The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Forty One (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… 3, 2, 1 HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena get loads of sparkled muse kibble for archiving/hosting. ProPhile: *poke * Morgan: I still like it… Readers/Reviewers: *huggles * Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!

“Has anyone ever told you that you have the worst timing ever?”
“Fuck a light socket, Speedy,” Wanda said under her breath as Pietro led her down the`lall. The atmosphere was tense, to say the least. Already, she had seen signs of Fred being there—piles of junk food wrappers, deep depressions in the chair cushions… She wondered if Tarot and the blonde who’s name she could never remember had been dragged into this as well. “So what is it this time? Some massive plan involving the clever use of flags?”1
Pietro gave her a look that said butter would not melt in his mouth.2 “You have no idea,” he muttered, stopping before a smooth metal door and rapping sharply. After a long pause, the door swung open to a large room, appointed as a comfortable sitting room but marred by the presence of a large bank of monitors and a control panel that ran the length of the room. “Father,” Pietro began, only to have Magneto silence him with a flick of his wrist.
Wanda jerked her chin, narrowing her eyes at her father. “Come at a bad time?” she asked sweetly, wishing that she had not been so careless in leaving Tabby. Magneto was as imposing as ever, despite being shorter than she remembered and visibly thinner, as if he were recovering from a lengthy illness. She was no longer blocking the majority of the powers around her, but she still felt weak as a kitten.
Magneto smiled coolly, his brows arching incrementally. “I appreciate the effort it took for you to come here… How on earth did you ever afford the plane ticket?”
“I just used my broom,” she replied tartly, folding her arms across her chest.
That earned her a slight inclination of his head. “What I am mystified about,” he continued as if she had not spoken, “is just why you’re here. Last we spoke, you seemed rather off the idea of helping your own father and his cause.”
“You make it sound like a fucking bake sale,” she muttered, turning her back on him and starting to pace the room, looking at the walls and control panels as if she knew what she was seeing. “You never did tell me just why you wanted your own flesh and blood to help you… Just used us.” She glanced at Pietro and added, “Both of us.”
Pietro did not even twitch. He stared at Magneto as if awaiting confirmation, but inwardly, he was wounded. He had felt for a very long time that his father would not have given him a second thought if he had not been useful to him in some way. Tarot had brushed it off, saying his longing for some sort of familial concern was cute but not necessary to current events in their lives. He had closed her out, too, she pointed out. Pietro bit his tongue on the fact that Magneto was his father, not hers, his kin, not hers, his childhood hero, not hers… She would not have understood, he knew. But at Wanda’s words, it was the hardest thing for him not to burst out with a childish cry of “Prove it!” Instead, he waited to see Magneto’s reaction. His father simply shrugged, elegantly and noncommittally. “Wanda,” Pietro said, forced by some inner need to prove her wrong, “he wants us with him because we’re family. Because he knows the world he’s making will be better…”
“Oh, holy hell, you sound like a Moony,”3 she replied, disgusted. She was not sure but she thought that her brother colored slightly at this accusation.
“How is my grandson?” Magneto asked lightly, switching subjects with ease. “I haven’t seen him in weeks.”
Wanda felt her eyes grow wide and a chill race down her spine. She had never brought Lucas to see him nor had she ever taken him to see Pietro. As far as she knew, Lucas was simply a theory to the two of them, something they heard existed but had never really seen proof of. “Why do you ask?”
“I was disappointed,” he continued more loudly, as if to drown out her voice, “that his blood sample proved him to be ineligible to help me in my quest to return to my former health. But no matter. I have found a donor.” He nodded to Mesmero, who pressed a short series of buttons on the console under the monitors. Wanda blinked as Remy’s face popped into view. The camera pulled back slightly and showed him walking through Logan Airport in Boston, a baby on his hip and keys to a rental car in his hand. “Silly boy… he only sees the obvious. Not a good thing for a master thief.”
Wanda did not know how to respond. She did not know Remy well but she had thought he was with the Institute lot now, not working for her father in any way, shape or form. Magneto’s assessment of him only left her more confused. “You can’t hurt a baby,” she snapped.
“I don’t plan on touching a hair on her head,” he assured her smoothly. “These children, however…” Mesmero tapped in some more codes and the entire bank of monitors became one large picture. “They are most likely going to die. It’s a shame as I think some of them had great potential.”
“What the…” Pietro swallowed the rest of his words. He knew that his father had some plan but he had never imagined it was this big.
“Sentinels, my son. And they are ever watchful.”
Wanda felt as if she were about to faint. “You’re infuckingsane!”
“Tarot, silence her. Pietro, ready the plane. I want to be there for the final denouement.”


1 From an Eddie Izzard routine about how Britain was building an empire through the clever use of flags… The man is the funniest comedian I’ve ever heard almost. So go listen to him. Laugh. *waits* Okay, back? On with the story.
2 That’s a cold, hard look, poppets.
3 Moonies are followers of Reverend Moon. It’s a cult, really.