Way backdated. :D

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

The Maximoff twins have been seperated for a very, very long time. But thanks to Wanda's meddling that seperation is ended if only briefly. They are snarky at each other and they fill each other in on years of absences. Including their mothers death.



The meeting place was slightly more secluded than their last or so Scott had told her. Wanda glanced around the park with some interest, keeping a safe distance away from the actual meeting spot. She'd wait until he'd arrive before showing herself, not wanting to give away that surprise just yet.

There were no nerves, just a calm anticipation of seeing him after so long. And a fierce desire to see that look of surprise when he realized it wasn't her lustrous leader meeting him.

Pietro arrived for the meeting in an unusually foul temper, even for him. It was far too early, in his opinion, to risk another face-to-face--especially since there wasn't any real reason for one. He didn't have any projects for which the X-Men would be useful.

If Summers had called him here just to tell him that all the children were safe and well, they would have words.

Not, Pietro fumed, that Summers even seemed to be here. The man couldn't even make it on time to his own damned meetings.

If she smirked, just a little bit, as she stepped out into the clearing and leaned on a tree behind him, it couldn't be helped. He hadn't changed, she mused, on the outside at least. A little older looking, perhaps.

"~Hello, Pietro,~" Wanda said as casually as she could, hands in her pockets, when he spun around to face her.

Shock and worry and love flickered across Pietro's features almost too fast to read, settling on anger as he crossed the space between them just barely slowly enough to look human. He seized Wanda's arm, dragging her deeper into the shadows of the trees. "Were you followed?" he asked intensely. "I'm going to kill Summers."

She rolled her eyes slightly at him. "You know as well as I do that I was not followed," she huffed, allowing him to pull her deeper into the woods to satisfy his deep, if well-placed, paranoia. "And besides, it was not really his fault, I can be quite persistent when I wish to be."

Wanda raised an eyebrow when they finally stopped. "Feeling better now?"

"Not since you lost your mind and decided to join Summers' jackbooted incompetents," Pietro replied waspishly. "And I don't know what he told you, but I actually can't just take a day off whenever I feel like conspiring with our father's enemies." He glared at her for a moment longer, then relented. "I missed you."

Her face softened at that and she stilled the stinging reply...for the moment. "I've missed you, too," she said and then stopped, horrified. That hadn't been her voice cracking, had it? "And hardly incompetents, dear brother, they did manage to knock you unconscious after all."

It had been, Wanda suddenly realized, not just a very long time since she had seen Pietro but a very trying year as well. Perhaps more trying than she had even thought about until now.

Pietro drew himself up. "I gave Blaire specific instructions and a head start. That doesn't count. Though it was, thankfully, convincing enough to deceive Father." He cocked his head suddenly, ruffling her hair with a crooked smile. "This is new. Whatever happened to the Black Forest?"

She laughed at that and leaned against him slightly. "I reached a point in my life where I was feeling completely out of control with everything," Wanda said, completely unable, and unwilling, to lie to him about anything. Almost anything, anyway. "It has been...a year. Besides, after it literally ate things during a mission...don't ask...it was time for a change."

"It's good on you, I think. You don't loom quite so much." He smirked. "That mass of hair at your height could be just a trifle overpowering." Pietro's mood was, as always--and aptly--mercurial; the smile melted into a concerned frown. "I wish I had been there for you. Something else to add to the list of things for which I need to answer."

With a sigh, Wanda smacked him in the chest--knowing he could have moved but didn't--and glared at him. "As much as I have wished that you had come back," she said, sternly, "you did what you thought you had to do."

She stared at the ground for a second. "I did not understand it at first, at all, until I came to the Mansion and Scott told me what was going on. And then it just clicked. I have missed you so very much but this is important. As important as I believe my work in the X-Men is. Though I think it has been too long between visits, don't you think?"

"Far too long. Though I really can't do this on a regular basis. Especially not with you." Pietro's jaw clenched as he fought back the ever-present fear; only with Wanda could he even admit to himself it was there. "While you were at Cambridge, I could--divert him, convince him you weren't useful enough to go after. Now that you've thrown your lot in with Xavier, Father is . . . less easily diverted. Family is one of his triggers; Xavier is another, and perhaps the most volatile of all."

Reaching for his hand, she allowed herself to admit that she was scared as well. "Part of me is tempted to go back to Cambridge," she said softly, "especially after this year. Leave it all behind and pick back up where I was. I've been injured..." Wanda rolled her eyes at the look he gave her. "...experienced what a 'brain dump' is and have had my heart broke in a unique way in a very short amount of time. But I cannot let him rule my life like that, I can't live out of fear."

