Title: Grim are the failings. by Unanon unanon@yahoo.com

Fandom: Ultimate X-Men/Ultimates Disclaimer: Everything is Marvel's Summary: Pietro POV drabble post Ultimate War. Written for 15 Minute Ficlets. ~~~~~

Wanda says I'm grounded. She says it lightly, gently, trying to keep the air between us from becoming stagnant as she sits on the edge of my hospital bed, one hand stroking my arm from elbow to fingertips. She keeps a smile quivering at the corners of her mouth, not because she's happy or amused, but because she knows that I need it. I need to see her smiling.

They pump enough painkillers into my body to kill a herd of elephants. S.H.I.E.L.D doctors aren't sure about the dosage. They may be used to treating mutants, but they haven't had much experience with someone with as increased a metabolic rate as mine. They smile too, but their smiles are plastic and far too white. Everything within me distrusts them. I was raised to distrust them, to view them as lower forms of life.

Of course, the man who raised me also put me in this bed. My own beloved father shot off my kneecaps.

It was almost a gesture of love, coming from him. At least it shows that he cared.that he was hurt enough by our betrayal to retaliate in his typically brutal fashion. Wanda says she got the easier side of the bargain, having only been forced to watch, but I know that she feels it too, the exquisite loss, despite being spared the physical pain.

The way I run, I'd wear out prosthetic implants within a month, possibly less.

But it goes deeper then that. The division of our family that began months ago during our father's attack on Washington is finally complete. We have removed ourselves from our heritage, from our father, from a destiny we might have fulfilled as the new mutant nobility. We've killed a potential future for ourselves and in doing so we have annihilated any ties to our past.

All we really have left is each other. I thank God that it seems to be enough. As for the rest, who knows? Someday my kneecaps may miraculously regenerate; living with Wanda, anything's a possibility.

~fin~