#they don't really get together in this but please remember that Wanda is a telepath and i've got that standing headcanon where they can hear

[scarletwix]

@drappersky Here is number two!! “I haven’t slept in ages” Enjoy!!

Kurt tried to pretend that Pietro's continued absence didn't bother him at all. Of course, the operative word of that sentence was tried. And he was, in fact, worried about Pietro's absence, as well as the possibility that it might continue indefinitely.

What was worse was that everyone had theories. The most plausible was that he'd simply lost track of time (and Kurt knew that Pietro experienced time much differently than the rest of them, of course. It was one of the things that Pietro had tried to explain to him, once or twice.)

The most fantastical of these theories was that he was secretly running a criminal empire, and he just couldn't manage it from Xavier's.

The current favorite theory, however, was somewhere in between the two, and it was the one that Kurt hoped would turn out to be the most laughable.

"I'm telling you," Scott protested, his voice needling it's way into Kurt's ear drums, despite Kurt's attempts to ignore the words, or block out Scott's voice entirely. He could feel Jean's worried eyes on his back, boring holes through his neck. She meant well, Kurt knew, but he did wish that she wouldn't focus so much on him. He didn't like the attention, especially when he knew that he was projecting his feelings halfway to Minnesota right now. "He's got some sort of secret family out there." Kurt didn't need to turn around to know that Scott had a half wicked, half mischievous grin on his face. "A wife and kids, the whole nine. We're just the people that he golfs with." Kurt shifted uncomfortably, casting a glance up at his friend's face. He bit back a remark about Scott projecting his problems and swallowed sharply.

"Pietro doesn't golf." He said instead. It sounded meek, and Kurt hated how easy it had been for Pietro to get under his skin.

How easy it had been for Kurt to let himself start to fall for Pietro.

The thought of Pietro with a wife and kids, of Pietro having a family that he'd lied about, that he'd hidden from them, hurt.

He would have hoped that, at the very least, Pietro would trust him-trust them- enough to tell them about it. And Kurt couldn't tell if it was that he'd built Pietro up in his head to be someone different, but Kurt didn't think that it was really something that Pietro would do. Family meant so much to the speedster, he wouldn't lie about having one, at least not if he didn't have an absolutely stellar reason, like space ninjas that didn't approve of the alliance, or something.

He didn't want to admit that the real reason that the thought of Pietro with some girl, some person that he went home to whenever the urge struck him, made Kurt want to be ill because of his feelings for Pietro.

He tried to keep Scott's words from getting to him, but something in his chest splintered at the thought of Pietro with someone else. Someone he hadn't even bothered to tell Kurt about.

It must have shown on his face, because Warren, who had been laughing uproariously at Scott's suggestion, softened slightly, until his wicked grin could no longer be considered a lethal weapon.

"Nah, I don't think he's hiding a family from us," Warren said, and a surge of gratitude ran through Kurt. "Pietro can't lie for shit, and knowing him, it's probably something super boring. He'd be too proud to shut up about his family long enough to hide them."

That was only slightly reassuring, but Kurt figured that it was the thought that counted.

But it lead them right back to the question that they kept asking: Where was Pietro?

Another week passed, and only the professor seemed to be unfazed by Pietro's continued disappearance. The professor sent them on mission after mission, and Kurt couldn't help but wonder if he was trying to distract them.

Kurt was probably just being paranoid, he thought, as he and the rest of the team trudged back to the X-Jet-

-Except Jean.

Jean stood at the crest of a hill, marred by the aftermath of their battle, looking every bit like a heroine from another time, Joan of Arc, Julie D'Aubigny, Jean Grey.

Jean stared off to the west, listening intently, but whatever it was that she heard couldn't be a regular noise, as neither he nor Hank could follow the sound to where her gaze was locked on the horizon.

"I hear," She began, starting at the touch of Scott's hand on her shoulder. "I think I hear Pietro." The rest of the X-Men took the barest instant to look at each other sharply, before racing back to her side.

"Is he close?" Jubilee asked, bouncing on her toes. Jean shook her head.

"I can't tell. His mind, it's like it's amplified somehow."

"Well, what are we waiting for, exactly?" Ororo asked, casting her gaze over to Hank. He was what they were waiting for. He was their superior in the field. Mystique, Kurt knew, would already be halfway there. He wasn't sure he'd ever really understand how Pietro and Mystique got along.

Hank sagged his shoulders, clearly reluctant for a moment, before turning around and marching back to them. Kurt knew how much Pietro meant to him, too, and he knew that Hank's reluctance was more for show than anything else. He had to play the "responsible adult" card, even if he did happen to be chomping at the bit to find Pietro as much as the rest of them were.

"Let's go find out why he went AWOL on us!" Warren chirped, thumping Kurt between the shoulder blades with one of his wings. Kurt's eyes flicked up to where Warren was subtly checking to make sure that he was fine with this.

