Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of the two of them, Wanda’s mutation manifests itself first. 

Back when their names were still Wanda and Pietro, back when Peter still had a shock of messy red hair like his twin because he could not run at the speed of light, back when Wanda had friends and was well-liked and she used to laugh everyday. It all begins to unravel when the twins turn eight and red sparks shoot out of Wanda’s fingertips during a particularly challenging maths test. The windows of the classroom shatter and terrified shrieks erupt in the deafening silence that had previously blanketed the classroom. Wanda stands as the equally horrified culprit, unable to process what has just transpired, and she is sent home early that day.

Pietro does not witness any of this firsthand, due to the rules of siblings being prohibited from sharing the same classes. At first, this arrangement suits them both just fine, because they have grown out of the stage where they do everything together and their interests no longer align as they once did. It grows tedious when people stare at them with barely concealed fascination and ask, “Are you both twins?!”

Therefore, he is blissfully unaware of the whole ordeal with his sister until recess, when he is cornered by a group of boys in Wanda’s class. Pietro is not as popular with the boys as his sister is with the girls, but they tend to tolerate him because he is fairly speedy (although nowhere near as fast as he someday will be) and he is pretty good at football. 

“Oi, Pietro!” They never say his name properly because it is not American and they think it sounds Russian and they have been taught to hate Russians, even though Pietro tells them that he is Sokovian. But it is all the same to them. “Are you a Mutie like your sister?”

“What?” Pietro has never heard of the term before, and all of the boys snicker before walking off. He tries to find Wanda on the playground but the teacher supervising tells him that his sister has gone home for the rest of the day. Everyone is weird around him for the rest of the day, and he even gets odd looks from the teachers. 

He intends to ask his mom about the word when he gets home from school but Wanda and Mom are giggling on the couch and eating ice cream and watching television like nothing out of the blue has occurred. They both look up at the door swinging shut behind him, and some of the elation immediately drains from Wanda’s face at his puzzled expression. 

“There’s my Pietro,” Mom smiles and stands from the couch to ruffle Pietro’s hair. There is a cautionary look in her hazel-green eyes, the colour identical to her daughter’s. Pietro has icy blue eyes, and it is the feature that sets him apart most from his twin. Even though it has never been discussed, Pietro knows exactly whom his eyes have been inherited from - the mystery man who has never been mentioned in the four walls of this suburban home: his father. 

Pietro grins back at her and then Mom sends them outside to practise football on the front lawn, where they have a goalpost set up. They still play together when they are at home, when their world is limited to just the two of them and their mother.

One of Wanda’s classmates resides across the street and her mother - Mrs Robinson - gives Wanda a dirty look when their football accidentally lands on her lawn. She yells at Pietro to stay off her lawn when he heads to retrieve it, and the twins are flabbergasted by the usually nice neighbour’s blatant rudeness.

“Don’t know what her problem is,” Pietro mutters when he returns with the ball. 

Wanda looks like she knows exactly what the woman’s problem is. She hugs her arms around her middle. “I think I’m gonna go inside.”

“But we only just started playing!” Pietro’s protests fall on deaf ears and he watches his sister retreat back into the house. He follows after her, because it is not very fun playing without her. 

That evening, Wanda does not come down from her room for supper and Mom tells him that Wanda is having an early night. Pietro’s appetite fades away and he drags his fork around on his plate. “Mom? Did something happen today at school with Wanda?”

She takes a moment to swallow and then she dabs at her mouth with her napkin. She sets the napkin down and leans forward slightly. “What makes you say that?”

“Some kids were saying some weird stuff,” Pietro answers, and he is unsure of what to make of his mother’s curiosity. “They were calling her a Mutie–”

“Don’t ever say that word.” Mom’s tone is sharp and snappish and it sets him on edge. He has never seen his mom so visibly agitated and she usually never gets angry unless one of the children (read: Pietro ) does something seriously bad. 

“Sorry.” Pietro stares down at the table and fidgets with his fingers. He has never been very good at remaining still. 

Mom sighs, suddenly sounding more exhausted than he has ever seen her. Her shoulders slump and the dark circles under her eyes appear more prominent than ever. She is only twenty-eight, having been only nineteen when she got pregnant with the twins, during a trip to a small German town in the summer after her first year of Pre-Med. Marya Maximoff was going to be a doctor. Instead, she got saddled with the responsibility of two children, got disowned by her parents and dreams of medical school got thrown out of the window. Now, she works three different jobs to support them, one of them being a receptionist at the local surgical ward. 

“I’m sorry, drago.” She reaches out to take his hands in both of hers. Drago means ‘dear one’ in Sokovian. Mom is mostly fluent in Sokovian herself, having migrated here with her upper middle class parents when she was ten years-old. Maybe that is why her parents could no longer stand to have her around anymore, because they had given her every opportunity to improve her life and she had thrown it all away by refusing to give up for adoption a set of twins that would likely never amount to anything under her care. She has never bothered to teach her children their mother tongue, despite them bearing Sokovian names.

