Chapter Ninety-Seven:
"Huh."
"Is that all ya can say?"
"Well, they're… not what I expected."
While her brother stared down at the infants with a puzzled expression, Wanda Maximoff bit her lip to hide a smirk, well aware of the scowl threatening to engulf the new mother's face, even if Pietro seemed oblivious to it.
"An' jus' what, exactly, did ya expect?" Rogue demanded, her left cheek twitching. "Green-on-black eyes?"
From the guilty start, yes, that was exactly what Pietro had expected.
"Gambit's eyes are part of his mutation, Pietro," Wanda reminded her brother, smiling as the baby in front of her grabbed onto her finger with his tiny fist. "They're not hereditary."
"Thank God for that," Pietro muttered. "One demon-eyed Cajun is enough."
"Better not let Remy hear ya callin' him that, sugah," Rogue advised, but the corner of her mouth lifted in amusement just the same.
Pietro snorted, clearly not impressed with the threat of the Cajun.
Then again, from what Wanda had heard, he never had been. The two boys had not been fans of one another when Remy joined the Acolytes, which didn't come as a surprise.
Two good-looking, smooth-talking teenage boys with egos to match being thrown together?
Yeah, that would work.
The fact that Gambit had shown such a blatant interest in Rogue, an interest that had been reciprocated, would have only rubbed salt in the wound.
But all these years later, those teenage boys were now men, and maybe even grown ups. Pietro had moved on and found himself a beautiful, albeit slightly insane, woman to love. A woman that, he'd confided to her just the previous week after a particularly grueling Avengers mission that had left Crystal with a concussion and a broken arm, he was starting to imagine a real future with.
Pietro Maximoff, talking about commitment.
Wanda was still trying to wrap her mind around that, not just that her brother was starting to get serious about his love life, but that Crystal Amaquelin might be her sister-in-law one day.
It wasn't that she didn't like her fellow Avenger, Crystal had been nothing but welcoming since Wanda decided to join her brother in Los Angeles five months ago. It wasn't even the fact that Crystal wasn't exactly human, rather Inhuman to be precise. And Wanda believed that the other woman loved her brother, she really did, it was just that Crystal had a very long list of ex-boyfriends and, if Johnny Storm was any indication, she had a thing for superheroes.
Nothing in Crystal's behavior indicated anything other than commitment to Pietro, but Wanda wasn't quite ready to accept her into the family.
Pietro, of course, thought Wanda was simply being overprotective.
God I hope so, Wanda mused to herself.
Baby Luc gurgled, and she couldn't help but smile as she watched him wrap and unwrap his tiny fingers around her thumb. "I can't get over how adorable he is," she told Rogue, not finding it hard to turn away from thoughts of Crystal with Luc as a distraction. "He's going to take after his daddy when he grows up, I bet he's already melting the hearts of every woman who lays eyes on him."
Rogue chuckled. "He's pretty much got the entire mansion wrapped 'round his li'l finger," she admitted, reaching out to touch her son's downy hair.
Pietro looked up from making faces at Ariane- which Wanda would have to remember to recount to Hawkeye in detail once they got home- and glanced over at Luc with a frown, and shrugged. "Eh, I think he looks more like Roguey."
"Ah see a lot o' both o' us in each o' them at different times, t' tell ya the truth," Rogue told him with a bemused smile. "Sometimes Ah'll be starin' at their noses, thinkin' how much they look like mine, an' then one o' them will make an expression that's jus' so Remy it blows mah mind."
"The miracle of children," a familiar voice chuckled from the doorway, and Wanda looked up to see Jean Grey entering the room with her own son in tow.
"Hi, Nathan," Rogue greeted the little boy with a warm smile. "Back t' see yo' buddies already?"
"It seems like every other word out of his mouth these days is 'baby'," Jean chuckled, lifting her son into her arms so that he could see the twins in their bassinette. "If I didn't know better, I'd think he was trying to tell me he wanted a baby sister."
"Maybe ya'll should give him one," Rogue suggested with a grin.
"Don't tempt fate," Pietro scolded her with feigned horror. "The last thing the world needs is another Summers!"
