When Kitty rolled over on the fine wood flooring of the entrance hall, she felt like she'd been punched in the face, and was experiencing an absolutely soul crushing hangover. She'd had that experience before as a teenager, a few too many jello shots with some of the other girls followed by an altercation by an anti mutant asshole who got in a lucky shot and decked her across the nose, but this was far different.

Her mind still swam with images and words of nebulous meaning. Words forced out of her mouth without any consent from her, images of various destroyed cityscapes and burning fires.

Oh, and Wanda fucking Maximoff.

That couldn't mean anything good.

"Alright, kid?" Logan knelt beside her, firm hand on her shoulder. She couldn't have been out for more than a few minutes. Young Hank, who was adorably awkward even if it was strange to see him without all the blue fur.

"Yeah," she sat up, rubbing at her temples. "Turns out I'm still connected to the time stream, even if I can't navigate it."

It was the only explanation. All of what she'd seen had been tinged with blue. And glowing blue was a telltale sign that the transmutation of space time was taking place.

"Though I'm glad to see you're alright," a new voice said from somewhere to her left. "Would you be kind enough to explain what it is you're doing in my home?"

Kitty turned, and couldn't help but gasp.

A pale, tired looking man stood slumped against the base of the stairs. His hair was long, tangled and streaked with grease. Faint stench drifted off his clothes, the scents of pot smoke and liquor and lack of bathing.

The eye were familiar, though they held an apathetic intensity she'd never though this man capable of.

"Professor," she breathed.

Young Charles Xavier shook his head.

"There is no Professor here, I'm afraid," the words were bitter and clipped. "The school's been closed for months. You're mutants then? Hank tells me you walked right through my door. And attacked him." He turned a critical eye on Logan, whose knuckles were bulging with the bone extrusions just itching to burst free.

"No matter. You'll find no sanctuary here. And if you're done with you're epileptic fit, would you kindly get the hell out of my home?"

"...Wow," Kitty said, glancing at Logan. "No wonder you didn't give us many details. The great Professor X, a strung out, washed up...how are you walking, by the way? Is it the same reason you don't have your powers at this point? And why isn't Hank blue?"

With Logan's help she wobbled to her feet, nearly amused by the strange, bewildered looks the younger versions of her teachers were giving them.

"Get out of my house," Charles nearly seethed, spittle in his beard.

"Please," Hank said. Patching of blue fur started to creep their way up his arms. Three of his finger nails began extending into claws. The serum always started failing when things got tense, and anxiety kicked in. "Just leave."

"Not happening, bub," said Logan. "See, we were sent here."

"By who, then?" the not-Professor snapped. "Has the CIA corralled another group of freaks to exploit, and sent them grovelling for my help? Or has the KGB come for covert vengeance after being duped by Shaw?"

His fists were shaking, and with every syllable and movement he made it became more clear just how unhinged he was.

"Neither, actually," said Kitty, both diplomatically and just a bit chirpily. "You sent us...fifty years from now."

"We're from the future," Logan finished for her. His fingers were twitching for a smoke he didn't have.

Kitty saw the twinge in Charles's jawline, and the brow crawl up Hank's forehead. This was the scene that happened in act one of every sci-fi movie that ever involved time travel, from Terminator to Back to the Future to Twelve Monkeys. The moment of skepticism in which the time traveler had to convince their acquaintances they were legit and not the raving lunatics they undoubtly looked like.

Well, since she couldn't just open her mind and show the usually high-powered telepath the future, she'd just have to go for the most sensitive nerve he had. Even if it made this young Charles really not like her.

"It's about Raven, Professor. You're sister."

The bearded man frozen on the stairs. Hank's mouth snapped shut.

Slowly, Charles turned, eyes blazing.

"How do you know that name?"

"We've met her more than a few times, for one thing," said Logan. "Not the greatest visits, let me tell you. And I go toe to toe with Victor Creed on a regular basis."

"Have you heard about the peace summit in Paris next week? The negotiations for the end of the conflict in Vietnam? Well one of the attendees is a man called Bolivar Trask."

"Trask?" queried Hank, adjusting his glasses. Two of the claws had receded back into fingers. "The weapons contractor."

