Chapter 12
Having worked in the laboratory with Wanda for one day only Erik felt her absence on Thursday morning strongly nonetheless. He and Hank worked in a type of silence that pressed on the Master of Magnetism more than the one he lived in for ten years during his Pentagon imprisonment so at the end it compelled him to take a break.
The man was in the middle of making a cup of coffee in the kitchen when a box of biscuits caught his eye and made the corners of his lips turn up ever so slightly and involuntarily, it would’ve frozen Charles on the spot in gladness, on the verge of tears perhaps (as he had a sensitive soul).
Twinkies
Lehnsherr could be hardly called a sweet tooth, still, having seen the silver-haired boy consuming these things daily in concerning amounts, he decided it would be for the benefit of the latter if there were two or three cakes less left in the package but ended up eating all of them and shamelessly fleeing the scene of the crime.
When McCoy said that Wanda asked for a day off, Erik though she was going to spend it sleeping to cure her migraine or laying in bed with a book or watching a TV show. At least it was the things he would do if could, but these days sleep was his nemesis for the most part, sending him nightmarish images worse than the memory he revisited in the company of Raven and the youngsters, and books, least of all TV shows, weren’t able to keep his attention for long. However, the girl had other plans. Through the window opened on the first floor, Lehnsherr saw her sitting on the blanket in the shadow of oak branches together with her brother. Judging by the look on their faces the mood of the conversation going on between them didn’t really match the childishness of making paper airplanes.
“Did Hank kick you out of the lab already?” he heard slightly husky voice from behind his back before Raven came into his view.
It was a strange feeling to stand in the same mansion as eighteen years ago, having gone through so much, having changed so much yet in some ways stay more authentic to their old selves than the building itself.
“If it were so, the gossips would’ve already reached you,” Erik made a fair point. “Wanda, for instance, is dating Kurt, whom some, by the way, consider to be your son.”
“What?!” Mystique’s brows shot up. “How do you even know about that?”
The hearsay was trusted to the Master of Magnetism by the speedster at some point during yesterday’s dinner but he didn’t betray his resource, giving a nonchalant half shrug to the woman instead.
She shook the astonishment off and took a better look at Erik. They were lovers, they were allies and members of the Brotherhood of Mutants, they even fell apart to the point of being enemies one step away from murdering each other, but never were they friends in a true meaning of the word. Once a radical with harsh ideals and methods of their achievement now stood a man who lost too much regardless of the ways he chose to live his life. Casting aside the matters of the past, it made Darkholme’s heart fill with sympathy that pricked a little because of the life-changing knowledge she was intentionally hiding from him.
“Are you planning to stay here?”
“You, of all people, I though, would understand that the role of a teacher doesn’t suit me.”
A clear “no” could be easily read between these lines but Raven wasn’t the one to back off easily.
“Depends on the subject,” she retorted, the words came out to be ambiguous, hinting on the things School for Gifted Youngsters would’ve never given a glimpse of. “You can help me train Charles’ students, prepare them.”
“For what?” The man only blinked, the expression in his eyes was one of a calm, passive even. “You and I both know whatever the preparations are, it’s not enough.”
The look on the woman’s face was more challenging than her tone. “So better leave them defenseless?”
Wounded and confused, Erik’s soul still had a place for his mutant brothers and sisters, a momentary lapse of reason encouraged by Apocalypse didn’t change that. Only now, putting aside revolutionary methods, the man decided to contribute in Charles’ vision of dealing with potential tribulations, coming to the rescue of McCoy’s project. Although Wanda’s insistency, as well as her obvious aspiration for the work on sentinels’ development to include the Master of Magnetism (for the reasons he still struggled to explain), played a role, too.
“I don’t know what’s better,” always strongly opinionated Lehnsherr admitted simply, taking aback Mystique. “But they have you and Charles. You’ll figure it out.”
“So you won’t stay.”
A conclusion, not a question, but the man still gave her a short nod.
“Hank and Wanda need much less help than they believe.”
The eye contact between them was broken when Erik shifted his attention back to the scenery seen outside the window, the sunlight falling onto his hair made it russet in its warming beams yet had no power over the gloomy pensiveness lurking in his features.
As Darkholme traced the point of the man’s gaze, her own eyes stumbled upon the Maximoffs.
Peter must have come up with some witticism on his twin account because Wanda threw a paper airplane at him for it to only fly right in her face.
“I told you, you’re doing it wrong!” the speedster barely got out, shaking from laughter. “Who even throws paper planes like that?”
“Well, I do,” the girl answered and rubbed the skin under her eye, chuckling at her own clumsiness. “It’s quite obvious that wind direction is to be blamed for my failure.”
After the youngsters came back to the school and Hank excused Wanda from the lab work with readiness and understanding that could be found rather in a friend than in a scientist obsessed with his project, the twins came on a perfect spot in the arboretum, instantly captivated by its lavish greenness.
The girl laid on her side, her still straight hair cascaded like a waterfall of dark chocolate over her shoulders and arm that supported her head. “Beastique sounds like a fancy name for a pet store so I opt for Haven.”
Peter snorted, a complacent grin already playing on his lips. He sprawled on the blanket, hands under his head, legs crossed as he listened to the world around with his eyes blissfully closed.
Doing origami, as their father rightfully noticed, wasn’t the only thing that occupied them. In between making paper figures the twins tried to figure out how to approach Erik with the thing that could either make them even more happy than they already were, or add a big problem, combining that discussion with a much lighthearted one – creating the code names for the pairs-in-the making, namely –Raven plus Hank and Charles plus Moira.
“CharM?” the speedster suggested.
“Symbolic, but no,” his sister replied after some consideration. “Maybe invite him to the walk in the park? No kids usually wander there in the evening so the chances of that conversation being disturbed by someone are pretty low.”
His nose wrinkled. “No kids but hordes of mosquitoes. X Mac? McX?”
“Are you creating items for McDonalds menu?” Wanda raised a brow, teasing (Peter knew it without even opening his eyes). “Then we can use his early morning stroll to our benefit.”
“No witnesses,” the young man mused, more prone to agree with his sister this time. “Xaggert?”
“I actually like it. Yeah, I think we can stop on Haven and Xaggert.”
“What’s about parlor room? It’s empty most of the time.”
Maximoff’s brows drew together slightly. “Where is it?”
“That’s what I’m talking about.” The speedster smirked. “Not sure anyone had ever been there.”
Knowing full well that deciding on where wasn’t a fundamental thing to do, brother and sister let out a sigh, fighting a newly appeared habit of tip toeing around a problem until further notice. But peering at the blue pieces of the sky visible between the dancing with the wind leaves above their heads didn’t help.
A groan of defeat escaped Wanda’s throat when she plopped down on the blanket next to her brother.
“Damned words,” silver-haired Maximoff muttered in a rare moment of having no idea how to form a speech in advance so when the now scheduled revelation came, he wouldn’t chicken out (again).
“Do you think he remembers what I told him in Cairo?”
I’m your…I’m here for my family too.
They didn’t really spend much time together before Wanda came to the school, but Erik never asked about this. Not even once he tried to clarify the beginning of the phrase that had been left dangling in the air, replaced by a generalized idea, no less truthful. At that moment Peter thought he caught a spark of something like hope in Magneto’s eyes, or as if the man was waiting to hear the confirmation of already known fact, but the more time passed, the more it seemed like the work of his own imagination.
“A few occasions have proven that he, in fact, pays more attention to the things happening around him than it appears,” the girl said softly before she turned her head to meet a pair of dark eyes already looking at her. “But back then he was too overwhelmed to analyze the words of some boy he met almost a decade ago, Pete.”
Only Wanda was allowed to call him that way, but now it felt like a bittersweet attempt at coaxing.
“I thought you aren’t a calculating type.”
The twins jerked upright in their places as if a jolt of electricity passed through their bodies. With their hearts thundering and eyes wide from instantaneously spiked adrenaline, both peered at the figure standing just two feet away from them.
