Timewarp (Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This ((don't) Wake Me Up (you dare)))

pt. V

You can hear her voice.

Come back to me, she whispers. You see her ghost standing in the hallway, walking towards you, and all the demons and monsters she passes crumble to ash. Come back to me, Pietro.

It's not a plea. It's an order.

Come back to me.

And you know you'll do whatever she says.

"I think it better if we try to free Peter by long-distance means," Charles said, wheeling his way to Cerebro, Wanda striding beside him. "We can never get close enough to touch him, physically. But with the help of Cerebro and yourself, we should be able to touch his mind."

"Let's do it," Wanda said, and Erik saw Magda when they were about to escape from Auschwitz, saying, "Machen wir das," the same expression of grim determination on her face.

Stryker's expression was one of horror as the chair began vibrating.

He made to yell something, but he was cut off by the explosion, throwing him back against the wall, knocking almost all the air out of him.

He coughed, the room filled with smoke and dust.

A dark figure stepped out of the smoke, metal glinting between black-gloved fingers. A half-mask was kicked along the floor, rolling lopsidedly out of the smoke to finally come to a rest after hitting Stryker's boots.

"I should probably say something along the lines of how you'll never hurt any other mutants again but I won't waste time with pretty words."

By the time Stryker had even registered what the mutant had said, the scalpel was already slit his throat.

Warren looked up as a dark figure appeared in front of him, a snarl splitting his lips. "You again, huh?"

"Come on," the figure said, and suddenly Warren's bonds were snapped open, and the silver-haired mutant, no longer masked, was offering his hand. "Let's get you out of here, bro."

Warren was walking around the mansion with no shirt, the same way he'd been walking around for the two weeks he'd been there.

The guy was ripped, and he was walking around shirtless all the time.

It was distracting.

"Can you please go put on a shirt, Warren?!" Kitty begged, blushing carefully when she looked up to see him walk into the room, shirtless and barefoot, wearing just a pair of gray jeans.

"I second that motion," Jean said, not looking up from where she was sitting at the table reading a book.

Warren looked at Kitty sourly. "I can't," he said, spreading his metal wings slightly. "It was hard enough to get shirts on just when my wings were feathered, but now that they're metal they slice everything up."

"Well, find a way!" Kitty said, burying her nose in her textbook. "You can't just wander around shirtless everywhere, you know!"

Warren bared his teeth and walked out of the library.

However, as soon as he entered the hang-out room, Jubilee looked at him and exclaimed, "God, Warren! Put on a shirt!"

"Uh, yeah," Bobby said, clearing his throat and looking away. "Put on a shirt, dude. You don't need to go flashing your six-pack at everyone all the time."

Warren growled. "I can't put on a shirt. It was hard enough to get shirts on just when my wings were feathered, but now that they're metal they slice everything up."

"Relax, Wings," Peter said, suddenly there, an arm around Warren's shoulders, smirking. "They're just flustered by your awesome physique."

Warren glared at him, shrugging him off. "Go away, Peter."

"You're not still mad at me for ruining your escape attempt when I was brainwashed, are you?" Peter drawled, casual, but there was a slightly tense line to his shoulders.

Warren just sent him a glare and then stalked out of the room, brushing past Ororo as she entered, tossing a, "Put on a shirt, Warren," at him as she did.

Warren let out a snarl, turning to stalk out of the room, but Peter grabbed his arm, pulling him back.

"Hey," Peter said, loudly enough to catch everyone's attention, making them all look at him. There was a smirk on his lips. "I don't know what you guys's problem is. He can't put on a shirt, so stop trying to make the guy put on a shirt, already! In fact," Peter let go of Warren's wrist and stepped back, peeling off his shirt, slowly, tossing it to the floor, "I've just become allergic to wearing shirts."

There were gasps as everyone stared at all the scars on his toned chest, raised lines on his skin from his time in the hands of Weapon Plus.

Peter ignored the stares, kicking his shirt away. "Viva la shirtless revolution!"

The streets were strewn with bodies, buildings burning, humans screaming, the robots they'd thought would protect them having turned against them.

"This is horrible," Pietro observed, almost apathetically, walking next to Magneto down the blood-bathed street.

Magneto kicked a disembodied hand out of his way. "Uprisings always are. Sometimes blood must be spilt for the sake of socio-political reformation."

"The team is having some difficulty taking down the White House," Pietro said, having just checked. "The military was called in. Should we assist them?"

"No," Magneto said, not breaking his stride.

Pietro stepped over fallen pieces of a flaming fence. "Then what—"

"—'s going on?" Wanda asked, as she walked into the room to find Warren and Bobby hanging around shirtless, while Peter, also shirtless, had Hank backed against the wall, tickling him and trying to get him to take his shirt off.

"Warren can't wear shirts, so we're having a shirtless revolution!" Peter said, still wheedling and tickling the laughing Hank. "Come on, Hank! We're bros! Join the shirtless protest! We guys have got to have each other's backs!"

There was the soft sound of cloth hitting the floor, and everyone looked at Wanda, eyes widening in surprise to find that she'd taken her shirt off and was wearing just jeans and a bra, smirking. "Who said only guys could join the protest?"

"Wait," Pietro protested softly, grabbing Wanda's wrist, firm but gentle. "Not here."

Wanda looked up at him, amusement and starlight twinkling in her eyes. "Nobody will find us," she murmured, sliding her hand under his shirt, over his bare chest. A kiss to cool lips, expressions of endearment veiled by darkness. A breath. "I promise."

The shirtless revolution lasted for two days, and even Charles and Erik joined (mostly because they didn't have a choice, because Peter had stolen all their shirts). Guys were walking around completely shirtless, and the girls were walking around in bras or bikini tops.

Peter had started a game where you held a hand symbol in front of your bare chest or abdomen, and if anyone looked at it then the had to throw their fist into the air and shout, "Viva la shirtless revolution!" The shouts were echoing through the mansion on a near-constant basis, accompanied by laughter.

The revolution finally ended when Hank, working shirtless in his lab, designed a kind of shirt that could be wrapped around Warren's chest without having to be pulled over his wings.

"Only my boyfriend," Peter had grinned, leaning up to press his lips to the scientist's, briefly for Hank, not so brief for Peter.

Hank looked away, flustered. "It was nothing," he said. He glanced at Peter again, eyes softening, shining. Thumb tracing gentle circles over Peter's hipbone. "I'm still amazed you arranged such a movement only two weeks after being tortured and brainwashed."

Peter snorted. "Please," he said, poking Hank in the abs, "do you even know how long two weeks is for me?! I was recovered in, like, three days."

"Get a room, lovebirds," Warren called at them, wearing one of the wrap-around shirts Hank had designed, which, from a distance, looked exactly like a regular close-fitting black muscle shirt.

"Who you calling birds, wing-dude," Peter retorted, dashing over to rap his knuckles on one of Warren's metal wings. "Because the only bird here I see is you."

Peter had always liked hummingbirds.

They were the only creatures whose hearts beat nearly as fast as his, and he loved watching them, their wingbeats one of the only movements he could actually watch happen with time slowed down around him nearly as slow as it could go.

He loved watching them, counting their wingbeats. Most North American breeds beat their wings an average of fifty-three times a second, but he found a breed in South America that in a second beat its wings eighty times.

True, they didn't flap their wings as fast as bees, who could flap their wings up to 230 times a second, but hummingbirds were more fun to watch. More beautiful, more elegant, more graceful, their wings art in motion, the most accomplished birds at hovering and the only birds that could fly backward.

They had the highest metabolisms of all birds, needing to eat constantly in order to fuel their flight agility and survive. Peter could relate. If went on a long run and didn't steal snacks along the way, he returned several pounds lighter, ribs showing starkly. And most of the weight he'd lost was all muscle, since his unique physiology meant he had no layer of fat to speak of.

A third of a hummingbird's total weight came from the muscles it used to fly. A fact Hank told him when he had caught Peter watching the hummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder he'd hung outside his window.

