There was a knock on the door. Wanda hurriedly wiped away her tears, attempting to put a cheerful smile on her face that she didn't feel. "Come in!"
The door opened and Lance walked in. "Hey," he greeted her with a smile. "What are you doing up here by your lone self? C'mon, the guys are all waitin' for ya."
Wanda couldn't help but laugh a little. Lance always seemed to be able to do that. "Hey Lance," she waved to him with a little sheepish smile. "Where're we goin'?"
"The guys wanted to go down to the ice cream place," Lance smiled. "Then later to that new pizza restaurant to eat out, you know, kinda like an out-of-school celebration." He rolled his eyes, laughing. Then taking a closer look at Wanda, he looked surprised. "Were you crying?" Wanda's cheerful fascade crumbled, and she broke down, sobbing quietly. Lance sat down on the bed next to her. "Are you okay?" When Wanda only sniffed in return, Lance moved over and gave her a big hug. "Hey, come on Wanda, what is it?"
The young girl looked up at Lance through teary eyes. "You're graduatin', Lance," she said in a tiny trembling voice.
"Oh."
They sat in silence for a while, both reflecting upon the past year, remembering the good times. The food fight in the cafeteria. Wanda couldn't help giggle through her tears. That had been a blast. They'd pelted the X-men bad that day, she remembered with a smile. Unlike the rest of the Brotherhood, Wanda wasn't too keen on calling anybody "X-geek", the name her brother and the rest of the guys had dubbed Xavier's group.
"Lance, remember the food fight in the cafeteria?"
"Oh man, yeah!" Lance laughed, smirking a little. "I'll never forget the look on Summers's face literally when I pelted him with that pizza." He sniggered. "Or Duncan's either. ALVERS!! YOU'RE GOING DOWN MAN! NEXT TIME I SEE YOU, YOU DIE!" Lance shouted, imitating the big football player. He smirked. "Yeah right. In his wildest dreams. The day he gets me is the day I'll dress up as a dorky geek and start calling myself Scott Summers."
Wanda had to laugh at Lance's impression of Duncan. It did sound a lot like the football player. She hadn't been too impressed by his swaggering manner, or his layed-on-too-thick charm on that Jean girl. Wanda thought back to the first day she'd arrived at Bayville in the middle of the year, and Duncan had been trying to go for HER. She shuddered at the memory. He'd only backed off when confronted by the Brotherhood. She'll never forget Pietro's face...
Her brother, the older of the two by a mere four minutes, had always been protective. As children, they had been inseparable, best friends. Closer than close. They'd always told each other everything, from their own secrets to secrets told to them from somebody else. And the young twins would then seal it with giggles and a pinky promise not to tell the secrets or to inform the various people who had told them the secrets that they'd told. Wanda smiled sadly at the memory. How... simple things had been back then! Both siblings had changed a lot over the years, and they could never be as innocent as they had been in their golden once-upon-a-time years. The childlike innocence was gone. Wanda sighed. She was still close to Pietro, but... the closeness wasn't the same anymore. She was terrified that she was actually drifting apart from him, and was powerless to stop the slow but gradual rift growing between them. They'd both changed so much... Too much...
"So how does pizza and ice cream sound?" Lance grinned at her.
"Huh?" Wanda blinked at him for a second, then remembered their old conversation, and smiled. "Sounds good!" she said, getting up. "Heh.. do you think the others are still downstairs?" she laughed. "Somehow, I find it hard to believe that Pietro would wait that long for us to come downstairs."
As if right on cue, the speed demon's high impatient voice shouted up at them. "GeezLance,exactlyhowlongdoesittakeforyoutocallWandadown?!"
Lance sighed. "And his royal majesty awaits," he said with a chuckle and a bit of sarcasm in his voice. "Come on kiddo." He pulled Wanda to her feet. "Let's go before Pietro blows a head gasket."
Wanda laughed. "But one has to wonder. Is it a good thing to give Pietro more sugary ice cream?" she grinned as they left the room and went downstairs. Entering the kitchen, they found the rest of the Brotherhood lounging around waiting for them.
"Well,lookwhofinallydecidedtocomedown!" Pietro smirked. "What were you doing up there anyways? You were only supposed to call Wanda down." He zipped around the kitchen, bored. "Butnowthatyou'redown,let'sgo!" Pietro grinned. "Whoo-hoo!Sugarrush,hereIcome!" he said gleefully as he ran around the kitchen.
