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notes-from-sarah · 3 months

Text

Graveside

Rating: G/K

Length: 6k words

Link on AO3, FFN

Summary: As Magneto lays his Anya to rest, he’s lost everyone he’s ever loved. Years later, he visits his daughter’s graveside again, this time accompanied by Wanda and Pietro. Claremont canon compliant. 70s-80s X-Men canon compliant.

A/N:

1953 portion takes place after Classic X-Men (1986) #12, “A Fire in the Night!”, 1983 portion takes place after Vision and the Scarlet Witch (1982) #4.

During this period of the comics, Magneto’s real name was Magnus so that’s the name I use in this story.

I’m using my own approximation on the timelines because comicbook math doesn’t always add up.

Since Wanda’s powers are very inconsistent throughout the comics I’m doing my own take.

1953

“Magda!” Magnus’ voice cracked, the smoke and heat had scorched his throat raw. Magda didn’t slow down, didn’t look back. He wanted to run after her, to catch hold of her and make her understand. But her couldn’t leave Anya. Magnus dropped to his knees in front of her small body. He wanted to stay there forever, he couldn’t believe what had happened. It just couldn’t be real.

The inn continued to burn and in the distance others were beginning to be alerted to the fact. Magnus knew he needed to go. There was nothing left for him here. There was nothing left at all. Taking off his coat he wrapped it tenderly around Anya’s body as a shroud. The final embrace he could not give her. Her body was so small.

The smell of ash and burned flesh filled his nostrils and made him choke. Bodies, burning bodies. So many bodies. Day after day with no end in sight. Magnus had thought he’d put that all behind him, thought that the nightmare was over. Apparently there was no escape.

Lifting Anya into his arms, Magnus began to walk. Once, there had certainly been a Jewish cemetery in this city, but he could not count on that any more. He would have to make do. Being careful to avoid the citizens who were beginning to stream towards the still flaming inn, Magnus wove through streets and alleys towards the edge of the city.

Magnus wasn’t sure how far he walked or for how long. More than anything he wished Magda was here with him, he wasn’t sure he could do this alone. How could she leave him and Anya at a time like this? Did she really care so much for those animals that had caused the death of their daughter? Was his slaying of them really so monstrous? He wanted to be angry, he wanted to be hurt, to scream or cry or something, instead a familiar numbness settled over him. Magnus just kept walking.

The night was deep and dark by the time he made it to the edge of the city. In the distance he could hear a train. He kept going. He had to find a place where his little girl wouldn’t be disturbed. Out past the edge of the city, the landscape resolved into countryside. Farms flanked the road on either side and Magnus knew the farm houses weren’t too far away. He needed to go further.

Turning off the road he walked on. His thoughts beginning to fill with memories of Anya. She had loved her mountain town in the Carpathians. She was close friends with some of the other children of the village and they could always be found playing together under Magda’s watchful eye. She did all the things you would expect a child to do. She climbed trees and skinned her knees and elbows. She caught bugs and frogs and stalked birds through the forest. She would pick handfuls of flowers to bring back to her papa all summer long, dirt smeared on her cheeks, her hair full of twigs.

She was such a bright and beautiful child, she was every bit as eager to learn as he was. He would teach her the names of the flowers and trees and he had been in the process of teaching her to read. She was starting to understand the alphabet and would sit on his knee puzzling out a book while he was studying a book of his own trying to teach himself algebra or geometry. Magda would say they were quite the pair of scholars. Magnus had always dreamed that his daughter would have the education he never did.

Magnus shifted the small burden in his arms. Wasn’t it just yesterday that he had carried her like this when she’d fallen asleep on the train? She had been so excited for her first trip away from the village. She had seen a picture of a locomotive in a book, but their remote village was nowhere near any tracks. When she finally saw one in real life she was ecstatic. She had said “Papa, they do exist!” He had joked and told her a fairy tale about how trains used to be dragons a long time ago, but had transformed themselves so they could help people get from place to place very fast. You could tell it was true because the trains still had the dragon fire in their bellies. Anya, of course, had believed him. She believed everything he told her. Even the lies like “I’ll always take care of you.”