“Your sister’s going to have it very hard from now on.” Pietro is astonished to find tears welling in her eyes. He has never seen his mom cry, not even that one time when they did not have any food to eat for three days, a couple of years back. “People aren’t going to see her the way we see her anymore. They’re going to look at her and see a person who deserves to be hated. I need you to remember that she’s still your sister. She’s always going to be your sister. She’s a person and she deserves to be treated as such . Promise me that you’re always going to stand by her side.”

“I promise,” he swears, even if he does not fully understand what she means just yet. How can everyone’s perception of Wanda change seemingly overnight?

Pietro rapidly realises that children have a capacity for cruelty that is unrivalled.

Everyone stares at Wanda as she walks into school with her head held high like their mother had instructed, and Pietro presses himself closer to her side when the staring starts to get to her and her head hangs low. 

Pietro walks her to her classroom - they have been assigned another one due to the damage that has been done to the old classroom’s window - and he just smiles sheepishly at the teacher when she asks him what he is doing there. 

Wanda takes a seat and utters a small “hello” to her friends nearby. They ignore her and start whispering to each other. One of them giggles, covering her mouth. Wanda starts tearing up, and Pietro is seized with a fit of rage that he has never experienced before. 

One of the girls is swinging back on her chair and when Pietro walks past to leave the room, he sticks his leg out as the teacher is not watching. The girl goes toppling sideways off her chair, hitting her head on the ground. She starts crying and Pietro smiles to himself.

Pietro’s small bout of revenge achieves nothing. Wanda can barely hold back her sobs as she enters through the front door to their home, rushing upstairs to their bedroom after an entire day of being ignored and teased and called disgusting names. Their mom is still at work and they always spend a couple of hours alone after school. Yesterday had been a rare occurrence and Mom had taken the day off to spend time with Wanda. They have never felt afraid because they have each other. 

He stands outside their bedroom door and musters up the courage to knock after an entire minute. Her gut-wrenching sobs keep him rooted on the spot. “Wanda?”

“Go away, Pietro!”

He sits on the landing outside their bedroom, drawing his knees close to his chest and leaning his head against the door. Wanda has always been sensitive, he is aware of that. Whenever Pietro was a bit too harsh with a joke made at Wanda’s expense, his mom always reminds him to be kinder to her. She always does it privately in order to not embarrass either of them.

When Mom gets home from work after a couple of hours, Pietro is still sitting there and Wanda’s sobs have quietened down to sniffles. Mom crouches down to kiss the top of Pietro’s head before she enters the twins’ bedroom. Wanda starts crying again, and her sobs are louder this time. Pietro’s stomach drops. He rubs at his own eyes with his palms, because whenever one twin is sad, the emotion surfaces in the other one too. 

“I’m still me, Mom– It’s not fair-!”

For once in his life, Pietro is at a loss. He does not know how he can possibly bring back Wanda’s cheerfulness. 

The only idea he manages to draw upon is to bring her some snacks. He heads down into the kitchen and he slices up her favourite fruit - mangoes - for her. Mangoes are expensive, so they can only ever afford to buy them when Mom has extra money or if they are on offer. Both of these occasions seldom occur. Pietro has never used a knife before so he does a messy job of the chopping, and he nicks himself on the fingers several times. Thankfully, all of his limbs remain intact. He grabs a couple of chocolate bars from the pantry, as well as a box of strawberry ice cream from the freezer - it is Wanda’s favourite. He throws some rainbow-coloured sprinkles on top.

He carries the plate upstairs and knocks on the door. “Are boys allowed in now?”

Wanda giggles from behind the closed door, and the familiar sound puts a relieved smile on Pietro’s face. She’s going to be fine. “Nope!” Mom calls back, teasingly.

“Well, too bad.” He opens the door with his elbow. “I brought snacks!” He sets them down on the centre of Wanda’s bed before flopping onto his own bed that is only a couple of feet away. 

“You used a knife?” Mom’s eyebrows disappear up into her hairline when she sees the messily chopped mango.

“Yep!” Pietro chirps, sticking his hands in his pockets so she can’t see the numerous plasters covering his fingers. “I think I’m ready to be a chef.”

“I don’t know who’s gonna hire you.” Mom holds up a mango slice that is more squished rather than the cubic shape that Pietro had been aiming for.

“Thanks, Pietro!” Wanda immediately digs into the half empty tub of strawberry ice cream and it is only because she is so miserable that Mom does not object to snacking before dinner. Besides, they were probably going to eat the leftover casserole from the weekend, as they had been doing for the past three days. Mom finds it tricky to cook on the days that she is working so she cooks extra on her days off. 

“I don’t get how strawberry can be your favourite ice cream flavour. Chocolate is obviously the best.” Pietro tears open a chocolate bar with his teeth. 

