AN: In this chapter, Wanda Maximoff deals with the fun of living with too many boys and no one to make them clean up the house. She also has a bit of a flare of nerves when talking about Dear Old Dad with Pietro.

I had to come up with some believable scenario for what happened to Pietro while he was living in the city (since we first meet him at school with Evan Daniels), and I arrived at the idea that he was living in one of Magneto's properties, and his father likely visited him only occasionally amidst running the Brotherhood, recruiting his Acolytes, and building his asteroid :) So Wanda, with her modified memories, thinks she lived in the city with Pietro and rarely saw her father, thus her comment that she "hardly knows him". This was hard to deal with in fic as the plot is riddled with holes, in my opinion, on the show itself. So I've done the best I can, and hopefully, it will make sense to y'all, too.

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Chapter 6

"Don't you think that we should clean this place up?"

Wanda looked around the living room of the house, her features marred by distaste. Lance was sprawled on the couch, the bright lights of the video game reflected in his dark eyes. Her brother was on the floor, jerking at the controller around maniacally as if that would have some sort of impact on the character onscreen. Wanda didn't think Pietro could sit still if his life depended on it, though, so it probably wasn't any sort of strategy on his part.

"Why would we do that?" Lance asked, looking up at her. Pietro started crowing about his victory, and Lance hit him over the head with the controller.

"Because this place is a disaster?" Wanda said, exasperated, as she looked around the room. The furniture was dusty and littered with fast food wrappers of meals gone by, and there was actually a stack of pizza boxes in the corner that was growing at an alarming rate.

"Yeah, but who cares?"

Gritting her teeth, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the two of them. "I don't know, me? And Lance, don't you think you'd like to have Kitty over sometime and not want her to think you live in a pigsty?"

Lance flushed a little at that; Wanda could tell he didn't like her mentioning Kitty in front of Pietro. She didn't really care. If Lance was going to date the girl, keeping it a secret was just stupid.

"You're dating the goody-two-shoes girl again?" Pietro laughed. "I give you a week before she dumps you."

"Shut up," Lance growled, smacking Pietro upside the head again with his PlayStation controller. "It's none of your business."

"What's none of his business?" Todd hopped into the room, coming to rest right at her feet. He smiled up at her, and Wanda tried very hard to smile back at him in a way that suggested if he started in on the "You're my one true love" business, she'd cheerfully throttle him.

"Lance is dating Kitty again," Pietro said, laughing, though there was a slight edge of malice to it.

The sound made Wanda's hair stand up on the back of her neck. Something about when Pietro laughed like that….She felt her powers flare, just a little, and one of the lights in the ceiling fan above them shattered.

Pietro moved out of the way, his lightening-quick reflexes keeping him safe from the falling shards of glass. He looked up at Wanda, his eyes cautious. "Something the matter, sis?"

"Just wish we could clean this damn house up," she muttered, heading towards the door. Her hands were shaking. What is wrong with me? For the millionth time, she felt something wasn't quite right, as if there was something horrible looming over the house and everyone knew what it was but her. Her eyes slid back to Pietro, who was looking at her warily.

Why did he do that, look at her as if he were just waiting for her to…

Snap.

"Yeah, okay. We will. Won't we," he said firmly, glaring at Lance. Lance shrugged, unconcerned, apparently not in the mood to play dominance war with Pietro. Or maybe he really did want to bring Kitty over. There was no telling sometimes with him.

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

"I can clean," Todd told her, bringing her attention back to him. He was still sitting at her feet in that peculiar pose of his, looking up at her adoringly. "I can do anything you want me to."

Wanda rolled her eyes, but she found she was resisting the urge to pat him on the head. She'd never tell Todd this, but she was sort of fond of him in the way she would be of a pet that was cute but continually made a mess on the carpet. Strangely endearing, but far too much effort.

"Where's Fred?" Wanda winced. "Tell me he's not out getting the pizza." Whenever they sent him out for dinner, he usually ate all of it before he got home.

"Don't know where he is, but we got the pizza for delivery so no one would starve," Lance responded, standing up. He stretched languidly and dropped the controller on the sofa. He looked down at the broken glass on the floor and sighed. "We should probably clean that."

"I'll get it," Wanda responded, heading towards the kitchen. Maybe if she showed some sort of responsibility, it would rub off on the others. Doubtful, but the mess was her fault.

It took her a few minutes of searching through the kitchen to realize they probably didn't have a dustpan. Or a broom. She improvised using a sponge with a handle that was supposed to be for the dishes (a laughable concept) and a plastic grocery store bag.

Predictably, they'd all left the living room by the time she'd returned. Someone had picked up the pizza boxes and the fast-food wrappers, but they'd just left it in a pile in front of the door. As if the trash would magically take itself out to the curb.

Wanda had to laugh. There was really nothing else she could do, really.

When she finished cleaning up the glass, she straightened and looked out of the window. It was very dark outside and starting to rain. There was something about the water-slicked glass that made her heart start to pound. The ghost of a memory tickled the back of her mind; it pricked like the tiny bit of glass that had embedded itself in her skin.

Blinking, she turned away from the window and carried the bag of glass to the pile of trash, dropping it on top. She went to find something to sack up the trash with, but they didn't have any trash bags.

The doors to the cabinets opened and shut rapidly in her irritation, and two cereal boxes fell from the top of the refrigerator to the linoleum floor. She groaned at that, expecting an explosion of Corn Flakes, but of course the boxes were empty.

The faucet turned itself on and the disposal started whirring. Wanda turned them both off, deciding it might be wise to just stop trying to clean. It was only upsetting her, and her powers usually reacted rather vehemently when she was upset. She didn't fancy cleaning up any more glass.