"Eh... maybe getting ice cream isn't such a great idea after all.." Lance said, looking at the hyperactive speedster warily. "You know, there's a new place in town we can cras-"
"No, ice cream!" Pietro said, "We can crash the new place some other time. Besides, it's more fun if I get Daniels into it."
"Aww, what for, yo?" Todd asked, hopping up. "We don't need him! He'll ruin all the fun of tearing down a store!"
Pietro looked at him like he suddenly smelled good or something. "So I can boogey dance with him, Todd!" he said sarcastically. "To frame him, of course! Why else do you think I want to involve a Xgeek loser in on our fun?"
"Pietro!" That was Lance. "You are only talking about Daniels, and I'm sure you're talking about Summers, and all the rest who reigns in that mansion of theirs, but you wouldn't be talking about Kitty... would you?"
Pietro grinned. "No comment..." he said. "No comment at all..." He knew he could have said something about Pryde just to see what Lance would do, but he preferred to have a house to sleep in that night, and that wouldn't be exactly possible if Lance decided to crash the roof right then. Besides, Pietro Maximoff couldn't afford to risk catching a cold.
Wanda shook her head as she followed the group out the door. Lance. Fred. Pietro. Todd. Brothers, teammates, friends. For better or for worse, this was her family. Despite what people always tend to say about the Brotherhood and about their infamous reputation around town, they weren't at all as bad as people made them out to be. Besides, this was the closest Wanda may ever get to having a real family. She loved it. *Beats being stuck in foster families who don't have a clue you're there half the time, and who wouldn't give a care even if you're there!* Wanda thought bitterly, wincing at the all-too-recent memories of foster care that she had had to put up with. She'd given up trying to keep count of how many she's been in a long time ago. There wasn't any point in it. Wanda had finally just ran away from the last one she was in, had survived on her own until she saw a news broadcast one day about a freak tornado in some never-heard-of hick town called Bayville somewhere in New York. She had known right away it was Pietro. Knew he had survived too after he had ran away about three years before her. Her brother had always been a surviver and a competitor in life. *Pietro,* she thought with a giggly laugh. *What would I do without him? Where would I be in life without him, and more importantly, WHO would I be?* Wanda had never known life without her brother, and couldn't imagine not having him there. After all, they WERE twins. She sighed, content. No matter what happened in the future, she would always have these guys right here. It hadn't always been easy at times, living together, and like most big "families", they'd had their fair share of squabbles and disappointments, but also of laughter and happiness. Lance, forever the big brother to them all, and who'd always tried to do his best to support five teens under one roof. Most people's initial reaction of him was one of intimidation, of mixture of hate tinged with fearful respect for the moody dark haired senior. Of them all, Lance was the toughest, but, what most people didn't realize, also one of the sensitivest of the Brotherhood, most deeply hurt by all the tragedies of his young life. He almost never showed it in public, choosing to mask the pain and hurt behind an impenetrable concrete wall of a seemingly cold heart, and what other people called "a major case of jerkitis". But every once in a while, Wanda caught a flickering glimpse of the true Lance Alvers, of his gentler side, and of a scared little boy trapped in a tough exterior.
Next came Fred. Despite his defensive attitude, and his bully reputation, Freddy was a caring boy . Wanda didn't care what people in town says about him. She had gotten to know the person behind Fred's immovable epidermis.
Third in the gang was Pietro, the fast talking-fast living boy who could never seem to sit still to save his life.
The last and least was Todd Tolensky. Over the year that Wanda spent with the Brotherhood, she had never met a more vulnerable and misunderstood individual. Overlooking his weaknesses and his ill-humoured tongue, Todd, or the Toad as he was called by Duncan and all the jocks/cheerleaders in school, (A/N: No intention to offend anybody! Don't sue!) was a very loyal friend.