"Perhaps what it needs is another Maximoff instead?" Rogue challenged, her green eyes bright with amusement as Pietro's face went as pale as his hair.
"Hey, don't look at me," he insisted. "That's Wanda's department, not mine!"
Wanda choked as Rogue and Jean turned expectant eyes in her direction. "Don't listen to him," she cried, flinching at how shrill her voice sounded even to her own ears. "I don't know what he's talking about, there are no kids in my immediate future."
"Does the Vision know that?" Pietro snarked, his eyes full of mirth.
"The Vision?" Jean echoed curiously.
"That the android guy?" Rogue asked, raising an eyebrow.
Wanda flushed. "He's not an android," she insisted. "He's a human being- he's just constructed of synthetic material instead of cellular material like the rest of us."
"Sounds like an android t' me, sugah," Rogue retorted.
"A cyborg, to be fair," Pietro apparently decided to help clarify the situation. "He eats, he sleeps, he uses up all the hot water- he's just enhanced. He's like us, only better, stronger, faster- well, faster than you slow pokes, anyway. He's-"
"Totally bionic?" Rogue cut him off with a grin, and they exchanged a look that spoke of some twisted, inside joke Wanda didn't want to know about.
"He's a little ahead of the Six Million Dollar Man," Pietro conceded. "But yeah. And Wanda here," he paused to throw a sly glance her way. "Has a little thing for him."
"Pietro," Wanda protested.
"All right, that's not true," Pietro amended. "It's more like a massive, all-encompassing thing."
"Pietro!" Wanda shrieked furiously, even as her cheeks tried to match the scarlet streaks in her hair. Her fingers twitched, and she would have hexed him right then and there if the babies hadn't been in the room.
"How big are we talkin'?" Rogue demanded of Pietro, and Wanda could have hexed her, too.
"Lance and Kitty big," Pietro informed her, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the importance of this, and Rogue gaped. "Yeah, she follows him around like a puppy, just like Lance used to do to Kitty."
"I do not!" Wanda cried indignantly.
"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, sugah," Rogue chuckled, and Wanda groaned, wanting to bury her face in her hands, but Luc still had a firm grip on her left one.
"Okay, I think that's enough teasing for today," Jean said soothingly. "I don't need you guys setting a bad example for my son- I have Alex for that." Wanda gave her a grateful look, and Jean just smiled, letting Nathan reach out a hand toward Ariane. "Gentle, buddy, be very gentle, like with Mr. Bigglesworth."
Rogue and Pietro both opened their mouths, and Jean shot them a look.
"My sister is a big Austin Powers fan, okay?" she said defensively. "It's not like I named the cat."
"No, but you did marry Summers so clearly insanity runs in the family," Pietro quipped.
Jean just rolled her eyes, focusing instead on her son as his pudgy little hand petted Ariane's hair as if she were, indeed, a kitty cat. "Pretty baby," Nathan cooed down at her, and they all smiled at that, hearing him imitate what he'd heard the adults saying.
"That's right, honey, she's a very pretty baby," Jean agreed, kissing his hair. "Just like you were."
"How's Remy holdin' up?" Rogue asked her.
"He's stuck in a conference room with all the other team leaders, listening to Scott's debriefing on a mission he wasn't even part of," Jean retorted wryly. "How do you think he's holding up? He's as fidgety as a toddler."
"You know, that's the best part about being an Avenger," Pietro observed with a smirk. "I don't have to fall asleep listening to Summers drone on and on."
"No," Wanda replied with a scoff. "You just zip in and out of Cap's meetings like a roadrunner on crack."
"Now Wanda," Rogue said with a shake of her head. "We all know Pietro's not in'na the hard stuff. Pixie sticks were his drug of choice, last Ah checked. Don' ya'll know by now not t' let him near the sugah?"
Pietro stuck out his tongue at her.
"Believe me, we try," Wanda drawled, and he stuck out his tongue at her, too.
"Ah'll hafta give Carol a call an' tell her t' use brute force if necessary, then," Rogue quipped, and Pietro grimaced at the mention of his least favorite Avenger.
