Chapter 23

The Brotherhood House

It was a matter of seconds before Pietro was slamming his chest against that of Bobby Drake's, sending him stumbling back into the yard. Ellie rolled her eyes, not seeing this as out of character for Pietro. Bobby, on the other hand, was not as calm about the incident. He scowled at Pietro and started to storm up to him.

"What was that about?" Bobby angrily asked. Pietro shrugged before placing his hands on his hips.

"I don't want any of you X-Men in my yard," Pietro said matter-of-factly. "Don't you have a mansion you can go wander around instead of hanging around outside of our house?"

"Yeah, I do have a mansion. You see, that's the difference between you and I. The good guy gets to live in a mansion with some awesome heroes, while you and your group of thugs get to slum it in some boarding house."

"Excuse me?" Ellie inserted. Bobby's comment, although intended for Pietro, made her uneasy.

"What?" Bobby asked, confused.

"I live here and I'm not a thug. Nor am I slumming it."

"Ellie I didn't mean you. I meant the Brotherhood."

"I don't care who you meant Bobby Drake. I didn't really figure you to be the type of person to pass judgment on others because of something they can't control."

"Something they can't control? Ellie, these guys choose to do bad things with their powers."

"I'm not talking about that and in no way am I defending the things that these boys do. So they don't live in a mansion like the X-Men, big deal. They also don't have an adult around to help them with everything. They're figuring things out on their own and truthfully they're doing a pretty okay job."

"Yeah," Pietro added in a mocking tone.

"You're really going to stand there and act like I'm being a mean guy when Pietro acts like a complete jerk with a disregard for everyone all the time?" Bobby asked.

"I expect Pietro to be a jerk," Ellie confessed with a slight lift of her shoulders. "I expect better from a hero like you."

Pietro stopped smirking and turned over his shoulder to look at Ellie. His feelings weren't hurt by what she said or anything, but it was strange to hear her being so honest. He didn't expect a girl to say exactly what she was thinking with no regard of how it may make the other people around her feel. Then again, Pietro hadn't met any girl quite like Ellie Dingo.

"Maybe you should go home Bobby," Ellie said as she rubbed her arms to warm them up. "Try to work on that whole judging people thing."

Bobby stared into Ellie's unfeeling eyes. His stomach clenched a bit as he noticed how similar they were to Eli's. Granted he didn't spend time staring into Eli's eyes, but the light hue was a bit hard to ignore at times. The only difference that Bobby noticed right now was that Eli always had a light in his eyes even when he was upset, but Ellie, hers seemed to have a cast over them. It was now that Bobby realized he had been thinking about the twin's eyes rather than replying to Ellie.

"You know Ellie," he began, "you and Eli sure do look alike, but you don't act alike at all."

Pietro raised a brow as he watched Ellie stiffen where she stood. Ellie could feel her heart beating faster and she kept her eyes on the ground. Maybe she wasn't as much like Eli as she assumed she was. But then again, who was Bobby Drake to decide that?

"Get out of our yard," Pietro ordered, pointing down the road with a scowl on his face.

"Fine, I'm gone," Bobby said as he turned his back on the two. "Maybe you should work on judging people too Ellie."

"Get out of here!" Pietro shoved Bobby forward and the brunette boy grumbled before walking down the road.

Pietro turned to Ellie who was pushing her bare toes against the damp grass as she bit at her thumbnail. He ran a hand through his hair before shaking his head at her.

"If you're gonna let that kid get under your skin then you really don't fit in here," he shot at her before making his way back inside.

Ellie walked in shortly after him but didn't say a word. Toad sat in the open archway to the kitchen and watched as she quietly climbed the stairs before he jumped into the living room where Pietro was.

"What happened out there?" he asked as he leaped onto the sofa, rising Pietro's cushion a bit. The light haired boy paid the movement no mind and kept his eyes focused on the blurred picture on the television screen.

"Nothing, go away," Pietro said as he stretched his legs out and crossed his ankles over each other. Toad wrinkled his nose.

"Why'd you go runnin' out there like that then?"

"Go away Toad."

"You know, Ellie doesn't look too excited. Did somethin' happen with that brother of hers?"

