Hey everyone! Guess who is back from Florida with a now permanent tattoo! Actually it started as a temp but then I tanned about six shades darker so now my skin is normal looking as opposed to death mildly reheated. So the temp tattoo comes off and then I realize that I tanned a butterfly and cool diamond triangly things onto my arm. Just felt like sharing. Anywho, a warning that this chapter came out way darker than I thought it was going to. Believe it or not, it was intended to be a happy and lighthearted chappi...oh well maybe next time.
Disclaimer-Lying is a sin and when you get to heaven they won't let you in, so I won't bother lying. I own no Marvel entities.
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Pietro glanced warily at his father. He'd never seen him look so somber and old. But then again, he'd never been in his final day of life before either.
"Go ahead, I'm listening." Pietro shrugged.
"I'd prefer a private chat if you don't mind." Magneto said in a deep voice, looking around at the others.
"You can say whatever it is in front of everyone." Pietro frowned somewhat rudely.
"No, that's ok, we can take a hint." Lance quickly stood and gestured for the others to follow him.
"Thank you Avalanche." Magneto inclined his head and the ghost of a smile crossed his face.
"What do you want, father?"
"Pietro, don't be that way." Magneto sighed.
The boy crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow as a sign that he was waiting.
"I'm sorry. You know I never meant for this to happen."
"Do I?" Pietro asked. "Seems to me that you've always wanted to get rid of your kids. You put Wanda in that place and you used me in your sick experiments and now look what's happening."
"I understand that you are upset, Pietro, believe me." The older man began.
"How the Hell can you say you understand!" Pietro snapped. "It isn't you, but it's always about you! You aren't sorry you're losing a son, you're just sore about losing a minion and test subject."
"Pietro, you are my son!" Magneto said sternly. "Of course I'm sorry my stupid mistakes are claiming your life!"
"Bull." Pietro snapped back "You don't give a damn about me, or Wanda. You never have. That's why Mom took off before we were born!"
Magneto looked as if he had been slapped in the face. "Don't you bring Magda into this, Pietro!"
"Why not?" Pietro scowled. "It's true isn't it?"
"The misunderstanding between your mother and I had absolutely nothing to do with-"
"Liar!" Pietro glared. "You know it did! And you didn't even come after her! You didn't love her at all did you?"
"Pietro Eric Maximoff, I loved her with all of my heart!" Magneto's tone was icy and dangerous. "Don't you dare pretend otherwise!"
"If you loved her why did you let her die?" The teen's voice caught in his throat.
"It was beyond my control." Magneto's voice trembled. "She got sick. There was nothing I could do!"
"You could have saved her! You had the money and the technology and the contacts. You were just too busy trying to take over the world to care." Blue fire burned brightly in the teenager's eyes; a mix of a fierce anger, sadness, and fear.
The boy half expected to be hit, or screamed at, or suddenly feel all the metals in his blood constrict. He definitely was not expecting his father to look horrified and pained. He was more than a little shocked by the tears that welled up in his father's eyes.
"You're right, I could have saved her had I spent more time with her, but don't for a moment entertain the notion that I didn't love her! Everything I was doing was for her and for you and your sister. I didn't want what happened to me to become of the ones I loved."
Pietro sat there, relatively stunned. He'd never seen this side of this man before.
"The Holocaust was Hell on Earth." Magneto took a deep breath and shuddered. "The persecution, the death, it was unbearable. I don't want my people to ever face something like that again Pietro."
The young boy frowned and looked away. He'd learned about the Holocaust and WWII in school, of course. But text books had nothing on the tales actual survivors could tell.
"I lost all of my family as a boy, Pietro. Did you know that? In a death camp, in Poland. My mother, my father, and all of my extended family. When I discovered my powers, I realized that the same thing would happen again. And how wrong was I?" He took a deep breath and sighed sadly. "I was lost and alone until I met your mother. Then when I had a family again...I couldn't let it happen. I needed to take precautionary measures to prevent mutants from the persecution and horror the monsters unleashed on my people when I was a child."
The man's sorrow was touching to Pietro. "Why'd you go and get rid of me and Wanda, then?"
"I..." Magneto bowed his head. "I have no legitimate excuse. After I lost first your older sister, and then your mother, I was afraid to lose anymore family. I believed that if you were with somebody else, the two of you would be safer."
Pietro bit his lip. "Couldn't you have at least kept us together? Both of us grew up lost and confused and afraid and lonely."
Magneto sighed. "After your mother died, I didn't know how to handle a child, let alone especially head strong twins. When Wanda's powers came in, she was out of control, Pietro, and when she accidentally broke that portrait, I couldn't stand it. She looked so much like your mother; so much like the Magda I loved. Everyday I was reminded of all of my mistakes, every single one I had made since marrying her." Magneto sighed bitterly. "I know that is no excuse to do what I did to her. Really I regretted it immensely the moment they grabbed her and I didn't even respond to her cries. Then after I gave you away, I realized I had just lost all of Magda that I had left. That's how I became such a monster."
