primordial chaos

Characters: Peter Maximoff, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Kurt Wagner, Ororo Munroe, Jubilation Lee, Wanda Maximoff, Warren Worthington III, Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Raven Darkholme, Hank McCoy

Warnings/Triggers: None

Spoilers: None

Pairings: Scott Summers/Jean Grey, Kurt Wagner/Jubilee/Warren Worthington, Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr, minor Raven/Hank

Summary: First Peter moved all the furniture out of Scott's room in the middle of the night. Then Scott dyed Peter's hair a shocking lime green that refused to budge for the next month. But there cannot be a war without division, and one by one, the X-Men will have to pick a side— Quicksilver or Cyclops? There can only be one winner.

tl;dr: the epic prank war you never knew you wanted until now.

Author's Notes: Welcome to another X-Men fic! This time, I'm just exploring a fun little concept. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter One: In the Beginning

"In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded."

― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

Peter Maximoff had seen more than his fair share of sunrises in his short life, but they never ceased to amaze him. He thought briefly about how the light danced across the sky and the dark-blue of the night was chased away, and sat down on the rooftop to admire the fruit of his labour.

It was one of the most intricate pranks he had ever pulled off, really. He couldn't help but feel a surge of pride at his handiwork. Feet vibrating so violently that he hovered above the water, he took a couple of steps around the lake, before leaping back onto shore.

There, underneath the slightly rippling, orange tinted waters lay a perfect replica of Scott Summers's bedroom, from the thick oak stained table to the litany of socks and dirty clothing on the lake floor, except for books and papers and electronics, which he had put into a bag and made a sort of breadcrumb trail all around the school. (He almost never did things by halves.)

He had gotten the brilliant idea somewhat from Hank, who had been working on some kind of gravity inducer, so that people like him and other less agile members of the X-Men could walk on walls, or underwater just like they were walking on land. The prototype he had created was admittedly a little too big, and when tested, pulled down all the birds and trees in the near vicinity crushingly to the ground, but the key thing was, it worked. Which, of course, had led Peter to imagine all kinds of pranks that could be played with the device.

The next thing to do had been to choose a target. The girls were definately out of the equation— Jean would give him that look of utter disappointment that reminded him way too much of Wanda, what with the intense guilt tripping that girl was capable of, and Ororo or Jubilee would cut his balls off and force him to eat them as revenge. That left one of the boys; he would never touch Kurt because the poor boy was just so innocent he couldn't justify playing a prank on him, and Warren was his bro, his number one, the ultimate blood brother that he wouldn't ever betray.

So, that left Scott, whom, if he was being honest, could be a massive dick on occasion. Peter loved riling him up the best, because he had the best reactions, and could always be counted on to lose his temper, especially in front of Jean. (Oh, Scott thought his little crush on Jean was safely hidden away. Keyword there: thought.)

Peter watched the sunrise for a few short moments, before his stomach growled in protest, demanding attention, and, he suspected, because it didn't have the eyes to see the sunrise for itself and was jealous. In any case, he decided it was probably best to distance himself from the scene of the crime and get some breakfast before classes would inevitably begin.

He chuckled quietly to himself as he zipped back to the mansion, anticipating the chaos that was about to follow.

It was really damn cold for the beginning of fall, Scott thought as he reached blindly for his blankets.

Unable to find the blankets in the nearby vicinity, he groaned and threw up a hand instead to cover his eyes from the glaring sunlight— did he not close his curtains last night?

He opened his eyes groggily to look around, only to be greeted by completely bare walls and windows thrown wide open.

— What the fuck?

He leapt out of bed in utter confusion, and his head darted around, wondering if he had gone selectively blind, or he had gone into a completely different room last night and didn't notice.

Everything was gone. His posters, the laundry on the floor, not a single item had been left behind, which was really just damn weird. Surely a thief wouldn't have been so meticulous? Or have that much time on their hands?

And anyway, who would have both the speed and the strength to— oh.

Scott stormed out of his room in nothing but his boxers, into the dining hall, where the person he intended to yell soundly at was sitting there, grinning from ear to ear and making Jubilee laugh with a stupid joke. Yes, stupid. Just like his stupid face.

"Whoa, Scott? Put some pants on before you decide to grace everyone with your presence, maybe?" Peter said, as Scott seethed. How dare he? After what he had just done, how could he just sit there and pretend that nothing had happened?

