Long Way Home
A/N: What happens when the family you thought you’d forever lost finally comes back after you’d finally started to forget? Pietro Maximoff is about to find out. Life in the Brotherhood. Lots of angst and family problems. For those that have read ‘Cold Hunter,’ this story coincides with it. You don’t have to read that one though to understand this, but it contains some spoilers for what’s going to happen here.
This story takes place two years in the future, so Pietro is a senior. So is Evan. Rogue graduated a year early and is gone. Kitty and Todd are juniors. Lance, Fred, Scott, Jean, and Kurt are all out of high school. Just some background information. There might be pairings later on too. Anyway, read, enjoy, and review! Bye now.
Her name was Wanda. She stood in front of the diner’s grimy payphone. The blond hair, so blond to be almost white, concealed the strained, tired face. A worn duffel bag sat at her feet. It held all the worldly possessions she’d accumulated in her eighteen years, and it wasn’t much. She pressed the black receiver, greasy from the many hands that had handled it, against her ear. A quarter was handled nervously between the fine-boned fingers as it hovered uncertainly at the coin slot.
Was this the right decision? She hadn’t seen her brother in two years. Two years of complete silence due to the kind interference of the man she called Father.
She could never understand him. Her father. Always elusive, he’d placed the two of them in foster care at age seven. She’d later figured out that her father was a mutant. A powerful one known as Magneto. And a heartless one. He’d finally seen her when she turned sixteen. He’d remembered his daughter’s birthday by taking away the one gift he’d ever given her. Pietro.
Wanda had cried when she learned he was leaving. Leaving for some hicktown called Bayville. The two had been inseparable from birth. Her twin. He was older by a mere three minutes. They’d always been best friends. It might’ve seemed strange for a brother and sister to be best friends, but Pietro had been the one she’d confided in. He was the only person who truly understood her. With him, she hadn’t been afraid to be herself. Maybe it had something to do with sharing the same womb for nine months, but Wanda felt a part of her was in Pietro. A part of her was gone after he left. She’d wanted to follow him to Bayville, but her father wouldn’t allow it.
"You show no mutant powers. I have no use for you in Bayville."
"Is that all you want from your kids? I’m no use to you?" Wanda had sobbed piteously when Magneto told her she wouldn’t be going. "Daddy… " She’d choked out the foreign word, so strange on her tongue, hoping to evoke some paternal affection that might possibly exist in her father’s icy heart.
But he’d left with a wave of his dark cape, leaving his only daughter to console herself with her tears. A new sense of abandonment had overcome her, even more profound than the last time, because this time, she didn’t even have her brother at her side.
With a start, Wanda realized that her hand was trembling. She clenched her fingers together to make it stop. I’m eighteen now. Magneto doesn’t control me. I can do what I want, and I want to call my brother. She stared at the wrinkled piece of paper where the telephone number was written. It was two years old. She’d found it amongst the papers Pietro had thrown out before he left. Two years. Suppose they had a new number now? Stop being stupid! Wanda chided herself. Just do it. Taking a quick breath, she inserted the quarter into the slot. The line clicked and the dial tone resumed. She slowly punched in the number after the area code. 6-4-4. 1-6-1-8. The rings started. Wanda gripped the phone tightly. One ring … two ring …
"Hello?" It was the unmistakable voice of her brother. Even after two years, it still carried that suave arrogant edge. She wanted to cry at the sound.
She gripped the phone tighter. "Pietro?" She asked breathlessly.
"Yeah? Who is this?"
"It’s me. Wanda."
There was silence on the other end.