Peter liked walking around the hummingbirds while they were in the air, seeing the different ways the light caught on their iridescent feathers, the different colors.

Sometimes he'd run beside them as they flew, follow them as they flitted from flower to flower, ignoring him while they'd fly away from anyone else.

He saw one hit a window of the mansion, once, and hurried over, catching it before it hit the ground.

He set it on a handtowel in a shoebox, sat down on a stone bench in the garden, far away from the chaos of the other students, waited with baited breath till the hummingbird collected itself and zipped away, Peter smiling as he watched it go.

"Mein Kolibri," Wanda called him fondly, when she found him in the garden, watching the hummingbirds chase each other around, a rare expression of peace on his face.

Peter smiled at her when she took his hand, intertwining their fingers. "I just kinda relate to them, you know?" he said.

Wanda squeezed his hand slightly. "I know."

"You'll have to forgive my brother's impatience, Cyclops," Wanda said, coming around to where Scott was flying the jet, snaking an arm around his tense shoulders, an expression of fury on his face. "Fifteen minutes must feel like forever when your heart beats twenty-five times a second."

"I don't care how many times his heart beats, Wanda," Scott growled out, jaw clenched in anger. "What kind of an excuse is that? Magneto organized this as a bloodless operation and Quicksilver knew it. We told them they'd have fifteen minutes to evacuate their offices, but he set those bombs off in under three. Did he forget he's the only one around here who can break the freakin' sound barrier?"

"I'm sure Cyclops really meant to congratulate us for sabotaging Blair's plan for a fleet of British Sentinels," Pietro said, kicked back in one of the jet's seats, seatbelt unbuckled and expression unconcerned.

Sabretooth chuckled behind him.

"Man, I should make you people walk back to the Savage Land for this one!" Scott growled at them.

"Haha, Cyclops is spewin'!" Pyro cackled, kicking his feet up on the headrest of the empty seat in front of him. "No need to be so aggro, mate!"

"One more sound out of any of you, and you're walking!" Scott snarled. "I mean it!"

"Sure, drop me off somewhere," Pietro yawned, standing up and stretching. "I'll run back to the Savage Land. I could use the exercise. And I'll get there before you guys, anyway."

"Let's have a race!" Peter grinned, rocking on his feet. "The Blackbird, Warren, and me."

Warren rolled his shoulders, tilting his head to the side and cracking his neck. "Everyone already knows what the outcome will be," he pointed out.

"So?" Peter asked, raising a silver eyebrow.

"So you just want an ego boost, don't you," Scott said, probably rolling his eyes behind his visor.

"Warren also wants to prove that he's faster than Hank's jet," Peter said, pointing at the winged mutant as if he were equally to blame.

Warren was already shrugging off the too-large jacket he wore to cover up his wings. "I can't deny it."

Scott was about to protest, but Logan's hand on his shoulder silenced him.

"The Blackbird gets a ten second head-start," Logan said. He grinned, revealing slightly too-sharp canines. "And I'm driving."

Peter whooped as he and Warren high-fived.

Scott followed a smirking Wolverine into the aircraft, saying, "Hank is going to kill you for this."

Logan shrugged unconcernedly as he sat in the pilot's seat, checking the controls. "He can try, bub. I know 'im, though, and ain't gonna kill fer this, 'long as I don't crash his plane. He's too damn nice."

Hank's breath was warm; whispered words for the speedster's ears only, despite the fact that aside from them the lab was empty.

"Shut up," Peter grinned, stealing a quick kiss before he was suddenly on the other side of the room, examining his fingernails. "We both know you only love me because of my physics."

"Your physics isn't the entire reason why I love you," Hank said, sitting down at his computer, a teasing smirk on his face even as he started typing away on what he'd been working on before his boyfriend interrupted him. "Maybe, like, fifty percent of the reason."

"Oh?" Peter smirked, suddenly sitting on Hank's desk on top of his probably very-important papers. "So the reason you love me is, what, fifty percent physics, fifty percent my stunning personality?"

"Ten percent your stunning personality," Hank said, not looking away from his screen, though he was still smiling. "The other forty percent is your good looks."

"So ninety percent of why you love me is my physical attributes, huh?" Peter teased, pulling his legs up on the desk so he could lie down, legs bent, turning his head to watch the scientist. "Good to know where your values are."

When he caught Hank looking, he swiped his tongue over his lips, putting on his most lascivious expression, laughing Hank blushed and quickly looked away.

"Well, maybe fifteen percent your stunning personality," Hank amended, trying to keep a straight face despite his rosy cheeks and lips that kept trying to twitch into a smile, "So only eighty-five percent is your physical attributes."

And then Peter was behind him, arms wrapped around his neck, head resting on his shoulder while he continued to type.

"As long as we're clear that the only reason I care about you is that you're really warm, and my dad doesn't like you," Peter said sweetly.

Hank shook his head, amused. "Should've dated Wolverine, for that."

"Yeah, but he has a metal skeleton," Peter pointed out, making himself quite at home in Hank's lap, interrupting the scientist's likely very-important work. He draped his legs over the arm of the chair. "It would suck having a boyfriend that my dad can crumple into a ball."

"So part of the reason you love me is also that I have regular bones," Hank said, grinning as he stroked his absent blue beard. "So you love me for my blood, my bones, and because your dad hates me."

"Basically," Peter agreed.

"So you don't find me even a little bit attractive?" Hank teased.

"Eh," Peter said, sitting up and moving to straddle Hank's lap, running a hand up his chest. "As a human you're kinda attractive, I guess, in a boring and nerdy sorta way," Peter said, pressing feather-light kisses to Hank's face. "You're hotter as a mutant what with blue and claws and fangs and the superstrength thing going on, but you get fur in my mouth."

"It's good to know you appreciate me for who I am," Hank said, tilting his head as Peter teased his lips into a kiss.

"Hey, what can I say?" Peter said, moving his lips to Hank's neck. "Sometimes a guy just wants to give his boyfriends hickies and have the show up, and not get fur in his mouth in the process."

Hank hummed, tilting his head back to allow the speedster better access.

"Hey," Peter said, pulling back, looking at him seriously, "at least you can turn your mutation on and off at will." He poked Hank in the chest. "Not all of us can do that. Just look at Scott. Or at me. I can't turn my superspeed off. I have some control of the speed dial, so I can, in a way, sort of speed up or slow down time—which is a good thing, because if I were stuck at full speed all the time I would go crazy—but I can't turn it off. So I'm always going crazy just a little bit."

Peter's hands had been gesturing about in the air, but Hank grabbed them, pressing kisses to the speedster's knuckles. "Not all of us can be as amazing as you," he murmured, looking up at Peter, blue eyes fond.

"Well, obviously not," Peter scoffed. He paused, then, taking one of Hank's hands in his own, turning it over, running a finger over the lines of Hank's palm. "Did you really try to cure yourself of your mutation?" he asked, quietly.

"A long time ago, yes," Hank admitted. "That serum is actually what gave me my blue form."

"If you could completely cure yourself of your mutation now, would you?" Peter asked, glancing up at him.

"No, not any more," Hank said honestly. "I've come to terms with it as who I am. It would feel…" he chuckled, "too weird, not to have my mutation. I'd be…"

"Weak?" Peter suggested, a smirk dancing on his lips.

"Yeah," Hank agreed, lips quirking. A pause, before: "Would you get rid of yours, if you could?"

"Pshht, not a chance!" Peter said. "My mutation is awesome!" A pause, wherein Peter looked down, plucking at Hank's shirt distractedly. "Although there was a time, when I was younger, before my superspeed kicked in and I just had the silver hair, that I wished I could just have normal hair," he said, still not looking up. "There was a lot of bullying, you know? But then my superspeed kicked in, and everything changed, and suddenly it didn't matter what color my hair was, because nobody could touch me."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," Hank said, taking Peter's hand, stilling its nervous fiddling. "My mutation was always something I could hide, as long as I avoided taking my shoes off for anything. Other than that it wasn't too hard. I just felt like a freak. Being a genius helped in avoiding bullying, but it didn't help me feel more normal."