When the common sense prevailed over panicky one, the Maximoffs clutched at their chest at the same time, struggling for air to fill their stiffened lungs.
“You do know we are all aware of the reasons people call you Mystique?”
An undisguised note of reproach in Wanda’s tone could be easily justified since the woman quite literally creeped up on them. At least it appeared to be so – for the time conversing neither the girl nor the speedster spotted any signs of people loitering in the close vicinity, leaving them clueless about the sudden intruder.
Although Peter bounced back to his usual quirky state of being quickly, living up to his codename. “What made you think we’re calculating something?”
Unlike his sister, the young man was unperturbed, feeling no need in being cautious around Raven. The genuine care she put in the words said to Magneto in time of the crises as well as her attempt to end Apocalypse when the bastard literally held the speedster’s head in his arm earned the woman Peter’s sympathy and trust of sorts.
“I know that planning-big-scale-things-look too well,” Darkholme replied, sparks of amusement dancing around her eyes.
Paying a closer attention to the youngsters, she noted a few things that, probably, were the reasons behind Lehnsherr’s frown when he observed them from out of the window. The speedster’s silver locks reminded of raging sea waves, the lines under his eyes deepened, creating an overall impression of someone who didn’t get enough sleep, albeit compared to his sister’s paled skin and a bit more hollowed than usually cheeks that didn’t really cooperated with her new rather glamorous hairstyle, the young man seemed to be full of energy.
She jerked her chin slightly towards the girl first, then – her twin. “You look a mess.”
“Not so bad yourself,” Maximoff crooned with an audacious smile.
There was no point in objecting the beauty of her blond curls styled into an effortless braid and shining charcoal grey eyes accentuated with black liner, yet it was still a mask to covered her true form.
Raven narrowed her eyes slightly in acknowledgement of a good opponent and smirked, leaving the quip unanswered. At first. Because when she settled down on the grass to join the twins’ sit-together, she returned the favor. “Erik said you and Kurt are dating.”
A highly dissatisfied “Urgh” complimented with an eye roll erupted from the girl’s throat, sending Peter laughing again. “Erik has become quite talkative these days.”
“He really did,” Mystique agreed in earnest. “When the two of you are around.”
Not prepared to hear anything along these lines, brother and sister swapped a glance that was a bit incredulous.
She already knows the whole thing, I’m sure we can get a piece of useful advice from her.
Should I remind you how she got to know about “the whole thing” in the first place, Mr. I-don’t-know-what-a-second-thought-means?
You almost called him ‘dad’!
You called us a family of scientists!
The dispute could’ve gone on and on if it weren’t for the speedster’s sense of time. The response to Mystiques’ remark was taking them unreasonably long to master and the silence established instead was turning into an uncomfortable one.
Stubbornness ran too deep in their family to trick Wanda into thinking her brother would give up on his idea because she didn’t like it much, so when the young man said “We were just in the midst of deciding how to tell him the family secret”, his twin wasn’t surprised.
“I was really starting to wonder if you’re gonna do this at all,” Darkholme said in an impish tone.
Unyielding, Maximoff parried, “Well, it’s not like we would be able to reverse the consequences of that conversation if there are going to be any so it’s better to have a plan.”
“Sometimes having no plan is the best plan you could possibly have.” The woman gave them a light shrug. “Just tell him.”
“We’ve been following this approach for the past month,” Peter muttered with a grimace. “Didn’t really work out.”
“What consequences are you worried about?” A line appeared between Raven’s brows. “Are you afraid of him?”
As Wanda turned her face to the speedster, she crooned a bit boastfully, “I told you, it’s a bad idea.”
“You’ll never know if you don’t give it a try,” silver-haired Maximoff persisted with a pointed look.
“Your sister is right,” the woman interjected, surprising both youngsters. “I’ve never had a family in its ordinary sense so I can’t really understand what you’re going through right now. But I know Erik, and I know there is no place in his heart to say no to his blood family. His children.”
“You weren’t so sure in your knowledge back then,” Peter fairly noted, remembering the time when they were trapped at the military base.
You know him? Magneto?
I used to. Not so sure anymore.
“It’s complicated with him.”
None of the twins doubted it.
Ever a devotee to listen to stories, the girl decided to ask for the one she desired to know since the Pentagon escapade and everything that unfolded after. “You, Erik, Hank and Mr. Xavier seem to be polar opposites. How did you all even meet?”
Mystique’s lips parted only to close a moment later.
“It’ll take a hella time to explain.”
The young man lifted a brow. “Are you in a hurry?”
The irony of this question coming from the speedster drew a light chuckle out of two women, especially when he made an offended face.
“I met Charles when we were around ten,” Raven began, her fingers already playing with a long blade of grass. “He caught me cleaning out the fridge in his house, his parents’ at that time. I took on his mother’s appearance but it was a miscalculation on my part –” a weak smile lifted the corners of her lips at a faraway memory “– he saw through my pretense. Recognizing a mutant in me, Charles offered to stay here so I did. We grew up together.”
An image of Charles and Raven being kids, running and playing on the vast grounds of this mansion began to unfold in Maximoff’s head, but its colors faded when the woman added with a note of bitterness in her voice, “Though I kept pretending, going for an ordinary kid most of the time.
“When Charles decided to go to Oxford, I came with him. While he was writing all these scientific papers, I served meals in the local café. The day he got his PhD, Moira found us. I presume you already know who she is –” Wanda gave her a nod “– She was looking for Charles because of his work on mutant gene, thought he can help her with the case. At that time, Sebastian Show planned to start a nuclear war, believing it would change everything for mutants, make them a “dominant race”. He also happened to be a former Nazi, one of those whom Erik haunted. Show, or Schmidt, the prick had a lot of names, killed his mother and tortured him in the concentration camp.
Something tightened in Maximoff’s core. It quickly downed on her that they were now talking about the man from her father’s nightmare. From his memory.
Peter, whose hands were busy with crumpling one of the numerous paper airplanes, flicked his eyes to their surroundings, looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
They heard about their father’s vengeful plan on tracing down those who oppressed their people during the war, but their mom didn’t frame it so brutally.
“Not sure I’m the one to tell you this part,” Raven admitted quietly.
She put aside Lehnsherr’s personal journey, leaving him a chance to tell it himself if one day he decided to do so, and focused on the other things instead. Thus, brother and sister got to know that Hank worked for the CIA before joining Division X together with now deceased Havoc, Banshee, Darwin and Angel. They now understood what exactly happened on Cuba as well as how the Brotherhood of Mutants was formed by their father to fight for the better future for mutants, though ultimately it didn’t last for long with Erik locked up in the Pentagon and Raven wandering around the globe and trying to rescue those in trouble. The latter didn’t shy away from the fact of having been romantically involved with the Master of Magnetism (the knowledge the twins could 100% live without) and that since the infamous events in Washington she didn’t seek the reunion neither with him nor with Charles, or Hank, until the news from Poland reached her.
Hours long conversation didn’t tire any of them, serving as a therapy of sorts for one party and a mean to satisfy curiosity and incite it on an even larger scale for another. It still seemed like a complicated, impossible to fully untangle mess, but life in general had never been easy hence many tribulations Lehnsherr went through and, in some cases, was the very cause of didn’t fright Peter and Wanda away. On the contrary, it strengthened their believe in the rightness of the decision made.
The speedster let out a whistle. “You know, all of it made me think how damn boring my life is.”
His twin pulled a rueful face and clapped his hand soothingly. “It’s called stability, bro.”
“I wouldn’t mind a stable percentage of alcohol in my system right now,” Mystique muttered dramatically.
“It’ll be a debauchery of the century if you sneak in Mr. Xavier’s office at this hour and drink his whiskey,” Wanda crooned in jest.
“I can already see Prof’s judgmental look,” Peter weighed in on.
In a second, the place Raven sat on was occupied by the mentioned man himself. His exact copy, to be precise, as the mutant’s hero demonstrated her impressive shape-shifting abilities.
