Chapter Text
For those who had met Pietro—or Peter to most—Maximoff, it was hard to imagine him any other way than very much uniquely himself—a silver-haired, fast-talking, hyperactive, kleptomaniac.
But what most people didn't know, was that he wasn't always that way.
In fact, for the first fourteen years of his life . . . he was completely and utterly . . . normal.
It started with the flu.
Or what Magda thought was the flu.
She had come home from the late shift at the country club expecting to find Pietro settled on the sofa eating his way through half the food in the house, and, like usual, she'd have to half-heartedly scold him and drag him to bed, reminding him that it was a school day tomorrow.
She always felt bad leaving Pietro home alone. Well, she wasn't really leaving him alone anymore since Mila had been born, but a five-year-old wasn't always welcomed company for a teenager, even though, unlike most older siblings, Pietro adored his little sister. Still, on occasion they fought the way all siblings do, but most days, Magda knew Pietro and Mila would get along just fine without her there; but that didn't alleviate the guilt, especially the guilt that lingered from when she'd had to leave a much younger Pietro home alone, unable to afford a sitter and instead having to rely on the generosity of an elderly neighbor who would occasionally be able to check in on him every so often while she was at work.
Nowadays, Pietro was plenty old enough to be on his own at home. He was fifteen, stood eye-to-eye with his mother and was well on his way to surpassing her in height. But when she looked at him, Magda still saw the little boy who'd held her hand when they'd stepped onto US soil for the first time and told her:
Don't worry, Mama. I'll take care of you.
The point was, that although Pietro was just three short years from adulthood, he would always be her baby.
And yet, when she realized that Pietro wasn't in his usual haunt when she entered the house, Magda wasn't immediately alarmed. It was rare, but sometimes Pietro would fall asleep before she got home. Either way, he would have long since put Mila to bed, so Magda didn't expect to see her up and about, but as much as Pietro was religious about getting his little sister to bed at a reasonable hour, he seemed to have no regard for his own sleep. Magda had tried to impart onto Pietro that he needed at least eight hours of sleep a night, but time and time again, she'd find her son awake into the late hours of the evening (or sometimes even the early hours of the morning) and awake again at the breaking of dawn.
Magda didn't know how he managed it because almost every night that Magda had to work second shift, she would come home to Pietro stretched out on the couch, tv on, and some sort of sweet snack in hand. She'd sigh in not-quite real exasperation, and Pietro would grin sheepishly at her, promising that it wouldn't happen again when they both knew they'd go through the same routine the next day.
But that night, when Magda looked to the couch, it was empty, and the only sound was the creak of a loose floorboard beneath her feet that she'd never bothered to fix.
But Magda was not yet perturbed. Rather, she figured that it just was one of those rare nights when Pietro had either exhausted himself with one thing or another during the course of the day or perhaps more likely, he'd simply retreated to the kitchen for a second (or third) dinner (or dessert).
Guessing it was the latter, Magda peaked her head into the kitchen, fully expecting to see another familiar sight of her son perched on the counter, perhaps eating straight out of an ice cream carton or working his way through a box of Twinkies. It was lucky his school had a free lunch program for low-income families; otherwise, Magda didn't know how she would have ever kept up with his growing appetite. To be honest, she barely did now. The past summer had been particularly difficult. Surely all teenage boys didn't eat as much as Pietro? Or if they did, they certainly didn't remain beanpoles like her son.
Magda tried to keep their less than stellar financial circumstances hidden from her children, especially when it came to food, and generally, she thought she did a pretty good job of that. But Pietro was unusually perceptive for a teenage boy, and it wasn't a secret that a waitress' income wasn't exactly on par with that of a doctor or a lawyer's. So being the sweet boy that he was, Magda was well aware that Pietro tried his best to mooch off friends for a meal as often as he could.
And Pietro had a lot of friends.
Of course he did. It was impossible not to love Pietro or at least be charmed by him. With his huge expressive dark, nearly-black eyes with their impish, yet apologetic, twinkle, and his ever-optimistic attitude, there was something instantly endearing about him.
Despite their financial struggles, for an immigrant boy being raised by a single mother, Pietro's life was an unusually happy one. It wasn't perfect. There were certain things about growing up poor and without a father that would always make life difficult and coming to America as a kid had been no easy feat either, but things were much better now than when they'd first arrived in the Land of Opportunity. But once he learned English and—unlike his mom—eventually lost (or learned to hide) his Romanian accent, the bullying had lessened, until years later, one day, Magda realized that her son didn't just have friends, he was popular.
It helped that he looked the part—tan skin, bronzed-auburn hair, a perfect smile. Despite his Romani origins, he was almost the epitome of an all-American boy, at least based on appearances. If not for his dark, haunting eyes, rather than the ideal Aryan blue, he could almost have passed for any other corn-fed American boy, even though his past and home life would reveal he was anything but.
