Lines in the Sand: Chapter 4

An X-Men Evolution fanfic

“That was incredibly stupid,” Kitty said as she unwrapped a bandaid.

“Hey, I don’t need that,” Lance complained. She fixed him with a dull stare, and he gave in, holding out his arm. During the fight, one of Evan’s spikes had grazed his arm. Thankfully it stopped bleeding by the time he got home, but she didn’t trust him to take care of it properly.

They were sitting in the middle of the living room floor since no one had bothered to put the couch right-side up. Todd danced around them, celebrating their return to freedom, and Fred stood by the window, watching for Mystique’s return. After the way the fight had gone, no one doubted she would show up.

“We were expecting Wanda to be there,” Kitty continued, “and after what the professor–no, Mystique–no, I don’t know which of them–told us, we were, like, expecting to be fighting for our lives. You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“Nah,” Lance stretched his arms behind his head. “We could’ve totally taken you if we wanted to.”

He sounded awfully confident about that. Kitty raised an eyebrow, but couldn’t quite hide her grin. “It’s okay, Lance. It was six of us to three of you. You can just admit we beat you.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m telling you, we would have won if we wanted to. We just didn’t want to.”

“Yeah,” Todd said. “Since we lost, Mystique’ll decide we’re losers and she doesn’t want us no more!”

Kitty pursed her lips, but before she could say anything, Fred shouted, “She’s here!”

Lance and Kitty leapt to their feet, and Lance shoved her toward the hallway, saying, “closet, closet, closet.”

She phased into the closet and did her best to slow her breathing so it wouldn’t be quite so loud.

The door burst open. “What was that?"

“Hey, we did exactly what you told us to.” Kitty couldn’t see Lance, but she could picture that same stance and glare he always gave the football team when they picked on his friends. “It’s not our fault there’s so many more of them.”

“It wouldn’t have been a problem if Wanda were there. Where is she?”

“No idea,” Lance said.

“Yeah, she and Quickie skipped town.” That was Todd.

She could hear Mystique’s shoes cross the floor, and then a shadow passed in front of the closet door. Kitty held her breath until the thump against the wood let her know someone was leaning against it. From the creak of the wood, it was probably Fred. She made a mental note to thank him later.

“They left?" Mystique asked.

“Yep.”

“Wanda wanted to find her dad,” Fred explained. “Pietro decided to go too.”

“And you didn’t stop them?”

Lance snorted. “No thanks. I’d rather live.”

Mystique let out a frustrated yell. “I give you the perfect weapon, and you can’t even keep it!”

“So,” Todd asked. “What’s next? We looking for Magneto now?”

Kitty heard a thud, and then Todd yelped. She winced.

“You are done! You can’t even fight the X-Men. What could you do against Magneto?” The sound of her shoes trailed away, and then the door slammed.

Kitty counted to one hundred, then one hundred again, and then the closet door flew open. Lance smiled at her. “She’s gone.”

“Woohoo!” Todd leapt into the air and flipped. “We’re free! So long, Mystique! Can’t say it was nice knowin' you!”

Fred was still standing by the closet door, and Kitty smiled at him. “Thank you, Fred. I was so afraid she would try to open the door.”

Fred puffed up his chest. “Nobody can get past me.”

“Hey, Lance.” Todd hopped over. “You don’t think she’ll kick us out, do you?”

Lance shrugged. “I doubt she wants the place anymore. Especially since Tabby blew up her room.” His eyes widened and he looked around. “I gotta call Tabby and tell her she can come home.”

“Wait,” Kitty said, suddenly remembering, “if Mystique just left, then she’s probably going back to the mansion . . .”

Lance’s eyes widened. “You better go.”

She nodded. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

She leaned over to kiss his cheek. He turned his head as she leaned over, and she missed–accidentally kissing him right on the mouth. They both froze, just staring at each other, then she stepped back. She dropped her gaze and tucked her hair behind her ear.

Their first kiss, and she had just messed it up. “I want a do-over later, okay?”

“Um . . .”

She looked up and the dumbfounded look on his face made her giggle. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As she walked outside, she could hear Todd and Fred making kissy sounds and teasing him. She grinned as she shut the door behind her and started running home.

Evan picked up his backpack, which he had left on his bed, and tossed it against the wall. He didn’t bother to change out of his uniform before collapsing on the bed.

