A Change Is Gonna Come

[swiftargyros]

Characters: Hank McCoy, Wanda Frank, Pietro Maximoff
Date & Time: September 30th, mid-morning
Setting: NYC
Summary: Those first steps are always a doozy.
Rating: PG-13 but subject to change
Status: Semi-Closed

Comments

[chaosmagus]

Wanda flung the bathroom door open and padded barefoot out into the room she was sharing with Pietro, drawing her hair back into a loose braid. Showers had become a thoroughly enjoyable occurrence, and she took full advantage of again having access to one again. It was taking some getting used to, this... cohabitation with a surprisingly familiar stranger. It was a comfortable partnership, all things considered, but having someone almost constantly around was something that had begun to grate at her in increments. Caution made her venturing outside a careful affair; but they did need money, and until she could get back to her usual place of residence it was up to her and her abilities to get it

[swiftargyros]

It was a strange sensation, being able to read another when you'd known them for little more than a fortnight. Pietro had charted the expressions that danced across his parent's faces as he grew, cataloging each nuance of muscle and tilted angle until they had become like a secret language that he could decipher in an instance. That was an acquired art, the possessive right of all children to determine. But Wanda...he couldn't have recited many facts about his new companion but he understood her as intimately as he did Mama and Papa. It was disconcerting. Pietro was not the sort to believe in soulmates, no matter what the Old Ones in the gypsy camp had taught; but for the first time in the scope of his existence, he felt as though he were one of a pair of bookends and that the whirlwind of a woman marching toward him stood at the other end of the shelf

[chaosmagus]

Wanda frowned thoughtfully down at the image for a long moment, before slamming a hand on top of it. She clenched her fist, crumpling the paper (somewhere, in what passed for the living room, a lamp sparked and died with a sudden, violent pop) before she flung it off to one side. There were more. Not that she was surprised, but it angered her as much as it worried her.

“They’re дрзак, for robots. Or perhaps it’s the puppeteers behind them that are. Regardless, they seem незабринут with being seen now. Else it was just where their prey led them and the mission is more important than witnesses.” She’d found that, since spending so much time with Pietro, more and more Serbian was slipping into her speech without any sort of conscious thought behind it

[swiftargyros]

When he had first left home, his mother's favourite scarf (the one made of pale grey thread like smoke, embroidered with tiny birds in a thousand different shades of blue so that one was dizzy with the brilliance of soaring just by looking at it) wrapped carefully around a bundle of brittle photographs at the bottom of his bag, Pietro's hair had been down to his shoulders, a wispy-bright tangle of silver sea grass that curled lazily as though permanently windswept. It had always been long and pale as dust. As a boy his locks had been so blonde as to be white and Old Nan the storyteller, her gnarled limbs and nutbrown-creased skin a testimony to the many years she had worked into the soles of her tiny, twisted feet, had called him their little Norse wanderer. She'd been the first to know he was different

[chaosmagus]

Wanda could read the nuances in his expression as he tamped down on the dissent rising in his mind. And as she watched the emotions flicker minutely across his facial features, she wondered again how it was she could know him well enough to read him so clearly. Yes, she hadn’t a problem reading someone like her father, or Clint. Even Cap. But she had known the three of them far longer than she had known Pietro. And somehow...

Frowning, she studied him thoughtfully as he raked a hand through his now-brown hair. It really didn’t suit him. He seemed... wrong, somehow, with brown hair. Granted, he was far more unrecognizable now, which was the whole point of this endeavour. But still... it wasn’t HIM.

She shook her head, chuckling quietly as she crossed to her bed and retrieved her own coat. “Имате значајну предност када је у питању брзина, Pietro,” she told him, sliding into the red leather trench as she made her way toward the door. It was time to leave.

[swiftargyros]

"Prednost? To je nipodaštavajući, ljubavi," Pietro offered a sidelong grin as he held the door open for Wanda and followed after, shutting it and taking the time to secure the lock out of habit. From his jacket pocket he retrieved his cap and tugged it on, giving it a low pull so that it covered up his tragic hair. "Ono što sam je nerazblažen talenat."Even only knowing Wanda for a short time was enough to ensure that Pietro instinctively dodged the lighthearted smack aimed for his shoulder. On lithe feet the man twisted around her, merriment sparkling in his light eyes. That was always the way with Pietro: he flit from one corner of the spectrum to the next just as deftly as he soared along the earth, trading worry for a focused ease in a matter of minutes. Certainly he still maintained a very real sense of the precariousness of their situation, but Pietro had long ago learned to seize what joy there was in small moments of peace. One never knew when the next strike would fall and without a breath to tide the body over, drowning

[chaosmagus]

Wanda laughed, a bright, sharp sound in the mid-morning air. He dodged her light-hearted swat to his shoulder, but she had somewhat expected that. “Некако мислим да ћете преживети мало потцењивачки. Шта са неразређен таленат,” she teased. “It’s still an advantage, however

[swiftargyros]

They neared the street and Pietro gently put his arm out, slowing Wanda in an absent way. "Ah, shoes like you," he nodded, looking down the road after the traffic. "So you are normally wearing bossy shoes

[donotmockme]

Had it been fifteen or fifty years later, Hank would be the sort of man to be walking down the street speaking on his cell phone or reading some strange form of GPS device. As it was, he was attempting the very next best thing. There had been strange readings legible as far as Winchester, and after what he had heard from some of the younger mutants? Hank was not about to risk anyone else chasing down these readings.

