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

There was an open physics class on the nose, but Hank’s thoughts were far away from Newton’s laws and how to make their study exciting for children. The man sat on the second level of the library, looking wistfully out the window as numerous books on teaching waited on a round openwork table in front of him. When it came down to science, he was sure of himself but when the matter concerned teaching methods…not so much. In truth, if Ms. Russel hadn’t had to rush off to Memphis for her cousin’s sudden engagement party, he would never have found himself involved in something like this. He would just coop up in his lab, going back into the habit of surrounding himself with mechanical things rather than people.

But whenever Hank went now, the feeling of loneliness persisted in his chest. It all started with the fact that Raven’s presence at school stirred up old feelings that he thought he had left in the past. Then his project went down in flames, loudly and with a drop of blood, which pushed him to an action that now nagged his conscience. The scientist knew that it wasn’t right to conduct a study on Wanda’s biochemical, if not for reasons of them being quite close to having a friendship, then out of ethical considerations. But he was so upset and angry at Erik, at the fact that no matter how big the Master of Magnetism screwed up, the people Hank cared about still chose to be on his side. Charles and Raven and even the twins were putting so much care out there for the man who didn’t appreciate it as much as he should’ve. Hank was so tired of this. Tired of knowing that no matter what he did, no matter how strong the feelings swirled in his chest, Erik would always be the one to be chosen over him. He had been stewing in this mess for more than a decade, and it seemed like something in him had finally snapped under the weight of accumulated hurt. And Wanda...Wanda happened to catch heat.

Having picked up the books, Hank trailed down the spiral staircase, muffled metallic clunk echoed every step he made.

When the scientist found out that the girl’s cells contained the mutation gene, he felt betrayed. The bond they seemed to build felt like a hoax, a manipulation tool from Raven’s arsenal. The picture cleared for him. The girl must have supported Magneto even more than she let on, and Hank’s conscience had dozed off for a second, allowing something toxic to poison his system. Charles didn’t take his side. Condemnation with a bit of disappointment was undisguised in those ocean-blue eyes when he came to his office. After that, Hank felt like he had no one left. Alan was there for him, of course, but it was something new that the man didn’t want to test with his frustration.

In his quarter, he dropped the manuals on his bed and collapsed beside them, staring at the detailed molding on the ceiling. Painted white, ribbed clay leaves twisted around the flowers that reminded of Helianthus annuus. The scientist was positive those were sunflowers, he stared up at them sometimes in the morning, when the sun was bathing his room in its yellow light. Only those tough plants didn’t need something to hover over them, they were adaptive and could resist the strongest winds, holding their heads high. 

The conspiracy theories might’ve been far-fetched, but Hank still felt that Erik’s influence was too strong on Wanda and Peter. As envious as he was of their warm feelings towards the Master of Magnetism, he also couldn’t brush off the knowledge that the speedster often walked on eggshells around the man and despite his easy-going nature would sometimes withdraw into himself after. His sister was quite wary about Erik when she came here, even now, when things were natural between them, those notes of cautiousness still glimmered in her eyes as if she were trying to calculate the possibility of her judgment failing her and leading to some kind of a disaster. After the fog of hurt cleared up a bit, Hank decided to step up for the twins. For their future, which shouldn’t have been marred by the misfortunes that accompanied Erik every time he came into someone’s life. A constant victim of precisely this, Charles was not of a big help to the scientist, but Mrs. Maximoff seemed like a perfect ally. One may imagine Hank’s surprise when after he shared his concerns with her, the woman didn’t rush to conduct a conversation with her children but smirked and gave him such a look as if he were the biggest fool on Earth. At the same time, she didn’t dismiss his words completely.

If I were you, I would rather talk heart to heart with someone who’s important to you while these feelings inside still matter.

She seemed to see past his intent to protect Peter and Wanda, not minimizing it to any extent, and peer at the core of the problem which was that his feelings toward his chosen family had never been properly reciprocated. Wanda picked up on it too, in her own way though. She reproached him for being jealous and not being honest about it, and he didn’t get past his pique until she slammed the door in his face, letting the pain his actions caused show.

Was it possible that he put two and two together wrong? The girl willingly spent time with him in the laboratory, encouraged every idea that sparked in his head, getting upset and laughing with him every step of the way. She’d been hurt more than he by the failed first run of the sentinel, and still, she hurried back to work. He accused her of being the cause of the explosion, but once he cooled down and really thought about it, weighing everything he had learned about her in that time...What would she get from that?

A heavy sigh came from somewhere within Hank’s chest. He took off his glasses and rubbed his face.

If he were really honest with himself, there was something that Erik had said earlier and it caught his attention, but for a fracture of a second, before he laughed it off. But Erik never lied. The man could keep most of his thoughts to himself, yet for the time they know each other, not a single lie came out of his lips. And what he said was that Raven had a hand in the sentinel’s explosion. She didn’t have access to the lab. What she had, however, was an incredible ability to shape her body into whatever she wanted. Hence, she could potentially get in the lab without his, Charles’ or Wanda’s help.

The man sat straight up on his bed and perched his glasses back on his nose.

Hank had always been a diligent student with perfect attendance and grades. His brilliant mind allowed him to graduate from Harvard at fifteen while his peers were only preparing to go to college. However, there was one subject the man had a solid D – social skills. Well, PE too because kids always paid an insane amount of attention to the son of a nuclear power plant worker who had a pair of big hands instead of regular feet. It turned out that when nature gifted a man with something extraordinary, it involuntary robbed them of simple but necessary things like acceptance, respect, and love. He got lucky because eventually, a decade later he had found it among the people who were just like him – mutants, but even in their company it wasn’t always easy to open up. He got used to bottling up unshared thoughts and feelings until it just exploded in his face, screwing up quite a few important things in his life. Now was the time to put everything straight.

Hank found Raven in the laundry room which was right above his laboratory. Even though she was in her natural blue form, she was wearing a white T-shirt, light blue jeans, and collegiate green Adidas sneakers.

“Raven, we need to talk,” the man said, practically leaking through the opening doors of the elevator. He felt that if he lingered even for a minute, his resolve might falter and he would shut down again.

“Nothing good ever came after these words,” the shapeshifter crooned, a grin obvious in her voice, and yanked her T-shirt over her head in one quick movement. The silky skin of her back bared before the scientist’s eyes, making him stop dead in his tracks.

“Oh…Erm…” Hank mumbled, not sure if he should turn away or keep going with what he had planned. After all, she had never been wearing clothes even in public when she was like this.

 Unaware of the man’s inner battle, Raven turned around, wiping her face with the abovementioned T-shirt. Her red hair for once was in disarray, water dripping from the front strands. Somehow it made her look softer. Hank decided against averting his gaze.

“I should’ve talked to you a long time ago and–I–I need you to just listen to me,” he stuttered and looked down, feeling that his palms were getting sweaty. He jammed his hands in the front pockets of his linen trousers.

When he lifted his head, Raven’s eyes had already been focused on him. She tossed her T-shirt in the washing machine, standing only in her jeans and shoes, waiting silently for him to continue his thought.

Hank swallowed, praying to not screw things up more than they had already been. “Actually, I need to ask you one thing first. Did you set up the explosion?”

Her lips parted while those astoundingly yellow eyes were running over his face. “What? Why are you –”

The scientist’s hands tightened into fists in his pockets. “Just tell me the truth. I checked the sentinel’s system the night before Wanda and I decided to launch it and there were no errors. Did you change the settings?”

It was a long, unyielding look that she gave him that made his heart pick up the pace, but then she said, “Yes, I did,” and his breath hitched for a second. Erik wasn’t lying. But why? Why would she do that?

“Look, Erik was leaving,” Raven began, and the man didn’t even have it in him to throw his head back even though a hysteric laugh bubbled up his throat. “There was nothing I could say that would dissuade him from that decision. I had to do something and the only thing that could halt him was your collaborative project.”

Hank pressed his hand to his lips. It wasn’t the answer in itself that struck him but rather the fact that she indeed slipped into his laboratory and did something that had the potential to cause irreparable damage. Hell, Wanda got pierced with a shard of glass. She was lucky that it didn’t puncture any vital organs. But if it did, would he ever find out that it wasn’t his fault or would he be left to blame himself for that for the rest of his life? And to think that he accused Wanda of setting it all up…She wasn’t completely honest with him but did she owe him an apology for hiding the fact that she was a mutant? Definitely not. What he did to her now seemed even worse.

“Why?” the scientist got out in a pained voice. “Don’t you see how twisted your relationship with him is? It screws up everyone around you!”

“I didn’t do it for myself,” Raven fenced, her face scrunched up in annoyance. “I did it for the twins.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t use them as an excuse.”

Hank didn’t plan to make a scene. He only wanted to get this weight off his chest, maybe for things to take on a happy turn for once. He was glad they were under the mansion. There was a strong desire spreading across his chest to bury himself just there.

“I don’t! You know how well they got along with Erik! That’s because –” the shapeshifter checked herself, casting a quick glance up at the ceiling. “They see a father figure in him and he perks up around them. He’s too stubborn to admit that but it’s true. You know that.” Hank was shaking his head, his Harvard-trained mind going haywire. “They’re like a family. They would’ve fallen apart if I didn’t step up. I couldn’t let it happen.”

“What–what if you killed Wanda?” the man stuttered out, his hands braced on his hips. “How would you live, knowing you killed an innocent girl?”

“I wouldn’t live long enough to figure that out,” Raven answered with grave confidence.

When they were drinking in the bar, Alan said that one doesn’t stop loving someone just because it gets hard. Loving Raven was hard from day one for various reasons and Hank was starting to think that he was clutching at a deflated life preserver, bound to drown in the open sea. The bad news was that it didn’t seem like he could let go of it no matter how hard he tried. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe he had to drown so he could reach another, better place.

“I came here to tell you that I have feelings for you. I’ve had feelings for you for a long, long time. Seeing you with Erik…” Hank could feel his blood circulating through his veins. He heaved a sigh and closed his eyes for a split second. “I’ve been an idiot for not saying something sooner. I should’ve probably fought for you when you chose him but I guess I always knew that you don’t feel about me the same way I feel about you so I just…” He shrugged, peering at Raven’s face, her wide-open eyes and parted lips. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I just wanted to put it out there at last.”

The silence that engulfed them was deafening.

The scientist gave the shapeshifter a quick nod, turned around, and pressed a red button. He stepped into the elevator; his heart was beating wildly in his chest but he felt numb. He pressed 1 on the silver panel but before the doors closed, Raven slipped inside. She had put on a white T-shirt and a human face.

“I care about Erik but I don’t love him. Not in the way you think,” she said, her slightly husky voice filling the elevator’s cabin.

They were standing at arm’s length and she closed that distance in one smooth step, her head tipped back slightly but her gaze lingered on his eyes only for a brief moment before it dropped to his lips. Tension flailed in the air, the space around seemed to narrow down to the two of them.

“Raven, I –” Hank breathed out, his thought cut off by the ping of the elevator. “It would be better if I go.”

He didn’t know where, he just knew he should go so he stepped out of the elevator.

“You’re not just leaving,” the shapeshifter said, following after him in the foyer. “You admit you have feelings for me and now you’re running off on me? What is it for then? What do you want?” When the man kept walking away, she grabbed his upper arm and put herself in front of him. “What is it that you want, Hank?”

For her to stay here permanently? Because he knew, she wouldn’t spend her life teaching martial arts at school. For them to get together? Maybe he had never expressed his feelings explicitly, but they were not a secret for anyone, including Raven. Yet, time and time again she chose someone or something over him. Their personalities were too different and it might very well be that staying friends or whatever the hell they were to each other was for the better.

“I don’t know,” Hank replied, trying to hide his face from her intense gaze. “I wish I knew, but I–I really don’t.”

A loud smash came in from the courtyard. Neither one of them did as much as blink in response to the sound. In the absence of Charles, the role of the head of the school passed to the scientist but at that moment he didn’t have much energy left to rush out and see what happened. Sleepless nights and nerves finally caught up with him, his limbs felt heavy and all he actually wanted was to crawl into his bed and call it a day.

“Could you please check if everything alright out there?” the man asked Raven, looking down at her hand, at those long fingers that still circled his upper arm.

Her gaze dropped too and she quickly let go of him, a slight crease formed between her brows. “Where are you going?”

“To have a rest? Collect myself?” The scientist gave her a half-shrug. “Better to do both, really.”

