Sünden des Vaters

Posted on Mon Jul 8th, 2024 @ 10:10am by Erik Magnus Lehnsherr & Pietro Maximoff

2,244 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Episode 4: The Savage ConneXion
Location: Asteroid M
Timeline: September 23, 1990

Pietro had offered Magneto some space following his return to Asteroid M with the snot-nosed X-Men. He had expected a meeting or a briefing to review what had happened in the Savage Land but nothing came. He anticipated some call to arms or for the next mission to begin and once again, nothing came.

Pietro hated waiting.

So when another day had passed and the only news about the Savage Land that had been provided was by Xavier’s children, a different kind of anger overcame him. Quicksilver could no longer remain idle. So, he took matters into his own hands and ventured into the private quarters of Erik Lehnsherr. An act that was considered taboo for any member of the Brotherhood or citizen of Asteroid M.

“Father!” Pietro was intentional with his title for Magneto. His relationship to the Master of Magnetism was a known but often disregarded connection. Aside from the handful of times when Quicksilver was given a few more liberties than most, like daring to invade his personal space.

“Father!” he called out yet again as he made his way through Magneto’s living space. Like everything in Asteroid M, it was made of metal. But this space was far more grand than anyone else’s quarters. Vaulted ceilings and windows that spanned the entire wall, the steel and iron that made up the buildings here had been bent and molded into a sleek and modern space. But the featured piece in this living space was the oversized head of the Sentinel Master Mold. Displayed like the trophy it was for Magneto alone.

“Father!” Pietro’s building rage was reflected in his cry, a tinge of anger in this shout. “Show yourself! We need to talk.”

A metallic iris opened in the ceiling overhead. Magneto descended from his most private sleeping area with one knee slightly bent and hair tossed about loose and free. He wore a sleek, silken garment resembling a kimono that shimmered with silver rivets against the off white fabric. The look on his face could have hewn stone.

“Tell me war has been declared,” he said with diction sharp and crisp, “Otherwise I believe I will become very cross in short order.”

“Then we shall both be cross.” Pietro squared his shoulders as Magneto appeared. That proud stance and gaze of superiority, out of all his children Quicksilver looked the most like him. “It’s been days and you haven’t addressed anything about Lorna’s disappearance. What are you going to do about it?”

Magneto lowered his chin to better stare down his nose at Pietro. Hovering overhead made it all the more dramatically imperative.

“Lorna is beyond our grasp,” Magneto said curtly. “For now. That is all anyone need know. More pressing matters are at hand which wait not for funeral wakes or temper tantrums in their demand for resolution.” His brow flared with a touch of curious condescension on top of his annoyance at Pietro’s intrusion. “Out of all my children, you were always the one I expected to understand the need for urgent action.”

“She is my sister. They are both my sisters. They are blood.” Pietro made a fist in response to Magneto’s words. This excuse was almost identical to the one that had been provided after Wanda’s disappearance. “Of all the things you hold most dear, your children should be one of them. Yet your need for power and your need for supremacy are your main objectives.” Pietro braced and prepared himself before he continued, knowing that his words would result in retaliation. “What don’t you just say it?! You can’t do it, it’s not a matter of urgency, it’s a matter of inadequacy!”

As Pietro spoke, Magneto's head slowly cocked to one side until he eyed him like a bird of prey. The scowl on his face hardened to match the bust of himself that stood opposite from Master Mold’s severed head. There was no love in his eyes when he spoke next, only pain and anger.

“If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you…” Magneto did not pause as he rotated around to face the reinforced alumino-silicate glass panes that allowed for floor to ceiling windows in his living space. Iron manacles flew from the corners of the large open room and shackled Pietro by the wrists and ankles, hoisting him into the air where he was dragged as if by an invisible leash.

“That is the principal difference between a dog and a man.” While he continued speaking, Magneto waved two fingers forward.

The iron manacles flung Pietro against the solar glass like a bug on a windshield.

“Mark Twain said that,” Magneto went on to say, hovering behind Pietro while sharing the same overlook of Earth and the blazing sun beyond it. “He knew something of dogs and river trash and assorted dregs of society. From here, I look down upon our eternal enemies and fight to safeguard the one and only bastion of security our kind has available to us. The work it took to get here began before I ever spawned you and your sisters. It will outlast us all.”

After allowing Pietro a long, hard look of the void of space and the planet below, Magneto flipped him around and slammed his back against the glass hard enough to shake the triple paned barrier. The manacles pulled Pietro's wrists and ankles apart in a spread eagle position.

“Since I left you as my steward to watch over this sanctuary during my latest expedition, I need not lecture you on the elements within which threaten our safety as surely as those down below.” Lowering himself to the ground so that he could stare his son in the eye, Magneto leaned in quite close. “If Magda had not hidden you from me that I might raise you as my own, you would not be bereft of the one abiding virtue above all else…” The next words were spoken in a slow and emphatic cadence. “Manners…maketh…man.”

Turning around, Magneto gave his back to Pietro, even folding his hands behind his waist as he assumed a more regal position.

“Now. Is there something you wanted to tell me, Pietro?” His tone had mellowed but somehow his words were even hotter for it. “Think carefully and choose your words even more so.”

