Every cloud has a silver lining (and a scarlet one)

“Wanda?” Kurt called, knocking on the door of her room.

An indistinctive noise came from the other side, a reply Kurt assumed was a permission to come in and so he did. Or at least tried to because once he pushed the door, it opened only a crack, apparently blocked by something rustling on the floor.

“Okay, o-kay,” the teleport crooned as he seeped inside the room, trying to keep the pies under his arm in one edible piece. He grabbed them on his way out of the cafeteria when it became clear that Wanda wasn’t planning on coming down for breakfast.

“Wan –” Kurt began but stammered, his eyes widening as he surveyed the space around. He had been there only two or three times before and it never ceased to amaze him that even weeks of staying at the school left a trace of her personality in the room she occupied. Until now. The floor was peppered with pieces of clothes (a particular raincoat seemed to be the reason why the door didn’t give way), they also hang from the gutted drawers and cabinets, and a suitcase that was laying next to the chair with a pile of handwritten notes and books. The room must have experienced a tornado to become such a mess.

“Go away!” The blanket on the bed burst open, revealing a shock of dark hair into the light. Wanda huffed, blowing the locks away from her face. “What part of the phrase didn’t you – Kurt?”

The surprise in her eyes was almost equal to the one written all across the young man’s face.

“What happened here?” he asked, clutching at the pies.

The girl waved her hand in a “just ignore it” gesture and plopped back on her pillow with an exasperated sigh.

Kurt took a hesitant step toward the bed. “Are you alright?”

“Yep. Sure. A-ha,” Wanda drawled before she slid under her blanket again.

“Aren’t you going to get up?” The young man put the pies onto the nightstand near the vase with a bunch of crestfallen sunflowers and dared to seat on the edge of the covered in striped sheet mattress. He more felt than heard her negative reply, but still asked for a why.

“Yesterday was a shitty day. I figured fewer things can go wrong if I just don’t get up today.”

A day could turn into a shit show in a span of a second, Kurt knew that not by hearsay, but being aware of the twins’ overall success with the police problem, he couldn’t wrap his head around why they came back from home so early. With Wanda refusing to leave her room and Peter being unusually quiet at breakfast and running away the moment he finished his bowl of cereal.

“Did you and Peter have a fight?”

When no reply followed, he slowly pulled the blanket down, exposing Wanda’s face. Her eyes were rimmed red and puffy as if she suffered from insomnia or was crying all night straight or probably both.

“Come on. Whatever happened, you can’t just lock yourself up in here,” he said softly and took her by the shoulders. “The rain has finally stopped. The sun is coming out from behind the clouds. And I’m pretty sure there is a butterfly knocking on your window.”

The girl gazed at him rather blankly, unmoved by the wonders he was listing.

Suddenly, goose bumps scattered her skin as a cool breeze kissed her feet and tickled her exposed sides. Her back no longer sank into the soft mattress, sensing something wet and prickly instead. Kurt seemed to close the distance between their faces because the blue strands of his bangs tickled Wanda’s forehead yet her attention flicked behind him and her gaze immediately landed on a tree branch and pieces of blue sky visible through the lattice of leaves. They were really outside the school walls.

“You do realize how it looks, right?” the girl asked with an impish arch of her brow. “I’m sprawled under you, in the middle of a lawn, dressed only in pajamas?”

She could practically see the image settle in the teleport’s mind before the amber in those eyes went distinct, ousted by the blackness of his dilated pupils. He flinched away as if the girl was a firebrand.

Wanda got up on her feet, scowling at the stuck together feathers on the trim of her pajamas. Her favorite “did you pluck a flamingo” pajamas. She was pretty confident it wasn’t the only damage done to her “morning look”, guessing that a few leaves could have stuck in her hair.

“Nice,” the girl muttered, turning back to the school.

Don’t just stand there! Do something! the little voice in Kurt’s head screamed.

“Wanda, wait!” He rushed after his friend. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want to figure out what happened in these past two days that you and Peter came back…not quite yourself.”

The young man chanced a glance at Wanda but she seemed to be a tough nut to crack – her face betrayed nothing but a lack of interest.

Up the stairs to the patio they were going, when Kurt asked, unable to give up so easily, “What about your work in the lab?”

“I’m just a girl with a future liberal arts degree. They’ll do perfectly fine without me.”

“Mr. Lehnsherr looked sad at breakfast…Sort of…If it’s a thing with him…” He was really clutching at straws with this.

A shadow passed across the girl’s face. Involuntary, one must notice since unlike Kurt her delicate feet weren’t used to the roughness of the steps and the coldness of small paddles gathered in its cracks and notches.

“Well, he has plenty of things to be sad about,” Wanda said on a meaningful exhale, “but I’m sure our…relationship isn’t one of them.”

To her greatest disappointment, the stone tiles inside the building didn’t differ from those that were laid outside. Therefore, the only thing she wanted as she marched to the stairs that led to her room was a hot bath and maybe a cup of herbal tea. Yet something like an invisible thread between her and her friend strained, pulling her back to the young man.

Another person to apologize to. Another person to apologize to, a voice in the back of the girl’s head chimed. Even with her back to Kurt, Wanda could tell his hands were dropped, literally and figuratively.

She threw her head back, letting out a soundless grunt, and took an abrupt turn around, heading toward her friend who stopped in the doorway to the patio.

“Look, it has nothing to do with you, okay? It’s just when things go wrong, I might be difficult to be around,” the girl tried to explain. “And as I’ve already said yesterday was a shitty day. I don’t want to talk about it or anything else, really. I don’t want to play video games or listen to music or watch TV.”

Kurt looked down for a moment, a slight crease was drawn between his brows, bringing to his expression a touch of something Wanda could not place. His voice was quiet when he asked, “What about a book?”

Neon question marks were shining in those green eyes of hers when the young man lifted his head at last.

“You said you read the same book every year or two and I thought…I thought to read “Idiot” again and…Maybe we could read together.” Hope was woven through every word that he blubbered out though his tail that flicked back and forth behind his back betrayed anticipation of a refusal. “We don’t have to talk, it would be just us, sitting together, reading in one room. In silence.”

That must have been the most extraordinary offer she had ever heard from a boy. Actually, as the days were passing by, testing the good and bad sides of their characters, Wanda was most certain it was a man who stood in front of her, not just a boy.

A ghost of a smile hovered above the edges of the girl’s lips. “On one condition. You will choose a book for me, agreed?”

It took a moment for Kurt to blink his disbelief away and accept her “yes” but when he did, he beamed brighter than the sun. “Of course! One hundred percent agreed!”

“Alrighty then,” Wanda drawled with a brief shrug, “I’ll see you in an hour in your room. If you have a mess in there – don’t you dare to tide it up.”  

“Fair enough,” the young man agreed, chuckling lightly. It was only when he nodded his temporary goodbye and turned around, heading to the library when it dawned on him that Wanda Maximoff, an unyielding in her decisions and moods young woman, set up a meeting in his room, not only having nothing against his company, but choosing it over the solitude she seemed to crave. It certainly added a pinch of nervousness to his excitement.

Wanda meanwhile attempted to finally reach her room when Raven showed up on the horizon.

“Morning, sunshine,” she teased, scrutinizing the girl’s “out of the woods” appearance together with a grim expression on her face. The shapeshifter herself looked rather messy with her blond waves sticking here and there and her stained white T-shirt and grey sweatpants twisted and rolled.

Paying no mind to neither Raver nor her taunt, Wanda moved forward to the stairs. The mud on her feet began to dry out and the perspective of picking it out from under her nails for the next hour didn’t inspire the girl at all.

However, Mystique was not the one who could be easily outflanked. Especially when she had something to say.

“Are you in a hurry?” she asked, blocking the girl’s path.

“Do you happen to have a marker with you?” Wanda asked in a quite serious tone.

Baffled, Raven drew her brows together. “No. Why?”

“Because it seems like I have to write it on my forehead: I’m not in the mood for chatting. Period.” Kurt might have been able to ignite a spark of positivity in her but it was only a spark and it was meant solely for him. Raven, on the other hand, was the last person Wanda wanted to deal with on the best day, and now the mutant went up even further in the “annoying people” list. “Peace out.”

Mere seconds passed before Wanda felt a painfully tight grip on her upper arm. She looked down at Raven’s hand that was holding her back from leaving.

“When I met your brother all I saw in his eyes was a desire to find his father and reconnect with him. But you…” The look on the shapeshifter’s face turned menacing as she narrowed her eyes. “You are not as simple as you are trying to seem. Whatever games you are playing at – you better stop.”

They stood at the base of the stairs, the little space left between them would be intimate if it weren’t forced.

Wanda’s mouth twitched toward a disdainful grin. “You, of all people, should know better than to mess with Lehnsherr’s business, shouldn’t you? Or are these brain cells of yours just as plain and naïve as your human shell supposes?”

The girl leaned forward, closing the distance between their faces even further to top her taunt. “Stay away from me and mind your business. God knows you have plenty.”

With that, she jerked her arm, risking tearing off the satin sleeve of her shirt, and, having freed herself from Raven’s grip, ran up the wooden steps.

“What’s your beef with her?” the woman heard Erik’s voice as he neared her from the left, probably coming up from the lab.

“Your daughter is an asshole,” she gritted out and stilled right away, her mind going on a panicky frenzy.

Raven wished for somebody to drop a vase on her head or shoot a ball at her chest to knock her unconscious and spare her from making awfully awkward excuses. How could it even slip her tongue! It wasn’t her place to reveal such a thing and most definitely not in this way.

Without as much as a quick glance toward her old friend (fearful to find Erik’s eyes glazed with pain), the woman hastened to get out of the situation. “What I mean is that her resemblance to younger you is striking! It’s that unbearable temper and sharp tongue! She is stubborn, inflexible and aggravating all at once!”

With his arms crossed over his chest, the Master of Magnetism leaned on the stair railing. There was hardly any readable emotion present in his features, but it was no news. After all, the man had never been an open book, even for her.

“And for the record, I don’t have a beef with her.” The shapeshifter mirrored Erik’s pose. “Since when do you use such language anyway?”

Well, most likely a certain silver-haired young man was at fault here but Erik was not the one to betray such information.

“What’s this?” Raven posed another question once she abandoned her attempt to unravel the effect her thoughtless words had on the man and her attention was caught by something held concealed in between his arms.

“Nothing,” he replied flatly.

It was nothing, wasn’t it?

Regardless of his denial, worry settled in Erik’s heart the moment he saw the kids’ scared faces. It only strengthened when he confronted Jean and yet the girl lied to him, seemingly uncaring if her friends had to deal with the police alone. The man almost had no doubts Peter and Wanda were able to handle it, one way or another. They were not exposed to any real threats. Yet Erik knew the way the brother and sister were protective of each other, he remembered Peter’s scrunched-up face when he asked about their father or Wanda’s concept of safety, too thoughtful for her age. What outcome they might have to face? What if it were a trap? Surely Washington’s police department must have known about Peter’s mutant powers...The more he paced around the arboretum, the more he winded himself up. It wasn’t until Charles’ voice floated into his mind, telling him the twins were safe at home with their mother and younger sister that Erik accepted the absurdity and childishness of their escapade and breathed out.

He tried not to put much thought into the feelings he experienced. He did not attach to these kids. He could not. It was just a sort of mutant fellowship. That’s all.

In the days that followed after, Erik resumed his usual routine, still, he couldn’t help but notice the absence of the chaotic duo. It was about their energy, their skill of implementing their ideas into their friends’ heads the care they showed for the littlest students in the school. So, when the man stumbled upon Friedrich Schiller’s play, he couldn’t overlook it. It was not so much about the play itself as it was about its title, a light tease in their situation. Just to see Wanda roll her eyes and Peter smirk and know they weren’t too shaken by the encounter with the police (and probably their furious (rightly so) mother). Actually, Erik had the book at hand last night when the twins returned from Washington. Had he held his tongue then, the kids wouldn’t play hide and seek with him right now.

Thus, the thing in Erik’s hands could’ve been nothing, but the thought put in it could not.

“I was just about to have a quick word with Wanda,” the Master of Magnetism expended. He pushed off the railing and sidestepped Mystique, choosing an opposite way to the one his daughter just walked.

Confusion lined up the woman’s forehead. She turned around, her gaze followed the man’s figure. “Where are you going? She’s upstairs.”

He paused only to say “If she’s anything like younger me, the last thing she wants right now is to have a talk” over his shoulder and continued his trudge to the library.

Nie zostawiaj mnie. Nie pozwolę im cię zabrać.*

Erik squinted and a lamp that stood on a cupboard in the hall withered. He kept walking further.