“That’s the worst!” Wanda exclaims, outraged. Her feigned anger dims and she gives him a small smile. “Thank you for remembering the rainbow sprinkles.”

“He did?” Mom gasps, leaning over to take a look at Wanda’s ice cream. “You did! Aww mi dragooo!” She coos, squeezing Pietro’s cheeks, and Wanda’s fit of giggles returns anew.

“Mom! I’m grown up now - you can’t do that!” Pietro’s cheeks are aflame. Neither Wanda nor Pietro have their mother’s warm complexion - they are in that awkward intermediary stage where their complexion borders between olive and pale. In the summer months, their differences are stark: Wanda takes on their mother’s golden, sunkissed skin, whereas Pietro only ever gets burned. 

“You’ll always be my baby, Pietro.”

The situation at school does not improve as the months pass by. Wanda tries to explain herself to her friends (can they even call them her friends anymore?) but they refuse to listen. She eventually stops trying, choosing to keep to herself. 

When she withdraws into herself, the boys - cruel, awful boys whose parents have never taught them to be kind or think before you speak or just keep their damn mouths shut - call Wanda names when she is silent, trying to get a rise out of her. They mock her foreign name, they call her a Mutie, they say that she is so pathetic which is why she has no dad–

Pietro starts talking with his fists. Every time somebody disparages Wanda when he is in earshot, they find Pietro’s fist colliding with their jaw. He gets sent into isolation, they suspend him, his middle school starts threatening expulsion, but nothing stops him from sticking up for his sister.

He stops playing with the other boys, choosing to spend recess walking around the playground with his sister. Sometimes, they sit and make flower crowns - which Pietro never has the patience for - but he sits through it.

“You can’t help her like this,” Mom says, quietly. She sits next to him on the edge of his bed, whilst Wanda is brushing her teeth in the bathroom. Pietro is facing his third suspension of the past two months.

“Then what do you want me to do?” he demands, bitingly. “If you have a better idea, tell me and I’ll do it!” The only way he knows how to fight fire is with fire. He starts pacing the length of the room, running his hand through his red hair in frustration. Mom does not have an answer for him.

When Wanda returns to the bedroom in her pajamas, her mom and brother are both silent and not looking at each other.

Wanda feels like a black hole. She feels like she is swallowing all the life out of her family. She wants to leave before she swallows the entire house.

They both lie awake that night, staring at the dark ceiling, before Wanda finally breaks the silence. “Pietro? Are you awake?” she whispers into the silence.

“No.” He snorts softly at his own joke, and Wanda huffs fondly. He rolls over to face her bed, propping his head up on his elbow to face her. “What’s up?”

“Why do they hate me so much?” Her voice is shaky and vulnerable and the melancholia that never seems to leave her countenance these days is back.

He shrugs in the dark. “‘Cause they’re stupid cunts.” Pietro has been building up his own repertoire of offensive words. If they were going to call his sister a slur, they would have to put up with him swearing like a sailor. “Don’t worry about them.”

“Mom said you’re not supposed to say that,” she scolds, displeased.

“Who’s gonna tell her?” He makes a fair point. The twins never betray each other.

There is silence again, before Wanda finally confesses, “The others at school say… I’m wrong. That I’m not supposed to be there.”

Pietro scowls in the dark, sitting up straight. “They’re wrong. You’re my sister. You’re supposed to be here. Always. If they can’t see that, then I’ll… I’ll break their noses.”

Wanda laughs, but it lacks true inflection, falling hollow at the end. “You’re gonna get in trouble.”

“I don’t care.” He is used to getting in trouble by now.

“I’m scared of my powers too, you know? I don’t wanna hurt you or Mom.” She bites her bottom lip anxiously. 

“You’re not gonna hurt anybody,” he assures her, crawling into her bed. They are still small enough so that they can lie side by side. He snatches her fluffy pink comforter so that it is covering him more. “Stop hogging the blanket.”

“Hey!”

Chapter Text

Pietro loves hanging out with his sister, but if she asks him to play princesses with him one more time, he is going to lose his mind. 

“We don’t have to play princesses if you don’t want to,” Wanda says, looking forlorn. Her attempts at putting a tiara on his head have all but failed - Pietro consistently ducks out of the way at the last moment. “We can do something you want to do instead.”

They always play whatever he wants to play. Wanda is desperate for connection, striving tirelessly to not upset one of the two people in the world who can still tolerate her presence. For the first time, a peculiar feeling of guilt materialises in his stomach. 

Pietro picks up one of the two tiaras that have been discarded on the coffee table and he sits it atop of her auburn waves. She smiles softly, hopefully. He wishes that she would always smile like that. He wishes the kids at school didn’t make her come home crying everyday. He wishes that they lived on another planet, where it was only him and Mom and Wanda and maybe a Dad who loves them. 

But this is the only planet they are going to get. Pietro has no way to preserve Wanda’s happiness, children are always going to be cruel and their father probably doesn’t even care that they exist. Those are three unfortunate yet fundamental facts of their lives.

