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Chapter Text

White Hennessy was the ambrosia of the cognac gods, Lorna thought to herself.  The bartender - a burly armed, mustachioed gentleman by the name of Donald - pulled the corks from two bottles with his teeth.  He poured thick, amber streams into two shot glasses, filling each to the brim. 

A well-manicured hand reached out, carefully picked up a glass and pressed it against smiling, full lips.

Its taste was smooth, light, honeyed.  Wanda smacked her lips in dramatic satisfaction.  She practically purred as a sudden rush of warmth filled her belly and spread throughout her body.

"More," she demanded, narrowing her eyes over the rim of her now-empty shot glass at her little sister.

"That's your tenth one, Ms. I-Married-A-Robot," Lorna replied.  She tossed her verdant hair over her shoulder before downing her own shot.

"Gawd," Wanda grumbled, her lips pulled into a pout. "You marry a stupid, density shifting android one goddamn time..."

"Him too, Miss?" asked Donald.  He pointed a meaty finger at the white-haired man slumped beside them, his chin resting on the bar.  Several peanuts firmly lodged in his cheeks; a ring of their shells decorating his slicked-back hair.  Pietro slowly sipped Hennessy straight from several bottles with straws.  He started blankly at a postcard that read, "Welcome to Hawaii!" complete with a hula dancer.

"Hey..." the speedster muttered, his straws slipping from his pouting mouth. "What ever happened to Valeria Cooper?"

"She's dead," Lorna said with a shrug.  "Most likely.  Maybe.  Perhaps... I honestly do not know."

"Forget him!" shouted Wanda, her curls flying around her like a lion's mane.  She tugged on the back of Lorna's sweater.  "Give me another!" She slammed the glass onto the bar top. "This alcohol stuff is amazing!" Donald poured another and slid it towards her.  Wanda drained it quickly, even taking the time to tap the bottom of the glass until the last drop hit her outstretched tongue.  "Why did I waste all of this time not drinking?!"

Lorna blinked owlishly at her sister.

"And we're done.  The bill, please..."

The bartender nodded and shuffled away to the register.

"It's gonna be $480, Ms. Dane."

"Put it on the card and I'll give you a $120 tip," Lorna said.  She tossed a sleek, black credit card at him.  Donald caught it deftly midair.  He turned it over, frowning.

"Who is...Remy Etienne Lebeau?"

"He's a guy my brother is fucking," the sisters said in unison.

"He's having sex with me," Pietro explained, his tone even. "I stole his credit card."  He gathered his bottles into his arms and slid off his stool.  Peanuts and peanut shells fell to the ground, crunching under his uneasy feet.  Pietro swayed wildly, steadied himself, and continued sipping. "I want a jumbo slice.  We're in DC.  They have jumbo slices here.  I want one."

Lorna signed the bill and pocketed the card in her blouse.

"Er, Ms. Dane," Donald said. "Virginia has open container laws.  Your brother can't-"

"We're Avengers!" Wanda declared, shaking her finger at the bartender. "I have personally witnessed The Wasp punch Galactus in the face-"

Lorna shook her head.

"-that never happened-"

"-and have seen Spider-Man also knock-out an armored tank-"

"-again not even remotely true-"

"-and have had watched Captain America blow-up an AIM facility just by throwing his shield-"

"That one is true," Pietro chimed in between slurps. "He's really good with that thing..."

"So, we're gonna walk around with bottles if we want to!"

"Still, Ms. Dane."

"It's alright," Lorna replied.  She fished her phone from her back pocket and fumbled with the touchscreen.  "Our Serval car is outside."  

Pietro, carefully cradling his bottles of Hennessy, waddled after his sisters.  They left the bar and stepped out into the quiet of a Tuesday night in Arlington.  A black town car pulled up.  The driver stepped out and rushed over to the pull the door open for them.

"Are we getting pizza?" Wanda asked as Lorna shoved her inside.  "Pietro said something about pizza and now I want some..."