Nie pozwolę im cię zabrać!

His daughter was dead. How Raven could blurt out that stupidity he didn’t give a shit. It only showed that neither she nor Charles, least of all Hank, understood what he felt. None of them knew what it was like to lose a piece of themselves. To lose something bigger than all of this, bigger than their own lives.

It’s our home. It’s our daughter’s home.

Nina

Magda

Their voices were too painful to hear even if they were only memories froth back to the surface of his mind. It slushed his heart open, left it bleeding, beating in agony.

As if it could ease the weight, Erik rubbed his eyes before emerging from the darkness of the hallway into the bright, spacious library. A teenage boy who was sitting on the sofa at the doorway turned his head at the sound of the footsteps, but quickly averted his gaze, hiding behind comics. Another Charles’ student, a girl in pink headphones, harried her way out of the room as soon as she spotted the Master of Magnetism around.

He had overstayed here. It was time to gather the little he had and leave.

“Könntest du es bitte für mich wegräumen?*”

The wheeled ladder almost slipped from under Kurt’s feet as he flinched in surprise. Slowly, the young man looked down and found Erik handing him a slim book he at first mistook for a journal.

“Mögen Sie die Stücke von Friedrich Schiller?*” he asked, running a finger over the golden German letters on the cover.

Over the entire period of living under one roof, it was probably the first time the young man didn’t lose the ability to produce syntactically coherent sentences in Magneto’s presence.

“Not particularly, no,” Erik replied somewhat distractedly. “I meant to give it to Wanda.”

Narrow step by narrow step, Kurt descended the ladder and leveled with the man’s figure. In fact, not quite. It turned out that the young man was taller than Magneto. It might or might not be the reason he gave free rein to his curiosity, but he found himself asking confidently, “Why didn’t you? Give it to her?”

When an alarming number of seconds ticked away, the young man amended, “Actually, Wanda asked me to find a book for her so… If you want, I can give her this one.”

Something simmered in the depth of the Arctic Sea that was Erik’s eyes, the hard lines on his forehead smothered and he said, “Help her out with the words she doesn’t know. It will be much more useful than languishing over a dictionary.”

Even though it wasn’t framed as a request, it wasn’t a command either. There was care to these words, unwitting almost and therefore touching. It made the corners of Kurt’s mouth quiver, but he kept that small smile to himself, unwilling to scare off the man’s sincerity, and simply nodded.

The gesture was returned, but before the Master of Magnetism left for wherever his restless soul was guiding him, there was one more thing he said that seemed pivotal in their mutual agreement. “Don’t tell her it’s from me.”

He didn’t really give the young man an opportunity to respond to that and it was not like he expected to hear ‘no’ anyway, still, Kurt stood there with his lips parted, desperate for yet another ‘why’. He had a feeling Erik’s low-spiritedness (lower than usual) might have been directly connected with Wanda’s apathetic mood and her yesterday being ‘shitty’ and also Peter being uncommunicative.

His inner Hercule Poirot jolted in the chair when the teleport realized he had been watched all along by the unabashed teenage boy whose head was pipping from behind comics. Kurt cast an awkward thin-lipped smile at him and climbed up the ladder again, looking for Dostoevsky’s works. Seems like his friend was right, the puzzle pieces barely fit together where her family was concerned, and whenever the young man thought that things had taken the right course, the circumstances proved him wrong.

....

As agreed, Kurt and Wanda met an hour later in his room. The girl must have taken a hot bath after all because her hair was slightly dump, curling at the ends here and there, and her cheeks still retained the blush brought by the steam. She changed into denim shorts with raw-cut hem and a knitted mint top but that effortless image somehow lived apart from her, not matching her energy.

“Nice place you have here,” she drawled as her socked feet crossed the threshold.

Kurt occupied a corner room on the second floor adjacent to the mini tower. Its size was perhaps inferior to those of his friends, however, in some way, it made the space cozier. The walls here were exposed brick, while charming on their own, they were softened with a muted pink in the sleeping area, creating a calm backdrop for the bright bed throw and eccentric lamp in the shape of a Ficus. No posters on the wall or junk scattered around, the room radiated adult-kind of energy.

Wanda seated herself in the velour armchair, running down a finger against its softness, therefore drawing a darker brown line on its arm. “So, what did you find in the library?”

The teleport took a seat in the twin armchair opposite the girl and handed her the book.

“Die Räuber?” she read aloud and glanced up at her friend, the look on her face quizzical. Wanda had already read this play once in English (after all, she studied foreign literature at the university) and though its content had nothing similar to the impound lot situation, she still got the irony. Their gang was a bunch of very unfortunate die Räuber indeed.

Unsuspicious, the young man cued, “The Robbers.”

“No, I know. It’s just…” Briefly bloomed amusement gathered into a light crease between her brows. Kurt thought he spotted a flicker of disappointment in her eyes, but she blinked and the expression on her face became one of neutral as if saying “never mind”.

But he did mind. He did mind it muchly. What did the girl find funny in the title of a drama Erik Lehnsherr chose for her but almost stuffed back on the shelf? What kind of drama unfolded between him and the twins last evening?

Did they finally tell him? flashed in the teleport’s mind.

He cast a sideways glance at his friend. Wanda cozied up in her plush nest, her thoughtful gaze running over sentences from left to right and though there was a certain unease to her, Kurt imagined she (or anyone else in the mansion, on that matter) wouldn’t be so calm right now if a conversation of that kind took place yesterday.

As the young man dived deeper into the guessing process, Wanda’s mind was dealing with its own dilemma, albeit, one way or another, it still touched upon the “Erik Lehnsherr is an unsuspecting father” endless saga.

Silence drenched the girl and her mom once Peter went to comfort Lora and the Dart Wader mug that was laying in ruins between them felt like a wall that fell, yet its pieces were so sharp, there was no way to meet each other without getting hurt.

Mom made a step toward anyway.

“Are you alright? Did it cut you? Jesus, that coffee was hot, you must have burned your thigh!” she fussed, her instincts catapulting her from the bar stool she occupied to her daughter’s side.

“I’m fine,” Wanda replied dryly, refusing the offered napkin.

Maria pursed her lips, her arms dropped ruefully to her sides. “Honey, look, I’m not gonna tell you that I understand what it’s like to live with such power in your hands among those who don’t. But I do know what it feels like to be an outcast. As an unmarried woman with three children and a chain of shitty jobs around her neck, sidelong glances and whispers behind the back were always my companions.”

“They never feared you,” Wanda countered. “They might have despised you, but it didn’t go as far as letting a bad word slip. You could always find a man, get married, move to another city and start everything over. To settle down and don’t look back, fearful someone would come after you. No mutant has that. And it’s what drove him to act.”

“I get you are trying to find a hint of a good person still within him –”

The girl looked heavenward in exasperation. “Oh God, please, stop. A hint of a good person? Really?”

“His past will never let go of him,” her mother pushed, barely keeping her tone restrained. “He and everyone who cares about him will always be haunted by the darkness. I don’t want that fate for you and Peter.”

“So what, we should dump him for a ‘brighter future’? Let him be engulfed by this darkness?”

“Some people are beyond your help.”

“This isn’t you, mom,” Wanda returned Maria her phrase from earlier, flavoring it with a pinch mockery.

She had no idea what exactly fed her impulse to protect Erik, but every time the conversation took that turn, the girl was on his side. Maybe it was due to him becoming somebody for her instead of being just a stranger from the TV screen or maybe because she was finally ready to admit her desire to have a father figure in her life, preferably a real father. Nevertheless, Erik was able to screw these fragile things up with two sentences.

I must admit I was disappointed to learn what this whole story was about. Such a waste of your gifts.

The latter especially sticked with the girl. Out of all things he could’ve chastised them for, the man chose the most questionable – an unsuccessful attempt at conquering the impound lot. No doubt Peter regarded it as a cool parenting style whereas Wanda pressed a pause on her sympathy, dwelling on mom’s cautions against Erik’s moral standards. In that case, it was rather hypocritical of her to send off Lonnie for mistakes he made and still give infamous Magneto all the chances to become a father.

Such a waste of your gifts.

Hmm. Perhaps she should have set her paperclip crocodile on both of them so it could bite the men in their asses.

The girl dropped her attention back to the yellowish papers in her hands. She knew what the denouement of that story was. Caught in the vortex of love, envy and deception, the Moor family’s unity was dispelled like a sandcastle, sweeping them all into dreadful oblivion.

“Why did you choose this particular book?” Wanda asked, dog-earing the page she stopped at before closing the book and turned her face to the teleport. 

By the slight jolt of Kurt’s tail that was resting on the arm of his armchair, she knew he heard the question yet the reply didn’t come straight away. As though the young man couldn’t utter a word until the sentence he was reading would come to a full stop.

“To be honest it’s not my choice. Not quite,” he said carefully and closed his book too, meeting the girl’s gaze. “It was Mr. Lehnsherr who found it for you.”

The look of curiosity on her face was washed off by uncovered astonishment.

“I only volunteered to give it to you and he agreed, asking to help you if there are any questions regarding the German language.”

“Why didn’t he give it to me himself then?”

It was muttered more to herself than Kurt, but the young man saw fit to answer. “I don’t know what transpired between you and I don’t mean to meddle, but he seemed to be crestfallen in the way that is…he cares.”

Wanda hugged herself by the shoulders, drawing the book closer to her chest. Her thoughts were racing one by one and she had to bite her lip to concentrate on something other than a headache that was beginning to pound at her right temple.

“Do you think my father is a bad man?” the girl said almost absently, staring at the TV in the corner of the room. Its screen didn’t show anything, its darkness blank and somehow hypnotizing sucked in like a black hole.

“Do you think me qualified to answer that?” Kurt’s voice came in after a pause so prolonged, Wanda had already forgotten what she asked. Or maybe her mind was sometimes as quick as her brother’s so that the outside world simply couldn’t catch up with it.

Her eyes flashed up to search for his face, uncomprehensive as to why he would question his heart. Because only the heart could give an unbiased answer, it didn’t know the past or guessed the future and wasn’t burdened with logic and facts that seemed straight, it just knew if the beat in the other’s chest was of honest love or void. For once, the girl didn’t have the mental fortitude to listen to what her own heart was telling on that matter.

“Mystique got me out of a fight club. I was held captive there, just like most of the others. I had to fight mutants in the ring, had to hurt people to avoid more hurt. Or at least it’s what I tell myself. So, I’m not sure I’m the right one to give you the answer you’re looking for.”

His voice was coated with emotion so heavy his shoulders sagged under its weight. Wanda’s chest hurt at hearing it.

She put her book on the windowsill and got up from her armchair to perch on the coffee table in front of the young man. He didn’t lift his head to look at her.

“I think I now know you good enough to be absolutely sure that if there was a way around it, you would choose that path without a second thought,” Wanda said softly, covering Kurt’s clasped hands with her own. “I’m sorry to tell you that but you, my dear friend, have a heart of gold and your sense of righteousness is even more maddening than the Professor’s.

There was a faint quirk to his lips.

“You managed to keep this light inside you against all odds. I only urge you to keep doing it because that’s what your true gift is. To be the light and hope in the darkest of the times, for yourself and others.”

Kurt’s finger locked with Wanda’s little one. He cast a stealthy glance at the girl. A ray of pale sunshine from the window lit her eyes, making her look like a smiling fairy from a magical forest. He couldn’t help but smile back at her.

“Your father said he doesn’t like Schiller’s works and yet he gives one of them to you,” the young man mused, his brows closing the distance between each other. “Is there something I miss?”

Wanda’s smile changed its shade. “Actually, you do. The title of this play is a mockery of us being a bunch of unfortunate lawbreakers, I guess.”

“Oh, Lord.” Kurt smacked his forehead, embarrassed once it finally dawned on him. Now the title of the book he was reading – Idiot – looked right into his soul. “And I was asking Magneto if he is fond of the Romanticism-spirited plays.”

The girl burst out chuckling and gave his knee a sympathetic pat. “Oh, don’t sweat it. It’s just we’re sarcastic freaks.”

They both laughed at that.

“Do we still stick with the silent book club?”

“Hell no!” Wanda declared dramatically. “I am really peckish.”

“I wouldn’t mind a sweet snack either,” Kurt drawled dreamily.

Like a magician and his assistant, the two of them stepped out of a bluish smoke into the kitchen a moment later and (much less magically) wreaked havoc in the fridge.

....

The feeling that she was an escaped patient of an asylum didn’t leave Wanda from the very morning walk in her pajamas. Now she roamed the outside part of the Xavier family domain in pitch darkness and it didn’t help with shaking it off. The girl thought that it would’ve been nice if she knew a mutant who would be able to light this way between the oaks for her. They could’ve called him a Human Torch or a Firebird. Though a regular flashlight could’ve sufficed too.

