Summary- Quicksilver, Peter Maximoff, had settled into his life as a music teacher in Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters fairly well. He was an X-Man. Then, after a run to burn off some family problems, he found himself in a very different world where his family is... different. Based on Episode 5 of WandaVision

A/N: This was a one-shot showing the backstory for Peter's reveal in WandaVision I wrote in my excitement. It was supposed to not be a real crossover, but then [EP. 9 SPOILER] Marvel stabbed me in the heart repeatedly.

Note: This no longer disregards any of WandaVision or Marvel canon except for the whole Ralph-thingy, but that's what happens with a fanfiction. Subject to change depending on how they handle the multiverse.

No spoilers for anything past Episode 6.

"Alright, guys. Make sure to practice your music before the next class. I have another mission, so Jubilee will be subbing, but I'll know if you decide to skip out on it."

He grinned, his ten-person class all knowing full well he would know and not care the slightest. This was a class for people who wanted to learn about music and playing instruments they liked, none of them were going to slack off anyway. If they did, whatever. Peter would have too.

"Thank you, Quickie," Dazzler said as she ran out.

He waved as the final kid sprinted at his full speed, definitely going to Ororo's class. Besides him, she was definitely the favorite teacher in the school.

The smile faded when Raven walked in.

He had told Wendy to call the school if anything happened… and here Raven was, in her human form.

"What's up, Raven?" He kicked back in his chair, putting his feet on the desk. No reason to bother letting anyone know how he felt. "You that bored of teaching self-defense?"

"I just thought you might want to know, Wendy called. She thinks she's going to stay in Sokovia for a little longer, keep exploring her origins and whatnot."

Oh.

She had already been gone for over a year.

Sokovia had gotten hit hard with the earthquake from Apocalypse. Erik had avoided causing that particular nation much harm, thankfully, but the earthquake managed to cause serious destruction of its own. When Wendy left to volunteer and explore their Sokovian blood, he thought she would be back in a few months.

"Thanks for letting me know. I'll probably drop by Mom tonight then."

Raven grimaced.

Oh.

Yeah, he knew what was coming.

"Or I won't. We going to Europe on any missions anytime soon, Rav?"

"Probably not. I'm sorry, Peter. I know how much it hurts to not be able to see your family. If you want to take a break, remember, you can." Too slow again, it seemed.

"Don't worry about it." He flashed a fake smile. "I'm an X-Man. More than anything else, you guys are my family." And it was the truth.

She opened the door, motioning for him to walk out. In her eyes, he materialized at the doorway. "If you're so sure." She shrugged. "Anyway, you mind handling the Danger Room today? Charles and I are having a sibling-bonding Star Wars marathon."

He and Wendy had watched every film the day it came out.

"Sure. No problem. Is Hank busy too?"

"Oh, he's doing paperwork for Genosha." She grinned. "You'll love to hear about it when he's done. Erik and him, they're close. They really think today could be the day. You know how it is, having Hank there always helps make those talks go more peacefully."

Yeah.

No one liked Erik.

Not for bad reasons, but it was the truth.

Peter did not like Erik either, it was a bit more complicated when Erik was his father and he had no idea and… yeah. It was weird to think about.

"That's great."

Raven hesitated before taking the turn into the Professor's office. "Are you sure you can do the Danger Room today?"

"Of course. I just need a sec. I'll take a lap around the city real quick." He was back in moments to her, although it was almost a half-hour to him. Whew. That felt good. "Enjoy the movies."

"Thank you, Peter. I really appreciate it."


"Everyone ready?" Peter called from the controls of the Sentinels.

"Just hurry up, Quicksilver," Scott complained, his own hand on his visor. "We don't have all day. I can't believe Raven's letting you control the Danger Room."

Grinning at the younger man's banter, he obliged. "Here goes nothing, Cyk. Good luck."

He set five sentinels, two for Jean and one for the rest of them, and grabbed a twinkie. This was going to be fun to watch. Especially when he was not the one trying not to die.

The battle insured, Storm attacking first as usual. Her blasts of lightning were great and all… but not quite strong enough to take out all the Sentinels combined with dozens of different holographic distractions.

