so I've had to settle on descriptions and stuff. If this gets good reviews, I think I might do a short on Lance Avlers next, so please send in feedback!
Fieldfull
A Pietro Story.
In one of my foster homes, we lived in this remote place, out in the country. Wasn't pretty, the roof leaked, there was always work, place smelled like shit. The only thing I really remember was the field outside, there was a hill behind the house and then the place straightened out and the fields began. Endless fields full of meter high grass, lots of space and sky, I think I spent more time out there then anywhere else.
Growing up like I did, in the city, you really don't get used to space and freedom. When I was little, I used to think that the sky wasn't really blue, just a grayish cloudy shade. There was always pollution, car smells and smoke and lots of noise. I wasn't used to having a place where I could run around and then flop down on the ground without getting trampled and killed by things passing by.
The sky almost seemed the wrong color, this deep shade of blue, like colored plastic or something, only more real, nothing like the things people make.
I used to run around a lot, come out into the field and run until I collapsed and gasped for air, by then I couldn't see my house anymore, just fields and grass and the sky.
People always said that I was skinny, teachers at school, old people, friends of the family I was with at the time…everyone said I was way too skinny, maybe it was my powers starting up early, because I could always eat a lot more then normal people. Probably my super speed metabolism and all that crap. You don't get to eat much, around where I came from, usually the foster homes were small, smelly, full of cats or dogs or rabbits or other crap that they had tried to use to replace children before coming to pick a kid from the orphanage. The places were small, smelly, full, and cheap. Once, I had to sleep in this small room with the big shaggy dog, on a mattress, no bed or anything, just the floor, the mattress (usually full of dog) and a low ceiling. They were always away on business and trusted me to keep to myself for a few days at a time. Sometimes they forgot to leave food and stuff, so I starved. I tried to eat dog food once, when they were gone for a week and forgot us. The thing tasted like crap, but I guess it was full of healthy stuff 'cause a bowl kept me happy for a whole day (usually I ate twice a day and was still hungry.)
This place though, with the field, it was something like heaven, because they hardly left home, and they were always feeding me proper, three times a day (usually things like cheese and bread and vegetables but the stuff tasted fresh so I didn't complain.) I had to work hard and stuff, chopping wood, going a few miles to the neighbors to exchange stuff, but in the end, they'd feed me and let me go out into the field and have as much fun as I liked. I learned to run there, run and run and run, just to keep myself moving, make sure that if things went bad, I could run away and through the field, until I found some other orphanage. That's where my powers started developing. My legs used to get cramped easily, from not getting enough food and air and space all my life, but now, I could run, really run, I used to practice all the time.
Finally, I ran home one day, I almost broke the door right through, skidded to a stop and looked down…my legs were cramping again, knees buckled, and my shoes were smoking! I made it through a few miles in a few minutes, which is nothing compared to now, but then, it was something like a miracle, that some little skinny city boy could run that fast and far, it was really something.
I knew mutants before, there were some in my orphanage,
there was this guy who could bend things with his mind, telekinesis?
He was really already sixteen, about to get pushed out of the orphanage at eighteen unless someone wanted him, and no one would want a sixteen year old mutant, so he was only waiting for the streets.
There were others, kids whose powers developed early. A little girl who could create shield against things, I guess she does something to the molecules around her, her mom died and her dad couldn't bare to see her again so he threw her into the orphanage, where she used to get beaten and had to develop the shield thing to keep alive. No one wanted her because she was always sitting in the corner, saying that her daddy was going to come and get her soon. She was seven, she spent about three years or so at the place.
I was just skinny little Pietro, people couldn't even pronounce my name right, some of my adopters couldn't either. I usually got picked because for the hair, everyone liked exotic hair, eyes, small mutations that didn't get in the way but looked nice.
The barn people, they picked me because I was in a good age and looked like I could still work for my keep if made to, and because of the hair.
So I got to see the blue sky, and enough field to keep me occupied, and a nice pair of folks, who didn't really bother raising me, but make sure I was alive, well, and ready for work.
This lasted the summer, but then, I got in trouble in school a lot, they didn't like that, so they sent me away, into the barn that served as an orphanage "down town" (really, it was a few stores and a church and stuff, oh, and the school.)
I lived there with lots of farm boys (no girls, they were
always perfect and lovable and stuff, my ass.) the other kids were big, brawny,
and looked like they had melons stuffed in their shirts, because I've never
seen so many muscles.
I stayed there for a while, then ran away and joined some kids who were "living" on their own, renting an apartment (I managed to make it to a decent town, caught trains.) They were getting jobs and paying for a two-bedroom apartment in the worse part of town, right next door to this gay dude who used to get drunk and bring his fucking buddies over, they used to knock on our door and pay us to be their sex toys.
Nothing wrong with gays, but having to stand on your knees for a miserable half hour wasn't any good, and they paid about fifty bucks if we pretended to enjoy it.
I didn't enjoy it, but my job was sucky, and I needed to make more cash to stay with the guys, so I bared it and got the fifty.
The worse part wasn't the dicks stuck up my ass, it was that I couldn't wash it off and forget it. We couldn't afford enough water.
The older boys, they were nice, kinda made sure that I stayed alive and didn't starve. They also broke up fights and made sure that people didn't steel other people's food. I didn't really like them, but they were better then some parents I had, so it was cool.
The fucking business made me hate boys. I just plain avoided everyone for a few hours after that time; they almost scared me, walking around, huge, usually hungry (we all were) and willing to have some fun. (Male or female, I don't know if they cared, but normal girls wouldn't go near this that side of town, and hookers were too expensive.) I used to sit down and think about it, ask myself if they were good enough to trust or if I should go out and keep away until the thoughts faded, but eventually, I thought of the streets, with gangsters and people who wouldn't really give a fuck about who it was on their knees.