Coming to the edge of a river, Magnus began to follow its course. He had no idea what the river was called or even where he was, but none of that mattered anymore. He walked on, the dark pressing in on him. Anya was still afraid of the dark. Often, she would wake in the middle of the night and crawl into bed with him and Magda. Magnus didn’t much care for the dark either. Almost any hardship or indignity could be endured in the daylight hours, but come nightfall such things became unbearable. It was just the way of things.

Coming to a rickety bridge, probably one shoddily made for local use, Magnus crossed over the river and found himself in wilder country. Crossing an overgrown field Magnus paused, his senses flaring as he felt something nearby. This power that he had was alerting him to the presence of something metal. Reaching out a hand, Magnus called to the metal laying half-buried in the dirt. To his surprise, the object leapt from its resting place and jumped into his hand. It was a steel bar, maybe forty-five centimeters long and quite hefty. It must have fallen off some farming equipment, but Magnus realized it could serve a purpose instead of rotting away to nothing. Sliding the steel bar through his belt, Magnus kept walking.

Finally, Magnus came to a stand of trees. Anya always loved the forest, she spent much of her days playing in them when the weather was nice. He hoped she would like these trees, they weren’t her friends from the mountains but they’d have to do.

Magnus made his way with some caution now, one never knew what sort of animals lived in a forest. In the mountains he was always careful about bears and wolves and feral dogs. The night was even darker here, Magnus found himself navigating more by instinct than anything else. Thick pine trees overgrew the entire area with a smattering of broad leaf trees in the mix, the forest floor was carpeted thick with needles and his footsteps were practically silent. Picking his way through the untamed brambles, Magnus found at last what he had come for.

A tall elegant tree stood in something of a clearing. Its branches arched high over the earth and the clean scent of pine filled the air. This was a place that could be made sacred. Gingerly, Magnus placed Anya in a cradle of knotted roots at the base of the tree. Then, drawing the steel bar from his belt, he began to dig.

The steel bar was better than nothing, but the process was slow as he carved away the soil. He tried not to think about how Magda should be here to hold their child while he dug. He tried not to think about how she’d abandoned him, abandoned Anya. How she hadn’t even wanted to say goodbye to their daughter. He tried not to think about Magda at all.

Scooping out soil with hands and steel, Magnus began to see the resemblance of a hole. It didn’t need to be very big, Anya was such a little girl. The soil embedded itself under his nails and stained his skin with its rich black color. The smell of the freshly turned soil threw him back to his own childhood. The smell of soil and lime as he’d dug his way out of a grave. Thinking back on it now, Magnus wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. Why did he keep living when everyone else died?

Magnus struggled as his improvised tool began to strike tree roots. If only instead of a bar it was a blade, then it would hardly slow him down at all. He was strong and would not stop until the task was complete. The bar seemed to react to his thoughts. It twitched in his hand and a current of energy flowed between himself and the steel. He wasn’t sure how this magic power worked, but earlier that day when he wanted something all he had to do was think about it. So he did just that once more. Focusing his mind on the blade he desired, Magnus gripped the steel letting the current flow back and forth between himself and the bar. The metal began to morph, and within moments it now had a razor keen edge. Magnus was mystified. How had he come to do this? Was he really some sort of freak, a monster cursed with unnatural powers? He didn’t know what to think, all he knew was that he had to keep digging.

The first light of dawn was creeping up the sky when the melancholy task was complete. Deep enough to not attract animals, the small grave was unlikely to be disturbed. Magnus went back to the roots of the tree and picked up Anya once more. One last time. Sitting with his back to the tree he cradled her small body. He wanted to weep, wanted to shed the tears his little girl deserved. But he could not. The numbness inside him was absolute. It was just another death.