Not that he disliked Carol Danvers, even if she did call him on his bullshit at every turn. In fact, Pietro had muttered on more than one occasion that the blonde powerhouse reminded him entirely too much of Rogue, albeit Rogue during PMS.
No, it was simply the fact that Carol, during her stay in Rogue's mind, had been given an intimate look at Rogue's memories.
And that meant she knew entirely too many of Pietro's embarrassing little secrets.
Which, of course, she was more than willing to divulge to both an inquisitive girlfriend and a sister in need of more ammunition to torment her brother with.
"She's doin' okay, right?" Rogue inquired worriedly. "Wit' the whole Bianary thing?"
Pietro just shrugged, and Rogue looked to Wanda. "She's adjusting," Wanda answered truthfully. "It hasn't been easy, but she's starting to get the hang of the new powers, and she's stopped talking about exterminating the Brood, but she still feels like she's not human anymore."
"That why she didn' come wit' ya'll?" Rogue asked, and Wanda could see the hurt in her eyes dim a little with understanding.
"She's… concerned about the radiation aspect of her new powers," Wanda said carefully. "That it could be dangerous for the babies. And she's been feeling… disconnected from her old life."
"Disconnected how?" Rogue demanded.
"She's like Summers only blander," Pietro answered bluntly. "She's not really feeling emotional connections to anything or anyone, though she tries to fake it. She didn't want you to see her, because she knows you'd see right through it."
Wanda gave her brother a disapproving look, but he shrugged, and she turned back to Rogue, who was chewing on her bottom lip anxiously, a strand of white hair falling in her face. Though she hadn't known Rogue as long as her brother had, Wanda knew the other woman well enough to see how deeply concerned she was about her friend, and how guilty she felt that she couldn't drop everything and go to her.
"Like I said," Wanda told her, laying a hand on her arm. "She's adjusting. And she's not completely cutting herself off from everyone else, she's spending a lot of time with Simon."
"Simon?" Rogue's nose scrunched up in confusion.
"Wonder Man," Wanda clarified with a rueful smile, realizing that Rogue hadn't yet met the team. "His powers are energy-based, too, and also the result of someone's monstrous experiments, so he's been sort of mentoring Carol through the transition."
Pietro snorted. "Yeah, and trying to get into her pants, too."
"Pietro," Wanda snapped, and under her glare he actually muttered an apology. "It's not like that, and you know it." She turned back to a frowning Rogue to explain. "Simon cares about her, and they got on really well before the Brood incident. Right now he's the only person Carol still feels an emotional connection toward, and he might be the only one who can bring her back to herself."
"She liked him, before all this?" Rogue inquired, and Wanda nodded. "An' he's an okay guy?"
Again Wanda nodded.
"Then Ah'll let him have his shot at her," Rogue begrudgingly conceded. "But as soon as Dr. McCoy says Ah'm good t' leave the twins wit' Remy fo' a few days, Ah'm gon' hafta pay a visit to Avengers HQ."
"Careful, Roguey," Pietro cautioned with a grin. "We might try to steal you away from the X-geeks."
"We'd have to steal Gambit, too, don't forget," Wanda reminded him, and Pietro made a show of grimacing at the thought of calling Gambit his teammate for a second time. "They are a package deal now, after all."
"On second thought, you'd hate California," Pietro told Rogue, and she laughed.
"Yeah," she agreed dryly. "All that warm sunshine an' miles of beaches? Definitely not mah scene."
"God that sounds heavenly," Jean sighed.
"Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be," Wanda assured them with a smile. "Some days I feel like my uniform is literally melting, it's so hot."
"Better than worrying it's about to freeze to your skin," Jean retorted.
"An' that's the part Ah didn' miss the past few years," Rogue commented. "Ah got t' escape the spandex."
"You mean the Thieves Guild doesn't run around in some crazy get-up?" Pietro asked skeptically, his eyebrow disappearing into his hairline. "'Cause I've heard some rumors about magenta body armor."
"Ah'm exempt from the bad costumes," Rogue informed him smugly. "On account o' the fact that Ah refuse t' wear them."
