AN:  Well, here's another one of my short lil' chapters.  Not much to say beyond that.  Thanks, as always, for reading and reviewing.

You think I'm proud of this?
Well maybe,
But the shame you never lose:
Infatuated with a lunatic and cornered by the muse,
And it goes down every night,
This must be what jail is really like,
And I will scratch my way out of this pen, again.

-The Afghan Whigs, "What Jail is Like"

            "Colonel Wraith.  Super.  So what the hell do you want?"  Quicksilver said, gingerly standing up in his cell.  Wraith had dark hair, a mustache, a sleazy grin, and a face that would not have been out of place on a GI Joe villain-reject. 

            "Oh, the usual things, peace, love, understanding, but since that ain't gonna happen, I want a place in the winner's circle when the shit hits the fan.  You muties ain't gonna stop until human beings are dead and gone, and I'm afraid I gotta take issue with that.  So as of now, you, your sister, and your little friends, work for me.  You go where I say, you kill who I tell you to."

            "Oh, well that's fine, just as long as I don't have to dress like you, Sergeant Slaughter-"

            Pietro crumbled to the ground.  It felt like the acid in his stomach had burned up through his chest and throat and into his skull.

            "See, that's what we like to call insurance.  It's a little do hickey that our family doctor here put in your brain.  Just nifty.  All I gotta do is spin this little dial and I can put you in agony."

            Wraith knelt down closer to where Pietro was shivering on the floor.

            "Fuck with me again, honey pie, and all I gotta do is flip this switch.  I do that and your brain spills out all over the floor.  Or maybe it'll be little sister's here."

            Wraith turned the dial back to its normal setting as Wanda wrapped her arms around her brother. 

            "Our father will be here soon, Wraith.  And you don't know pain until you've pissed off Magneto," Wanda replied.  Wraith chuckled.

            "This the same daddy dearest who had you locked up in an insane asylum till a few months ago, sugar cane?  How's he gonna find you?"

            "Where are our friends?" Pietro said as Wanda looked very confused.

            "I got other people workin' on them.  You two are my special project.  See, your daddy's a bad man, but I figure you know that.  I've always believed that moral flexibility is genetic.  Me and my buddies got a bet going that you two are gonna take to hurting people like ducklings to water.  But enough about me.  Let's talk about your daddy.  Where's a man like Magneto like to hang out?"

            "We have no idea.  He comes to us, sets up neutral points to meet," Pietro replied.

            "And he'll come to you, once he figures out where you've taken us," Wanda said. 

            "Tell you what, witchy-poo," Wraith said as two soldiers approached the cell.  "You sit tight and wait for your daddy to show up.  Me and your brother are going to have a little chit-chat."

            The soldiers opened the cell and picked Pietro up off the floor. 

            "I want to go with him," Wanda said.  Wraith laughed.

            "And I wanna house in Key Largo, but that don't mean it's gonna happen."

            Wanda's fingers started to sparkle, but before she could use her powers, she found her brain as tormented as Pietro's had been.

            "You play that card again, cupcake, and I'll have the doc amputate your brother's legs and make him eat the muscle," Wraith said as the cell door shut and locked.  "Try not to miss me too hard." 

            Pietro was dumped back into the cell three hours.  Wraith didn't escort him personally this time, so there were no derisive remarks as Wanda hauled her brother off the floor and managed to get him onto one of the two cots in the cell.  He had track marks up and down his arms, his pupils were dilated and his limbs were twitching. 

            "I can't see.  Where am I?"  he gasped out, his voice shuddering as though he were freezing.  Wanda brushed his hair off his forehead, taking his hand and squeezing it gently.

            "You're back in the cell, I'm here," she said quietly.  "What happened?"

            "I don't know…" he said.  "They injected me with something, it made all my muscles burn… they took a lot of blood, put something in my eyes that made them tear up, everything they did burned.  Christ I'm tired…" 

            "Try to sleep," she said.  Pietro shook his head hard and grabbed Wanda's hand.

            "No," he said, shaking his head violently.  "They're gonna come for us soon."

            "Who?  Dad?"

            "She'll come and get us.  I fell into another universe where the monsters ruled and she still came and got me.  She always comes," Pietro said deliriously.  "She'll be here any minute."

            "Rogue?"

            "She's one of us now.  She always had been, but she's back with us now.  You can count on her, Wanda.  She won't let us down."