Magda sighed as she set her purse down on the counter and then headed down the hall where she peaked in on Mila and was happy to see her small form fast asleep in her little twin bed.
Satisfied that her youngest child was right where she should be, Mila quietly closed the little girl's bedroom door, but she didn't go check on Pietro just yet. She would before she went to bed, but there was no need to disturb him if he was still on the cusp of sleep.
A couple of years ago, if Magda had poked her head in their home's second bedroom that now belonged to Mila, she would have seen her eldest child passed out in the bed his sister now claimed back when Mila had been young enough to still sleep in a crib.
But not anymore.
Shortly after he had turned twelve, Pietro had loudly declared that he was far too old to share a room with a toddler, especially one that was a girl, so he had moved his meager belongings into the basement, and claimed it as his own, not caring that it was unfinished and, at the very least, in need of a good dusting. But unfortunately, there wasn't much Magda could do to stop him, and a three-bedroom house wasn't in the cards for them anytime soon, so she had reluctantly agreed to let him make the move, praying and hoping that there was no mold or asbestos down there that would poison him.
Magda headed to her own bedroom at the end of the hall. As she went, she removed the numerous pins out of her long hair that kept it atop her head throughout her long shift. Then, in a well-practiced routine, she slipped out of her uniform and into her sleepwear, which included an old t-shirt Mila's father hadn't bothered to take with him when he took off.
Maybe she should've gotten rid of it, but clothes were clothes, and she wasn't going to throw away a perfectly good night shirt.
Magda wouldn't change any of the events of her past that had led to Pietro and Mila coming into her life, but all the same, she was glad that Mila was already around by the time another man decided a life with Magda was not what he desired. If Mila's father had left the same parting gift that Pietro's father had, then Magda's life and that of her children's would have become even more complicated.
As much as she loved her children, Magda was plenty happy to just have two of them, and as it stood, there was no way she would ever be able to afford to take care of a third.
After Magda tossed her uniform in pile in her room—she'd take care of it later—she headed back out to the hall, planning to tip toe downstairs to make sure her teenager was asleep in bed and not up sifting through a pile of comic books as he was wont to do, before using the bathroom and heading to bed herself.
But before Magda had taken three steps back down the hall, she heard a groan from the bathroom behind her.
Magda whipped around, the sound of her child in pain sparking some instinctive animalistic reaction in her. She must have been more exhausted from her shift than she had realized because normally Magda would have noticed if the bathroom was occupied.
"Pietro?" Magda asked knocking gently on the bathroom door. "Are you alright sweetheart?"
Magda waited patiently for her son to answer. She was a little worried, but she wasn't about to burst down the door. She knew what teenage boys sometimes did when left to their own devices, so she wasn't about to invade her son's privacy without his permission or at least not without reason.
"Pietro?" Magda asked again a little more loudly and slightly more concerned.
"I-I'm f-fine." Pietro finally said after a moment, but his voice was shaky and unnaturally quiet, even with Mila sleeping just down the hall.
"What's wrong?" Magda asked, head pressed against the door. "Can I come in?"
There was a beat of silence, followed by another grown, and then the bathroom door opened, and revealed her son standing—or more like swaying precariously on his feet—before her.
Pietro's hair was a mess, his skin was much paler than usual, and there was visible perspiration on his forehead.
Magda's mouth sunk into a frown as she immediately reached out to her son, placing her palm on his forehead.
"Oh darling, you're burning up." Said Magda as she pulled away, already reaching for a clean washcloth from the bathroom cabinet. She soaked it in cool water, rung it out once, and then wiped her son's head. "When did you start to feel sick? Did you throw up?"
The fact that Pietro made no move to push her hand away as Magda pressed the cool cloth to his forehead was a testament to how bad he must be feeling.
Pietro attempted a shrug before replying, "I don't know, like after lunch-ish. And no, I haven't thrown up. I just don't f-feel good." He looked absolutely miserable, and then, as he continued, his face fell some more. "I think I'm s-sick."
"I believe you are correct, honey." Said Magda, placing her arm around him and beginning to steer him out of the bathroom. "Come. You take my bed tonight; I'll take the sofa."
"I-I'm n-not taking your b-bed. I'll take the s-sofa, or actually, I'm f-fine to sleep downs-s-stairs." Said Pietro with a pout.
"Nope. Sorry kiddo. You're not. And the bedroom is closest to the bathroom, and if you're going to vomit, I'd rather have you do so in there than in a bucket I have to clean up later. You're doing me a favor this way."
"O-K." said Pietro, obviously too miserable to protest as he let himself be pulled into Magda's room. If he had been feeling better he would undoubtedly realize his mom was just using that as an excuse for him to have the more comfortable sleeping arrangement.