His head, buried in the map and walkie-talkie-esque device, he had little notion of anything else about him besides the feet passing next to him. So close... he was what. At most, three blocks away? Any moment now...

[chaosmagus]

Wanda mock-glared at him and then proceeded to elbow him in the ribs. Made all the easier by the fact that her arm was looped through his. He called it bossy... she called it decisive. Tenacious. Possibly with a bit of impatient tossed in. If she HADN’T been, well Pietro would probably still be in the cell, under the ‘tender’ care of mutant-hunting robots. “Следећи пут смо у тесном месту ћу вам омогућити да пронађете сопствени излаз, смартасс,” she told him, grinning in amusement.

As they walked their steps fell into a sort of syncopated rhythm, moving in time with each other as if they’d always done so. It was yet another indicator of the strange familiarity which was so evident between the two of them. No one paid them any mind as they blended seamlessly into the crowds, for which she was grateful. She had been worried that even the with the hair dye that someone would recognize him.

“West it is then,” she replied quietly. “I wouldn’t mind, either. Волео бих ништа више него да их на комаде и видим да их спали.”

[swiftargyros]

Pietro was not so proud that he could not afford to grant other's their due credit but there was something to be said about accuracy. He fixed Wanda with a judicious expression, one pale brow ticking up toward his hairline. The look was softened by the quirk that Pietro couldn't quite keep from his lips and the sparkle in his eyes. "The way I am recalling, you opened the door but I got us away. Next time I will care for the explosions and you carry me, da

[donotmockme]

Hank first heard the robot, rather than seeing it. The screams of civilians and the clanking of the metal was enough to send even the most hard-pressed researcher into goosebumps. Hank? Oh he had them in plenty.

It appeared to be a mix of every 50's childhood nightmare and a drawing a colleague had thrown together a few years back. Something for the jar-heads of Washington to use to chase down possible renegades. Never once did Hank think it would be himself that could be a possible target- never mind the two terrified teenagers that just found themselves in the light across the street.

They couldn't have been more than twenty each, a dark haired pair that protected each other and yelled words that Hank was unable to hear from the distance of the street. Though he was no hero, already he was toeing off the leather of his loafers to get better traction naturally. He probably couldn't out-run everything, but a huge hunk of metal

[chaosmagus]

Wanda rolled her eyes good-naturedly and laughed. “I was more speaking of the impetus to escape, rather than the escape itself. I won’t deny your participation in that.” She had wondered, shortly after being deposited abruptly into the cell with him, if he would have EVER endeavoured to escape had she not sped things along. Or would he simply have waited

[swiftargyros]

Before Pietro could answer the bespectacled newcomer, a second laser was fired and this time it skimmed past close enough that he felt the heat brush against his skin like the whisper of a razor blade. The Serbian's voice cut off in a sharp breath as he arched back, spinning to avoid being pelted by the debris that rained down. Apparently there was no such thing as a fighting chance with these mechanical bloodhounds.

"The question is not can we run, it is why aren't you?!" Pietro shouted back, jerking a half-nod toward the alley in confirmation as he instinctively shoved Wanda and the other boy towards it. Threading through the panicking crowd made it difficult to reach but it also provided a little cover for them from the pursuing combatant. By the time they reached the mouth of the alcove, it was clear that time was not on their side. They needed a distraction

[donotmockme]

Hank could run, and he could run fast, but even in his bare-footed glory, he had nothing on that brunette kid. There was no question that the targets were mutants, which only proved the information he had collected was true. So very, very true. He reached for Wanda's arm, not entirely sure how he'd protect her should it be needed, but by far doing much more than the boy who had sprinted ahead after yelling in what must have been Russian or some Slavic language.

The civilians were sprinting in every direction, and it didn't take too long before the robot (Sentienal? Was that the term?) set it's gaze on Hank and the girl.

Dr. Henry McCoy. Physical mutation. Military dissident Threat Level: High. Capture Priority: #7

"Military dissident?" Hank mumbled, questioning the logic behind that as he turned towards the thing momentarily. He was just about to argue that fact when there was a movement above the beast. Pietro shot from the higher elevation like a rocket, and the best Hank could do was watch because damn - there was no question

[chaosmagus]

“Pietro, NO!” Wanda shouted, unable to do anything but WATCH as he ran off, his cap dropping to the ground. The fool boy was going to get himself KILLED. Don’t you dare die, she thought darkly, her mind racing to come up with something to help keep the idiot among the living. She couldn’t catch up with him, that was an impossibility with as fast as he ran. He was on his own for the time being