“Sorry babe, I need it more,” Wanda murmured, freeing her cardigan from the crooked, leafless fingers of a bush.

She wasn’t the kind to be easily scared by the shadows or unidentified sounds yet night did it trick, awakening primal instincts to run or at least have a familiar soul around. The latter, by the way, was the exact reason why Wanda was slipping on the wet leaves and nearly tripping over sneaky roots in the dark.

Finally, she stepped out of the groove and here he was. With his back to her, Peter was sitting on a faint resemblance of a hill, probably the only one these lands had, his hair shimmered like liquid silver in the white light of the waning Moon.

The girl treaded carefully toward him, mindful not to scare him, and having pulled down the knitted fabric of her chunky cardigan lower because the soil was still wet and cold after the rain, she seated herself near him. Her twin didn’t do as much as to shift in his spot to acknowledge her presence.

Wanda followed the path his attention chose to go but there was nothing except trees’ dark silhouettes carved against the horizon.

“I understand that you probably don’t want to be in my company after yesterday. Well, not ‘probably’. You wouldn’t be hiding here then. So I’ll just say this and if you want me to leave, I’ll leave, no arguments waged.

Her thumbs rubbed against each other in an instinctive self-soothing motion as she was speaking.

“I underestimated the risks when I let you go after him alone and knowing you still didn’t make that step in and after Cairo, I couldn’t stay out of it anymore. I came here because I needed to know my brother was truly alright in the first place, but also because the time for me to finally face the reality had come. Unlike you, all these years ago I wasn’t brave enough to admit that a widely known bad guy was our father and it took quite a lot to come to that acceptance. Well, actually, not as ‘lot’ as I thought because once I saw him in person, I had that familiar feeling in my chest...He is our father.

The girl cast a quick glance at Peter, the moonlight vividly outlined that Erik’s straight nose, soft lips that pouted so often, and a stubborn edge to his chin.

“I’m sorry I was so self-absorbed, I forgot that it’s not only me who must be overtaken by all these feelings. I shouldn’t have ever let my temper slip and risk breaking what you began to build long before I showed up here. I’m truly sorry, brother.”

The young man turned his face to her, lifting both of his hands to his head, and it was only then that the girl noticed the wires of the headphones behind the collar of his jacket.

“You gotta be kidding on me,” she muttered with a frustrated shake of her head.

“You were saying something?” Peter asked innocently, unplugging his ears.

Wanda closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, then exhaled, mastering the same level of sincerity she had put into her apology just a minute ago.

“I came here to apologize. When you really needed me, I neglected you, allowed Cairo to happen and when you just began getting to know the person you desired to meet since we were, like, children, I showed up at the school’s door and practically forced my way of doing it on you. I speak my mind so openly in times when it’s better to hold the tongue and manage to forget that my actions affect you too. Like yesterday. I let my emotions take over me and now we both don’t speak with somebody who is the reason we are even here. Your resentment of me is more than understandable. But…If it’s possible, I would like you to be angry with me at a nearer distance.”

They were staring at each other, expressions inscrutable. The nerves in the girl’s body ticked like a bomb’s clock.

At last, wicked amusement splashed the darkness of Peter’s eyes. “I’m just funning you. I heard everything. Hamlyn himself would envy this monologue.”

“It’s Hamlet, you moron!” Wanda exclaimed, indignant, and shoved him in the shoulder, though her whole posture relaxed at his facetious tone.

Chuckling, the young man wrapped his headphones around Walkman and shoved it in the pocket of his jacket.

“Wanna beer?” he asked, already holding out a glass bottle.

Wanda leaned forward, narrowing her eyes at a sixpack at Peter’s side. “Where did you get it?”

“Familiar with the concept of stores?” the young man asked offhandedly.

His sister leveled him the look yet accepted the handed drink.

The lids popped, letting out a fizz and a sweet note of bread crust. The twins clinked the bottles and grimaced the instant second the liquid washed over their taste buds.

“That’s so bogue.” Peter stuck his tongue out as if the nightly breeze could brush the taste off.

“Why did the smell was so promising?” his sister got out in a broken voice. She spotted a natural holder - two pieces of stones were sticking out of the ground at an ideal angle - and placed the bottle there, discarding that potion for now.

“I’m not angry with you, you know,” the young man said placidly to her in a moment.

Wanda tipped her head to the side, her dark locks covering her naked legs like a blanket. “You are not?”

“I may not know all the reasons and feelings that drive you to act a certain way but I–I’ve never felt like you neglect me. On the contrary, sometimes it seems like you live through a moment for both of us, processing and managing things while they may get past my notice.”

His fingers were scrubbing the label off the glass, its paper was curling in sticky little rolls under his nails.

“Nothing gets past your notice, bro,” the girl bantered.

“I’m being serious, Wan.” 

“Me too.” Wanda’s tone though gentle left no room for doubt either. “Leave intrusive thinking and masterminding inconclusive schemes to me and live through the moments the way that is yours.”

“But –”

“I called Erik a ‘jackass’ the other day just because he showed little sympathy for Hank with whom he had never really had a cordial relationship.”

Somewhere near a crickets song halted.

“Whoa,” Peter drawled, torn between shock and hilarity. “You really don’t fear to speak your mind.”

The girl scrunched up her face. “For my time being here I kinda lost my acting skills.”

Her twin narrowed his eyes, his eyes flitting up and down Wanda like a scan before he delivered a verdict. “Dunno. I think your ‘intimidating persona’ is just on point.”  

“So flattered to hear that,” she replied with feigned sincerity, holding her hand to her heart.

The young man grinned, raised his bottle of beer, and took another trial sip. Wanda watched his face twisting with disgust.

“Nope. Still a no-go,” he said in a low voice and burped.

“For the love of God, Peter!”

“What?! It’s the bubbles!”

“It sounded like a frog’s mating call,” the girl quipped and pressed her fingers to her lips, hiding a snicker at the vivid picture her imagination conjured – her brother running for his life from the influx of “green brides”.

“Because you, of course, know exactly how it sounds,” Peter said pointedly.

Wanda’s brows rose. “Don’t you remember that biology class with Mrs. Coolidge? When she played us a recording and the whole class mocked her for a week?”

“Wasn’t it the day when we dissected the croaker and its guts, like, popped out?” the young man clarified.

She racked over her memories for a moment. “Erm…yeah, I guess so.”

Her brother pouted. “Thanks for reminding me about my teenage trauma.”

“Should I also remind you that I got a real trauma that day, dragging you out of the classroom because you went as gray as your hair?” Wanda taunted.

“You can’t qualify a broken nail as a real trauma,” Peter objected.

She raised a finger and the young man knew a smart-assed reply was coming his way. “If it’s broken, it’s a trauma by definition.”

Luckily, he wasn’t the one to shy away from getting smart with her, or anyone else, really. “That is why my trauma was real too. My psyche was broken.”

It could’ve gone on and on if Wanda didn’t bring up another dramatic episode from their school days. “Let’s agree that we both got traumatized when we walked in on mom and the coach making out in the parking lot.”

The grimaces that this memory produced were worth to be pictured and framed (the scenery around them was nice too though). However, funny facial expressions weren’t the only prompted thing, there was also a strong desire to mute the image so the twins grabbed their drinks and gulped quite a generous portion of the liquid. All the bubbles were gone and it seemed like they took that rough bitterness with them because the girl could swivel the potion in her mouth and the vomiting reflex wouldn’t kick in.

She wiped at her wet lips and asked offhandedly, “Did you call her?”

“Mom? Probably should have but…” Peter shook his head.

Waiting for his thoughts to unfold and shape into words, his sister kept her silence.

“I wasn’t hiding from you, though I tried to avoid talking to everybody else, mom included. Sort of. I mean, everything feels so pushy right now and I–I don’t know, I just wanted to have some peace and quiet, I guess.”

He shook his head again, this time ruefully. “Screw you.”

Wanda’s mouth dropped open. “I didn’t even say anything!”

“‘You and quiet? Ah-ha-ha! Don’t funny me,’” the young man said in a ridiculously high-pitched voice.

“Screw you back!” his twin rushed out quickly, resentful. “And also, let’s move our alco-picnic inside. My ass is freezing out here.”

The last one was said with great effort since the girl was trying to restrain her teeth from chattering. Going out so late at night in shorts now appeared as an obvious mistake.

“Dunno.” Peter shrugged and stretched out his legs in front of him, leaning back on his arms. “I feel pretty comfortable here.”

Sure thing, you are! In these leather pants of yours, crossed the girl’s mind. They don’t need to be washed even. Just wipe with a cloth and here you go.

As if a thought could summon attention, the young man’s gaze traveled to Wanda, finally noticing that his sister practically became a shivering ball wrapped in a cardigan.

“If you’re cold, go back to the mansion,” he said in earnest. “I’ll probably catch up to you.”

“Nuh-uh,” the girl hummed. “I’m perfectly fine.” There was no chance in hell she would go back through that dark grove alone.

Peter rolled his eyes but didn’t try to dissuade her, it would be in vain anyway. He looked up at the sky, at the twinkling stars that were forever friends of the Moon, scattered across the velvet darkness. An oaky-scented breeze ran its hand through his silver locks, tickling his forehead and ears, vetoing the night’s tranquility from lulling him to sleep. Well, in this it had an ally.

“But what did you do in the quiet?” Wanda asked, looking at the young man sideways.

“I knew it!” His hand flew in the air so briskly to point an accusatory finger at his twin, that the dirt from under his palm almost landed on the girl’s face.

“Stop overreacting! I’m just curious!” she fenced. Then her face took on a contemplating expression. “Unless it’s something a sister shouldn’t know.”

Her eyes weren’t able to register Peter’s superspeed motions so it looked like one second his stare was shooting daggers at her and the next he was flouncing toward the school, grumbling something under his breath.

“Where are you going?” Wanda called after him, raising to her feet. “Wait for me!”

She really didn’t want to uncross her arms and lose even an ounce of body heat so she resorted to her telekinetic abilities – lids and empty bottles rose from the ground and floated around her as if she was Beaty with no Beasts around (hopefully).

“Peter!” The girl hurried after her brother, whose silhouette had already disappeared behind the mighty trunks of centuries-old trees.

....

It seemed only logical to volunteer to clean the chemistry classroom once Jean heard about its state following a failed experiment. Mr. Edwards thought so too and welcomed her into the mess with his arms open, chattering about how glad he was to know that there were still “responsive students” left.

Having briefly outlined the work that needed to be done so that the Professor would not have to appeal to his bank account again, the teacher handed her yellow rubber gloves, a mop, scrubbers, and a bucket of water, and citing urgent business, left all the “fun” to the girl.

In all honesty, Jean didn’t mind the dirty work but she was also looking for someone’s company, even Mr. Edwards could suffice for the role. Since that ill-fated day when the news about the gang’s night adventure broke and Charles chastised them all for being irresponsible, the young people stayed apart. Jubilee went back to her parents for a week and Scott retreated into himself again, mourning his inability to live up to his older brother’s expectations on his account. Judging by the scattered clouds (literally), Ororo was no longer sulking yet she didn’t rush to have any type of conversation with Jean (even those trivial ones about the weather). The twins were out of reach too as they went into hide-and-seek mode with Erik, a knowledge generously supplied by Kurt, who, by the way, was the only one unaffected by the Professor’s harsh decision or Jean’s “betrayal”.

“And here we go,” the girl muttered, gathering her flame-red hair into a bun. She then put on the gloves and tooled up with the scrubbers.

Somewhere around the thirtieth minute of listening to a wonderful melody that was a product of love between wooden blocks and synthetic fibers, the girl began humming “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”.

Maybe you’ll get a replacement

There’s plenty like me to be found

Click

Mongrels who ain’t got a penny

Sniffing for tidbits like you

On the ground

Click

Jean stopped humming and scrubbing for a second.

Click-click

“What…” She lifted a scrubber, giving it a look of suspicion.

Click-click-click

Her head snapped to the classroom entrance. There, leaning against the doorframe, stood Peter, chewing casually on a red apple.

“Hi!” Jean chirped, astonished to find that excessive enthusiasm in her own tone. When did she become so socialized, huh?

“Is it an audition for a modern Snow White musical? I would like to contribute,” the young man said, grinning.

The telepath cast a quick glance down at her outfit – striped T-shirt, denim short overall and shabby boots – and raised her brows.

“Well, I guess the dwarf part isn’t taken yet so…” she drawled, attention flicking back to her silver-haired friend who looked relaxed in his Canadian tuxedo, a white T-shirt and Converse.