Wanda looked up at the setting sun in the distant horizon, and took a deep breath. She smiled faintly, sadly, a serene smile. One of these days, sooner or later, time will run out on them all, and one by one, they will all eventually graduate and move on, each going their own separate way. But while time still lasted, she would always have these four. In her heart, there will ALWAYS be these four. A teardrop silently snaked its way down her cheek, and Wanda quickly brushed it away, hoping nobody noticed. She surveyed her family fondly. Pietro, who was zipping around laughing and making kissing noises, no doubtly teasing Lance about his infatuation with Kitty Pryde. Lance, who was yelling something and sending tremors through the ground every few seconds. Freddy, who was ambling along eating a bag of chips and Todd was hopping around sliming every fancy looking car he could see parked along the road that he recognized as one belonging to a jock that he knew from Bayville High. He was now hopping around happily and it didn't take Wanda long to figure out why Todd was suddenly in such a bright mood. Right in front of Todd was a newly-slimed brand new red convertible. Wanda burst out laughing, and Todd turned to her with a sly grin. Wanda grinned back. She could just see Duncan's face when he came out of whatever shop he was in and saw his precious baby. The mental image was just too priceless, and she burst into a fit of giggles again. Finally calming down, Wanda sighed contently. Yes, this WAS her family and always will be. A home and a chance to love and be loved, for who she was, is, and forever will be. And she was proud of the guys and herself. What they lacked in money, and material wealth, they more than made up for it with loyalty and acceptance amongst themselves. They were exactly what their name suggested, not as trouble making jerks or a group of "underpriviledged juvenile delinquints" as Wanda had heard a perfect stranger walking in the streets say one time. She had bristled at that comment. *We are not at all!* she had felt like screaming at the prejudiced lady. *If you'd just open your eyes and see us for who we really are, and stop being such a bigot, we'd be okay and the world would be a much better place!* They WEREN'T a group of JDs, or trouble kids. Just a small group of kids born with special and unique talents, a united brotherhood of outcast teens left to fend for themselves and longing for a love nonexistent in a world filled with hate. Members will come, and members will go, but there will always be something special existing between these five. Lance, Fred, Pietro, Wanda, and Todd. The original Brotherhood! Avalanche, Blob, Quicksilver, Wanda herself newly codenamed Scarlet Witch, and Toad. *I do have something I can at last call my own,* Wanda thought fiercely as she walked along the road with the others. *I DO have something, being part of the Brotherhood, and NOBODY can or will take that away from me,* she vowed. *Nobody.*
A/N: This is first chapter! More coming up ^.^
The door opened and Lance walked in. "Hey," he greeted her with a smile. "What are you doing up here by your lone self? C'mon, the guys are all waitin' for ya."
Wanda couldn't help but laugh a little. Lance always seemed to be able to do that. "Hey Lance," she waved to him with a little sheepish smile. "Where're we goin'?"
"The guys wanted to go down to the ice cream place," Lance smiled. "Then later to that new pizza restaurant to eat out, you know, kinda like an out-of-school celebration." He rolled his eyes, laughing. Then taking a closer look at Wanda, he looked surprised. "Were you crying?" Wanda's cheerful fascade crumbled, and she broke down, sobbing quietly. Lance sat down on the bed next to her. "Are you okay?" When Wanda only sniffed in return, Lance moved over and gave her a big hug. "Hey, come on Wanda, what is it?"
The young girl looked up at Lance through teary eyes. "You're graduatin', Lance," she said in a tiny trembling voice.
"Oh."
They sat in silence for a while, both reflecting upon the past year, remembering the good times. The food fight in the cafeteria. Wanda couldn't help giggle through her tears. That had been a blast. They'd pelted the X-men bad that day, she remembered with a smile. Unlike the rest of the Brotherhood, Wanda wasn't too keen on calling anybody "X-geek", the name her brother and the rest of the guys had dubbed Xavier's group.
"Lance, remember the food fight in the cafeteria?"
"Oh man, yeah!" Lance laughed, smirking a little. "I'll never forget the look on Summers's face literally when I pelted him with that pizza." He sniggered. "Or Duncan's either. ALVERS!! YOU'RE GOING DOWN MAN! NEXT TIME I SEE YOU, YOU DIE!" Lance shouted, imitating the big football player. He smirked. "Yeah right. In his wildest dreams. The day he gets me is the day I'll dress up as a dorky geek and start calling myself Scott Summers."
Wanda had to laugh at Lance's impression of Duncan. It did sound a lot like the football player. She hadn't been too impressed by his swaggering manner, or his layed-on-too-thick charm on that Jean girl. Wanda thought back to the first day she'd arrived at Bayville in the middle of the year, and Duncan had been trying to go for HER. She shuddered at the memory. He'd only backed off when confronted by the Brotherhood. She'll never forget Pietro's face...