"Yep," said Kitty. Though weapons contractor was a mild term for the creator of the Sentinels. "He's building a weapon. A weapon deisgned to kill mutants. They can track the x-gene, unload enough ammo in a minute to kill a hundred of us."

"Raven found out about it," Logan continued, as if they'd rehearsed. They hadn't obviously, but it was helpful. "So she'd been tracking him."

"A week from now," Kitty picked up. "She finds him at the summit, and kills him. One shot at point blank range. Congress had shot down his program, but his assassination convinced them otherwise. They capture Raven, torture her, hijack her DNA..."

Logan took a step forward.

"Her power is transformation. With the data they get from her cells, the weapon, the Sentinels, became adaptable to fight any mutant power. Fifty years from now, there's nothing we can do to stop them. Mutants are on the brink of extinction. Hell, so are humans. That's why you sent us back."

His stare lasted a good thirty seconds. Yet the apathy in his demeanor prevailed. Kitty could see it even as it happened. He shook his head, then truned as if to walk back up the stairs. They'd lost him.

"Leave, please. Whatever nonsense it is you're bringing to me, I'm not interested."

Three steps later, and Kitty blurted the only thing she could think of.

"You have a nephew." Charles frozen, but didn't turn. "Christopher's Church in Munich. Three or four years ago a blue baby that looked like a demon was left on the steps. Yellow eyes, pointed ear...a tail."

Without a word he stepped down from the stairs and moved towards the study. From a little alcove he pulled a bottle of scotch, which he pulled open. A finger gesture told the pair of time travelers they were free to follow.

It was a start at least.

"You alright?" he whispered. She nodded. "You dipped into the time stream? What did you see?"

"The Scarlet Witch," she said. "As if this wasn't complicated enough."

LINEBREAK

"I'm fine, mom," Wanda insisted weakly as Magda dabbed at her forehead with a damp cloth.

Of course, that was a blatant lie. After her fits she was the exact opposite of okay. The pictures that burned themselves onto mind took days to fade completely. On occasion her eyes would roll in unexpected directions, and the pictures would become twice as clear. And red light would sometimes crackle around her fingers.

She lay half sitting up in bed, hair dripping and skin damp.

After she'd become at least partially lucid, her mother and sister had helped her to the shower. The cold water had helped little to alleviate the heat that radiated off her.

Apart from a light bathrobe draped over her body, she was completely naked. That actually did help with the heat, though she wished she could shirk it off and cover herself in ice. She'd never cared about modesty. A long standing complaint of Magda's was that she showed off far too much skin.

Within the confines of the house, that sometimes meant all of it.

It was her body, and lounging naked was comfortable and liberating...at home anyway She really hoped Lorna didn't pick up the when she got older. Showing off her own body was one thing, her little sister was another.

Said little sister sat beside her in the usual bright pink tutu, with dirty blonde hair pulled up into a weird up-do that looked positively adorable on a seven year old.

"Lay still," Magda insisted in a no nonsense voice that sill managed to be concerned.

Years as a single homemaker, and an adolescence spent as a prisoner of the Nazi war machine had tempered her into a steel flint of a woman. How else did she manage two hellion teenagers with supernatural powers?

"Lay still!" Lorna parroted when Wanda tried for the tenth time to sit up.

Pietro snorted from his place on the floor.

"Should probably go ahead and listen to 'em." He had a comforting hand on her knee. He was worried, yet the mischievous glint that permanently filled his eyes was still there. That was why she loved him so much. He was the levity to her bone cracking cynicism.

"I will," she said tiredly. "Just need my sketchpad."

In barely noticeable blur Pietro disappeared and returned with an open pad of drawing paper. Lorna giggled. She always loved watching them use their powers. Maybe one days she'd get them to. They'd been just a bit older when they'd started showing signs.

"Thanks," said Wanda, flicking through the pages.

She wasn't an artist. Not even close, but she always liked to record the things she saw during her fits. They were so clear in her mind that she could recreate them exactly. And she'd never received so many as she had today.

"You should relax sweetheart," said Magda. "She reached for the pad, but it was quickly pulled away.

