Peter Maximoff never had a father around growing up, and for the most part, that was completely fine. Marya had had a series of boyfriends that never seemed to last longer than a month or so—they got scared when they saw the twins, and Peter and Wanda agreed that if a man was scared by the idea that a woman he was seeing had kids (even foster kids), he was not worth keeping around, thank you very much. In time, Marya inevitably came to agree with them on that score, though the time it took was usually directly proportional to just how active a role the twins had played in alienating the latest guy from Marya.

Then there came the jackass from Toledo, the guy so worthless that Peter refused to mention him by name. The Maximoff household did not talk about the jackass from Toledo. Peter would tell you that he was very sorry that he had begged Marya to take them to the Great Lakes the summer before Lorna was born, and not much beyond that. The only good thing to come from that relationship was Lorna herself. The whole thing seemed to have soured Marya on men permanently; she'd never even considered another relationship after that one.

The Maximoff twins had never had a father around growing up, and they had not appreciated any attempts by any man to replace him. If they were going to have a dad, they wanted their dad, their flesh and blood father. Even if Marya's various boyfriends didn't understand this, Marya got it—she had never pretended to be their birth mother, had never hid from them the fact that she was their adoptive mother and that their birth mother had been her cousin. (Peter hadn't called Aunt Marya 'Mom' until he was ten years old. He wasn't proud of that.)

Peter had expected his association with Erik Lehnsherr to begin and end in the Pentagon. Sure, it was cool, breaking someone out of what had to be one of the highest-security prisons on the planet, but in retrospect, it hadn't been the smartest thing to do. He hadn't asked nearly enough questions about the guy and what the hell he was doing in the Pentagon in the first place. Peter had known it must have been for something big, but hey, Nelson Mandela was in prison too, and Xavier and company had seemed trustworthy enough—Peter hadn't figured them for the sort of people who'd break a psycho out of prison. Peter hadn't expected the guy to turn out to be a terrorist super villain out to kill U.S. presidents and lead a bloody revolution or whatever the fuck it was Erik was doing; the man hadn't been very clear about that, and Peter wasn't sure that even Erik knew what he was doing right now.

Of course, Peter also hadn't expected Erik Lehnsherr to turn out to be his and Wanda's MIA father.

They were at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Seriously. There wasn't a town for miles in any direction, only one road going past the truck stop, and the landscape was absolutely featureless—no trees or hills or ponds or anything like that, just flat farmland. Pretty boring place. Peter knew that the good old U.S. of A had a lot of nothing in it, but he hadn't expected it to look so boring.

"That sign says there's a town five miles from here," Peter pointed out to Erik, nodding towards the road sign erected right outside of the truck stop. "I could just…" He wiggled his fingers, a gesture that Peter wasn't entirely sure translated to 'super-speed' all that well, but he suspected Erik would get the message regardless.

And ouch, not even a worded reply, not even a glare, just one of those pointed looks Erik used when he didn't feel like dignifying something with a response. He looked remarkably like Wanda when he made that face, though in Erik's case, the look had lately been losing its sharp edge. Peter knew he shouldn't have been surprised—he didn't really know anyone who wanted to do a ride-along with him at high speeds—but he never failed to be disappointed when someone reacted to the idea of going fast with such a resounding 'No.' They really didn't know what they were missing.

"Stay close to me," Erik muttered as they neared the convenience store.

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Look, man, I'm not just gonna leave you out here in the middle of nowhere." Let's ignore the fact that he'd threatened to do just that their very first day of traveling together; given the circumstances, Peter didn't consider that to be remotely the same thing. "That'd leave me in a tight spot too."

Erik shook his head. "That's not what I meant." There was something familiar about the set of his jaw. "Just stay where I can see you."

He got it. At least, Peter thought he got it. It was hard to tell with Erik sometimes, and it wasn't like Peter had had a lifetime with the guy to decipher what all of these small gestures and looks meant. No zipping into the next town for him.

The convenience store was at least big enough that Peter could spend a few minutes looking around while Erik chatted up the cashier. For a convenience store out in the middle godforsaken nowhere, there sure was a lot of touristy stuff here; some parts of the looked more like a gift shop than anything else. Peter shook a dusty snow globe until the ballerina figurine inside was completely obscured until the ballerina figurine inside was completely obscured by whatever it was they used to make the snowflakes. He tried on a couple of ball caps, dismissing them all one by one on grounds of clashing color or the fact that the ball team it represented sucked. Peter held a kaleidoscope up to the light fixture and snickered at some of the cheaper, more rhinestone-encrusted sunglasses out on display.