Her brother, the older of the two by a mere four minutes, had always been protective. As children, they had been inseparable, best friends. Closer than close. They'd always told each other everything, from their own secrets to secrets told to them from somebody else. And the young twins would then seal it with giggles and a pinky promise not to tell the secrets or to inform the various people who had told them the secrets that they'd told. Wanda smiled sadly at the memory. How... simple things had been back then! Both siblings had changed a lot over the years, and they could never be as innocent as they had been in their golden once-upon-a-time years. The childlike innocence was gone. Wanda sighed. She was still close to Pietro, but... the closeness wasn't the same anymore. She was terrified that she was actually drifting apart from him, and was powerless to stop the slow but gradual rift growing between them. They'd both changed so much... Too much...
"So how does pizza and ice cream sound?" Lance grinned at her.
"Huh?" Wanda blinked at him for a second, then remembered their old conversation, and smiled. "Sounds good!" she said, getting up. "Heh.. do you think the others are still downstairs?" she laughed. "Somehow, I find it hard to believe that Pietro would wait that long for us to come downstairs."
As if right on cue, the speed demon's high impatient voice shouted up at them. "GeezLance,exactlyhowlongdoesittakeforyoutocallWandadown?!"
Lance sighed. "And his royal majesty awaits," he said with a chuckle and a bit of sarcasm in his voice. "Come on kiddo." He pulled Wanda to her feet. "Let's go before Pietro blows a head gasket."
Wanda laughed. "But one has to wonder. Is it a good thing to give Pietro more sugary ice cream?" she grinned as they left the room and went downstairs. Entering the kitchen, they found the rest of the Brotherhood lounging around waiting for them.
"Well,lookwhofinallydecidedtocomedown!" Pietro smirked. "What were you doing up there anyways? You were only supposed to call Wanda down." He zipped around the kitchen, bored. "Butnowthatyou'redown,let'sgo!" Pietro grinned. "Whoo-hoo!Sugarrush,hereIcome!" he said gleefully as he ran around the kitchen.
"Eh... maybe getting ice cream isn't such a great idea after all.." Lance said, looking at the hyperactive speedster warily. "You know, there's a new place in town we can cras-"
"No, ice cream!" Pietro said, "We can crash the new place some other time. Besides, it's more fun if I get Daniels into it."
"Aww, what for, yo?" Todd asked, hopping up. "We don't need him! He'll ruin all the fun of tearing down a store!"
Pietro looked at him like he suddenly smelled good or something. "So I can boogey dance with him, Todd!" he said sarcastically. "To frame him, of course! Why else do you think I want to involve a Xgeek loser in on our fun?"
"Pietro!" That was Lance. "You are only talking about Daniels, and I'm sure you're talking about Summers, and all the rest who reigns in that mansion of theirs, but you wouldn't be talking about Kitty... would you?"
Pietro grinned. "No comment..." he said. "No comment at all..." He knew he could have said something about Pryde just to see what Lance would do, but he preferred to have a house to sleep in that night, and that wouldn't be exactly possible if Lance decided to crash the roof right then. Besides, Pietro Maximoff couldn't afford to risk catching a cold.