"Later," Wanda turned to her sister. "Lorna, can you bring me your crayons? I need some color for this."

"Sure," the little girl set of to get them, skirts bouncing. A moment later the coffee table was covered in mix of dark and pastel colors. Wanda pressed a kiss to the little moppet's cheek.

"Thanks, sweetie."

Turning to a new page, she set to work.

Drawing with long broad strokes, a fiery bird encompassing the form of a redheaded woman began to take shape.

"I am fire," Wanda found herself muttering without realizing it. "Fire, and life incarnate."

She tossed the page to the floor and started again.

"Is that me?" Pietro asked as the next picture started.

It was him, standing before a monstrosity of a machine with a flaming mouth. A white streak bent down a black body suit, a stylized X on the back.

"He looks older," commented Magda. She'd never been sure what to make of these sorts of visions. She was Romani, but knew nothing magics or the arcane or the things stereotypicaly associated with her culture.

Wanda said nothing, and tossed the picture aside.

Next came to the brunette haired woman. She was young, maybe five or six years older than Wanda and her brother. Like the older Pietro, she wore a sleek black bodysuit with an X.

"Time buckles, and time bends."

What did that mean?

Was this a real person, or just projection of her power to change the fabric of the word around her? The question alone may the edges of the pad fizzle away in scarlet smoke. Did she have something to do with the fiery bird? With the words?

The last image was the one she was dreading.

A man in a terrifying helmet that curved slightly around the eyes. Around his shoulders flowed a cape. Behind him loomed an enormous, nearly phallic stone monument. Washington DC, from high above.

From his hands energy twisted, wrenching the metal of cars and lamp posts, lifting an enormous ring high into the air.

She had his eyes.

Wanda spun to face her mother.

"That's him, isn't it?" she jabbed at the picture with an index finger. The tightening of Magda's lips gave all the answer she need, yet she pressed on anyway. "You've mentioned your friend, the one who can control metal. He's our dad, isn't he? That's why we can do what we can do."

Lorna perked up at this, eyes widening. Pietro looked interested. The two of them had come to that conclusion before their sister had even been born.

"Who is he?" her brother asked quietly, pulling Lorna into his lap.

Rising, Magda paced to the window beside the television. Fingers tugged at the bangle adorned curtains, contemplative and distraught. Eyes to the floor, she turned back to them.

"...A man named Erik Lehnsherr. We met each other briefly in the German camps. He and his family were from Munich, Jews...none of his relatives made it out."

The trio of siblings remained silent, letting her pace about the room. She didn't try any form of denial. Wanda's visions, beyond understanding as they were, were near infallible. They were always important.

"...We ran into each other afterwards, seventeen years ago. He stayed with me for a few days, we became friends. Then he disappeared for a long while. We were never really a couple, never romantic with each other, though I did care for him."

"Why'd you never contact him, then?" Wanda asked bluntly. Of course, she'd noticed that their lives were completely devoid of a father figure.

"Because he's dangerous," Magda admitted. "Incredibly so...I've seen only a fraction of what he can do, and it terrifies me." She left out the part that their powers terrified her. Her love outshone that fear. "Then, about seven years, he came to me looking for help in the middle of the night, wounded and bleeding. The two of you were asleep."

"And that explains Lorna," Pietro said quietly.

Magda nodded.

Having heard all she needed, Wanda stood up, not caring that the robe fell away, leaving her completely naked. She strode towards her room.

"Put some clothes on the instance!" Magda snapped.

"I'm going to Washington. That's where he is, and where I might get answers for all the weird crap I've been seeing."

"He's too-"

"Dangerous?" Wanda quirked, hands on bare hips. "Well, then he should be stopped then, shouldn't he? Someone has to deal with the maniac you fucked." She stomped into her room, and returned dress in a skirt, blouse, and nearly knee high leather boots. "Pietro, you're taking me to Washington."

Hesitantly, gazing at his mother, the boy rose.

"We'll be back soon."

With that, Wanda moved towards the garage.

She needed answers, and this man who was aparrently her father, and maybe the brown haired girl, could give her answers to what the images meant, and what she could do.

"I begin at the end," she muttered to herself. "Time buckles, time bends..."