"Don't be a fucking douche, Maximoff. Where the hell did you put my things?" Scott crossed his arms over his chest to preserve at least some of his modesty.

"What things?" Peter's face crossed in a quizzical look. "I haven't been to your room at all recently, and with good reason, the smell in there is pretty bad."

"Don't get smart with me, asshole! Just tell me where you moved all my goddamn stuff, now."

"Why are you accusing me?"

"Because you're the only one who could have done it!"

"Look, Scott, I appreciate that we haven't always been the best of friends, but you're accusing me of what? Stealing stuff from your room?"

"You moved every single thing out of my room, even my posters and my goddamn laundry, you ass!"

"Well, what would I have gotten out of this? Who's to say that it wasn't Kurt that did this?" Peter said, pointing dramatically to the blue mutant.

"Oh, don't bring other people into this. You and I both know you did it, so stop lying!"

"I don't appreciate the kind of tone you're taking with me. I'm just trying to help by providing alternative solutions, Scott."

"Hey uh— Scott?" a nervous looking kid interrupted his angry tirade, and he looked down irritably.

"What is it?" he asked, with perhaps more force than necessary.

"Well, I think I just saw all your stuff, at the bottom of the lake on the far side of the Mansion? You know the one near the forest?"

Scott's jaw dropped open.

"It actually looks like a room, though. The person that put it there has a great eye for detail. There are posters on the sides and everything."

"Had." Scott said grimly. "The person that put it there had a great eye, if at all, because he won't have them anymore when I'm done with him." he shot a look at Peter, who shrugged and pouted.

"Wow, I really wonder who did it," Peter said unconvincingly.

"Oh, you just wait for what's coming to you, Maximoff," Scott said. "You just fucking wait."

Sometimes, Jean wondered which was the bigger crime, knowing that someone was about to commit a crime, but not stopping them, or breaching someone's privacy in order to stop a crime. It was a moral dilemma that tormented her on many occasions, and one that even the professor himself didn't have the answer to.

Right now, her conscience was being put to the test as she heard Scott's loud thoughts of maniacal laughter.

Following the psychic trail that his thoughts had left, she found him coming out of Peter's room with an unlabelled bottle and a grin wider than the Cheshire Cat.

"Scott?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, nothing," he said unconvincingly, waves of laughter still echoing in his mind. "Or actually, you'll see tomorrow."

He all but skipped downstairs, leaving Jean to wonder what on earth he had actually been up to.

"Wanda, I have an important question," Peter's voice crackled from the other end of the line.

Wanda stuck her pencil in her hair and abandoned the physics questions for a moment, giving the conversation her full attention. "What is it, Peter?"

"You remember back in sixth grade when I dyed your hair blue for a completely, definately harmless practical joke?"

"Of course I remember that. I was so angry with you for an entire week," she said, biting on the end of her pencil. It had been a hideous shade of electric blue, and she had been so out of touch with her powers back then that she wasn't able to conjure up an illusion to hide it in public.

"Do you… remember how you got it out back then?"

She did— an ungodly amount of detergent and vinegar, so much that her room smelled like it for months after. And she hated vinegar.

"What have you done this time, Peter?" she asked, truly curious now.

"Well I didn't do anything—"

"What have you done?" she repeated calmly.

"It wasn't me, it was Scott!" he blurted out in a rush. "The bastard dyed my hair bright pink and it won't come off at all!"

The line crackled in the abrupt silence, and then Wanda burst into laughter.

"Oh my god, Peter," she cackled, barely able to hold onto the mouthpiece. "What did you do to him first?"

Her college neighbour pounded on the wall and told her to shut up, so she quieted down, shaking silently in laughter.

Peter resolutely ignored her question, still talking about his hair.

"How am I supposed to go out in public like this? I have a reputation to uphold!" he whined. "And besides that, pink and silver just make me look like some unicorn gone wrong. I can barely wear anything, and the kids keep laughing at me!"

"What on earth did you do to him first?" she repeated.

"Sister-mine, how could you accuse your dearest brother of being so horrible? I'm the victim here!"

"My only brother," she teased. "Come on, Pietro, don't lie to me."

She could practically see his face pursing up the way it always did when he was caught in the headlights, squirming slightly at her interrogation.