He didn’t even know why he asked. He had no reason to care why he hadn’t seen Pietro at the mall, except maybe to wonder if he was planning a sneak attack or something. But he had asked, and Toad–Toad said that, and now–

Now he didn’t know what to think.

He had left his door open, but someone knocked on the frame. He tilted his head slightly and spotted his aunt watching him, clearly worried.

“What?'

She stepped inside the room and sat on the chair by his desk. “Is something wrong? You didn’t seem yourself when you came in.”

“I’m fine.” He buried his face in the blankets. He was fine, just confused, and betrayed, and–

He shot up. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

Ororo stayed as calm as always. “Why didn’t who tell you what?”

“Pietro! He has a sister, and he just never told me! It’s not like it’s something you can just forget to mention!”

Her face grew sad. “From what Charles said, Wanda has been away for a very long time, and they haven’t been able to see each other. I’ve never been forced away from my sister like that, but I imagine it would be very hard. Perhaps . . . perhaps it was too painful to talk about.”

Evan stared down at the blankets. “I guess.”

All those years. All those years of being best friends and (he thought!) telling each other everything, just to have it all dashed in a single conversation. And Pietro hadn’t even had the decency to stick around so Evan could ask him about it.

And yeah, sure they weren’t friends anymore, and Evan had gotten used to that, but this just made him wonder, had they ever been?

Pietro dragged his feet along the sidewalk, just fast enough to keep Wanda in view. She had yelled at him several minutes ago to be quiet, and since he knew she could actually make him shut up, he decided to use silent methods to make his frustration clear.

Not that she cared.

Seriously, what was she trying to do? Did she think they’d just run into their dad on the street?

Ok, that was a terrifying thought actually, and he decided not to think about it.

The wind decided he wasn’t miserable enough, and started up again. He shivered. He had made his uniform to keep him cool when he was running, but right now, trudging down the street after his sister, he was freezing. He considered running off for a minute, just to get warm, but he was afraid Wanda would disappear as soon as he got out of sight.

At least she had her coat.

And to think they could have just finished off that test with the X-Men, and then been back at the warm boarding house for the night, but of course Lance had to go ruin that cause he was upset his girlfriend broke up with him.

And sure they would have had to stick with Mystique for a little while, but not for long! His dad was coming back soon and had plans for them. He said so, but of course Pietro wasn’t allowed to tell any of them that, so now he was stuck following his sister around town indefinitely.

Because that’s exactly what he wanted to be doing tonight.

They reached one of the few actually busy roads in Bayville, and Wanda hailed a cab.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“Just leave me alone.” She got in the cab, then shut the door in his face. He rolled his eyes and grabbed the handle to pull it open, but it was stuck. He pulled again, then noticed the rim of red around the door. Of course she was holding it shut with her powers.

She should know it wouldn’t be that easy to lose him.”

The cab drove off, and he ran after it, relieved to finally be able to warm up a bit. When the cab slowed down, he stopped and leaned against a lamppost to wait for her to get out. She glared when she saw him, but said nothing. She started walking down the street, and Pietro heaved a sigh and followed.

Then he got a good look at the buildings around them.

“Wait, you’re not going to our old house, are you?” She didn’t answer, but he didn’t need her to. He knew those streets.

“He doesn’t live there anymore. Hasn’t in a long time.” Not since Pietro turned thirteen and he could live alone with just the money sent for groceries every month. Money that would have been enough for any normal kid, but once his mutation kicked in . . . well, he still had a hard time remembering to eat sometimes.

Wanda stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Clearly she hadn’t considered the possibility that they might not live there anymore, even though Pietro had clearly been living at the boarding house for a while. Unfortunately this didn’t deter her long, and she turned to the left and kept walking.

Great. So they were just going to walk in a random direction all night. What fun.

It didn’t talk long for him to realize that wasn’t going to last.

She had started out at a pretty swift pace, which didn’t last long, but now her steps grew steadily slower. It sounded like she was breathing hard, and she reached out to touch the lamps and signposts they passed several times.

How long had it been since she walked this much? He couldn’t imagine she got much exercise at–at the place she lived before.

“If you’re getting tired, maybe we should stop.”

“I’m fine."

Why did she have to be so stubborn? “Well I’m tired. The people in these houses are tired. All the people still driving are tired too because it’s late, and we need rest."

