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Pietro’s apartment is their original apartment, the one where the twins briefly lived before their future twin children (Wanda) and nephews (Pietro) crashed for a time. In short, it needs a lot of love. He still has a room at the Institute for Gifted Youngsters out in Westchester County, but since when has the white-haired speedster ever enjoyed the country? Where things move at a slower pace of life, how does he not lose his mind?
So, Queens. The most diverse place on Earth. Where he can obtain black Russian tea or sweet Arabic pastries, expect to hear a mutter of French or one of the many Native American languages or even Slovenian, Slovak, Transian, Latverian, all in a few blocks.
Wanda stirs a bowl, the batter for cookies stiff with flour, the wooden spoon mixing in the combined mix. Sugared violets rest on a plate covered in wax paper. Too nice for him but something she is trying, where no one is going to judge her. Still, the batter smells good and it’s bound to be sweet enough for the both of them.
The small oven isn’t great, but it will work. The cookie sheet sits out, waiting for spoonfuls to be dropped one by one in neat and orderly rows.
“You are happy?” Simple check-in. She might know whether this is true or not. But these are part of their regular lives. “They do not treat you badly, and you have enough to stimulate your mind? Or should I expect you to be blitzing across the city having an adventure out of boredom?”
Transian, of course. Their first and best known language.
*
Pietro holds up the second crinkling wrapper enshrouding the golden bar, clear plastic acting as barrier against contamination and the world, though the shelf life will become an amusing legend for this manufactured pastry.
"Is called 'Twinkie'. It sounds like some awful fairy-tale name. Fairy name. Tastes like sunlight and happiness, Sis. All sugar. Good for you and me both." He waggles it back at forth at a painfully-slow speed that looks jaunty to her. "You should try it. You will not go back." It's suddenly unwrapped and he holds it under her nose. Ah, the scent of saccharine squared. "It is nice shape too, pleasant for your mouth. You will like it." And that grin.
*
Two scrapes of the spoon capture the forgotten bits of batter. She wrenches the batter around, folding and stirring. Not good to measure Wanda's mood by the unfortunate state of the cookie dough, as it's nearly impossible to overmix it. She glances to the sliced and shaved almonds, possibly thinking of sprinkling them in. In the end, she shakes her head with that golden sponge shoved in her face.
She steps back out of habit, putting the bowl down on the counter. "No taste to that. How do you eat it when the cream is so foul? We eat real cream and sugar, spun together, it is magic. That has all the magic of a wet sock." Her eyes narrow slightly. "Your wet socks. Go take those off, you cannot fool me you had only one box in the cupboards. You probably ran out to get another just because."
*
"Sis, let us be truthful with one another." The Twinkie wiggles under her nose again, absolutely within her personal space in determined presence. "Your cookies cannot compare to this American invention. They are good, yes, but this?" Glancing down, he wiggles his toes and then glares at her. "Wet feet do not bother me. They will dry, no need to change socks. I will go barefoot next time." Standing on second, leaning on the counter the next, half of yet another pasty gone. "Why do you you make these anyways? For the Boyfriend? He is…what do the Americans call it…clothes pony? Coat horse. All show and sound and he does not eat anyways. You should get a better Boyfriend." The silvery-haired speedster nods solemnly, the Twinkie now down that insatiable gullet.
*
The wooden spoon she plucks out from the batter and lies it horizontally over the glass measuring cup. Time to take up the metal spoon to start scooping out balls and rolling them between her fingers, plopping each in turn upon the prepared cookie sheet. "Fine. I will share them with the rest of the family." Flashing amber eyes warn off shoving something in her face again, the cool crumpling of her brows as good a notice as any that Pietro might want to stand a little further than he was in their mother's womb beside her.
"Why does the sun shine? Why do you talk too much? Questions with no answer." Another ball down, her thumb smudges the middle to give somewhere for the sugary violets to perch. "He eats. Not like you. Have you ever had starlight, Pietro?"
*
A dimple appears in the batter, the pocket appearing and returning to normalcy within a second. Pietro smacks his lips a few times and shrugs.
"Starlight cannot taste like these." And it seems no one will convince him otherwise because with another odd shifting in atmosphere around them, he's there and back again, crinkling a plastic wrapper about half an arm's length from her face. "Sis, you are being like wagon mule. Try a bite." Poof, unwrapped, and the impress of the gummy golden pseudo-pastry bounces off her lips. "You are like frog, with thin lips and cold skin. More for me." The Twinkie is, inevitably, gone within the half-second. Bottomless pit, this man!
*
|ROLL| Wanda +rolls 1d100 for: 38
*
Did he just stuff a twinkie in her batter? Wanda's sharp gaze slants to the cookie and the batter, her eyes narrowing through the thicket of coal black lashes. Her aura lashes around her in a bubble, though such is the nature when two cats play. Even if one of them runs on jet fuel. "Fingers out." No point trying to slap him for it. That was always Agatha's skill, or their father who was not their father.
Starlight tastes beautifully well to her, but the wrapper floating out of the way. "I have eaten one. It was with Tommy. They do not agree with me." The sweep of her hand sprinkles the pretty flowers one after the other. Calling her a frog doesn't much warrant a response, though the ground splinters and shivers in reaction to the puddle of ice slicked right under Pietro's feet. He might want to reconsider but he's still running around to stuff his face with Twinkies from a store he's probably robbing. Karma, after all, is a woman.
*
"All the more Twinkies for me then. You and your clothes pony Boyfriend can have cookies and eat starlight and whatever you two do — ugh, do not make me think of these things, Sis!"
About-face at the speed of Pietro and…on-face to the floor after a swirling, whirling dance barely seen for the blurring attempt to find his feet. Groaning, he rolls to his back and looks down his body. A crushed Twinkie met its fate between the limnoleum and the expanse of his chest. "Sis, you are terrible. It is wasted!" Getting to his feet, he scoffs. "«May your cookies burn.»" The wish is spoken in Roma.
The sound of a door shutting heralds his departure for longer than it takes to 'borrow' another box of Twinkies. The fluttering of the stained shirt marks the change in clothing and she'll undoubtably realize that not only did her brother ruffle her hair all out of place, but he left a kiss to her brow as apology. Not the worst of siblings after all.
*
A crushed twinkie deserved what it got. He wears it. The world is settled, and Wanda smiles. "You can lick it up off your shirt." He may not hear it, but that's not the point, because she has something to make for the children. Her grown children, no less. Peace offerings, after all.
When Pietro vanishes and returns, she glances up, spoon in hand. The ghost of affection warrants a crooked smile as she turns…
…and promptly wipes out on the ice with no one to see, and no one to hear, other than a sharp, high-pitched chirp.
Well, what goes around comes around.