On her way up the stairs to her bedroom—the only clean place in the entire house—she passed by Pietro's door, half-open. "Hey, sis," he called, and she paused in mid-step.

"Yeah?"

"Come here for a sec."

She pushed his door open, trying to ignore the state of his room and failing. "Pietro, God, you do have a closet," she snapped, stepping over a pile of laundry on the floor. Whether it was clean or dirty was anyone's guess.

"I know. But it has too much stuff in it." He shrugged and sat down on his unmade bed.

Wanda took in his uncharacteristic tense posture and bit her lip. "What'd you want? I have homework to do."

"Dad called. He…he wants us to have dinner with him."

The light flickered. Pietro winced. "Calm down, Wanda, I don't think we have anymore light bulbs."

Wanda leaned against Pietro's dresser, watching him carefully, trying to push down that strange agitation that rose within her whenever she thought about her father.

It was weird. She barely knew the man. Why did she have this lingering anger at him that she couldn't quite place? At first she'd thought it was because he'd moved in to Xavier's, but when she thought more about it, it couldn't be that. She'd been relieved, really, that he wouldn't be living with them.

Maybe it was the fact he'd gone and gotten himself captured and nearly killed without thinking about her and Pietro. The windows rattled alarmingly in their frames. Pietro stared at her for a moment, looking nervous, and Wanda forced herself to calm down. "Sorry. Are we going?"

"Don't know. You want to?" Pietro was staring down at his hands. "We should, I guess."

"We did promise him we'd try," Wanda agreed, twisting her hands together. "Where are we supposed to meet him? Not at Xavier's," she said, the idea horrifying. She didn't hate the X-Men—in fact, she would like to see Rogue somewhere other than class—but she didn't really want to have to have dinner with all of them, either.

Plus, Xavier's kids were probably really smug about the school board decision allowing them to go back to school, which she totally knew had to be Xavier or Jean Grey's mind powers at work. No way would the good citizens of Bayville have let them back otherwise.

Secretly, all of the Brotherhood were glad to be back at school, but they'd never admit to it to any of Xavier's little groupies. They might not be enemies with the X-Men anymore, but they were still rivals. Saving the world together wouldn't ever change that. Friendly rivals, maybe, but rivals all the same.

"He suggested this place downtown. Caruso's. Never heard of it."

"Because they don't serve food in wrappers or deliver it in a box," Wanda said wryly. "I know where it is."

"So I should tell him we'll be there? He wants us to go tomorrow, at six-thirty." Pietro was still not looking at her. That same sense of wrongness invaded her mind again, and she took a deep breath before she broke anything else.

"Guess so." She examined the chipped black nail polish on her fingers. She supposed she should maybe fix it so she didn't look like some sort of hooligan.

"Okay." Pietro stood up. "So…I'll call him back, then." He appeared to be waiting until she left the room to do so. It bothered Wanda, but she didn't know why.

"Fine. Is that all you wanted?" She turned towards the door, but he was there in front of her before she could blink. She scowled at him and a few of his CDs fell off his CD tower. "You know I hate when you do that."

"Yeah, well, what are big brothers for?"

"You're only older than me by like two minutes," Wanda reminded him, glaring, but it was without any real heat.

"Still." Pietro grinned at her. "You gonna wear that get-up to dinner? Probably'll drive Dad crazy."

She looked down at her clothes; it was her normal ensemble. She really didn't have anything that their rather conservative father would find appropriate. "Maybe I'll leave the earrings at home," she said sweetly, pulling lightly at one of the crosses.

"Considering Dad's Jewish, that's probably a good idea," Pietro drawled sarcastically.

"Pietro, would you please get out of my way?" She reached out her hand and shoved at his shoulder ineffectually.

His mocking expression vanished, and his face softened a bit. "Hey, sis. I'm…I'm glad you're still here," he said gruffly. "I mean, I'm glad you didn't high-tail it over to Xavier's with Dad when we got back."

Some of her strange agitation abated; she was flooded with sudden warmth for him at his words. "Pietro, I barely know the man. You're my brother. My place is with you."
She still had her hand on his shoulder and she squeezed lightly. It was an affectionate gesture, slightly out of the normal for her, as were her words to him. "Even if Xavier's is probably a lot cleaner."

"There's a lot of glass, though," he reminded her, though she could tell he was pleased. "You would make a mess of the place before you'd even moved all your stuff in." They smiled at each other, and Pietro stepped out of the way.

Wanda left his room, but paused on her way down the hall. She listened for a moment as Pietro called their father, heard him speaking in a low voice.

Yes, we'll be there. Yeah, six-thirty is fine. No, but Wanda does.

She shook her head, confused by her inability to move down the hallway. They were having a perfectly normal conversation. Why was her heart racing so fast? Why couldn't she just go to her room and start her homework before dinner?

Pietro's next words made her stomach twist uncomfortably.

No. Still nothing. She's fine.

Wanda heard the doorbell ring, likely announcing the arrival of dinner—pizza, of course—and went to her room. Suddenly, she wasn't very hungry.

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BrennaM: Thank you! And yes, I love to explore the intimate dynamics between characters, no matter what ends up happening. I'm glad you are enjoying the story and thanks for reading!

mc2rpg: Ha, that's exactly what my husband said. He's convinced Wanda and Rogue should fight over Pietro (likely involving clothing being torn off) and then decide to just forget Pietro all together. Hee! I'm actually a fan of that pairing, but of course Rogue/Magneto is my OTP. I do plan on having Wanda and Rogue be very close friends, if that's any consolation!

Archmagus: Thanks! I am a fan of creepy!Xavier, but more fond of manipulative!Xavier. Though I do think that he's basically a good person, he's still a little devious when he wants to be. Glad you enjoyed!