Pietro wasn't sure how to respond. So he remained silent. Magneto took this as a sign that he was angry, which wasn't far off.
"I've been an awful father, and worse than that to the memory of your mother. I know you and your sister cannot reasonably be asked to forgive my behavior. It would be an insult to ask."
Pietro snorted in agreement and frowned.
"But, I would like a second chance to prove that I am sorry."
Pietro glowered. "Why are you asking me? A little late to be a good parent to me, isn't it?" He knew he sounded bitter but suddenly he didn't care.
"I know it is." Magneto sighed. "I know I can't make up a lifetime in the little bit under a day that I now have with you. But I owe it to you, as well as your mother's memory to try."
Pietro smirked. "Wanda will never forgive you. You destroyed her. And ruined her life more than mine. You're ending mine early but at least I won't have to live with the memory that my own father abandoned me in an asylum." He coughed a little but his look of utmost disgust in his father did not waver.
Magneto closed his eyes. "I would understand if she never forgave me. And the same goes for you. I don't blame you. I just want you to know that Charles, Moira, myself and the others are working tirelessly to find the solution. McCoy thinks he's getting close and Moira has discovered a detail in my old notes that she claims raises your chance of pulling through by at least eleven percent. And that makes the odds much more in our favor."
Pietro shrugged and looked away. Magneto took the cue to go and rejoin the other adults in their quest to find the solution to this problem. Pietro sighed and scowled up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes to relieve the crazy pressure building behind them.
A violent flash of light seemed to flash. Suddenly Pietro found himself standing in a dark alleyway.
"Come on, this way!" A familiar sounding voice called. Pietro couldn't identify the speaker. Rain was pelting down over his head and thunder boomed overhead. Panic seized Pietro as a large and shadow loomed at the corner of the ally.
"Callisto? Are you alright?" The voice, Pietro realized was that of Spyke, or at least how his voice would sound when he reached his early to mid twenties, called in concern.
"I'm fine. I just slipped." A female voice Pietro presumed to be Callisto reassured.
"Come on, back here. This ally has a sewer hole." Spyke whispered. A rag tag couple rounded the corner. Spyke looked angry and afraid as he turned to the woman behind him. "How's Sarah doing?"
"She's still sleeping, Evan." Callisto whispered softly, gazing down at a tiny baby girl wrapped in what looked like an old t-shirt. Even from his angle, Pietro could see that she was dark skinned and much smaller than any other baby he'd ever seen. Shock washed over him realizing that he was now looking at his former best friend's daughter.
"We have to get out of here." Spyke whispered to the group hoarsely. "They'll find us soon. We need to make sure they don't get us."
"Where can we go, Evan?" Callisto asked weakly. "The bigots are everywhere. And if the FOH members aren't on our tails, the sentinels are."
Pietro caught a glimpse of extreme pain and sadness on Spyke's face. "We don't stand much of a chance. We're marked targets. But..." He looked down at the sleeping baby in Callisto's arms. "But she isn't. I'm arranging a way to get her down South, where mutant hunting isn't legal. Gambit'll take her. He's using a holowatch to hide himself. Rogue too. They've been real angels, with smuggling mutants down South."
Callisto looked stricken and she held the baby close. "Is there any other way?"
"No. This is best for everyone." Spyke sighed. "She'll get to live a normal life, at least until her powers come in. We can sneak down eventually."
"I understand." Callisto bit her lip. "How did the world get this bad?"
"Nobody knows." Spyke grumbled cryptically. "All of a sudden the FOH formed, and then that registration thing got passed and flatscans developed a strong hatred of us."
Callisto nodded and watched as Spyke used a bone spear to pry the manhole cover open. "Where will we find Gambit?"
"At the train station. He'll look like I would without my spikes in five or ten years. Rogue'll look like that girl she absorbed a while back, Carol Danvers. They're going to pretend that they're Sarah's parents for a little while."
The next thing Pietro knew he was in a secluded corner of a New York Trains station.
He looked around and saw Spyke, now looking like a bulky man in a trench coat with a hat pulled low over his head talking to a man who could have been his older brother. They were nearly identical, except this man was not covered with huge bony spikes. A young blond woman hovered nearby. She could have easily passed for a model with her all American blond hair and blue doe eyes. But those eyes had bags beneath them and recounted way too much pain.
"T'anks fo' babysittin' de bebe." The man forced a smile.
"All the chaos goin' on 'round here's gettin' ta be too much fo' us." The young woman smiled ruefully.
"We be goin' back home t' our manor in N'orl'ins." The man nodded. "Den we take de fille t' see 'er gran'mère in Caldecott, right Anna?"
