Chapter Summary: Erik and Peter make it to Indianapolis. Erik combs over the old lair, and Peter calls home.

"So this was where you and your old buddies hung out before you got arrested, huh?"

Erik had half-expected the government to have found this place. It wouldn't have surprised them, considering the way Trask and the CIA had finally tracked Azazel down, nine years after he was put into that concrete prison. (It had hurt, overhearing the guards whispering amongst themselves about that, the way it had hurt to hear them saying the same about Janos and Angel and Emma and Sean, and wondering the same about Raven, but somehow, Erik doubted she would care very much now if he was to tell her that.) But this place remained undefiled, unmarred with red tape or listening devices. It was, in its own way, a relief, knowing that he had something that the humans hadn't been able to ruin.

Even if that something was a hovel of an underground hideout in Indianapolis.

Erik nodded absently in response to Peter's question. "It was one of a few places, yes."

In much the same way that Erik had somehow managed to inherit Shaw's followers when he killed him, he had also inherited Shaw's hideouts. However, while this location was known to Shaw's followers, it was not one of Shaw's specifically. Shaw's hideouts were, while infinitely more comfortable, too well-known to the government to provide a truly safe place for Erik and his own following—there was also the fact that Erik wanted as little of what had been Shaw's as was possible. The helmet was enough. This was instead an old hideout of Janos's, from the days before he had thrown his lot in with Shaw. As such, it was rather less well-equipped than Shaw's hideouts had been.

"It's kinda bare, don't you think?" Peter set about exploring the hideout, the basement of an abandoned apartment building. He began trying to flip the light switches on and off, to no effect; even if this place was still getting electricity, the bulbs probably wouldn't work anymore anyways. The only reason Erik and Peter could see where they were going down here at all was on account of a flashlight and the door that had been left open, allowing a bright patch of sunlight to grow on the staircase and on the floor. Who knew how long it had been since anyone had last stayed here?

Beyond the lights, Peter tested out the sagging leather couch, the cloth-upholstered chair that Erik was both amazed and relieved hadn't molded since the hideout was last occupied. Peter examined every nook and cranny, before materializing at Erik's shoulder, eyebrow quirked quizzically. "Really doesn't look like much."

"Comfort wasn't really on our minds in those days, Pietro," Erik said quietly.

"Peter."

Erik began tugging on the braided rug (Another thing that he was amazed and relieved hadn't molded). "Come help me roll this back," he told Peter. "There's something under it I need to get to."

Between the two of them, Erik and Peter rolled the rug back easily, so that a large section of the floor was now exposed. Peter stared down at the exposed bit of floor and nudged it with his foot. Erik could understand why he might consider it strange. Where the rest of the floor was bare concrete, under the bit of rug the two of them had rolled back, the floor was made of metal.

Erik lifted the metal, which under normal circumstances appeared to be bolted to the concrete, up from the floor, sending it to rest gently against the nearest wall. Under it were several cardboard boxes, labeled with the names of their owners.

'Emma.'

'Angel.'

'Janos.'

'Azazel.'

'Erik.'

Raven's was gone. The space second from the right was empty. She must have come for it, at some point.

"Your old buddies' stuff?" Peter was already lifting the lid off of Erik's box, digging through clothes and books and such.

"Yes," Erik said shortly. "Anything we couldn't carry on our persons we left here when there was work to be done. And I had best find none of their belongings on you or in your bag later."

Like that, the lid was back on the box. "Whatever." Peter got to his feet and stuck his thumb back towards the door. "I was gonna go check out the Motor Speedway?" A hopeful gleam entered into his brown eyes.

"Do you know how to get to it from here?"

"Well…"

"And do you know how to get back to our hotel from there?"

"I'd find it eventually."

"And I would rather you didn't have to do it that way." Erik lifted the lid of his box long enough to take a city map out of it. He stepped into the light and laid it out on the floor. "We are here, right now." Taking a pen out of his pocket, he drew a dot over their present location and labeled it. "The motor speedway is here." He circled the area; no labeling needed, really. "And the hotel is here." He drew another dot, and labeled it as well.

Peter took the map when it was offered to him. "'Kay. See you later. Don't get arrested," he mumbled absently.

