"Let's begin the training," Pietro said, rubbing his hands together. "I cannot wait to run faster than the speed of light."
He stood up confidently from the chair.
CRACK.
Pietro was across the room in a blink, one shoulder buried in the already-dented storage cabinet, legs tangled beneath him.
"—I was just trying to stand," he groaned from the floor
Elena doubled over laughing.
Winky shook her head. She popped across the room, healed the fresh bruises with a wave of her hand, and then simply lifted Pietro into the air with a flick of her fingers. He floated three feet off the ground, arms and legs dangling, looking deeply undignified.
"Winky will carry Master Pietro upstairs," she announced. "Until Master Pietro learns to walk again, he is not to be trusted with his own legs."
"Put me down, Winky."
"No."
"Winky, come on."
"No."
Pietro hung helplessly in the air, spinning slowly in place. Elena was practically crying with laughter. Even Eileen had a hand pressed over her mouth to hide a smile.
Arthur let it play out for a moment. Then he spoke.
"Wait. It is not time to leave the workshop yet."
Everyone stopped. Pietro twisted in mid-air to look at him. His grin vanished. "What? What is wrong? Is my superpower temporary? Please tell me it is not temporary."
"Nothing is wrong with you, Pietro. You are perfectly fine."
"Then what—"
"Wanda," Arthur said, looking past the floating speedster to his sister in the doorway. "It is your turn to sit in the chair."
Wanda stared at him, her eyes widening. "Me? But I already have powers."
"Yes you do," Arthur agreed. "And it is strong. But chaos energy should not manifest as simple telekinesis alone. That has never made sense to me. It is something far older and infinitely more complex than pushing objects with your mind." He paused. "I think something has been limiting you. The same way something was limiting Pietro."
Wanda was quiet. She had felt it too, for years. The sense that her magic was the tip of something vast. That the scarlet energy she pushed outward was only what managed to leak through a gap she could never widen.
"Just do it, sis," Pietro encouraged from mid-air. "It does not hurt at all. And if I got superspeed, imagine what is buried under your powers." He grinned. "Or do you want me to be the stronger twin now?"
"So you admit I was stronger than you before?"
"It was obvious. But things are different now. I am the fastest man alive."
Wanda smiled. She looked at Arthur one more time. He waited patiently. He would not push her. This had to be her choice.
"Alright," she said. "Let's do it."
Everyone settled back in. Elena climbed onto her stool. Tristan returned to his spot by the workbench. Eileen leaned against the wall. Winky placed Pietro gently on the floor, where he sat cross-legged and stayed very still.
Wanda sat in the chair. Arthur stepped back and strengthened the containment field around her.
The Mind Stone immediately turned its attention to Wanda.
Its reaction was different from Pietro's. With Pietro, the Stone had been eager. Immediate. With Wanda, it was something else entirely. The golden light softened to a warm amber. The Stone drifted toward her slowly, almost carefully, as though approaching something it recognised. Something it respected.
The light settled gently over Wanda.
Where Pietro had felt nothing, Wanda felt everything.
The scarlet energy behind her eyes erupted. Not outward. Inward. Deeper than she had ever been able to reach. She gasped. Her hands gripped the armrests. Scarlet tendrils spiralled up her forearms, coiling and uncoiling like living things.
Arthur watched with absolute focus. Eve's readings were spiking in patterns unlike anything from Pietro. The Stone was not just opening a door in Wanda. It was revealing an entire building behind it.
The light peaked. Held. Then it settled, sinking completely into her skin.
Wanda opened her eyes. They glowed a vibrant, terrifying red for a long moment before fading back to their natural dark brown.
"How do you feel?" Arthur asked.
Wanda flexed her fingers. Threads of scarlet light wove between them. She looked down at them and whispered, "Powerful."
"Come on, sis," Pietro called from the floor. "Let us see a demo."
Wanda raised her hand. Scarlet light gathered instantly at her fingertips, burning brighter than it had ever been before. She pushed her mind gently forward, the way she always did, reaching for the familiar shape of her telekinesis.
Something else answered the call.
The scarlet light erupted from her hand in a wave that filled the containment field wall to wall. But it was not telekinesis. It was raw, unadulterated power - vast, ancient, and completely uncontrolled. The containment field buckled. Cracks of red light spidered across the invisible barrier.
Elena yelped in surprise. Winky popped in front of Eileen and the children instantly, ready to handle whatever came next.
But there was no need to worry. Arthur moved.
He slammed both palms hard against the fracturing containment field and reinforced it with three overlapping layers of Ancient Magic. The scarlet energy pressed outward, testing the reinforced walls, searching desperately for a way through, but kept failing against Arthur's field.
"Wanda," Arthur said calmly, his voice cutting through the roar of energy. "Pull it back."
Wanda's eyes were wide with panic. Her hands were shaking. The power was so much bigger than anything she had ever felt. It was like trying to hold an ocean in a cup.
"I cannot—"
"You can," Arthur commanded firmly. "You have been training and controlling your power for years. This is the same muscle. It is just heavier now. Breathe. Find the centre. Pull it back in."
Wanda gritted her teeth. She closed her eyes tightly and concentrated everything she had.
The energy resisted at first, thrashing against the walls. But then, as Wanda forced her will down upon it, it slowly started to yield. The scarlet wave collapsed inward, folding back into her body layer by layer, until the last scarlet threads sank beneath her skin and the workshop was still once more.