"Yeah." 'Anna' nodded as she took the teeny child from the other woman who was wearing a tattered black traveling cloak. "Ah jus' can' wait t' show mah baby gal the li'l ol' farmhouse at the enda Willow Lane where ah grew up." 'Anna' cooed enthusiastically.
"Oui, tis a belle place. Y' should come an' visit us Ev. Y' an' Calli could use a vacation, non?"
Pietro suddenly understood that he was watching an exchange of directions hidden in code.
"Well you know how it is. Hard to get away from everything." Spyke shrugged.
"We'll try our hardest to find time." Callisto murmured, her voice shaking. "And we'll call when we get there. I...I just can't wait to see your little Sarah again. I love having her around."
Anna's eyes pooled with tears. "Ah'm sure she feels the same way, Calli. But now she gets ta go an' meet her cousins. Ah'm positive she'll want to see ya again soon so ya an' Ev get ya butts down t' see us soon. In the meantime, Nathan, an' Rachel are lookin' forward ta seein' Sarah."
Callisto hugged Anna and Sarah goodbye, her shoulders shaking as tears leaked down her face silently.
"Goodbye." Anna smiled sadly. She leaned close to the other woman. "She'll be fine, we'll make sure of it."
"Au revoir Evan," The other man hugged Spyke gingerly. "T'in's'll be alright. Y' take care of Callisto; dis ain' gonn' be easy on de femme. Losin' a bebe never is." He whispered and cast a nervous glance at the woman accompanying him. "We bes' git goin' Anna. De train be leavin' soon. Y'almos' ready?"
"Yeah, in a minute Cody." She smiled sweetly. She put a gentle hand on Callisto's shoulder. "Ah'll take care of her like she's mah own flesh an' blood, Callisto."
"You two are angels." Spyke whispered gratefully as he rubbed Callisto's back soothingly. "Thanks for everything."
Pietro felt tears prick the sides of his eyes. He didn't understand what was going on, but this scene touched him. He knew Anna was really Rogue, and Cody really Remy. They were risking their own lives to help save Spyke's baby girl.
With one last reassuring smile they headed onto the train. Callisto broke into shuddering sobs.
"Shhh, it's ok Calli." Spyke held her. "Everything will be fine."
"How can you say that?" The woman cried. "We're the last living Morlocks except Torpid who disappeared. We're being hunted and we just sent our two month old daughter on a train to Louisiana where we may never see her again..."
"We'll get down there, you'll see." Evan smiled softly.
"Xavier and Magneto are trying, but they're not succeeding." Callisto sighed. "The world hates us because we're different. I've known that since I was a little girl. But I always hoped that if we stayed hidden, they'd just leave us alone."
"Me too." Spyke sighed. "None of us asked to be different. Why can't people understand that?"
Callisto shrugged. "I don't know, Evan. Really I don't. Things have changed. Before we...before Sarah was born, the only thing we had to worry about was living to fight another day. But now..." He hugged her tightly. "I just don't know what to do. What if we don't make it?"
"Don't think that way, Calli. We can't give up. Do you really want Gambit and Rogue to have to raise our daughter? She'll grow up with an accent, and with only Cyclops' spawn to play with." He joked.
She smiled ruefully. "It'd be better than the sewers."
Spyke shook his head and rubbed Callisto's back soothingly. Pietro gasped as two bulky men approached. Despite the dark, he caught a glint of shiny black metal. He tried to warn the two Morlocks but they could not hear him.
"Aw, ain't that just so touching Bret?" One of them sneered. Spyke and Callisto tensed. "A couple of muties sharing a last goodbye."
"We don't want any trouble." Spyke warned backing up slightly.
"Really!" The one called Bret smirked. "Well that's good, cause trouble came looking for you, didn't it Tony?"
"Damn straight." Tony leered. They both drew guns. Callisto backed away.
"Look, we didn't do anything wrong." Spyke said uneasily, trying to be calm.
"You exist." Bret laughed coldly. Pietro felt frozen to the spot. He was close enough to touch the goon nearest him. He pressed himself against the wall, screaming in a voice unheard.
Spyke took a deep breath. "Don't do this!"
Tony smirked and Bret pulled a badge. "FOH. You ain't in any position to give orders, scum."
Callisto gasped. "What do you want from us?"
Tony stared at her before laughing cryptically. "We want you gone, mutie scum. We want your blood and the blood of all the rest of you freaks. We want the world safe for humanity. Safe from monsters like you."
The bile rose in Pietro's throat. He'd never been this scared. What kind of a world would the one he lived in become? Maybe it was better that he was dying...
Spyke's eyes hardened. "You're a blood thirsty fiend declaring war on a buncha innocent people just because we're different, and we're the monsters?" He chuckled sardonically. "Think you missed a couple morality lessons there, flatscan." He emitted a long spike from his arm and twirled it like a baton, in a somewhat threatening way.