As it went on, he messed with them a few times. Scott had a bit of difficulty fighting without his visor for about two minutes. Jean found her shoelaces tied together. Pretty much the only person immune from his mischief was Ororo. She was like the mutant sister he never had, the one who could be at the mansion and understood what being a mutant meant to Peter.

He kicked back until Jean finished off the last Sentinel.

Peter, I just got a message from Psylocke.

He was down there in less than a second.

"Yeah? What happened?" Jubilee raised an eyebrow at his question.

"Yeah, what did happen?" she added, rubbing her bruise from a particularly hard fall.

Jean smiled.

Ah. He had a feeling about what this was going to be about.

"Today is the day, after all. Hank and Erik finished. They can start accepting refugees in a few days, and they won't have to comply with normal refugee policies. They'll immediately be granted Genoshan citizenship."

Great.

Who was surprised?

Erik had been working on this for almost two years.

He was never the type to give up until the job was done. If this job was a mutant paradise, a nation founded without bloodshed, then Peter was less surprised.

Jean held up a finger, listening to more from Genosha's telepath. Her eyes were glazed over, and when they turned back to normal, she was smiling again. "They already have the five votes in the UN they thought they would need to start the process in becoming a sovereign nation."

Even less surprise there.

The Professor said they were confident they had at least two, the US since they were using former-US land and Israel for obvious reasons, but the last three were a bit less likely. Whatever. Not a big deal anyway.

The fact they managed to side with ex-mutant terrorist Magneto just said a lot about how manipulative he could be.

Well, maybe that meant they might pop by Germany one of these days. And then he could go take a break in Sokovia… which would be kind of nice.

"Jubilee, you're still good to teach my class, right? I'm gonna see if there's anything at Washington they want a mutant for," he lied.

The X-Man trainee nodded. "Yup."

"Good luck. And, nice job at training, kids."

He gave a salute, grinning at the joys of being the oldest of the new X-Men. Calling them kids was so satisfying.

Then he disappeared, pushing fast.

Everyone else was slow. He had come to that conclusion almost a day after he got his powers. He never saw himself as a fast kind of guy because everyone else was just so incredibly slow.

At this moment, he wanted to be fast.

So he went fast.


Genosha… he wanted to go to the island so bad. Wanted to tell his father the truth so badly.

But he would probably freeze up and even if he had the guts to tell the truth, Erik might stop focusing on Genosha. It was not worth it for Peter just to have a mutant who did not fight their powers in the family.

No matter how badly he wanted it.

Besides, he would freeze up anyway.

He picked up the speed, traveling through the bustling city of New York as adrenaline pumped through his system.

Dodging cars was not supposed to be as fun as it was now.

God, this felt good.

When he was running, maybe it would be easier to ignore Genosha and Sokovia and Dad and Mom and Wendy and Raven's sibling time and his students' problems and… and his own problems with losing the ability to speak properly whenever Erik came to the mansion, the times when he gathered the courage to tell him. Maybe it would be a little easier to pretend he was not dreaming of living in the mutant paradise Dad was building, once he finally got through his slightly-mischievous plan of making them look weak until they got recognized as a sovereign nation and turned it into a real paradise where he could be himself freely…

Although it seemed a bit unlikely.

Twenty-dozen problems and thousands if not millions of mutants for him to help as an X-Man, and he was reduced to running around a city to try to keep his personal problem from interfering with his work more.

He picked up the pace, overtaking the state of New York in moments. The Professor said to be careful about breaking his limits, they had no way of knowing how fast was too fast, but whatever at this point.

He did not have the energy to really care.

Wind whipped past his face, getting almost painful when he pushed through Virginia.

He was the fastest man alive.

This was rad.

Going so fast, it never felt so good.

He felt like he could run over oceans at this speed if he wanted to. He definitely could, not that it was safe or anything. And running across the Atlantic was usually incredibly dangerous.

But who really cared?

He did not.

He passed by Atlanta, stopping a couple of muggings and two armed robberies while he was at it, before heading to California.

It took less than a minute

He barely realized he had already gotten to Alaska, his song was not even halfway done. Wow.

He had never reached for his limits before.

He used to not bother. Mom was always a little hesitant about him becoming consumed by his abilities, so she never really encouraged him to challenge himself either. Other than the two of them, no one else knew his full potential.