Charles’ brows hugged closer to his eyes; lips curled slightly as he cast a stern yet still too warm for scolding glance at the twins.
“That’s too accurate,” the girl mumbled, astonished.
She, of course, saw Mystique “changing looks” but it was mostly switching between her naturally blue and human-like appearances (‘mostly’ because a few concerning thoughts popped up in her head: Were there times when she spoke with a fraud? How many? Was it a good morning type of thing exchange or something more meaningful?).
Still being under the guise of her sworn brother, Raven brought some clarity. “I rarely resort to “identity theft” for fun.”
The speedster could’ve bragged about the fact that he, unlike the other students who got used to Charles’ gentlemanly manners and soft smiles, had met the man in the days of his rebellious youth (or midlife crisis); however, “the Professor” doing air quotes made him titter. A complete opposite reaction to the one his sister had.
“Do you copy the powers too?” Maximoff asked, her eyes swimming with suspicion.
In the world populated with unknown number of telepaths when a person answered something unvoiced, it was a sort of wake-up call to be extra cautious.
Even though she knew neither Xavier nor Jean, both powerful psychics, were able to read her mind properly, she didn’t exclude the possibility of having a breach in her mental shield or the shape-shifter finding a way around it.
“Do you have any?”
It wasn’t the question that stung Wanda’s ego, but the fact that a mirror image of her own self posed it with a contemptuous grin.
The speedster’s eyes darted between Wanda I and Wanda II too fast for anyone’s perception as his brain was now frantically trying not to lose in “find ten differences” game. From jeans shorts and white laced top to silky hair and the dark green rings of the irises, every detail was copied to the point of being literally identical yet felt oddly unfamiliar and wrong to silver-haired Maximoff.
“Have you the ability to make a replica of it as well, you wouldn’t ask me,” the girl mused, the corners of her lips slowly but surely were turning up in a cunning smile. “In any case, I prefer to add a touch of mystery to my image.”
No superpowers were required to understand – however hard one pressed, they wouldn’t get more than Maximoff was ready to give.
“I, at least, can throw paper planes not in my face,” Darkholme taunted before sending flying a skillfully folded model of an airplane.
It cut through the air smoothly as if an invisible hand kept hold on that piece of paper, guiding it to a soft landing about ten yards away from the mutants.
“O-kay,” Wanda drawled with a slight narrow of her eyes. “Does this skill go back to the days when you thought Earth flat?”
Next paper airplane thrown pricked the delicate skin of her chest with its rather sharp nose.
The girl picked it up, tracing down the perfect lines of the bends with her fingertips. “But seriously though, how in the name of the queen do you do this?”
“And I’m just patiently waiting for the British tics to wane finally,” Peter said in a hushed tone to Wanda II with his hand cupped around his mouth.
“They may not,” Raven shared with the speedster, scrunching up her nose slightly. “Charles’ are still with him and he isn’t even a real Brit. I mean, his mother was from London and as I said we lived in Oxford for some time, but he was born and raised in the States. There wasn’t an actual environment to develop this accent.”
“I’m still here, you two,” Wanda noted pointedly.
“And stop –” she stumbled, making a sweeping motion over her Doppelganger “– wearing –” Maximoff stumbled again, not really sure how to tell a shape-shifter to end the pretense “– my everything!”
The woman gave her a “whatever” shrug and switched to her own human-like appearance.
“Thank you.”
A polite means of expressing gratitude sounded more like a rebuke when it left the girl’s lips.
“If you’re really intending to tell Erik the whole thing – tell him. Don’t delay it any further.”
Because he’ll leave soon, Darkholme though, but didn’t voice it, not wanting to put an extra pressure on two kids who already were one step away from bringing a considerable change into their lives.
Silver-haired Maximoff pressed his lips in a quick gesture of acknowledging her words. And even though his sister’s demeanour was all about nonchalance and oblivion, by the way her hand faltered for a second when she was taking a page out of her notebook, it was clear a piece of advice resonated on some level with her own point of view on that matter.
“And let’s give Wanda a lesson in paper planes throwing because it’s a total disaster.”
Having given it a good chuckle, the three of them fell into a state of being rather comfortable around each other and soon, the greenness of the lawn in the arboretum was diluted with specks of white that were numerous works of origami.
....
It was already late afternoon when Ororo realized sleep wasn’t an option. Although there was practically no energy left in her body, especially after an hour-long hot shower, her mind still stayed wide awake, random thoughts formed like bubbles in a glass of good champagne every now and then, unwilling to end the party.
God, I’d love to have a Ful Medames right now. With lots of garlic, parsley and that slightly crunchy Aish Baladi Mohamed always makes. Or Shawarma. It’s seven o’clock, and I wanna rock. Want to get a belly full of bear*. Where’s that grumpy racoon now? Probably biting something’s tale. But that electricity I shot through it? On point. She’s got electric boots, a mohair suit; You know I read it in a magaziiiine, oooh!* Napping in the car was a bad idea. Bennie! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie and The Jets*! How long does it take for Peter to get a proper rest? Must be a couple of hours if he is already awake when Magneto only goes out for a walk. Bennie! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie! Bennie and The Jets! Such a peaceful day today, even the kids aren’t nosy. Bennie! Benn –
“Oh, come on!” the girl groaned in her pillow. “I’ll never listen to pop music again!”
But the lyrics of Elton John’s catchy songs didn’t stop haunting Munroe so she tossed a blanket away, got up from the bed and, having no idea of what to do with herself, pulled on a lavender T-shirt with “I’m somebody special” graphic on it, a pair of acid wash shorts and Adidas sneakers before leaving her room.
She took her time wandering through the school’s corridors, even checked out the library and the gym, looking for familiar faces. At last, Ororo found herself on the basketball court.
“I thought I’m the only one who have trouble resting.”
The ball banked in off the backboard, then made a nerve-wreaking semicircle on the rim only to fall off the basket instead of going into the net.
“Having troubles has become my speciality lately,” Scott replied with a drop of disappointment in his voice and turned his face to the girl.
Actually, the two of them had never spent time one on one without somebody else from the gang being around and as that fact fully dawned on, awkwardness stretched between them, viscous and nasty like a gum that sticked to the ribbed sole of newly bought shoes.
Right after they arrived here from Cairo, Scott went back to his home state Ohio bearing the heartbreaking for his parents news. While he stayed there to mourn the loss of beloved brother and son, the first week of being at Xavier’s school had been about adapting for Ororo. Aside from the inevitable cultural shock and language barrier, the girl had to deal with the habit of looking behind her shoulder when taking a plate filled with food, accept that now glances cast at her were of curious nature and not disgust, or wily, calculating how to use her powers to someone’s benefit, and just live life of a twenty-one-year-old girl. Kurt was in the similar position as well as Peter in some ways, it helped to build a connection with them, then with Jean, who was really open to it, inadvertently excluding Scott from the early stage of bonding process.
And now they stood in the middle of an empty basketball court, Summers, with his hands braced on the hips, undoubtedly to give some air-conditioning to his armpits, and Munroe, her thumbs hooked through the belt loops on her shorts, unperturbed because New York’s summer was no match to Cairo’s with its baking sun, united in one – both were hesitant on how to communicate with each other.
“An American teenager who’s bad at sports? You’re ruining a cliché for me,” Ororo reproached him in jest.
Being Ohio native, hence Cleveland Cavaliers’ fan, the young man felt the need to parry this offence.
“I was just warming up,” he remarked in a boastful manner.
Nevertheless, his next shot was not much better, if not worse, as the ball ricocheted off the scoring goal right into the girl’s hands. She bounced it on the floor a few times, adjusting her hand to its weight and soft rubber cover, then jumped upward to throw it right into the hook. A perfect swish*. (A shot that goes through the hoop without touching the rim or backboard)
Summers’ forehead creased. “Do you play basketball?”
