A/N: Thank you to my amazing reviewers sifuXANA (I'm especially glad to make Lancitty compelling for someone who doesn't ship them as much!), Guest, and RaZzen! And thanks to everyone who reads and/or favorites. You're all amazing :)
Pietro made a deal with Fury.
S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't get him unless they took Wanda, too. Magneto made a speech after they rescued him in Mexico, about making amends and dedicating himself to the new generation of mutants, and Pietro had played every word over and over and over in his mind. He saw right through it. Wanda didn't. It wasn't her fault. But he manipulated her into signing on with S.H.I.E.L.D. – it was easy, everything came easy to him - to keep her away from Magneto and Xavier's circus of X-idiots.
Pietro combed through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance and classified data, and then he tracked Wyngarde. By the time they figured out he stole a senior agent's ID to gain access to Level 7 clearance, he'd already have what he was looking for. Nobody caught Pietro Maximoff. They could take a lifetime to catch up to him and they still wouldn't come close.
He casually mentioned Boom Boom's text because Lance had gotten worked up over a two-minute phone call with the X-Cat… and he knew that'd get him out of the house. Their little melodrama was annoying – predictable, repetitive, cliche, moronic, take your pick - but Pietro turned it to his advantage.
"Get out!" He glanced up at the sound of Wanda's voice, the resultant crash, and Toad's high-pitched shriek. He grabbed his jacket and left.
Shaw Industries.
Pietro picked the lock on Wyngarde's apartment - a month-to-month rental in Brooklyn - but he didn't find anything useful at first. He took pictures, tore the room apart, then put it back together once he found the receipt. That took him to a restaurant in Manhattan where he used a picture of Wyngarde and hit on the hostess who looked up last night's reservations and let Pietro take a look. Wyngarde's name wasn't on the list, but Shaw's was. He narrowed down the possibilities based on the time stamp on the receipt, party number, then searched the names.
Got a name, looked it up. Cross-referenced it with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database: 'restricted'.
Pietro went to the source: access control security (fob-based) system, bioscrypt finger scanner and facial recognition, cameras, motion sensors, armed guards on rotation. It took him less than a minute to case the building and find the security office. Six men, five hundred monitors on two walls, and it was half of what Shaw needed to secure this building. Pietro filed away that discrepancy for later.
"Sooo which one of you is Head of Security?"
He leaned against the wall and watched them react. The one on the end nearly fell out of his chair. Pietro rolled his eyes and remarked, "Nice to see Shaw's getting what he paid for: twitchy rent-a-cop with a gun," because that never goes wrong. People were idiots.
"What are you doing in here?"
"Looking. For. The. Head. Of. Security." Pietro enunciated clearly. "Though I can see now it's no one in this room. Want to give me a name? A number? He's the only person next to Shaw who can bypass the biometrics upstairs, am I right?"
Two of the guards exchanged looks. A third blurted out, "You need to leave. This is a restricted-"
"-area? You don't say." Pietro didn't like to be cornered so when they started to advance on him, he bolted across the room and ended up by the trash can. He snatched an unfinished bag of Bugles off the table and tossed three back.
"Holy shit, he's a mutant."
"Nothing gets past you, does it..." Pietro crossed the room and took a look at his nametag, then stepped out of reach. "...Danvers?" His attention snapped to one of the guards who'd gotten antsy at the mention of 'mutant'. He had his hand on his gun. Pietro raised a brow, unconcerned, and moved on. "Calling your boss?" The one in the middle touched her ear subtly, readjusting her com. She froze when Pietro addressed her. "Anyday now," he prompted her impatiently.
Pietro finished off the Bugles and balled up the plastic bag. He threw it in the trash.
She finally got the words out. "Sir, we have a situation." Pietro scanned the security cameras until he saw who he was looking for: on the sixth floor, heading towards the north elevator.
That's what he needed. Pietro knocked out the security guards. One with his own gun, three into the wall, two into the table. He intercepted Head of Security on his way down, stole his keys and card, and used him to get into the penthouse. He searched every room until he found the office, and let himself in. Bronze marble floors, a single white accent wall juxtaposed against brown, black lacquer tables, leather chairs, arched windows heavily curtained, antique decanter, and frames with no pictures in them.
Pietro went straight for the computer. It was password-protected.
He worked through that with one hand, and went through the desk with the other: drawers, planner, landline voicemail. He didn't stop when he heard a door slam but he raised his eyes briefly from the screen.
"One-eight-one-four, donato."
The voice rang out clearly, with an edge of amusement. He glanced back to the computer, closed out of what he was doing, and typed in the four digit pin and password. He sat down in the office chair as the workstation loaded.
Pietro ran a full search of the hard drive, and skimmed the internet history.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Sebastian Shaw - unflanked by his security team, but still in the building which Pietro didn't anticipate - stepped into his own study dressed in a suit, dark hair styled carefully, expression bemused.
Pietro glanced up and only because he had to wait on the computer. "Mastermind."
His close-lipped smile widened. "Is that what this is about? S.H.I.E.L.D. could do better than harass the employees of my favorite restaurant." Nothing. The computer was clean. "Unless, of course, this is a personal matter."
Shaw's cell phone rang. Pietro rounded the table and snatched the phone out of his hand as he unlocked it - and before he could check the messages. He saw out of the corner of his eye that Shaw clenched his fist briefly. It was reactive, frustrated, too fast for most people to catch.
"I spared no expense on security measures for this building."
"How's that working out for you?" Pietro drawled, as he scrolled through Shaw's messages.