Sure, it backfired back when he was fighting Apocalypse and had no idea how to use his speed in a fight like that, but whatever. He was fast enough to evacuate the mansion if necessary, so it was all he really needed before today.

His father's powers were stronger from his emotions.

Wendy had an accident when she was younger, her powers came from her emotions.

Peter never realized how much faster he was when he was angry.

He lapped around the country in moments.

Wow.

He did not slow down.

Erik. Wendy. Mom. The team. Hank and Raven. Jean and Scott. Raven and Kurt. Genosha. Sokovia. Wendy. Mutants. Humans. Purifiers. Friends of Humanity. Genosha. Erik… Magneto and the Brotherhood.

He kept pushing, starting to feel a tugging sensation towards somewhere.

Mom had taught him to control his emotions, used more healthy ways than punching to relieve stress like stealing, but it only made letting them flow, letting his longingness for his family and for the courage to help form connections with the family he was afraid of admitting the truth to fuel him, so much more satisfying.

He let himself get tugged.

Everything was going past him fast enough that Peter barely realized when it stopped moving.

He barely noticed everything changing around him… he barely noticed how his lap around New York suddenly had a lot more graveyards and a really big battlefield… he barely noticed how there was a giant tower that had not been there last time he was on Long Island…

More importantly, by the time those objects stopped whizzing by him and he ran to the mansion, Peter felt a stabbing pain in his gut.

It was gone.

Well, it was there.

Not really gone.

But it was not Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

He could tell just by how there were no burned marks from mutant kids messing up with their powers. None of that comforting aura he knew Charles was a master at creating, whether he was actually comforting most of the time or not. None of that joy pretty much every student had when they realized it was a safe haven.

No, this was different.

Very different, and very bad.


Peter found his current situation kind of frustrating

It wasn't actually frustrating… he just missed being free. Free to do what he wanted and what he had to do.

Avoiding law enforcement like SWORD all the time while pursuing his hobbies and duty was hard. He had to deal with never getting caught on cameras with his powers. The few superhero-style stunts he had pulled required him to sabotage all cameras in the area before doing it and still move fast enough to keep witnesses from noted anything about him. Worse yet, he could not risk being Peter Maximoff without typing anyone off to his heritage.

He had not seen anything about his father, but there was a chance.

Peter was not going to risk everyone finding out about his less-than-stellar family history and taking it the wrong way.

If someone like Hank McCoy or Charles Xavier were in his place, Peter would be on his way home.

But he was no genius.

He was no expert in astrophysics or whatever brand of science multiverse studies were.

All he could do was do what Peter did best.

Have fun with it.

At home, he was never picky about what he stole.

It was the thrill he lived for… it was priceless.

Taking a twinkie was just fun.

But now… he tried to go for bigger stunts.

He set up a warehouse near where the school used to be. It kept him from getting too homesick for his family. Well, not really, but it helped a little. Besides, he was going to be homesick no matter what happened. In his old home, he was still homesick for the family he never knew as family.

Actually, it was not that close. Having anything within a hundred miles of that "Avengers" compound was risky. But it was close for Peter; he tried to keep his powers in decent shape despite how horrible of an idea pushing himself to his limit turned out to be.

Especially considering the looks he kept getting whenever he used normal slang. Like, really? There was snakeskin everywhere and he was the only person who said "gag me with a spoon"? Slang had gotten weird in the past forty years.

"You again?"

The pawnshop owner definitely knew of Peter's illegal activities. But he also knew that Peter accepted way-too low prices and did not need the money. Nor did he use it. If he needed anything, he generally stole it.

Giving it to people who actually needed that money, instead of letting a priceless artifact wither away on the hands of someone who could afford twenty, was nice.

Made him feel good, he was pretty sure the only religious side of his family's religion was not against stealing for what one needs. Not that he cared or anything, it just made a good defense. He was agnostic anyway, and that only because he had a gut feeling a god was going to come down from the sky to ruin his life the moment he decided none existed.

"Yup," he proclaimed. "Some idiot neighbor of mine fell for my lies about the cost of diamonds. Complete idiot." He pushed a pure gold bracelet with diamonds in it across the table.

"What percentage are you going to want? The usual?" The usual was three-fourths of a normal price. But Peter was actually using a neighbor he had in his last dimension as a reference point. Just to spite the guy, he shrugged.

"Nah. Just half."