The faintest smile caught at the shapeshifter’s lips. They stood there, at the base of the stairs for a little bit longer before Hank headed to his quarter, thinking that it wasn’t that bad of a first day of recognizing and doing justice to what he had in his mind and heart. It wasn’t easy but it was sure a good start prompted by the two women with the name Maximoff.

....

“Could you please pull up over there?” Charles asked, pointing at the baluster rail fence that wrapped around the courtyard.

“On the lawn?” Erik asked, raising his brows.

High from the above, the sun was emitting scorching hot rays of yellow light and it seemed like it had an effect on the shiny head of his old friend. The Master of Magnetism warned him that it would be better to leave the roof of the Oldsmobile up, but when did anyone listen to the words of wisdom? Anyway, it was this or the five-hour wander through the streets of North Salem where the telepath and his red-haired ward, who tagged along with them, took a peek into every shop they were able to find. With the black sunglasses hiding his eyes, Erik was following them like a typical dad on a shopping day. And he was a dad…of a child who, though through no fault of her own, broke the window in the Professor’s office so when the latter mentioned going to a master in the town, Erik volunteered to drive him there. Perhaps Wanda could’ve fixed the window herself, resorting to her powers, but by the time she was able to do it, the pieces of glass were collected and utilized, leaving her nothing to work with.  

A somewhat dejected sigh came from the backseat. “Maybe next time?” Jean asked, making an imploring face.

“Just stop on the driveway,” Charles said to Erik, then added, twisting in his seat to look at the red-haired girl. “You won’t learn how to do it, if you don’t practice, remember?”

“What if it’s just not my thing?” she tried to hedge.

“Or you’re simply scared to try,” the man countered with a gentle smile.

“What are we talking about here?” the Master of Magnetism asked on an exhale. It would’ve been better if he stayed with his children to watch a movie about warring stars or something along these lines. He could’ve counted on a good nap instead of boiling under the open sky with these two.

“Professor is trying to teach me how to drive,” Jean replied, though it sounded more like a complaint.

“Or rather how to drive into the garage,” Charles amended. “We haven’t mastered this part yet.”

“This space is so narrow, I don’t get how you can drive in there and not hit anything,” the girl grumbled, folding her arms over her chest. “I’d do better if you just let me use telekinesis.”

“Erik can park the car there without it just fine and so can you,” the Professor said confidently.

“Then let him do it,” Jean blasted out. She leaned in, propping her lower arms on the back of the shotgun seat, wedging herself right in between the two men. “Especially since you have only one car left and it would be a misfortune to ruin it, wouldn’t you agree with me Mr. Lehnsherr?”

Erik felt it when both telepaths landed their gazes on him.

“You –” he cast a quick glance in the rearview mirror at Jean “– don’t use me as a shield. And you –” he hit the breaks, pulling up the car right at where Charles asked him to, and gave the latter a flat look after “– if you want to give her a lesson, then give her a lesson or let me park the car and get rid of you two.”

A good-natured shake of the head came as a reply. The Professor’s gaze slipped to the shiny front fender of his Oldsmobile as he lingered for a moment but then he said, “Jean, get behind the wheel.”

The trunk clicked, or maybe it was the sound of exasperation the red-haired girl let out, and Erik got out of the car. The door on Charles’ side opened, his wheelchair flying and unfolding right at his hand. Jean made sure her guardian moved onto it safely and took a seat behind the steering wheel.

“Remember: drive gently but confidently,” the Professor said to her encouragingly and came over to the Master of Magnetism who was standing at the baluster rail fence, a few safe feet aside from the Oldsmobile. When the red-haired girl steered the car toward the garage, pea gravel crunching under the whitewall tires, and the men followed her behind, Charles muttered to his old friend, “I wouldn’t mind having your magnetokinetic power at hand. Just in case.”

Erik smirked. “Is she so bad at driving or you are at teaching?”

“I’m inclined to think that the problem lies with both of us,” the telepath admitted, curling his lips.

“I feel the energy of doubt coming from you,” Jean shouted from behind the steering wheel. “You’re not helping!”

“It’s all Erik,” Charles shouted back. “Don’t pay him any mind. Keep going!” To Erik, he said, as if nothing happened, “Do you have the keys from the gates?”

“Is that what teaching does to a person? Split their personality?” the Master of Magnetism teased, searching through the pockets of his grey trousers. He actually put on them and a white shirt, pairing it all up with leather shoes, and for the reason that he didn’t see through immediately, it made Peter and Wanda swap a glance close to being concerned when they saw him at breakfast. Only when he was trailing behind Charles in an antique store with all those huge mirrors in gold frames, it dawned on him that his children must have thought that he was going to leave them. The very thought unsettled him, made him want to drive back and convince them otherwise. They were his family, even if it still were a long way to go to build a deep connection.

Just as Jean pulled up in front of the garage gates, Erik found the keys. All it would take was to press a button on one of them, but the Master of Magnetism handed them to his friend, letting him deal with this impromptu driving lesson himself.

The man tugged at the collar of his linen shirt, wishing to get out of this heat and have a sip of something cold. He could easily imagine a glass in his hand covered in droplets of water gathered on its smooth surface from the temperature difference between the drink and the air in the room. In all honesty, Erik wouldn’t refuse a can of Coca-Cola at this point, even though he despised that chemical liquid. And how did the children around have the energy to run in circles? There was even cackling coming from somewhere on his left.

The Master of Magnetism turned his head and narrowed his eyes slightly, looking closely at the three figures playing badminton near the grove. Without much difficulty, he guessed Peter and Wanda, but their little companion...

Erik took off his sunglasses. She was dressed in a beige jumpsuit and a light-colored T-shirt, and every time she jumped to hit the shuttlecock, her long dark hair bounced merrily with her. Except the bangs, because they had already plastered to her forehead. And it was her cackling that reached his ears. So loud and full of utter joy.

Beads of cold sweat appeared on the man’s forehead. His Nina had exactly the same jumpsuit. And this hairstyle... His legs carried him forward but out of the blue, cutting through the ringing in his ears, a loud smash was heard and it made the girl turn around. Somewhere in his mind, Erik knew that it must have been Jean driving in the garage wall but his heart might’ve produced that sound as well when he saw the girl’s face. Of course, it wasn’t Nina. His baby was dead and he was a stupid idiot to believe it even for a second that all three of his children were in one place together. Actually, it was something to be afraid of now.

“Are you alright?” the Master of Magnetism heard Charles ask and by the growing urgency in the telepath’s voice it was clear that the question was posed not for the first time.

Having turned his head back to the garage, Erik frowned at the Oldsmobile making friends with the wall, cracks spreading across the white plaster like a cobweb. But it didn’t seem to bother Jean whose gaze was glued to the man’s figure, the vein on her neck pulsating just as violently as his heart was beating against his rib cage. Be damned those emotions reading powers. The trick his mind did on him was enough, he didn’t want anyone to meddle with how it made him feel.

“What happened?” Wanda exclaimed, running into the courtyard.

Already looming over the damaged front fender of the car, Peter drawled, his nose wrinkled, “Aw, that’s not good.”

“I told you I can’t do it,” Jean said to the Professor, her voice dripping with desperation. She got out of the Oldsmobile and slammed its door shut, coming over to the speedster to assess the damage herself.

Charles glanced at Erik for support and maybe some assistance since they had a sort of a deal but didn’t dare to intervene in the warm interaction his friend had with his daughter. With her brows knitted in worry, Wanda studied her father’s face, noting how pale and sweaty it was.

“You don’t look great. Are you okay?” the girl asked as her hand went to hold him by his upper arm with utmost tenderness yet firm enough to offer some support if he really didn’t feel well.

The Master of Magnetism rubbed his eyes. “I–I’m just tired from the heat.”

Peter’s optimistic, “Good news, Prof. It’s not hard to fix up your car. Wan and I carried it out in, like, a veryyy short time once or twice,” came from the garage together with Jean’s somewhat relieved sight.

“Yeah, and mom never noticed,” a light voice added.

Behind his daughter’s back, the Master of Magnetism spotted the very little girl he mistook for Nina in his fit of grief. She was about her age though, maybe a bit older, and peered at him back, unabashedly, with her lips slightly parted as if she knew exactly who he was. Not Magneto but Erik Lehnsherr.

“Hello there,” Charles said to her, his smile was a touch surprised. He moved his wheelchair to properly face the child. “Where did you come from?”

“Yeah, well, about that,” Wanda drawled as her gaze drifted from the telepath to her twin brother. “Erm –”

“I’m Lora Maximoff,” the little girl cut Wanda’s hesitant explanation off, stepping forward with her hand stuck out for the Professor to shake. Which he did, looking positively astonished.

“Nice to meet you, Lora,” the telepath drawled back as his ocean-blue eyes washed over her face. “I’m Charles Xavier, the principal of this school. But you can call me Charles.”

For once it seemed like Charles’ charm didn’t work because Lora’s attention quickly snapped back to Erik, whose brain was hectically trying to put two and two together. She didn’t really look like his children: her hair was dark like Wanda’s but it wasn’t wavy and there was more grey in her eyes than green, her expression lacked those lively, mischievous sparks Peter had in abundance. Yet the man still could see Maria in this little girl, that part of her that was curious and fun, and could drag one into an hours-long conversation. Where was Maria, by the way? Was she here? The Master of Magnetism fought the impulse to scan the area around.

“You are Peter and Wanda’s dad,” Lora said like it was the most obvious but still startling thing in the whole world. “My sister has the same look when she’s angry. I call it the “Icy Stare”.”

Wanda turned her face to Erik, meeting his gaze for the first time since her little sister spoke up. “Look, I know I promised that you’ll have a chance to talk to her and I didn’t mean to break that promise but she came out of the blue,” she rushed out in a rather desperate manner. “I had no idea she was even planning to visit us. Pete just dropped in their last conversation that you’ll be gone for a few hours and–and–”

“We tried to halt her but this one –” the little girl pointed her finger at Peter “– ruined everything.”

“I didn’t get their plan in time,” the speedster said and pursed his lips, his shoulders were slumped as if he was carrying something heavy on them.

Erik might have been angry at himself, at Maria and the circumstances but his children had nothing to do with it. He didn’t want them to pick sides. And he was about to say that very thing to brush off those guilty expressions from their faces when Raven ran out of the mansion with, “What’s going on? What was that noise?”

Lora seemed to share the love for commentary with her brother and sister because she drawled out of the corner of her mouth a rather dramatic, “Nothing serious, or else everyone would’ve already died by the time you got here.”

Having taken in all those who gathered in the courtyard, the shapeshifter’s attention stuck with the Maximoffs siblings. “Oh, still a full set.”

“Actually, that’s up to Mr. Xavier,” Wanda noted, turning to the telepath. “We meant to ask you if Lora could stay here with us for a few days. I know you have a lot of children in the school to take care of but she’s our responsibility completely.” The little girl slightly pouted her lips obviously unappreciative of the patronizing meaning her older sister put in those words. “But if you’re against it, which I totally understand and respect, we’ll just catch a bus to Washington –” Wanda cast a glance at Peter who for his turn checked his watch. “In two hours,” the speedster supplied so the girl could finish her sentence with, “– and get her back home.”

“No, not at all. I would love to get to know your family better,” Charles replied right away, his gaze quickly landed on his old friend before focusing on Lora. He smiled at the girl like he often did, emanating kindness.

“Let’s hope it stays this way after this weekend,” Peter said in jest, pulling a face.

“Alright then,” his twin sister chirped. “Jean, do you need help with the car?”

“More like with the driving lessons,” the red-haired girl replied darkly.

Her friend smirked. “Well, that can be arranged too.”

With a rather rueful wave of her hand, Jean pushed off the lemon door of the Oldsmobile and got behind the steering wheel again, turning the keys in the ignition to reverse. Peter patted the front fender before she reversed, saying, “I’ll come help you fix it up later.”

Wanda’s gaze fell back to her little sister and her father, and even though they were now standing in the shadow cast by the mansion, their faces were all shiny, one was complimented by pink cheeks and another by bloodless lips. Not to mention that Erik’s heartbeat was still far from being normal. He felt like he was not the participant in the conversation that took place there but rather an observer, his mind in a bit of a haze.

“Let’s get you both inside,” his daughter said as she reached him and the little girl out, gently guiding them into the mansion.