Pietro shook from the anger that coursed through him, he was no stranger to Magneto's corporal punishment or his demeaning words. But something inside of him was beginning to bend in strain, that mounding pressure made him bold and foolish.

“I am not lesser because I love people.” Quicksilver refused to look away from Magneto, that same cold and steely stare shared between them. “You watched how many families die in Auschwitz? Do you remember how your father screamed like a lamb at the slaughter? You do these great things so that will never happen again. But to deny your family, your own blood, the chance to reveal in it… it is a betrayal to all those Jews who died by Nazi hands. Any one of them would think you a monster for ignoring your own children’s pain. Wanda is missing, your most powerful and capable child. Lorna has been dragged to Hell by the hands of demons. Help me find them, Father, bring back your family so they too are no longer victims of a world that hates and fears them.”

At first Magneto said nothing. He stood still and unmoving while he filled to the brim with rage.

“You scurrying little insect…” Magneto seethed as he turned around. “Speaking to me of failure when Wanda was taken under your watch and has eluded even your witless searching. You dash about in your tunnels and warrens thinking that is the sum total of the world, never stopping to look above the picture before you to see the grander scheme and design of how this epoch truly functions. Have I taught you nothing? Were my lessons in vain?” He poked his own temple with two fingers. “Think, Pietro! At the first sign of an electromagnetic disturbance, where did I go? I took my rival's army into the path of destruction in hopes of saving my flesh and blood because she had spurned me for them. I would have traded every last one of them for her.”

The iron manacles fell to the ground with a flatter, leaving Pietro to drop with them.

“If I knew where Wanda was, no power on Earth would stop me from claiming her. Were I not at my weakest, perhaps I would have succeeded with Lorna…” His wroth words twisted his mouth into a sneer. “...but I made that evil woman pay dearly with her own wretched life.” It was a cold comfort that did nothing to alleviate his own grief. His ire turned cold and weary. “That will suffice until another opportunity comes. It must.” He dry swallowed the grief that had fueled his fury a moment ago. “Until then, I have the future of an entire species to defend.”

“So I am to be satisfied with a madwoman’s death and to wait until a worthy opportunity presents itself to you.” Pietro hissed through gritted teeth. “I have been across the globe looking for Wanda and defeated anyone that stood in my way. I just now returned from Asia and no one could stop me. The Black Widow, Zheng Zu, Sunfire they all bent a knee to me and answered every question I asked. You taught me to take what is owed and what is deserved. I deserve to have my sisters back. So I will continue to scurry and dash across that miserable planet because I learn something new each time I venture out there. I’m not just waiting for the answers to find me…”

Pietro paused, he knew he should stop but at this moment he didn’t care anymore. For too long had he been silent and compliant as day after day passed and Wanda was still gone. “At least Xavier gave me a list of locations, confirmation that the government didn’t take her. When you found a lead for Lorna, you went alone in the night. You didn’t even consider me, that I would give a damn. We could have been successful if you had brought me with you… your trip to the Savage Land had nothing to do with Lorna and everything to do with yourself.”

“Take a long look at me,” Magneto said with imperious disdain, “and a long look at you, then tell me which one of us has anything to show for our efforts.” He flicked the tip of Pietro's nose. “The fact you are here now in this pathetic display of insolence is answer enough. What I did was to protect you and to preserve our legacy. I will lead us to victory. I will bring my children home. And I don't need your sniveling, whinging admonition to do it.” Holding his head high, Magneto lifted up from the ground. “You will follow orders, unless you wish to challenge me. I assume your intent is not to challenge me?”

“No, Magneto.” The cold formality returned to Quicksilver’s voice. “I do not want your iron throne or your kingdom in the sky. I merely want my sisters to come home. I will follow your orders because I believe in the cause.”

“I wish I could believe that.” Magneto shook his head in disgust. “You speak to me of sacrifice. You dare mention the slaughter of my people. Yet you cannot abide even the mere absence of loved ones you may yet see again.” He spat on the floor. “You are weak. If you truly loved your family, you would not fight with me now. You would redouble your efforts to make a world worthy of their return. Get out of my sight until you prove yourself to be my heir!”

The metal plating beneath Pietro's feet twisted at a molecular level to vault him upward on a twisted pedestal to stand eye to eye with Magneto. He teetered on both feet.

“And if you ever again speak so of my murdered Vati, son or no son, I will rip out your tongue.” Magneto sent the metal plating back to its base form as he rose back through the opening on the ceiling from which he'd alighted.

“He was my family too. But that factor doesn’t play into your narrative, does it?” Pietro’s eyes narrowed in contempt as Magneto departed for his bedroom. Their relationship was a matter of convenience for the Master of Magnetism, to be given and taken away as it suited him and him alone. It was in moments like this that he missed Wanda the most because she understood exactly what this felt like. But she was gone, maybe forever. Pietro was stuck here, with the one and only person who could help him. If he wanted to find Wanda or Lorna, he would have to play by Magneto’s rules. Stuffing down the anger and loneliness that filled him, Quicksilver returned to his dutiful role as a member of the Brotherhood.

“I await your next orders.” And just as Magneto had requested, he was gone in a blur of silver and blue.

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