"I should say the same to you," Erik retorted, but the words were said to empty space.

Right…

Left alone, he got down on his knees and lifted his box up out of the depression in the floor. Janos used to swear that it was used to hide alcohol during prohibition; Emma or Angel would usually scoff in response and offer up some more mundane explanation for why there was a large hole in the floor. Whatever the reason, the six of them had soon found other uses for it that had nothing to do with smuggling illegal alcohol or stockpiling weapons and ammunition.

Peter likely thought that life on the run, in hiding, had been exciting. Erik could only imagine the sort of romantic notions the boy harbored concerning the lives of mutants who worked outside the law to better their own lives. The truth was, it was an eventful life, but in their circumstances, an 'eventful' life wasn't a safe one, or a particularly happy one.

For the most part, they had been very hungry. In the interest of keeping the group fed and financed, Emma had immediately moved after being rescued from the CIA to drain Shaw's bank accounts. Unfortunately, she'd only been able to get a pitifully small amount out before the accounts were frozen; in retrospect, the CIA had probably been waiting for someone to try to touch Shaw's bank accounts. Beyond that, they had only what money the six of them had access to and could scrounge up later, which in the case of most of them, wasn't a whole lot. There hadn't been much money for food, for the daily comforts.

There were other disadvantages to living in the basement of an abandoned apartment building. While Raven had been able to fix things so that they would have electricity, the basement did not possess air conditioning or central heating, which was hellish in summer and even worse in winter. Several of them, including Erik, had taken refuge at the local YMCA at night until Azazel, who had been spending his nights in the rafters of a Catholic church (in an ironic move that surprised absolutely no one), showed up one day with a gigantic electrical fan. A few months later, when the weather started to get cold, he showed up one morning with a space heater. No one was willing to question how he had gotten them. After that, they slept in sleeping bags and under their coats, alternating between who got the couch, who got the chair, and who had to sleep on the floor.

Here was where they had taken refuge, plotting out their next move. Here was where Erik had first learned of Trask kidnapping mutants, though he'd not known who was taking them and why at the time. Here was where he had lived with those five, some friends, some not, but…

But when they were dead, he remembered them all as though they had been friends.

Erik lifted the lid off of his own box again. They needed more money. Peter still had a fair amount of the cash Marya had given him left, but that wasn't going to be enough to get them all the way to San Francisco. Erik had traded in more than one ingot of Nazi gold for cash in his time (usually after persuading an increasingly terrified banker to do that for him); most of the money from that was gone, but he still had some left.

There was about two hundred dollars left, where the rest had been spent on groceries and maps and such. Erik looked down at the bills in his hands and sighed. Between paying for bus tickets and hotel rooms and food (he and Peter did not need to eat stolen snack foods at every meal), this likely still wouldn't be enough. Reluctantly, he began to lift the lids off of the other boxes and search through them as well.

(It wasn't stealing. It wasn't anything like desecrating a loved one's grave. The dead had no need of money. This wasn't ancient Greece where the locals were convinced that if someone didn't put a coin under their tongues when they died they'd never reach the afterlife.)

Like him, Emma had had around two hundred dollars to her name when the CIA captured her. There was a small hand mirror in her box, a pair of running shoes with socks balled up inside of them, a box-cutter and a white, sequined scarf. There was also a crinkled, weathered photo in a frame, of a teenaged Emma and an older boy, standing arm in arm and both smiling brightly. Emma, smiling, and in such a way that didn't look hard and sharp and cold as diamond. Erik slid the photo out of its frame carefully and turned it over for any hint of notes. He found it: '1948, Boston, Christian Frost and his sister Emma.'

Erik remembered. Emma had mentioned her brother once; it must have been a slip of some kind, since she never once talked about her life before she fell in with Shaw otherwise. Just something about how Christian might have fitted in better with mutants than Erik thought, despite not being one himself. I remember now. He had made some offhand comment about how mutants and humans were never going to be able to live together; Emma had fired off her comment about Christian as a retort, looking unusually hurt. Erik had never asked why she said so. Looking back, he wished he had.