"Not very well," Shaw replied, adjusting his cufflinks, "It seems I'll have to terminate my night staff."
"Might want to go for a full refund," he said, "I didn't even break a sweat."
"Well, you aren't most people, Quicksilver."
Pietro wasn't surprised Shaw knew who he was. Anybody with a TV and half a braincell would recognize him. "Glad to see we're on the same page," he was born on that page, it took seventeen years for the rest of the world to get there.
"Why do you want to know about Mastermind?"
Pietro didn't answer. "Tell me about 'Hellfire'." There was an encrypted file with that name. Shaw's jaw clenched in response and he smirked. "Save me the time, Shaw, or I'll hand this over to S.H.I.E.L.D." He held up the phone between two fingers.
Shaw took a step closer to him but Pietro didn't move. He knew Shaw was a mutant - despite the public persona as the rich (human) CEO of Shaw Industries - but he didn't know what his powers were. Yet. He wasn't worried. There was only one mutant who'd ever gotten the best of him, and she wasn't here.
"I've never taken much of an interest in your family, Quicksilver," Magneto, yes, but not the children, "You don't want me to change my mind."
Shaw was more of an idiot than Pietro thought he was. He continued to work on the phone as he spoke, "You couldn't lay a hand on me if you tried." Pietro's gaze flicked around the room, everything he had to lose, then, "Pathetic."
Shaw had a good poker face. Better than Lance's, but that wasn't saying much. Lance was a moron. "Mastermind told me about some of his more recent work," he said smoothly, conversational yet calculating, "Quite impressive, what he did to Scarlet Witch."
Pietro stilled. "Leave my sister out of this."
"That's entirely up to you." Shaw smiled with the certainty of a man who has found the pressure point in his opponent. He held out his hand. "My phone, if you please."
Pietro was back in Bayville when he got a call from his supervisor - it went to voicemail, he didn't have time to answer that right now - and he swung by the fairgrounds to pick up Blob and Lance. He didn't feel like going back to headquarters alone.
"Let's go, Blob," Pietro cut through the middle of the pumpkin display and stood next to the table where Blob had a half dozen caramel apples and two pecan pies in front of him. "I got the call."
"Aw man, I just sat down."
"For the fourth or fifth helping?" he said sarcastically, "Get it to go."
"Hey Speedy!"
"Hey Boom Boom," he gave her a nod as she sauntered over with some more food, which Blob tried to take off her hands as he got off his ass. Doing so nearly tipped the whole picnic table over. One leg splintered under the weight. "Still mooching off the X-Geeks?"
She shrugged in response, grinning, "Two words for you, slick: free cable."
"Where's Lance?" Without waiting for the reply, Pietro shot off to the parking lot and found the jeep. He saw the X-Cat inside, and yanked open the passenger's door. "Get out, Pryde."
The X-Cat recoiled from Lance with an outraged, "Pietro!" She turned to glare at him, red in the face.
"Looks like I got here just in time." The X-Cat and her puritanical sensibilities.
"Shove off, man!" There was Lance, bringing up the rear with the reaction time of a slug.
"Give it a rest," he retorted in a bored monotone, "I just saved us all from a rerun of this trainwreck," interrupting it before they got started back up again, "Out of the car, Pryde," he repeated, since she was too slow to get that the first time around, "We've got work to do."
"What kind of work?"
Pietro glanced at the X-Cat, "Need to know. You don't." Pryde glared. He ignored her.
"Damnit, Pietro. Can't it wait?"
He looked at Lance. "No."
Pryde started to get out of the car. "Kitty, hold on-"
Lance tried to stop her. Pietro interrupted, "What happened to that girl from the bar?"
"Pietro."
"What girl?"
"Didn't he tell you?" Pietro's expression was all innocence with Pryde standing outside the car, glancing between the two of them. "Lance has been seeing other people. You might want to give that a shot. You know, get a life."
"What?" The X-Cat was confused.
"Pietro, what the hell!"
"Forget it," Pryde snapped in response, "This was a mistake."
"Kitty-"
"Back off, Lance."
"Yeah, Lance. Back off," he repeated, amused.
"Shut the fuck up, Pietro!" A quake reverberated through the ground and an alarm went off three cars down.
The X-Cat stormed off, and he glanced towards the fairgrounds and saw Blob's silhouette lumbering towards them. That gave him about thirty seconds to clear the air with Lance which was more than enough time.
"What the fuck's your problem?" Lance glared at him.
Pietro lingered outside the car because he didn't want to get in arm's reach. "I did you a favor." He paused. "You're welcome."
"Why'd you tell her about the girl?"
"Because it's true," Pietro leaned an arm against the passenger's side window. Three and a half months of moping over the X-Cat after he broke things off with her, and a couple weeks ago he finally got drunk enough to get laid. "Don't be an idiot."
"About what?"
It was generally good advice, but in this case? "Nothing's changed between you and Pryde." And Pietro only bothered to prove the point - that he'd already made, and he didn't like repeating himself - because he was waiting on Blob anyway. "What did she say about S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
Lance turned his glare to the windshield. No answer.
"She won't be happy until you're back in spandex taking orders from Cyclops."
"Shut up."
Pietro was right and they both knew it. He slid into the passenger's seat and unrolled the window. "Blob, get a move on!"
"I'm coming!" He picked up the pace, but barely.
He leaned back impatiently. Once Blob got the jeep, it groaned and shifted under his weight.
"Are we getting Toad and Wanda?"
"Forget Wanda," Pietro said flatly, "Let's go."