"Yeah, it must suck being a genius," Peter said, lips quirking. "Having to be around all these people who are way slower than you… you know, intellectually."

"Can't be that different from what you experience," Hank said. He smiled slightly. "You're pretty intelligent yourself."

"Nah, I'm no genius," Peter said, shaking his head. "I'm just fast. I just kinda repeat things until I finally get them. Lets me get ahead of the game and appear as if I'm a genius. And I get bored, and there isn't much else to do but go places, steal stuff, and learn new things." He shrugged. "Spent a week wandering around France with a French-English dictionary and was fluent by the time I was done. And then I did the same in a few other countries simply because I could. And superspeed is a very physics-based power, so I spent a lot of time teaching myself physics so I could better understand what I can do." Another shrug. "Think I spent a few weeks on that."

"So not only do you have superspeed, you also have supertenacity," Hank said, smiling.

Peter shrugged again. "I have to. I'd run out of things to do if I got bored easily."

"How ironic it is, then, that to everyone else you appear to have the attention span of a goldfish," Hank remarked.

"A goldfish on crack, I believe is the term most frequently used," Peter said, lips quirking as he looked up to meet Hank's eyes.

"Ah yes," Hank said, amused. "How could I forget the illegal drug part of the phrase. It's obviously more important than the goldfish."

Peter laughed. "Sometimes I can't tell when you're being sarcastic," he said, not looking like he actually cared.

"I love everything about you, Peter," Hank told him, holding his gaze, blue eyes so honest they almost looked pained.

"That was sarcasm, right?" Peter teased.

"No, it wasn't," Hank said, arms around Peter's hips, gaze never looking away from Peter's face. "I mean it. I love everything about you. Not just your physics."

"Oh. Okay." Peter's lips curled. "It was just awkward, then."

"I love you, Peter," Hank said, even though the speedster was no longer in his arms, suddenly sitting on Hank's desk licking an almost-finished popsicle.

Hank paused. "Does… does that make you want to run away, now that we're not joking about it?" he asked uncertainly, watching the speedster finish off the popsicle and start biting the stick.

"Are you kidding?" Peter snorted, the popsicle stick falling into the trashcan as the speedster was once more sitting on Hank's lap, poking him in the chest. "Why would I want to run away from that? You know all the things that people who love you will let you get away with?"

Hank's eyes were laughing. "Murder?"

"Say it again," Peter said.

Hank raised his eyebrows. "Murder?" he said again, questioningly.

"No," Peter said, poking him again. "The other thing."

"Does that make you want to run away, now that we're not joking about it?" Hank tried, though he seemed to have realized what Peter actually wanted him to say, because his lips were quirked in amusement.

"No, the other one," Peter said, nearly whining as he poked Hank again.

Hank grabbed his hand to prevent any more prodding, but when he looked at Peter like he was the most amazing thing in the universe. "I love you, Peter."

"That's the one!" Peter grinned, moving his arms around Hank's neck, leaning closer, eyes alight. "Say it again."

Hank's heart skipped a beat. "I love y—"

Peter kissed him, too impatient to wait for him to finish the words.

"Peter, have patience—" the Prof started.

"Patience?!" Peter shrieked. "Patience?! You try living your life at the speed I do and having patience! I've been plenty patient! Do you even know what it's like to spend your entire life feeling like a total, useless loser, to finally have something good where you've found what you're good at but then still be treated like a useless loser?! I've been told that I'm not good and can't do anything right my entire life and you expect me to be 'patient' and let that one-eyed loser treat me like I'm no good and can't do anything right?! Fighting is what I was fucking MADE for, I can feel it!"

"Peter," the Prof said, as the speedster stood there panting, fists clenched, dark eyes livid. "I can tell that you're upset, but I have no idea what you just said. You were speaking too fast."

Peter was about to spit out a Fuck you, when he happened to look behind the Prof and see Erik Lensherr standing there, watching him.

Peter froze, staring at him.

"You deal with the other students, Charles," Erik said, eyes not leaving Peter's. "I'll deal with Peter."

The Prof looked back at his 'old friend,' and they seemed to share a psychic conversation, before the Prof nodded and wheeled off towards the Danger Room.

And then it was just Quicksilver and Magneto.

Peter wanted to spit out, "What do you want, dad?!" but thought better of it and grit his mouth shut.

A split second later and he was sitting on the floor against the wall a few feet away, legs pulled up to his chest.

Erik walked over and crouched next to him. "Peter."

"What are you doing here, Mags?' Peter muttered.

"Mags?" Erik asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Short for Magneto," Peter grumbled out. "You know, like Mystique is Mysty, the Professor is Prof, Cyclops is Cyke, Nightcrawler is Indigo, because he's indigo, Beast is Blue, because he's blue, Jubilee is Jubes, Iceman is Icester, Shadowcat is Kitty—which is her actual name anyway, but also whatever—Storm is 'Ro—which is actually short for Ororo, because that's her real name, and 'Storm' doesn't shorten well, and 'Stormy' is just weird—and Rogue is Sugah, because she started calling me Sugah first so I'm calling her that back, and—"

"Alright, I get it," Erik said, cutting him off.

I really want to call you Dadneto, though, Peter didn't say.

Erik put a hand on the speedster's shoulder, and Peter flinched.

"Peter," Erik said.

Pietro, Peter wanted to say. My real name is Pietro. Pietro Mateo Maximoff. My sister is Wanda Django Maximoff, and our mom is Magda Eisenhardt Maximoff. Does any of that sound familiar?

You're kind of my dad, Peter wanted to say.

"You're a very powerful mutant, Quicksilver," Erik said, and Peter felt his heart leap into his throat. He looked up at Erik with wide, surprised eyes, and Erik gave him a small smile. "I know what what that feels like, to be more powerful than anyone knows, and to be held back by peoples' limited expectations."

He squeezed Peter's shoulder. "I wish I had some better advice to give you. I'm not telling you to listen to the kid with the visor—" Peter probably shouldn't have felt so pleased that Erik remembered his name but didn't remember Scott's "—but just because you have the power to do something, like blow up an entire facility, doesn't mean that you should."

"Like just because you can lift up an entire baseball stadium and kill the President doesn't mean you should do that," Peter muttered, lips twitching. And just because my sister probably has the power to alter the entirety of reality doesn't mean that she should do that.

"...Yes," Erik said. "Exactly."

"How do you deal with that?" Peter asked, breath choking, burying his face in his knees. His voice was muffled. "How do you deal with knowing that you could kill everyone here before they had time to so much as blink, but they still treat you like you're incapable of doing anything but run away? At least you and Jeannie get people's fear and respect. Am I just that much of a joke that no one can take me seriously?"

Erik's hand tightened reassuringly around his shoulder. "It's a good idea to keep some things up your sleeve. You don't need everyone to know how dangerous you are. It's better if they don't. You don't want to be feared by everyone if you don't have to be."

"And you have to be?"

"I don't have a choice. I thought I never did."

Pietro blinked in surprise as Erik sat down next to him, leaning his head back against the wall. "Fear invites violence. Humans' fear of me killed my wife and daughter."

Peter looked at him. Something clicked. "The Prof told you, didn't he?"

"Told me what?" Erik said, straight-faced, but there might have been amusement in his blue eyes.

"That I'm your son," Pietro said.

Erik smiled slightly. "I assure you, he didn't mean to. It was quite an accident that he let it slip when he was grumbling about how much you remind him of me and how apparently the apple doesn't fall that far from the tree."

Peter snorted, letting his own head fall back against the wall. "Is that why you left, and didn't come back for so long?"

"Suddenly realizing you're a father of a twenty-seven-year-old who's a mutant and who you never recognized as your own despite having ample opportunity to is not the easiest thing to deal with," Erik said softly.

"Yeah," Peter said, "I didn't think it would be. That's part of why, after your wife and daughter died, I didn't tell you… I didn't think..."

"It's okay," Erik said. "I've had time to come to terms with it now."