            Wanda gently lifted Pietro's head and sat on the cot, resting his head on her lap.

            "I can't wait for you to get to know her, Wanda," Pietro said, staring blindly up at the ceiling.  "You've got the same sense of humor in a lot of ways.  God, she's funny.  We should all play Scrabble some time.  When we get back to the house, we'll have a board game night.  What do we have besides Scrabble?"

            "Trivial Pursuit," she said quietly.  "That old board from the eighties.  All the answers to the political and geography questions are wrong."

            "Oh well… we could all play cards… or go outside and play tag before it gets too cold.  All the games we should've been playing when we were little.  I bet Todd's really good at hide and seek.  We can make Freddy be home base, he'll love it.  Do you remember when we were about five?  Django and Marya and the rest of the band had stopped the caravan in this beautiful glade, and we went with all the other children to chase fireflies…"

            "I remember."

            "Remind me when we get home to abuse my power as leader and decree firefly chasing once a week."

            "Marya used to call me her little firefly," Wanda said, feeling a strange, aching blend of happiness and sadness in her heart.  She and her brother had never talked about the time before Magneto had collected them, she thought he'd forgotten it all.

            "I forgot about that," Pietro said.  "But I remember now."

            "And they used to call you their hummingbird, because you were so fast.  I can't remember the Romany words."

            A smile cracked Pietro's face as he shut his eyes, there was no point in having them open, though his vision was slowly returning.

            "I hated that nickname," he said. 

            "I know," Wanda replied.  "You used to get so mad whenever Django used it, though I think you let Marya get away with it most of the time."

            "We should try to make the house more like the old band.  We all looked out for each other, back then."

            "We still do, Pietro, more or less.  Dad'll be here soon, and it'll all be okay."

            Pietro's smile slipped a bit.  He was becoming more coherent, his vision clearing, the burning in his body slowly fading.  Thank god Mastermind hadn't touched her memories of their brief childhood with the gypsies, with Django and Marya. 

            "You're right, Wanda," he said.  "Dad'll be here soon."

            "Can you handle this?"  Magneto asked Rogue on their way to the warehouse in Boston.  "I don't want anything to jeopardize my mission."

            "How are you going to find out where they are if I don't go?" Rogue replied coldly.  Colossus was driving the SUV which was taking them all to Boston, Gambit riding shotgun and Rogue sitting uncomfortably next to Magneto in the back seat.  It was like someone had put Pietro's eyes and hair onto a different body, stuck a different soul behind the eyes.  A soul which held most of the world in contempt, and considered the rest a complete waste of space. 

            "I'll convince them."

            "You mean hurt them until they talk or die."

            "If need be," Magneto replied.  "Usually fear takes over long before such measures are required.  I suppose you intend to talk them to death.  That is what Xavier taught you, of course?"

            "I slip them some skin, and I know everything I need to.  Best part is, it's not like they can lie."

            "How very passive aggressive."

            Rogue glared at him, still discomfited by the fact that Magneto seemed far too young to be anyone's father, especially not Pietro and Wanda's.

            "By the way," she said.  "If my boyfriend comes out of this with so much as a scratch on him, I'm gonna take it out on you."

            Magneto snorted. 

            "You have no powers except the ones you steal.  You are no threat to me."

            "That's funny, cause when I stole your powers, you were damn scared.  Did it hurt?"

            "Be quiet."

            "Everyone else says it hurts."

            "Be.  Quiet.  Your threats are especially pathetic since it is clear that your affections for my son are solely due to the fact that you can touch him."

            "What are your affections based on?  Oh, right, the whole Darth Vader thing," Rogue replied.

            "I could kill you right here," Magneto said in a bored voice.

            "Magneto, I could kill you and be you in one easy step.  All I want is my friends back."

            "Your friends all work for me you stupid little cow," Magneto answered.  "Now shut up.  You're giving me a headache."

            They sat in silence for the rest of the trip. 

AN2:  Well, yeah, Pietro was OOC, but he was drugged.  That's a little Marvelicious back story, which isn't quite congruous with X-Men Evo or Tag!  Wanda and Pietro were raised by gypsies named Django and Marya Maximoff.  Romany is the gypsy language, and glory eternal to anyone who can actually find out the Romany words for firefly and hummingbird.  I figure Magneto picked the twins up when they were about seven or eight, cause that's about how old chibi-Pietro and chibi-Wanda look on Evo, at least to me.  End of excuses.