Chapter Text
‘Interesting album, this.’
Wanda and Pietro froze as they came into the apartment where they lived when not working. There was a woman in their home. She was American, from her accent, with long brown hair. She had their old family album – one of the few keepsakes from their parents – open in her lap. Wanda stirred her magic at the ready.
Pietro super-sped over and snatched it out of her hands. ‘Give that back!’
‘Sure.’ She rolled onto her feet. She casually strolled away from them. ‘I was just thinking, though…don’t you think it odd your parents kept no pictures of you from before you were toddlers?’
Her thoughts screamed of something else though – knowing a perfectly legitimate reason for this. The word “adopted”, and her labelling another man and woman as their parents jumped out at Wanda. ‘What?’ Wanda hissed.
‘Just a thought.’ She stepped out of the open window…and vanished.
Pietro rushed over and looked out. Air suddenly rushed past him. He looked up and around, puzzled. He pulled back in. ‘She’s gone.’ He looked at his sister. ‘What was in her head?’
Wanda told him. It didn’t make any sense to her. He became confused as well. This woman’s head implied that their own parents had actually adopted them, and that she was the one to find the Maximoffs for this purpose. Pietro opened the album and looked again.
‘We could look into it, I suppose…’
‘All right. We have a little time.’
Pietro looked at her. ‘So what did you do to Stark?’
Wanda smirked.
******
‘That was slightly illegal.’ Even as he said it, Logan was smirking.
‘Slightly?’ Scott asked from where he was driving. ‘I’m pretty sure breaking and entering is completely illegal.’
‘Yes, but they’re terrorists.’ Lennie leaned back. ‘Besides, it was the quickest way to get the message across.’
‘What message?’ Scott asked.
‘The Professor will tell you when we get back. I just need one more quick pit stop.’
The pit stop turned out to be a bar in New York City, where Mystique was stalking about.
Westchester, NY
‘Magneto has kids?’ Scott demanded.
Storm was startled herself. ‘So why are they only coming up now?’
The Professor smiled. ‘The children were born in 1990. Erik was told and immediately realised he would not be a suitable father for the children to be exposed to. Their mother fully agreed with this. He did still, however, send childcare payments to the woman.’
‘Magneto didn’t try to take advantage of having kids?’ Scott demanded. ‘I thought for sure he’d want to capitalise on the additional powers.’
Logan scoffed. ‘Obviously, Slim, he thinks more of his own flesh and blood than he does of every other power set he encounters.’
The Professor pretended the exchange hadn’t happened. ‘He gave their mother Lennie’s number, should the children ever manifest mutant abilities, so that she could direct them here. However, Lennie received this phone call only a few months after their birth for a completely different reason. The poor woman had contracted a terminal illness.’
‘She wanted me to help her find a suitable home for her children,’ Lennie went on. ‘She had been given a year. I found a Sokovian couple called the Maximoffs. They wanted kids, but Mrs. Maximoff was found to be infertile. They took the twins in the day their mother went into hospital for the last time.’
‘Lennie then gave the Maximoffs her number if they required any more of her help,’ the Professor said. ‘As they never called, Lennie presumed – after a quick check which confirmed no powers – that they simply hadn’t been born mutants. However, she made one oversight.’
‘I wasn’t aware that the country was embroiled in a civil war,’ Lennie said. ‘I checked in on five minutes of them at home. I had no idea. I also had no idea that, when they were ten, a mortar hit their home, killing their parents and trapping them inside.’
Storm drew back. ‘How long…?’
‘Two days,’ Lennie said. ‘During this time, all they saw was an unexploded shell with “Stark” written across it. This brought them to the logical,’ the word was said with heavy sarcasm, ‘conclusion that Tony Stark had killed their parents. I called up some old contacts. They’re tracking the bomb as we speak.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Scott insisted. ‘Everyone knows Stark’s weapons were sold illegally – behind his back! That’s why he became Iron Man!’
‘Ten year olds don’t have the best critical thinkin’ skills, Scooter,’ Logan said. ‘As far as they’re concerned, if it’s got yer name on it, it’s yours.’ He looked at Lennie. ‘Don’t tell me they still think that.’