Peter laughed, suddenly. "Geez, I should thank the Prof for letting it slip. I don't know if I ever would have gathered the courage to tell you myself. I had this idea in my head that it would be the reverse of that 'Luke, I am your father' seen in Star Wars, all dramatic and shit, with one us—probably me—no, wait, totally you—bleeding out from an amputated limb."

Erik chuckled softly beside him. "I would hope it wouldn't have been that bad."

"This is kinda much more anticlimatic than anything I'd been expecting," Peter said. "This is… weird."

Erik hummed. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"Did… did the Prof let it slip that..." Peter started, biting his lip.

Erik raised an eyebrow. "Did Charles let what slip?"

"That I..."

"That you like guys?" Erik said.

Peter whirled to look at him, dark eyes wide. "Goddammit, he did let it slip!"

He didn't, actually," Erik said, smiling slightly. "It was just a guess. I've seen you with Hank."

Peter deflated, spine curving as he rested his chin on his knees, blowing silver strands of hair out of his face. "We're that obvious, huh?"

"A little bit," Erik said, lips quirking.

Peter sent him a sideways glance. "And you don't have a problem with that?"

"It would be rather hypocritical of me, wouldn't it," Erik said, "considering my relationship with Charles."

Peter sat up straight again, eyebrows darting upwards as he blurted, "You mean you and Charles—?!"

"Yes," Erik said, fighting not to laugh.

Peter whistled. "Damn," he said. He looked away again, a hand sliding down his shin to play with the neon blue laces of his silver shoes. "So… did you love my mother, then?"

"Of course I did," Erik said, vehemently but not harshly. "I am—," his tone became lighter, more uncertain: "what is it you call it?"

"Bisexual?" Peter suggested, his turn to try not to laugh.

"Yes," Erik said, nodding, either oblivious of or determined to ignore his son's amusement. "That's the one."

"So," Peter said, tilting his head, a smirk dancing at superspeed around the edges of his lips. "The Prof didn't let it slip that I have a twin sister, then?"

Erik's jaw dropped, eyes widening exponentially. "You what?!"

"IIIIIIIII haaaaaaaaavvvve aaaaa twiiiiiiiiiiiin siiiiiiiiisteeeeeeerrrrrrr," Peter repeated slowly, the smirk all-out lounging on his lips like a leopard in a tree.

Erik looked practically shellshocked. "You… have a twin sister..."

The leopard pounced, and Peter laughed. "That's what I said, old man. Her name is Wanda, and she could kick your ass to kingdom come six ways to Sunday."

Pietro screamed, falling to the ground, clutching his bleeding, shattered kneecaps.

"PIETRO!" Wanda yelled, running to his side and dropping to her knees next to him, pulling him into her arms, auburn waves falling into her face. "Pietro."

"You don't need him," Magneto said, looming above them. "He is weak and disloyal." He held out his hand. "Come with me, daughter. Together we will turn this hateful world into a better one."

Still clutching her brother's sobbing, whimpering form, Wanda looked up, eyes illuminated scarlet. "You will stay AWAY from us!" she screamed at him, one hand raised, scarlet energy enveloping him, forcing him back.

"Wanda—" he started, stumbling, raising his arms in front of his face to try and shield himself.

Laying her brother gently on the ground, Wanda stood up, lifting her other hand, focusing all her energy on the Master of Magnetism. "You hypocrite! You say you want peace and the safety of mutantkind, but then you cripple your own son!"

"He's pathetic!" Magneto snapped, doing his best to stand against the onslaught of energy, an electromagnetic shield around him. "He's doing nothing but holding you back! You are capable of so much more, Wanda! Under my guidance, you—"

"You're nothing but a human being," Wanda snarled at him, hair and cape swirling in the energy whipping around her. "Just as capable of doing terrible things as the people you claim to hate and be better than! You want to know who the monster here is, Magneto?! Look in the goddamn mirror!"

Magneto's protests turned to screams, the scarlet flaring brighter as it tore right through his forcefield, seeming to burn him away.

When Wanda stopped, there was nothing there but wisps of light red smoke curling from the ground.

"W… Wanda…"

Wanda knelt down, pulling her brother into her arms. "Shh, darling," she murmured, brushing silver hair from his pained face as she heard Hank finally snap out of his shock enough to call out that he was getting medical supplies, running out of the room. "I've got you."

Erik managed to gather himself from the shock of discovering he had another twenty-seven-year-old kid to say, "She sounds… remarkable."

"Believe me," Peter grinned. "She is. But," he continued, uncoiling from his position in a ball to lean over and poke his father in the arm, grin growing positively impish, "if you want to hear any more about her, then you're going to have to tell me about you and Charles, because what the fuck, man—how the hell did that ever happen?"

Erik sighed, rubbing his forehead. "It's a long story."

"Then you better start telling it, dude," Peter said, smirking. "We don't have all the time in the world, y'know. Life is short!"

Erik sighed, moving his hands down to rest on his knees as he folded his legs in front of him. "Very well, then. I tell you about Charles and I, and you'll tell me more about your and Wanda's childhood?"

"Nah, man, a story for a story," Peter said, shaking his head. "You tell me about you and Charles, and I'll tell you some more about Wanda, and maybe let you meet her. You want to hear about me and Wanda's childhood you're gonna have to tell us about your childhood. Fair is fair is fair."

"That doesn't sound very fair," Erik remarked.

"Life isn't fair," Peter reminded him, unnecessarily. "So just hurry up and start talking already!" He poked the Master of Magnetism in the arm. Repeatedly. "Get talking! So. So so so. You and Charles…?"

Peter ran into the Professor's office, shouting "Prof!" unnecessarily loudly, only to freeze, eyes wide.

Because Erik was there, and he and Charles were naked, and their clothes were tossed on the floor, and there was the desk, and oh god, that could not be sanitary—

"HOLYFUCKWHATTHEHELLAREYOUTWODOINGIDIDNOTNEEDTOSEETHISOHGODI'MGOINGTOHAVETOSCRUBMYBRAINOUTANDGUYSTHISISANOFFICEANDANYONECANJUSTWALKINHEREWHATTHEFUCK?!" Peter yelled, an hand over his eyes, before he turned around and sped out of the room.

"...The door was locked," Erik said after an awkward moment.

"You mean the door is locked," Charles corrected. "He can vibrate through, remember?"

"What kind of parent doesn't teach their son to knock before entering a room?" Erik grumbled.

"An absent one, apparently."

Erik growled. "Shut up, Charles, and put that mouth of yours to better use."

"You have to get better, Peter," Erik whispered, head bent over Peter's hand clasped in both of his. "Please, my son. My son." His breath hitched, eyes clenched shut against the tears that threatened to spill forth. "My son."

The heart-rate monitor was flat-lining, unable to detect the speed at which Peter's heart was beating, too fast, too fast, but Erik had been assured that Peter was still alive despite his seemingly nonexistent heartbeat and cold skin.

"For someone so full of life, it's hard to actually scientifically detect that he's alive," Hank had said, smiling wryly, sadly, worriedly. "I recommend trying to balance a glass of water on his chest to see if it vibrates and falls over. Just be ready to catch the glass so it doesn't spill water on him."

The glass of water was on the bedside table, where it would stay.

"Mein Sohn," Erik whispered, tears trickling from clenched-shut eyes. "Es tut mir leid. Es tut mir leid. Bitte. Du musst überleben."

Peter had been in critical condition when they'd found him. Those humans had used him as a lab-rat, had tried to turn him into their own remote-control soldier. And they'd almost killed him.

Charles had never had a chance of keeping Magneto from killing those men.

Erik sat up slightly, blinking to clear his vision, reaching out a hand to gently brush a few strands of silver hair out of Peter's face. He slowly retracted his trembling hand.

He'd though that Peter would be safe, with Charles. He'd thought that Peter would be safe, as long as he stayed away from him. As long as Magneto didn't place a target on Peter's back.