He should pick up some souvenirs for Marya and Lorna. Shouldn't he? That was something people did while traveling, right? Peter hadn't done that much traveling, but he was pretty sure that was what people did while traveling. One of his older cousins had gone to Spain once with friends and brought back a ton of cheap little trinkets for the younger kids in the family.

Not here, though. This stuff all looked like the sort of cheap stuff that would break in about a week. Who knew how long he'd be holding onto the stuff before he saw Marya or Lorna again? Peter decided to wait until they'd found Wanda and were heading back towards Alexandria.

Erik was taking ages with the cashier; Peter could only assume he was trying to get them a ride to wherever it was they were heading next. Peter wondered how many candy bars and Gatorade bottles he could stuff into his bag without anyone noticing. He could probably stuff at least four of each into the bag without creating a noticeable bulge, but he usually did hit-and-run shoplifting. Peter rarely lingered after grabbing what he wanted, and wasn't sure how to act otherwise.

Besides, his dad had eyes like a hawk—you'd think he actually had raised a child, his eyes were so sharp—and for all that Erik had no qualms about massive property damage, assault with a deadly weapon and murder, he bizarrely enough had something against shoplifting of foodstuffs. Weird. Somebody definitely had their wires crossed where priorities were concerned.

Peter decided against it.

After what felt like an eternity of pacing around the convenience store, Erik caught his eye and waved him over. "We've got a ride to Milwaukee. We'll catch a bus to Topeka from there."

"Milwaukee?" Peter repeated. "I don't really know geography, but isn't that a bit out of the way?"

"It's the best we've got," Erik replied firmly, and no one, let alone Peter, could have mistaken the note of finality in his voice. Erik strode out of the store and Peter followed after him, brow furrowed.

-0-0-0-

Peter wondered what Wanda would think of their father.

He and Erik had slid into the cab of an eighteen-wheeler transporting produce after a middle-aged black man, Erik sitting by the passenger's window and Peter stuck in the middle seat sandwiched between them. The driver didn't seem too interested in conversation; Peter peppered him with a few questions about his job and stuff he'd seen on the highway, which the driver responded to succinctly. Erik had taken to staring out of the window, and Peter didn't think it'd be the best idea to talk to him right now. Man didn't look like he was in the mood, and it would probably end badly if the driver recognized his voice. So all Peter could do was stare out at the road, try not to squirm in his seat too much, and think.

He wondered what Wanda would make of their father. They had spent their whole lives wondering who and where he was, what he was doing, and if he was even still alive. The possibility that their dad could be dead wasn't one Wanda had liked to discuss, when she still talked about them at all. She never wasted any time shutting Peter down when he brought up the idea that their father might be dead.

They'd contemplated many possibilities, when they still talked about it. Maybe their dad was some politician or other kind of big-shot in the Soviet Union, and that was why the family never talked about him. Maybe he was a KGB guy, and their mother had left him because she couldn't live with what her husband was doing. Maybe he was a hippie and he spent all his time lying around smoking weed.* Maybe…

But then, Wanda hadn't wanted to talk about it anymore. The image of her face set in displeasure, frowning deeply with lines etched into her pale forehead, materialized in Peter's mind. He grimaced. Peter hoped that wouldn't be the face she showed when he saw her again. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, she'd look happier than that.

Hell, even Peter didn't quite know what to make of Erik. On the one hand, he'd actively tracked Peter down when he'd thought he might be his kid, and actually seemed interested in Wanda, too. On the other hand… Terrorist. Terrorist who had spent the last ten years in prison.

Yeah.

And Peter could tell that as much as Erik seemed to want to know his kids, he wasn't especially keen about the idea of being a father. There was a difference between the two, and where Erik was concerned, something just wasn't quite clicking. Peter couldn't tell what that something was, but he knew there was something off. He'd seen people interacting with new stepchildren or adopted kids, trying to be parents but not quite sure how to be. This wasn't that.