The girl snorted. “You wouldn’t call it like that if you saw the “court”.”
“Well, at whatever place you were practicing your skills, they seem to be pretty developed,” he surprised her with a compliment. “Wanna play a game?”
A sly twinkle made its way to Munroe’s dark eyes. “What the winner gets?”
Not prepared to find an eager to be challenged opponent today, it took a minute for Scott to come up with something less childish than “the winner eats the loser’s dinner”.
“How about the winner gets their room cleaned this weekend?”
For the record, neither of them was a fan of such an activity so the prize was worthy to sweat for.
The youngsters sealed the deal with a handshake and got down to business.
After the universal choosing method, also known as rock, scissors, paper game, determined Summers to make the first shot, he asked, “Why do you have trouble resting? I feel like at the end of the trip we were all burned out.”
“The damned concert is playing on repeat in my head,” Ororo drawled with a grimace.
The young man chuckled; his full lips stretched into a complacent smile as he watched the ball going into the net. “Bennie and the Jets?”
“Oh my God, yes! Does it torture you too?”
An impressive jump shot within three-point arc was performed by the girl, earning her two points.
“If you’re asking about “Bennie, Bennie” repeating itself thirty times per minute in my head, then my answer is yes. It literally stuck somewhere in there.” Summers tapped his temple with a finger.
“At least you kissed a pretty girl.” She shouldered him in a buddy-like way, adding up to a remark that had already made his cheeks bloom with color of mild embarrassment.
For a while they just listened to the repeated thump of the basketball, trying to outscore each other with varying success.
“You changed your hair color?” Scott asked out of the blue.
Munroe lifted her brow in “Really? You only noticed? Typical man” when it crossed her mind – this particular man had a real excuse – and she let out an irritated at her own self sigh. “I sometimes forget you’re colorblind.”
He gave her a dirty look. “I see red.”
“You make Wanda see red on occasions, too,” she couldn’t contain the tease in, to later add a softer “It’s kinda nice you noticed.”
“It was white and now it’s…”
“Violet,” Munroe helped out and decided to appeal to her friend’s imagination to create a better picture, “It’s a mixture of red and blue, almost purple but lighter and the blue hue prevails.”
The young man pulled on a knowing face albeit in all honesty he had no idea what she was talking about.
He made a layup, the ball span into the net without touching the rim.
“Was it a spontaneous move or it’s more like a representation of a new chapter in your life?”
She gave him a half shrug. “I’ve never dyed my hair before and going to a concert for the first time felt like a good excuse to try it out.”
“It actually was always dark brown. Then I met Apocalypse and when he enhanced my powers –” the girl lifted her hand, jagged bolts of lightning in miniature crackled from the tips of her fingers “– it, for some reason, changed, too.”
Some could’ve said this whole hair-themed conversation had no sense, yet Scott saw it was meaningful to her so before voicing a thought he had in his mind, the young man remembered a piece of advice given to him by abovementioned Maximoff.
First, sort things out in your head and only then open your mouth.
“At least the dude didn’t suck at styling. It looked like white flames and you rocked it. Just like you did it before and do now. Whatever the color it is – it surely brings some change into your looks, but doesn’t change who you’re.”
“I’m pretty sure it goes against women’s common philosophy,” Munroe crooned with an impish yet still genuine smile, making the young man chuckle again, “but I got your point.”
Regardless of the positive vibes Scott was all about at the moment, the way he was holding a basketball in his hands, picking at its leather surface, didn’t escape the girl’s notice.
It was the first time when she paid him a closer look, regarding the many layers of his personality, hidden behind smirks and teenage antics, something that perhaps only Jean had access to. Rarely Ororo thought about him also dealing with acceptance of the superhuman powers’ side effects. In his case glasses were not a simple necessity but a must, an accessory that would be better glued to his face for forever to avoid any destructions. Or worse scenarios. A heavy burden to carry till the rest of his life.
“Are you alright?” she prompted, advocating against the hesitant silence.
A line appeared between Summers’ brows, his voice quiet as he plucked the courage to pose a question that wasn’t about anything mutant related, on the contrary, it was about a thing that proved them being ordinary humans, an entity more complex and beautiful and fragile than the purest gold. “Does it ever get easier?”
“It dulls with time,” the girl replied after a moment, instantly knowing what they were now talking about. “The pain of losing someone. The love for them – stays for good. Your memories may blur, loose its colors or veracity but the love in your heart is always truthful, it’s the greatest legacy to have. Just don’t succumb to all the ‘what ifs’ and ‘it would have beens’. They’re the enemies to fight if you seek inner peace.”
Hardly soothing yet nor less needed than a gulp of air when being under water words were slowly finding its way to the young man, settling down while he silently handed the ball to the girl and watched her leap into the air to emphatically slam Wilson into the net.
Summers’ jaw was practically on the floor. “Really? Are you Mike Mitchell? You aren’t even tall enough to make a dunk!”
“Who?” Ororo bemused, but waved her hand dismissively shortly after. “Anyway, I won.”
It meant one thing that didn’t sit well with Scott – he was going to spend his weekend cleaning not one but two rooms.
Shit! he swore to himself. Why in the hell I even offered it?
“I’m better at badminton.”
The corner of the girl’s mouth lifted in a lopsided grin at this poor attempt to shake off the obligations of their deal.
“I’ve never played badminton.”
Perked up, Summers seized the opportunity. “Let’s fix it than.”
“Are you sure?” Munroe asked because she wasn’t. The day turned out to be hot and stuffy, the sun shone brightly from a cloudless sky, too intensely for this fact to be pleasant and although it didn’t really bother her, it obviously was taking its toll on her friend – he was red-faced and sweaty, his chest under the soaked white T-shirt was rising and falling unhealthy fast.
The young man puffed a carefree “sure thing, why not” and picked up two rackets and a shuttlecock someone left there, explaining the technicalities along the way. However, thirty minutes into the game he suddenly staggered, his legs gave way and he fell onto the ground.
“Scott!” Ororo cried out and rushed over to him.
Crouched down, the girl grabbed him by the shoulders, peering into his flashed face, and her own, frightened, thanks to the glasses.
“Scott!”
Some slurred reply followed, a relieving sign he was still conscious albeit the well-being of that consciousness was rather questionable.
The barely noticeable before breeze was springing up now, swirling around them. Cloaked in much needed coolness with a touch of humidity as Storm summoned all the moisture in the air she could reach, the young man came to his senses.
“Rad,” Scott got out a sort of compliment.
The girl took a hold of his arm, throwing it over her shoulder, and, joining forces with the wind current, helped him up. “Come on, let’s pay Hank a visit.”
Phoenix at night, Storm at day? What nice young people were enrolled in Charles’ school this year, flashed in Erik’s mind when the youngsters appeared on the level one, looking like a mismatching couple.
“Doc, we need your help.” Lehnsherr’s hand holding a pen froze in mid-air at the girl’s words that also caught McCoy’s attention, making him lift his head from the laid out on the desk schemes “Scott fainted on the basketball court.”
“I didn’t faint,” the young man protested, lethargically though, “I just…fell.”
“What happened?” the doctor asked, already on his feet. “Did you hit your head? What symptoms do you have? Nausea? Dizziness? Headache?”
“Why is it so hot out here? Don’t you have an air conditioner?” Summers counterquestioned and wiped out his actually dry forehead.
“Looks like a heatstroke,” McCoy made a preliminary diagnosis, his eyes scanned the young man like X-rays. “We need to move him to the medical research room.”
He flicked his attention to Munroe, who gave him a nod of understanding, and, having come up from the young man’s other side to offer an additional support, the doctor guided them out of the laboratory, leaving Erik to go on with scheming alone.
Briefly, the girl put Hank in the picture about Scott making friends with the basketball court’s floor and what she had done to prevent him from blacking out completely (the latter, incidentally, earned her the mutant’s approval).
“I told you it was a bad idea,” Ororo lectured the sore loser that was the young man while McCoy was running various test on him to be sure the conclusion he made earlier was accurate. “You need to wear a cap when it’s so sunny outside!”