He'd thought that Charles would be able to keep Peter safe. Erik had been wrong. Erik had stayed away, and Peter had gotten captured, and Charles had waited over a week before letting Erik know.

Erik had trusted Charles. But he couldn't trust anyone, he realized.

He would not have let Peter get captured. And even if Peter had been captured under his watch, he would have saved him immediately. It would not have taken him over a week, and he would not have needed the help of both his enemy and a guy who'd been living with wolves and could hardly remember how to speak.

Erik had made a mistake. He would not make the same mistake again.

This time, Peter was coming with him.

As soon as Hank opened the mansion door, his heart plummeted into his stomach, and he wished he'd hadn't answered the knocking.

Because standing there on the terrace was none other than Erik Lensherr. "I'm here for Peter," he said. His voice was made for speeches, not for polite conversation. "I'm here for my son."

"I know who your son is," Hank said, leaning against the door-frame, keeping the door mostly closed. "He doesn't need you. Leave, Magneto."

Erik looked at him, unimpressed. "I need to speak with him."

Hank gave an exasperated laugh, looking at him in disbelief. "You're going to try to recruit him to the Brotherhood, aren't you?"

"My business is with him alone," Erik said. Always so intense. How had this guy ever found a wife, again?

"He doesn't need you, Erik," Hank told him. "You weren't there for Peter when he was growing up, and he never needed you then. And now Peter's an adult, and he certainly doesn't need you now."

"If he's an adult, then why don't you let him make his own decisions instead of speaking for him?" Erik suggested, eyes narrowed, a warning note in his tone.

"Oh, hey Dadneto!" Peter was suddenly standing there next to Hank, grinning, the front door thrown wide open. "Was my boyfriend pissing you off?"

Erik blinked. "Boyfriend?"

"Yeah, Hank is my boyfriend," Peter said, slinging an arm around Hank's shoulders. "Because having silver hair and superspeed obviously didn't make me freakish enough. I just had to like boys, too."

"You're not a freak," Erik said, almost protectively. "And you should never have to think of yourself as such."

Hank felt a snarl curling at his lips, but Peter just grinned. "That's really nice of you! Thanks, dad!" Almost without pausing, he switched subjects to, "Hey, what are you doing here, anyway?"

To Erik's credit, he seemed to take Peter's devil-may-care attitude in stride. "I came to offer you an invitation."

"To what?" Peter asked, appearing interested. "A party?"

"No," Erik said. He glanced disparagingly at Hank, who was glaring at him. "Could we speak privately, Peter?"

"Nah, anything you can say in front of me, you can say in front of my boyfriend," Peter grinned, seemingly oblivious to the mood as he kept an arm slung around Hank's shoulders, leaning into him.

Erik lifted his chin, seeming to straighten his regal posture impossibly further. "Very well," he said. "I would like you to join my Brotherhood of Mutants, my son."

"Thanks for the invitation, Dadneto, but no thanks," Peter said cheerfully.

Erik narrowed his eyes at him. "What?"

"Nooooooo thaaaaaaanks," Peter repeated slowly. He then elaborated, "I don't want to leave. I like it here." He sent Hank a grin, as if to prove his point.

Erik stared at them both for a few moments. "Very well," he said finally, taking a step back, gaze settling on his son. "But know that the offer remains open, if you ever change your mind."

"Cool, thanks dad," Peter grinned. "It's good to know that if my career as a superhero fails, becoming a high-profile terrorist is always an option."

Erik had already turned and started walking away.

"You should stop by to hang out sometime when you're busy with super important acts of terrorism!" Peter called loudly after him, and Hank could have sworn he saw Erik's shoulders tense.

"You're incredible," Hank told Peter, once Magneto was gone and they were back inside. Hank chuckled. "You just sassed Magneto, and he didn't try to murder you."

"I'm not scared of him," Peter shrugged. "And who are you to talk, anyway?" He poked Hank in the arm. "You totally rubbed it in his face that he was never there for me when I was a kid!"

Hank felt his face heating up. "You saw that?"

"I did," Peter nodded. "It was very brave. It's nice to know that my boyfriend supports me in not becoming a terrorist like my dad."

Hank gave an awkward grin. "Well, really I just don't want you to leave me."

"Don't worry, if I ever become a terrorist, I'll kidnap you and take you with me so we can be terrorists together," Peter assured him, patting him on the shoulder.

Hank laughed. "I'd appreciate that."

It haunted Erik, sometimes.

That what-ifs. The could-have-beens.

He watched Peter and Wanda as they fought against him, unable to connect with them, and wondered what their lives would be like if he'd been there for them when they were growing up. If he'd never left Magda.

Would they be on the same side as him? Would they have had easier lives? Harder ones? Would they have loved him? Would they have hated him?

He tried to remind himself that there was no point in what-ifs and could-have-beens, but it was hard to discharge the thoughts, sometimes.

He could only have hoped he would have been a good father. He thought he'd done a pretty good job with Nina, for the few precious years she'd lived.

But it begged the question: if Erik had never left, would Peter and Wanda still be alive, as they were now? Or would they have had the same tragic deaths as Nina?

And he'd calmed down, by the time he'd had Nina. Aged some, wisened up some. When he'd been engaged to Magda, he had still been young and filled with so much anger, angry at the entire world.

He hadn't been the best boyfriend or fiancé, he realized now. He'd been obsessed with finding Shaw and getting revenge for what had been done to him, to his parents.

Erik wondered, now, if his anger at the time would have affected his ability to be a loving and supportive father.

He couldn't blame Magda for never trying to contact him, after she'd found she was pregnant.

He thought about going to see Magda, to talk to her, but he could never get himself to. He was scared, he hated to admit to himself. He wanted to know how her life had been after they'd parted. He wanted to know what Peter and Wanda had been like growing up. But he could never bring himself to.

So he tried to ignore it, the desire to know. He tried to ignore the what-ifs and could-have-beens, tried to shove away any hope of discovering anything that could possibly bring him closer to his children.

He tried to ignore all the thoughts, but they haunted him sometimes.

Pietro's frantic yells and please came muffled through the closet door that shuddered as he tried desperately to break it down. "Let me out! Let me out let me out let me out! I promise I won't do it again, I promise! I promise!" Sobbing, crying. "I'll do anything you say! Please! Just let me out, and I promise I'll do whatever it takes to make it up to you!" Hysterics.

"You have to let me go to him, father!" Wanda begged, gripping Erik's shirt, looking up at him with scared, pleading eyes. "He can't be alone! He needs me!"

Erik disengaged himself from his young daughter roughly. "Your brother needs the time to reflect on his wrongdoings," Erik said coldly. "To grow."

"But he's scared!" Wanda said, tears streaming down her face. "You know how he hates being in small places and being alone!"

"He needs to learn not to disobey me, then," Erik said, starting to stride out of the room. "He's a disappointment. Weak."

Wanda grabbed onto the back of his shirt. "He's already promised!" she cried, clenching her fingers in the fabric. "He's already promised that he'll be better! So why are you keeping him in there?!"

A litany of pleas and apologies and promises had been streaming from the closet, but finally the banging and shouting ceased, everything going silent.

The silence was worse than the yelling, and Wanda cried over. "You have to let him out, daddy!"

"Impudent child," Erik snarled, whirling around and back-handing her, the young girl falling to the ground as she sobbed harder. "Do not question me, girl! Or I'll put you in solitary confinement as well!"

He turned and strode out of the room, leaving Wanda sobbing on the floor, a hand to her stinging cheek.

"Pietro," she said, crawling over to the closet door, placing her hand on the wood that had been reinforced with metal. "Pietro, can you hear me? Pietro, say something, please."

She cried harder when she received no answer.

Magda smiled at him when she answered the door, her eyes laughing. "Forget your keys again, Erik?"

Erik stepped into his—their—house, wrapping an arm around her waist as he kissed her, his other hand gently closing the door behind him.

"I keep forgetting, since I don't need keys to unlock the door," he said, smiling as he pulled back, before dipping his head down to press a quick kiss to her neck. "And I could manipulate the lock mechanism to open, but I like it better when you have to come to the door to greet me."