“You’re gonna be the princess and I’m gonna be the dragon chasing you!” He lets out a sudden roar and Wanda squeals, hurrying away from him with her tail between her legs.

He sympathises with the fact that she no longer has any friends to play with except him; he is going through much of the same situation due to everyone avoiding him as a result of his vehement support of Wanda. He pounces on anyone who utters a single rude word to her, and the talks of expelling Pietro from the school are getting pretty serious right about now. He cannot bring himself to care.

Today, for instance, he broke a kid’s nose at school. The boy - Archie - spat in Wanda’s face because he thought it was funny and he called her a mutie bitch. What angers Pietro the most is that these nasty pieces of work have desensitized Wanda into accepting this as a normality. She had just lowered her head in shame, conditioned to feel embarrassed over her existence. Pietro couldn’t bear that the piece of vermin had spat in his sister’s face, when she is the cleanest, biggest germaphobe he has ever met, even at eight years-old.

His mom was called into the office for the third time that week and by now, her frustration had mellowed into exhaustion.

“This anger of yours is going to destroy you someday, Pietro? Why do you have to be like this? Why? ” Mom asked once he was in the backseat of the car, his arms crossed over his chest petulantly. He knew she wasn’t speaking out of malice, but it was still frustrating. Wanda sat next to him meekly in the corner, and she glanced at him in concern. 

Pietro had no answer for either of them. 

After the twins finished their fantastical game of Princesses and Dragons, they settled under a blanket fort in the living room. Pietro is supposed to be grounded in his bedroom but Mom had to rush back to work after dropping them home so she will hardly be able to tell the difference. He is assured in his certainty that Wanda would never tattle on him.

They both lie with their backs against the couch pillows scattered across the floor and their legs up in the air, with their calves resting on the couch. Pietro flicks through a Batman comic. “I bet Batman’s mom never told him not to fight.”

Wanda raises an eyebrow, glancing at her brother out of the corner of her eye. “Batman’s mom died before he started fighting, I’m pretty sure.”

“Po-tay-to, To-mah-to,” Pietro mutters.

Wanda snorts. He hasn’t heard her laugh properly in weeks. He misses the carefree sound. “That is not how it goes.”

“Same thing.” Pietro smirks because he knows Wanda is very particular when it comes to details. “When I’m older, I’m gonna be just like Batman.”

She makes a disagreeable noise in the back of her throat. “Batman’s not allowed to show off about what he does. He has to keep it all a secret. You’re rubbish at keeping secrets.”

“What?” Pietro sits up suddenly, causing the fort to disassemble as the blankets come tumbling down over them. “I’m great at keeping secrets!”

“If you say so. Now, look at what you did!” Wanda huffs about the fallen fort. She doesn’t argue back anymore. He misses the fire in her eyes, the passionate look she would get to prove her point. 

He prods her arm like the annoying brother that he is. “What are you gonna be when you’re older?”

“Not telling you. You’re just gonna make fun of me.”

“What?” Pietro is genuinely bewildered. “No, I’m not. When have I ever?” She sends him a disbelieving look. “I promise I won’t make fun of you.” He holds out his pinkie finger, and she begrudgingly links it with hers.

“Fine.” There is a shy, uncertain smile playing on her lips, and her tongue pokes out slightly to wet them. “I think I wanna be a doctor.”

Wanda has always been practical, even when children her age are still dreaming of being things that they will never achieve or they will get bored of those far-fetched notions in a couple of years. She is driven, hardworking, determined to reach her goals: if she wants something, she is going to get it. Pietro vaguely recalls that Mom once thought she was going to be a doctor too.

“Ugh,” Pietro groans theatrically, burying his head in his hands. “You are such a nerd!”

Wanda slaps the back of his head. “You are so annoying!”

His eyes peek out from between his fingers and he is grinning when he removes his hands from his face completely. “I’m just kidding. You’re gonna be a great doctor.”

She watches him sceptically. “You’re just saying that.”

“I mean it!” he swears. “You always help people. And you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

The tentative smile is back on her face. “I think you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

Pietro shoots her a weird look, bouncing a soft ball against the wall and then catching it. His comic lies discarded on the pillows beside him: he has never had a very impressive attention span. “Tell that to all the people I beat up.”

He immediately regrets mentioning it when the melancholia returns to her green eyes. She is far too young to be this sad all the time. It makes his heart ache, because they have always been able to sense each other’s pain. “I wish you wouldn’t get in trouble all the time,” she murmurs, quietly.

He huffs out a bout of amused laughter. “Jeez, you sound like Mom.”

“I don’t mean it like that.” She holds his hand, because Wanda is just affectionate like that. She gets it from Mom. Pietro pulls away with a disgusted expression that only a little boy can pull off, and she tilts her head. “I don’t like it when you’re suspended. It’s lonely in school without you.”