"I may or may not have… put an entire replica of his bedroom underwater," Peter admitted grudgingly.

"What the actual fuck," Wanda said. "I love you, Pietro, but you kind of deserved this, you asshole."

"What?!"

"I take that back, you definately deserved it," she said. "And I'm hanging up now, I'm swamped with homework."

"But—but you haven't told me how to get the dye out of my hair yet!"

"Figure it out yourself, brother-dear. You practically made this bed, so lie in it, Pietro," she said in a sing-song voice, and then hung up, ignoring his protests.

She returned to the dizzying questions on the page in front of her, but now she was really curious.

How had he managed to get an entire room underwater in a perfect replica of an entire bedroom? She hoped someone had taken pictures.

A bloodcurdling scream pierced the air.

Students all over the mansion froze, and Kurt teleported out of the room he was standing in involuntarily, spilling his tea all over himself. Overhead, thunder crackled and winds bashed themselves against the windows.

Scott felt a sudden foreboding sense of terror chill his spine as he watched the approaching figure of Ororo Munroe stalking towards him, looking horribly formidable, even though she was wearing nothing but a large, fluffy grey towel.

He looked to his left and right, hoping fruitlessly that perhaps— just perhaps— she wasn't headed towards him but to someone else instead, but everyone else had deserted him.

The fireplace flickered, and disappeared feebly into ashes.

Mentally, he sent a prayer to whoever was above to please either save him and leave him alive after this encounter, or just take him now, because whatever Ororo had in store for him would be worse than death.

"Scott," she said menacingly, looming over him. "Do you notice anything different about me?"

"I—" he tried to keep his eyes on her face but then noticed something fundamentally different about her indeed.

There, flopping about in wet tendrils was her hair, and it was bright pink.

"Wait… I didn't do this!" he protested feebly. "I did do that to Peter, but I didn't do it this time!"

"Then who else could it have been?" she hissed, whipping her head back so the wet hair flicked water into his eyes.

"I… I don't know, it could have been anyone!"

"I don't believe you." she punctuated each word with a step forward, until he was within punching distance.

"I swear!" he panicked, scrambling over the arm of his chair and away from her.

"Hmph," Ororo said. "You're going to regret this, Scott Summers."

And she twisted away grandly, stalking off proudly back to her shower.

Scott heaved a sigh of relief that he was still alive, but he had a very, very bad feeling about the next few weeks.

The next day, Ororo's hair had visibly faded, and she was avoiding him as much as possible, sitting on practically the other side of room with Peter, and they seemed to be conferring about something and cackling evilly together.

He walked past their table, and Peter looked up at him.

In the split second that their eyes met, Peter winked at him and smirked, and then Scott just knew. Somehow, he knew that Peter had been the one that put the dye in Ororo's shampoo so that he could have an ally, another person against Scott. It was so devious, and so evil that Scott couldn't help but admire it.

Which was why if he was going to compete on the same playing field, he would have to even the damn thing out.

"I thought we were friends, Jean," he said, storming into the section of the library where she was poring over some ancient relics. "Friends have each other's backs."

It was a bit of a stretch, and he knew that he was guilt tripping her into this, but Jean would be a valuable asset to the team, and he had to get there before Peter got to her first.

"… We are friends, Scott," she said warily, holding the book up like a shield.

"Friends? You sure?" he pretended to scrutinise her face carefully, making sure to keep his thoughts about him being hurt and their happy memories together.

"Of course," she assured him.

It was time to go for the kill shot.

"Then why didn't you tell Ororo who really put the dye into her shampoo bottle, rather than let me get framed for it?"

Jean looked visibly uncomfortable, and looked guilty.

"It's a difficult position. I do know who did it, but I… it's hard to say whether violating someone's privacy like that is right," she told him.

Now it was Scott's turn to feel guilty. (But not quite guilty enough to stop.)

"I'll tell you what, as a show of good faith, we should team up against them," Scott said. "Two against one is definately unfair, but with you, I guess we could make it work."

"I don't think I have a choice in the matter, then," Jean sighed.

"Well, it's either my side or his, now," Scott affirmed. "We just have to make sure to be the winning side."

"Alright. But nothing too stupid, okay?" Jean put the book down firmly.

"Oh Jean, I can't promise that," he grinned. "It's going to be an interesting few weeks."