All in the Family

Honey, I'm home

   "Peter! Breakfast is ready!" Erik yelled down into the basement as he flipped the last pancake, placing it on the young speedsters' plate.

   It had been two years since their rather interesting meeting and Erik had decided to do what he always wanted to do, what he thought he'd never have the chance to do again after Anya...be a father.

   He decided to put his Magneto days behind him and moved into the Maximoff home. It took a bit of convincing on Pietro's end, but Erik was more than happy to finally live a life of peace rather than chaos and revenge.

   In the time since he first moved in, his children had started opening up to him more. Peter was already an open book, eager to tell the metal bender about every second he missed and make a million plans for them to catch up on the lost years. Pietro was the polar opposite. While he got along with Erik for his siblings' sake, Erik could feel the resentment from him. Sometimes it felt like they were really making progress, but then something would happen and they'd be right back where they started. Erik couldn't blame him. He deserved his anger. He just hoped that the speedster could look at him as a father one day.

   Wanda was less secluded than her twin, but she still held an unspoken weariness towards Erik. It was like she was willing to have him in her life, but that could change at a moment's notice. She approached him with caution, unlike Peter's blind love and trust.

   That was another thing. Whereas Pietro and Wanda always referred to him as 'Erik,' Peter had started calling him 'dad.' At first it was a genuine mistake. It was Erik's birthday and Peter wanted to do something special for him. He contemplated stealing a Monet painting that he knew Erik loved, but his siblings quickly persuaded him otherwise. Instead, he somehow settled on baking him a cake...from scratch.

   Peter is many things, but one thing that he is not is a baker. His first attempt at a birthday cake was nothing short of a disaster. When Wanda found him in the kitchen covered in flour and frosting with what looked to be the remains of a very burnt cake on the ground, she quickly offered her services. Peter was too young at the time, but when Wanda was a little girl, her mother taught her how to bake traditional German pastries. Pietro didn't have the attention span or patience for baking, so he rarely joined them. It was something special that was just between the two of them, but Wanda was more than happy to share it with her younger brother.

   Peter was only eight when their mother passed away. Now he was approaching his sixteenth birthday in a few months and the older he got, the more and more he forgot his mother. He felt so guilty as the memories slowly slipped away, no longer able to remember the sound of her laugh or the way her eyes would light up whenever her favorite song played on the radio. It had been so long and Peter was so young when she died. It was impossible for him to remember her in the same way that Wanda and Pietro could. But that didn't make it hurt any less.

   The twins knew about this and always tried to tell him stories about their mother so he could feel closer to her. That's why Peter always kept that photograph of her and Erik in his room. Wanda distantly thinks that's why he was so adamant about finding their father - as if a piece of her, the version of their mother he never got to know, somehow lives on in Erik's memory. But regardless, Peter had a mission of making his father a birthday cake and Wanda would do anything she could to make her brother happy.

   The second attempt went significantly better than the first. Peter insisted on writing 'Happy Birthday' with frosting, rather illegibly, but Erik loved the imperfections.

   His children baked him a cake.

   It was so simple, yet so touching. It took time and effort. When Erik expressed his gratitude and commended them for their work over dessert, Peter responded with a simple "thanks, dad."