"You promised us pizza, Lorna!" her brother whined as she herded him in next.  With his arms full, Pietro sat backwards and awkwardly scooted inside, crowding Wanda against the door. 

"Hey!"

"Awww," Pietro pouted as Lorna climbed in after him. "I'm on the hump... You humped me."

Wanda snorted.

"That's what Remy said..."

Pietro looked perplexed, his pale brow knitting together.

"I don't get it..."

The driver shut the door and shuffled back to the front.  Lorna pulled their seatbelts on before fastening her own.  

"Ok, we're getting pizza-"

"YAY!"

"-from 7/11-"

"BOO!"

"-because it's 3am on Tuesday.  But you can buy all the pizza you want-"

"Yay!"

"-and we'll cook it at home because I'm sure 7/11 only has frozen pizzas."

"BOO!"

Lorna sighed.  She rapped on the partition and the driver started the car. She leaned back her seat, smiling at the sound of Pietro's sipping accenting the squealing tires as they zoomed off.

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Lorna deposited her brother's now empty bottles into the recycle bin as the Twins stumbled inside.  Pietro immediately stopped by the counter.  He leaned forward, hands on his knees, watching various greasy foods rotating on hot dog roller.

"So fatty," he whispered, his eyes growing wider with each rotation.  "So terrible for you..."  He press his nose against the glass, his pale skin glowing red under the heat lamp's light. "I want them... I want them all."

Lorna chuckled.  She strolled past him and picked up a hand basket before wandered over to the candy bars. 

"Get everything." She heard someone whisper to from the other aisle.  Lorna stood on her tip-toes and saw Wanda huddled over and giggling.

"What are you doing?"

Her sister continued to giggle as if she had been caught in some sordid act.  Slowly, Wanda raised her hands.  They were holding far too many miniature bags of potato chips.

"They have cracked pepper and sea salt! Jalapenos and mango!" she squealed. "Mama and Papa would never let us have such things when we were children!  American children are so fat, they would say!"

"You buy all the chips you want then.  You can keep your titties fat if you want to, champ."

Wanda theatrically mouthed a thank you.  She threw the chips at Lorna and ran toward the ice cream.  Lorna knelt and gathered Wanda's treats into her basket.  As she grabbed a handful of Reese's cups, she heard a shout coming from the front of the store.

The clerk was yelling at her brother. 

"What is wrong with you?!" he cried.  "Who does such a thing?!  Are you an animal?!"

Lorna raced up the aisle. 

'What's wrong?!"

"All of my damn taquitos!" the clerk cried. "They are gone!"  Lorna glanced at the hot dog roller; it was completely empty.

"Pietro, where did all the taquitos go?"  Lorna turned him by his shoulders and gasped.   No less than a dozen taquitos were sticking out of his overstuffed mouth.  He chewed, his face placid like a grazing cow, as crumbs fell onto his shirt.

"Miss, you have to pay for that!" the clerk shouted.  Lorna handed him the credit card and her basket.

"Don't ring us up just yet," she muttered wearily as Wanda trundled up, her arms full of junk food.  She dumped boxes of frozen pizzas and ice cream cartons at their feet.  An attendant appeared, picked it all up, and took it to the register.

"I'm going back to get more!" she cried.  Wanda sped off, clipping the Hostess rack as she cut around the corner.  It crashed down scattered cupcakes and Twinkies all across the floor.

"We'll take those too," sighed Lorna.  "I hope your boyfriend can pay for all of this - Pietro!!!" 

Her brother's mouth was stuffed to capacity with pizza rolls.  Hot cheese and tomato sauce dribbled down his chin and onto his now bare chest.  Lorna snatched up several napkins from the serving station.

"Where is your shirt?!" she shouted, wiping tomato sauce off his stomach.  Her brother held it up.  There were several stains all over it.  Pietro rubbed his greasy mouth on its sleeve.