“I’m really sorry,” Peter said to the Master of Magnetism, catching up with him on the porch. Those big brown eyes were killing the man with the look of raw sincerity in them. “I could’ve run to the town to tell you she is here. Or sent Kurt. I’m sure he would’ve loved to vanish as far away from Raven as possible. Though…It would be kind of unfair toward mom too…”

There was a faint upturn of understanding to Erik’s lips when he patted his son’s shoulder, and then, his hand kind of just stayed there. At first, the silver-haired boy tensed, making his father wonder if he had stepped over the line as they crossed the foyer in a one-sided, hesitant embrace. But as the man’s hand remained in place, Peter’s face beamed to the point of his signature boyish grin making a brief appearance.

They were in the kitchen’s doorway when Raven’s, “Erik?” reached them out. The speedster cast a sideways glance at the Master of Magnetism but he let his son go further alone, silently promising to join him and his sisters after figuring out whatever the shapeshifter wanted from him.

“Did you talk to Hank?” she asked, coming to stand in front of the man.

Erik furrowed his brows. His mind felt like jelly and every time there was a new piece of information or a question coming up, it just wobbled, absorbing but not quite processing. “About what?”

Raven scanned his face for a long moment before her gaze attained a drop of pensiveness and she muttered, more to herself than the man, “Charles didn’t either.”

She was about to turn around and probably take the stairs but the Master of Magnetism halted her with a question of his own, “Did you–Did you see Maria?”

Two decades had blurred her image in his head and the only new touches were made by the stories his children shared with him. The man would love to meet Maria in person but, as she managed to slip almost under his nose, he had to make do with what people not included in her blacklist could tell him.

“Briefly,” the shapeshifter replied.

The black lenses of the sunglasses Erik had been fiddling with absentmindedly must have had a hundred of his fingerprints on them by that time. There was one matter he didn’t yet risk broaching with Peter and Wanda even though it bothered him a great deal – their mother being pulled up for drunk driving. As far as he knew, the last time it was an abuse of authority but he had heard it himself from the silver-haired boy that there were occasions when the charges against Maria weren’t fabricated.

“How was she?” the man asked.

“Well, for a single mom of three, especially when they are them –” Raven turned her head to sneak a peek at the Maximoffs that waged chaos in the kitchen “– she looks great. I can see where Wanda and the little one got their pretty faces from. And she is definitely not a regular parent like we see here sometimes. She’s a part of their flock with the authority level slightly higher than that of your daughter.”

The attention of the Master of Magnetism was long preoccupied with the three children. It seemed like they didn’t have lunch while he was gone because they set the table for four, arranging the plates around a bowl with salad. Peter lifted his little sister off the floor so she could put spaghetti in the pot with boiling water while Wanda was slicing cherry tomatoes in halves, monitoring her siblings from the corner of her eye. His daughter didn’t shy away from taking the responsibility when it was expected from her nor was she hesitant to push back against Maria’s opinion, as if at times she didn’t think she could rely on her mom. But to think that the reason for that might’ve been alcohol abuse? It was something that numbed Erik’s insides.

“I could see how the two of you got together,” Raven said and the note of seriousness in her tone made the man eye her with his brow arched. She gave him a half-shrug. “When Peter told me that you’re his father, I honestly thought that it was something random. I couldn’t imagine young you in committed relationships, considering, you know, the way of life you had. But watching you bonding with the twins, seeing her today, I know for a fact that it wasn’t just a hook-up.”    

“She didn’t tell me that she was pregnant when she left me,” Erik said, sounding as tired and bitter as he felt.

A sudden wave of breeze washed over him, ruffling Raven’s blond locks. Peter was standing at the man’s side, holding out a glass of water with ice cubes toward him.

“I didn’t hear a word you said,” the speedster reassured the older mutants before any of them had properly registered his presence in their personal spaces. “You’re like sloths. They’re cute but, honestly, if I tried to keep up with that pace, my brain cells would’ve died.”

The shapeshifter rolled her eyes whereas the Master of Magnetism accepted the offered glass, emptying half of it. His son whizzed back into the kitchen where his little sister aimed to take a seat at the head of the table.

“It’s already booked,” the silver-haired boy said to her.

His condescending kind of tone had no effect on Lora whatsoever because she gave him a skeptical look and asked, “By whom?”

“It’s for Erik,” Wanda intervened, turning her head slightly to the side but keeping her eyes on something that she was stirring on the pan.

When he thought about it, it did seem weird to the man that his children called him by his name. If Nina had ever called him ‘Erik’ instead of ‘dad’ or ‘papa’, he would’ve been dumbfounded, to say the least. But those were organic relationships between a father and daughter that built up as he watched his girl grow up. This fatherhood was different. It came like a bolt from the blue and thinking that two young people in their twenties would straight away start calling him ‘dad’ was unrealistic. In all honesty, the man himself wasn’t sure he was ready to hear it. Maybe, in some time from now, it would be great but he didn’t hang on that hope. He couldn’t blame them if they never called him ‘dad’. It was something one should earn with love and care and dedication which Peter and Wanda might not need that much already.

“Well,” Raven drawled, pulling the Master of Magnetism out of the whirlwind of his thoughts, “whether Maria likes it or not, your kids found you, and now you’re a part of their flock too.” Her lips curled in a resemblance of a smile that said, “Good luck with that,” and she withdrew from the foyer, walking down the hallway that led to the patio.

“All right everybody, round the table, let’s eat,” Wanda singsong, turning away from the stove with a pan in her hand right when the Master of Magnetism walked into the kitchen.

The air was soaked with the enticing smell of what turned out to be pasta Bolognese. Peter and Lora were already sitting at the same corner of the table, holding their forks on standby, eyes twinkling hungrily.

“You shouldn’t have waited for me to have lunch,” Erik said, setting his sunglasses and the glass on the table before he lowered himself on the stool. “I’m not really hungry.”

His daughter’s hand froze mid-putting a portion of spaghetti on the plate set for him, tomato souse dripping from the tongs onto the white shiny porcelain. She blinked, clearly having something on her mind but her tongue hesitated to form it into words.

“As our gran used to say, ‘Apetyt rośnie w miarę jedzenia’,” her brother said with a shrug that was far from being nonchalant because of the worried look in those black eyes. “Plus, Wanda’s cooking isn’t that bad. If you want to play it safe, there is a cucumber salad.”

“What does it mean?” Lora asked curiosity written across her face that was turned to her brother.

“Keep joking and you’ll have to hunt your lunch,” Wanda said to her twin with a smile that hinted it wasn’t just an empty threat.

“What you said, what does it mean?” the little girl tried again, raising her voice a bit to attract the attention of her grimacing at each other siblings.

“It means,” Erik said, setting a different atmosphere in a split second, “that appetite comes with eating.” The tongs in Wanda’s hand snapped open, finally letting the spaghetti fall onto the plate. The girl arched her brow at that, then her gaze flicked to the Master of Magnetism and she tilted her head slightly as if saying, “Have it your way, it works with me just fine.” She put the pan on the stove and took a seat at his side, completing this half-circle at the table.

“I didn’t know granny Eta. Mom said she went to Heaven before I was born,” Lora said, her big eyes focused on the Master of Magnetism. “Have you ever met her?”

“No, I haven’t,” the man replied with a shake of his head. Not a day went by that he didn’t interact with children living in the mansion. He walked the hallways they ran, ate in the cafeteria filled with their light chatter, wandered around the adjacent territory that was their big playground. But their sight rarely stirred something in him even when Peter or Wanda took part in their games. Lora came and for some reason, it broke a dam that he was building in his heart. Erik couldn’t stop picturing Nina in her place no matter how hard he tried to concentrate on the present moment. He reached out the glass of water with already melted ice cubes in it and before he took a sip, he added, “I’ve heard a lot about her from Maria–your mother.”

A corner of Wanda’s mouth quirked up ever so slightly in a sarcastic smirk. “Must have been quite the stories.”

“They never made peace?” her father asked, frowning.

“Their sticking point remained the same throughout the years,” the girl said on an exhale.

“Gran was not particularly happy with the fact that she ran away from home and came back a few years later with two kids, unmarried, jobless, and still with no college education,” Peter elaborated his twin’s answer as he was twisting the fork in circles to wrap the spaghetti around it.

Yeah, that sounded like something in Eta Maximoff’s spirit. At least that was how Maria had always portrayed the woman to Erik. Judging by the fact that their relationship had never stopped being strained, something that genuinely saddened the man, his past love interest didn’t give up her outlook on life, unyielding under the pressure of her mother’s values.

Lora was chewing on her meal, glancing between the three adults at the table. Her gaze must have fallen on Erik’s lower arm that he had just bared, rolling the sleeves of his white shirt, because she asked, clueless about the dangerous waters she was stepping into, “What do these numbers stand for?”

“Lora!” the twins checked her out in unison, rigor and horror lacing her name at the same time.

“What?” she exclaimed defensively, turning her head to Wanda. “Is it like your scar?”

Now was the older girl’s turn to ask a one-word question, her brows drown together in confusion. “What?”

“A secret,” Lora explained, then pointed at her sister’s temple. “Like your scar.”

Peter and Wanda swapped a glance that seemed pretty secretive to their father.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Wanda said in a measured tone.

“You tripped and hit your head on the table? Really?” the little girl said, her brows raised in a quizzical grimace. “That’s bullshit. What an idiot trips and falls in her own house?”

Her sister sent a flat look toward the speedster.

“What?” he exclaimed indignantly with his mouth full of spaghetti. “That’s not on me! I don’t say ‘bullshit’. That’s not my word.”

Even Erik knew that that was bullshit.

Wanda shook her head ruefully. To her little sister, she said, “You know the rules.”

“But –” Lora tried to protest but was cut off by Wanda’s authoritative, “There’s no ‘but’ and no swearing at the table. Or anywhere else in this mansion if you don’t want to get in trouble with me or Mr. Xavier.”

The girl puffed in exasperation but took her fork and her plate with unfinished lunch and got up from the table, heading out of the kitchen.

“Could you see her to my room, please?” Wanda said quietly to her twin, her eyes closed as she rubbed the spot between her brows. The silver-haired boy’s lips curled briefly as he eyed her, then he rose to his feet, going after Lora. When he was in the doorway, Wanda’s warning caught up with him, “And Pete, if I see a Bolognese stain on my floral bedspread that would be your shit to deal with.” 

Even though the speedster didn’t look over his shoulder or stop his pace, something told the Master of Magnetism that his son rolled his eyes at that.

Now it was just Erik and Wanda in the kitchen, sitting at the same corner of the table, the barely touched pasta getting cold on two plates in front of them. Their gazes locked up.

“You’re not telling me something,” the man said calmly, confidence vowed through every word. When it came to adults hiding something children could work out the truth better than Sherlock Holmes and, since he had already suspected that the scar running across his daughter’s temple had a more complicated explanation than she provided him with, Lora’s words only solidified that sneaky feeling.

“So do you,” Wanda replied in the exact same tone. “The July’s heat took down the formidable Magneto? Oh, please.”

That name coming from her lips felt wrong. The Master of Magnetism didn’t know why but it did and it made his brows knit together. “Nothing human is alien to me,” he said.

The girl leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. The draft was waltzing with her curls in the sunlight that came from the window behind her back. It made her expression seem softer. Or maybe it indeed warmed up after her forest green eyes moved over his face, no doubt finding some hints in the lines on his forehead or around his eyes. “You said Pete and I can share everything with you. Should I remind you that we are more than glad to return the favor? If you trust us enough, of course.”

That was out of the question for Erik. The twins won over his trust even when he didn’t know they were his and now it only deepened, entwined with the parental feelings that were growing stronger every day.

He braced his elbows on the table, a couple of knuckles of his clasped hands pressed into his lips as he stared forward, looking but not quite seeing the white-tiled walls of the kitchen, the hanging towels with wet spots, a cutting board with chopped carrots and onions left on the metal kitchen countertop.

“I saw you playing with a little girl with that dark hair and marry laugh and –” Erik choked on the words. He closed his eyes for a moment and fighting the lump in his throat, made himself finish the sentence “– for a moment there I thought it was Nina.”

Wanda drew in a shaky breath.

The Master of Magnetism chanced a glance at his daughter, finding that her hands dropped onto her tights, the look on her face was as pained as when he told her how Nina had died.

“What was she like?” the girl asked, her voice soft.