The man, Michael, raised an eyebrow.

"What'd he do to you?"

Half the usual price of a priceless bracelet taken from some rich billionaire (not that Michael knew that) was the difference between needing social security and living on a private yacht. Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.

"He still goes out to parties. And hosts them a lot. He's like thirty-five and fully-fledged… I think a gas station manager. I could be in college-" He looked like he could be in college anyway. Superspeed had its advantages. "-but do I keep my neighbors up all the time? Do I sell my grandmother's favorite jewelry and ask the most unreliable person I know who has tried to mess with my plumbing to get cash for it?"

Michael cracked a smile there.

"Yeah, that sounds like an idiot alright. He deserves it. Never mind."

Peter did not miss how that smile faded quickly. Like he realized the truth. No, it was his imagination. Michael definitely had known for the entirety of their relationship.

Nothing had changed.

That smile anyway showed he knew perfectly well that Peter was saying fiction.

And that shared look afterward said he knew Peter knew that it was fiction.

Michael was a really nice guy… no matter how bad lying hurt both of them.

"So, how much'll it be?"

When Micheal responded, Peter immediately started running through its uses. This sort of stuff was why he never sold anything on his original dimension, but he had to do something. If he caught the attention of SWORD, then that was it. He would push through, he might be able to convince them to help him.

But going to the government was a horrible idea.

Maybe it came from being perceived as half-Russian during the Cold War or being a mutant, but Peter had a bit of a distrust for law enforcement. Or maybe it came from the Sokovia Accords classifying him as a weapon.

"Thanks, Michael." Saying the guy's name was just for… he really wanted to leave. He had every intention of leaving until he did his usual checks over the room to make sure there were no cops or anything.

Huh.

That looked interesting. He had a picture of this universe's version of Wendy, an Avenger, named Wanda Maximoff with most reports placing her powers similar to Jean. His sister from this world.

"What're you looking at?"

"This?" Micheal turned his laptop across the counter. "They're calling it the Westview Anomaly or Maximoff Anomaly. Apparently, that freak Avenger, Wanda Maximoff, is causing some type of mess. I mean, the government's denying it, but they just want to keep the Avengers happy."

Right…

He gave a fake grin to keep his reaction at "freak" from seeping out.

"That's kinda interesting. You know anything about it?"

He shrugged. "Just that she's violating the Accords and they can't figure out what to do about it. I guess having one of the most powerful freaks against them makes everyone a little antsy."

Freaks, huh.

So much for friends.

Well, he had been a willing accomplice in Peter's crimes, he should have known. He was an irresponsible idiot, sure, but an irresponsible X-Man idiot.

"Sounds interesting. I guess I'll take a peek when I get back. See ya."

He walked out, waiting until he was out of sight of any cameras to go back to his warehouse after a quick donation to a charity for people, specifically focusing on Enhanced, displaced in the Blip.

Then he popped by a police station in Eastview New Jersey, planting some intel about Micheal's criminal history and taking a peek at the information that had regarding his long-lost-kinda-sister.

Honestly, it was more normal than his other kinda-relative.

At least she was not a terrorist or mass-murderer.

Peter froze up as he looked at the police report.

The Maximoff Anomaly.

Wanda… no.

Goddamnit. Too late again.


Peter searched up every agent on Wanda's case, SWORD and FBI. Most of them were… not bad. Not necessarily bad anyway. A couple of real assholes, a couple of pro-Sokovia Accords guys, but only a few stuck out. One of them even was close with Thor's ex-girlfriend.

Interestingly, she was one of the harder ones to gather intel on.

Whatever it was, he strode into the base camp set around Wanda's little reality. It was cool, to be honest. He was fairly confident he would be immune, no one was more powerful than the combined might of Charles Xavier's barriers and Emma Frost's techniques adapted by Raven except the Professor himself. Most certainly not a barely even self-trained telepath, no matter what raw power she might possess.

Well.

He might as well catch up on the "sitcom" problem, as one of the reports he read called it.

And while he was there, no reason not to mess with SWORD a bit. They would figure out he was there anyway.

He had a sister to save. And not a normal sister. A sister that was his family in the ways, despite how much he loved his little sister, understood what his powers were like. Understood it all, from the Accords and the Registration Act to humans' fear to their own fear. He was... he was really excited to meet her.