If Peter could see it, Wanda would definitely be able to see it. She'd always been the sort of person who ferreted out somebody's shortcomings and judged them for it. Growing up, Wanda had always been the first to call Peter out for nabbing a snack cake from the store or rearranging a particularly awful teacher's desk while the teacher wasn't looking. Peter wasn't sure what Wanda would be less impressed by, the fact that Erik was a terrorist and a convict, or the fact that after eighteen years of absence, he was kind of a half-assed parent.

(She'd probably have resented it if Erik had emerged from the ether only to behave as though he had a right to be a properly attentive, involved father. On reflection, Peter supposed that he'd probably resent it, too. Funny, that.)

Wanda and Erik's first meeting was going to be… interesting. Peter kind of wished he knew Wanda's phone number so he could call ahead and warn her. "Hey, Wanda, it's Peter. I found our dad! We're coming to find you. Just to warn you, though, he can be kinda lousy. Like, he's not nearly as bad as he could've been, and he actually wants to know about us and he's got a good excuse for being a deadbeat, but he's a bit shitty. Can't put my finger on why, but I guess I couldn't be the only fuck-up in the family, huh?"

He'd probably feel bad about it when it happened, but Peter didn't feel like warning Erik. He could handle it and, Peter reasoned, he kinda deserved it, too.

-0-0-0-

It had been kind of chilly in Milwaukee. Was that normal for this time of year? Peter had spent every fall and winter that he could remember in Virginia, and how hot or cold it was there depended on coastal currents or some such stuff; meteorology wasn't Peter's strong suit. It also wasn't like Peter had ever been this far west (According to Marya, they had been born in New York, so he couldn't say the same about north). For all he knew, this was normal.

But hey, they'd caught a bus to Topeka, no problem, and now they were on their way.

"It's just a river," Erik remarked, eyes glued on his newspaper. The bus hit a bump on the road and Erik stiffened in his seat, frowning slightly, but returned to his newspaper without comment.

"Hey, the Mississippi is not just a river," Peter protested. He waved his hands, trying to simulate, he didn't know, maybe a knife cutting a cake in half. He was pretty sure he was doing it wrong, anyways. "It's the river that, like, partitions the entire continent—"

"I'm fairly certain you're exaggerating. The Mississippi flows from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico; it hardly partitions the whole continent."

"And I'm telling you that that's not the point. I've never been west of the Mississippi in my life; this is a whole new experience for me."

Unless Peter's eyes deceived him (and they might; it was getting pretty dark outside), Erik might have smiled a little. "You've seen the Potomac, haven't you? The Mississippi isn't so different from that."

Peter glared at him. "Bet you're lying."

"What?" There was no mistaking the timbre of incredulity in Erik's voice, even if he was keeping his voice down. "Why would I lie about something like that?"

"To mess with me?"

Erik laid his newspaper down and down his nose at Peter. Ouch, you still look exactly like… "Pietro."

"Peter." Peter clapped a hand to his forehead and grinned ruefully. "Damn, we nearly got through a whole day without you calling me that. What's with the relapse?"

"It really is just a river. If you attach too much significance to it, you'll only be disappointed."

"You see, it's an attitude like that that sucks all the enjoyment out of life."

"Besides," Erik went on, in an all-too-casual voice, "for impressive sights, the Grand Canyon far outdoes the Mississippi river."

Peter's eyebrows shot up. Erik had returned to his newspaper, and was studiously avoiding eye contact. In fact, he was holding the newspaper so close to him that Peter couldn't even see his face. Peter's lip twitched. "I'll take your word for it."

Peter went back to staring out of the window. They only had a few miles to go before hitting the bridge that would take them over the Mississippi river. It was really getting dark outside now; the sky had changed colors from red and purple to a rich indigo blue, the darkness punctured by stars. From his seat he watched the other cars pass the bus or race in the opposite direction, never knowing that there was a kid out there who could go twice as fast as them without breaking a sweat.

He'd never imagined this.

"Hey… I've got a question."

"…What is it?"

Peter pressed his head against the window and frowned pensively. "If…" He paused, then shook his head. "No, never mind," he muttered. "It's not important." Not important anymore.

He could feel Erik staring at him, but neither one of them spoke.

-0-0-0-

The Mississippi was a broad, black ribbon in the twilight. When they crossed over it, Peter finally felt a little closer to his sister.

* Peter and Wanda had a rather caricatured view of hippies growing up.