“And what dwarf am I?” the speedster asked waggishly.

The girl shrugged. “Which one would you choose?”

Peter tipped his head from side to side as if truly pondering over the question. “I would say we can combine them all into an ideal one and I would gladly play that part.”

Jean clicked her tongue not unamused. “Clever.”

Having realized she was still crouching over a stain on the floor with the scrubber in her hand, the girl set it aside and rose on her feet, stretching her asleep muscles. The afternoon sunlight was haloing her hair and shoulders, making her look like a Phoenix. A rather cute Phoenix in a short overall.

“Listen,” she began carefully, “about the Professor and this whole situation…I…”

The young man pushed off the doorframe, sauntered into the classroom and perched on the desk closest to his friend. A half-eaten apple in his hand seemed to be forgotten, its once white flesh turning withered brown.

“I’m honestly surprised you lasted so long before you grassed on us.”

His eyes were two dark coins only there was no duplicity about them. There was a good-natured glint to them, no judgment present. A wave of relief washed over the girl. She hoped Wanda didn’t hold a grudge against her either.

“I’m currently deciding to whether take it as a compliment or an insult,” Jean said, keeping her smile in.

“Definitely a compliment. I never speak ill of pretty girls. Unless it’s my sis.”

That laid-back, flirtatious attitude of his brought a faint blush to the girl’s cheeks. “I’ve never heard a sibling calling another sibling pretty. It’s kind of sweet.”

“I sweetened the pill in case you decide to drop a word about this conversation to her or –” Peter lowered his voice to a whisper, leaning closer to the telepath “– if she’s sneaking somewhere around.”

Jean giggled. “Wow, you really thought it all through, didn’t you?”

A half-shrug was his reply. A proper gentleman should be a touch mysterious.

“So, what it’s all about?” the speedster asked, taking a look around.

Hands braced on her hips, the red-haired telepath followed his suit and said on an exhale, “Apparently, Mr. Edwards got carried away reminiscing his childhood. He set up an experimental lesson on Silly Pitty creation. You can see the result yourself.”

Nothing screamed ‘experimental’ more than this room: all the windows were open yet a strong chemical scent assaulted Peter’s senses more than mom’s burned fondue she one tried to make for Christmas, and judging by the overthrown chairs some students shared his point of view; a foaming liquid was dripping from one table, a hole was burned in another, broken test tubes were lying near the blackboard, something green that might have been a goblin’s snot in another world was hanging from the ceiling, splashed on the floor.

“Do I want to know what it’s made of?” the young man muttered in disgust, still staring up though.

“As far as I’m aware it’s a mixture of silicone polymers and some chemicals like acid,” Jean’s voice came a little strangled because her head was thrown back too, beholding the work of chemical art.

“I don’t like it,” Peter said slowly, accentuating every word.

“Neither do I,” the girl agreed, her nose crinkled. “And the Professor’s property.”

At last, they tore their gazes from the ceiling and looked at each other.

“Is this your misdemeanor punishment?” he asked suspiciously, his mind already calculating what Prof had in store for him. Teaching preschoolers to draw letters? Cleaning fragile family heirlooms? To be a model for a drawing class? The latter would’ve warmed his ego if it didn’t mean standing like a statue for HOURS!

“Sort of.” The telepath spotted that strong impulse to run in her silver-haired friend so she added, “But the Professor didn’t subject me to it. It was my choice.”

The expression on Peter’s face was one of pure confusion. “Are you mad? Who in the hell would choose to clean up a classroom?”

Mr. Edwards’ “responsive students” phrase became more relevant all of a sudden.

Jean’s shoulders shrugged and she splayed her arms slightly in “dunno, probably me” gesture.

The young man gave her a disapproving shake of the head and landed an evaluating look at their surroundings once again. It was only then the girl registered a camera hanging on his neck. Camera! That’s where that clicking sound came from.

“Did you take pictures of me? Looking like this?” she asked, scandalized, making a quick sweeping motion over her figure.

The supersonic speed must have been involved in this because when Jean blinked a denim jacket, an apple, and most importantly, the camera was no longer with Peter. But his silver strands of hair were sticking out in all directions, as if he had been electrocuted and a taunting waft caressed the girl’s face, one of the signs the speedster used his power.

“Did you see me with a camera? Strange, because I don’t have it with me. Innocent until proven guilty,” the speedster proclaimed imperturbably.

“To be fair,” he added, mischief crinkling the skin around his eyes, “it could’ve made a nice addition to your grad photo album. In theory. If those photos were actually made.”

How Wanda was able to put up with him since birth the girl had no idea.

“If you think I can’t prove you had a camera just a second ago, then you forget I can read minds. It’s all recorded there,” Jean made a fair point, crossing her arms over her chest.

The sneaky bastard had the audacity to glance down at his wristwatch and demonstratively click his tongue, saying she wasn’t time accurate.

“Whatever,” the girl said on a defeated exhale.

She reached out and picked up a scrubber from the table. “What are your plans for today?”

Yellow rubber gloves were put on display when Peter held up his hands, his lips twisted in a boyish smile.

The girl lifted a brow. “Wasn’t it you who called me crazy for volunteering to clean up the classroom?”

“I can’t leave you to be crazy alone and let you break your nails any further.”

Another brow was lifted and the speedster conceded.

“My father is roaming around and I’m pretty sure it’s the last place where we can bump into each other and have one more awkward moment.”

Despite all the playfulness, in the features of the young man lurked sadness and certain fear. As a friend, the girl wanted to fire a hundred questions at him, get to the bottom of unspoken matters. As a good friend, she gave him a faint but soft smile and accepted his help if it meant he would find a bit of comfort.

“But don’t use super speed. We don’t know what chemicals are spilled here and what reaction we can get if we are not careful,” Jean warned. And giggled when the level of his enthusiasm considerably dropped.

The young man was walking around with detergent, applying it on every spot of Silly Pitty of a failure, while Jean was scrubbing a desk near the window. Never a man of one occupation, Peter’s attention slipped behind his friend’s back and out of the room in general. The girl traced the point of his gaze, turning around to see a pretty much movie-like scene. The Professor was on his way to the garden which Wanda was just leaving so these two kind of collided in the middle of the narrow pathway and couldn’t come out of this simple situation, getting into each other’s way again and again.

“Sorry,” they said at the same time.

“You’re going here, I’m going there,” the girl said, awkwardly gesturing directions they should take.

“That’s right,” Charles agreed with a nod but once they began moving, they messed it up again.

The man gave her an apologetic, thin-lipped smile.

“I’ll just trample this nice lawn over here a little then,” Wanda mumbled, making a sweeping motion over an area of close-cropped grass near the pathway.

Mentally she slapped a hand over her face.

“Wanda,” the Professor began when the girl was about to flee, “may I have a couple more minutes of your time?”

A hesitant “erm” slipped her lips, her gaze ping-ponged around as if looking for an excuse to shake him off.

“If you are not fond of the idea to have a conversation with me, I’ll understand,” he said gently.

Wanda folded her arms over her chest and drawled distractedly, “Are you trying to sneak around in my mind again, Mr. Xavier?” The reply was more of a reflex since her own psionic powers didn’t sound the alarm.

“I was told once that there is no need in reading a mind when you can simply read a face.”

Her gaze finally dropped to Charles’ face. The more she looked into those ocean-blue eyes the more she noticed that their usual light was dimmed with something he seemed eager to share with her. The girl tilted her head, a prompt of sorts for him to continue with the conversation he asked for.

“If I’m being honest, I’ve been haunted by guilt since the day you left for home. It was a back-and-forth kind of feeling as the whole truth unraveled but still. I left you and Peter in the lurch.” A light midday breeze twirled white petals of gardenias between their feet, bringing a sweet aroma with a zesty, green undertone. The man looked down at one of these little pieces of a flower settled on the step of his wheelchair, seeming to be consumed by some inner contradiction. “You know, even after so many years of living with this power, I still struggle to see the line. When the benefits outweigh the costs.

Oh, Wanda knew it better than he could’ve imagined.  

“Then it crossed my mind – I do use my power for much more trivial things than helping out two young people escape an encounter with the police. It would be only fair to come with you to Washington. Especially after everything Peter did.”

In a nutshell, it was an apology, something the girl didn’t expect (not that she needed it). She and Peter were used to relying on no one but themselves, and upon receiving a call from officer Hendrikson, Wanda’s mind hardly registered Charles’ feeble attempt to contribute to the improvement of their situation.  

“Well, I’ll be honest with you too. It was nothing me and my brother wouldn’t be able to manage myself,” she said, confidence vowed firmly in every word. Then, she sighed. “It’s just…Not everybody needs spiritual guidance, some need a form of help more palpable than a check.”

“That check idea sticked with Erik too,” the Professor noted, rubbing the bridge of his nose rather embarrassedly.

“Well, I find your willingness to bid farewell to your money rather engrossing,” the girl admitted in jest.

The lines of a smile began to circle the man’s lips when an abrupt change in Wanda’s behavior made him question the efficiency of the gears in his mind. She went from being casual to crouching behind the nearest gardenia shrub, whispering swear words like a prayer in a blink of an eye. 

“Is he coming here?” the girl asked, her hands squeezed into fists, face scrunched up. Sensing a transpiring misunderstanding, she detailed, “Erik. At three o’clock.”

Following the lead almost mindlessly, Charles turned his head to his right and indeed spotted the Master of Magnetism treading in their direction, brows slightly drawn together.

“Uhm…I think he is coming here,” the telepath reported to Wanda, keeping eye contact with his old friend for longer than the circumstances warranted. When his gaze fell back on the girl, he found her staring at him, unblinking.

“Reconnaissance isn’t your thing, Professor,” she said in a hashed, almost reproachful tone. Having parted the branches of the shrub and taken a sneak peek at her father, she added, “You didn’t see me!”

With that, Wanda scampered, trying to blend in with every tree and shrub on her way out of there. Yet another day of her pulling pieces of nature out of her hair and clothes and feeling like she was a bit cuckoo (much thanks to Kurt and his optimism that gave a start to the weird circle on a Monday morning).

“What is she doing?” Jean asked Peter, perplexed.

Elbows propped on the windowsill, these two were watching it all like a silent comedy movie. Its piano background music would’ve allied perfectly with everything they witnessed and a dramatic one should’ve struck once Erik appeared in the picture and his grey-blue eyes instantly locked with a pair of dark-brown ones.

“Shit!” the young man exclaimed and dushed down, dragging his red-haired friend with him. There was no need to pose this question, but he did anyway. “Do you think he saw us?”

Pressing her back against the wall under the window, the girl mumbled, “Yeah, certainly.”      

All of a sudden, as if a ghost was toying around, an iron bucket that was in the middle of the classroom leaned, teetered, and finally tipped, crashing down with a clatter, splashing the water all over the floor.

The youngsters shared a silent look.

Then, another bucket had a spill, soaking the wooden blocks with liquid.

“Oh my God,” Jean got out slowly, punctuating every word with a blink of her eyes. As seconds passed her expression attained more and more panicky notes. “My God. The flooring. No, no, no, no! It’ll ruin the flooring! Grab the cloth!”

Mindless of the water, the girl hastened her way to one of the buckets on all fours. Peter meanwhile slipped into superspeed, trying to snatch a cloth and minimize the damage, but ended up wallowing on the floor, having slipped on a detergent he himself applied on the “Silly Pitty” spot.

“Damn it,” the speedster hissed, unsure what was harmed more – his ass or his ego.

“Come on,” the red-haired telepath urged him, she was already wringing out a washcloth, the yellow rubber of her gloves squeaking in protest. “We don’t have time for a tie-dye.”

The young man hoisted himself up onto his elbows and glanced down at the hem of his once white T-shirt now painted with chemical green twirls. When his eyes drifted back to his friend there was a grimace of high dudgeon on his face. “Are you a mutant or not? Magic the water out!”

“I can’t! It’s everywhere now!” she snapped back, desperately trying to gather as much water as possible with already soaked through a piece of fabric. Perhaps she was too desperate in her efforts because the washcloth gave out and the girl sprawled on the floor, skinning the underside of her chin. Peter was pretty sure the sound he heard was of her jaws sudden meeting. It made him wince.

“Are you alright?” the young man asked carefully.

Jean crawled on her hands to her knees, sitting up. Before two fingers came to touch the temple, she said, “I think it’s time to fetch some help.”

They lapsed into silence, interrupted only by muffled voices of the children wandering around and the squelching of Peter’s clothes when he braced his forearms on his knees, watching his friend having a mind-to-mind conversation. At last, her hand dropped and a moment later a pair of heavy leather boots stepped on the threshold of the classroom.