"It got dirty," he explained.  Then, he dropped it.  "I'm half naked."  Slowly, he moved his hands to cover his nipples.  "Better."  Lorna picked it up and put it in the trash.

"No shirt, no service!" yelled the clerk.  "You better get your crap and get the hell-"  The sound of metal screeching across cheap tile interrupted his tirade.  All three looked up and saw Wanda dragging a carousel display packed with chips down the center aisle.

"They have caramel Bugles!" she crowed triumphantly.  "Caramel, Lorna!"  She tripped and the carousel crashed on top of her.  "I am ok!"

The clerk squawked, his cheeks a violent shade of purple as he stalked up to Lorna and her shirtless brother.

"Just put it on the card!" Lorna snapped at him before he could open his sputtering mouth. 

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"Chaos magic takes so much out of me," Wanda explained.  She shoveled several spoonfuls of mango sorbet into her sugar-covered mouth.  "There is something about being connected to the many energies of the universe, channeling them through one's body, and using them manipulate reality in order to make the impossible possible that just make a lady want to eat everything she sees..." Her spoon hit bottom, scratching against the cardboard.  Shrugging, Wanda tossed the empty carton onto a small but growing pile and picked up another.

Pietro sat on the far end of the couch eating a mixing bowl full of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with Bailey's and a wooden spoon. 

"We were out of milk," he protested, still shirtless, pizza-stained, and indignant.  "I found this in Douglas' room and I don't want to sober up yet..."  He tilted his head back and slurped some from his bowl.

"Yikes," Lorna muttered.

"I have a fun idea!" her sister suddenly announced, upending a bag of caramel Bugles into her half eaten Chunky Monkey.  "Let's go around the room and talk about our sex mistakes!"

"No, let's not," countered Lorna with a horrified look. "Let's not do that at all.  Let's just eat more food and not talk at all..."  Wanda chuckled, fishing a rogue Bugle caught in her cleavage and popped it into her mouth.

"I have been with some duds: Simon, Vision, that one time at the Avenger's Christmas party with Clint..." Wanda listed, counting off on her syrupy fingers.  "I have the worst taste in men..."

"Is it because of Pietro?" Lorna asked.  "I mean... Surely, you two are aware of the rumors... I mean, you both used to be rather, um, close."

The Twins cackled.

"Our jackass brother was a giant crybaby when we started out as Avengers.  So, if anything, at the time, I was into men that were the furthest thing from him..."

"I was a highly emotional teenager," the speedster returned indifferently. "Now, I am an emotionally stunted adult."

"And you have to remember, we're Roma people, Lorna," her sister continued. "We do not have these weird, WASP-y hang ups about being 'overly familiar' with family."

"We were also violently torn from our poor but peaceful family life," Pietro added. "Forced to wander as homeless kids and outcasts."

"Do you know the fucked up things people try to do to homeless people?  To children in general?  Do you know the sort of prejudice we faced as Roma before people figured out we had powers?  Or what it's like to come to America and have everything you were taught and valued turned upside-down on its head? So, of course we were 'weirdly' close!"

"I...I hadn't thought of it that way," Lorna sputtered, her cheeks bright red. "I-I am so sorry..."

"Don't worry about it.  Listen, we have had so many god awful things said to us," her brother said gently. "Jokes about me and Wanda being incestuous don't even register."

"So, Pietro, let's talk about your poor romantic choices then!" Wanda shouted around a mouthful of ice cream.

"Wanda... Crystal and I got married too young," he groused. "Things happened."

"Things happened?!" Wanda squawked.  "Pietro, you fought a man on the moon in the middle of the Inhuman capital city and in front of the entire goddamn Royal family!  Then, you ran through the South Pole screaming at researchers!"

"Meh," he replied with a shrugged.  He then gulped down the rest of his soggy, liquored cereal and wiped his mouth on his arm. "I am happy that I got Luna out of it.  Totally glad that I found out that the pull-out method was ineffective..."