"Now, chere, y' tol' me dat I looked sexy in de body armor," a familiar voice drawled from across, and they all looked up to find Remy LeBeau leaning in the open doorway, a smirk plastered across his handsome face. "Dat mean all dat was not'ing but a lie?"
Rogue just grinned, and Remy crossed the room to stand at Wanda's shoulder, peering down at his son.
"Hey dere, buddy," he said softly. "Y' been charmin' de femmes fo' me?"
"Every second he's awake," Wanda chuckled.
"Dat's m'boy."
"Scott finally let ya loose, or did ya slip out when he wasn' lookin'?" Rogue asked.
"Non, Mademoiselle Frost broke it up wit' news dat some o' de students apparently put a dent de size of a basketball in t' de side o' Cyclops wheels," Remy informed them with a grin.
"The Viper or the BMW?" Jean asked sharply.
Remy shrugged, and Jean groaned.
"Come on, honey," she sighed, bending down to pick up Nathan. "Let's go try and keep Daddy from having a breakdown."
"He's still a crybaby over his cars, huh?" Rogue laughed. "Since he's already cryin', mebbe now's a good time t' tell him that Ah'm the one who broke the mirror off the Corvette back in Bayville?"
Jean shot her a look from the door. "Maybe not," she advised wryly, and then she and Nathan disappeared.
"You broke Summer's convertible?" Pietro demanded eagerly, looking at Rogue as if she had just declared she'd gotten him a date with Megan Fox. "When? How? Tell me you took pictures! Does Lance know?"
"Well, remember that summer after Ah joined the X-men? That day that Kitty an' Ah ran in'na ya'll at the ice cream parlor?"
"You mean the day that I went too far with the insults and you threw me into frozen yogurt machine and I got chocolate swirl and strawberry cream all down the back of my shirt?" Pietro shot her a smirk. "No, I don't remember that day at all."
Rogue laughed. "Yeah, well, after Ah cooled ya off Ah clocked Freddie bare-handed, an' by the time Kit an' Ah got home the Professor already knew all about it, an' Scott was waitin' on the front steps. He lectured, Ah grumbled, an' when it was all over Ah was pissed at him, an' Ah was still pissed at ya, an' Ah kicked the mirror on the side o' his car." She paused to grin at him. Only problem- Freddie's powers hadn't worn off yet."
"Priceless," Pietro crowed. "Oh man, what I wouldn't have given to see his face when he saw it."
"Yeah, Ah didn' stick around fo' that."
"Kind of like you didn't stick around for Lance's reaction after you busted his headlight by backing into a cop car?" Pietro snickered.
Wanda blinked, eyes widening in surprise, but Rogue scowled. "Please, like ya have room t' talk," she retorted. "Ah remember somethin' 'bout ya borrowin' the jeep for a date an' bringing it back wit' only three wheels."
"Oh, yeah, well what about the time you…"
As the two continued to bicker about who had been more of a hellion as a teenager, Wanda sat there and listened, equal parts horrified and intrigued. She felt a stab of regret that she hadn't been there for these stories, that she'd been locked away in a padded room when she could have been getting into all sorts of trouble with her brother and the rest of the Brotherhood, but at the same time she was relieved to realize that, compared to them, she was actually quite sane.
She glanced up at Remy, who was watching their animated conversation with a small, amused smile, and he winked at her.
"Jus' keep listenin' an' take lots o' notes, petite," he whispered. "De blackmail material is jus' rollin' off deir tongues t'day."
Wanda laughed, but he was right.
She couldn't wait to share this with the Avengers, particularly Crystal.
If the other girl was going to become a Maximoff one day, she needed to know just what a lunatic she was going to marry.
A/N: I apologize profusely for the delay, guys. I've had a really hectic year, and to be honest I just haven't had the time or the motivation to write. That being said, I think this summer is going to be a lot less stressful so once I finish the remaining three chapters on this fic, I'll be hard at work on "Rogue Evolution." Thank you guys so much for all your patience, I know how much it sucks to wait and wait for an update. You're the best!
~BQ~