She stopped. “Fine.”

“Great!” He clapped his hands together. “We’ll just head back to the boarding house, and–”

“No. You can go back, but I’m staying here.”

“But–”

She whirled around to face him. “No! I’m going to find our father, and I will make him pay!”

Pietro swallowed. Ok, clearly they weren’t going back to the Brotherhood for a while. “Fine. I have another idea, then.” She looked suspicious, but said nothing. He glanced around at the street signs. Somewhere around here, there should be–

There! He sped over to the hotel, ran inside, and when the girl behind the desk’s back was turned, grabbed a room key. Then he ran back outside to where Wanda waited. He held up the key for her.

She took it and frowned down at it. “What’s this?”

“A key for that hotel over there. Since we have that, we can just walk in, and no one will think anything of it. Nice, clean room for the night.”

Wanda turned the key over, considering, then handed it back. She didn’t seem against the idea, so he started to walk towards the hotel. To his surprise, she walked beside him.

As soon as the door opened, the girl behind the desk perked up, despite having looked half-asleep a moment before. The purple stripes in her hair reminded him of Rogue (though Rogue’s highlights were cooler), but he knew she would never be caught dead wearing that obviously-fake, chipper smile. “Did you have a good night?” the girl asked.

“It was great.” He smiled back and ushered Wanda towards the elevator.

The girl frowned slightly when she got a good look at them, and Pietro cursed his choice of costume once again. He’d been rather proud of the design when he first came up with it. Now he wished he had come up with literally anything else.

Then he realized she wasn’t looking at him.

“Do you have any other expression besides scowling?” he hissed when they got into the elevator. “We don’t need to give them any more reasons to pay attention to us.” Wanda just folded her arms and glared harder.

They found the room with the same number as the key, and he unlocked the door. Ahh, two large beds, a desk by the window, a tv, and a decent-sized bathroom. This was pretty nice actually. He locked the door behind them, dropped the key onto the desk, then collapsed onto one of the beds.

He tugged on the edge of the blankets, tucked tightly around the bed, and managed to squirm under them. “G’night,” he mumbled.

Fabric rustled as Wanda found somewhere to put her coat, then several somethings clinked against the nightstand. Probably her bracelets. She climbed into the other bed, then the light switch clicked off.

He was asleep within minutes.

Scott’s door was already cracked open, so Kitty just pushed it a little further. “Scott?”

He shot upright from where he had been laying his head on the desk. “Oh, Kitty, hi! Did you need something?”

She grimaced at the papers scattered over the floor. Clearly grading was not going so well. She carefully stepped over a couple as she made her way over to his desk. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

He frowned. “Is everything okay?”

Depends on whether you call Mystique spying on our every move “okay”, she thought to herself, but instead she said, “Probably, it’s just . . . did the professor seem strange to you tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, he seemed pretty upset that Wanda and Pietro weren’t at the mall.”

Scott shrugged. “I guess so, but he’s probably worried about her. Especially if she’s as powerful as he says and can’t control it, I’m sure he wants to find her as soon as he can.”

“But he also seemed really mad at the Brotherhood, even though they weren’t doing anything. You know that’s not normal.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, well, I’m pretty mad at them too. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and they wasted all our time for no reason. If that’s all you’re worried about, can we talk about it later? I really am busy.”

Kitty fidgeted with her necklace. “Yeah, I guess so. I hope the grading goes well.”

“Thanks.” He turned back to his work, and she slipped out of the room.

She went down to the kitchen to get a snack before bed. When she got there and saw who else was awake, she perked up.

“Hey, Half-Pint. Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Logan asked.

She grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, then joined him at the counter. “I’ll go to bed in a minute. I was wondering, did you think the professor was acting weird today?”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, like, he seemed weirdly mad today. He was mad about the Brotherhood even though they weren’t really doing anything besides hanging around the mall, he seemed mad that we beat them, and he was mad that Wanda and Pietro disappeared. I know he’s probably worried, but it felt strange to me.”

Logan looked thoughtful, and she decided to push a little harder. “He almost seemed like a different person tonight!”

He stiffened and frowned. Kitty took a bite of her apple and let him think for a minute. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it was nothing.”

From the look on his face, he didn’t believe that anymore than she did.

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