Wanda sat slumped in the chair, breathing hard. Her hands were trembling. The containment field was scorched but intact.
Arthur released the barrier and straightened up. He looked at Wanda. She looked back at him, pale and visibly shaken, but sitting upright.
"I did it," she whispered.
"You did." Arthur nodded slowly, pride in his eyes. "But you will need serious training before you try that again. Your old power was a candle. What you have now is a raging inferno. Same principle. Very different scale."
Wanda looked at her hands. The scarlet light was gone, but she could feel it underneath her skin. Waiting. Patient. Enormous.
"When do we start?" she asked.
"Tomorrow," Arthur said. "Today, you rest."
—
Arthur looked around the workshop at his family. Both twins were fully enhanced. Both were safe. He turned to Eileen, who was still leaning against the wall, and smiled softly.
"Want to try next?"
The question was light. Half a joke. But Eileen's response was not what anyone expected.
"Why would I need to?" Eileen said calmly. "I already have a superpower."
The room went dead silent.
Arthur stared at his wife, genuinely baffled.
"What?" he said.
Elena jumped off the stool and ran to Eileen, grabbing her arm excitedly. "Mum, you have powers? What powers? Since when? Can you fly? Can you shoot laser things? Why did you never tell us?!"
Tristan was right behind his sister, his eyes wide. "What kind of powers, Mum?"
Pietro was back on his feet. "Are you serious right now?"
Even Wanda had uncurled from the chair, scarlet light forgotten, staring at Eileen with open shock.
Arthur searched Eileen's face. He had scanned her with every diagnostic tool and every magical sense he possessed over the years. He had never detected a single thing.
"Eileen," he said carefully. "What are you talking about?"
Eileen looked at the circle of stunned faces around her. Her husband. Her children. Winky. All of them were staring at her as though she had just sprouted wings.
She let the silence hold for exactly the right amount of time. Then, she smiled radiantly.
"I am a summoner."
Pietro blinked. "A summoner? Like in the video games?"
"Exactly like in the video games." Eileen's smile widened. "My superpower is that I can summon the most powerful knight in the universe to protect me with a single phone call. Or just by shouting his name." She leaned over and kissed Arthur on the cheek. "Works perfectly every single time. Never, ever fails."
The room processed this.
Pietro groaned loudly, burying his face in his hands. "That is the cheesiest thing I have ever heard in my life."
Elena's hopeful face fell flat. "That is not a real superpower! You got me all excited for nothing!"
"On the contrary," Eileen said, entirely unbothered. "It is the most reliable power in this room. All your powers need training and control. While my power needs none of those. Mine just needed me to use my charm exactly once."
Arthur was laughing. Properly laughing. He could not remember the last time someone had caught him this completely off guard. He had spent decades reading people, predicting outcomes, staying three steps ahead. His wife had just blindsided him in his own workshop.
"I never imagined," Arthur said, shaking his head with a wide grin, "that I would one day be reduced to a summon."
Eileen patted his arm affectionately. "If it makes you feel any better, dear, you are my most powerful summon. Absolute top of the roster."
"Who else is on the roster?" Elena demanded, crossing her arms.
Eileen held up her fingers and began counting. "Well, there is Winky." Winky straightened with pride. "Ariadne. Tony. Hulk. The Potters and the Blacks." She looked fondly at Pietro and Wanda. "And my two newest, very shiny additions."
"You are just listing people you can call for help," Pietro pointed out flatly.
"Is that not exactly what a summoner does?"
Pietro opened his mouth to argue. Closed it. Opened it again. "I give up."
Elena tugged at Eileen's sleeve. "Am I a summon?"
Tristan looked up at Eileen with the same question written quietly across his face.
Eileen crouched down so she was at their eye level. Her voice softened. "You two are my most important summons. The ones I keep closest to my heart. The ones I would never trade for anyone in the universe."
Elena beamed brightly. Tristan nodded, satisfied with his rank.
Arthur let the warmth of the beautiful moment settle over the room. Then he spoke, his voice much quieter now.
"Jokes aside, Eileen. Are you sure? I have always felt there might be something special in you. Something dormant. The Stone could easily help bring it out safely."
The lightness in Eileen's expression did not disappear, but something more serious moved underneath it. She looked at the Mind Stone floating in its golden light.
"I am sure," she said firmly. "I do not need powers. And beyond that, I have a feeling I should not try anything right now. I cannot explain it. Call it intuition."
Arthur studied her face. In his experience, across two lifetimes and a hundred impossible situations, intuition was rarely wrong. Especially from someone as grounded as Eileen.
He nodded. "Then we leave it."
Eileen smiled at him, and the matter was closed.
The quiet lasted three seconds.
"My turn next!" Elena declared, already sliding off her stool.
"No," Arthur said.
"But—"
"You are too young, Ele. When you are much older."
"How much older?"
Arthur glanced sideways at Eileen. "Your mother will decide when the time is right."
Elena and Tristan turned toward Eileen with matching expressions of urgent negotiation. Eileen looked back at them with the serene, immovable smile of a woman who now held the keys to her children's futures and intended to use that leverage wisely.
She said nothing. She did not need to.
Elena's shoulders slumped. "That is worse than a no."