“That’s not what I imagined to see when you said it’s a life-or-death situation,” Ororo drawled, her brows lifted as she sized her friends up.

The red-haired girl pressed her lips in a semblance of a smile.

“It will be, for the floor and for us, if you don’t grace us with your help,” the speedster bantered.

The Storm Ruler let loose a sigh and waved at them in a “get the hell out of here” gesture. Spirits lifted, Peter and Jean rose to their feet and exited the room looking like two obnoxious children who were able to find an ally among the older ones.

Making every drop of water leave the room was not an easy task. It required a lot of concentration, an unyielding focus, something that Ororo couldn’t master because the skin of her neck could literally feel her friends’ breaths.

“You’re crowding me, okay?” she remarked flatly.

Those two behind her shoulders backed down a little.

“Still crowding.”

There was some grumbling on Peter’s part but eventually, the atmosphere of curiosity dialed down a few notches so the girl lifted her hands, connecting with one of the natural elements. Slowly, droplet after droplet was pulling up from the wooden flooring into the air, gathering in a big water sphere that eventually became a flow that carefully filled two buckets and a few more empty containers.

“Perhaps car theft was too high a bar,” Erik mused, hands in his pockets. He and the Professor were still standing on that pathway to the garden, watching the young mutants through the classroom’s window. “But you can team them up for clearing the area or decorating a Christmas tree, although the latter, I believe, may come with a set of difficulties.”

“Maybe they just need more time to grow on each other, learn more about their powers,” Charles suggested.

“That is why it’s an excellent icebreaker exercise for them. And a lesson in camouflaging for Wanda.”

The telepath glanced up at his old friend, his mouth opened to say something in the girl’s defense but the Master of Magnetism stalled him with an arched brow. Charles had never been good at lying and there was no sense in trying it now.

“She called me ‘Professor’ for the first time,” he said in a tone that would suit a father whose child uttered their first word. “Though I think there was a negative connotation to it.”

Erik’s cheek curved.

“Come,” he said to Charles, already starting to walk toward the garden. “The higher the sun, the higher the possibility of your shiny head getting a sunburn.”

In fact, the Professor had a rather limited choice, because the wheels of his wheelchair began to turn against his will and actions, following the path that the Master of Magnetism had chosen.

....

The heavy wooden door let out a high-pitched creaking sound but yielded under his efforts much easier than the young man imagined. Maybe the reason was that he wasn’t the first one to come in.

Kurt was sitting on one of the benches. His eyes fluttered open at the sound and skittered toward the threshold, his clasped in prayer hands fell to his knees. “Scott?”

The surprise in his tone aligned with Scott’s mental state perfectly. He had no idea what he was doing in the small church forgotten on the school grounds. Just like most of his peers, the young man remembered the Lord’s name either in vain or when he needed to get out of a really difficult situation which basically can be counted as “in vain” too, but never in prayer. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to believe in the higher power. Especially after Alex passed away.

“Sorry, didn’t think anyone would be in here.” Scott hesitated, still holding to the door’s massive iron handle.

“I come here every Sunday,” his friend replied simply. “Or when anxiety hits me.”

Judging by the day of the week it wasn’t a scheduled mass.

Involuntarily, Scott’s gaze drifted along the interior of the building, amazed at how spacious it actually was. The high vaulted ceiling was made of a dark wood that had been preserved much better than that of which the benches were made. The walls and floors were rough gray stone; however, the sunlight flooded the space, coming perhaps in different shades thanks to the stained-glass windows. It added warmth and sacredness to the atmosphere.

“Want to join me?” the teleport asked carefully.

“Erm…I’m not really into, you know, religion, spiritual stuff and all of it,” Scott drawled in reply almost apologetically, rubbing the back of his neck.

“But something brought you here.”

“I’m afraid it’s simply boredom.”

A small smile graced Kurt’s lips. “Well, let it be so.”

It might’ve seemed like this unexpected conversation exhausted itself, but for some reason, Scott felt like turning around and closing the door on it now was wrong so he stepped further into the building and took a seat not far from the teleport. The bench asked for an upgrade or at least some blanket thrown over.

The young man fidgeted in his spot. “So how does coming here help you with anxiety? Do you, like, voice the things that are nagging at you or you meditate like yogis?”

“A little of everything, I guess,” the teleport replied after pondering over the question for a few minutes. “When I came here for the first time, this place was forsaken.” His gaze turned distant as he took a look around, reminiscing. “The altar was overgrown with moss, ivy crawled along the walls, and every corner was curtained off with webs. But the moment I sat here and just closed my eyes, reading a short prayer, I felt such peace in my soul that I have not experienced in a long while.”

Scott nodded though he was far from understanding the feeling. Not a day passed by when thinking about his brother didn’t cause pain.

“But how do you know there is anyone listening to your prayer?”

“I don’t,” Kurt said calmly. Then, he put his hand on his chest. “I just feel it here.”

A crease formed between Scott’s brows but the young man didn’t say anything. He just peered at the stained-glass window, guessing the colors it must have had, and absorbed the sacred silence.

....

Being a hero was never an easy burden to bear. People’s expectations on their account are usually as high as the sky, there is always someone in distress and once they are safe the savior gets to be interviewed for a national channel or is praised by the local community or gets nothing, really. And if a hero doesn’t make it in time...oof. Everyone has a list of positive traits that define a hero; however, when it comes to their possible downsides or bad habits it’s mostly about excessive empathy or endless hope for a bright tomorrow. Raven had none of it (one might’ve even said it was quite the opposite), but she did have a bad habit not a single soul would think of – nighttime eating. Yep, that’s right, you got it correctly. Perhaps it was due to her stealthy lifestyle she had to adopt from early childhood or maybe her ever-changing appearance required more calories than three times a day meal provided.

In any case, it was long past midnight when the shapeshifter shoved her feet into slippers and shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen. Once the lights in that small room were turned on, she rummaged through the cupboards, looking for the ingredients to make her secret treat. Soft slices of bread went on a plate, pampered with butter on the outsides and peanut butter and strawberry jelly on the insides. With one swift motion of a blade four heavenly triangles were created. Raven licked her fingers while she was waiting for a griddle to heat.

But would it be a life within the walls of the school, if it’s all quiet and tranquility?

A loud clang rang behind the shapeshifter’s back, making her swivel in her spot to face the source, a knife in one hand and a sandwich in the other. An iron bucket was rolling on the floor and just beside it Peter was hopping, clutching at his other foot with both hands.

“Crap, crap, crap,” he grunted, his face twisted in a grimace of pain.

“Will you stop clowning?”

The young man nearly tripped over a bucket, flapping his arms like a chicken. His nearly black eyes shot to the corner of the kitchen where Erik stood the instant second both of his feet were on the ground and he regained his balance.

“Thanks for the sympathy, dad,” he said somewhat mockingly after a long, decisive pause.

The Master of Magnetism cocked his head, a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth. The whites of his eyes turned lemon yellow before the whole facade dropped, revealing Raven’s true face behind it. “What gave me away?”

Peter took off his goggles, pushing them on top of his head and jerked his chin at the bread triangle in her hand. “He would never eat that shit.”

“But what if he did?” the woman drawled in objection.

A shrug too offhanded even for the speedster followed in reply. “Then it would be a poor joke.”

Somebody must be in a bad mood, she thought, watching as the silver-haired boy trudged to the kitchen units, giving his hurt feet a few rolls along the way, and opened a wall cupboard, looking for something. It didn’t escape Raven’s notice that goggles weren’t the most unfitting piece of his night attire: a silver leather jacket was thrown over a Rush T-shirt, black jeans hugged tight his legs, his Nikes were covered in dust.

“Nice slippers, by the way,” Peter noted, already leaning on the kitchen counter on the other side of the stove, chewing on the Wham Bar.

The shapeshifter glanced down. Erik in a pair of pink peep-toes with fluffy pom-poms? Nope, that surely wasn’t the thing that gave her away. Nuh-uh. She let loose a disappointed yawn and resumed making her night treat.

“Can’t sleep?” Raven asked, carefully laying out the sandwiches on the griddle.

“Made a few circles around the town,” the young man said simply, like it was not a big deal, and unwrapped another chewy candy.

Brow lifted, the shapeshifter scanned him from head to toe. “Should Charles worry about someone’s property?”

It didn’t take long for the speedster to realize she was referring to the b-o-r-r-o-w-e-d stuff Prof and Hank saw so many years ago in the basement. He pouted rather dramatically. “You guys are such a gossip.”

“Oh, it’s Hank, actually,” she shamelessly gave her friend away in between flipping her sandwiches with a spatula. A caramel-like scent wafted in the kitchen air. “He blurts out something, then flushes, blurts out some more and…” The woman lifted her shoulder in a “you know?” half-shrug.

A devious spark lit up in Peter’s eyes. Project ‘Haven’ should’ve got a proper completion (even though he and Wanda didn’t get any further than coming up with a ship name for these two blue lovebirds).

“What this smirk is about?” Raven asked, suspicious, making a sweeping motion over the speedster’s face with a spatula, her other hand braced on her hip.

“The fuck is –” Erik’s voice came in out of nowhere together with a clang.

Spooked, the night eaters turned around to see the barefoot Master of Magnetism scowling at the bucket. The iron thing was crumpling under his gaze like a sheet of paper in a child’s hand.

It’s been two days since he decided to extend his stay at the school but it rewarded him with nothing. Who knew two barely adults could hide so successfully on a relatively limited piece of land? Erik could’ve asked his telepathic friend to assist him on this but it would disclose Wanda and the man realized he didn’t have it in him. He might’ve broken the promise he had given to her easily be it the desperate times but it really wasn’t. Not in a sense he got used to. As for Peter, the Master of Magnetism was not sure the trick would work on him, considering his mutation. Besides, it seemed that despite the carelessness emanating from the silver-haired boy in waves, he was also not a fan of mind games. Other than leaving, Erik had one option left – to wait.

This night, woken up by yet another nightmare that was more of a memory from his tragic life, the man dragged himself downstairs, needing a glass of cold water. An iron bucket laying at the kitchen entrance caught him off guard. As well as Raven (in fluffy slippers?) and wide-eyed Peter, who was waving his greeting with a spatula.

“Are you teaching him lethal practices?” the Master of Magnetism said to the shapeshifter, his voice a bit hoarse.

Her attention snapped back to the sandwiches on the griller, the sweet aroma they exuded just a moment before began to echo with burnt. She snagged the spatula out of the young man’s hand, wondering when he got it to begin with. 

Peter, on the other hand, kept a close eye on his father, who squeezed in between the fussing shapeshifter and the table, past him, toward the pitcher. He filled a glass with water, his throat bobbed as he took a few sips. Here he was, in grey sweatpants, a dark blue T-shirt, hair disheveled, cheeks outlined with ginger stubble, simply drinking water. His dad. Sometimes Peter perceived them as magnets, they could be nearby, but something repelled them from each other, erected an invisible barrier between them, and sometimes it seemed like Erik was the only magnet, and he himself was a piece of metal that, in spite of everything, was drawn to him.

“Had a night promenade?” the man asked, breaking Peter’s chain of thoughts.

“Eh?” The speedster blinked at him, a little bemused. His father’s eyes ran quickly over his attire, insinuating. “Aah! Uh-huh. Yeah.”

Something crunched in the background and at first, the young man thought it was his dignity crumpling like that iron once-was-bucket. Turned out it was Raven and her damned piece of grilled bread.

Sharing food, considering his immense appetite due to his mutation, was a special way to show he cared about someone, it was also an olive branch (in some cases altogether). So, Peter slipped his hand into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out the last Wham Bar he had, handing it to the Master of Magnetism.

“Or you can try one of these things Raven grilled,” the speedster blurted out when his outstretched palm with candy began to seem like an absurd offer.

The shapeshifter’s elbow greeted his ribs rather passionately.

Erik gave them a once-over, then lifted his glass to take another sip. “I’ll better stick with water.”

The silver-haired boy really fought against the disappointment settling on his shoulders, but they sagged almost involuntarily. His palm closed, his hand was about to fall to his side when the Master of Magnetism said, “I wouldn’t mind that candy though. Looks like one of those British things that Charles loves.”

Peter’s expression remained intense for a few more bits and then lightened up. He practically threw that chewy bar at the man but surprisingly Erik’s mouth was twitching toward a small smile.

Suddenly, a creak came from the antechamber and at this point, it was a game of sorts for Raven, so she froze and gave father and son a look that eloquently said: keep your mouths shut. Who else fate decided to lead here tonight?