Her image in Erik’s head was clear as day. She was sitting on the green lawn at the well, surrounded by her furry friends, little pink flowers stuck in her hair – a gift the breeze carried from the nearby apricot tree.

“She had the same dark eyes as Peter. My mother’s eyes…There were ten freckles scattered across her little nose. Just like Lora she loved to pepper me with questions, though she was more shy around people she didn’t know.”

“Probably that’s something she got from you,” his older daughter bantered and her lips twitched toward a small but warm smile. “What was her mutation?”

“We lived near the forest and she–she had this wonderful bond with wild animals. You could turn away from her for a moment and when you looked back, a squirrel was already curling on her lap or a deer nudged her carefully with its growing antlers.” One particular incident stood out in the man’s memory, pouring some light into his heart. “Once she quarreled with our neighbor’s son, and for the rest of the day a flock of hedgehogs was running after the boy, striving to bite his heels.”

Wanda chuckled lightly with him, then she said, fondness lacing her words, “Pete loves animals. I’m sure he would ask her to call a ferret or something he could pet.”

“I can imagine what it would be like to drag them out of the forest,” Erik drawled. Nina loved exploring nature and it was never an easy task to make her go back home, so if Peter with his high level of curiosity and a pinch of childishness joined her, these two would’ve become an unstoppable force.

“And her mom…Your wife…”

“Magda,” the man supplied quietly.

His daughter nodded, taking in the emotions put in the name rather than the name itself, no doubt already known to her from the news, and asked, “How did you meet?”

“It’s been barely a week since I came to Pruszkow. My Polish...It became rusty over the years and I learned it the hard way. I went to the farmers’ market to buy–I honestly don’t remember what it was but I remember Mikolaj’s face very well. He was on the verge of inventing a new language when Magda came over.” Almost involuntarily, Erik touched the ring finger of his right hand for the tips of his fingers to scrape the empty spot. His brows knitted as if it were the first time he realized that he wasn’t wearing the band. It was sitting on the nightstand in his quarter. “We’ve spent the whole day together, wandering around the town and talking. I told her who I was and…The sun had set but we never left each other’s side.”

Till death did them apart. She took her last breath in his arms, outliving their little girl by a few seconds. Erik saw how the light went out in her blue eyes before they closed for good.

“I wish I could meet her and Nina. I just –” Wanda’s voice trailed off. She bit on her lower lip and shook her head slightly, her eyes glossy. “Pete doesn’t know this but I was planning a trip to Germany and Poland for us. I’ve worked on two jobs to make enough money so we could go there this summer and…It’s like a three-hour flight from London to Warsaw and if I just bailed on that stupid examination session and took off…”

Unfinished, the sentence was hanging in the air, bearing a dozen variations of what could have happened.

A single tear rolled down the girl’s cheek and dropped from her jaw onto her shirt, swallowed by the colorful fabric. But the Master of Magnetism still felt it when he put his hand on her shoulder, minding the injury she had got recently. She looked up at him.

“You could’ve been killed along with them,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “Imagine what it would’ve done to Peter. To your mother and your little sister. To me. I wouldn’t even know who you are and I would never be able to get to know you.”

More tears streamed down from those green eyes as Wanda shook her head, refusing to acknowledge the grim side of things. Unlike her father, who mourned the two souls he knew better than anyone in the world did, she was sorrowing over the ghosts. Erik’s own eyes welled up. He slid his hand up to the nape of the girl’s neck, her silky hair curling around his fingers, and tugged her tenderly forward so that her head rested between his neck and his shoulder. She put her warm palm on his chest, right where his heart was beating, and the two of them were sitting there, in the kitchen, not caring about the edge of the table between them.

When the emotional storm calmed down to quiet sniffling, Wanda pulled away, wiping the tears off her cheeks with the back of her thumbs. She furrowed her brows as if she didn’t expect to find them there.

“It was an accident,” she got out, her voice hoarse. “The scar.” She lifted her eyes to her father’s face. “I might’ve not shared everything but I didn’t lie.”

“I know,” the Master of Magnetism replied softly.

“Why does it bother you so much then?”

Because scars, whether they were tangible lines on the skin or something noticeable only to a shrewd eye (or a telepath) were marks on the map of human life. The Master of Magnetism had plenty of those, more than most of the people had, and he knew well how difficult it was not only to accept them but also to move forward without looking back. He had not always managed to do it successfully, so he tried to shield Nina from the things that could’ve hurt her, giving her important lessons he knew for sure she could take at her age. His other two children didn’t have that luxury, but he was there for them now. Before setting foot on a new path, together, he wanted to learn what roads Peter and Wanda had already taken, and if they looked over their shoulders, wary.

“I don’t want you to spare my feelings,” Erik expressed a thought that had been circulating in his mind for quite a while. “You were honest with me about the highway accident and that’s what I appreciate more than your attempts to polish off every memory you have before sharing it with me.”

“You should know that it’s not always intentional,” the girl said, her tone serious. She leaned back in her chair, her long fingers were fiddling with the family signet but her eyes stayed firmly locked with her father’s. “It’s just easier to talk about things that bring you joy and when you have someone…you care about, you want him to experience it too instead of…pulling him into a quicksand of despondency.”

The edges of the man’s lips almost quirked up at his daughter’s choice of words, their poeticism the best proof that she was studying Shakespeare at Oxford.

The Master of Magnetism didn’t expect anything good to come out of this day of hanging around the shops in a small town (especially when your face and your name flashed on the TV screens just a month ago) but life never missed the opportunity to surprise him. First, it dangles an image of his little girl right before his eyes just to remind him that it was only possible to see her in a hallucination and then, it transcended into one of the most open conversations he had had with his older daughter. And it was the second time he saw her crying which made his heart heavy.

He leaned in his chair too and let out a weary sigh. “So, it’s a story for another time?”

The nod Wanda gave him didn’t feel like a promise but he decided against pressuring her, for her and his own sake.

“Mom doesn’t know it either,” she dropped way too casually, as her gaze swept over the table, the plates with now cold spaghetti Bolognese and a bowl with untouched salad before it came back to the man’s face, appraising.

Erik raised his brows ever so slightly. “Is it supposed to make me feel better?”

The girl tilted her head to the side. “Does it?”

“Maybe a little,” he admitted, scrunching up his face a bit. He didn’t realize what he did until his daughter smiled, her expression clearing like the sky after the rain. He used to make faces for Nina whenever he spotted a dispirited look in those dark eyes and now, when all grown up Wanda reacted the same way his youngest child did, warmth spread across his chest. Erik’s mouth twitched toward a smile of his own, even though this conversation stirred up a new wave of concern in him for the past and future of his twins.

....

Later that day, when Erik was about to switch off the lights, there was a knock on his door. Having opened it, the man paused for a moment, surprised by his son’s unusual appearance – Peter wasn’t wearing anything eye-catching even though he seemed to stay true to himself having put on the gray sweatpants, combining them with a white T-shirt – as well as by an overenthusiastic, “Shalom,” the boy chirped in his face right away.

“Aleichem shalom,” the Master of Magnetism found himself replying almost on a reflex, even though it’s been a long time since he had last spoken Yiddish. He tried to teach Nina some basic words and phrases but she didn’t really pick them up. He decided that he had time to pique her interest. What a fool.

The speedster’s attention quickly flicked behind his father’s back and he didn’t wait for the invitation, slipping into the quarter like a draft. In all truth, it was the first time Peter came in there, which, when Erik thought about it, was bemusing. This boy knew every corner of this building like the back of his hand.

“Why is your space so spacious?” Peter asked, his brows drawing closer and closer as his gaze made a full circle around the living room. “It’s like two of my rooms combined!”

“I built this place,” Erik replied casually, closing the door.

The speedster puffed and said, “You re-built it,” putting all the emphasis on the prefix, more to tease his father than anything else.

Arms folded over his chest, the Master of Magnetism watched the silver-haired boy go through the knick-knacks Charles stuffed this quarter with. If it had been up to him, he would have limited himself to the bed and the closet, but since he had never thought of this place as his own, he saw no point in getting in the way of his friend’s desire to spend his fortune on such things as the Victorian table clock. The brass was polished to a shine, and the thick, rounded glass, untarnished by time, protected the dial with Roman numerals on one side and the compass on the other. Peter bent down, resting his palms on his knees and peered at this antique trinket, as if it were a crystal ball.

“We can switch quarters if you want,” Erik said, drawing the young man’s attention. He had heard so much about his son’s “cave” that took over the whole basement in the Maximoffs’ house, but he only now thought that to live in a twenty feet cube on the second floor of a quite crowded mansion could perhaps be suffocating for someone who was always in motion. “Or I can ask Charles to give you the parlor room. It’s of no use anyway.”

Those silver waves of hair washed over Peter’s forehead, sliding to his temples when the young man straightened up, dark eyes twinkling with amusement. “That’s nepotism, you know?”

The man’s reply was a laconic, “Hmm,” that sounded more like a playing along, “Sure-sure.”

The speedster curled his lips and jammed his hands in the front pockets of his sweatpants, rolling on his feet rather awkwardly. He took a look around once more as if it could fill the stretching silence.

It hadn’t been that dark when he came in, but in the minutes that had elapsed, day had tipped over into night so it was pitch black outside the window, a lazy song of crickets the only evidence that the world didn’t cease to exist.

“So, what’s happening?” the Master of Magnetism asked after all, his voice coming out rich in the quietness of the sleeping school. “I thought you and your sisters planned a movie night.”

“Yeah but…Erm…” Peter scratched his head. “I just decided to check on you. Not because I feel guilty for how the whole thing with mom played out or anything. I–I just genuinely…wanted to know if you are alright.”

It wasn’t hard to guess that the young man was aware of what Erik had told Wanda in the kitchen earlier that day, that he had seen Nina and felt like a lunatic for a moment. He didn’t mind that his daughter shared it with her twin even though he didn’t want them to be concerned about it or the fact that Maria ran away from him again. He would deal with it himself. Eventually.

The man arched his brow. “Aren’t you always genuine?”

“I didn’t want to take a shift at the kindergarten when Prof asked me to,” the speedster said in a secretive tone.

The Master of Magnetism scoffed lightly. He was around when Charles asked the youngster to watch over the kids and the latter effused with, “No biggie, Prof. Sure. Happy to help. Anytime.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Peter,” Erik said in earnest. He crossed the room and settled on a sofa at the window. “It’s complicated.”

“I bet,” his son replied, letting out a weary sigh. He came over to sit at the man’s side and once he threw himself onto the linen cushions with floral embroidery, he grimaced, learning that they were as tough and uncomfortable as they looked.

“What do you watch on this?” Peter suddenly asked, jerking his chin at the TV cabinet sitting on the opposite side of the room.

“Not much. Football, mainly. Not American but real football where you need to kick the ball with your foot.” Erik turned his head in time to see a smirk lifting the edge of the speedster’s mouth. Suddenly he realized that he had no idea if his son was into anything else besides running at supersonic speed. Did he do any sports in school? He knew that being an athlete was a whole thing in American educational institutions. “What’s your favorite sport?”

“Uhm…I don’t think I have one. In high school, everyone tried to get me on the football team because, as you might’ve noticed, I’m very fast. It would’ve been kind of like cheating, but not really. I don’t take steroids or whatever, I was just born this way so theoretically they couldn’t ban me from a game for winning it before they could signal its start. But I never really liked those massive jerseys and leggings so it didn’t work out.

Erik tried to imagine his son in that weird uniform but failed.

“I hate golf,” Peter went on, his tone suddenly losing its waggishness. The man’s gaze fell on the youngster’s hands, attracted by the tic that was more characteristic of Wanda – the latter was twisting his long fingers. “It’s like a bunch of rich guys dressed in stupid-ass white pants and polos of every freaking dull color existing and they’re trying to hit a ball into the holes in the ground. Lonnie took me to those fancy clubs every weekend and I did my best not to run away from there.” He cast a somewhat unsure glance at the Master of Magnetism. “Lonnie is–He’s Lora’s father.”

Erik nodded, letting his son know he had already pieced it together. To pull himself together and ask, “Was he a good stepfather to you and your sister?” was a completely different matter.

“There were good moments, but, uh, I haven’t missed him for a day since he ran away.” The speedster smirked to himself. “Wow, it even rhymes.”

Wanda wasn’t pleased with that man either. In fact, if he recalled it correctly, she said that her mother had a shitty taste in men.

Involuntary, Erik’s lips curled.