Mom was in every single commercial.

That was the first thought that came to his head at the end of the "sitcom" marathon.

The man in the commercials was a bit more mysterious, but Peter felt like he knew him from somewhere.

More importantly, two commercials were about Hydra.

One obviously Hydra, but the other was about an old member of Hydra he remembered hearing about from Erik. God, that dude had the weirdest stories when he felt like telling them. Well, the exact details of Von Strucker were a bit blurry, but that was definitely the surname of the Nazi terrorist duo Magneto had faced and barely beat.

So in this weird world, definitely Hydra.

Then there was Agnes. He recognized her immediately.

Agatha Harkness, what are you doing here?

It was no surprise she was doing stuff with Wanda since her powers were more like magic than anything else, but it was concerning. She tended to be a real pain sometimes but also was their X-Men's resident magic-user when they needed magic.

Well, more like a friend of Erik's from his most-wanted days, but close enough.

Peter just hoped Wanda's family life would end better than his father's.

He pushed those thoughts away to continue rewatching the sitcom in superspeed.

The others were less entertaining and evoked less easy-to-catch memories, but all fascinating the watch.

Hearing about his death was kind of weird, especially once it showed how Wanda was losing control. She clearly had a different brand of abilities than they believed, more on par with manipulation of reality than Jean's powers.

He knew the difference plenty well, having been on the receiving end of a certain crazy powerful student he was ninety-percent sure was related to Moira as well as a few rough spars with Jean plenty of times.

Yeah, this was a problem.

If there was an upside, the sitcom was almost enjoyable.

As someone who never really liked sitcoms, it was incredibly entertaining.

And entertaining to imagine what would happen if Erik was here. Wanda just had the worst luck, picking a metal husband. For his sake, Peter hoped "Vision" did not harm his sorta-twin sister. Not that he would be any match for Peter anyway.

Well.

Moving on, Peter had a job to do.

He reset the TV set to play at normal speeds and set everything back like it was before he started investigating this base, roughly thirty human seconds ago, and walked out.

He set up the mental barriers, put on his old clothing in hopes of not getting it changed in her reality, pushed up his mental barriers higher than he had ever done, and hoped really hard.

Please work.

No one saw Peter Maximoff as he ignored the urge to not go there and walked straight into the city of Westview.

This was going to be somewhere between absolutely horrible and absolutely rad.

.

.

.

Pietro Maximoff grinned as he strolled through Westview. He had a sister to pop in on.

This was going to be totally rad. He had missed his little sis.


Darcy Lewis sprinted to the viewing room the moment she saw her sorta-boss opened the door to the fridge and it blew up in his face. Well, not exactly blew up, but definitely drenched in orange juice.

Why she ran to the viewing room was pretty simple.

Another scream proved her biggest guess right.

The entire room was filled with party balloons.

Literally.

There was a crowd at the doorway already mobilizing to pop them all.

"Director Hayward?" a voice shouted.

"Where's the director?" another one asked.

"Who did this?" a deeper voice growled.

"Who pranked us?" Agent Woo asked.

"What's going on?" Darcy waited for the FBI dude to respond, but he looked as confused as her. "This can't be real."

"Unfortunately, it is. Someone pranked us." It was then where she noted how his entire shirt was drenched. "They got me with the old bucket trick."

"This can't be anything serious, right?" No way would someone with actual master-criminal level skills go this low. Pranking a SWORD base?

"I think it's pretty serious, but I can't imagine anyone violating the Sokovia Accords for a mere prank."

A shout proved him possibly-wrong.

From their resident asshole of a director. Again. "Why. Is. There. A. Twinkie. In. My. Seat?"

The scientist and FBI agent looked at each other. He grabbed a pointy stick from a nearby table. "We better get popping."

Right…

"I'll be checking to see what I can do with… one second." She sprinted out to her other work station in hopes of avoiding the duty of popping balloons for the next ten minutes. One of the chairs had a couple of unwrapped and destroyed twinkies, probably from Hayward.

Confident her own chair near the CMI scanners did not, she sat down.

Oh shit.

A very large raspberry erupted from her chair.

Come on.

A whoopie cushion? What an asshole.