“Bloody Hell!” Wanda blasted out, stumbling over an infamous bucket that in all honesty didn’t resemble one anymore. She squeezed her eyes, clearly pained, her fingers curled into fists. Red glowing tendrils tied around the iron tortilla at her feet as if it were a Christmas present and shredded it into particles that were right away dispelled.

Almost breathlessly the shapeshifter watched the girl and almost hissed at the Master of Magnetism when he put down his glass on the kitchen counter, soundlessly though.

Peter’s conscience whispered that he was being traitorous.

The girl’s eyes were half closed as she limped to the fridge and opened it, long nails tapping on the door. After a long assessment of the goods stored there, it seemed like she made up her mind because she turned around, a bottle of Aspen soda in her hand. The instant Wanda’s sleepy mind registered Erik, Peter and Raven laying low in the corner of the kitchen, she flinched, almost locking herself up in the fridge. Luckily, the soda slipped from her grasp into the bottle storage, or else a loud yelp wouldn’t be the only sound that ricocheted off the walls.

“Godddamn you!” she got out, regaining her balance. Her hair was coming out of its braid in angry spikes, illuminated by the lightbulb glow of the refrigerator. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

Everything about Raven screamed of triumph. “I knew you are a mutant. It just couldn’t be otherwise.”

“What’s your power exactly?” she asked, narrowing her eyes when her survival instincts kicked in.

The shapeshifter flicked her eyes to her old friend for a second, in part waiting for his assistance, but there was nothing close to surprise or calculation on his face. Her gaze darted to Wanda, then back to Erik, before it landed on Peter’s face. It was a weird game of exchanging glances around in a circle that actually made her pissed off with all of them.

“I can’t with you,” the woman proclaimed with a huff. She gathered up the remaining sandwiches and absented herself from that meeting, dropping “assholes” before she closed the door.

“What a doll,” Wanda crooned with a smile sweeter than sugar. “Don’t you just want to hold her underwater till the bubbles stop?”

Her twin smirked.

“I still don’t get why you two can’t get along,” the Master of Magnetism said, genuinely puzzling over the possible reasons.

The girl granted them a withering look. “Know what, you two creepers, why would I even comment on that, huh?”

Having appealed to the fridge again and pulled out an Aspen soda, Wanda tugged a chair from under the table and eased herself in it, stretching her left leg on its neighbor. She pressed the glass bottle to her toes, wincing.

“If it’s any consolation, we fell the victims of that bucket too,” Peter bantered, though his tone was more than sympathetic.

He plopped down on the chair, just across from his sister, and a moment later Erik joined them, taking a seat by the speedster’s side. The man put something on the table and outstretched his arm, leading the hidden object down the wooden surface toward Wanda. When he opened his palm, she saw a blue wrapper, red letters with yellow trim said: “WHAM”. An involuntary, slightly childish smile tugged at her lips.

“Where did you get it?” she asked. It brought back a memory from Oxford life when she was curling in an armchair in a poorly lit room of her small apartment, reading some books for the morning class and chewing this candy because she had no energy left to cook real food at the end of the day.

A quick silent look passed between her father and brother.

“We borrowed it from Charles’ stockpile,” Erik replied, amusement drawing fragile lines on the skin around his eyes.

So, what, are you a team now? the girl thought, sizing the men.

One way or another Wanda had to bring up the matter that made them drift apart. “Thank you for the book…I guess,” she said quietly.

I regret the words I told you.

You were right. It’s not my place to admonish you.

The Master of Magnetism pursed his lips. “He told you.”

“Well, you happened to choose that one guy who can’t lie.” The girl shrugged. “Kurt’s benevolence hardly has any bounds.”

“Like hell it has,” Peter intervened, puffing in indignation. “He still denies that he stole my biscuits!”

“Aw, forget about it already,” his twin groaned, looking heavenward. “It wasn’t him.”

“If he fell head over heels for you, it doesn’t mean he is laying out all the sneaky things he does in front of you. The guy just cannot be that good,” the speedster objected.

Wanda set her Aspen soda down on the table with more force than was necessary, sitting straight, forearms braced on the table.

“Actually, it’s really not his fault. I ate them.”

The confession came so abruptly and, well, it came from Erik so that the twins had to physically pause to accept the fact they didn’t mishear him.

“You ate my Twinkies?” A snort of incredulous nature burst out from the silver-haired boy. “Don’t you usually snack with apples? With those, like, small, deep red, yellowish specks scattered around, sometimes with green stripes on top apples?”

The man’s brows slowly went up. “Did you just give a detailed description of the apples I eat?”

“Ermm…” Peter’s eyes darted to his sister but her expression said: dude, you’re creeping me out, for real.

“Looks like I give my preference to McIntosh,” the man pondered. Noticing bemused plus something akin to horror grimace on the speedster’s face, he added, “It’s an apple cultivar. I had a couple of trees of these back at home, in Poland.”

The casual tone in which he mentioned it prompted his kids to pose a bunch of questions of their interest and maybe Wanda would’ve dared to do just that if Erik didn’t cut her short. Unintentionally, though. “Speaking of homes. I didn’t have the chance to ask how it went. With your mother and the police and all of this.”

“Might have gone better, actually,” the girl admitted, fighting a yawn. “I kept Kurt on his toes for the whole day, running around Washington, quarreled with mom, Lora got sick, and then we stumbled upon her father in New York.”

“For the record, he stumbled upon us,” Peter amended as if it changed things drastically. “But hey, you got the police off our backs. That’s something.”

Wanda thrust her fist in the air in a languid triumph, not sharing his enthusiasm.

Erik was torn between two questions that consequently came out of this exchange. He decided to pose, as he felt, the least complex one first. “How did you deal with the police?”

“No telepathy or superspeed was involved, if that’s what you’re asking.” The girl’s lips pursed briefly, a jokingly apologetic gesture. “The officer was a typical douchebag so all I needed was to be intimidating enough for him to close his eyes to that ridiculous misunderstanding.”

“And while she was scaring the crap out of these dummies, an eight-year-old was giving me a hard time when I tried to convince her to eat a soup,” the silver-haired boy drawled, grimacing.

A look of understanding only a parent could have passed over the man’s face, bringing a bit of softness into his features. “Did you succeed?”

“Ate the whole bowl and my soul is still with me,” Peter proclaimed with an air of importance.

His sister let loose an amused huff.

“So, you and Lora have different fathers?” Erik asked, coming to the topic of his longstanding interest. The more he was getting to know these two, the more it became obvious this part of their story was intentionally omitted.

Walking on thin ice became a habit, still, it hit too close to home. Or maybe it was just a breeze, slipped through the opened window behind the speedster’s back, but a shiver went through the twins. Wanda’s toes curled.

Peter leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, the sleeves of his leather jacket squeaking. His reply came out rather succinct. “Yep.”

“The way you framed it gives an impression the meeting in New York was unwanted,” the Master of Magnetism went on, suspecting an ugly truth hidden somewhere between the lines. “What did he do?”

“He’s an asshole,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “Seems like mom’s superpower, to find these guys and fall for them.”

Peter cleared his throat thus drawing the man’s gaze right to his persona.

“And your father –”

“We didn’t have one growing up,” the speedster blasted out.

“But you know who he is.” Not a question, his darkened tone was of someone who didn’t need to be convinced it was a fact.

“The cause of many discords in our family as of late,” Wanda said with a bitter smirk, twisting the ring on her middle finger.

“Maybe if you made the pineapple pie for our last gathering, it would’ve sweetened the atmosphere.” The young man’s brows waggled playfully. He refused to stay serious for too long.

“If it were possible, the pancakes would’ve done this job just as well,” the girl retorted. “The pineapple cake is a strictly Hanukkah meant dish.”

“Hanukkah?” Erik repeated as if he had never heard this word before.

My family has a history with people who loved running tests for “scientific purposes” during the war.

…those fanatics who destroyed the lives of innocent people, my people.

Our gram lost her little sister and our grandad within a year due to the Nazis, forced to flee to another country, leaving everything behind.

It never quite sparked in his mind that their relatives ran not from the gore, hunger and losses, they ran from being caged like animals. Like he and his family had been captured. These kids didn’t know the war, but they must have seen its imprint in their grandmother’s eyes. They must have had their own battles because they were Jews with Polish roots and because they were mutants. Just like him.

The man’s voice was deep with emotions when he asked, feeling something greater than the fellowship, “What’s your family name?”

The air in the room became unbearably stuffed, Peter’s throat went dry so he just stared at his sister. Wanda’s lips parted but no sound came out as if her vocal cords got paralyzed. Again and again she tried with the result staying just the same. Eventually, she hung her head.

“Mom and Pete got me this ring for my sixteenth birthday,” the girl said quietly, twisting the silver rope-like ring on the ring finger of her right hand. “Sixteen years of being a united family against all odds.” She smiled and then moved to her left hand, her middle finger was graced with another band of silver, its swirled patterns rounded a pitch-black stone. “This one over here is my price-not-so-wise gift to myself when I stepped onto the British land. It’s like a mark that I fulfilled one of my dreams. And this one is probably the most treasured piece.” Wanda touched the signet ring on the middle finger of her right hand, its oval small top was blank. She tapped on it with her long nail. “See, there is no name on it. Still. After so many generations of women in our family wore it.

Carefully, she slid it down her finger and handed it to Erik. His gaze lingered on her face for a moment longer before it fell to the ring. He took it, the piece of silver looking small between his callused fingers, and turned it over, studying. There was an intricately engraved star of David on the inside part of the oval top. 

“It’s not the name that matters but the heritage we carry with us.”

She was born Maximoff yet it didn’t take away the fact she was also Lehnsherr and all the other names that women in her family bore before she saw this world.

“Damn, it was touching,” Peter cut in that flow of wisdom (a nice save), his dark eyes glossy. “You sounded like grandma.”

The expressions on his father’s and sister’s faces were priceless. It was like he woke the up in the middle of walking in their sleep and there were three stages of accepting it – baffled, processing in progress, and finally being done with him. The speedster would have surely commented on that but his own face contorted all of a sudden, one eye twitching, his mouth opened and a loud “achoo” erupted from him.

“You good?” Wanda asked, a light crease forming between her brows.

 The silver-haired boy sniffed and puffed and…had gone utterly still when Erik’s large palm touched his forehead.

“You have a fever,” he stated with the confidence of a thermometer, furrowing, and took his hand off.

“What? Pff. Nooo. I rare –”

“Must have caught it from Lora,” the girl shared her worry with the Master of Magnetism. Then, her attention switched to her twin again. “Do you have a sore throat?”

“I’ll make linden tea,” Erik said to Wanda. The wood scraped against the black and white tiles of the kitchen floor as he pushed his chair back and stood. “I think I saw it somewhere in there.”

She nodded, getting on her feet too. “I’ll put the kettle on.”

Ironically, Peter didn’t have time to get a word in edgewise, these two had already begun fussing about his health’s state and it seemed like nothing could make them stop (not that the young man really wanted it anyway). While Erik was rummaging through the cupboards, the girl filled the kettle with water and put it on the stove.

The wind was dancing in the crowns of the trees outside, playing with the leaves, rustling them. Through the blinds on the windows, they saw the dark tinge with blue hues, hinting at the nearing dawn.

“Here,” the man said to Wanda quietly, handing the girl her family’s heirloom. He held it all this time in his hand, carefully enough but also protectively so it left an imprint on his palm. “It’s a beautiful piece.”

“It is,” she replied just as quietly. The girl took the ring and put it back on her finger, where it belonged. 

When the fragrance of linden flowers thickened the air in the room – so sticky Peter could practically taste the sweetness without drinking the tea itself – Erik poured decoction into a cup. The man put it on the table right in front of the speedster and took a step back to stand next to Wanda. Both folded their arms over their chests, irradiating him with the boring adults’ energy.

The silver-haired boy gave them a pointed look but took a sip from the cup nonetheless. A grimace instantly tugged at his face.

Wanda winked at him, a grin on her lips faint but unmistakably wicked. For once, she wasn’t patient zero.

“What else is in there? Honey?” Peter got out.

The Master of Magnetism arched his brow. “I thought you like sweets.”

“Not the honey,” the speedster retorted, taking the offense on the account of all the cakes and candies that were so brutally put in one line with that nature-produced horror. He put a distance between the cup and himself, rejecting the remedy.

Erik heard the girl mutter “what a baby” under her breath as she turned around to a wall cupboard near the window and reached to one of its shelves.

“Fancy a cuppa?” she asked, casting a quick glance at him.

Realizing what kind of a trick Wanda decided to execute, the man couldn’t help but smirk. Having taken it as a “yes” (rightfully so) she pulled out two porcelain white cups and filled them with linden tea. A spoonful of honey was put into each of them rather demonstratively.