There is a sudden tug at his heartstrings. The ostracization she faces at school must be ten times worse when he is not there. He feels selfish and delusional and an idiot for not thinking of that sooner. “I’ll go to school tomorrow with you.” Despite his suspension, he cannot bear the thought of her being alone in that place.

“Then you’ll get in even more trouble,” she says dryly, used to his antics by now.

“Who cares?”

“Me and mom care,” she tells him solemnly. He feels too ashamed to meet her eyes so he looks away. “Can you at least try to not get in trouble for me? Please?”

Ever since they had first learned the word, Wanda has always wielded it like it is something magical, believing that it can get her whatever she wants if she smiles brightly enough and makes her green eyes impossibly wide. Pietro had stopped believing in magic around the same time he learned that there was no such thing as the tooth fairy or Father Christmas or Peter Pan.

But when he sees the red sparks shooting from Wanda’s fingertips, observing as she completes impossible feats and still manages to remain soft after enduring vilification, he wants to believe again. Everyone says that Wanda’s abilities are an abomination, Mom says that she is a mutant, but all Pietro wants to believe is that his sister is magical. A miracle amongst men.

I would do anything for you, he thinks but can not bring himself to voice it aloud. “I’ll try.”

She smiles and the expression sits brighter on her face than the sun hanging in the sky. Sensing his discomfort, Wanda swiftly switches the subject. “Wanna paint my nails purple?”

“Yep. Let’s get you in trouble for once.”

“Hey!”

The next morning is just like any other, except it isn’t. Pietro is not permitted to go to school by his mom, despite his many insistences. Mom still wakes him up early with Wanda, because this suspension is supposed to be a punishment and Pietro is not going to spend the whole day relaxing and lying around. 

“You’re going to catch up with the school work you miss,” Mom orders, sternly. She sets down a plate of cinnamon pancakes - Wanda’s favourite - in front of his twin and Pietro gets a bowl of cereal. It isn’t even the sugary stuff that he likes, but instead some fruit and bran mix that Mom likes to eat. 

“How is this fair?” Pietro demands, shoving the bowl away. Some of the milk splashes out of the bowl and onto the table.

Mom sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose and counting to ten in her head. “Get a paper towel and clean that up. Right. Now.”

He sensibly does as told, not pushing his Mom for once. “Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. 

“It’s OK,” Mom breathes. “It’s fine. It was just an accident. But Pietro,” and her voice develops a desperate edge to it now. She sounds on the verge of tears. “I need you to behave, drago.”

The only response he provides her with is a sharp jerk of his head that is supposed to be a nod. She purses her lips in consternation. His chair scrapes across the tiled floor as he pushes it out to stand up, leaving his lousy bowl of cereal abandoned on the kitchen table.

“Pietro, get back in here and finish your breakfast!” Mom calls after him, but he ignores her. He does not say goodbye to Wanda, he does not even meet her eyes because he is too embarrassed to witness the disappointment yet endless acceptance of his flaws that he knows will always be there.

He slumps across his bed that he still hasn’t bothered to make yet. In contrast, Wanda’s bed is neatly made and all of her stuffed animals hide her bedspread. Her favorite stuffed toy - Sparky - sits in the centre. Pietro kicks Sparky off the bed, just for the fun of it. He listens as the door shuts behind his mom heading to work and Wanda walking to school, before he dozes off. He will catch up on his schoolwork later. 

When Pietro wakes up, every breath is a struggle. There is a searing pain in his chest and his lungs are filled with phantom water, causing him to splutter. He feels like there is a noose around his neck, cutting off his oxygen supply. His eyes crack open sharply and the digital clock besides his bed reads that it is past midday. He has been asleep for more than four hours.

He was awoken by incessant knocking at the front door, he realises. Every step feels like torture as he heads downstairs, clinging to the railing of the stairs. He looks through the peephole before unlocking the door and recognises the man as a fisherman who works down by the river that Pietro and Wanda walk past everyday to and from school. The fisherman is accompanied by a police officer.

“Pietro, kid, hey.” The man’s face has a greenish tinge to it, and a sense of foreboding rises within Pietro. He rubs at his chest, which won’t stop hurting for some bizarre reason. He feels like he’s dying. “Is your mom at home?”

He shakes his head slowly. “Why? What’s wrong?” 

“I’d feel a lot more comfortable sharing if we could get in contact with your mother first,” the police officer states. “Can you give her a call?”

“What is it?” Pietro demands urgently of the fisherman, who appears more willing to provide answers due to his shaken state. “Just tell me!”

“It’s your sister–”

Dread curdles in his stomach and he just knows. Even if he can’t directly bring himself to articulate the thought, he just knows that something terrible has happened. “What happened? Where is she?”

“Down by the docks but Pietro, we really need to talk to your–”

He is sprinting past the police officer before he can finish that line of inquiry. He doesn’t even bother  locking the front door or wearing shoes and yet somehow, Pietro appears at the river in seconds, when the river is situated a considerable distance from his house. 