Magda laughed as she twined her fingers together at the back of his neck, giving a little shake of her head to toss auburn waves out of her face. "Hm, is that so?"

"You look radiant," he told her, kissing her again. "How was your day?"

"Fine," she said, but the light in her eyes dimmed slightly. "Pietro got picked on at school again."

Erik let out a breath, his heart clenching. "Injuries?"

"Nothing too bad," Magda said, straightening Erik's collar, undoing the first couple buttons of his shirt so he didn't look so staid. "A few bruises, but they didn't get his face this time."

Erik sighed. "We need to enroll him in self-defense classes. Wanda, too. I've been looking at nearby karate dojos, and I think I've found one that will work well for them."

Magda nodded, pursing her lips. "As long as that won't encourage him to get into more fights."

"He needs to be able to defend himself," Erik said, a hand under her chin as he tilted her head up so she'd look at him. He offered her a reassuring smile. "He'll be fine. They both will."

There was a crash, the sound of ceramic shattering, and Erik and Magda looked at each other.

Magda raised an eyebrow. "You were saying…?" but there was a fondness in her exasperation.

Erik sighed. "I'll deal with it," he said, pressing another quick kiss to her lips before stepping away, walking to the kitchen to see what had happened.

He found Pietro and Wanda standing there with wide eyes, one of their mother's vases in shards at their feet, water and flowers spilled across the floor.

"It was my fault!" they said at the same time, not quite in sinc, Pietro's voice slightly faster but Wanda's slightly louder. "I was the one who knocked it over!" And then they started glaring and hissing for the other one not to take the blame for something that they didn't do.

One of them was lying, and one of them was telling the truth. But they were both equally desperate to take the blame, as seeing the other punished would be far worse for each of them than being punished themselves.

It was anyone's guess which of them had actually knocked the vase over. They both were equally destructive—even without having developed their mutations yet, aside from Pietro's silver hair that he'd had from birth—and they were both equally as likely to try to take the blame for something the other had done. Erik had seen them both try to take the heat for the other, even when he'd actually seen who'd done it, and they knew that he'd seen it.

It made Erik's heart ache. He was so incredibly blessed to have such beautiful, remarkable children.

He loved them. He loved them with all his heart.

And while the way they protected each other filled him with pride, it still hurt to see them react so intensely to having done anything wrong. Had he ever done anything to make afraid of punishment, of failure?

Kneeling down, Erik hushed them, watching as they silenced their bickering and turned to him with wide eyes, bright green and dark brown.

"Both of you will help me clean up the shards," he said. He offered a smile. "And then tomorrow we'll go shopping and find your mom a new, better vase, that you will then be more careful not to break. Yes?"

They nodded fervently, and Erik smiled as he stood up, ruffling their hair. "Good. Now, I'm going to show you how to clean up the shards without cutting yourself, so watch closely."

Magda found them later having a pillow-fight in the living room, Erik grinning as he crawled around on his knees on the carpet, grabbing either one of the twins and pretending to try to bite their feet before the other one charged at him with a pillow and he let himself get smacked in the face, before letting go of the twin he'd grabbed and taking the pillow he'd been hit with to throw into the other twin's face, making the stumble back, all of them laughing.

Magda leaned against the doorframe, smiling as she watched.

Hank opened the mansion door expecting Logan to be standing there, back from wherever he disappeared to weeks at a time. So when he was greeted instead by a woman with green hair, green eyes, and green lips, he was obviously curious.

"Hello," he said, though he kept a hand on the door. "Can I help you?"

He sent out a psychic warning that there was a stranger at the door, and Scott and Jean replied that they'd be right there to provide back-up if it was needed.

"My name is Lorna Dane," she said. "I'm here for my father, half-sister, and half-brother."

"Uh," Hank said, smiling confusedly.

"You may know them as Magneto, the Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver," Lorna said.

Hank's mouth opened, but did not close.

"Seriously?!" exclaimed Scott, stepping out from behind the door to look at Lorna in astonishment. "Magneto has yet another kid?!"

"Guys, she's not lying," Jean said, a hand to her temple. "She really is Erik's daughter."

Lorna's green lips pressed into a mirthless smile. "So. Are you going to let me in?"

Silently, still stunned, Hank stepped back and let her step inside.

Erik stepped into the lab, looking around until he saw Hank, carefully making his way around all the scientific gadgets to come up to the scientist's desk, standing in front of him, radiating annoyance. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah," Hank said, gesturing for him to come around the desk, shoving a stack of papers at him. "Look at these."

Erik raised an eyebrow, before using his powers to pull over a chair, sitting down as he began flipping through the documents, frowning. "What am I looking at?"

"All the data I've gathered on you, Peter, Wanda, and Lorna," Hank said, watching him. "Bloodwork, DNA tests, medical records, power measurements and diagnostics."

Erik glanced up at him. "What does it mean?"

"It means that you better not have any more children," Hank told him, "because you are all essentially weapons of mass destruction with apropensity for mental illness."

Erik huffed out a disbelieving breath, looking up at Hank in something near amusement as he set the papers back down on the desk. "Seriously?" he said.

"Believe me, Erik," Hank said, meeting his gaze soberly. "I'm being completely serious. If you and your children aren't careful, then any one of you could end up killing hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions or billions. Maybe even without meaning to."

Erik smiled dubiously. "I'm not sure that I believe you."

"Look," Hank said, taking the stack of papers, pointing out certain figures. "You and Lorna? You can both manipulate electromagnetic fields. What happens if one of you loses your mind, and you pull that stint you did with Apocalypse, and don't stop? Or if you manipulate the Earth's magnetic pole, so that you actually change the planet's axis?"

Another page, more figures. "And Peter? Erik, Peter can run a little over the tenth of the speed of light. It may not sound like it, but that is incredibly, insanely fast. Anything he decides to do, he's basically unstoppable."

Another page, more figures. "And Wanda? Erik, Wanda has the power to alter reality. If she uses her powers and says something like,'No more mutants,' well, guess what? No more mutants."

Erik stared at the documents, expression blank.

"Erik," Hank said, leaning forward, looking at him grimly. "That amount of power, coupled with the fact that all of you have, at some point or another, suffered from mental breakdowns,depression, or mania? Erik, not only are you guys a danger to the everyone around you, you're a danger to the entire world, you're a danger to each other, and you're a danger to yourselves."

Erik looked at him, eyes steely. "And what is it," he said slowly, "that you expect me to do about that, Hank?"

"Just…" Hank sighed, leaning back in his chair, a hand rubbing over his face. "Just try to keep yourself and your children emotionally stable, okay? If any of you lose it, there's not telling what will—"

"—and now they're dead!" Pietro shouted, tears streaming down his face. "All of them!" A broken sob, choked. "My people—my people—mutants—are being killed—and it's because of me!"

Pietro had his face buried in his father's chest, fingers clenching Magneto's shirt. "Because I can never do anything right—I try and Itry and—every time, I ruin—"

"Ssshh," Erik said softly, hugging Pietro to him. "Sshh… hush, now… that's enough of that. You did your best. You've been strong, and you've been faithful to the cause. I would never ask you for more than that…"

Tears poured down Pietro's face, so fast that they were not teardrops but tearstreams. "You—you're not angry with me?" Disbelief. Pain. The voice of someone who'd expected to be thrown away, punished harshly for his failure, clinging desperately to that supposed executioner for any kind of comfort before the blade of the guillotine fell.

"Angry?" Erik said, rubbing comforting circles into his son's back. "Pietro… someday I hope you yourself will come to know all that I feel for you right now. It is not anger. It is the love of a father for his son."

"They're dead," Pietro sobbed again, clenching shut dark waterfall eyes. "And it's all my fault."

"Are you dead?" Peter asked, poking the large lump under the blankets, grinning when the lump shifted and grumbled. "HEY DAD!" he yelled, poking the lump again. "I THINK WANDA'S DEAD!"