The expression was brief but it would be foolish to think that Peter with his supersonic perception would miss it. He pulled back his shoulders a bit, as if ready to deal with his father’s grimness, and babbled, “Mom used to take us on baseball games. Those I actually liked. It was before, you know, you ripped out that stadium…But hey, you kinda changed people’s perspective on mutants for the better, so it’s fine. I guess.”

“You should thank Raven for that,” the Master of Magnetism said matter-of-factly.

“If you didn’t threaten to kill the President, she wouldn’t have become a hero. In my humble opinion –” the boy put his hand to his heart “– you are really underselling your contribution in this.”

“Well, if we talk about contribution, you had a hand in that too. After all, you got me out of prison.”

“Solid point.”

“Can’t believe you were only fourteen,” Erik drawled, slowly shaking his head. “My son broke into the Pentagon at fourteen.” As if he had nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon. Did his boy even go to school or did the biased opinion of his classmates and teachers discourage him from studying? The man ran a hand over his face, suddenly feeling that his head was spinning.

“Mom said it was fate,” Peter said, the linen cushions of the sofa creaking lightly as he tried to nestle in its corner.

The Master of Magnetism could imagine the tone in which she said that. She ran away from him so that fourteen years later their son would meet him by chance, and seven more years later both of his lost children would seek him out, wanting to get to know him no matter what.

His eyes were still closed, lower arms braced on the tights when he said, “I still don’t understand how she could let that happen. Charles, no matter how convincing he might be, was not himself back then. I don’t believe he was capable of talking her into letting you go with him and Hank.”

“And the clawed dude,” the youngster added nonchalantly.

Yeah, an interesting fellow was that Wolverine, as the man called himself. First, he sent Erik and Charles off with a laconic, “Fuck off,”, then he burst into their lives, claiming that they should change the present in order to prevent a horrific future. There definitely were a couple of shitshows two old friends had to witness and be a part of throughout the years.

Erik turned his head to his son. Maybe it was the warm light coming from above, the courtesy of the five-lights brass fixture, or it was about the absence of anything shimmering and eccentric but looking at the boy’s face now he noticed something he wasn’t able to pick up on before. His fair, one might’ve said pale skin acquired a tan, nicely applied by the sun he must’ve seen now more than he did in Washington, “chilling” in his cave. In his simple clothes and hair barely dried after the shower, he looked so soft and relaxed, the Master of Magnetism diverged from the topic of their conversation, asking, “It’s a long drive from Washington to Westchester. Did she even like the school?” with no intention other than to find out what Maria thought of the place where their children were staying. To his surprise, Peter smirked and shook his silver wavy locks.

“I know what you’re doing,” he drawled, a foxy grin twisting his lips. “Wan once told me that you notice far more things than you’re letting on and it kinda ruined your detached disguise for me. After everything that fell out of my mouth, I was waiting for the topic to pop up eventually.”

When the deep crease between Erik’s brows didn’t go away, he had mercy on his old man and gave him a cue. “I saw how you look at Wan, especially when she’s in her mother-hen mode. And I’m convinced that our reaction to the news of our mom being arrested for drunk driving again didn’t slide past but on the contrary, have something to do with it.”

“Damn,” the man drawled in reply, feigning disappointment much to the youngster’s pleasure. “I guess I’m not as discreet as I thought.”

“You’re really not,” Peter teased him. But as their gazes kept being locked and the Victorian table clock ticked measuredly, the twinkles of amusement died out in the darkness of his eyes. “I’m not sure that it’s my place to tell you about it. I guess I can only share my perspective... It wasn’t as bad as you probably imagined.”

Erik’s hands clasped in front of him. “What happened?”

“Uh…I guess she just lost it, you know?” The youngster curled his lips and shrugged, sadness sipping into his features. “She was always trying to make our life better but then our gran died, and Lonnie disappeared on her when she just had their baby…It just knocked her down at one point.” He glanced at his father and whatever was showing on the man’s face, made him hasten to add a bit defensive, “It wasn’t like she stopped caring about us or anything, it was just hard for her to keep up with everything.

He fell silent for a moment, his fingers playing with the drawstring of his sweatpants.

“Wan had to step up. She took care of Lora, packed our lunch boxes for school, cooked dinner, and cleaned the house. I helped her but honestly, I could’ve done a better job. Instead, I got hooked on stealing things and... She was the one who was holding us afloat, and I think–I think it took a toll on her relationship with mom, which never really recovered.”

“How old were you then?”

“About thirteen.”

A trail of pages from Employment magazines grew into a trail of empty beer bottles, lying in the strike near a shaggy sofa. The smell of reheated dinner from the freezer lingers in the air, intertwined with cigarette smoke that swirls in a slow dance with the dust, following Wanda as she was pacing back and forth, patting soothingly a small girl in her arms. Her hair was pulled up, tied hastily with the first thing that came to hand, the delicate skin under her eyes was shadowed, and she was repeating almost mindlessly, “Sh-shh,” while her gaze was running over the text in a book she needed to study for tomorrow’s lesson. Peter opened the kitchen cabinet – the shelves were bare except for a can of peas, a bear-shaped jar of honey, and a Mac & Cheese box – and began to stuff it with the Twinkies he just “borrowed” from a store in another city, ignoring the dirty dishes sitting in the sink. A “Stop” sign was leaning in the corner of the room, another victim of the boy’s unhealthy hobby and a plea to stop their childhood from slipping away from them.

That was one hell of a specific visual the Master of Magnetism pushed away, focusing on the image of his children now. His son stopped “collecting” things and, even though he spent a lot of time in the basement, playing Pac-Man or annoying the neighbors with his relatively successful guitar sessions, he was “good”, as he often said with a nonchalant lift of his shoulder. His daughter grew into an independent, quick-witted young woman who made it to the university she always dreamed about. Despite all the ordeals, they managed to remain each other’s best friend, which on its own was quite an accomplishment.

“So, when Charles came to you, your mom wasn’t quite herself?” the man asked, pitching his voice to a comforting, non-judgmental tone.

The youngster’s lips quickly curled again, an answer more eloquent than he could have given with words.

It all made sense then. With no parent in sight and great power gifted, it was easy for Peter to just plunge into whatever endeavor he thought was fun, even if it were reckless and dangerous.

The way Erik felt about the whole thing was akin to a switch that a child was playing with. There was anger roaring inside him but there was also sincere sympathy for the young woman who must’ve been tired and scared. Sometimes things just knock one down and they have to pull themselves out of quicksand to get back on their feet. Besides, he wasn’t a picture-perfect parent either. On occasions, when he was crawling home after a long shift, he could be dismissive to Nina, wanting nothing more than just to drop dead on the bed. Other times his love would cocoon her too tight, not allowing the outside world to shine some light on her.

Knowing that Maria’s last arrest wasn’t her fault, Erik, however, felt the urge to make sure that the state of affairs in the Maximoffs’ household was not the same as seven years ago. “And how is she doing with…with it now? Is everything alright?” he asked, actually struggling to find the neutral words.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That whole situation didn’t drag on for too long,” the speedster answered with vehemence. “Actually, seeing you on TV and then learning that I was involved in your escape sobered mom up like nothing else.”

Well, there was something, after all, in his children’s lives he had a positive effect on, even if it weren’t intentional.

“So, she’s good. A chief manager, as I’ve told you. Works in her own small office – it’s literally like a glass cube with a desk and a chair in the middle – and, to her kids’ absolute horror, loves to do paperwork.” Peter watched his father closely as the latter sat back in his corner of the sofa, tension slowly loosening its grip on him. “We’re good. You don’t need to worry about it.”

The Master of Magnetism scoffed softly, shaking his head. He had been invested in the lives of those two mischiefs from the first weeks of living under the same roof. It was almost like blood called to blood. “You don’t need to worry about it,” huh? As if that were possible. 

The man didn’t catch the moment when a newspaper appeared in the speedster's hands, neither did he remember having one in his quarter. He flipped through the pages, most likely not even reading the headlines, doing it just for the sake of being occupied by something else besides sitting in the quietness of the night.

A cool breeze tickled the back of Erik’s neck. It was a blessing after the scorching hit of that typical July day yet it was barely a relief for the man. His head was swamped with thoughts that seemed to try to fight their way out, scratching his temples from the inside. The night promised to be sleepless.

“Should I bring you something?” Peter’s concerned voice rang in the man’s ears. “You look like crap.”

“It won’t get any better if you and your sister keep saying that,” the Master of Magnetism quipped. Though dinner his daughter tried to convince him to eat might’ve changed a few things.

“I’ll probably go get a can of Cola anyway,” the boy babbled, his hand already gripping the door handle when Erik responded, stopping him, “I’m not a fan of soda.”

The speedster’s brow arched skeptically as his gaze fell on his father’s chest. The man glanced down too.

Damn Charles

He forgot that he was wearing a T-shirt with the Coca-Cola logo on it – something his old friend gave him though the Master of Magnetism was convinced that the Professor was just secretly mocking him. Any time the mansion’s denizens spotted him in that thing they couldn’t stop staring.

“I would rather go for a walk,” the man said, rising from the sofa. Not exactly an invitation but he would less than mind if his son joined him.

Without a second thought, Peter opened the door and bowed like a butler. “After you, sir,” he said, a waggish green spreading across his face, the one that made Erik want to ruffle those silver locks.

They walked out of the quarter, striding down an ornamental red and brown runner that added a sense of vibrancy to the otherwise dull and dreary hallway. No sound came from the closed doors to the numerous quarters and it felt like the two men were the only awake souls wandering the grounds.

Erik pulled at the string of magnetic field ever so slightly and the brass handle of the glass door pulled down – the action carried by the spindle into the cylinder, which turned clockwise, then the bold was forced across the door’s internal face, sliding out of the frame’s latch – click and the way to the patio was open. He walked past two round tables, bored in a small company of wicker chairs, and stopped at the stone railing. The ground ahead looked as if it had been soaked in ink, and only the lanterns scattered along winding pathways, attracting swarms of midges with their yellow light made it clear how vast Charles’s property stretched.

The Master of Magnetism cast a sideways glance at his son whose head was thrown back as the youngster was looking at the starless sky and asked, suddenly even for himself, “Is there anything you wanted to do with a father but haven’t done it with Lonnie?”

He almost frowned at the name that felt so dull and meaningless, he wondered how anyone would want to give it to their child.

Peter turned his face to his father, looking him straight in the eyes. “To start off, I’ve never considered him a father.”

“You don’t have to say that, Peter,” Erik said in earnest.

“I mean it,” the speedster insisted. It was an intense gaze battle and he didn’t back away until he saw something that convinced him – his words were taken seriously. “But yeah, there are lots of things I would’ve done together with a, you know –” He pulled a face “– you.”

“Like what?”

“Like…to play catch, maybe? We would have to do it in the front yard because we don’t have a proper backyard. Both would wear the all-read “curly W” cap and the Nationals T-shirt. We’d be sweating in them like crazy, that’s one hundred percent, but we wouldn’t change just for the sake of the atmosphere, throwing the ball back and forth, back and forth. And when the sun would go down, we’d go inside the house to have dinner.”

That wish wasn’t so hard to tick off. They would need to rummage through the mansion and ask if anybody had... The Master of Magnetism blinked twice to make sure his headache wasn’t making him see things because in the corner of the patio, a container was settled and there, right on top of numerous toys were laying two catcher’s mitts and a white leather ball.

Perhaps interpreting Erik’s distraction as a lack of interest, Peter back-pedaled, “Know what? Forget about it. It sounds stupid. I don’t know why I decided that –”

“Here,” the man said, as he picked up the ball and threw it to his son.

The superhuman reflexes were apparently asleep because the ball hit the youngster in his chest and fell onto the ground, rolling back to the feet of the Master of Magnetism.

“Ouch,” Peter got out slowly, blinking at his father in bafflement. “What…What was that?” He looked down at the ball, then back at the man. “Why didn’t you say ‘Catch’?”

“‘Here’ is a synonym for ‘Catch’,” Erik quoted the speedster’s own words. “In a colloquial kind of way.”

“Touché,” the boy replied with a grimace, making his father smirk.

A thought passed quickly through Erik’s mind when he tried to feel the magnetic field around the ball to lift it up that maybe Wanda was right and he was getting lazy. Or old. Eventually, he had to bend over to reach out to the baseball and pick it up.

The speedster lifted his brows. “You want to play it now? At night?”