Magda helped Pietro lay back on the bed, tucking the sheets around him like she used to do as often as she could when he was younger. She kept the comforter pulled down, glad that Pietro wasn't experiencing chills, which she hoped was a sign that this would just be a 24-hour virus. As she smoothed out the sheets around him, she found herself wondering again when he went from the little boy she could pick up with ease to this long-limbed young man before her.
"I'm going to go get you some Tylenol, and then you can get some rest. Alight?" said Magda looking down at her son.
"Hmm-hmm." Pietro mumbled, rolling over to lay nearly face first into his pillow.
"I'll be right back." Said Magda, smoothing her son's reddish-gold hair back from his forehead, and again feeling the heat radiating off of it. "Don't worry, you'll feel better in the morning."
She didn't know it then . . . but that was a lie.
The next day, Pietro wasn't any better; in fact, he was worse. Throughout the day, he barely wanted to make the trip from the bedroom to the bathroom. Fortunately, he somehow still managed to maintain his usual appetite (and then some), wolfing down everything she brought him to eat, even if it was of a much healthier variety than he normally preferred. But if he wasn't eating, he was sleeping, which Mila wasn't happy about at all, upset to have lost her playmate.
"We were supposed to play prince and princess before school this morning," said Mila with a pout as Magda struggled to wrestle her daughter into a jacket.
"I know, sweetheart, but he doesn't feel well. Hopefully he'll be better tomorrow, and then he can play with you." Said Magda, finally managing to get the jacket on Mila. She reached down and picked up her daughter's bookbag sliding it onto Mila's back much more easily than the jacket.
"Is he sick like Mr. Doyle?" Mila asked with wide eyes.
Mr. Doyle was their neighbor's late husband who had passed away of colon cancer about seven or eight months ago. Before Mr. Doyle's burial service, Mila had never been to a funeral before or known anyone who had died. Although it was probably a good life lesson for Mila to understand that death was an unfortunate part of life, the less helpful result of that experience was that Mila now assumed people were dying whenever she heard that someone was sick.
"No, Mila. Don't worry. He'll be fine. He's just got a bit of a bug." Said Magda with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
"He's got a bug inside of him!?" Mila asked, her eyes going even wider than before.
"No, no." Said Magda quickly. "He doesn't have an actual bug inside of him. That's just a thing people say. It means he has the flu."
"Oh," said Mila, calming a bit. "Well, tell him that he has to get better, and I don't want him to be sick."
Magda smiled again. Both of her children were so sweet sometimes. "Of course, honey. I will."
Outside a car honked, signaling that the mom they often carpooled with had arrived to take Mila to school.
As for Pietro, he would not be attending school that day . . . or the next.
The second day of Pietro's illness was worse than the first.
Pietro's fever hadn't broken; rather, she was quite certain it had risen. He now had full body chills, and Magda kept having to pull the extra blankets he kept burrowing into off of him, and replace them with cool towels or occasionally an icepack. She knew it was getting to the point where she should take him to the see a doctor, but her job didn't offer healthcare, so a trip to the emergency room would literally leave them penniless, and Magda didn't know what she would do if that happened. Her one acquittance that was a nurse who Magda typically relied on for her children's healthcare was on vacation in California and wouldn't be returning until the end of the month, so Magda had no one to turn to for medical advice.
Still, despite the fact that Magda had zero plans for what she would do if faced with a hefty medical bill, she swore to herself that if Pietro wasn't better by the following day, she was going to drag him to the hospital—health insurance or no health insurance.
Magda's employment situation also wasn't helping her stress levels. Her boss was furious that she'd missed two—soon to be three—days of work in a row, even though she'd managed to get someone to cover her shift for the first two days. He still wasn't happy about having one of his best servers out of commission, and Magda had little to no confidence that her co-worker would volunteer to cover a third day of Magda's shift. Ultimately, what all of that meant was that Magda didn't know if, when this was over, she would have a job to return to.
But she couldn't leave boy alone, not when he was so sick and helpless.
If it were five years ago, she maybe would have had their older neighbor come over and make sure he didn't get any worse while Magda worked through a stressful shift completely distracted by thoughts of her son suffering at home. But Mrs. Doyle had her own health issues now, and was still reeling from the loss of her spouse, so having her come sit with Pietro would just cause more problems, especially if said neighbor caught whatever bug Pietro had picked up.
Magda sighed, adjusting the pillow under her head. She'd taken to sleeping on the floor in her bedroom the previous night and had no plans of moving back to the couch or her own bed until Pietro was well enough to return to his own.
But Magda wasn't as young as she used to be, and sleeping on the floor was no picnic on her back and joints. When all of this was over, if somehow still had a job to return to, she'd be lucky to have enough energy to clean up after the drunken old-white men that hit on her every evening.
If she only knew that one day soon her son would have enough energy for her and then some, maybe she would have laughed in that moment . . . or maybe she would've cried.