The lump grumbled something, rising up and then flopping over onto his lap.

"DAAAAD!" Peter yelled, laughing as he tried to push away the lump that had attached itself to him, blanketed arms around his waist. "I THINK WANDA'S A ZOMBIE! SHE'S TRYING TO EAT ME!"

There was the sound of footsteps, and a bleary-eyed Erik stuck his head into the room, rubbing at his eyes, hair sticking up all over the place, face unshaven. "...What's wrong?" he mumbled, blinking at his preteen children.

"Ugh!" Peter cried, looking between his half-asleep father and his clingy-half asleep sister who was trying to pull him inside her blanket realm and turn him into a sedentary lump as well. "You are both snails!"

Wanda grumbled and blindly hit him in the back of the head with a pillow.

Pietro panted slightly as he lay back against the pillow. "This is wrong," he said, but his voice was questioning.

"There's nothing wrong with this, Pietro," Wanda murmured, tracing her fingers over his bare chest, leaning down to kiss his bare skin. "We both want it."

"I know, Wanda, it's just…" Pietro struggled for the words, never trying to push her away. "I think it would be better if… I mean, what if everyone finds out? What if—"

"Do you love me?" Wanda asked, green eyes searching his, her hand resting against his cheek.

"Of course," he murmured, leaning into the touch.

"Are you in love with me?" she asked, lips a hairsbreadth from his.

He exhaled. "You know that I am."

She kissed the corner of his lips, a hand pressed delicately to cool skin. "And neither of us would ever hurt the other," she murmured, pulling back to look at him softly.

"No," he agreed, interlacing his fingers with hers. "Never."

She brushed a strand of silver hair out of his eyes. "How can a love so pure be wrong, then?"

"It's… I… that's not…" he sighed, sitting up, taking her face in his hand and gently kissing her jaw. "Wanda, if we keep this up, we're going to crash and burn."

Her breath was warm over his ear, making him shiver, an arm snaking around his shoulders. "Crash and burn with me, then."

"That's a lot to ask of someone, you know," he murmured, turning his head to meet her gaze, the moonlight from the windows catching on his eyes.

"I know," Wanda whispered, the back of a knuckle running over his cheek. "But you want to."

He pressed his lips to her palm. "I do."

"Then don't leave me," she whispered, and pulled her brother into a searing kiss.

Erik barely managed to create an electromagnetic forcefield before the was a blast of searing heat enveloped him.

He braced himself, arms crossed in front of his face, boots digging into the ground as resisted the force, everything flashing white around him.

When the explosion passed, he ran towards the epicenter of the blast, falling to his knees beside his children's bodies.

"No…" he whispered, gently pulling them from their embrace, already-bloodied fingers pressing to pulse points. "No…" there was so much blood, both of their bodies riddle with bullets. "No," Erik said, strangled, shaking. "NO!"

This couldn't be happening to him again. His family dead in his arms, killed right in front of him. This couldn't be happening again.

Erik was laughing, holding his dead children in his arms, because it was funny, wasn't it? The way the world gave him happiness and then tore it from him. Every time he started to come to terms with the world, tried to live peacefully, his reminded—brutally, brutally reminded—why the world as it was needed to be destroyed.

He had nothing left to protect—nothing.

And the X-Men were gone, now, too. He couldn't sense them, not after the blast.

The world had taken his daughter, his son, and made the boy take away the only people who could have stopped him.

It was like God wanted him to destroy the world.

Erik laughed, tears streaming down his face, chest feeling like a gaping, bleeding hole as he laid his dead children on the ground and stood up, tilting his head to the sky. "This is what you want from, isn't it? This is what you want. What I was meant to do."

He felt something die inside of him, in that moment.

His daughter was dead. His son was dead. Charles Xavier was dead. The X-Men were dead.

God was dead.

(And Magneto would rise up to take his place.)

Amidst his fury emerged almost a feeling of a serenity, and he knelt back down next to the still bodies of his children. "I'm sorry I was never there for you," he said softly, reaching out to brush the hair from their faces. "I'm sorry. I know that you can't hear me, but if you could… just know that I wish things could have been different.

"I wish I'd had a chance to show you that I loved you. That I was proud of the people you'd become. But I can't go back and change everything, no matter how much I wish I could.

"All I can promise you is that the humans who did this to you…

He grinned through his tears, mirthless, merciless. "For what they've done," he said, fists clenching. "For what this world has done. For killing my children. They will all pay the ultimate price."

The ash fell around him as he stood and walked away, cape sweeping behind him, taking off his helmet and tossing it to the ground.

He didn't need it anymore.

(In the ash next to his sister, a tear slipped from the corner of Pietro's deadened eyes.)

END.

[EDIT 9/25/16:] The German has been edited. A huge thanks to Respectable on AO3 for fixing my German!

Translations:

Mein Kolibri – My hummingbird

Mein Sohn - my son

Es tut mir leid - I'm sorry

Bitte - Please

Du musst überleben - You have to survive

Ending Notes

On the ending: I usually try to avoid controversial themes, but here I got incest and religion. Go me.

The incest is canon in the Ultimate Comics universe. Which is a Marvle universe separate from Earth-616, which is the main universe. More on that later.

Magneto has a tendency to go crazy and think he's God. In either Earth-616 or Ultimates. And he kinda had it in the movies, a little bit, though not as much.

And of course I had to kill both Wanda and Pietro (or did I kill Pietro?) and make Erik go crazy in one universe, because it happens way too much in all the various Marvel universes for me to not totally rip on it.

And of course I had to tend this story with a tragic section. I couldn't very well have ended on a happy section, now could I? Wouldn't have the same impact.

On Thomas and William: Thomas|Tommy and William|Billy are real comic characters; they're spiritual twins and spiritual sons of the Scarlet Witch. There was this whole thing where she warped reality to make her pregnant and give her sons, because she wanted children but she was married to Vision, who's an android and can't reproduce. But they were created from the soul of Mephisto or something, and then they died, and Wanda went crazy, and then the Avengers were going to kill her, so Pietro convinced her to create the House of M, and then the whole No More Mutants thing happened.

And then later it turns out that her sons, Thomas and William, were reincarnated as the sons of completely different mothers. So they're not blood related, to Wand or to each other, but they look the same except for hair and eye color, and are spiritually related to each other and Wanda. It's confusing.

So I tactically avoided mentioning who Wanda's husband was. Just pair her with whoever you want and then say that that guy was the father of Thomas and William, lol (in my head it's Victor von Doom, though, because Victor is awesome and I totally ship him and Wanda together, but more on that later in the notes).

On Weapon XII and Quicksilver as a living weapon: I'm sure you all know that Weapon X is Wolverine and Weapon XI is Deadpool. In the Marvel comics, Weapon XII was the Huntsman. Which I'm ignoring because Huntsman was not cool. Weapon XIII is Fantomex, and he's (really) cool.

And I've wanted to turn a speedster into a living weapon for a while now. Mostly because superspeed is SO underappreciated as a superpower, and I want people to see what happens when a speedster doesn't hold back, and realize that a speedster could basically take them all out before they even realize what's happening.

Originally, I'd planned to write the idea with Tommy Shepherd, but I moved on from the Young Avengers fandom before I could get to it.

So here it is! I finally got to get it out of my head. Originally I was worried about how the idea was worming its way in here—worried that my brain was just doing it because it had been wanting to use that idea for a long time now—but I think that it actually worked out, once all the connections happened.

On the Hank/Peter ship: The Hank McCoy/Peter Maximoff is not in any way canon, lol (though Pietro Maximoff/Remy LeBeau might be, nearly—the interactions between those two in the new X-Factor comic… X3). I honestly have no idea how it happened. It just… happened. And then I was just like "WHUT. EVEN." But I just rolled with it, like I roll with all the other random stuff that happened in this story. But I really don't like Hank McCoy in the comics, so it was a revelation to realize how much I like him in the movies. So the addition of that was as much a surprise to me as it was to you.