"No, you never could, could you? Not even for your poor worried brother's sake, who has quite enough on his plate already, thank you." Pietro snorted. "And you've spoiled all my plans to freeload at your flat after all this is over. If I survive."

The retort died and Wanda stared at him. "How bad is it?" she finally asked.

Pietro barked a laugh. "Father is astonishingly powerful and utterly mad. At one point he was quite serious about carving the new mutant civilization out of nine billion corpses, and for all I know he may still be. He has surrounded himself with psychopaths and fanatics who follow him, whether out of fear or true loyalty, without question; he is wealthier than some sovereign nations and may well possess one of the most brilliant minds of the modern era. And here I sit, in the palm of his hand, playing my little games and pretending to myself that I am making a difference." He smiled bitterly. "Not that I could stop, hopeless or not. I helped make him what he is. I believed. If he is to be destroyed--and he must be--then the responsibility is mine."

For a brief second, Wanda wished she had Scott's power so she could drill a hole through her brother's head and drop in at least an ounce of sense. "It is not your responsibility alone," she responded, shaking her head. "And you need to start realizing that. As much as you wish to shelter me from his madness, I am still fighting on my end to stop him--as much as you declare Xavier's teams to be incompetent, we are making a difference."

"You're trying to hold back the flood with a flamethrower," Pietro scoffed. "Oh, the X-Men are useful, I'll admit, for some things, but their history with our father is a laundry list of blunders and near-failures. I would rather not rely upon eleventh-hour desperation ploys if I can possibly help it."

"Would you rather have me do what you are doing and join with the Brotherhood, to take him down from the inside?" she snapped and smirked as he stared at her. "As I thought. I was content to let things be, to ignore what was going on. I was happy in my role at Cambridge and helping to run our family. Until our mother's death and then it all changed! I cannot idly stand by and let him continue on this path. The X-Men do other good besides fight Magneto."

Pietro's face went ashen, a retort dying in his throat. "Mother is dead? I didn't--how--when did this happen?"

Wanda stared at him for a second before sitting down heavily on a fallen stump. "I mailed you when it happened," she said quietly. "And during her sickness. She had been sick for a while but when Magneto forced the Professor to use his powers against humans, it caused her to have a brain aneurysm and she...passed much quicker." The tears were hard to hold back. "I was so mad at you for not attending her funeral in the least..."

"We went underground after Father was captured: all the postal drops were abandoned, and I couldn't risk contacting you myself. I would have moved heaven and earth if I'd known." Pietro's jaw hardened, anger pushing back the grief. "And I will add this to the wrongs I will lay at Father's feet when I destroy him at last."

Wanda tilted her head and bit her lip. "If you did not know, then he must not," she said and then shook her head. "As if it mattered, he left her, and us, behind him years ago. I wish things were different...how I miss our earlier years, even when I parted for university."

She smiled, suddenly. "I'm going for my PhD soon." He was the first, as always, to get this type of news and she was glad she could do it in person.

That won a genuine smile. " Doctor Maximoff, hmm? Very impressive. I'm proud of you." Pietro's eyes flickered. "Mother would be too, I'm sure."

The smile flickered for a second. "I think so, too. She was so proud of me when I graduated Cambridge..." Standing up, Wanda suddenly moved towards Pietro, burying herself in his arms as she closed her eyes. "It has been a tough couple of years."

Pietro sighed. "That it has been. At least the future can do little but improve, or so we can hope." He smiled wryly. "Always assuming Father is not having me followed today."

Snorting in annoyed amusement, she smiled a little bit. "I'd assume he would have been here by now if he had," she mused a little. "But speaking of, how much longer do you have here?"

"Not long." Pietro glanced down at his watch, then back up a little shamefacedly. "Actually . . . I'm somewhat past the time I'd allotted for the meeting, but I see you so rarely . . . I should be getting back."

"We would not want to keep him waiting." There's wry humor there but it's gone fairly quickly. "I have missed you, Pietro, but I don't want to be the reason you get caught behind his temper. ~Besides, you do that well enough on your own~."

"~A dutiful son like myself? Perish the thought.~" A smile flickered across Pietro's face and was gone. "Don't do this again soon, Wanda, but . . . do remember that 'not soon' is one thing and 'not ever' entirely another."

"I will keep that in mind." Leaning forward, Wanda allowed herself to hug him hard one last time. Releasing him, she smiled even if it was a bit strained. "Be safe, for me at least, and _try_ to keep out of trouble."

One last grin, almost boyish, and Pietro was gone, leaving only the words "I will if you will . . ." to drift on the breeze of his wake.