Angel's was next. She had about fifty dollars, with a few scattered nickels and dimes on the bottom of the box. Erik found them under a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte and a copy of Jane Eyre. It looked as though, whenever she had left this place for the last time, she had also left those ceramic leaf earrings she'd been so fond of.

Janos had only ten dollars to his name when he died. The single ten-dollar bill was stuffed in a shot glass, hidden amidst a suit jacket and a yo-yo and a bag full of soda can tabs.

Azazel had not a single penny to his name—either that, or he alone had been carrying his money on his person when he was captured. Erik did find something else though, something that made his jaw drop in shock.

"What on Earth?!" he muttered, gaping down at the photo grasped in his hands.

It was dated 1972. In it was Azazel, Raven in her natural blue form, and a baby sitting on Azazel's lap, with the former's tail and the latter's coloring. Raven was beaming so much that Erik wouldn't be surprised to learn that she had dislocated her jaw afterwards. Uncharacteristically for him, Azazel looked every inch the proud father, holding the tiny boy upright so that he wouldn't fall over.

So where has the child gone?

(Much like he'd done with the photograph of Peter and Wanda playing at being superheroes, Erik tucked this photograph into his coat pocket. He told himself that it was to return it to Raven if he ever came across her again. But considering that she would probably gut him given half the chance, that seemed unlikely.)

His search ended, Erik replaced the lids and, still on his knees, stared at the boxes. His own, he would do with as he would, but it seemed indecent somehow to leave the others where they were. They were the effects of the dead. When someone died, their loved ones usually took possession of their belongings, so that they wouldn't sit in the dark to gather dust and rot, and when Erik had time, he supposed he needed to make sure that such a thing didn't happen to these. But where to send them?

Angel's step-father had kicked her out of his house when her mutation emerged; the rest of her family had disowned her when her desperate financial state caused her to turn to work as a stripper (And they all conveniently ignored the fact that she had done this because she wasn't being offered help from anyone, let alone them). Erik could not think of anything that would persuade him to send Angel's belongings, such as they were, back to her 'family.' Charles might want them, though.

Her brother Christian was the only family member Emma had ever made mention of, and she had spoken so little about him. Boston was a big place, and Christian didn't necessarily have to be living there anymore. He could have been killed in Vietnam, or Korea. He could have gone to live in another country. Erik didn't know a thing about Janos or Azazel's families, or their lives before they had gone to work for Shaw…

And the thought floated through his mind that he was probably going to end up sending all of their effects to Charles, eventually. Charles would just love that.

-0-0-0-

Peter had to admit that he had really missed sleeping in a bed. He had never been a fan of camping, even when tents and sleeping bags were provided (so needless to say, his stint in the boy scouts had been a short one), and going without had been even less pleasant. Not that he had said as much. It would be pointless to say as much (as Marya kept reminding him, he was not a child anymore), and he got the distinct impression that Erik wasn't enjoying the forced camping trips any more than he was. Silence that surly in the mornings couldn't mean a whole lot else.

So Peter wasn't terribly surprised, and yet managed to be elated, when Erik announced that they were finding a hotel for the night they'd be spending in Indianapolis. The hotel in question really wasn't what anyone would call a swanky place, but there were beds and a shower and a fridge and microwaves! Peter had never realized how much he took these things for granted before he wound up spending all of his nights sleeping on the ground somewhere. The hotel also had a phone, which had proved quite welcome as well.

"Yeah, I know I should have called earlier, but we've been kinda off the grid." Peter lied back on his bed, head on the pillow and phone pressed up against his ear. He wound the cord around his finger listlessly, as he had done in the eternity between his dialing the number and Marya picking up (God, phone calls could be tedious.)

Marya made a clicking sound with her tongue so loud that it could be easily heard over the phone. "I don't much like the sound of that."

"Well, we had to ditch the car in West Virginia, and that sucked—"

"You had to leave your car?! Oh, Peter…"

They were speaking in Romani, as Marya had taught Peter and Wanda when they were small. Language is history, Marya and elderly Uncle Isaac had told them. It is the language your mother learned in her cradle, the tongue of our people. Our language is the beginning of our culture, which too many have tried to take away from us. Even if Marya Maximoff's household didn't keep marime* very well, they kept the language.

