Pietro Django Maximoff

PAST | PRESENT | FUTURE

The first ten years of Pietro’s life were relatively calm, in spite of his mother, Magda, struggling to take care of his and his twin sister, Wanda, in the Romanian wilderness for the first year of their lives. Were it not for a strange creature, an anthropomorphic cow who called herself Bova, taking them into her home during the biting cold of winter and caring for them until they were out of danger as far as their health was concerned. The twins grew to see Bova as family, and Bova seemed to welcome the new additions to her life, telling Magda every day that the twins were very special; Magda would not live to know the true meaning behind Bova’s words.

It was snowing that day, the air crisp and biting and just…perfect. The air would never taste quite so fresh ever again for Pietro. Life would never feel so peaceful. That day, though, would change everything. Pietro and Wanda had gone with the gypsies, their “uncle” Django and their “aunt” Marya, into the village nearby to pick up some things for their mother and Nanny Bova (since Bova would never be able to go into a populated area without her appearance causing a stir). It was a pretty normal thing, nothing out of the ordinary, just food and essentials. None of them anticipated an angry mob just waiting for the Gypsies and the “demon children” to leave their mother unguarded. None of them expected Bova to have left as well, returning to whatever strange place in the mountains that she had come from.

None of them expected any of it…

Pietro saw the flames and smoke first, licking up through the treetops like the tongues of the angry dragons from the stories Django told them. He didn’t wait for Wanda and the others, he just ran, the villagers noticing him immediately, his stark white hair standing out amidst the dingy, muted surroundings. They tried to stop him, grabbing at him, knocking him to the ground, pulling at his arms, grabbing his ankles. Anything to keep him from getting home. He clawed and scratched and kicked, finally putting enough distance between him and the villagers to run freely, or as well as he could with a limp; one of the farmers had hit his ankle with his pitchfork, and Pietro was bleeding. He just ran.

“Mamă!” He could hear Django and Marya, carrying Wanda, following on his horse, screaming for him to stop. Pietro just kept running, getting faster and faster in spite of his damaged leg. Pietro skid to a stop, the pressure on his leg causing him to yelp in pain and tumble to the ground several yards away from his house. The entire building was roaring in flames, making the dragon imagery that much more potent. And then, he heard his mother screaming around the back.

Not thinking, Pietro scrambled to his feet and within seconds was in their back yard, falling again on his leg. Arms scraped up from trying to protect his face, Pietro flailed out at the villagers that piled on him, beating him down with makeshift clubs and farming tools, screaming that they needed to keep the demons from their mother, that she was damned to give birth to more of their “kind”. They called her the Devil’s Whore.

Pietro, at the time, just couldn’t understand. His mother was the most gentle, kindest people he had ever known. Beautiful. Flawless. She had never done anything to anyone.

And these people had just killed her in front of her own son.

[[WIP liek woahs…]]

CLOSER INSPECTION

THE SAMPLE

It had been a stressful year for Pietro. For a brief moment in the wake of Apocalypse’s defeat, it seemed as if his family had begun to heal the rifts created between the three of them, that they had finally decided to put the past behind them and work everything out for the better. But it never seemed as if their dysfunctional little “family” ever stuck around one another for very long. First, Wanda left to “find herself”, deciding not to tell Pietro or their father where she was going. Not long after that, Magneto disappeared without a word; Pietro could only assume he was off plotting his next move against anti-mutant organizations. It seemed to be his only pastime as of late, his family coming in second, as always.

And, of course, this left Pietro alone. He couldn’t even go back to the Brotherhood’s boarding house; the entire team had split for parts unknown, as if he honestly gave two shits. They HAD wanted to kill him at one point or another, after all.

Pietro didn’t exactly like being alone. He got bored too quickly.

Bad things happened when Pietro was bored.

Today it was a quick run through about three different banks in various locations within the city limits. He was broke again and quite frankly needed money to pay for the copious amounts of fast-food he’d been shoving down his throat; he would just STEAL the food, but it tasted better when it was freshly cooked rather than swiped off of people as they left the restaurants and drive-thru windows. A few thousand bucks missing here and there from each bank wouldn’t exactly be noticed for at least a few hours, and by then he was a ghost once again, having vanished into the warehouse district or crashing in empty apartments and display homes, breaking into nearby occupied homes to use their showers while the families were out. He never got caught, even when he was being careless and sloppy.

He’d have to sit still to be caught.