"You say that like it's a weapon?" Bret laughed. "You're all idiots."
He sized up Spyke and then glanced at Callisto. "Your little mutie cutie girlfriend looks like a good place to put these nice new adamantium bullets." He trained his gun the woman who grimaced but held her head proudly.
"If you pull that trigger, you're only proving our innocence."
Tony snorted and took aim. Callisto's eye's widened in fear and realization. She squeezed them shut in preparation for death.
Pietro saw what happened next in slow motion though it really all happened in seconds. 3 loud blasts reverberated around the room. Spyke dove in front of Callisto. Blood was everywhere, and Callisto was screaming and crying.
One bullet to the head, another to the heart, Spyke hadn't stood a chance, even with his bony exoskeleton. He fell face down in his own blood. The third bullet lodged itself somewhere in a bed of spikes.
Bret and Tony had disturbingly pleased and amused looks on their faces. Both of them raised the barrels of their guns one more time and aimed for the distraught woman. Both fired creating a boom that hurt Pietro's ears. He couldn't bear to look again. He sank to his knees and threw up. He was horrified and disgusted and terrified beyond comprehension as tears from pure shock and terror poured down his face. His breathing was ragged and shallow.
Suddenly the two murderers turned. "Quicksilver!"
He yelped. How could they see him. He looked up as they approached, distorted in his vision by his tears.
"What do you think's wrong with him?"
"Like I know, he was just fine!"
"Pietro, are you okay?"
"Pietro, buddy, come on, wake up, it's alright, now come on!"
Suddenly Bret and Tony's faces melted to those of people familiar to him.
"Speedy come on, what's wrong?"
"Out of the way, let me through!"
"What's happening!"
His eyes opened and he realized he was scrunched into a tight ball, with his arms over his head and he was panting heavily, as if he'd just run a decathlon in slow-mo speed without any water.
"Easy Pietro." Dr. McCoy placed a damp cloth over Pietro's forehead. "You are safe and sound in the Xavier Institute. Try and Relax."
Pietro had been previously unaware that his voice could make the small, frightened, and pathetic whimpers he was making now. Somebody offered him a glass of cool water and he mutely took it. After gulping a few swallows down, he tried to relax. He was trembling uncontrollably and paler than ever.
"What happened!" Magneto thundered.
The young girl named Lorna, trembling worse than Pietro, stepped forward. "I don't know, sir. I came in to check on him and he closed his eyes like he had a head ache. Then he clenched up like he was afraid. He was screaming and saying something but I couldn't understand him. He threw up and was crying or something as he pulled himself into a ball and then he just woke up."
Wanda pushed her way through the group of people, looking just as pale as her brother.
"Pietro?"
His eyes met hers. He looked so drained, she thought for a moment that he'd been on the wrong side of Rogue's powers. She opened her mouth to say something comforting but he shook his head gently.
"No, don't say it Wanda. It's not going to be okay...in fact...this world's on a fast track to Hell."
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Ok...yes this chapter came out a lot darker than it was originally intended to...I didn't even expect it to get so viciously morbid. The original idea I had was for Pietro and Mags to have a friendly heart to heart but I guess it wasn't appropriate timing for that. Anywho, I have the ending of this story in my sights. And then I shall start writing my very first Parody. By popular demand, Anastasia will be first. For a semi-complete list of what I intend to do, kindly see my profile page. Now I'm taking requests for an order of what follows Anastasia. You know the drill, just slip it in your review. And speakin' of those lil things...
JediTwitch-I assure you that I still get nightmares on that one too. Maybe I should do a oneshot...just to see how much I can freak everyone out...rubs chin like evil genius and pets Dobby (my Mr. Bigglesworth) and laughs the evil genius laugh
Katatonia-Thanks...I think. Um Jott is Jean and Scott. Sorry I tend to assume everyone always knows what I mean. I'll try and be a bit less mysterious in the future. Glad you like it thanks for reviewing.
xmengirlzrule-I think hearing Kitty babble about Shane West was a bit unnerving for him, but no, that hasn't really been discussed to the fullest as of yet. But next chapter will focus on the characters who've been a bit more neglected. Thanks for reviewing and hope you had an awesome vacation!
Dis Chick Digs Da Fuzzy Dude- Yea this one is kinda sad. Well that's ok. The lists weren't really relevant to anything. Piotr's not really being a jerk but more on him next chapter. Yes that's how I like thinking of that little situation. It is both hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Thanks for reviewing!
AC- Glad you like it! Thanks for reviewing!
MagCat- Yeah that's pretty much true for Tabby. And Lancitty comes easier for me that Kiotr does so yep, they're on the road to recovery. Thanks for reviewing!
waterlily-Ok...Sure. Thanks. I had a nice trip. Thanks for the review.
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