“Thanks mom, I promise I’ll do better next time,” Summers quipped, his voice came out garbled because of the thermometer in his mouth.
“I would have stroke you on the head but New York’s weather had already done a fine job,” she parried matter-of-factly.
“Okay,” Hank intervened, looking at the blood test results, “As I suspected it is a heatstroke. We need to lower your body’s temperature and keep you hydrated but all in all you will be fine, no serious damage was made. And Ororo is actually right, if you spend long hours under the sun – put on a cap.”
A complacent grin twisted the girl’s lips right away though she still felt worry for the sore loser who was her friend.
Having done all the medical examinations that should’ve taken place, the three od them relocated to the recovery room where Summers finally sat on the comfortable bed.
When, following the instructions, Scott took off his soaked with sweat T-shirt, an enormous bruise on his lower back caught Hank’s attention.
“Wait, what’s this?” the man inquired, furrowing.
From the vivid purple color, it was evident for him that the injury must have been sustained long before he fainted under the summer heat impact, in fact the high improbability of these two things being connected didn’t sit well with the doctor.
Munroe and Summers exchanged glances and, afraid to expose the gang’s night outing, they both hastened to give an explanation.
“I tripped on the step running down the stairs for –”
“He tried to show-off in the pool and –”
McCoy put his hands on his hips, left unconvinced and more puzzled by these blatant lies.
The gears in Scott’s already preheated brain began turning rapidly, steaming in an attempt to work out a better explanation than the one he gave Magneto last evening.
Erik saw your Romeo moment.
Once again Wanda’s voice in his head prompted yet another thought (though the number of times the young man heard it in his head now seemed concerning for him, taking into consideration she was a telepath).
Inadvertently, he looked at his reflection in the glass pitcher near on the nightstand to check his eyes for the red glow only to be reminded that he had red in them, the very reason he wore glasses.
Dumbass, he sneered at himself, making a note to ask Maximoff for a more detailed elucidation of her powers.
Did I just do that? Wanda? Are you mentally eavesdropping on me right now?
Nothing abnormal followed after that stream of questions so Summers shook the delusion off.
“Last night I tried to impress Jean in a medieval kinda style,” he began, appealing to the romantic in McCoy the wily teenager knew for sure was hiding somewhere within. “I meant to climb all the way up to the window and knock on it to say hi and all the things, but my foot slipped and I fell. My Romeo moment went down in shameful flames.”
The move could easily book him a meeting with Xavier – to listen to a reprimand from the Professor and have a serious talk with Jean’s guardian – but didn’t cast a shadow on the real reason behind the curfew violation, least on the fact that theyall sneaked out to have fun miles away from here.
By the modern standards it was very noble of him and gave his image a rise in Ororo’s eyes, so she took his side. “Yeah, I witnessed it from my window and just didn’t want to embarrass him even more.”
Fighting alongside these very mutants against an all-powerful “blue dude” in Cairo, it slipped from Hank’s mind that he was dealing with practically teenagers. They could bear an immense amount of power in their bones and go through some stuff not every adult would be able to tough out yet they were still the youngsters not denied of childishness and sometimes stupidity. Fortunately.
“I assume Charles would be better off not knowing about it?” the man guessed.
“Your words, not mine,” Summers noted, holding his hands up.
A resigned sigh left McCoy at last.
“If your X-ray scan shows everything is fine with your back, I won’t tell him.” The youngsters’ faces beamed. “Although I still should inform him about the heatstroke. As well as your parents.”
“No, don’t call them,” Scott said firmly, then his voice softened, filled with sorrow. “Mom barely keeps it together and dad dove into his work…I don’t want them to worry about me. That’s the last thing they need right now.”
The doctor looked down for a moment, a line appeared between his brows. Even though his relationship with Alex Summers had a rocky start, he knew the man had had a good heart and when truly serious things were on the horizons, he wasn’t the one to shy away from them, always ready to fight for what was right. Hank was mourning the loss of his friend just like all the other X-men.
“They’ll always worry about you, Scott,” McCoy replied quietly. “But I heard you and will leave that matter up to you.”
“Thanks, doc,” the young man replied in earnest.
“Just please, don’t make me regret it,” Hank muttered, already going through the cupboards in search of a cooling blanket and ice packs.
The look on his patient’s face wasn’t really promising.
Glad with how the situation had resolved, Ororo plopped down onto the bed nearest to Summers’, the mattress screeched under her nonchalant move. “I bet my parents wouldn’t be even surprised to find out I joined a bunch of freaks and switched countries, all in a span of several hours.”
“It was always that bad?” Scott bantered, resting his back against the headboard.
An ambiguous “ahhh-hhaa” skipped her throat as she yawned, infecting the young man with drowsiness so their tired minds were gonna be as high as a kite by the time McCoy found all the necessities for the heatstroke treatment.
....
Vocabulary enriched with confusing, sometimes granny-like phrases and a slight accent were not all the “British tics” Wanda acquired for almost four years of living in Oxford. Taking a break from everything to have a cup of tea with scones cut in half and filled with clotted cream and jam was a tradition the girl got into to the point where she tried to bake these sweet delights at her mom’s kitchen but failed miserably, switching to a much easier (hardly healthier) option – sandwiches. The ones she was currently making.
A thick layer of butter on one half, cream cheese on the other, crunchy slices of cucumber dashed with salt and pepper, sprinkled with the dill…Wanda’s mouth watered at the sight of these little triangle-shaped bred things arranged on a plate in a restaurant worthy style. The only noticeable exception was the absence of Earl Gray. The black tea had never found its way to Maximoff’s taste buds, always losing to the green one with chamomile.
She poured in a dash of milk in her drink – a final touch that couldn’t be skipped – and having picked a cup and a plate up with the skills of a waitress, left the kitchen.
Strolling past Xavier’s office, the girl caught a glimpse of the man himself since the door was left ajar. He sat near the window, looking but not quite seeing the scenery it gave the chance to enjoy, immersed into something inside of his own head. Maximoff quickly averted her eyes, not wanting to be caught spying on the Professor.
He is just having his moment, leave the poor man alone, Maximoff, she told herself.
Yet, that melancholy expression on the telepath’s face made the impression of him feeling lonely. Emphatic by nature, Wanda’s heart ached for the man, insisting on making a move contradictive to her original intention to go on a date with herself and have some much-needed alone time, considering what a total chaos the last month had been.
Ultimately, the inner scales had tipped towards one side precisely.
A light knock on the door drew Charles’ focus from swimming in a sort of apathy that took hold of his mood since early morning to Maximoff standing on the threshold of his office.
“Fancy join me for a little tea party?” Cheerful, her tone didn’t lack genuine softness.
A reciprocal smile tugged the man’s lips. “It would be my pleasure.”
Once he wheeled into the hall, a tray with two cups, a teapot, a miniature jag of milk and a platter of sandwiches waiting for them on a little table caught his eye.
“I hope you hold nothing against green tea,” she crooned, though the jest had a grain of truth in it.
“It’s actually my favorite,” Charles reassured her.
Wanda pushed open the slightly charred front door (the victim of her distracting methods), letting them out into the courtyard. The mansion cast a long shadow, protecting the spot she had chosen for the garden party from the hot sun.
“I have no doubt Peter would’ve called us tea buddies right now.”
The smile on the Professor’s face became brighter. “Where is he?”
Maximoff gave him a shrug. “Believe it or not, twins also need some time spent separate.”
Surrounded by neatly trimmed bushes that grew in a labyrinth-like semicircles, the two of them settled by the fountain, the girl perched on the edge of its basin, putting a tray with their late lunch or early dinner there too.
“Thank you,” Xavier said gently, taking a cup of tea with milk from the girl’s hands. “Still, I imagine it’s hard for you to live in two different countries.”