I used to wonder what would happen if I got into a fight. Or got raped, or something. And eventually I got the message that if I didn't come back, none of the boys would care much. Which I was pretty used to.
I lived like that for a while, and my powers developed properly, So I decided to run again, and took all I could, (mind you, I didn't steel anything, just took everything that was rightfully mine and was shared by the guys) and ran, I raced across the states, and settled in this nice place, where there weren't any fields, but the sky was relatively clear, the air was clean, and cars were decent and didn't leak gas/smocked as if on crack, etc.
I got myself properly adopted, the pair were in their early thirties and liked children but were having problems getting one, so they settled right in for a white haired Pietro Maxmoff.
About my name, well, I don't really know who gave it to me, I don't know my parents, except that I was brought to this family by a man with white hair, who said that he would come back for me later, (They figured he meant a few years…they were probably high on something.) He said that my name was Pietro Maximoff, and that I was to be cared for.
The parents dumped me after he didn't show up, they waited a year, until I was four, and then dumped me in the nearest orphanage and told the guy in charge who I was and how they got me. The guy later told me that they had a girl with them, my age and looking like me (except for the hair) supposedly my twin, who's name was Wanda and who had asked for a lollypop when they brought me in.
They kept the girl but dumped me because they didn't like me, or something. I didn't even remember them all that much, maybe a face or something, I could have passed them on the street and not even look up, much less cared.
When the guy at the orphanage told me, I wasn't really all that sad that they hadn't cared about me but had cared about my sister, because at the time, I wasn't getting fed properly, I wasn't getting to go outside, play ( I was too small to get at any of the toys, even the broken, messed up, limbless doll no one really wanted but still kept because it was something to hold on to.) and was more or less sitting in the corner, talking to some other little kid who was being ignored and later got lung cancer from second hand smoking and died.
I had only asked the guy about my parents because I had wanted a story but knew better then to ask for one. The only thing I did care about, had been the white haired man who abandoned me and forgot to come back. I, being a miserable five and a half year old, had started looking through the window in hopes of seeing the white haired bastard, and maybe getting to throw something at him and claw his eyes out if I was lucky. But, eventually, I realized (with some help from the other kids) that he probably wouldn't be caught dead in a neighborhood like this one, with the roofs almost collapsing and leaking and tiny sidewalks just big enough for someone small to walk through without being shoved into a racing car.
I gave up, and eventually decided that it was better to forget about my parents, adopted and otherwise, and started trying to beat up this seven year old so I could get the sandwich the orphanage guy had given him (the boy was cute, looked like an angel, and was always helping the boss with "protecting" the children, so he got a sandwich while I got some stale, black, molding bread and coffee with a cigarette butt in it.)
Later, when I first got picked up, I thought that I was going to get something nice to eat and maybe a real bed, like the staff slept in. Instead, I got a list of rules (starting with "Don't disturb us while we're napping, that's between two and five" and ending with "if you take so much as a step out of your room, daddy will make your bum-bum hurt for the whole evening.") of course, I got hit anyway, just for getting in the way and things, and soon learned that food wasn't all that important and that touching the pretty teady-bear collection in "my room" was VERY bad of me.
And that was the first few years of my life. I ran away at the age of six and got caught by the police, who decided that I needed to learn how lucky I was for even having a family and put me in another orphanage (which wasn't all that bad, people fed me twice a day and things.)
I kept my given name because at first, I didn't think about changing it, and later decided that if my folks ever bothered to find me, I would have disgraced their last name enough to at least get at them a little for dumping me.
My life in a nutshell, what a bomb, isn't it? I got to admit that it was rough at times, but since I always got somewhere and I was better off then a few people, especially the boy who died from lung cancer.
I think that the worse thing I've ever done was jumping that woman on the street, who I didn't kill, just stole her wallet and things. And the worse thing I was ever done to was forced to stand on the knees for a full half hour and ignore the pain that I felt every time someone's dick was pushed into my ass.
Now? I live with these guys, have a part time job, and am pretty sure that they'd at least bother to do a search for me before considering me dead.
I have three friends, (Lance, Fred, and Todd.) who I respect because they've gone through crap too. I also have a mansion full of enemies, who call themselves the X Men, live in the best fucking house in the city, and fight for justice and mutants and humans to live together happily, which I don't really care about.
The only thing I really hate about them is that they're all high and mighty and the peppiest of the preppy. More or less assholes who are too good to bother doing anything but laugh and fight the Brotherhood, and hardly pay attention to us if they can help it (which I don't mind, but I still wish that they would be thrown out, dragged through the mud, and made to live at least a year like I did.)
The only X man that I can stand is Rogue, who doesn't even know her name, doesn't have any real family, and used to be with the Brotherhood before she found out that Mystique (the bitch who got us together) lied to her about the X men.
She may be a Goth bitch, and she may live in a room with a proper bed and all, but she also talks to the guys sometimes, and tries to understand us, (probably because she's feeling sorry for us, bitch.) which I think deserves very little credit, but we used to be friends, so I guess I'll go easy on the Goth bitch.
Over all, life's not too bad, especially since I think I might have found my white haired bastard. (Mr. Maximoff, no doubt!)
Now all I need is to go back to that field…I think I could use the running.
Like someone said once (I think it was Lance copying someone from some book, probably trying to get something for English class) "There's a fieldfull of bad things out there, and I think I've been dragged through it enough."
Or is that something I made up?
END