Author's note: Okay, here's the deal- I'm trying to find my X-Men: Evo tapes, because I want to play this story close to the series. However, I also reaaally want to keep writing it, and I want to keep updating. So here's the thing- I'm going to keep updating, but I may go back and tweak the story a little for accuracy (i.e. events during Day of Reckoning, Day of Recovery, etc.) I'll keep trap of just how much tweaking I do, and let people know what changes I've made. In the meantime, here goes nothing.
"Death of a future, goodbye to my friends, wish I could see you all again. Family hollow, family real, wish you were here, see how I feel." –Bush "Bomb"
"Run!" Jean shouted. Rogue scrambled with the rest of them.
"It's a trap!!" Rogue thought about the glowing playing card, swallowing hard as she heard Wanda's voice. Of course it was a trap. It had been far too quiet not to be a trap. And playing cards don't glow. Pietro was gone. And then the explosions started, like someone had dumped a thousand lit cherry bombs onto the battlefield. She caught sight of five steel spheres, with wedges cut out of them as they scattered and ran, and Rogue heard her boyfriend's words from the night before echoing in her head.
I need you to believe in me and just keep doing it and don't give up on me.
Rogue ran hard as she could and took cover from the explosions, having lost track of Jean, Evan and Kurt. She slunk as quietly as she could between the crates, trying to find someone, anyone, who she recognized, pulling off a glove just in case. It turns out she ran into someone else.
He was taller than her, by quite a bit. He was wearing the same sort of uniform-mask that Jean wore, which left his face and hair exposed, brown locks brushing his forehead. His eyes were blood red, and he had a small smile on his face. Rogue froze, panicked, mind still spinning from Pietro's words.
Be angry with me, be furious with me, hell, hate me if you want to…
The red-eyed man reached out and handed her a card, staring intently for a moment, looming over her. Then, slowly, he backed away.
Why didn't he attack? she thought. She glanced at the playing card. King of Hearts. But playing cards don't glow, not even the King of Hearts. She threw it as far as she could and ran towards the sounds of shouting.
…but believe in me and it'll all come out okay in the end.
Rogue saw Beast hit the ground, and started running. She laid her hands on him, reaching through the fur to touch his skin, and slammed Sabertooth away.
"So long, hairbrain," she muttered. She caught sight of the others, and like them, started following Wanda.
I think.
That became a pretty big "I think" as the ground underneath them was torn apart and they crashed into the cavern beneath. Moments later, Rogue caught her first glimpse of a Sentinel.
"Oh no…"
"God damn it, god damn it, god damn it, god damn it, god damn it," Pietro whispered over and over again, too quietly and too fast for his father to hear. His heartbeat was just a hum at this point as he stared down at Rogue, frozen in the green gelatinous substance that he just prayed wasn't lethal. The Sentinel would come for them momentarily, but it was looking for Magneto, not him, not yet anyway. His father could handle a one-armed robot, couldn't he? There was plenty of time for Pietro to run back to the battle and go get-
Into some serious trouble. Pietro rose from the ground in his sister's supernatural grip, unable to run, unable to move, until she dropped him, weak and shaken, and turned to Magneto.
"You've never seen me angry. Until now."
Events went by fast, even for Quicksilver. He managed to get clear of the fight between his father and sister, but it became readily apparent that his father was not half as good at looking after himself as he would have had his son believe.
I'm sorry, baby, but I've got a better chance of rescuing you with the old man in one piece, Pietro thought as he bolted towards the falling Sentinel and grabbed Magneto by the collar and just kept going.
"Good work, Quicksilver," Magneto said, though no trace of actual admiration entered his voice.
"Go to hell," Pietro muttered back, slowing to a stop.
"Where are we?" Magneto asked.
"Somewhere in upstate New York."
"Your sister's going to be looking for us."
"You think?" Pietro muttered, his head back in the battle in the city. "Logical leaps like that, you must be a revolutionary, seriously, you should start submitting those thoughts to Readers Digest- better yet, start your own magazine, give Rosie and Oprah a run for their money."