He doubles over with the urge to vomit when he arrives there, and the crowd gathered by the docks startles at an eight year-old with silver hair appearing in their midst out of the blue. How did he manage to run that fast? Whispers instantly start around him. 

“Has that kid always had silver hair?”

“Did he teleport here or something?”

“Is he a Mutant like his–”

He shoves through the crowd at an unignorable speed and the hushed murmurs only get louder.  There are eight cops standing at the front of the crowd, and four paramedics. Pietro is about to push past the cops too, but the sight that lies before him has him stumbling to a halt. 

Wanda lies pale and unmoving on a wooden plank, as the paramedic above her compresses her chest repeatedly. Every visible inch of her skin is covered in lacerations, there is barbed wire sticking inside her neck and there is a knife poking out of her abdomen. Her wet clothes and hair stick to her body.

Fear like nothing he has ever experienced before seizes him when the paramedics suddenly stop their efforts to resuscitate her and take a step back, wiping beads of sweat from their forehead. “Hey! Why did you stop?” He manages to squeeze past a gap in the line of cops. “That’s my sister! You gotta do something– You gotta–”

His words die in his throat. Pietro can no longer feel the pain in his chest, nor the searing agony in his limbs. But the noose around his neck seems to be getting tighter. He can no longer feel her anymore. 

He inches forward and he doesn’t know why his heartbeat has suddenly slowed, when it has been drumming in his ears for the past ten minutes. He kneels down besides his sister and her beautiful face is hardly recognisable in its bruised state. Her eyes are screwed shut and he thinks that she looks afraid. She looks like she is still in pain. He holds her hand and whispers that he’s here, that nobody is going to hurt her now.

Pietro can’t quite remember what happens next. He is somehow pried off Wanda’s body and loaded into an ambulance with her. He does not let go of her hand even as her gurney is wheeled out of the ambulance and into the hospital where his mom works.

They’re walking down endless white corridors and he is not sure why. Are they looking for his mom? Deeper into the hospital they go, and Wanda’s hand still feels warm in his. The hallway they stop at is quiet and empty until they turn a corner and a chilling scream reverberates against the four walls. There is a door at the end of this hallway and Mom is standing beside it, practically being held up by her older brother as her knees keep buckling. Somebody must have contacted them both. 

The scream came from Mom, he realises belatedly, and he stares transfixed as Mom leans down and cups Wanda’s face with shaky hands, and then her shoulders start to shake and she’s crying. His mother, his strong and infallible mother, sobbing like a child. “My baby, my poor, poor baby–”

He looks away because he can no longer bear to see this and Wanda’s lifeless hand slips through his fingers and his eyes meet the newly-arrived doctor’s sympathetic expression, who is standing inside the room that has been painted a soft, muted blue. Almost like a newborn’s nursery. There is a vase of sunflowers that sit on the table as they guide Wanda’s gurney into the room. 

Everybody enters the room, but Pietro pauses in the doorway. The doctor’s pitying gaze finds him again and she asks him if he wants to say goodbye to his sister.

Pietro just stares at the woman. He still doesn’t quite understand. What is he saying goodbye to her for? Wanda is his sister, his twin. She has never spent a single day apart from him, never even for a sleepover, so why does he need to say goodbye to her in this tiny room in a hospital when he has never done so before? Isn’t she going home with them?

Maybe Pietro just thinks all of this in his head, or maybe he shouts it all in the doctor’s face or perhaps his confusion is written all over his face, because the doctor starts looking concerned and suddenly his Mom’s tear-soaked face is in front of him. She kisses his forehead and cups his cheeks with the same hands that were holding Wanda just a second ago.

“Sweet Pietro.” Overcome by her grief, she hardly seems to notice how his hair has turned silver as she brushes it away from his face. Her hands won’t stop shaking. “Always her favourite.”

She does, however, notice when Pietro abruptly turns tail and speeds through the corridor, disappearing from her vision in under a second. 

Their father’s legacy has finally come to haunt Marya Maximoff. 

Wanda Maximoff died on November 9th, 1964, five months after her eighth birthday. She died just several blocks away from the home she was born into.

She was walking to school, taking a detour through a woodland park because she wanted to delay her arrival, when she was ambushed by two nineteen year-olds: Roy Chauvin and Derek Bryant. Roy is the older brother of Archie, a kid whose nose had been broken by Pietro just the previous day. They brutally beat her ( Wanda, a person, somebody’s child, Pietro’s twin) to the brink of death, as well as inflicting multiple stab wounds. Extended reports of her injuries and cause of death will be declared in the autopsy report. She was most likely already deceased when the men threw her into the river to dispose of her body, twisting barbed wire around her neck like a noose. The tossing had been witnessed by multiple workers down by the docks, and they had thought it to be a harmless prank until the girl didn’t resurface and the boys were fleeing the scene. 