"Why do you even care?" Pietro finally turned to look at his friend as his voice turned harsh. Toad looked at Pietro with big, round eyes before giving him a coy smile.

"Oh Pietro," Toad began in a taunting voice. "Did you go out there to rescue Ellie from the big bad Ice Man and her handsome brother?"

"Did you just call her brother handsome?" Pietro sat back a bit from Toad now with one eyebrow lifted suspiciously. Toad shrugged.

"Like I'm the only one that's noticed it. C'mon, you've seen that square jaw that kid has. He's like one of those good lookin' guys, whattaya call 'em again?"

"An Adonis?"

"Aha, so you have noticed it!" Before Toad could move, Pietro knocked him onto the floor, fed up with his antics.

"Get away from me!" Pietro screamed. Toad rolled back to a sitting position on the floor.

"Sheesh alright, alright I'm goin'!" he jumped to the entryway of the living room before turning over his shoulder, "You should probably go talk to your girl though yo. She seems upset."

"She's not my girl," Pietro's voice was calm now, a fact that Toad ignored as he left the room. Pietro groaned before resting his elbows on his knees.

"She isn't my girl," Pietro thought to himself as the television set hummed across the room. He started to think about the night he and Ellie spent in the park as his eyes focused in on the floor. "She couldn't ever be my girl. Not even if I wanted her to be."

Forest

Eli stood with his hands in his sweatshirt pocket as he scanned his surroundings. It had taken him a while, but after nearly an hour of searching he finally found the clearing in the forest where he and Sabretooth fought. A giant, dead plant lay on the ground and vines stretched lifelessly out of the trees, slightly skimming the grass. He knelt down by a tree trunk that had scratch marks dug into its bark.

"So much pointless destruction," he thought as he ran the palm of his hand over the tree. He replayed the fight in his head.

The way he had acted that day was out of the ordinary for him and he knew it. He wasn't the strong guy that didn't think twice about killing someone if he got the chance. He was the strong, sensitive guy that cared about plants and cracking jokes. At least, he thought that's who he was.

Being apart from Ellie, Eli hadn't even tried to be independent. He was constantly worrying about her and wondering what she was doing that he had allowed himself to fall into a dark place. Running a hand over his face Eli shook his head at his own obliviousness. He knew that he had the capability to be a killer and he ignored the warning signs from the start.

Being a twin, Eli was a small child that was underweight for the majority of his life until HYDRA began pumping him up with the mutated X gene. He remembered the agonizing pain he endured at such a young age as his muscles tore in order to expand at an increased rate. That was why they stopped letting him sleep in the same room as Ellie. He had to be gagged so his screaming at night wouldn't rattle the nerves of the other experiments.

He never explained to Ellie why he bulked up so fast when they were at the HYDRA laboratory. His excuse was that he was forced to work out to help the X gene take to his system so he would not worry her. After all, she was supposed to get the same treatment that he had been given. Eli bit his lower lip hard as tears started to fall down his cheeks.

"It's all so pointless," he thought as his body started to shake. He went to wipe his tears away but his hands had turned to their watery state, making that impossible.

He knew better than to do this. Whenever he would cry he would lose control of his power over water. He assumed it was a malfunction in the scientists experiment, but he was never positive. Either way, whenever he would start crying it would take him forever to stop. Feeling panic wash over him, Eli tried to stop crying but his sobbing continued and his arms turned into water. His eyes widened as the "X" on his wrist communicator that linked to Ellie's started to flash. He went to press the X to answer, but his wet fingers simply dripped off the material. Eli's tears started to fall faster now.

He quickly tried to hit the button a few more times, failing over and over again. When the flashing stopped, he let out an angry scream, causing the birds to fly out of the trees in a frenzy. This was getting out of hand. He was a slave to his powers and he couldn't take it anymore. Eli sat in the forest for the next two hours before his tears stopped falling on their own, and his watery body returned to flesh. He got off the ground, pulled his hood over his head, and started walking down the street in the direction of the mansion.

"I'm over this," he angrily thought to himself as his boots pounded against the pavement.

A/N: Thank goodness for Spring Break! Time to write until my fingers hurt. Hope everyone is doing well!