“I think it’s a perfect time. There is a lower possibility to victimize someone while we’re training your reaction,” the Master of Magnetism said casually.

Peter was an indignation personified.

“Give me that,” he said with vehemence, reaching for the baseball. Then he muttered, as if it were a threat, “We’ll see what a catcher you are. We’ll see about that.”

His father looked down for a second, a smile twisting his mouth. “What about movie night with your sisters?”

The youngster flashed a glance at his watch and said, “They must be already asleep.”

A whizz later he called out to Erik from the lawn, “Are coming or what?”

....

Quite exhausted, but with his heart light, the Master of Magnetism returned to his quarter at two in the morning and fell fast asleep without even turning the lights off.

....

“Wanda,” a muffled male voice called out to her.

Wanda grumbled, covering her head with a pillow. Lora just stopped kicking her left kidney and she was drifting in an interim, not quite asleep but not awake either.

“Wanda,” the voice floated in again, a touch more urgent, more pronounced. It wasn’t coming from behind the door as the girl imagined. It was the Professor’s voice. And it rang in her mind.

The pillow flew away as Wanda bolted upright in her bed, her heart racing. She flipped the blanket to the side, swung her legs over the edge and yelped once her feet touched the floor. Behind her, now covered with two blankets, her little sister made a disgruntled sound.

“What the –” Wanda muttered with a big frown.

Her gaze swept around the room, registering that the blocks of wood seemed darker and somehow, they were rippling and shimmering in the sunlight that was coming from the open window. Actually, on second thought it didn’t seem like rocket science because the floor was simply covered in water. The girl’s eyes went from two sleepy slits into two coins in a split second.

There was a knock on her door that made her snap from inaction. She hopped down from her bed, her face scrunching up as her feet immersed in cool water. Ignoring the guests languishing in the hallway, she squelched her way through the soaked rug to the bathroom.

“Fucking shit!” Wanda exclaimed when she yanked the door open and was greeted with a fountain in her face.

She put her hands in front of her, coming into the room but she didn’t make it far because her right foot slipped on the wet tile and she almost did a full split before she landed on her right butt cheek. Her eyes squeezed and her nose wrinkled from the pain that seared her muscles and her bones (and her ego) but it wasn’t the right time to pity herself.

Having spotted the problem – a pipe that stretched along the wall between the shower cabin and the sink had burst – Wanda held out her hand. A blob of scarlet energy gathered up under her palm and launched forward to put down an unwanted fountain. She thought she could deal with it herself, just like she always did but it felt like the water became alive all of a sudden. The more the girl tried to suppress the gush, the harder it fought against her power.

“Lora!” Wanda called up to her sister, still sprawled on the floor. Even though the cold water kept hissing, she could hear the banging on the main door. Someone was that close to breaking it down and barging in, decency put aside.

The little girl peeked her head out the door frame, clutching at it with her dear life as she must have climbed up the nightstand to avoid getting her feet wet. Her face was lost on any expression aside from the astoundment that rounded her eyes.

Focus had never seemed so hard to maintain as at that moment. Lora’s intense gaze, throbbing butt cheek, knocking on the door and water literally everywhere got on Wanda’s already shuttered nerves.

“Fuck it,” the girl muttered under her breath. She got her feet under her, balancing on the slippery tile, and got up. The reflection she saw in the mirror was fabulous: her pajamas – baby blue shirts and a T-shirt – stuck to her body, her hair was fluffy on the top and melting icicles on the bottom, every hair on her eyebrows looked like it was climbing up her forehead or begging somewhere up there for mercy.

“Open the damn door. Please,” Wanda added, trying to keep frustration off her tone, and yanked a large towel off the hook on the wall. She squatted down beside the pipe, a soft terrycloth in one hand and glowing energy in the other, and plugged the damaged area. Behind her, there was heard a click of the door latch being unlocked and yelps of surprise cutting through the hallway.

“My God!” Jean exclaimed, bursting into the bathroom. She hurried to come over to her friend, putting her hands on the towel around the pipe for added pressure.

“Erik and Peter went to cut off the water,” Ororo reported, stopping in the doorway, Lora right at her side.

“Are you alright? Nobody got hurt?” Charles asked, eyeing the girls as he wheeled into Wanda’s quarter.

Wanda managed to muster a lighthearted tone, calling, “Just a minor inconvenience!” over her shoulder in response.

Out of the blue (smoke), Kurt appeared behind Ororo and Lora, blasting out, “I’ve got towels!”, indeed holding a stack of folded, grey towels in his hands.

Finally, the pressure of the water flow lowered beneath Jean’s and Wanda’s hands before the water stopped running completely. Having swapped a glance, the girls let go of the sodden terrycloth. Wanda let loose a relieved sigh and wiped at her forehead with the back of her hand.

“O-kay,” Ororo muttered, taking a proper look around. “I’m gonna see what I can do with the watered parts.”

The Professor picked up on the signal to move along first. “If you don’t need me, I’ll go downstairs, check the damage there.”

He exchanged a nod of agreement with Wanda but before he got out of her quarter, he cast a glance at her over his shoulder, quick but perspicacious. Where once he wondered if the girl was a mutant, having learned that Erik was her father, now the light must have fallen at the right angle on some parts of the puzzle, and the whole picture no doubt crystallized. In his best tradition, he didn’t try to pry out concrete answers to his questions and simply went to do what he had already said he was going to do.   

However, for everybody else that one-minute interaction went unnoticed. Ororo had already held out her hands, drawing out the remaining water from the floor, carpets, and furniture, Lora was watching her from the bed, fascinated by the droplets of water sparkling in the air, as if someone put rain on pause, and Jean was wringing the terrycloth in the toilet.

“Du zitterst,” Kurt said to Wanda, helping her to her feet. (You're trembling).

He reached over the stack he had just set on the chest of drawers at the bathroom’s doorway, pulled out a towel, and wrapped the girl in it. The care shining in those amber eyes warmed her more than his hands that were sliding up and down her arms. She allowed herself to sink in them for a moment, finding green hues around the pupils and red ones closer to the rim. It made her think about the early autumn when the summer’s warmth was still in the air but it was pleasant, a finishing touch to the boisterous colors of nature and the scent of hot chocolate with cinnamon and tiny marshmallows wafting around; when she would slip under a fluffy blanket with a good book and occasionally look out the window, distracted by the pitter-patter of rain. Slowly, the teleport’s hands stopped moving. Actually, they halted on her upper arms and it seemed like his breath halted too as if it weren’t her gaze that trailed down the intricate lines on his cheeks but her fingers and…Wanda snapped out of whatever it was, her attention taking on a different route that took her behind Kurt’s back. There, through the open door to the hallway, she saw Namor. He was leaning casually against the wall, ankles crossed and arms folded over his chest. When their eyes locked, a faint but definitely smug grin lifted the corner of his mouth, spicing up the otherwise stone-cold expression on his face.

Damn prick, lit up in the girl’s mind as the morning disaster unraveled itself from a different angle.

“Maybe we should ask Namor to help us,” Jean said all of a sudden, offhandedly, and if Wanda didn’t know her friend better, she would think that it was a taunt.

“It was his payback,” she said, her eyes two hostile slits.

“You think he did this to your quarter?” the teleport asked, his brows raised, his hands no longer on her arms.

“I threw him in the pond, he threw a pond in my quarter,” Wanda said flatly. “Seems pretty logical to me.”

As she rounded Kurt and shuffled into her living room, water dripping from her soaked shirts, Namor pushed off the wall and withdrew from her line of vision. A part of her couldn’t help but applaud the countermove he made. If he got caught or something went out of hand, he would fall out of favor with the Professor and could get expelled, considering that he was no child yet he risked it all to get back at her. The girl could go to Charles, of course, and tattletale on the spiteful bastard but it would make her look like a snowflake that was still offended by the fact that some half-assed mutant splashed water in her face and didn’t deign to apologize for it. Which she couldn’t care less about because she was too preoccupied with the ongoing family drama and the collective attempts to raise the X-Men team from the ashes.

“So, you can patch a pipe and you wouldn’t need to change it?” Peter blabbered, following on Erik’s heels.

“Yes,” the Master of Magnetism answered, walking into Wanda’s quarter with a red-and-black toolbox in hand. He headed straight into the bathroom (Jean and Kurt leaped out of there as if fire licked at their heels), exchanging a look that conveyed a half-amused, half-annoyed “Good morning” with Wanda on his way there. The speedster pulled at Lora’s braid, lightly though, before disappearing in a green-tiled room too.

“Are you planning on playing some game on him in return?” Ororo asked Wanda, directing a sphere of water out of the window. It splashed somewhere onto the lawn once she relaxed her hand and by the absence of screams no one fell the victim of a sudden “downpour”.

“Why would I want it?” Wanda drawled as she bent over, picking up her half-written Oxford project from the suitcase, holding the soaked pages in a pinch. Ideas that had dawned on her in the middle of the night or had been squeezed out of her mind after five hours of writing down and crossing out now bloomed in blue blots across the paper.

“I literally feel your desire to slap his face,” Jean said matter-of-factly, perching on the edge of the bed. Lora who was sitting crisscross in the middle of that chaos of tangled sheets, blankets, and pillows slid her eyes over the girl’s red mass of hair, admiring the well-cared, long locks.

“I don’t want to slap him,” Wanda replied in a “don’t be ridiculous” manner. There was even a smile playing on her lips that was dropped off so quickly, it would look comical if it weren’t for the steel in those green eyes when she said, “I want to punch him.”

“But it’s like an eye for an eye at this point, isn’t it?” Lora noted, swapping a glance with Jean. The telepath nodded enthusiastically, agreeing with that thought.

“Maybe it’s time to call a truce?” the red-haired telepath suggested with a shrug. “You both proved yourselves and… Honestly? I don’t see how any of you can benefit from this feud.”

It was only half past nine but Wanda had already felt drained. Her hands itched to peel off her pajamas that clung to her skin beneath the towel and her hair asked to be washed and brushed before it would turn into a half-hours-of-untangling mess. It was not the best start to what was supposed to be the first of three days dedicated to the tree house project. If that was how much of her energy a feud with a random though annoying guy was going to take, it was not worth it.

Knowing what is the right thing to do and acknowledging the fact that one would have to step over their pride to get over with it do go hand in hand, but the latter often seems like too much of a sacrifice and, being a tiny bit prideful person, Wanda maybe wanted her friends to coax her into that endeavor. “A truce starts with an apology and I don’t think he is capable of that,” she said.

“There’s a little thing called ‘taking the high road’,” Jean drawled, her meaningful look contradicting the casualness put into the words.

A slight crease formed between Ororo’s brows. “Taking the high road? Is it some kind of martial arts technique?”

“Sounds like something Mystique could easily demonstrate,” Kurt mused, exchanging glances with the Storm Ruler. She nodded in agreement.

“Wanda would love that if it were so,” Lora said, giggling.

Her sister gave her a pointed look. “Don’t get smart with me, karate kid. You’ve been making quite successful attempts at assassinating me for the better part of the night.”

“That’s not true!” the little girl fenced.

The towel slipped off Wanda’s left shoulder and she lifted the hem of her T-shirt, revealing a blooming bruise on her side. It was small but its presence was undeniable.

Lora kept on denying her involvement in her older sister’s misfortunes. “That’s probably because you fell in the bathroom.”

Wanda could tell that their brother’s ears perked up while Erik’s hands must have hovered over the patch he was sewing to the damaged pipe and his gaze went to examine her figure because for a moment silence elapsed in the bathroom.

“I hit my butt not my head,” Wanda said flatly.

“Aw, damn, why am I missing out on these things?” Peter whined.

“Screw you!” his twin called out.

Hunkered down, the speedster leaned back like the Tower of Pisa, craning his neck to peek in and throw, “Screw you back!” in return.

“Peter, stop squirming, you’ll dislocate the patch,” Erik’s voice came in from the bathroom right away.

A wicked grin twisted Wanda’s lips and everyone around her seemed to catch it, smirking.

“Speaking of missing,” Ororo said, her brows drawn together. “Where’s Scott?”

“Sleeping off the effects of last night,” the telepath replied with a grimace.

“What happened last night?” Wanda asked, her gaze slipped from her red-haired friend to Ororo and Kurt, but the two raised their brows, seemingly having the same question in mind.

“He and Peter played some computer game till two in the morning,” Jean drawled somewhat unsure. She glanced up at Wanda. “I thought you know.”