With his brows raised, Peter watched them take a sip, almost savoring the flavored liquid. It was a challenge he couldn’t ignore.

Little did he know that his sister’s power didn’t allow those drops of honey to dissolve, so what she and their father were sipping tasted more like plain water with a subtle herbal undertone.

….

Erik knew about Wanda’s powers but didn’t know he was her and Peter’s father. Raven knew whose gene gifted Peter with supersonic speed abilities but was kept in the dark about Wanda being a mutant too. The woman hardly traced the logic. Frankly, she couldn’t trace it all.

When she left the kitchen, the door shut behind her back, exasperation was thrown on the sandwich in her hand. Raven chewed on it rather aggressively as she navigated the darkness of the hall, the small heel of her slippers clattered lightly against the stone floor. Her footsteps had a company.

“Hank?” she asked, guessing the man in a figure that descended the stairs, disclosed by the poor light coming from the large window above.

“Hey,” he responded, judging by his voice with a small smile. “I just decided to check if everything is alright.”

The distance between them was closed by Hank. His glasses gleamed when his gaze slid down to Raven’s shoes and up, back to her face. Her yellow eyes must have shown certain confusion, because he clarified, gesticulating toward the kitchen, “I heard some noise so…”

“Aw, it’s Erik and his kids,” the shapeshifter replied offhandedly. Although she had to clarify her words too. “Peter and Wanda.”

His surprise didn’t target the way the shapeshifter defined the relations between the above-mentioned mutants but rather focused on his old frie – nemes –acquaintance. “He is still here?”

“Why shouldn’t he be?” Raven posed a counter question, her brows drawn together.

Hank could find a thousand reasons why, really.

“It’s just several days ago…I think it was on Monday. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I saw him on Monday. He was walking into the sunset in a suit, a suitcase in his hand. Walking painfully slow, I noticed,” he added in an awkwardly derisive tone.

There was a brief moment when the man was at high risk of being punched. Hard. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“I didn’t know he’s a convict here!” Hank exclaimed defensively.

“Go back to your room,” the shapeshifter said on a half-exasperated, half-weary exhale.

“Actually, I’ve not been there yet. I’ve just –”

Raven wasn’t listening. She sidestepped her friend, her shoulder roughly brushing against his arm, and marched into the dimness of the hallway. The shapeshifter had a feeling the twins weren’t going to make the move tonight so she had decided to buy them some more time, stalling Erik in the mansion.

The elevator pinged, its doors slowly opened, letting her inside the cabin.

He once said that Hank and Wanda needed much less help with the sentinels’ construction than they believed. Well, she was going to make sure his presence in the laboratory would be a necessity.

Raven pressed the “level one” button.

She only hoped her idea would do more good than harm.

....

As the beeps in the receiver followed measuredly one by one, Wanda wrapped the telephone cord around her finger, biting her lip.

Despite the love she had for her mom and pangs of conscience for being harsh with her, the girl didn’t give up the words that slipped her mouth. She didn’t get how her mom was able to stay away, making do with only phone calls, having survived the near-apocalypse and knowing her son was hurt just because of the hard feeling she harbored against Erik.

Nevertheless, Wanda dialed the number, needing to know if her mom and Lora were alright, especially with Lonnie looming on the horizon. She was even considering the idea of telling mom about the unfortunate meeting in New York.

“Hello?” Lora’s voice interrupted the hollow beeping.

“Hey,” Wanda replied, a smile tugging at her lips. “How are you doing, monkey?”

“You kidding? How I am doing? How are you doing? Did you tell your –” her sister lowered her voice to a whisper and probably held the receiver closer to her lips “– your dad that he is your dad?”

The older Maximoff stopped torturing the cord and sank further into her armchair. There was no one in the room and even the windows were closed, which made the sigh she let out seem even more depressed than it was. “We…temporize.”

“What the hell does it mean?” Lora exclaimed, resentful.

It made Wanda smirk. “I take it mom is nowhere around, is she?”

There was a slight rustling on the other side of the phone line and then, “You can’t see it, but I stuck my tongue out at you.”

A silent laugh shivered through the girl. “But really, how are you doing? Do you feel better or runny nose is still complicating your life?”

“Mom says I’m on the mend and may catch the last day or two of school before the summer break begins.” There was an unhinged disappointment in her voice. “Where’s bro?”

“Bro would like to chat with you, but he has got a sore throat and is giving me and Erik a hard time,” Wanda said on an exaggerated exhale.

“Oh, so your dad is taking care of him like mom always does?”

“Well…I mean, you can probably frame it that way too.” Though the Master of Magnetism wasn’t really pampering the speedster, giving him a hard stare every time he refused to take his temperature or drink warm tea.  

“Then he is a good dad,” the kid concluded.

If everything was so easy, Wanda thought.

“Where’s mom?” she asked instead.

“She’s cleaning the kitchen. There was an accident with the soup she tried to cook. Do you want me to call her?”

“No, it’s fine. Actually, it would be better if you don’t tell her I called. I gotta go now, I have a pie in the oven.” A pineapple pie, to be precise. Yep, Wanda did lose it to her twin’s puppy eyes. “Get well soon and don’t forget we love you. Though I love you more.”

“You know I won’t say it back?” Lora asked flatly.

Wanda didn’t need to hear it, she knew it for sure so she just teased her, “Have a nice English test on Monday.”

There was some grumbling on the other side of the line before her little sister hang up the phone, making the girl snicker.

....

“I don’t belong here,” the Master of Magnetism said calmly. “We both know it.”

The look that Charles gave him was long and shrewd and downhearted. “I still had hope that you would stay. You seemed to find a connection with…certain people.”

It was a nice Sunday afternoon. Sun was shining from the blue sky, its rays bright but not excruciatingly hot filled the Professor’s office together with the echo of laughing children and singing birds on the other side of the window. Erik was sitting across the telepath, at the desk, suited up – black turtleneck, light grey jacket and trousers, shiny shoes – and a suitcase at his feet.

Deep in his heart, he knew he grew fond of certain people, two in particular. After that night talk in the kitchen, the man stayed at the mansion for three more days to help Wanda take care of her ill brother. Erik got it quickly that his figure held some authority in Peter’s eyes so he used it whenever the speedster became an obnoxious child. But ultimately it was just a delay in his plans that didn’t change – he was leaving. After all, the twins were adults with their own experiences and opinion, they had a family they cared deeply about and there was no actual need in patronizing them, especially considering the baggage – blood, pain and death – the Master of Magnetism carried around. These two would most likely become a permanent part of life within the school walls: Peter as an X-Men and Wanda as a literature teacher or Hank’s assistant. Erik could picture it easily.

“You’re sure I can’t convince you to stay?” the Professor asked gently.

“You’re psychic, Charles.” The corners of Erik’s lips quirked up ever so slightly. “You can convince me to do anything.”

“Well, then –”

A loud, resonant sound cut through space, followed by a violent pitter-patter of broken glass and clatter.

All the metal objects instantly flew in the air obedient to the Master of Magnetism who was already on his feet, ready to repel an attack or hit the enemy first depending on the state of affairs.

Amongst the wreckage of the window, overthrown table and scattered chess figures there were two white lab coated personas making friends with the floor. It didn’t take long to realize it was Hank and Wanda yet the shock seemed to paralyze Erik, rooting him to the spot, and render Charles speechless. Both men watched silently as the girl pushed herself off the ground, her shaky arms buckling under her weight but she still managed to sit up on her knees first, then – stand up. Her colleague wasn’t doing much better.

The man was teetering on his feet as his gaze drifted around the damage they caused. “We crashed Charles’ office,” he asserted the fact.

Wanda turned around, the shards of glass crunching under her leather boots, her hazed eyes stumbled upon Erik and Charles. Although it took a moment for the recognition to spark in them. The girl’s face changed then, an apologetic smile tacked on her lips. “Hi,” she drawled in a bit slurred manner.

At that Hank swiveled his head, facing the two mutants too.

Save the hole now yawning in the wall instead of the window, these two looked like apprentices who couldn't hold their liquor but had a bottle of tequila each nonetheless before going into the master’s office.

“Care to explain?” the Master of Magnetism asked flatly, eyeing the bleeding cut that ran above the girl’s brow. He perched on the edge of the desk, Charles just beside him. All the metal objects had already returned to their places.

“Failed first run,” Hank replied specifically to the Professor.

The telepath furrowed. “Why were you testing anything outside?”

“We’ve got claustrophobic underground,” Wanda put in, her overall look was too shaken for the banter to settle in properly. “I suggested that if the launch of the sentinel goes bad, it would be better to blow something up outside the school than under it, risking the students again.”

“We made sure no one was around before getting to work,” the scientist amended before Charles could open his mouth.

“Yeah, so nobody got hurt. Beside us, I suppose,” the girl agreed, nodding, and cast a sideways glance at her colleague. But her eyes glued to him, the blackness rapidly reduced the green in them.

The man’s chestnut hair turned into something that looked like overgrown fur that translated onto his cheeks and chin and even formed missing eyebrows, blue, just like his smooth, no cuts acquired skin. The only part of him that didn’t retain this color but, on the contrary, lost it, were his eyes. Now they reminded of Kurt’s with one exception – the golden irises had red trim. His white lab coat looked uncomfortably tight around his puffed up with muscles body.

“Don’t tell me it’s the aftermath of the explosion! I was pretty much content with my appearance!” she blasted out, scrutinizing her arms and touching her cheeks in panic.

“No, no, don’t worry!” he answered right away, coaxing her. “I designed a serum to suppress my mutation and I take it daily, that’s why you never saw me…this way.”

“Oh, God.” Wanda touched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes for a brief moment. She was too pale for Erik’s liking. “I’m sorry, Hank. It was inappropriate.”

Hank took no offense and he meant to show just that, patting the girl’s shoulder but she recoiled from him as if he pressed a heated piece of metal to her bare skin. Scowling, she whipped her dark hair back and froze, finding a bloodstain blooming on her white coat just below her collarbone.

The blood in Charles’ veins went cold.

Almost mindlessly, Wanda tested the spot, her fingers catching onto something. Before anyone could utter a word, she pulled a long piece of red glass out of her flesh. Red since it was a part of a stained-glass window but also the color of her blood that coated its sharp end.

Her body would have hit the ground just like the shard that slipped out of her grasp, if Erik didn’t catch her mid-fall, folding her into his chest.

“Let me see, let me see,” Hank blabbered worriedly, tending to the girl’s shoulder.

The Master of Magnetism pulled her away from himself a little bit to give the doctor access to the wound, one firm hand splayed between her shoulder blades and the other put on the uninjured shoulder, keeping her in a vertical position. Her face was ashen, sweat bedded on her temple, mixing with the blood from the cut.

“Don’t put pressure on the wound. If there is any remaining broken glass in there, the bleeding might help to remove it. She is probably getting light-headed so take an eye on her.”

These instructions gave the girl a small charge to bite back. “Will you stop diagnosing her so we could go down to the lab and fix this?”

“That’s the spirit,” Erik noted rather encouragingly.

“I’ve reached Ms. Torres,” Charles cut in, “She’s in the operation room, getting ready to take you.”

To have such a Jack of all trades as Hank McCoy was a great privilege; however, the Professor still hired (read lured from the town’s hospital) a real, experienced doctor Ms. Sara Torres who had nothing against working alongside mutants or treating their very much human diseases.

The telepath gave Wanda a sympathetic look. “Everything is going to be alright.”

“I’ll stay here, check if anybody else got traumatized,” he said to Hank, then flicked his eyes to the Master of Magnetism, silently agreeing on who gets to play what role in these circumstances.

“Let’s get moving,” the scientist said with a nod to Erik and, having picked up his glasses from the floor, treaded out of the office.

They were already in the doorway when Wanda slowed her pace, stalling her father. The man stiffened, lowering a concerned gaze at her. He was ready to sweep her in his arms and carry to the elevator but she only threw her dark locks over her shoulder.

A light crease of surprise formed between his brows. “You care about your looks? Now?”

“I don’t want to scare children,” the girl explained, her tone missing the usual bite. Erik might have given her back a few comforting rubs before they resumed walking toward the elevator.

By the time the three mutants reached level one, Ms. Torres had everything ready and was waiting for her patient’s arrival. First things first, Hank insisted to make an MRI before they would actually tend to Wanda’s injury, just to be on the safe side. So, the doctor and the Master of Magnetism helped the girl take off her ruined lab coat and lay down on the patient table while the scientist was configuring the machine, having a bit of trouble with all these small buttons because of his claws.

A sudden whizz burst into the room.