Speaking Romani had come in handy for Peter and Wanda at school, too. Since no one else at school spoke the language, the twins could have a private conversation without eavesdroppers whenever they wanted—well, up until the moment the lit teacher called them out and threatened to give them detention unless they agreed to "speak proper English like loyal Americans" (Somebody was a diehard McCarthyist who liked to imagine that Communists lurked in the air vents outside the teacher's lounge). There was no reason for worrying about eavesdroppers this time—Erik had stepped out a couple of hours (an eternity) ago and had yet to return—but Peter liked being able to speak Romani, and so did Marya. They had been the only ones in the house speaking it for over a year, now.

"We got pulled over by some cops," Peter explained. "Dad got paranoid, and we ditched the car to be safe." Peter left out his own part in this story, his own fear, the terrified thought of Oh my God. They're either gonna send me to prison or try to shoot me right here. He didn't particularly want to dwell on that.

"Let me get this straight." Marya did not sound in any way, shape or form amused. "Because Erik got paranoid… you had to abandon your car."

"Aww, Mom, it's not that bad. Yeah, Wanda'll bawl me out when she finds out, but we can save up our money and buy another Nova on the cheap for being a beater."

Peter heard a sound over the phone that might have been Marya laughing. "For someone who gets bored so easily, you are fond of repetition sometimes."

Peter shrugged, though he knew Marya couldn't see him doing it (She could probably tell though, with that Mom sixth-sense she seemed to have sometimes). His mouth quirked down in a frown for a moment, before he forced it back up into that neutral line—smile hovering on his lips even if it didn't come through all the way, all the time. Honestly? He'd loved that car. So had Wanda. They'd spent weeks fixing it up and making it drivable, and this when they didn't even have their driver's licenses yet; they'd had to lie to the car dealer and say it was a gift for their foster mother.

Of course Wanda hadn't taken it with her when she left; it was theirs, not hers alone, and that didn't make it hers to take. But for the past year, even though the car was one of those things that was theirs, it had effectively been Peter's—his. There weren't a whole lot of teenagers who enjoyed having to share their stuff with their siblings, but Wanda had been gone for so long. Peter would have been happy to label everything he owned as 'theirs' if it just meant that he could see her again.

"Peter…" Marya's tone softened, faint worry taking the place of fond exasperation. "Are you alright?"

Peter squirmed on the bed. "Yeah, Mom, I'm fine."

"Are you alright, Peter?" Marya insisted. "Have you been getting enough to eat?"

He looked down, examined himself. Peter would be lying if he said that his clothes didn't fit a bit more loosely now than they had when he left his home in Alexandria. For most people, weight loss wouldn't be visible after spending the past week the way he had. But then, Peter wasn't most people. "It's okay, Mom."

"I mean it, Peter." There was no mistaking the worry in her voice now. "You remember what happened the last time you stopped eating as much as you should."

"I remember, Mom." A beat. "I don't think I'm gonna forget that any time soon."

He'd splurged this evening on food, and that was by Peter's standards. A lot of the meals eaten at the Maximoff household were takeout, which was just fine considering that everyone in that house loved takeout. Marya had always made sure her kids ate healthy food—in Peter's case had to practically shove his vegetables down his throat for a few years—but there were times, a lot of times as the years wore on, when takeout was just easier. It was cheaper, for Marya, Wanda and Lorna it lasted for several meals, and you could at least order dishes that had steamed vegetables in them if you were worried about how healthy or unhealthy this was.

Peter's love of takeout, specifically takeout of the Chinese persuasion, had dictated what he went for this time. He had been living off of snack cakes and hot dogs and corn dogs for a week now. All good food, true, but for God's sake, he needed real food. He had placed his order in the tiny little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and then ran around the block (and the next five) a few times to give himself something to do while he waited. Peter had ordered enough food for approximately six people; the man he gave his order to asked if he was having a party.

Food for five of those people, Peter had eaten himself, devouring rice and noodles and all manner of shellfish and steamed vegetables and pot-stickers and crab Rangoon and plenty of other stuff besides. It had been a week since he'd eaten as he needed to, and if he was eating more now than he usually did, well, that was just to make up for all the eating he'd lost in the past week. If his stomach felt uncomfortably tight, well, that was just the price he had to pay, and he'd be hungry again in the morning, no matter how much he ate this evening.