The credits were rolling. Darcy was only watching with half her mind, the other half complaining about being drafted to help pick up the destroyed balloons that the SWORD lackeys had not completely swept. Come on, she was a super-successful scientist and was reduced to this.

Thankfully, the balloons were mostly gone at this point. They had established the pranks as someone who was just in a pranking mood and had been bored or something, but Darcy had to admit she wanted some tips from whoever did do it.

"It looks like they're getting close to figuring it out."

"We knew this was gonna happen at some point," Woo admitted. "But this is not the way I expected it."

"Does Wanda not have complete control over the town anymore?"

"Or maybe she never did."

She turned her attention back to the screen.

"Norm has a family, Wanda," Vision screamed. The credits stopped. "He has a family, and he can't reach them because you won't let him reach them."

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

Was that a blatant lie or had the world affected her to an extent where she almost believed the lies at this point?

"Stop lying to me!"

He flew up. Wanda also flew up. Wow.

"This is getting intense," Darcy commented.

"Yeah."

"This, all of this is for us." Her voice had calmed down into the cold-hearted anger and instability she had when she left the Hex instead of the sitcom tradition lashing-out. "So let me handle it."

"What is outside of Westview?"

"You don't wanna know, I promise you." Her voice sounded… sad. Which made sense, considering Vision was dead and all.

"You don't get to make that choice for me, Wanda!"

"You've never talked to me like this before."

"Before what?" His voice rose as Wanda lowered. "Before what? I can't remember my life before Westview. I don't know who I am!"

She took a step forward. Wow. "You are my husband. You are Tommy and Billy's father." He lowered as she spoke. "Isn't that enough?"

Vision hesitated. This was getting serious. Serious in the ways she should be more worried than she was and she should definitely not be looking forward to what would happen. There were real people, not sitcom characters, no matter how much she wanted to believe differently. "Wanda, why are there no other children in Westview?"

"Oh, God! There are! Just stop it!" Huh. Darcy never noticed that. Wanda must have ensured there were not children caught in her illusion… it seemed like something she would do.

"No, no. The playground stands empty every morning I walk to work. Why? Tell me, why?"

"Do you really think I am controlling everything? That I am somehow in charge of everybody in Westview? I'm walking their dogs, mowing their lawns, getting them to dentist appointments on time?" That was… actually a very good rhetorical question. Darcy wanted the answer. "I mean, I…" she chuckled dryly, "I don't know how any of this started in the first place."

Vision calmed down, sitting down next to Wanda.

"Wanda, what you're doing here, it's wrong."

"I…"

"It is wrong."

The doorbell rang.

What?

They both froze.

Wanda even looked surprised.

"I didn't do that."

"I…"

Her eyes were looked like she had just cried when she looked away. "You don't believe me."

"Wanda, I want to, but at this point, I'm ignoring statistics entirely."

The doorbell rang again. Rude.

Wanda walked to the door slowly.

"She really looks like she has no idea, doesn't she?" Woo noted.

"Yeah." Darcy mostly ignored him now. She wanted to know what happened next. What was going on?

She opened the door.

Wanda's entire body froze.

The shot only showed her face, but she looked utterly terrified if anything.

Who was it?

The alarm blared, and she ran to the screen. What was happening? Why were the alarms-it had to be someone new, who was it?

Vision walked over, looking shocked. Shocked and confused and really worried. Wanda still looked like she was paralyzed.

The camera showed the guys' hair.

Oh god.

This can't be real.

Darcy's eyes went wide.

They put the camera on the guy's face. Not Pietro but… who was it then?

The "studio audience" cheered.

Darcy practically fainted.

What the hell?

The face was smiling a perfectly natural smile.

"Long lost bro get to squeeze his stinkin' sister to death or what?"

Her jaw almost dropped.

No. Way.

"She recast Pietro?"

The twins looked at each other. Pietro looked at Vision. They looked at each other again.

Wanda looked like she had no more idea of what was happening than Vision. "Pietro?" The Avengers' speedster. The guy who sacrificed his life to save Hawkeye. The guy with Hawkeye's son named after him.

He gave a lopsided nod.

"Oh." She whimpered and embraced her formerly-dead twin brother.

The audience laughed and cheered.

Darcy leaned as far back as her chair allowed. "You guys need to see this."

A/N: The sequel, "Quicksilver: Pet-Pietro Maximoff" is up!