Lennie shrugged. ‘I guess HYDRA doesn’t like its agents to have critical thinking skills.’
‘They joined HYDRA?’ Logan chuckled. ‘Oh, that’ll go down well.’
‘What’s HYDRA?’ Jean asked.
‘A neo-Nazi, pro-Soviet organisation hell-bent on world domination,’ Lennie said. ‘It also happens to be the reason they created Captain America in the first place.’ The phone rang. ‘And that’s Magneto.’
Sokovia
Pietro had gotten the last documents that had been pulled from their bombed home. In it, there was both a set of adoption slips for himself and Wanda and a letter detailing the reasons for the adoption. A mother dying of terminal illness and a father who’d decided he was not fit to raise children.
‘So we are adopted,’ Wanda murmured. ‘And our biological father still lives.’
Pietro nodded. It put a new slant on things, certainly. They were not truly orphans.
But it changed nothing.
Johannesburg
Baron von Strucker was shocked when he turned around and found an American woman with a gun. She smirked. ‘Hello, Baron. You made quite a few powerful people very angry.’
Strucker sneered. He went to mock her but she cut him off.
‘Did you ever wonder why the Maximoff twins were they only ones to survive your sick and twisted experiments?’
‘They were lucky,’ he said.
‘No. They had a mutant gene that the process activated.’ She smirked. ‘A mutant gene which they inherited from their father, who is a slightly unhinged fellow on good days. He was a Holocaust survivor, you know.’ She added this last bit as if it should be mildly interesting.
‘…You’re saying…?’
‘Even if you survive this, I wouldn’t consider myself safe.’ She shot.
Strucker ducked. The bullet missed, but she was gone.
The twins soon came and killed him.
Sokivia
Tony watched as Ultron’s robot army moved in. He still didn’t trust the Maximoff twins, and he wasn’t sure why Steve did. While he missed JARVIS, Vision was actually turning out to be a pretty good guy. He was even “worthy” enough to pick up Thor’s Hammer.
For some reason, though, the city was not lifting up as it was supposed to.
‘Some outside force appears to be holding it down, Boss,’ FRIDAY’s Irish lilt informed him.
Seemed they weren’t working alone.
A tall middle-aged woman with long brown hair jogged around the corner and down the street. Clint moved to try to intercept her, but she easily ducked past him. Pietro and Wanda watched her calmly, and simply let her pass. Natasha tried next, but she dodged her too. Steve stepped forward and called out. ‘Ma’am, you can’t be here! It’s not safe.’
She, for her part, completely ignored him. ‘Sorry about that, Ultron. We’ve got all our geokinetics holding the city down.’
Steve looked floored. He looked at Natasha. ‘What are geokinetics?’
‘People who can control the earth,’ she said, sounding stunned.
Ultron seemed to scowl at her. ‘How many?’
‘No idea.’ She folded her arms. ‘Some from the X-Men. Some from the Brotherhood. Those guys are usually against each other, so I honestly couldn’t tell you how many the Brotherhood have. The X-Men have six though.’
‘X-Men?’ Tony wondered. ‘Brotherhood?’
‘Seeking data now, Boss.’
So was Vision, apparently. ‘The X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants. Both are separate teams of organised mutants.’
‘Records indicate that the leader of the X-Men could be compared in method to Martin Luther King Jr.,’ FRIDAY said, ‘and the leader of the Brotherhood could be compared to Malcolm X. The only difference is that they fight for mutant rights, rather than civil.’
‘Oh,’ Tony said.
‘You think you can stop me?’ Ultron demanded.
‘No.’ The woman smirked and pointed. ‘But he can.’
They all looked to where she was pointing. There was a man standing atop a building. He looked old. At the same time, it might’ve been the scowl. He wore some kind of helmet and a long cape. It took Tony really longer than it should have to realise he wasn’t on the building. He was floating above it. The woman chuckled and looked at the twins.
‘Maximoff.’ She waited until she had their attention. ‘Say hello to daddy.’