Reaching up, he unclasped the necklace he wore. It was a gift from Magda, a gold Star of David she had given him when they got married. It was very small, it had not cost very much, but he wore it every day. He pulled back the coat and laid the necklace on Anya’s heart. “A gift from your mother and me,” he whispered. Anya had so often played with it when he was rocking her before bed. He had promised her that one day when she was big he would buy her one of her own. He had promised her so much.

Tucking the folds of the coat around his little girl once more, Magnus sat and rocked her, singing her favorite lullabies for the last time. He remembered so long ago when his grandfather had died. His father and nine other men from the community had come to say the Kaddish at the graveside. It has to be ten people, he’d been told. This is how we support each other in a community, his father had said. He had no community, one else at all, the lullabies would have to do.

The orange slivered edge of the sun peaked over the horizon and Magnus knew he couldn’t put this off any longer. Rising to his feet, Magnus brought Anya to the grave and lowered her in as if he were laying her in her bed after she had fallen asleep in his arms. For a long moment he gazed on the small bundle before he lifted his arm and let the first handful of soil fall onto Anya’s body. Handful after handful he filled the grave with the black earth. It was the burial he never got to give his family, the burial denied to so many of his people. A part of him could still feel the metal of the necklace, even when Anya was completely covered. With each handful it seemed like a part of him was being buried, too. The love he’d had for his wife and child, the dreams he’d had of earning a college degree, the life he’d hoped to give Anya as she grew up. All of it gone. All he had left was the smell of burning and the taste ashes in his mouth.

When all the soil had been replaced, Magnus took the steel bar. Turning it over in his hands, he pondered if his newfound powers might make a suitable grave marker for Anya. He hated to think that one day he would forget where he buried her. That he would be unable to find her again. Focusing his mind and feeling that inhuman energy flowing through him, he pulled and stretched the steel this way and that until he had a solid plate, decently sized and roughly square, in his hands. Was there anything this power could not do? If only he had discovered it just a few days earlier.

Even a feeling of regret could not break through the numbness as he traced his fingertip over the metal. The power still charged through him and wherever he traced his finger, an impression formed in the steel. Carefully working in Hebrew, he wrote the appropriate inscriptions as near as he could. His own studies of Hebrew had been limited, but he wanted to give Anya the proper marker no one else in his family had received. In smaller letters at the bottom of the plate he repeated everything in Russian, hoping that if some Soviet found this resting place they might have pity on a little girl and leave her be.

The steel plate gleamed in the morning sun which shone between the tree trunks. Something bright and pretty for Anya, it was the best he could do. His final gift to his daughter. Lastly, at the top of the plate, he drew a Star of David. Then, as he sang Anya a final lullaby, he buried the edges of plate in the earth at the head of Anya’s grave.

Standing and brushing the soil from his clothes, Magnus looked at the final resting place for his daughter. He stood there a while wishing for some tears to come, but they would not. He couldn’t even give his daughter the grief she deserved. Maybe he was a monster. At last, he knew he had to go. He had to try and find Magda, talk some sense into her. He had to find her and leave this revolting country. Maybe it was time to go to Israel. Maybe, at last, he could find some safety there.

“Don’t be frightened of the dark, my dear. I will come back and visit you very soon.” With that, he turned and walked away.

1983

“I want you to take a trip with me today, please, it won’t take very long.” Magneto stood on Wanda’s doorstep, the cool early morning breeze tugging at his clothes, the sun only just up. Wanda was surprised to see him, he hadn’t exactly phoned ahead, but this was important.

“Come in,” Wanda stepped back from the door and waved him inside. She was dressed in a deep purple that suited her red-brown hair more than one would suspect. It struck Magneto once again how very much like Magda she looked. He also thought he saw hints of his own mother in her face, maybe even his sister. How foolish he must have been to be around her and her brother and not even recognize them.