“It is,” the girl admitted honestly. “Props to Alexander Graham Bell and all the others who picked up the idea for developing a phone. I imagine my brother either hastily writing a fifteen pages long letter or writing none at all because he can’t sit still. Weeks without that chatterbox would’ve made my time being at Oxford a torture. Even when he calls me in the middle of the night to report about the neighbor’s cat that was stung in the ass by a bee.”
The drink in Charles’ cup was close to spilling because the man let out an unrestrained chuckle, drawing a lighter one out of Wanda.
“Why did you choose Oxford then?”
“When I was a kid often times you could find me sitting in the corner, writing everything from a poem about our neighbor’s parrots to an explanation of some scientific matters. I’m pretty sure mom still has these pages where I try to explain how Human sapience appeared on Earth. It was my attempt to mix religion and science, actually.”
The man smiled, genuinely interested in what these notes contained, easily imagining little Wanda with two ponytails thoroughly writing down her thoughts while others played hide and seek.
“As I was reading more and more books from the past, I’ve got interested in the decades imprinted between the lines and what is the better place to learn about it all than Oxford? Nobody even knows when the university was founded.”
“And night life there is quite boisterous,” Xavier made an unexpected remark, recollecting his student years.
“Yep, that too,” she drawled in agreement and took a sip of her tea.
“Strangely I can see you and Raven hang out somewhere in the bar throughout the night, drinking and just having fun.”
“I’m glad I don’t seem like a hardened old man to younger generation,” the man bantered.
Maximoff shook her head from side to side in “more or less” gesture. “If you continue to wear formal suits every day, I guarantee you it’ll happen sooner than later.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” the Professor replied, amused, though involuntary his gaze traveled down, assessing a pair of grey slacks and white polo shirt he was wearing.
The light breeze spraying them with the fountain’s gurgling water from time to time, easing the heat this summer day unleashed upon New Yorkers, and the sandwiches, creamy yet with a spicy fresh crunch, brought back some more memories Charles thought were lost somewhere in between the craziness of the last two decades.
“I believe I had the exact same lunch as you and I have now every Thursday after Professor Ratcliff’s class,” he mused. “Botanic Garden was a nice place to just sit and watch the ducks swimming in the fountain.”
“Professor Ratcliff?” Wanda repeated skeptically. “A pile of feathers on the head, walrus-like mustache, sweaters at all seasons of the year, looks you in the eyes uninterruptedly when talking, grumpy but most likely just egocentric attitude?”
Xavier’s brows went up. “You’re quite literally describing his image in my head.”
“Wow, that man must have fallen under some curse to stuck in that nasty old duck quantum state for two generation as a minimum to remember him the exact same way.”
A fact even the Professor couldn’t object. Not that he wanted to, anyway.
“How did a specialist in genetics and biophysics ended up listening to lectures on literature history?” the girl questioned, indulging her curiosity.
“Seeing Raven’s mutation and being mutant myself, I was always interested in the evolution of species. Nevertheless, I didn’t stop reading Oscar Wild or Charles Dickens so I chose it as my elective course.”
“And how did you like Professor Ratcliff’s classes?”
Perhaps only those who studied under Halford Ratcliff, Professor of English studies, could’ve decipher the undertone of acrimony in this seemed to be innocent question.
There was nothing particularly wrong with the man – his lectures were educating, always capturing young people’s attention with unheard of information and entertaining, thought-provoking facts – except for his specific demeanor at the exams. He always came without any plan for his lesson and with absolutely no papers or texts at hand, confidently quoted lines from English classical literature in his theatrical voice. And when the students, having read all the books they had to for this course and armed with the same information that he gave them, came inspired to the exam, Professor Ratcliff, with superiority and smugness written all over his face, condemned their answers, together with the personal opinion on works studied, as wrong thus unworthy of any more than a 60% grade.
“Rather engrossing,” Charles replied after some consideration. “Until the exam day comes.”
The girl snorted in agreement, then something sparked in those green eyes. “What was your grade?”
It was a sort of trap and Xavier fell into it.
“Eighty-five.”
“The old chap must have found a strong opponent in your face,” Wanda crooned, hinting on psionic abilities rather than on the wealth of knowledge Charles had possessed.
Before the telepath ducked his head, all of a sudden finding an empty cup in his hands a captivating thing to contemplate, his face said it all.
“Oh. My. Goodness. Professor Charles Xavier cheated on tests!” Maximoff exclaimed with a look nothing short of joyous. “A groundbreaking fact revealed, everyone!”
Her childish excitement was contagious and Xavier’s lips twisted in a warm smile with a pinch of shame for the morally dubious deeds of his youth. “I will lie, if I tell I’ve never used my powers on teachers.”
Erik would’ve loved to hear that, came to the girl’s mind.
“Although, in my defense, I would like to draw your attention to one fact – I didn’t do that much often,” the man added.
“Let’s pretend you’ve never said the last phrase,” she muttered conspiratorially over her cup of milky tea. “It takes away the credit any student would’ve given to you.”
Because relatable experiences make you truly likable, Charles caught a thought, merely brushing the surface of her mind. A sort of unobtrusive mental checkup he planned to do the night when Wanda blocked him from meddling into the situation with Benjamin but was distracted by too many things to actually perform it. Purposefully or not, psionic powers used were dangerous and regardless whether the girl was his student or not, the Professor believed it was his duty to clear any nebulousness hovering above people staying in the mansion (not for the sake of his curiosity but for the children’s safety). He was open to offering Peter’s sister his guidance if she turned out to be a telepath but there weren’t any adamant walls build around her mind this time, nothing even close to that level of resistance he experienced.
Perhaps Benjamin’s powers begin to develop in a way I failed to predict, Xavier perplexed.
Little did he know that his mind reading trick only worked because Wanda let it to. The girl wasn’t naïve to think the man wouldn’t try to figure out if she was a mutant or not, everyone did at some point, and even though, as she said once said to her father, she wasn’t hiding, right now she had no mental fortitude to do anything more than casually gossiping about teachers with a fellow Oxonian. Maximoff preferred Erik’s or Raven’s way of handling things better – simply ask about the mutation and get the answer, truthful or not was another matter – but she could also understand the Professor’s (after all, who said the same Erik and Raven wouldn’t attempt to look into her head if they had the ability to?).
Briskly, Charles fixed the collar of his polo shirt. “What do you study this semester?”
Wanda tossed her hair forward; the silky dark locks now hugged her cheekbones. “Modern American literature.”
An innocent bystander could’ve barely caught the change in the mood of this conversation but it did downgraded after the performed mind game. One didn’t enjoy going against “we don’t invade others’ privacy” mantra he preached, the other, a proponent of being honest with those whom she held dear to her heart, least – had sympathy, felt like she was sinking in deception (“little” unspoken things here and there made a straightforward lie look like not so much of a wrongdoing at this point).
In a nutshell, a universal fact was once again proved to be truthful – people tend to complicate even easily resolvable things.
Luckily for them, the Fate didn’t plan on bringing down this forming fellowship.
“My favorite period in literature so far.”
Goggles on, silver hair disheveled, Peter’s sudden appearance in the courtyard startled the Professor so that he flinched, almost losing his hold on the porcelain saucer and cup.
“Her review on that Gratsby thing? Totally trashed it,” the speedster said impishly and took a bite of the last left sandwich he had already snatched. His face twisted in a grimace of distaste the moment cucumber slices crunched in his mouth. “What’s this?”
“If you ever wondered why he didn’t come to Oxford with me – you’ve got the answer,” Wanda said to Charles, unshaken by her twin appearing practically from thin air. “British traditions plus my brother equals a disastrous collision.”
Xavier turned his head to the young man, watching him tear the despised snack apart and throw it to the flock of sparrows hopping around, he then brushed his palms together as if he had just dealt with some dirty business.
“I didn’t trash the “Gratsby thing”,” the girl couldn’t help but counter her brother’s words. “I simply hadn’t developed a fondness for Fitzgerald’s melodramatic work.”
