Disappeared- {Pietro Maximoff}

Chapter 29

"If you're here to prune me, good luck."

"Thank you."

"How's the timeline looking?"

"That's why I'm here," Ravonna showed Alex her hands, "I'm unarmed."

"In my experience, only liars or fools say they're unarmed. Which one are you?"

"Neither. I am curious about you."

"Flattered."

Ravonna pressed her watch and a graphic image popped up, of a graph with a single line across the bottom and a diagonally ascending line branching out from it, which cut out halfway.

Alex wasn't good at maths but it didn't look good.

"Yesterday afternoon, this line which represents the altered timeline you created, stopped. We think it's something to do with your announcement and subsequent attack. Nothing like this has ever happened before so we cannot be sure."

"Sorry?" Alex offered. Ravonna sighed and pressed her watch again, pulling up a second graph. This one also had the single line across the bottom, but a diagonal line crossed through it before smoothing out into another horizontal line.

"Then, we received this anomaly. The initial line is Earth 10005's timeline. It is no different, we checked. We also checked Earth 197999, this universe and found it no longer existed. At least where it's meant to be."

"What?"

"This universe, the one which you changed out of pure selfishness, does not exist. Or so we thought until we visited this new branch of Earth 10005 and found...the continuation of Earth 197999 timeline."

"Okay, pretend I'm really stupid—"

"I don't have to."

"Damn, Renslayer! Fucking chill and explain what this is to me, properly." Ravonna looked at her with such low regard that Alex wilted slightly, "Sorry. I shouldn't have sworn at you, I won't do it again."

"Right. You have made a new universe with your actions. Thanks to that announcement about finding other mutants, you cut into another universe and created a subsequent timeline where you are the one, instead of Professor Charles Xavier, to found the X-Men."

"What?"

"Well, that's what we presume. With you, nothing is predictable, so we are merely going by what happens in the universe you crossed into."

"What?" Alex said for the third time.

"However, the timeline seems stable. It isn't protocol but as long as the world isn't in danger, the TVA has found no reason to continue hunting you and Pietro Maximoff. Instead, we will be supervising you and using you to see how we can prevent more situations like this in the future."

"I don't consent to that."

"We don't need your permission. This was merely a warning," Ravonna pressed her watch and the graphs disappeared, "We'll keep you up to date with our research on how this happened. If you have any ideas, feel free to share them."

"Yeah, no. I'm not doing that."

"Then we will erase your universe. Not just yourself and Pietro Maximoff, everyone."

"No, yeah. Don't do that," Alex held up her hands now, "I'll be good, will do my best to not break this universe anymore."

"Good."

Alex held up a finger before Ravonna was even done saying the word, "Although it was an accident. And you've given me fucking-sorry- heart attacks and panic attacks hiding this thing. Literally, I had to block all my family's numbers on my phone so there's no temptation to message and put them all in danger. Plus, I'm only eighteen with a messed up childhood and you've set my therapy back by miles."

"You could have let us take you peacefully."

"You would have taken an innocent boy. And I didn't deserve it either. Haven't you considered this may not be the best way to fix stuff?"

"In the grand scheme of everything, you are worth nothing."

"I seem to be worth quite a lot now," Alex grinned, patting Ravonna on the shoulder, "Think about it. Fix your system and the people who can run, won't."

Then, not completely sure Ravonna wouldn't prune her into nothingness, Alex made a hasty exit.

<<>>

"That was awful," Florence, Adelaide's sister, complained, clutching at her stomach briefly before continuing to sign, "Never, ever, make me do that again."

"I need to take you out of here too." Alex responded, laughing slightly at her.

"No. Just let me die here, I think that's better for my health than teleporting." Florence joked before turning away and sitting down at one of the computers. Alex didn't know what was happening, so she began to nose around Tony's lab instead.

Kore and Wanda were creating a distraction outside. Alex wasn't quite sure what they were planning to do, there hadn't been much time and Wanda was her typical anti-social self to Kore.

Pietro was on guard duty, using his speed to check every corridor in the compound. They would hopefully erase all of the CCTV footage anyway, so they were less careful about staying hidden.

It wasn't meant to take Florence long. She had begun explaining it but Alex didn't know ASL well enough and Florence's voice was hard for Alex to understand.

Out of curiosity, Alex pressed a button and something hissed. Turning around, she saw a suit unfolding out of its case.

It was purple, her colour, so Alex approached and pulled it out. Underneath the fabric, two antlers- made of metal but painted ivory- rested and when Alex laid the suit out in full, she could see how they would clip onto the side of her waist.

Tears welled in her eyes.

The suit was perfect, so perfectly her. The sleeves looked like they should only reach her elbows, part of the legs were made of a more transparent purple fabric. Across her chest were two 'x's', except the bottom half of the 'x's' had a small line through it, turning it into an 'a'. The top 'x' was smaller, starting halfway across her shoulders and the ends curving to cross underneath her chest. The other 'x' was larger, coming from the same place on the shoulders too but it met later, crossing over mid-stomach and widening till it had to curve to reach her hips.

She teleported the suit onto herself. It fit beautifully and she clipped the antlers on too with ease. Looking down, she could admire how simple it was, just three different shades of purple making up the suit.

To her, it was the perfect combination of who she was before, who she was now, and who she wanted to be. Vanisher, Alex, still to decide.

With more exploring, she found Pietro and Wanda's suits, and a prototype of Wanda's that she was surprised Tony would design for her. It featured a long skirt that reminded Alex of the Romani style, maroon with patterns of red, orange and yellow that reminded Alex a bit of a fire. The top was a bodice, bold scarlet with silver embroidery decorating it with patterns.

She teleported all three to Pietro, just to confuse him.

"Alex," Hearing her name, Alex turned and Florence continued in sign, "Your phone should be receiving the location of the knives."

"Yes! God, that was fast, thank you."

"Now I just need to wipe the security footage from today and that's it."

Nodding, Alex began to examine where her brother was hiding. It was somewhere in Italy, and when Alex checked the location on her map app, it showed an empty field.

"This is it. Holy shit, this is it." She ran her hand through her hair, "This is the end of it."