Stepping inside, Magneto saw Pietro sitting on the couch, bouncing Luna in his arms. Pietro’s daughter had grown so much in the months since last he’d seen her. “Good,” Magneto said, “the both of you are here, that will save a trip to the moon.” Wanda exchanged a glance with her brother. Magneto knew they were both still wary of him after he had coerced them into being part of his Mutant brotherhood. For him, that had been another lifetime. He didn’t even recognize the man he’d been back then. That didn’t change things for them, however. They still didn’t trust him. He didn’t blame them.

“What is it?” Wanda prompted.

Magneto glanced between his two children. Only recently had they learned of their true connection to each other. Regret over missing so much of their lives stung at him. “I wanted you to come with me to visit the grave of your sister.”

“Our… sister?” Wanda said, clearly taken off guard.

“You never told us we had a sister,” Pietro said, somewhat accusingly. His deep frown reminded Magneto of his own.

Magneto crossed his arms over his chest. He’d been meaning to tell them about Anya from the start, he just never found the right way to say it. “She died a few months before you were born. Her name was Anya. Today is the anniversary of her death.” All those years ago he’d promised to come back, so far he’d never had the courage to do so. For years he’d tried to forget everything in his past, his human wife and daughter and life and just bury himself in being a Mutant. Maybe, he had thought, if he pretended that none of that happened, that none of that mattered, he could be free of all the pain that went with it. Since his rebirth a few years ago, however, he couldn’t pretend anymore. Who he was and what he had been through were as inescapable as time itself. He couldn’t run from himself any longer. It was time Anya’s papa paid her a visit.

Wanda came over to Magneto and took him by the arm, guiding him to the couch. “Why don’t you tell us a little more about all of this. This is the first we’re hearing of this sister.”

Magneto sat on the couch and looked between the twins. He wanted to tell them everything, how he and their mother had escaped certain death in the Nazi concentration camps and had built a life for themselves before he got selfish and everything went wrong. He wanted to tell them all the little stories about their sister, how much their mother and he loved her and what a good big sister she would have been to them. He wanted to say all those things and more, but when he opened his mouth, the words wouldn’t quite come out.

Long ago, he’d felt nothing, now he felt too much.

Closing his mouth, he shook his head. “I don’t know how to say all there is to be said. Her name was Anya, she was only five-years-old. I haven’t been back since I buried her, I thought you might want to come as well.”

Wanda looked at her brother and some indecipherable communication passed between them. Pietro rolled his eyes and said, “Wanda, can we have a word in the kitchen?”

Wanda rolled her own eyes before jerking her head to the other room and the pair of them vanished through the door. Magneto didn’t try to overhear their conversation. Undoubtedly they were discussing if he was trustworthy enough to follow to who knows where. Certainly they were questioning his credibility or if he was lying to them to gain their trust. He knew he deserved such skepticism, he wished he might one day overcome it. Perhaps in the future he might be redeemed.

Pietro and Wanda came back into the sitting room a few minutes later. Wanda was being logical with her brother, saying “-Vision can watch Luna while we’re gone, it’ll be fine. He’s babysat before.”

“I know, I know,” Pietro said, holding up his hand to put a stop her persuasion, “I just hate leaving her, I miss her when I’m gone.” Wanda squeezed her brother’s shoulder encouragingly. Magneto was happy that they’d always had each other, even if he and Magda had never been part of their lives.

Wanda turned to Magneto. “We’d like to go with you.”

Pietro, ever the more surly of the two, added, “But if there’s any funny business, you’ll regret it.”

Magneto sighed. “Please believe me, Pietro, I’ve changed. I’m not the man you knew all those years ago.”

“That remains to be seen,” Pietro muttered.

Wanda, seemingly wanting to forestall any further comments from her brother, asked, “Where are we going?”

“The USSR."

. . .

It had probably been more than two decades since Magneto had used a passport or entered a country legally. He had long since given up thinking of himself as a citizen of any nation, and instead maintained that since he was a Mutant he was unaccountable to human law and practice. Today was no different. Using his powers to created a magnetic sphere around the three of them, he transported himself, Wanda and Pietro into the sky with his abilities. A journey that would normally take many hours could be accomplished in minutes, before long the three of them were touching down outside the Soviet city of Vinnytsia.