“Semantics,” Peter waved it off.
The faint pang of conscience the Professor felt regardless of the “good cause” for his power usage wavered slightly, distracted by the merry chemistry between the twins. “I assume we are talking about “The Great Gatsby” and Wanda shares the opinion of the first rewievers?”
“I wouldn’t classify it as a “glorified anecdote” or doomed it overrated like many did at that time, but I also didn’t find anything alluring or catching,” she tried to explain, the future English studies specialist coming to life in her. “It was my mistake to think the novel to be a story about the dazzling age of jazz, champagne sprinkling from the fountains and people dancing Charleston every night in blissful oblivion. I didn’t expect this oblivion to be willfully ignorant and cruel.”
“And that flora girl? Such a bummer,” silver-haired Maximoff shared his expert opinion too as he pulled of his goggles and put them on top of his head.
“Daisy Buchanan,” his sister whispered a decryption for Xavier.
Having years of pedagogical experience under his belt, the Professor struggled to picture this boisterous young man leafing through the classics (with no offence to Maximoff’s mind abilities, however) so that a visible tinge of surprise washed over his face.
A bit irked, Peter snorted and crossed his arms over the chest. “Yep, even when you get to break into the Pentagon you still should do your homework for the literature class.”
“I hope you’ve got an A after all,” Erik said in his mellow tone, approaching them. “Freshmen year, I take it, is the time when the grades really count?”
His light blue eyes stopped on a pair of dark ones and for the first time nothing in them was shielded with pretended amusement and lightheadedness. Now, with the agreement concerning the family secret settled between the speedster and his twin sister, the tying strings of unease wrapped around him seemed to vanquish. When Maximoff replied, there was the same quirky casualness in his voice and manners as when he talked with all the other inhabitants of the mansion.
“Nah, my opinion on the story didn’t fit the school’s requirements.”
A line appeared between Erik’s brows. “There can be wrong opinion on a book?”
“It was more about the presentation of that opinion than the opinion itself,” Wanda intervened, clearly supportive of her brother.
“Yeah, the teacher thought I was mocking her ‘cause I spoke too fast. Happens once in a while with the ordinaries,” Peter said, accompanying the statement with an eye roll. And, of course, he didn’t miss the chance to throw in an offhanded “No offence to y’all.”
Lehnsherr took no offence on his own account indeed but some parental feeling rose in his core, agitated by the injustice this silver-haired boy had to experience.
While Erik, Peter and Wanda were on the same page, the Professor fell out of the conversation, his brain stuck on one phrase in particular that just didn’t add up. “Wait? Why are we talking about freshmen year? Wasn’t you around sixteen then?”
“Back in 1973 Peter was fourteen, Charles,” Erik noted dryly, judgmentally even.
“Fourteen?” Xavier only repeated, too stunned for conjuring anything else. This little tea party was turning into fisticuffs between his conscience and his actions.
The girl offered him a small but sympathetic smile. “You asked Peter to aid in a prison break but failed to get to know that that attention-seeking, boastful mutant, who had already had problems with the law, was just a teenager.”
“Thanks, sis, very appealing description of your favorite sibling,” silver-haired Maximoff grumbled.
“Any time,” she drawled sweetly and winked at him.
“Something makes me believe that you would go even if it were a candy rescue mission,” Erik unwittingly took part in teasing and made Wanda burst out with laughter whereas Peter pouted like an offended child.
Peeking out from behind the door, Hank distracted them from discussing the sneak into the US Department of Defense in more detail. “Are you coming? There aren’t so many pigs in blankets left and Raven is limiting their number even more.”
There was something off about his appearance so Maximoff narrowed her eyes in attempt to see it better and when she did, her pupils dilated then, much like Charles’. If these two polite “Brits” weren’t sure that addressing the cause of their astonishment was appropriate, the speedster puzzled openly in unrestrained amusement.
“What the hell happened to you?”
The thing was that McCoy had no eyebrows. Literally none. It was actually hard to tell if the young man’s question hurt his feelings or he was annoyed or unbothered because of the missing facial feature as well as “redesigned” glasses – its lenses were covered in sooth. Everything that “made” Hank out of the man standing on the porch were the voice and obvious love for brown linen blazers.
“An accident in the laboratory,” he replied vaguely and motioned for them to come inside, disappearing in the darkness of the mansion’s hall.
An instinct to reach for the goggles and get ahead of the world only sparked in Peter but his twin had already given him a meaningful look.
“A few days” of rest doesn’t mean literally two days. Enough speeding for today. Better help Mr. Xavier.
Though reluctantly, the speedster complied. He had been running around the Professor’s property for the past hour, anyway (a sort of training for the recovering leg).
“Okay, Prof, let’s get some real food now,” he said and assisted the telepath with his wheelchair that regardless of the elaborated design required some effort to control on the graveled road.
“Thank you, Peter,” Charles replied, then added remorsefully, “I’m sorry I meddled with your life back then and asked you to participate…well, objectively speaking, in a crime against the State.”
“Don’t stress over it. I admit, I would go there for a candy rescue mission even though it doesn’t sound as cool as getting out a worldwide known jerk. Like at all,” the young man bubbled, trying to cheer up Xavier. “It was a lifetime moment.”
That perky attitude rarely allowed people to remain indifferent and the Professor was no exception, the corners of his lips were tugged by a faint smile. “Why? Because you met other mutants?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I got the chance to hang out with two-days-later-TV-stars so…I dunno, should’ve like taken a picture with y’all or ask for an autograph, maybe my sis wouldn’t scold me like a five-year-old then.”
That scene Charles could imagine just as easily as one with Wanda being a little researcher.
She and Erik were strolling a few steps behind them, accompanied by the “flying” tray with crockery. Having put it under his control, the Master of Magnetism found the same wonder and curiosity edged in the girl’s features as that day in the bunker when he demonstrated his powers to her for the first time. Personally, since, well, the whole world had already seen a sort of demonstration one very unfortunate day.
“It won’t fall crushing if you blink,” the man shared a “secret” with Maximoff in a bantering tone.
Busted, she blinked on instinct and smirked.
“Generation of magnetic fields doesn’t have any visible projection so it really creates that sense of watching a focus that always has an easily explained trick. Or it’s like Samantha’s* magic but without dramatic music.”
The girl swayed her hand under the tray as if indeed checking for some unnoticeable mechanism.
“Took a day off and look at you, Serena* brought from screen to life,” Lehnsherr deadpanned, narrowing his eyes at the dark makeup and the absence of natural waves, not at all peculiar attributes of hers.
“Excuse me, sir, my hair isn’t that bad!” Involuntary, Wanda touched her dark locks she had twisted in a messy bun when they were still talking about Peter’s freshman year.
Erik’s sardonic nature just couldn’t help it but seize the opportunity to show itself after many hours spent with Hank that, to be honest, bored him to death.
“Dou you mean “bad” as good or “bad” as bad?”
“You know I could knock this tray down and Mr. Xavier would be really upset to see this seemingly expensive set of porcelain things ruined,” Maximoff whispered an innocent hypothesis.
The father and daughter exchanged glances, amusement twinkling in their eyes.
“So what kind of accident happened in the lab?”
“I’m afraid it’s your brother’s fault.” Wanda lifted a brow. “I distinctly remember him shaking a bottle with some blue substance yesterday.”
A long “ohh” escaped the girl’s lips as the understanding sank in.
“Mm-hm,” Lehnsherr hummed in agreement. “It blew up right in Hank’s face.”
“I told you, sis, you’re gonna surely miss something in the lab just dilly-dallying around,” the speedster butted in, a lopsided grin already in place.
“Well, at least Raven taught me how to throw paper plains,” she crooned in jest when she, her twin, Erik, Charles and still floating tray entered the kitchen, overcrowding that small space.
Having stuffed her cheeks with appetizers like a chipmunk, the shapeshifter was barely able to grumble, “Flushed me out.”