Pietro's low key rant subsided into a dark silence at a sharp look from his father.
"I would advise you not to overestimate your indispensability to me Quicksilver," Magneto said, deadly quiet. He removed a key from someplace in his cape- for all Pietro knew, his father's loose change stuck to him like magnets on a fridge- and handed it to his son. Pietro took it and sighed, sliding it into a pocket hidden under the left shoulder plate.
"So if this key starts the Oldsmobile, I win it, right?"
"That's the key to an apartment in Pennsylvania, you fool," Magneto snapped. "It's registered to the name Michael Quentin Proctor, which is who you are until I say otherwise."
"Quentin," Pietro sighed. "And I thought you hated Wanda."
"Wyatt, Pennsylvania, Wyatt Heights. Apartment 322. You'll find all your other documents in the drawer left of the sink. And stay there. You're there so I can find you, and if I can't because you've sprinted to the coast you won't like the results."
"If this is a roach motel, you won't find me ever again. Don't overestimate your indispensability, 'Dad'. I may not be able to take over the world, but I sure as hell can take care of myself without the teensiest bit of help from you."
With that, Pietro took off, which was pretty much the only way he ever got in the last word. He could make it to Pennsylvania in forty-five minutes without breaking a sweat, and once at the apartment, he could try to get in touch with Rogue, if anyone at the Institute would let him talk to her. If she still wanted to talk to him. Maybe he should have been straight with her in the first place. No, she would've told him that this was the stupidest idea he'd ever had and to come let her kiss it out of him. And she would have been right, and he would have listened. But no matter how idiotic the plan, Pietro had to see it through to the end.
No turning back now, he thought, rushing past a sign which said "Welcome to Pennsylvania."
Magneto's four other acolytes had scattered. Piotr Rasputin, the Russian called Colossus had gone up to the coast of Maine to work on the docks, Sabertooth had skulked up to north most Minnesota to get away from everyone and everything, Pyro was sent to the desert, where he was least likely to get himself caught by incinerating a forest, or town, or city.
Remy LeBeau had different tastes. There would be no wilderness, no laying low for him. He intended to live the good life while he could, and at the moment, he was trying to do so in the city of brotherly love. Though he really had in mind something much more sisterly.
Of Magneto's four newest recruits, Gambit knew that Magneto considered him the most reliable. After all, he was the most mercenary. Colossus was a man of strong moral fiber, and while Magneto himself possessed strong convictions, he pursued them with flexible morality. Pyro was not quite sane, his fondness for fire outweighed his fondness for anything else by far, and even further outweighed his good sense. Sabertooth had grudges, which meant that as soon as a more direct route to revenge emerged, he would abandon any cause Magneto set him to.
Of all of them, however, Magneto trusted his son least of all. Perhaps he feared his son would go the way of his daughter, and turn on him with a vengeance. He had reason enough to do so, Magneto had turned on his son so many times, it was a wonder the man wasn't dizzy.
So Gambit highly doubted that trust was much of a factor on either side of this coin. Which meant that, unless he was an idiot, the boy was watching his back. And apparently he wasn't the only one who thought so, as the cell phone in his trench coat rang.
"Bon jour."
"Where are you?" a voice on the other end growled.
"Philly."
"Good. Get to the address I'm sending you."
"Mission?"
"Surveillance. Quicksilver."
Gambit sighed.
"Surveillance is not so much my forte-"
"Enough. You're a thief, do what you usually do, just don't take anything."
Gambit chewed the inside of his cheek. Tempted though he was to tell Magneto to hire a nanny or baby-sit his own damned son, Gambit knew himself to be far, very far, from irreplaceable.
"All right," he said. "Gambit'll swing by and check on your boy."
"I'll contact you again tomorrow. If he's up to anything, I want to know."
Magneto hung up, and Gambit rolled his eyes, putting his phone away. Now he was going to have to steal a car and spend a perfectly good evening- in the middle of pledge week for four sororities no less- to go keep tabs on the boss's brat.
No rest for the wicked, he thought.