What was left, Peter had set aside for his father, one of the takeout place's fried rice dishes, and an eggroll and a couple of pot-stickers. He had been kind of hesitant on that score, actually. Peter knew that Erik was Jewish; it was one of the little tidbits of information about him that Peter and Wanda had managed to wheedle from a wary Marya when they were little (And come to think of it, Peter felt kind of stupid for not putting two and two together when, to make them feel better, Marya had told the story of a "friend" of hers and Magda's who could move metal objects without touching them). Peter knew also that observant Jews had certain dietary laws that needed to be abided by. Unfortunately, Peter didn't know a whole lot about those dietary laws (he supposed he'd have to look them up later); the most he knew was that pork was definitely not on the menu. He hoped that what he'd gotten would be okay. It wasn't worth rocking the boat over something like that.

"Are you happy?"

Here was the question Peter was hoping she wouldn't ask him. He'd come to dread it over the past year, honestly. "Mom, I'm finally looking for Wanda. Really looking, instead of running around D.C. hoping I'll find her there. I'm the happiest I've been since she left."

Mercifully, Marya took his cue and switched the course of the conversation. "Have you heard anything about where Wanda is."

"Uh-uh. But she always talked about how much she wanted to see San Francisco, so I figure that's as good a place as any to look."

"San Francisco?" Even without seeing her in person, Peter could practically see Marya's shoulders sagging. "Peter, that city is huge. Even if Wanda is there, even with someone who can move as fast as you can looking for her, you could search for weeks and never see hide or hair of your sister."

"I know, Mom. But I've gotta look."

"That you do. I wouldn't stop you."

All of a sudden, there came the sound of a key twisting the lock. Peter looked up when Erik slipped inside of the room, resetting the lock behind him and putting up the door chain. "Oh, hey," Peter said in English, putting his hand over the telephone mouthpiece. "I picked up Chinese. Yours is in the fridge."

Erik nodded absently, not looking at him.

When Peter turned his attention back to the phone, Marya said, "Well, Lorna has already gone to bed, and I'd rather not wake her."

Peter tried not to let the taste of disappointment sit too heavily in his mouth. He switched back to Romani—there was a potential eavesdropper in earshot now. "Oh, okay. Tell the Munchkin I said hello."

"I'll do that, and if you call at an earlier hour, you could speak to her yourself. Also…" Marya hesitated for a few moments (Another eternity). "…A man came by our house today with an offer for you."

"Who was it?" Peter frowned more deeply. Erik's paranoia was probably rubbing off on him, that had to be it, but he didn't like the idea of some strange man showing up at their house looking specifically for him. If it was the police looking for something he'd stolen, that'd be different. Marya probably would have told him about that straight off, followed by her by now completely memorized speech on how, given that he was now technically an adult, he had to take responsibility and be a functioning part of society. But this? This sounded weird.

"Yes, he said his name was Charles Xavier. He did show up at our house about a month ago—he was looking for you then, too."

Marya still sounded a little concerned, but Peter felt all the tension flow out of his shoulders. "Oh yeah, him. He's cool, Mom; he's a mutant like me and Wanda." He was also that guy that Erik seemed to be in love with, despite vehement denials and frankly vicious sucker punches.

"Yes, I know," she said dryly. "He gave a demonstration of his powers when I proved to be a bit too cagey for his liking. Funny thing is, I distinctly remember him being able to walk the last time we met."

"What, he can't now?"

"No, he can't. He was in a wheelchair the whole time; had to be helped into the house. He didn't really seem to want to explain why he was in that wheelchair either." The note of frustration in her voice was that distinct one Peter had become familiar with after a lifetime with Marya, the frustration of not knowing the answer to a question and having her efforts to find that answer blocked. She ought to have been a detective, not a clerk.