“You exaggerate my interest in my brother’s affairs,” the girl said impishly. She stepped back, her hand already on the way to the dresser’s copper handle and almost shrieked when the sole of her foot touched the rug. It was wet and cold and felt like a shed skin of a snake (at least that was how Wanda imagined it to feel to the touch).

Ororo wrinkled her nose apologetically. “Yeah, I haven’t been able to dry your quarter completely, so we’ll probably have to move some of your stuff outside for the sun and heat to do the job.”

Kurt’s hand shot in the air and he blasted out, “On it,” with such cheerfulness that one could’ve thought he volunteered for something extra special.

The Storm Ruler snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “I’ll help you.”

Jean climbed off the bed and came over to Wanda, slinging an arm over her shoulders and giving the girl a slight shake to uplift her mood. “You and Lora can stay at my quarter for now. What good is all this space I have if I can’t invite my girlfriends for a sleepover?” Her gaze flicked to Ororo. “Maybe you will join us too?”

The girl lifted her shoulder in an indefinite answer, thought it looked more like a yes rather than “I’m too cool for sleepovers” kind of a shrug.

Friends

Wanda could brush off this word however long she wanted, hiding behind the fact that all this – school, get-togethers, teamwork – was temporary. Something that would never be the norm therefore there was no point in getting used to it or truly valuing it. She was there for her brother and her father and nothing else mattered… Until it did. She grieved with Scott even when they were at each other’s throats. She deeply sympathized with Jean and Ororo both of whom lost their parents at a young age under tragic circumstances. She spent the entire day with Kurt after he opened up about what surviving in a fight club was like. God, she and Peter didn’t start that whole shenanigan with New York because they yearned for adventures. If it were so, it would be just the two of them and not so-legal-evacuation of their Ford from the impound lot would be the most harmless part of their night program for sure. Their purpose was to breathe the spirit of freedom and adventurism into those young people with different backgrounds but equally feeling out of place; to mark the beginning of their new life. It wasn’t like Wanda didn’t have anyone out there in the world whom she could call a friend. There were a bunch of people she knew from high school and university but those bonds were hardly as deep and selfless as those she managed to build with Jean, Ororo, Scott, and Kurt. It did matter to her. They mattered.

“Thanks, guys, for coming to the rescue,” the girl said, showering her friends with the warmth she felt in her chest. “I really appreciate it.”

“Literally anytime,” the teleport replied with a big smile.

Untouched by the sweetness of the moment, Lora blasted out, “Do you have a TV in your room? I can’t miss the Bugs Bunny Show!” peering at Jean expectedly.

Wanda couldn’t help but tease her younger sibling’s manners, which reminded her of their brother at times. In truth, those two would pass for twins better than she herself and Peter did. She tsked and drawled, shaking her head, “Such a precious kid.” When the little girl pulled a face at that, she added, “Pick your stuff first. And don’t forget your toothbrush and comb. You won’t escape these things here.”

While the Maximoff sisters rummaged through the closet, deciding what options they’d left to wear, Jean resorted to her telekinesis and lifted the bed so that Kurt could roll the wet Persian rug from under it. Ororo wasn’t loitering either, examining the bottom of the chairs and deciding whether or not those plush things needed a sunbath. 

“I fixed the pipe, but I won’t turn on the water yet,” Erik informed Wanda as he emerged from the bathroom, wiping his hands with a piece of cloth.

Peter stood behind him, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. “It’s better to give the sealant a couple of hours to dry completely so it wouldn’t become a problem later,” he said, as if he hadn’t learned it a few minutes ago.

“Thanks,” the girl replied. She cast a soft glance at her father. “See you at the cafeteria?”

The Master of Magnetism nodded in reply. When he was in the doorway, he turned his head to give her a piece of advice, “You may want to leave the door open to ventilate the place.”

Right at that moment, a boy ran down the hallway, screaming because his peer was chasing and spraying him with a silly string.

“Or not,” the speedster suggested, pulling a funny face.

....

Squinting under the scrutiny of the sun still sitting in the east, Wanda was wending her way to a picnic table hiding in the shade of a massive oak. She still wasn’t sure if it were worth it, to step over her pride, lock her true self behind bars and veil it with a pretty flower wall. She didn’t want to look soft. It made her feel vulnerable and stupid.

The girl could pass by as if this picnic table were just on her way to somewhere else more important, but she was no coward and didn’t have a habit of deviating from her plans. And Namor had already noticed her halfway to him, probably reading all her intentions on her face.

“Hi,” Wanda said, sliding onto the bench across from her future “friend”. The word came out so casual, it made her cringe at her own voice.

Those eyes of his, perfectly set off by his navy blue polo, paid her a cursory glance before going back to the pages of the book he held in his hands.

Aw, so he can read, Wanda crooned mockingly in her mind. She tilted her head, trying to see the cover. Whales, dolphins and porpoises, big blue letters said. Or he’s just looking at the pictures. Anyways…

She wasn’t there to add fuel to the already well-blazing fire (hopefully). Even if arrogance was rolling off the young man in waves and she really wanted to snatch that encyclopedia of marine life from him and smack his face with it.

The girl clasped her hands in front of herself, putting them on the table in a pretty much “let’s get to the business” manner. “Look,” she began, serious, “you and I are grown-up people. We got off to a bad start but it’s in our power to stop pointing fingers at each other and start over.”

Namor’s face remained stoically impassive as he turned the page, but when the moment of silence dragged on and the girl tried to look him in the eyes with a prompting, “So what would you say to that?”, her brows raised expectedly, that mask faltered. The young man closed his book, put it on the table and copied her pose. He looked up at Wanda and she could have sworn that the Arctic Ocean itself was splashing in those irises; cold and merciless, it nevertheless did not repel but forced one to peer into the depths harder.

“You made me question reality,” the young man said matter-of-factly. “I can’t even say that you got into – that it was you who –” A muscle in his jaw twitched.

Well, Wanda worked so well on his mind that he indeed couldn’t articulate that swimming in the pond wasn’t his idea. It was as if every time the words formed on the tip of his tongue, they met an insurmountable barrier.

“I admit I was wrong to use your phobia to get back at you,” she said, trying to appear repentant instead of self-content. Deep down, the girl knew that she had overreacted to something that could have been resolved verbally, but this feeling huddled at the very bottom of her soul, almost unreachable at that point. Not when there was only half of her completed coursework was drying out on the windowsill.

The extended olive brunch seemed to have the opposite to conciliatory effect on the young man because he said “I don’t need your pity,” suddenly and bluntly.

“I don’t pity you! I’m trying to –” Wanda pressed a pause on her growing irritation, her knuckles going white “– I’m trying to make things right. I was–am–was angry at somebody else and lashed out at you.” Though you were no angel either. “So, I apologize for the incident with the pond.” She ventured to go as far, as to utter the hardest three words, “I’m sorry.”

The strap of the denim overalls she borrowed from Jean’s closet slid off her shoulder, but the world did not collapse. She said it and it didn’t even feel weird in her mouth, maybe a tiny bit forced but it was just that her grudge against him did fade in an instant. It was all up to Namor now.

And Namor was looking at her with the same intensity as if he was waiting for some punchline to come and reassure him that all of it was just a joke, a comeback for flooding her quarter. But time was ticking and Wanda was simply sitting opposite him, not a hint of evil amusement on her face. Something sparked in those blue eyes then, so pure and fragile, that it made the girl stick out her hand and say, “My name is Wanda, by the way.”

Whatever she saw was gone in a second. The young man leaned closer to her so she could feel the coolness of mint gum in his breath as he said, “Not interested,” and got up from the table, making sure to grab that marine life encyclopedia before leaving Wanda alone.

The girl was so stunned, she stared at the empty space before her for the whole minute with her mouth open.

Not. Interested. Not. Interested…? The more she turned his words over in her mind, the more rapid her breathing became. Not interested?! What the hell?!

Oh, man, look at him! Wow, wow, wow. Well, guess what, you prolific damn asshole? I’m not interested either! I’m so not interested you’ll regret that! You want to keep going with this game? Fucking fine! Very well! Very. Damn. Well.

She didn’t notice how she got from the lawn in front of the mansion to the chapel, unlike the gang and her siblings who had been waiting for her there all this time. She stomped into the front yard, looking like a cloud of thunder.

Scott barely raised a brow, but the girl cut him off with, “Not a word,” storming past him.

“Oof, the guy is a goner,” Peter crooned from the corner of his mouth. He pushed off the wall he was leaning against and fell into step behind his twin.

Jean, Ororo, Kurt and Lora swapped a glance.

“What happened?” the little girl asked, hurrying after her siblings.

“What happened is that I’ll never listen to any of you again,” Wanda grumbled as they all rounded the chapel, finding themselves in the backyard. The greenery was all hidden under the layers of sorted wooden boards and branches, stored there for their treehouse project. “The prick basically told me to fuck off.”

The last bit came out after the speedster prudently covered his little sister’s ears. She threw his hands off, pouting her lips in displeasure. As if she hadn’t heard worse from them both.

Scott whistled.

“Mein Gott,” Kurt exclaimed, scandalized.

A deep crease formed between Ororo’s brows. “What? What the hell?”

“Exactly!” Wanda agreed, shaking her index finger in the air.

“But…what exactly did he say?” Jean asked, trying to see two sides.

“After I apologized?” Wanda asked, her hand splayed on her chest. “That he is not interested.”

The red-haired girl went on, “What did you say to him before he–before he expressed his disinterest?”

Wanda arched her brow.

“I mean, maybe he didn’t get that it was an apology. Sometimes you sound, you know, like your father.” Lora waved her hand pointedly below her jaw in a neck-cutting gesture, but the telepath frowned slightly, ironically unable to read a signal. “You express something and it may come off as slightly pushy, intimidating, if you will.”

“Okay,” Peter crooned with a grin, throwing his hand over Jean’s shoulder and pulling her in the opposite direction from his sister, “There are some excellent boards over there, we’re definitely gonna use them today. I would’ve gotten them out of there myself, but, you know, they’re so dusty and I put on my coolest shorts today, so…” He gave the girl one of his signature flirty looks. “Could you maybe help me out with that?”

Jean rolled her eyes though there was definitely a smile blooming on her lips.

“Phew, that’s like a five-minute business,” Scott said, barging in between his friend and his “friend-I-still-didn’t-ask-you-to-be-my-girlfriend-officially”.

“At least you tried to take a higher road,” Ororo said to Wanda, nudging her encouragingly. “Come on, we have so many things to do today.”

“Yeah, and it won’t be a fun weekend if you walk around with that killer shark look in your eyes, okay?” Lora put in, rounding her eyes in a mocking grimace.

“Will you stop making me look like a maniac with no social skills?” Wanda exclaimed in indignation and went to pick up an axe. She turned it over in her hands, feeling the weight, then perched it on her shoulder turning to face the gang. “And I didn’t try to take a higher road, I took it. And it’s not “a higher road” at all, it’s “the high road”.”

Ororo held her hands up, a quizzical expression written across her face.

Scott leaned to Peter to ask half-jokingly, “Are you sure it’s safe to trust her with the sharp objects today?”

The speedster turned his face to him. “Just don’t get in her way and you’ll be fine, he replied casually and winked.”

....

Erik was silently assigned to monitor the gang’s work on the treehouse because Charles was too polite to ask about it directly or even telepathically. Plus, the Master of Magnetism was convinced that his old friend expected him to do it anyway because of the twins and the rest of the youngsters went as a bonus.

He didn’t intervene in the process, watching the youngsters’ triumphs and failures in building from afar. From a nice bench twenty yards from the chosen tree, to be precise. What the man found interesting was that mutants avoided using their powers. Jean could use telekinesis to lift a toolbox that Peter had left below, but she handed it to Kurt, the teleporter, who was climbing the ladder onto the forming foundation of the treehouse. Ororo, for whom it wasn’t a big deal to summon a cool breeze, often wiped the sweat from her forehead, and so did Wanda while she was monitoring Scott sawing a board. She was clearly not impressed with the work he was doing because a couple of times she openly tried to take the saw away and probably show him how it “really should be done”.

Still trying to prove to Charles that they are a team with a future, powers or not, Erik thought not without amusement.