“Holy shit! Wan, what happened?” Peter appeared at his sister’s side, panic clouded his face as his gaze flicked over her body, her lips that were so pale they practically matched her skin tone, her hair that was like a dark halo around her head, and finally stopped on her bloodied shoulder. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, hard, and reached for her hand, gingerly entwining his fingers with her cold ones.

The vortex of the words spiraling in his mind was almost palpable, at least for the girl, but the speedster only stared at her, his chest rose and fell with breaths too rapid.

Hank tried to explain. He really did. “That’s a lot of blood but –”

“No shit, Doctor Dracula!” the speedster snapped, startling him.

“Peter,” Erik called after him but not too urgently, understanding the immense worry that crashed into the silver-haired boy like a storm wave.

Having heard the explosion and found out that the cause was Hank’s robotics and, most importantly, that his twin was injured, Peter hurried to the lab, carried mostly by fear than superspeed. The minute he saw Ms. Torres in her white coat and his father looming over the body on the patient table, the prickling feeling of unexplainable nature in the area of his collarbone made so much more horrifying sense.

Peter didn’t do as much as to cast a quick glance at the Master of Magnetism before his blazing black eyes snapped back to the scientist. “If I knew that working with you would bring her here, laying white as death on the table, I would have never tipped you on how to warm her heart to you.”

“I had the feeling you set it up,” Wanda said to her brother. She made an effort to smile but the pain lingering in her features didn’t want to be flicked off so easily.

“Mr. Maximoff, please,” Ms. Torres intervened, her tone doctorly placating, “get a hold of yourself. The last thing your sister needs right now is more stress than she has already got.”

It worked, reminding him that arguing wasn’t his priority. His twin and her health were. This woman in a white coat at Hank’s side, with her black hair neatly gathered in a bun and hazel eyes watching him patiently and nonjudgmentally, was the one who made his complex fracture heal without complications, so he trusted her in this.

“Here we go,” Hank muttered before the machine began whirring.

Unlike usual MRI – a massive claustrophobia-causing tube – this one, the scientist’s creation, consisted of a far more intricate mechanism but was so much simpler and more convenient concerning the design. The scanner circled the patient table, going back and forth above the body to make a high-quality image. Luckily, Wanda’s was clear, no pieces of glass remained in her tissues. It was good news yet…

“Maximoff?” Erik said numbly. There was a feeling rising from the pit of his stomach. Disbelief, shock, dread, anger. Pick your poison. “Is it your stepfather’s name?”

It didn’t hit him right away, instead, it was settling in his brain as he watched all the procedures being done to ensure the girl’s wound was properly cleaned and ready to be sewed and the cut on her forehead stemmed with a Band-Aid.

The way the twins’ expressions froze and Wanda sat up on the table, probably causing herself a fit of dizziness, was an answer on its own.

In his entire life, the man had met only one person with such a name. One in a hundred thousand he had the pleasure and misfortune to get to know. It was a little over two decades ago and these kids...these mutants were twenty-one years old.

“What’s your mother’s name?” he asked with growing urgency, eyes darting between the two youngsters. “What is her name?”

It was good that Hank went out to get his serum and find an arm sling for the girl and Ms. Torres was nowhere near anything that had the potential to pierce or cut her beyond repair because every inch of metal in the room came to life. The equipment squeaked, microscopes crashed into the blue tiles on the wall, test tubes holders crumpled, squishing the glass into pieces, the same fate fell upon the futuristic-looking drawers just behind the twins. The doctor yelped, hunkering down, covering her head with her hands.

“Maria! Her name is Maria Maximoff!” Peter rushed out quickly, coming instantly to his sister’s side. The girl didn’t lose her time either, jumping off the table to her feet, even though she felt like the floor was quicksand or a board of a ship that navigated a troubled sea.

Everyone’s breathing seemed to be ragged.

“What are you doing?” the doctor blasted out to the Master of Magnetism, face twisted with fear. She made an attempt at snatching a scalpel from a tray – quite foolish since it was metal yet rather heroic since it wasn’t only herself whom she was trying to defend – but Wanda cut her short.

“Stop!” the girl commanded at the same time as her irises changed their color. The woman’s eyes glowed the same red and she froze in an unnatural pose as if Gorgon Medusa paid her a visit. The scalpel clattered against the floor.

It all went past Erik’s notice.

“You are–You are–” A pained betrayed look crossed his face. His next words were addressed to Wanda as he peered into those unfamiliar scarlet hues of her eyes. “What mind games are you playing at?”

Her response didn’t follow straightaway as if she assumed she heard him wrong. Then, she puffed, and it was most certainly not amusement that lifted the corners of her mouth. “Aw, mind games. Sure.”

“I meant to tell you,” Peter cut in, his tone akin to being shameful. “So many times, you have no idea. But whenever I tried, it felt wrong – the timing, occasion, place. So, I figured I should just go with the flow, especially when Wanda came here.” That distressed expression on his face was one of raw honesty. “I thought that maybe if you like me–us enough, it would be easier for you to accept us…over time.”

“Don’t, Pete,” his twin stopped him gently. “You bare your soul out and... I might’ve hit my head but this suit and a suitcase I saw in Charles’ office are not my hallucinations. He is leaving and he didn’t think it necessary to at least say his goodbye.”   

The girl wasn’t wrong. Only if she really played a mind game, she would’ve known that the man didn’t want to say goodbye because he knew, a few pained looks could’ve left him at school for some longer. Or worse, he could’ve asked them to come with him.

Yet, as these particular words had not been said still, Erik’s steel hard shield of denial remained with him.

“It can’t be,” he muttered, falling back on his heels like he’d been slapped. His gaze skittered around, looking for an excuse, for something to anchor him and stop his world from turning upside down. Again.

A loud drum made all of them flinch.

“Hey! What’s going on? Are you alright? Did the mechanism break?” Hank’s muffled voice was coming from behind the closed door.

The silver-haired boy glanced at the clenched fists of magnetokinetic, attracting the man’s attention to it too. Involuntary, Erik kept them locked in this room.

Wanda took advantage of the moment. She closed her eyes, dark lashes flattering, and all the metal objects began to take their right shape, microscopes flipped to their places, the cracks in the wall tiles glued together, smoothed over. The shards of glass rattled but didn’t repair themselves into the drawers or even test tubes as the girl swayed on her feet and fell into Peter’s arms, unconscious. Ms. Torres snapped back to reality right away.

“No, no, no, no. Wan!” The speedster cupped his twin’s face, trying to bring her around.

“What happened?” Hank in his human form finally got into the room, running up to the twins, noticing the broken glass and scattered bottles on the floor along the way.

“I–I think I knocked over a stand and ruined a few things here. My apologies, Mr. McCoy,” the doctor drawled in a somewhat unnatural way. Or maybe it was the confusion written over her face that betrayed the thought did not belong to her.

What happened next went by like a blur for Erik. He stood in the middle of the room, feeling utterly detached from the chaos happening around, watching as Peter laid his sister on the patient desk, Hank was shoving something under her nose so a crease formed between her brows a few moments later while Ms. Torres was taking care of the wound on her shoulder.

Everything came crashing into Erik.

I’m your…I’m here for my family too. 

Back then, in Cairo, this pause made the man’s heart miss a beat. Something about the young man he recognized as his savior from the Pentagon told him that this hesitation and frightened air were not related to what he saw around him and that the disappointment after he finished the last word was not far-fetched. He meant to say something different. Like it was on the tip of his tongue for quite a while even though the kid barely knew to whom he was talking. Erik shoved it away then, focusing on other, more worthy matters, assuming the boy might’ve said “I’m your fan” or something along the lines.

It was hard to keep up with the speedster. Sometimes it felt like it was too much of him, like he was watching over the man for some reason quite intently, always chatting, joking and just being around. Sometimes the Master of Magnetism couldn’t get an answer from him on the simplest question because Peter lost his ability to produce cohesive sentences all of a sudden.

Wanda was different. Well-read, naturally savvy and sharp-tongued, she was an ideal conversationalist on a good day. On a bad one, it didn’t matter who you were – an angel with white fluffy wings or a monster straight from Hell – she would unleash her temper in a way that could prick even Erik.

Every day he spent his time at least with one of them and it seemed that they found a way to his calloused heart, just like Charles and Raven did so many years ago. Just like Magda did.

The man didn’t remember leaving the operation room.

“I’ll prepare a bed for you,” Ms. Torrens said gently to Wanda as Hank was fixing an arm sling on the girl’s healthy shoulder. “I can make one for your brother too if he’s willing to stay.”

Everything in the speedster said he was uncomfortable being among the devices, bottles with pills, and people in white coats, even if one of them was practically his friend. Nevertheless, he was ready to spend the night even in the lab, curling in the sentinel’s embrace if it meant he would be next to his twin, supervising her condition and being at hand if anything happened.

“No way in hell I’m staying here for the night,” the girl muttered, sliding off the patient table.

The soles of her boots didn’t have the chance to touch the floor for Peter scooped her up in his arms.

“I don’t want you to trip over your own foot and get hurt again,” he said looking down at Wanda. His tone was soft but uncompromising and she had no mental fortitude to argue with such a silver-tongued opponent. The girl simply leaned into his chest, resting her head on his shoulder, and closed her eyes.

Erik had a family. He had a wife and a daughter and a peaceful life he always dreamt about. He still had a family it was just that now they were alive in his heart and memory only. The man didn’t need anyone’s sympathy, least of all pity but whenever he mentioned his life in Poland there was a pained look in those dark and green eyes. As if the twins grieved with him.

And your father –

We didn’t have one growing up.

He had not forgotten that Peter and Wanda’s mother had been pulled over primarily for drunk driving and that it didn’t surprise the twins one bit. The boy himself said that it was not the first time. Apparently, things also did not quite work out with their stepfather, and it made one wonder what kind of environment they actually lived in until Wanda fled to Oxford and Peter settled in Charles’ mansion. Perhaps in Erik, they saw a father figure, a protector they lacked in their lives and it led to some escapist fantasy.

The man didn’t remember how he stepped into the cabin of the elevator and its doors closed, encapsulating him and the twins in deathly silence.

My mom once knew a guy who could do that.

The phrase rang in the man’s ears like an alarm. It had a somewhat baffling effect back then too but he hadn’t gotten time, least the interest, if being completely honest, to analyze the words. Locked in the solitude of concrete walls for a decade, Erik was overwhelmed by being free at last, from seeing Charles, who regardless of his anger that the Master of Magnetism had the privilege to face quite literally, came to get him out, trusting him enough to seek his help in that “Mission Impossible: Our Future Selves Send Some Dude So We Could Prevent a Global Scale Disaster”. The silver-haired boy had never come to his mind once they boarded the plane to Paris. Erik was focused solely on ensuring the future of mutants, not caring about the high price that had to be paid if going the path he had chosen.

People always “know” somebody who can do this or that or who had the slightest hint of fame shadowing them. But really, why would he care about some mother who knew a mutant with the ability to control metal? Why would it spark anything in him, hearing that phrase from the lips of a young mutant with extraordinary powers?

Maria Maximoff

There was only one Maria Maximoff who knew a mutant gifted with control over magnetic fields. A young woman whom he met in some bar on his first trip to New York. This wasn’t part of Erik’s plans at all. He was chasing the Nazis that had taken away his family from him. But there she was, so dazzling that a short visit to the Big Apple turned into a half-year stay. Maria was not only beautiful – wavy dark hair, hazel eyes, high cheekbones – but also intelligent, daring, of Jewish blood. It didn’t end well. It probably could have but the pain and anger were rooted too deeply in his heart, it took over Erik and she left.

The man didn’t remember how he ended up in the empty hall.

The twins’ faces went downright ashen when one morning Charles informed them that their mother called the school. Every time the Master of Magnetism touched upon the topic of their family it was “a damn hard question” or “complicated” not to mention the fact he had never heard their last name. Until now.

“Erik,” he heard his name in Peter’s voice. It felt wrong. The man was barely able to turn his head to the silver-haired boy. Carrying exhausted Wanda in his arms, he stopped in the middle of the stairs leading up to the students’ rooms. His expression was hard to read in the dim light of the hall, but his voice betrayed the same feelings that wrung Erik’s insides. “We are your children by blood.” Peter swallowed. “But it…it doesn’t oblige you to do anything.”

With that, the silver-haired boy resumed climbing the stairs.

Erik was left standing completely alone. On one side there was the staircase, on the other – the front door.

....

Neither the Master of Magnetism nor the twins were seen in the cafeteria or anywhere in the mansion the following morning.

....

*Don't leave me. I'm not going to let them take you.

*Could you please put it away for me?

*Do you like plays by Friedrich Schiller?