"Oh my God," Lorna muttered to herself. "I love my niece too but I really regret this entire conversation."

"I also made out with Warbird," the speedster confessed.  "And now, I'm with Remy Lebeau, who looks perpetually unwashed, owns three cats, and whose last lover fucked our biological father."

The collectively shuddered at the thought of Rogue being intimate with Magneto.

"So, tell us, Lorna," Wanda started slowly, her lips twitching.

"Tell you what?"

"Tell us about Alex Summers. I mean, he's handsome but..."

Lorna sighed.  Her entire body seemed to deflate as she sank deeper into the couch cushions.

"Alex and I met back when you wore that awful tiara-head sock and Pietro had shoulder pads and I wore a green bathing suit with cut-outs on the side even though people were shooting lasers at me and shit..."

"Those were the good old days," her brother commiserated.

"Look, we were young.  We both liked geophysics.  We were mutants.  We wanted more out of life than shooting laser blasts from our bodies and throwing metal girders at people..."

"But he wasn't good for you," Wanda said softly.  "Lorna, we were both worried about you when Bobby...and that nurse...and the thing at the wedding..."

"Fuck him," Lorna snapped, scrubbing at her tears.  "Alex 'Donkey-Ass, Fuckboy' Summers, who would leave me when the wind changed, who cheated on me, who made my own brother spy on me because he thinks I cannot handle anything on my own..."

"Summer brothers," Pietro echoed.  Her siblings pulled her into a side long hug.  "They are the worst."  Lorna returned it, ignoring the fact that they were both incredibly sticky and smelled like oregano and marshmallows. 

"I have a fun idea," Lorna said after awhile. 

"Oh?"

"We'll need every bit of booze from Harrison's wetbar, the softball bats, all the fruit from the Serval cafeteria, and Wexler's teleporter," she explained with a smirk. "But first, let's get you guys some baby wipes..."

Chapter Text

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Alex Summers held his security card against the reader panel.  It beeped and the glass doors to Avenger's Tower living quarters slid open and he slipped inside.

Dinner with Janet was mediocre at best.  She carried on about fashion all night.  He found he had no real stomach for any sort of "ethnic" food and spent most of the night wrestling with indigestion.  Luckily, he had the day off to recover in his private suite.

"Good morning, Jarvis.  Any messages?"  He shrugged himself from his coat and gave it to the older man with a tight lipped smile. 

"None, sir, but..."

"What is it?" Alex asked, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

"Nothing, sir," Jarvis replied stiffly and walked away to hang up his coat.

Alex shuffled off, not bothering to thank him.  As he trundled down the hall towards his room, the overbearing scent of something fruit wafted over him.  It smelled slightly sour, rotten.

"W-what is that stench?" he muttered to himself, burying his nose into the crook of his elbow as it grew stronger and stronger with every step. "I-it's coming from my room?"  He yanked open his door, shrieked and fell back in horror.

Rings, seeds, fruit flesh was splattered onto every inch of the floor and furnishings.  Alex shuddered; his shoes squelched wetly as he walked over to his bed and lifted a watermelon covered pillow.

"What the fuck happened?!" he bellowed. 

Alex looked up at the ceiling.  A vortex has opened in the middle of it and through it he caught sight of Lorna, Pietro, and Wanda.

"Hello, ex-lover," she cooed. "Miss me?"

"L-Lor?  What?  What is all this?"

"Target practice," she said. "Let him have it."

"Hi, Alex!" Pietro crowed. "I never liked you!"  With that, he and Wanda upended a deluge of trash onto his head.

Alex sputtered, swatting away pizza boxes and empty bags of Mesquite BBQ chips, only to be squarely hit in the face with an old tomato.

"I told you I could make the shot!" Wanda cheered. "You both owe me five dollars!  No hard feelings, Alex!  See you on Monday!"

The portal whorled closed. 

"Goddamn it," Alex seethed, wiping the tomato from his face.