By the time the paramedics arrived, the workers had already been performing manual CPR for some time. After forty minutes of failed resuscitation attempts, Wanda was declared deceased at 1:07pm. 

Nausea roils in Pietro’s stomach as the police officers relay the facts to his mom and uncle outside the hospital. He stays sitting on the curb, burdened by the crushing feeling that this was all his fault. This is all his fault. He cannot bear to meet Mom’s eyes, terrified to see the accusation he will undoubtedly find there. 

“Are those boys in custody?” Mom’s voice is razor-sharp, the grief giving way to rampant fury. 

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Pietro doesn’t hear the rest of the conversation. Mom picks him up from the pavement and carries him to his uncle’s car, even though he is too heavy to be lifted now. 

The drive home is silent, punctuated by Mom’s consistent sniffling. Pietro wants to ask why Wanda isn’t coming home with them, but the words won’t escape him. 

All four of Mom’s older sisters are sitting in the living room when they arrive home. His grandparents that have never cared to meet him are there too. His aunts - Irena, Aleksandra, Tatiana and Alina - instantly rush to their sister to comfort her and a pang of envy strikes Pietro’s heart. He wants his sister. 

Uncle Sasha is locking up the front door and is the only one to notice as Pietro slinks upstairs. “Pietro, why don’t you come and have some dinner?” he asks, softly. Pietro continues on his way upstairs, murmuring a quiet refusal even as his stomach growls with hunger. He hasn’t eaten since dinner last night, having rejected breakfast this morning. How selfish he had been, not even bothering to say goodbye to his sister that morning. 

Their bedroom is exactly as he left it: Wanda’s bed is still neatly made, her dolls sitting in the corner on top of the toy box, her clothes hanging in the wardrobe and Sparky the stuffed dog is still lying on the floor from when Pietro had kicked him earlier. He picks him up now and stares at him. He wonders if this inanimate object realises that Wanda is never–

Pietro screws his eyes shut, throwing the dog as far away from him as possible. His suddenly fast-moving brain can not comprehend that Wanda had slept in this bed just several hours ago. She had woken up, brushed her teeth, got dressed, made her bed, all whilst Pietro slept soundly. Why didn’t he wake up sooner? Why didn’t cherish those last precious hours with his sister? He should have held her tight and never let her walk out of that door in the first place. Or he should have walked her to school and he would have gladly accepted death in her stead. It should have been him instead of her.  

Pietro Maximoff is eight years-old when he learns that time is the greatest distance between two places. 

On the morning of her funeral, Wanda is brought to her home one last time. 

It is fitting that the ceremony that marks the end of her life commences in the same place that her life began. The funeral directors set her coffin down in the centre of the living room and the tears won’t stop from his mother, from all his aunts, from his grandparents who never even cared to meet her. They cry over the state of her face, how she has been cut up and mutilated, but all Pietro can see is how the crease between her brows has disappeared. Her eyelids - although puffy and purple and bruised - have smoothed over. She looks peaceful, as though she might be sleeping. 

He speeds upstairs and grabs her beloved Sparky from her bed before arriving back downstairs before anyone can perceive that he has even disappeared. He tucks the stuffed dog under her arm, and now she really looks like she’s sleeping.

Tears continue to evade him, even though his heart feels empty yet heavy at the same time and his eyes won’t stop stinging and there’s a lump in his throat that keeps building up and his head is swimming with thoughts and Pietro thinks he might just die–

“We don’t have to have the funeral today,” Aunt Irena says softly to Mom, who won’t stop sobbing. “Sasha will talk to the priest and delay it–” Her brother nods in affirmation.

“It has to be today.” Mom manages to steel herself, drying her tears with the tissues that his grandmother provides. “In Judaism, the burial takes place as soon as possible.”

It’s an odd comment to make, when everyone in this room is Christian, and Pietro’s grandmother voices as such, so Mom answers, “Their father is Jewish. I want to honour both of our beliefs.” She glances at Pietro apprehensively to gauge his reaction but Marya doesn’t think her son’s consciousness is in the room anymore. Pietro is lost without his twin, his eyes glassy as he stares at Wanda.

Marya’s father clears his throat in the silent room. It is still uncomfortable between the two of them after years of isolation but she craves parental comfort at this moment and she is not about to bite the hand that feeds her. “Have you contacted him?”

“He’s in prison.” Silence blankets the living room once more.

The hour allotted for Wanda’s body to spend at home slips through their fingers like sand, and before Pietro and Marya even realise, it is time for Wanda to leave her home. The four walls of this house will never hear her laughter again. 

There are so many people at the church. More people than Pietro has ever seen in one place. And it is not just people from their community who knew Wanda but also reporters and mutants from all over the country. So many mutants. There’s a red guy with a tail and there are at least two blue people in the room. The camera flashes from the media catch Wanda’s face from the open coffin and Pietro wants to shield her and his own eyes, but Mom lets them capture Wanda’s mutilated face, the young girl cuddling her stuffed toy even in death. It highlights her childish innocence and even people who never met Wanda are crying and gasping at the horrific sight. 