Wanda shook her head as she followed the group out the door. Lance. Fred. Pietro. Todd. Brothers, teammates, friends. For better or for worse, this was her family. Despite what people always tend to say about the Brotherhood and about their infamous reputation around town, they weren't at all as bad as people made them out to be. Besides, this was the closest Wanda may ever get to having a real family. She loved it. *Beats being stuck in foster families who don't have a clue you're there half the time, and who wouldn't give a care even if you're there!* Wanda thought bitterly, wincing at the all-too-recent memories of foster care that she had had to put up with. She'd given up trying to keep count of how many she's been in a long time ago. There wasn't any point in it. Wanda had finally just ran away from the last one she was in, had survived on her own until she saw a news broadcast one day about a freak tornado in some never-heard-of hick town called Bayville somewhere in New York. She had known right away it was Pietro. Knew he had survived too after he had ran away about three years before her. Her brother had always been a surviver and a competitor in life. *Pietro,* she thought with a giggly laugh. *What would I do without him? Where would I be in life without him, and more importantly, WHO would I be?* Wanda had never known life without her brother, and couldn't imagine not having him there. After all, they WERE twins. She sighed, content. No matter what happened in the future, she would always have these guys right here. It hadn't always been easy at times, living together, and like most big "families", they'd had their fair share of squabbles and disappointments, but also of laughter and happiness. Lance, forever the big brother to them all, and who'd always tried to do his best to support five teens under one roof. Most people's initial reaction of him was one of intimidation, of mixture of hate tinged with fearful respect for the moody dark haired senior. Of them all, Lance was the toughest, but, what most people didn't realize, also one of the sensitivest of the Brotherhood, most deeply hurt by all the tragedies of his young life. He almost never showed it in public, choosing to mask the pain and hurt behind an impenetrable concrete wall of a seemingly cold heart, and what other people called "a major case of jerkitis". But every once in a while, Wanda caught a flickering glimpse of the true Lance Alvers, of his gentler side, and of a scared little boy trapped in a tough exterior.
Next came Fred. Despite his defensive attitude, and his bully reputation, Freddy was a caring boy . Wanda didn't care what people in town says about him. She had gotten to know the person behind Fred's immovable epidermis.
Third in the gang was Pietro, the fast talking-fast living boy who could never seem to sit still to save his life.
The last and least was Todd Tolensky. Over the year that Wanda spent with the Brotherhood, she had never met a more vulnerable and misunderstood individual. Overlooking his weaknesses and his ill-humoured tongue, Todd, or the Toad as he was called by Duncan and all the jocks/cheerleaders in school, (A/N: No intention to offend anybody! Don't sue!) was a very loyal friend.
Wanda looked up at the setting sun in the distant horizon, and took a deep breath. She smiled faintly, sadly, a serene smile. One of these days, sooner or later, time will run out on them all, and one by one, they will all eventually graduate and move on, each going their own separate way. But while time still lasted, she would always have these four. In her heart, there will ALWAYS be these four. A teardrop silently snaked its way down her cheek, and Wanda quickly brushed it away, hoping nobody noticed. She surveyed her family fondly. Pietro, who was zipping around laughing and making kissing noises, no doubtly teasing Lance about his infatuation with Kitty Pryde. Lance, who was yelling something and sending tremors through the ground every few seconds. Freddy, who was ambling along eating a bag of chips and Todd was hopping around sliming every fancy looking car he could see parked along the road that he recognized as one belonging to a jock that he knew from Bayville High. He was now hopping around happily and it didn't take Wanda long to figure out why Todd was suddenly in such a bright mood. Right in front of Todd was a newly-slimed brand new red convertible. Wanda burst out laughing, and Todd turned to her with a sly grin. Wanda grinned back. She could just see Duncan's face when he came out of whatever shop he was in and saw his precious baby. The mental image was just too priceless, and she burst into a fit of giggles again. Finally calming down, Wanda sighed contently. Yes, this WAS her family and always will be. A home and a chance to love and be loved, for who she was, is, and forever will be. And she was proud of the guys and herself. What they lacked in money, and material wealth, they more than made up for it with loyalty and acceptance amongst themselves. They were exactly what their name suggested, not as trouble making jerks or a group of "underpriviledged juvenile delinquints" as Wanda had heard a perfect stranger walking in the streets say one time. She had bristled at that comment. *We are not at all!* she had felt like screaming at the prejudiced lady. *If you'd just open your eyes and see us for who we really are, and stop being such a bigot, we'd be okay and the world would be a much better place!* They WEREN'T a group of JDs, or trouble kids. Just a small group of kids born with special and unique talents, a united brotherhood of outcast teens left to fend for themselves and longing for a love nonexistent in a world filled with hate. Members will come, and members will go, but there will always be something special existing between these five. Lance, Fred, Pietro, Wanda, and Todd. The original Brotherhood! Avalanche, Blob, Quicksilver, Wanda herself newly codenamed Scarlet Witch, and Toad. *I do have something I can at last call my own,* Wanda thought fiercely as she walked along the road with the others. *I DO have something, being part of the Brotherhood, and NOBODY can or will take that away from me,* she vowed. *Nobody.*
A/N: This is first chapter! More coming up ^.^