Kurt wasn't, but he needed to know that Pietro was okay. He needed to understand why Pietro had decided on the sudden radio silence.

He almost protested. He probably should have protested. Pietro was entitled to his privacy just as much as the rest of them were. His fear that this would be the proof that they meant nothing to Pietro was pushing the protests to his lips. But he couldn't deny that he was just as curious as they were, so he allowed his miniscule protests to fall quietly on his friends ears.

They had made up their minds to go anyway, no matter what Kurt had to say about it. So Kurt took Jean by the hand, and let the rest of the team take hold of them before teleporting in the direction that Jean lead him.

Kurt knew better than to try and make it the entire way in one jump, so on the third time that his feet hit the ground, they landed in the street in front of a very suburban neighborhood.

"Secret family." Warren hissed delightedly.

Kurt had to admit, looking at the sheer volume of children currently playing in the street a little way down the road that the secret family theory suddenly had a lot more plausibility.

Kurt hunched his shoulders, about to say something along the lines of "let's get the hell out of here" when he heard a frustrated exclamation from behind him. The group turned, only to be faced by a tall brunette who looked like she was forcing herself to frown.

She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head and surveyed them with cool eyes. Her eyes were a beautiful brown, Kurt thought, until she came a few steps closer and he realized that they weren't brown at all, but a deep burgundy, almost red in hue. Her face fell into an exaggerated pout, and Kurt realized that she was deliberately letting them see every emotion on her face, that she was letting them see her eyes and her facade for what it truly was: a gilt exterior.

"You couldn't have waited another three days?" She sighed, pushing a bag of groceries unceremoniously into Hank's arms. She rolled her shoulders in an intensely familiar gesture, and Kurt fought to place it. "I can manipulate the laws of probability, but heaven forbid I try to one-up a group of curious mutants."

"Uh," Jubilee began, and Kurt saw her eye twitch.

"Come on." She said, beginning to walk past them, motioning for the group to follow. Her back stiffened as a passing station wagon laid down on its horn behind them. A dark look passed over her face as she turned, a smile fixed firmly in place as she faced the street, the darkness gone in an instant. She raised her hand in greeting. A too blonde head popped out of the window of the station wagon, barely sparing the rest of the people on the lawn a glance. The blonde smiled, all teeth, clearly having decided that the company the woman was keeping was beneath her acknowledgement. It was clear that this was some sort of front as well. The rules of polite society forcing her to interact with this woman and the strange company that she kept.

"Are you bringing the twins to the bake-off?" She called, her tone of voice almost too sweet.

"Wouldn't miss it for the world, Julie!" The woman, who, Kurt decided was entirely under their protection. May the X-Men protect her from the suburban mothers. Julie's smile turned sour as she pulled her head back into the window of the station wagon and sped off, her tires squealing against the asphalt.

The girl whirled back around, already snarling.

"She thinks that she can just disrespect my children, now does she? She's never liked the boys, and did you hear the way she said the twins? She makes me sick." She pointed a finger directly at Kurt. "We are going to bake a cake that knocks her socks off." Her eyes turned mischievous, and Kurt had no trouble at all knowing where the familiarity of the expression came from: that was a look that Pietro had thrown him many a time. "And this time, I won't even have Tommy add the laxatives to the half she decides to eat."

Stunned, the X-Men followed her warily into the house as she herded them inside. "Don't worry, though," She continued, "I'm not horrible to people that don't deserve it."

Jean shrugged, seemingly satisfied, and went first, leading them single file into the house.

"Thank you," Kurt said as he passed her, not wishing to be impolite.

A part of him hated her, though. If this was where Pietro was, and if Warren and Scott were right in their estimate, then this was the woman Pietro would leave them for. This was who he'd picked.

Not Kurt.

Not that Kurt had ever really thought he stood a chance, but it was one thing to think that he had no chance, and another to see the physical proof as she welcomed them into her home.

She beamed at him, and he felt a little guilt crawl in among the pure, unadulterated loathing.

She didn't deserve his ire, but she had it all the same.

"Are you planning on poisoning Julie again?" Came an achingly familiar voice from deeper within the house.

"Don't be silly," the woman replied easily, "Poisoning implies death. By law, if I killed Julie, I'd have to take care of her spawn, and Billy would hate me forever."

"I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the law." Pietro laughed. Kurt tried to stop the way that his heart was hammering in his ribs, but he couldn't quite manage it. He heard a couple of doors open and shut again, and Pietro continued talking. "How was assassinating the chairman of the board?" Pietro's voice was full of the mirth that Kurt had missed so much. It was almost painful to hear it in this setting. The other members of the X-Men remained quiet, despite the fact that he could see that they recognized his voice, too. The woman kicked her shoes off and collapsed onto the couch, snickering.