“I’m not gonna let them get away with this,” Mom practically snarls in Uncle Sasha’s face, and Pietro has never seen her so furious. “The whole world needs to see what they did.”

Wanda’s coffin is set down at the front of the church, next to a large picture of what Wanda had been when she was whole and beautiful and alive, and Pietro can not bring himself to leave her side, even when everyone else takes their seats. The camera flashes don’t stop, so he turns his face away. He grasps her hand tightly and thinks of all the times he didn’t hold her hand out of his childish whims back when she wanted him to. He tries to apologise to her but the words are stuck in his throat.

The funeral begins with his mom delivering the eulogy and Pietro doesn’t listen, looking between the picture of Wanda and this broken version that lies before him. All he remembers from the eulogy is her final chilling words. “And to her killers, I would like to say – even if God forgives you, I never will.”

Upon completion, rather than taking a seat, Mom comes and stands next to him and asks him if he wants to say anything for his sister. He wants to, he desperately wants to tell everyone here how amazing she was but his lips won’t move and his legs are about to give out any second and he just stares up at his Mom. She understands and says nothing, save for kissing both of her children’s cheeks. 

The priest asks everyone in the church to pray and for one simple moment, Pietro closes his eyes and lets himself believe. Come back, Wanda. Let this all be a bad dream.

He opens his eyes and he is confronted with his bleak reality. Maybe God is just like magic, too. 

A light hand presses against the shoulder of his suit (Pietro can’t even remember getting dressed this morning. Or even going to sleep. And since when does he own a suit?). He looks up and Mom is watching him again, her grief surpassing tears now. “It’s time for her to go, drago.” The rest of their family is surrounding them too.

It takes him a moment to croak out, “Where?”

“You know where.” 

“Can’t we take her home?” Pietro’s voice sounds both childish and foolish and desperate, even to his own ears. “She’ll be scared by herself, she’s never been without us–” Wanda has never been alone. Even in the womb, Pietro was there to invade her space, so now how can he stand by and watch as the earth covers her face?

There are unshed tears glistening in Mom’s eyes (the same eyes she shares with Wanda). “You have to say goodbye, Pietro. Please. You’re her big brother. You can’t let her leave without saying goodbye to her. Please.”

He opens his mouth and then shuts it, looking down at Wanda’s peaceful expression that he had been noticing since this morning. She doesn’t look afraid anymore, like she did yesterday. Pietro is suddenly struck with the shattering realisation that it is him who is afraid. He’s scared to let her go, petrified to live in a world without his twin.

Wanda is ready to leave; Pietro just can’t watch it happen.

Her hand feels colder than ever inside his, and Wanda is never cold. Wanda is all bright smiles and tinkling laughter and rainbow sprinkles and the most gorgeous rose picked on a summer’s day. 

He leans his face down so his mouth is close to her ear and he begs. One last time. “Wanda,” he whispers, and her name is a prayer on his lips for their ears only. “Don’t leave me. Please–”

She doesn’t answer, and it finally hits him that he isn’t expecting her to. A small part of him has known since that afternoon near the river that she is lost to him forever. He will never hear her voice again, exclaiming “Hey!” in outrage. He will never see her sitting at the breakfast table across from him in the morning. Her stuffed animals will sit untouched and collect dust, her clothes will remain unworn and her handprints on the glass will be wiped off and her bed will keep waiting for her to return. Pietro will never bang on the door to hurry her out of the bathroom, will never get to talk to her late at night, will never play with her in the park near their house again. The same park that she was murdered in.

He finally starts to cry for the first time because she is gone. Wanda is gone. What he is witnessing is a shell of the person she had been, an unrecognisable fragment that he is still trying to cling to but they are going to take her from him. 

He kisses her cheeks and her closed eyelids. He makes sure that Sparky is tucked snugly under her arm. Mom kisses her youngest twin goodbye too. “It’s OK, Wanda,” she whispers tenderly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear. “You can go. We love you so much.” She squeezes Pietro’s upper arm. “Tell her it’s alright, Pietro. Tell her she can go.”

But he doesn’t want her to go, he thinks, tears streaming down his cheeks faster now. He does the complete opposite and lies his head over her unmoving chest as he hopelessly pleads, “Stay. Please stay, Wanda. I-I-I can’t–” I can’t live without you, so take me with you. Bury us beneath the dirt together if it means we’ll be together for all eternity. 

Mom and Aunt Tatiana peel him back from his sister’s corpse, and Uncle Sasha shuts the lid of the coffin. Her coffin is so small, so light, that only three of their relatives are needed to lift it. They hold it low instead of hoisting it on top of their shoulders, so that Pietro can place his hands on it too, so that he can aid in carrying his twin to her final destination, lowering her into the earth to a place where he cannot follow. Her first home without him. 

This is his last act as her brother. 

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