He wondered if they were like this two decades ago. United and at the same time conflicting over something foolish, getting into trouble like children but ready to stand up if the truth was violated. Perhaps they were. At some point. But they were older, saw some things, dealt with some things on their own before they met each other. He and Charles, Raven and Hank – they were the only ones left of the team they used to be. The X-Men. They spent so little time together, but it wasn’t the years that turned them into a family, but something else, a connection so deep life couldn’t break it however hard it tried. Did those youngsters have the same base in their friendship? Did his children find here another family?

“Is it wine?” a light voice scattered Erik’s trail of thoughts.

He turned his head away from the quarreling youngsters to find Lora standing at the other end of the bench.

“What?” he asked, confused.

“In your glass,” she said, glancing pointedly at the tumbler glass in his hands.

“Grape juice.”

“Thank God,” the girl said with the relief of a thirsty traveler who had been wandering in the desert for weeks. She took the glass from his hand and downed it in three gulps before handing it back and plopping down next to him on the bench, a purple mustache glistening above her lip.

With his brows raised, the Master of Magnetism peered at Lora who was sitting inches away from him, dangling her feet casually. Her hair was done in the same manner as Wanda’s – two neat braids tied with colorful scrunchies at the ends – was cool brown even under the bright light of the sun. Her perky nose, however, was not so unyielding, the skin on its tip tinted with sunburn.

Erik couldn’t help but ask, “Didn’t your mom tell you stories about big scary Erik?” taken aback by how comfortable the twins’ sister was in his presence. Half of the youngsters wouldn’t even stand next to him.

The girl smirked and looked up at him. “Mom doesn’t talk about you.”

“Huh,” escaped the man’s lips in response.

“Yeah, Wanda and Peter tried to get her to talk about you for years but it’s like trying to listen to a radio wave without a transmitter – if you don’t have it, you won’t hear a thing.”

The Master of Magnetism glanced over at his children. Wanda was swinging an axe, trying to chop off the tree branch that Peter and Kurt were holding at a distance so that it wouldn’t fall on Jean, Scott, and Ororo, who were watching all this from the ground. The vehemence in his daughter’s movement amazed and also raised some concerns.

“I bet she imagines Namor in place of that branch,” Lora said, giggling lightly.

“She is still angry with him for splashing water in her face?”

Peter said she was spiteful but that would be next level.

“Nah,” the girl drawled with a wave of her hand. “It’s because she apologized for throwing him into the pond and he sent her to hell. Well, he said that he’s not interested but whatever. Same thing.”

“Interesting,” the man muttered.

It will be hard for Namor at this school, he thought at the same second. Hopefully, Charles’ insurance can cover the damages.

Now, he didn’t doubt that the flood in Wanda’s quarter wasn’t an accident but the young man’s revenge which somehow resulted not a retaliation on the girl’s side but an apology. He was also sure that his daughter wouldn’t leave things like that. Maybe he should intervene, have a word with her. The desire to respond to every blow with two seemed to pass on to her through the blood, and although all those showdowns with Namor were just childish escapades, Erik feared that at some point in her life, this character trait could cause something horrendous. His girl didn’t need that.

“Why aren’t you with them?” the man asked Lora, remembering how thrilled she was in the cafeteria when her siblings allowed her to help them with the treehouse she obviously had heard about a lot.

“Why aren’t you?” the girl parried.

“They can handle it themselves,” the man said simply.

There was a rustling sound as if a hurricane had attacked the grove ahead, and when the Master of Magnetism turned his head in that direction, he managed to witness how the branch that Wanda had now chopped off fell down, almost dragging Peter and Kurt down. The glass in his hand nearly broke. No one got hurt. His children were alright.

Judging by the emotional gestures, the man was watching his daughter reprimand her brother and the teleporter. She pressed the backs of her hands to her face for a minute, shook her head, then brushed the curls that had escaped from her twin braids away from her face, and went to climb down the ladder. Once her feet touched the ground, Jean came over to say something but the conversation didn’t seem to struck up since Wanda’s eyes met her father’s, then moved to spot Lora by his side and after a briefly thrown excuse at her red-haired friend, the girl strode toward the bench.

“Enjoying the day while I’m losing my last nerve cells over there?” she bantered as she came up to her family. “I’ve probably got a few gray hairs right now.” When her little sister giggled, she added, throwing herself exhaustedly on the seat beside the girl, “I’m serious! They’re killing me.”

“Well, if you ask me, everything goes as I expected,” Erik replied casually.

Wanda’s lips curled in a smile, “Don’t be shy to help us.”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t want to interfere with such an important project,” the man deadpanned.

“Oof, you just got smoked,” Lora muttered to her sister, clearly enjoying the exchange between two masters of sarcasm.

“What are you even doing here?” the girl asked her flatly. “Are you pestering Erik?”

“No, I’m not!” the little girl fenced, and when the Master of Magnetism said, addressing Wanda, “It’s alright. She’s just keeping me company,” she exclaimed defensively, “See? We’re just chilling over here.”

Wanda’s brows went up ever so slightly in an incredulous expression as she eyed her father and little sister. Her tone was parentally affectionate but firm as her hand went to wipe the grape juice mustache off Lora’s face, “Why are you still running around with your head uncovered, huh? What did I tell you to do?”

A small smile touched Erik’s lips at the sight of those two even though he had that strong feeling of being superfluous.

“Go back inside and take a cap,” the little girl replied discontentedly.

“So…” Wanda left her sentence hanging unfinished in the air, prompting Lora to act.

A yelp came from the grove, drawing everyone’s attention. Peter was standing next to Ororo, holding the hammer he must have caught a couple of inches above her head.

“Jesus Christ,” Wanda swore, jumping to her feet. “I’ve left you alone for two minutes!”

She had already been halfway through to the right tree, when she turned around, pointing at her sister with a command, “Inside!”

Lora grimaced but hopped off the bench anyway. She cast a stealthy look at her siblings, her hand slipped into the pocket of her denim sundress and before Erik knew it, he had the Queen’s News of the World cassette in his left hand.

“Side two song four,” the little girl said with a quick jerk of her chin toward the plastic box, the robot on its cover reminded Erik of Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz but horror movie version.

My Melancholy Blues, the Master of Magnetism read where the girl pointed. Should it tell him something?

He lifted his head, meeting an expecting look in those green-grey big eyes.

“Doesn’t it ring a bell?” Lora asked.

“No, not really,” the man replied, furrowing. “Why?”

The little girl clasped her hands behind her back, picking at the stone with the toe of her red sandals. “We were listening to this album on our way here and when this song began to play, mom – It looked like it meant a lot to mom.”

“Why do you think it has anything to do with me?” Erik asked and put his empty glass down on the bench, looking down at the name of the song again. Queen didn’t exist when he and Maria were together, he had barely heard about them even though Peter claimed that it was one of the most popular groups in the world.

Lora shrugged. “I just have a strong feeling.”   

“You’d better hurry up before our sis notices that you’re still baking under the sun without a cap,” Peter blabbered, appearing out of nowhere, bending down the girl. She nearly backed down in surprise. “And grab a few bottles of Orangina with you–though better take six–no, if you can, eight bottles–” He waved his hand before Lora could reply. “I’ll go get them myself. I’ll die of thirst faster than you get to the school.”

He grabbed his sister in his arms, throwing her over his shoulder, winked at Erik, and disappeared from the sight as suddenly as he popped up, leaving a cloud of dust behind. It took the man a long time to brush it off his dark blue shirt but it was still easier than to do the same with Lora’s words. They ran through his head like they were on the loop in a desperate attempt to line up in a logical chain. He would’ve given up on this matter, who knew why Maria would fall into thought on the way here. It could be her unwillingness to see him again or something that had nothing to do with him at all. Nevertheless, her little daughter was sure of the opposite, and if the man was honest with himself, something told him that she was right. My Melancholy Blues seemed to stir up something in him. Something tangible but at the same time imperceptible, something he couldn’t catch no matter how hard he tried.

The day went by in guessing, so, having had enough, the Master of Magnetism headed to his son’s quarter after dinner. He raised his hand to knock on the door but it opened on itself before he even had the chance to touch it, revealing Peter lounging on the bed, throwing balls up at superspeed. Well, Erik assumed those were the balls because all he could see were flashes of red, purple and blue that after a while called to his dinner and asked it to go out. He had to look away and clear his throat.

“Hey. How you doin’?” the speedster asked, pressing a pause on his juggling practice.

“Fine, thank you,” Erik muttered with a light shake of his head. “Can I ask you a favor?”

The boy sat up in his bed, instantly serious. “Sure. What happened?”

The concern in his boy’s voice couldn’t go past him. An incredible thing about it was that it was always there, even when Peter knew him only knew him by some macabre actions, even when he was afraid of being rejected if he revealed the truth. As if such a thing could be possible.

“I only wanted to borrow your player,” the Master of Magnetism said gently.

“A player?” the speedster reiterated, staring at him with his brows raised.

Erik, on his part, arched a brow too.

“Sorry,” Peter replied, shaking his silver locks. “You want to borrow a player? Like, you’re gonna listen to music?”

The girl who was passing by the speedster's quarter seemed to be just as baffled by this fact. In fact, the Master of Magnetism didn’t know why he was still lingering in the doorway instead of coming in and closing the door, reducing the number of participants in this conversation (because he clearly felt a couple of eyes on him from the room on the other side of the hallway).

“Well, I lost the tapes with lectures about conquering the world, so yes, I’m going to listen to some music,” the man quipped, keeping his tone casual. Which perhaps turned out too natural because his son’s lips opened with a, what Erik guessed, “Are there such tapes?” type of question so he sent him a meaningful look in advance.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure,” the speedster blabbered, pulling his worn-out Sony out of the pocket of his shorts. He came over to his father, handing him the player. “Here.”

“I’ll give it back to you first thing in the morning,” Erik promised, knowing that his son rarely left his room without this thing with headphones.

“Oh, don’t sweat it,” the boy replied with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “I have a small collection of cassettes over here. I can borrow you some if you want.”

“I have one, thank you.”

Peter pressed his lips in an awkward, small smile and they stood on the threshold for some time, not quite sure what else to say. The Master of Magnetism freed them of that misery first, saying, “Well, I’ll go listen to – I actually forgot the name of the band. It has a green cover with Tin Man and some people in weird suits. It seems like they’re…quite dead.”

“Oh, Queen? News of the World?”

“Yeah, it got to be it.”

“Nice choice,” the speedster said, nodding approvingly.

The man gave him a quick smile.

“Goodnight, Peter.”

“Goodnight.”

He stepped back, taking in the sight of the boy as if he didn’t have enough after a day of watching him building a treehouse with his friends, and walked forward along the ornamented carpet.

Already in his room, Erik turned on the lamp on the nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed. It took a while to figure out how to use the player but once he did, having listened to a few songs by that time, he fast-forwarded to the concluding track. The sounds of a piano flawed from the headphones, later accompanied by the man’s singing, the warmth and depth in his voice made the unfamiliar lyrics feel intimate. That stripped down jazz piece made Erik feel like he was listening to a live performance like in…

Midnight Blues

That was it. He remembered. It was the restaurant in New York he used to bring Maria to. He didn’t have much money back then (not that he had big sums of it now), but in 1958 Midnight Blues was the only decent place he could afford. The food was good and the music was even better. Live piano music. They swayed to those soft melodies and for a moment he forgot about the horrors he lived through, about his revenge plan and everything else really. With Maria, he often forgot all of those things.

The Master of Magnetism rewound the song to the beginning. He laid down on the bed and closed his eyes. The picture he saw was clear, as if was looking at a film on the screen: he threw a purple coat over Maria’s shoulders and wrapped a red woolen scarf around her neck, offhandedly, so that her curls were caught under it, some tickling her chin. The woman tilted her head back slightly, her eyes closed, happy lines streaking her cheeks as her lips curled into a smile and her giggle echoed down the hall. They left the restaurant arm in arm and once they were outside, snowflakes drew them into an unexpected waltz. They were swirling around them like little flames under the light of a lamppost, settling on her long dark eyelashes and instantly melting, causing her mascara to run down. He leaned in to wipe off the dark droplets with his thumbs and kissed her cheeks, causing another wave of soft laughter to escape her lips. The next minute she grabbed him by the collar of his coat and drew him closer for a proper kiss...And a week later she ran away, shutting the door between them for the next twenty years. It still was shut, though pieces of her life were sipping through the gaps because their children, the fruit of their forgotten love, somehow found a way around it, resisting all imaginable obstacles. His boy and girl for whom his affinity was steadily growing into unconditional love.