Hank/Peter is in the universe where Peter got captured by Weapon X, and the universe where Peter, Wanda, and Erik are all part of the X-Men (which is also the Cherik universe), and also one or more of the other universes that I couldn't keep track of.

Gawd, there must be at least twenty universes mixed up in this story. I don't even know anymore.

On the Evan/Peter ship: Evan Daniels is a character from the X-Men: Evolution TV series. I didn't mean for him to show up. He just kinda did. And then Evan/Peter kinda happened, because that's a fairly common X-Men: Evolution ship, due to their history on the show together. And it just kinda happened. I have no control of this stuff, sometimes.

Although, to be clear, the universe in this story with Evan/Peter is not the same universe as the Hank/Peter universes. Evan/Peter is in the universe where Peter willingly left the X-Men.

On the Wanda/Pietro ship: Yes, incest, I know. But it's canon from the Ultimate Marvel comics, Earth-1610, so I kinda had to include it a little bit. And because, hey, why the fuck not include an uncomfortable theme in here? 'Cause, like, in the Ultimates comics their relationship was adorable/sweet/possessive/obsessive/protective/overprotective/weird/weirdly-not-weird/taboo/I-totally-don't-know-how-to-feel-about-this. Because it's like "Parachute" by Ingrid Michaelson, aside from the fact that they're siblings, and probably a little more possessive than that. I'm not saying that it was a healthy relationship necessarily, but it wasn't a sick relationship. It was just two really powerful and messed-up people being the only thing in the entire world that kept each other happy and sane.

The relationship wasn't abusive at all, up until Wanda died and then "came back," but it wasn't actually Wanda. It was Kang, who was actually Sue Storm from the future, pretending to be Wanda in order to manipulate Pietro. (And of course it totally worked, because Pietro loved Wanda so much that he'd take any abuse from her and do whatever she said.)

Anyways. In this story Wanda/Pietro was in the two universes where Erik and Wanda coerced Peter into joining the Brotherhood, and maybe one or more of the other universes that I cannot keep track of. But basically, if Pietro went by Peter in the section, you can be sure that it was not a Wanda/Pietro universe. Though not all the universes where he goes by Pietro are Wanda/Pietro universes, but in all the Wanda/Pietro universes he goes by Pietro.

(Just because I included these ships does not mean that I necessarily ship them.)

On the Wanda/Victor von Doom ship: (I definitely do ship this, though.) Wanda and Victor were going to get married in The Children's Crusade, but then shit happened. Basically, it ended with Victor getting his face burned up again and confessing to both the Avengers and X-Men that he was the one who had manipulated Wanda into destroying the Avengers and ridding the world of mutants.

Magneto and others took that as meaning Wanda was innocent, but Wolverine said, "A man in love will say anything." Captain America remarked that it didn't sound like love, to him, but I'm going with Wolverine because he has the nose that knows. And also, I really loved the interactions between Wanda and Victor earlier in the comic, and I like to believe that Victor's love for Wanda was genuine because it was so sweet and perfect, and they're both super powerful beings and I love the idea of them being together and kinda helping keep each other in check.

I imagine the Wanda/Victor ship is in the all the universes that are not Wanda/Pietro.

On Wanda's other ships: The two previous boyfriends I mentioned, Simon and Jonas, are Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, and Jonas, aka Vision, but as a human rather than an android. Jonas was actually the name of the younger Vision, who was part of the Young Avengers with Wanda's spiritual children, but I used it as the name for the human representation of the older Vision, because that Vision doesn't have any names aside from Vision. Both Simon and Vision had relationships with Wanda in the comics. I don't particularly like either of them (Vision is the one other character I like better in the movies than in the comics). So I didn't have her actually end up with either of them.

I imagine that they both would have reacted with anger, and perhaps fear, when Peter threatened them.

On the various ideas for this story: There was lots of comic inspiration in here, from the Marvel wikia pages for characters as well as some events/dialogue from some specific comics. These comics primarily being Avengers Origins: Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch, Wolverine Origin, House of M, and Ultimates. There were actually some scenes I ripped almost directly out of the Ultimate comics, since I loved them so much and I figured probably nobody reading this has read the comics I stole them from, lol.

I am obviously ignoring the whole thing about how Pietro and Wanda aren't actually Magneto's children and aren't actually mutants in the Earth-616 universe.

Also, probably way too many of the sections of this story were inspired by whatever song I was listening to at the time.

In an interview at Wizard World Sacramento, Evan Peters, the actor who plays Quicksilver in the X-Men movies (and whose name, with the Evan/Peter ship, is now absolutely hilarious) said that he'd like to see his Quicksilver crossover with Ryan Reynold's Deadpool character, because "[t]hey're both cheeky, silly, fun comic book heroes. I think it could be silly and funny and gory and graphic." He also said he'd like to seet he movies adapt the comics storyline where Quicksilver joins with Magneto to become a bad guy, like Quicksilver did when he was younger in Marvel's classic adventures.

So of course, I had to make those two things happen. (They were honestly both things I'd wanted to do anyway, hearing that Evan wanted that too only solidified it.)

Also, the moment where Peter mentions stealing people's toothbrushes and sticking them up their asses is something Evan Peters mentioned in the interview as something he'd probably do if he had superspeed.

On Quicksilver's characterization: Quicksilver in the movies has a very different attitude from Quicksilver in the comics. It's actually a bit closer to the attitude of his spiritual nephew Tommy Shepherd. So I was actually a bit more inspired by Tommy than Pietro when writing this Peter, although I did want to keep the close sibling relationship between Wanda and Pietro, which is not something that Tommy has with his spiritual twin, Billy. Though sometimes I was basing Pietro more on his Ultimates self.

In a lot of these sections, I was actually imagining Pietro from the comics, with his white hair and blue eyes. However, in order to keep some kind of consistency in this crazy mess, I chose to only describe him as his X-Men movieverse self. At least hair- and eye-color-wise. (Though admittedly that tended to be the most description I gave.)

On Wanda's characterization: Sometimes my Wanda is based on the Ultimates version of Wanda. Sometimes she's not, though. I don't know where my characterization for Wanda when she's not based on her Ultimates self comes from. The rest of the time she's not Wanda from any of the comic universes, and she's not Wanda from the cinematic universe, and she's not Wanda from the TV series X-Men: Evolution. She's just headcanon Wanda. I just don't know where she comes from. Which kind of makes me nervous, but hopefully she's okay.

Like Pietro, which Wanda I saw in my head also changed depending on the scene, but I kept her description to her Earth-616 self.

On Angel's real name: In the comics, Angel's real name is Warren Worthington III, and he's an American rich boy. They obviously changed his origin in the movies, so I decided to change his name to go with the changed origin, since they never mentioned what his real name was in the movie.

Since they made him German, I chose a German last name for him. 'Warren' is an English name that means 'guard' or a German name that means 'loyal,' according to the internet, so I kept the first name. Though obviously in German it would be pronounced differently than in English.

However, 'Worthington' is an English habitational name from places in Lancashire and Leicestershire named Worthington; both may have originally been named in Old English as Wurðingtun 'settlement (Old English tun) associated with Wurð', but it is also possible that the first element was Old English worðign, a derivative of worð 'enclosure'.

So I want a German name for him, but one that nonetheless sounded somewhat similar so as not to completely throw everyone off, so I chose 'Wortmann,' which is a topographic name for someone who lived on a raised, secure site, Middle Low German wort + man 'man'.

And I got rid of the 'III' on the end of the name since such numbers are usually indicative of an elevated status, which works for a rich boy with rich parents who own their own industry and are contemporaries of other successful businessmen like Howard Stark, but not so much for a guy who somehow got forced into a fighting ring and probably doesn't have any family any more and likely wasn't very well-off to begin with.

On the continuation of this story: Nope. That's the end of this story, for reals this time. I swear.

On reviewing: I would love to hear your thoughts on this story! Were all the hours I spent writing this, and all the time you spent reading it, worth it?

And I know that this story was probably very confusing, so if you have any questions about anything that happened in this story, please do not be afraid to ask me :)