"Monumentally boring. He just won't die."

"We just can't get the hang of that, can we?" Pietro sounded almost chagrined. "You'd think that it didn't run in the family." The woman winked up at the group of them, still huddled in the doorway and waved for them to sit down.

"So when are you going to introduce me to your friends? I'm honestly beginning to wonder if they're Remy in a wig."

"Ha ha. I will once you unchain me from the oven."

"You lost fair and square. I'm sick of feeding my kids TV dinners. It's not my fault you got all of the cooking expertise."

"And the looks."

"As if!" Pietro laughed again at her outburst, and Kurt was beginning to wonder if he hadn't pegged her wrong, initially.

"And what was it you burnt last time you tried to cook real food for them?"

"That was not my fault, peanut butter is a lot more flammable than it looks."

Finally finished with whatever it was that he'd been doing, Pietro came into the room.

Kurt didn't see the moment that Pietro registered that they were in the room, or the moment he realized that the woman was messing with him, it happened, as all things did with Pietro, too fast.

One moment, Pietro's face was teasing, and the next moment he wore a grin that Kurt had missed with an almost visceral pain.

"What are you guys doing here?" He asked, but it sounded surprised, rather than demanding.

"We were worried about you!" Ororo exclaimed, crossing her arms.

"I wasn't." Warren said. The woman leaned back against the couch, and Kurt heard her words clearly because he was sitting right beside her.

"He's lying." She mock-whispered.

"Oh, I know. Warren loves me." Pietro replied, throwing himself onto the couch with the same gusto that the woman had. He landed on Kurt's other side, and their proximity set Kurt's heart racing again.

Kurt did his best to meet Pietro's eyes, returning his smile.

"It's good to see you." He said, pouring emotion into the words so that Pietro knew it was the truth.

"You look awful, though." Scott was right, objectively speaking. Pietro looked like he hadn't seen a decent night's sleep in months.

He also had flour striped across his nose, as if he'd wiped it there unintentionally.

Kurt thought he'd never looked more beautiful.

"I haven't slept in ages." He admitted. He pointed around Kurt at the woman, who was doing her best to look innocent. "Her children run on an unlimited supply of energy that I could never hope to recreate. Tommy is almost faster than me, and if Billy wants to run with the bulls again, I'm letting him go on his own."

"Pietro." The woman admonished, and Pietro groaned. "They look up to you."

"You take them running with the bulls, then, and I'll keep making sure they can eat."

"You're the only one who can keep up with Tommy, and you know it."

"Remy probably could." Pietro suggested.

"No. He never gets to babysit again." She glared at him, darkly. "Besides, you enjoy spending time with them, even though you pretend to moan about it." Pietro kicked her, gently, the motion pulling him closer to Kurt on the couch.

"What have I said about using telepathy to make me face my true feelings?" The woman snorted in amusement, and looked at Pietro pointedly.

"Now are you going to introduce me, or am I going to have to guess who's who?" Pietro rolled his eyes again, but he made a show of gesturing over to the woman, complete with a little bow.

"Guys, this is Wanda, my twin sister."

Kurt tried to keep from showing his utter relief at the words, but he wasn't sure it mattered, either, now that he knew that Wanda was a telepath. Pietro inhaled sharply, and Kurt looked over inquisitively. Pietro was gazing at him in what Kurt could really only describe as stunned shock. There was more emotion in his eyes than Kurt thought he'd ever seen Pietro show. Kurt's heart stumbled at the sight and he looked away.

"-really want to see if she can guess the rest of you." Warren was saying, as Kurt forced himself back to the present. Wanda jumped up from the couch and stood in the center of the little ring of furniture, surveying them. Kurt wondered how he could have possibly thought she was anyone else. Wanda was every bit Pietro's sister. He could see it in her face, now, in the way she held herself, in a million other habits he knew must have been picked up over a lifetime. Pietro shifted next to him, close enough now that Kurt could feel the warmth of his body beside him.

"Did you miss me?" Pietro asked, his voice pitched low enough that only Kurt could hear him. Kurt felt his cheeks heat.

"Probably more than Warren did." Kurt confirmed, glancing up at Pietro. Pietro's face glowed for a moment, a small but no less triumphant smile on his face.

"Good." He said.

#nightsliver #pietro maximoff #kurt wagner #xma pietro maximoff #kili writes x men #the boys were going to be a feature #but i liked how this ended as it is #they don't really get together in this but please remember that Wanda is a telepath and i've got that standing headcanon where they can hear #each other's thoughts #Wanda just showed him Kurt's inner monologue of 'fuck you if you're his wife but i'll be happy for him if he's married' #i hope you enjoy!! #also your tags on my last one were so on point like that's how Pietro knew which model he had without looking at the image inducer lol #there just wasn't a good place to explain that so i didn't #wix writes