The sterile silence of the infirmary was broken only by the faint, rhythmic beep of machines and the mechanical chorus of life barely clinging to its edge with Magneto hooked to the various equipments. Wanda sat quietly by her father's bedside, Magneto's still form as unmoving as the mountain beneath a sea. It had been over a month since the battle at Havelstadt, and he hadn't stirred.
With delicate fingers, she brushed a loose strand of silver hair from his forehead. Her eyes, tired and full of pain, watched his pale face. "Why won't you wake up…" she whispered, voice cracking with emotion. "After all these years… I finally got you back. You and Pietro. And now you just… won't wake up."
She lowered her head, her hands behind it as if trying to hold the weight of her grief together. Her voice was muffled, but thick with sorrow.
"Why wouldn't you just wake up father…?"
There were voices outside the door moving close to the infirmary, low and urgent ones. She thought she heard one say Mystique, and lifted her head slightly.
"No, not yet. She's not—" came a hushed response, just before the door creaked open.
Wanda straightened as the door slid open and Mystique entered mid-sentence, abruptly cutting off when she spotted Wanda sitting beside Magneto.
Behind her stood Pietro, arms crossed, expression tight. Wanda's gaze flicked between the two of them, noting the shift in Mystique's tone, her wariness.
'They're hiding something…again', she thought as she narrowed her eyes at her brother.
"Sister," Pietro said gently. "You're still here, did you get any sleep?."
"No, I wanted to keep him company," Wanda replied quietly, eyes returning to their father.
Mystique stepped forward, her voice even but faintly edged. "The doctors… they're not sure if he'll ever wake up," she said. "The strain on his body was too much. I fear that…"
Wanda looked up sharply, warning in her eyes. Mystique met her stare calmly, then moved in and knelt beside her, wrapping her arms around the girl, pressing Wanda's head gently against her chest.
"But we won't give up hope," she murmured, stroking her hair. "They'll keep trying."
Pietro glanced at Mystique oddly for a moment, before turning to his father's unconscious body. His fists clenched.
"This is all their fault," he muttered.
Wanda looked up. "What?"
"The X-Men," he snapped. "It's always them. They've always stood in Father's way. Every. Single. Time."
Wanda's brows furrowed in confusion. "What do you mean?"
She had been locked away for so long… the full scope of her father's crusade, the politics between mutants and humans, it was all new to her.
Pietro turned fully toward her. "It's always been like this between them and father. Father tries to help our kind, to save us. He fights for us. But the X-Men? They take the humans' side. Always. Even when they butcher our kind, experiment on us like pigs and even when they burn our homes, when they drag us through the mud. The X-Men always protects them. Them.The ones who'd rather see us extinct."
Wanda's fingers twitched. Her hands slowly curled into tight fists.
The door swung open again, this time letting in Lance, Blob, Toad, Pyro, and Sabretooth. They filtered in silently, drawn by Pietro's heated voice.
"And now look at him," Pietro gestured to Magneto. "All he wanted was peace for mutants. A world where we didn't have to crawl. And for that… they destroyed him."
Mystique's eyes narrowed slightly. 'Where is he going with this?'
"They always screw things up," Pietro continued. "And now that Father's down maybe for good who's going to save us? Who's going to protect us when they all decide to do away with us?"
"So what are we going to do about it?" Pyro asked, fire already flickering in his palm.
Pietro turned toward Wanda first.
She hadn't moved since he began speaking, but her face was stone eyes distant, almost glowing. Pietro thought he saw it as a flash, brief and red, deep in her irises.
Then he looked to Raven who frowned at what he was driving at and then back to his sister and asked, "What do you want, sister?"
Wanda finally looked up. Her voice was calm.
"I want them to pay for what they've done."
Mystique's eyes briefly flicked down as something caught her attention. Something shimmered at Wanda's feet a faint flow of red energy, snaking beneath her leg like a wisp of smoke, It pulsed once almost imperceptible to everyone and she would have missed it if you wasn't standing behind the girl.
'What the…?'
"Uh… guys?" Lance said suddenly, a nervous edge in his voice. "Maybe we should calm down a bit and think this through."
"Calm down?" Pyro snapped. "Calm down?!They nearly killed the boss! Look at him!"
"Exactly, you stupid hothead!" Lance exploded, stepping forward. "THEY did that to our boss! Tell me what fucking chance do we have against them?! Against that freak with white hair who wiped the floor with him and then proceeded to fucking nuke that entire city because last time I checked that wasn't part of the boss's powers?!"
"Now, unless your powers have fried all the damn cells in your fucking brain Pyro, I suggest you use it for once in your life and actually THINK!"
Mystique finally raised her voice, cool and cutting. "At least one of you is sensible."
She turned to them all.
"There's nothing you can do against the X-Men right now. In case you've forgotten, they always win. And if you rush in now, you'll just end up like him." She gestured to Magneto.
"But…" her tone softened as she turned to Wanda. "If we wait… if we plan… then yes, they will get what's coming to them."
Wanda's hand shot out, gripping Mystique's wrist tightly. "No," she said through her teeth. "I want them to pay now."
A pulse of red surged silently from Wanda's feet and straight into Mystique.
Mystique's eyes fluttered for a second and flashed crimson.
Everyone stared without noticing what just happened.
Mystique's gaze steadied. She blinked once… then looked at Wanda.
"You're right," she said calmly, to everyone's shock.
Lance looked at her in disbelief. "Wait What?!"
Mystique's expression hardened. "They do need to pay. And now… while they're distracted… while they're overconfident this is the perfect time to strike."
There was a quiet hush.
Lance took a step back. "O-Okay, but… what about the white-haired freak? The one who literally defeated Magneto? What are we supposed to do about him?"
'What the fuck is happening?'
Mystique smiled slowly.
"Oh, I think I have just the solution… for little Gojo."
Her eyes glinted bright crimson.
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