Sign of the Times ｡ Wanda Maximoff

1 - YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED...

The smell of coffee invaded his nostrils as Everett Hagreeves sat at a small table by the window of a café in the city, tapping his fingers against the mahogany table as waited patiently to conduct his business for the day.

Earlier that morning, Everett had received a desperate call from a man that required both his and his twin sister's services. The client was looking to hire them to follow his wife around and figure out if she was having an affair. It was a cliché case for a private investigator, but Everett didn't mind. As long as they got paid, he didn't care what the case entailed. His sister, however, was a different story. Estelle was very particular about the cases they worked, else she'd grow bored and complain the entire time.

It wasn't long before the client arrived at the café. Everett tried not to laugh when he saw the baseball cap and dark shades the man had decided to show up in. After reassuring his client that he didn't have to hide behind a pathetic and obvious disguise, they got down to business. The man provided all the details Everett and his twin sister would need regarding his wife and her whereabouts for the day, and then they parted ways.

Everett had called Estelle immediately after leaving the café, and she met up with him outside their shared apartment. She had one of her usual pink Starbucks drinks in one hand, her cell phone in the other. After briefing her on the case, the two made their way down the sidewalk, and it wasn't long before they located their client's wife heading to her place of work.

They kept tabs on her for several hours. It was boring work, Everett had to admit, as their mark worked a normal day and had an innocent lunch with two co-workers at noon sharp. After their client's wife finished up at work, however, she didn't go straight home. So, Everett and Estelle Hargreeves found themselves following the woman down a sidewalk at a quarter past five.

As they walked, Everett couldn't help but glance frustratingly over at his twin sister beside him. "Stop being annoyed so loudly."

"Stop taking these cases and I'll stop being annoyed," Estelle countered.

To anyone else, such conversation may have sounded odd. But it was a normal occurrence for the Hargreeves twins. Through their shared twin telepathy that most people could not even begin to comprehend, they could hear each other's thoughts and have conversations in their heads, sense the other's location, and even tell what the other was feeling. This, of course, is what made them stand out even more amidst their siblings growing up.

Their father, Reginald Hargreeves, had already found them quite interesting before, due to the fact they were the only twins born on that fateful autumn day. But once he noticed their twin telepathy, he began putting it to the test. More often than not, when they weren't training with their unique abilities, Reginald would have them stand at opposite ends of the rather large home they'd been raised in and locate each other while blindfolded. They always succeeded, of course, for it had always been easy for Everett to find Estelle through her incredibly loud complaints.

"If you want to keep affording your ridiculously expensive Starbucks drinks then I suggest you suck it up," Everett told her, mildly annoyed himself, if only because of the relentless complaints he could hear in her mind that he found to be rather distracting.

"We could have taken the job to track down that woman's brother..."

"We're not bounty hunters, Stell."

Estelle rolled her eyes before focusing her attention back on the woman ahead of them. Everett did the same, keeping his eyes latched on her movements as the woman walked down the sidewalk, talking on the phone with someone.

"I bet she's cheating," Estelle said confidently.

"You always think they're cheating."

"Not always," Estelle argued. When her brother stayed silent, his gaze fixed on their mark, she continued. "Loser buys dinner."