Peter grimaced. "That sounds… god-awful, honestly." He could not imagine being stuck in a wheelchair. Peter was sure he'd die of boredom and frustration within an hour if, by some unlucky occurrence, he could no longer walk. Life was meant for moving, for walking, for running, for strolling and gamboling. Life wasn't meant to be spent sitting in a chair, unable to move around unaided. While he didn't know anyone who could move as fast as he could, nor anyone who put quite so high a value on being able to run around as he did, Peter knew that going from being able to walk under their own power to being unable to walk at all would have to be a huge upheaval for anyone. Not something he wished on other people, he had to say.

"Yes, it does." Marya was another who prided herself on her independence, her ability to look after herself unaided.

"So what'd he want?" Peter asked, steering the conversation back on course.

"He said that at some point—and of course he couldn't tell me when—he was opening, well, re-opening, a school for… people like you and Wanda. Mutants. What he said was…" Marya hesitated "…He said that the school was so that you would learn how to better control your powers, and so that you would be able to be with people like you. Does that sound like somewhere you would want to go, Peter?"

There was no mistaking the strain of anxiety in Marya's voice. She had been alive long enough and had been through enough that she knew how it started. You get all the people you don't want around in one place, shove 'em in like sardines and refuse them adequate food and water, refuse them proper medical care, shoot anyone caught trying to leave. Sometimes, you shoot even if they aren't trying to leave, just for fun. Marya had been there. She had always told Peter and Wanda (and later Lorna as well) not to trust the government too much. She had always told them not to follow the government blindly, not to do what someone said just because they claimed to be a representative of the U.S. government.

"You are not sheep. You are not like lambs that they can lead into a slaughterhouse without fuss. You can't claim the excuse of ignorance, that you didn't know what might happen. It's happened before; it can happen again. I know this is frightening for you. I don't want to frighten you. But you need to know."

"Yeah, sure!"

But this was different. This Xavier guy was a mutant. On the one hand, being taught and living with some guy his dad had been (or still was, even if he didn't want to admit it) in love with, and had apparently had a nasty break-up with at some point in the past? Awkward. On the other hand, Peter would get to live with other mutants and see what they could do. It'd be a place where no one looked twice at his gray hair or did a double-take at how fast he could talk. And whatever crazy terrorist super-villain scheme his father was currently trying to cook up, Peter didn't want any part of that.

"Do you think he'd take Wanda too?"

"I imagine so. But please don't force your sister to do anything she doesn't want to do."

"Oh, come on! When have I ever done that?!"

"I distinctly remember an occasion when the two of you were eight. Something to do with the ketchup bottle and the garden hose?"

"Mom? Can we please stop talking about these things like I haven't changed at all in the past ten years?" Peter asked testily.

She laughed. "Alright. There are plenty of other stories I could talk about, but I'm afraid Lorna would try to reenact them. God forbid we have a repeat of the Day of Baking Soda."

"Well of course she'd try to reenact that. Munchkin's cool like that."

"Don't encourage her. I'm afraid she'll somehow hear all of this even though she's asleep." Marya sighed. "Well, it's late and I've got work in the morning. I love you, Peter. Please try to call again soon; I'll tell you if Wanda's called me."

They both knew she wouldn't have that sort of news the next time Peter called her. Wanda hadn't called once since she left.

"Love you too, Mom. I promise I'll call earlier next time; tell Munchkin I miss her."

"I will, Peter."

Peter put the phone back on the hook and sighed, just a little bit. He looked over at the other bed and saw Erik sitting on the edge, wolfing down his warmed-up supper. Either Peter hadn't picked out something that went against Jewish dietary laws, or Erik just didn't care. "So what were you doing?" Peter asked, staring at him.

"Mailing packages," Erik replied succinctly.

"Mailing…" Peter's eyes widened. "Oh, shit! You didn't just mail someone a bomb, did you?!"

"What?!" Judging by just how offended Erik looked at the suggestion, either was protesting too much, or he really was offended by the suggestion. Peter couldn't really tell which. "Of course not! What makes you think I would do that?"

Peter shrugged. "Who ever knows what a terrorist super-villain's gonna do in his spare time?"

Erik glared at him over the 'terrorist super-villain' thing (Look, man, if the shoe fits…) but didn't respond. "I just did exactly what I said I did. I mailed some packages."

"Who to?"

"An old friend," Erik told him, his face unreadable.

Marime are purity laws dictating social behavior traditionally followed by Roma and Sinti.