It was already nighttime. He had no idea how, once again, the entire day had slipped by him. Everything usually moved so slow compared to him, but now it seemed that it was time that was flying by. This time, he was holed up in a vacant apartment, the door’s lock easily picked and no security cameras to avoid. It was kinda nice, but as always all he had was his one bag with his cellphone and charger, laptop and charger, a small, hinged-lid wooden box with a few photos and keepsakes from Romania, and a few changes of clothes and three uniforms. His violin case was strapped to the large leather bag. Everything else had been left behind either at the boarding house of at the old Acolyte bunker, and he didn’t much care to go after any of it. If he needed new clothes, he would just take them, end of story.

Besides, all the moving around and traveling light had begun to remind him of the “good old days” when he, Wanda, and their mother would move from camp to camp with Bova, Uncle Django, and Aunt Marya before finally settling in their small house near the mountains. Real gypsy life. He didn’t mind it so much, but…it sure was fucking lonely.

Before he’d headed back to the apartment, he’d raided a liquor store across town. A case of vodka, all he could easily carry while on the run; the wooden crates didn’t stack well, honestly, or he’d have grabbed a couple more. There was no way a dozen bottles would last him the night OR get him anywhere past mildly tipsy. This was, of course, quite disappointing, but he would just have to deal with it. There were plenty of opportunities to test just how much it took to drink himself into a coma. He’d finish off his new stash in no time, sleep a few hours, and be out before sunup, the apartment cleaned from floor to ceiling (is only to erase his fingerprints) before staking out a house to break into for a shower.

“Here’s to a dreamless sleep,” he mumbled to nothing in particular in the dark apartment; no electricity, but it was cooler and safer than sleeping outside or in a warehouse. Sleeping on a carpeted floor instead of concrete or a park bench was also preferable in the long run, using his bag as a pillow. He hoped he could at least get four hours before he had to get up, his internal body clock forcing him abruptly out of a deep sleep as it always did. He hated it sometimes, but there was no changing it. And there was the bonus of it waking him up before he could get caught, so…he supposed it evened out somewhat.

Groaning and shoving empty bottles aside, he curled up on his side and let himself drift off. He didn’t need to think anyway.

—-

Azure eyes snapped open. Sure enough, only three precise hours had passed since he’d fallen asleep, darkness still pervading the apartment. Grumbling, he pushed himself up from the floor and set about cleaning up. He hadn’t touched much in the apartment other than the doorknob after he picked the lock and his light footprints one the tile and the foot-shaped indentations on the carpet were easily removed; he’d never been there. He shouldered his bag and gathered the empty bottles into the crate and chucked them in the massive trash bin on his way out of the apartment complex.

He wasn’t sure what to do with himself for the rest of the day to be perfectly honest, the sun peeking up over the horizon and glaring off his silver-white hair. He put on his hat, tucking his un-gelled hair into it as best he could to hide it; he didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself while he was slowing down trying to find something to occupy himself with. He’d need a shower eventually, but he could stand himself until after he ate breakfast, brunch, and lunch…

Meh. He’d entertain himself and…maybe a few other people before food.

Pietro found himself a nice, shady spot (oddly enough the same park bench he’d crashed on a few months before) and set up there. Pulling out and quickly tuning his mother’s violin, he perched on the bench and began to play, not sticking to any particular song or genre, each excerpt sliding into the next without a pause. He played on like that for a few hours nonstop, drawing quite a crowd for a while before they began to dissipate and, eventually, left Pietro alone in his little corner of the park, still playing away. He was lost in his thoughts, memories replaying again and again vividly in his mind, until he realized he was extremely hungry. It was some time after noon, the sun high overhead, so after packing up his violin and shoving his hat into his bag, he ran off to the nearest burger joint for a dozen cheeseburgers and a few orders of fries, just to hold him over until he could get something better later in the day.

Now…he could really use a shower.

He found himself staking out a row of townhouses in a rather quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhood; nothing too noisy or prim, which for his purposes were ideal, even though he did enjoy fucking around with snobby houses. Touch a few things, make a picture crooked on the wall by barely a centimeter (just enough to drive someone bonkers), break a flower stem in a prominent vase, knock some soot out of the fireplace onto the carpet…Sure it was immature, but it was fun. But he wasn’t much in the mood for toying with the “privileged” and simply wanted to get his business over and done with.

Someone, though, had apparently had issues with break-ins before; the locks had been upgraded, and his normal lockpick wouldn’t exactly work. Eh, no big thing. Windows were easy enough to shimmy through. once he’d found one that would open easily enough, he slipped into the empty home and made his way to the main bathroom. A nice hot shower would hopefully pull him up out of the deep blue funk he’d fallen into. He hated being filthy…