Magneto pointed to the city in the distance. “I came here with your mother long ago, I had an idea that I would earn a place at university and get a degree. I had such a desire to learn back then, I suppose that desire has not yet completely abandoned me. I thought I might be able to get back the education I had lost out on as a boy and maybe provide a better living for my family. Alas, it was not to be.”

Pietro looked around them, the mostly open countryside was carved into fields. “I don’t see any graveyards,” he observed.

“I was not able to lay her to rest in a graveyard,” Magneto said quietly. “The Nazis destroyed all the Jewish graveyards during the war, and the Soviets weren’t much better. I didn’t want someone to disturb her resting place. It was perhaps not a proper burial according to the traditions of our people, but it was what I could manage under the circumstances.” Magneto gazed around the horizon before finding the direction he thought he remembered and, motioning the twins to follow him, set off.

“Why haven’t you told us any of this before?” Wanda asked.

“I wanted to, but it is not always easy for me to discuss. When I think about what transpired, it is as if it happened just yesterday.” Magneto glanced down at Wanda. “I can still smell the fire.”

Magneto pressed on while the twins paused to share a look before continuing. Magneto wasn’t entirely sure where he had been on that night so long ago, but he centered himself and let his instincts guide him. That fateful day three decades ago was etched in his mind in sharp detail. Every thought and feeling flowed though him now as strongly as on that day.

The three of them walked through overgrown fallow fields as they wended their way deeper into the countryside. When Magneto saw the forested outcropping ahead he knew they had found it. He pointed to the woods and said, “There is the sepulchre where your sister lies. I can feel the marker I made her from here.”

“It looks peaceful,” Wanda said, gazing at the forest. “I can feel the quiet from here.”

Magneto glanced at Wanda and gave her a small smile.

Entering the shadow of the trees, the afternoon sun shone on them weakly through the boughs. A hush filled the air under the branches. Using his abilities, Magneto was able to feel the presence of the grave marker he’d laid. Treading softly, they came at last to the spot. Magneto knelt down and cleared the pine needles and other debris from the marker. With a flick of his finger the decades of rust and corrosion disappeared and the plate shone as brightly as the day he had laid it.

“Hello, Anya,” he murmured, “I’m sorry, Papa didn’t bring you any flowers.” Lowering himself to the ground, he kissed the steel headstone.

Wanda and Pietro knelt down on either side of him as he sat back up. Pietro ran his finger over the inscriptions on the plate. “What does it say?” he asked.

Magneto swallowed, his emotions beginning to throb in his chest and throat. He maintained careful control of his voice as he recited what was written. First in Hebrew, then in English. He didn’t even need to read it, he couldn’t have forgotten it if he’d tried. After living in Israel, his Hebrew was much better now than it had been then. Still, he stumbled over some of the words, unshed tears threatening to take control of him.

Wanda put a hand on his shoulder. “Tell us about our sister, Father.” It was first time she’d called him that.

Pietro nodded. “Yes, tell us what she was like.”

“She was the most beautiful of children,” Magneto began. “She was the true light of my life. She was every hope and dream I ever had for the future. Bright, curious, intelligent, kind, thoughtful. I don’t even know how to describe her. But you must know how I felt, Pietro, you must feel the same about Luna.”

Pietro gulped and nodded.

Magneto continued. “After your mother and I escaped Auschwitz, we settled in a village in the Carpathian mountains – on the Polish side. We eventually got married and we had a good life. I worked as a builder, I was quite handy and was able to build us a small cottage up there in the mountains. Soon enough your sister was born. She was such a nice, fat baby. I remember that well. I had seen so many starve and to know that she would always have enough to eat was a joy to me. After losing so many people during the war, I thought maybe Magda and I finally had a chance to begin again. We’d build a new family together and have a new life. One no longer stained by death and destruction. It was a dream that seemed possible then. Back in those days I’d never even heard the word Mutant. I thought I was human, like everyone else. If only I had known, what a difference it would have made.”