“Didn’t know you are offering our students elective courses,” Charles bantered, taking a place at the head of the table since it was empty of any furniture.
“It’s a special case. I couldn’t stand aside,” she replied, putting more meaning into these words than others, besides the twins, could grasp.
Erik chose the seat opposite to Drakholme’s, the tray with cutlery soundlessly landed between them on the table, meanwhile McCoy hastily sat on the stool next to Wanda, oblivious to Peter’s intention to occupy it just like he actually always did. Equally surprised by the enthusiasm in the scientist, the youngsters swept glances. Maximoff gave her brother a subtle “I have no idea what it is about” shrug so he silently plonked down onto the chair by their father’s side, closing the circle.
“Are you alright, Hank?” the girl asked carefully, taking a closer look at his face. The skin of now browless area was slightly reddened but overall bore no traces of serious damage. The glasses, however, got less lucky, ruined past retrieve.
Genuine concerned edged in her features made McCoy feel a little bit better about this unfortunate event. “Oh, it’s nothing, I’m alright. But thanks for asking.”
“Yeah, today I actually had one more patient beside myself.” The man smirked awkwardly at that, then glanced at the Professor. “Scott has got heatstroke. Also nothing serious though I asked him to stay in the recovery room. Well, I didn’t really ask him because he and Ororo fell asleep before I could do so.
At this point all but Lehnsherr were confused about that Scott/Ororo situation and realizing he was to be blamed for it, the scientist hastened to bring some clarity.
“I mean, they fell asleep on the separate beds. Everything was in the boundaries of decency. It is in the boundaries of decency. It’s not like I can say the same for the present moment for sure –”
“In essence, the boy is fine,” Erik spoke over, unable to listen to the blather any further. “Ororo dragged him down to the lab after he lost consciousness on the basketball court. I assume he lost the game, too.”
Peter waited for the man to tell Xavier about Summers’ sneak out but he kept his silence on that matter, casually opening a bottle of Coca-Cola without touching it.
Whoa! Is he that kind of dad? The cool dad who won’t scold you for getting involved in some extravaganza?
Even though the speedster himself was an adult (after all, he could already drink alcohol legally, this must mean something) this idea filled his mischief inclined heart with delight of a child.
Raven smirked. “Looks like kids are having fun at uncle Charlie’s.”
“I’m glad they do,” the man said honestly. “Although I worry myself gray dealing with the repercussions.”
“Highly unlikely since your new ‘hairlesscut’,” the speedster quipped nonchalantly.
“Peter!” Wanda checked him abruptly, her eyes wide as ones of a mother whose child is talking unfiltered truth in public.
It prompted the young man to correct his previous statement. “Oh, yeah, sorry, Prof. You probably still have got beard.”
“Oh dear,” the girl muttered, covering her face with her hand.
“Don’t do this!” Darkholme exclaimed, pointing at the speedster, not unamused. “Don’t bring the scruffy Charles back!”
Charles raised his brows. “Excuse me? ‘Scruffy Charles’?”
He cast a glance at Hank, his support system, but found the man fighting a chuckle.
“I had a nice beard!” the Professor tried to defend the dignity of his facial hair.
“Honestly, you looked more like an escaped convict than I did,” Erik weighted in on.
“While we are still on the Pentagon topic, did you really –” silver-haired Maximoff swallowed because the next thing he prepared to say wasn’t something a normal family would even talk about, “– kill the President?”
“The only thing I’m guilty of is fighting for people like us,” Magneto said to Peter in the distant 1973. It didn’t mean much for the fourteen-year-old speedster until the moment he saw the man on the national television orating about the mutant race and its future, until one evening when he and his sister confronted their mom about their lineage and it was a real bombshell. The question whether Erik killed Kennedy kept nagging at the young man for years since, he had to voice it just for the sake of getting it out of his system.
Faced with the matters of complicated past the jocular mood faded together with the grins and smiles on the X-Men’s faces.
“No, I didn’t,” Lehnsherr answered calmly, looking into the boy’s eyes. “I tried to save him because he was one of us. They took me out before I could do anything. The bullet curved but didn’t stop.”
Deep in his heart, the young man expected to hear something along these lines, so, naturally, the next question was “What power did he have?”
“Tacto-hypnosis and limited form of telepathy.”
Wanda drew her brows together. “For how long have you been trapped in a glass cage?”
Watching pensively the lid of a bottle flowing between his own fingers, Lehnsherr slowly sat back in his chair. “For ten years.”
“Ten years?!” the twins repeated in unison.
It took them a long moment to actually register that information.
“Didn’t you, like, try to reach out and ask, ‘Hey, man…Erm…I heard you killed the President. Can you give us a clearer picture?’” Peter quipped, miming holding a handset to his ear.
“After our mission in Cuba I was angry at Erik, to say at least,” Xavier uttered on exhale. “I had no desire to meet him again, least of all save him.”
Erik pursed his lips in a quick movement before his face became unreadable. Raven didn’t raise her eyes from the lotus she was making out of a napkin since the beginning of this conversation and Charles’ focus was centered on the empty plat in front of him. The only one who probably had no remorse on this matter was Hank who silently swiveled his fizzy drink in the glass bottle.
As her gaze wandered from one member of X-Men team to another, Maximoff drawled slowly but unhesitatingly, “You are the most fucked up people I know. Seriously.”
“TV stars.” Peter lifted his shoulder in a “what else did you expect from them” shrug.
With one jest the speedster was able to relieve the tension in the room, making everyone smirk or huff good-naturally.
They just sat all together and sipped their drinks, some chewed on the appetizers, when an out of the blue question came the twins’ way from Erik. “Did your mother came to the school today?”
He more felt then saw how the silver-haired boy, who sat within an arm’s length from him, chock on Aspen soda.
Wanda tilted her head slightly with such a look in these green eyes one could reckon she can see past human body into the soul. “What made you think so?”
“Your Ford is no longer parked anywhere around and I assumed your mother came to finally retrieve it.”
“Now, now,” Lehnsherr cooed, gently clapping the coughing speedster on his back. “What’s your hurry? The soda won’t run away from you, I’m sure of that.”
With great fondness Charles watched the paternal side of his old friend showing in this moment, even if it were just a glimpse of the kindness living in his walled with steel hart.
“A friend of ours –” Peter’s voice came out squeaky thus he had to clear his throat “– happened to move to Washington so I entrusted him with the car.”
Briskly, the girl pursued her lips in “yep, that’s how it was” still, for some reason, Erik was left unconvinced, something just didn’t add up.
“Does it mean you’ll stay here for a longer period?” Hank asked, hopeful to have Maximoff as his assistant for some more time, unexpectedly he had gotten used to having someone with whom he could share all things science and pioneering ideas, a thing the man had never though he needed.
“We’ve got some work to do so…” Wanda gave him a shrug and a genial smile.
Her attention then flicked to the hall, or to be more prices, to the figure looming hesitantly there.
Zola, recognition sparked in Maximoff’s mind when she deciphered a head of bouncy curls and gleaming round glasses. The book!
The gang’s night escapade and personal tribulations ousted her promise to the kid who helped to distract the Professor from Moira as well as in the destruction of his property (with this part being a total accident). In return of the favor Wanda should’ve given her “Interview with Vampire” but forgot about it completely.
“If you excuse me, I’ll retire for today.” The girl pulled her chair back and stood up. “Have a nice evening, everyone.”
Wanda patted McCoy friendly on the shoulder as she walked past him and, having taken a quick look at her brother and father, exited the kitchen.
“Where are my twinkies?” a second ago seated at the table silver-haired Maximoff inquired with uncharacteristic for him sternness while rummaging in the cupboards for his favorite snack.
Erik puzzled over that mystery with the others, feigning innocence.
....
*Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
*Bennie and The Jets
*Rocketman
*Samantha and Serena are the characters from a fantasy sitcom TV series Bewitched (1964-1972) about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to fit in the mortal world still using her magic (one of the shows that inspired the first episode of WandaVision)