Wanda tapped her fingers on the wheel of the jeep while she waited for her brother. He was late. Boy was never late. He always would be laying out provocatively on her damn hood, smirking at her while she fiddled with grabbing her keys. She honestly didn't know why she didn't just force the guy to run home instead of getting a ride.

It was a shame it was a Thursday; Lorna would have loved to actually have front seat privileges, she was sure, but she was with her loving parents having a great time not dealing with their father during the week. Lucky bitch.

She heard a quick rush of wind and a slam, and turned to see Pietro buckling his seatbelt next to her.

"What took you?"

"LeBeau had the actual nerve to give me detention tomorrow," Pietro said, bouncing in his seat. "Hurry up, I could be halfway home by now."

"Pete, we live in Connecticut." Wanda shook her head and chuckled a bit to herself, turning on the ignition. "Too far. Besides, remember last time you decided to try to run there?"

Pietro let out an indiscernable mumble.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you?"

Pietro gave an exasperated sigh.

"I tripped and went through a waaaaall," he groaned.

"And that's why high-velocity running isn't always the best choice."

"Hey, I paid the fine."

"No, mom paid the fine." Wanda glared at him quickly before pulling out into the street. "She had to pay to rebuild the town hall, and that's why we're stuck spending 100% of our time with Erik instead of fifty."

"How come we couldn't stay with Uncle Django and Aunt Marya is what I want to know," Pietro grumbled, and stuck up his finger. "Before you say anything about us not being able to fit in their little apartment in Brooklyn, I'd rather live on their sofa than have to deal with those two."

"You're just saying that," Wanda said.

"I know you'd rather be staying with them too."

She didn't respond, merely turning on her iPod. 90s riot grrrl broke the palpable wall of silence between the twins. Wanda wouldn't say it out loud, and she honestly knew that her brother was rather torn over the familial relationships as well. It wasn't something to talk about, really. There was no doubt that their father had his issues, but neither of them could really help still feeling some odd tug towards him.

As soon as they were on the highway Wanda was a good ten miles over the speed limit on average, and glancing over she noticed the white-haired boy seemed to have brightened up a bit. It was no doubt still too slow for him, but she was still glad to see him happy. She clicked her tongue to get his attention, and he looked over at her. She pointed at a McDonald's billboard, to which he rose an eyebrow.

Lifting her left hand, she moved her wrist in a complicated pattern, immediately making Ronald's nose explode.

The twins both burst into laughter and she turned up the stereo, speeding into the passing lane amid a cacophony of honks from fellow drivers.

The traffic was relatively light, and in less than an hour the twins arrived outside the lovely colonial Xavier-Lehnsherr house. Before Wanda could even turn off the Jeep, Pietro was already out of the car, in the house, and up the stairs, sprawled on the bed with laptop in hand. His foot jittered faster than could be easily seen by the naked eye as he waited for the start up.

"Goddammit, Windows," he shouted angrily at the thing, only to hear a response from downstairs of "Ubuntu has near instant start up!"

"Shut up, loser!" he called back down and Wanda laughed, going off to do...whatever it was she did. Girl things, he guessed. His computer finally loaded up, and he gave a sigh of relief. Time to do anything but homework.

Just as a tumblr he was certainly not supposed to click through the I-Am-Over-18 button loaded on his screen, the tinny sounds of a midi Dark Side of the Moon started to chime from his bedside table. He groaned, quickly grabbing the phone and flipping it open.

"Pizza Hut, can I take your order please? Special on sausage today."

"Pietro."

He rolled his eyes at the voice at the other end of the line.

"Hi, Erik," he said. He heard a disappointed sound at the other end of the line.

"Is it still so hard to call me 'father?'" Erik asked, and Pietro nodded. Like hell; he'd gone fourteen years not knowing the guy, just because he'd been forced to hang at his house the last couple didn't mean he was going to start calling him "Daddy."

"Fine, vaaaaaater," he droned, scrolling through various porn gifs. Daddy was reserved for some hot piece of ass, that's for sure.

"Pietro," the man sighed.

"What's going on anyway, dad-guy?" Pietro said impatiently. Damn, that one looked a bit like LeBeau. That would be an interesting thing to think about tonight.

"Charles and I decided to take the evening off; a friend of his is opening a new restaurant in the city tonight, and we figured we'd stay over and..."

"Check out ladies' night, drink some appletinis, yeah. I get the idea. So you aren't coming home tonight?"

"...well, no. We may actually make a bit of a weekend out of it, so you and Wanda have some time to yourselves."

"We are going to empty your liquor cabinet." He smiled as he heard the man chuckle.

"Make sure to start with Charles' whisky," Erik said, and Pietro couldn't help but start laughing at the indignant, muffled sounds he heard coming from his stepfather.

"Got it, the 25 first." He clicked through to the next page in another tab. He paused, for his own time; in reality, there was no way that Erik would have noticed the hesitation before Pietro added, "Have a nice time, dad."

"We will. You and Wanda stay safe."

"Thanks."

Pietro flipped his phone shut, shoving the computer off his lap and dashing out the door and to the top of the stairs. He grinned as he called down:

"Wanda, guess what? We get Baconators tonight!"