Wanda began to pick up fallen leaves from the forest floor around them. “Tell us more, Father,” she urged. It warmed Magneto to hear her call him father. It had been too long since he’d heard it.

“When your sister was five I had a notion that I might be able to earn a place at a top university here in the USSR. Such spots are difficult to achieve unless you are very intelligent, but I told myself that I could do it and your mother believed me. I uprooted our lives to come to the city where I might have a chance to get in.” Magneto now recalled the decision with a bitterness that leaked into his voice. If only he’d not been so selfish and delusional.

“The day we arrived, I went to find work. The entire city was still being rebuilt after the Nazis nearly destroyed everything so I knew I could get a job just about anywhere. When I returned to the inn where we were staying, it was on fire. When I went to rescue Anya from the fire, I was beset by secret police. They prevented me from saving her!” Anger flashed in Magneto’s eyes, the fury he felt then was still every bit as strong. “That’s how your sister died. She burned to death and I couldn’t save her. Watching her die, and like that, like I had seen so many others die, I couldn’t take it. Something in me broke loose and my powers killed all those around me save Magda.”

Wanda’s eyes went wide but Pietro merely said, “I understand.”

Magneto looked at his son, of the twins, Pietro was always the harder one to reach. “Your mother did not understand, I’m afraid. When she’d seen what I had done she ran from me and I never did find her again. She said that I was a monster and ran. She was so overcome she didn’t even stay to bury our daughter. I think a part of me has never forgiven her for that, but now I think I can understand it too. She was a good woman, Magda, but her life had left its scars.” Magneto ran his thumb over his sleeve where underneath he bore the Auschwitz prisoner tattoo.

“I didn’t know your mother was pregnant when she left me, and after I couldn’t find her I decided she was better off without me. It seems that all who love me are fated to a terrible end. Wherever she is, if she still lives, she is most certainly better off without me.” Magneto found himself thinking of Magda often, he’d never been able to find any more about what had happened to her but he hoped she was happy. Glancing between Wanda and Pietro he said, “Had I known of you two, believe me, I would have come for you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you.” Magneto began to sweep his hands over the grave to clear the leaf and pine litter.

“Our adoptive parents were good to us,” Wanda said in a reassuring tone as she shaped her bundle of leaves into a small bouquet. “We were okay in the end and I can’t imagine my life without them.”

“And I am grateful for that,” Magneto said, giving Wanda another soft smile, “still, I regret all the time I lost with you two, and all the paths I’ve walked since your mother left me. I lost my way for a long time, lost who I was. I’m still not sure I’ve found it, but finding you and your brother makes me feel…” Magneto trailed off as he tried to put these emotions into words for the first time. “It makes me feel human again.”

Wanda leaned in and put an arm around Magneto. The demonstration brought tears to Magneto’s eyes. He ached to once more hug his Anya, to give Magda one last embrace before she left him forever. He wanted to say a proper goodbye to everyone who’d been ripped away from him. His mother and father, his sister, everyone he’d ever loved. Thirty years ago he’d knelt here alone, numb. Now, his children sat beside him and all the feelings he’d not been able to muster then came welling to the surface now. Covering his face with his hands, he began to weep.

Wanda and Pietro didn’t say a thing. Wanda just rested her cheek on his shoulder and rubbed her hand over his back. Pietro, somewhat hesitantly, patted Magneto’s back in what he must have thought was a soothing patter. Magneto struggled to regain his composure, but part of him was relieved to finally give Anya the tears she deserved.

Finally, Wanda spoke, “Father, I want to show you something.”

Magneto took a deep breath and lifted his face from his hands. He was unused to appearing so vulnerable in front of anyone, but he’d wanted the twins here for a reason. They deserved to know this part of their family’s story.

Wanda showed him the bundle of leaves she had and asked, “What was Anya’s favorite color?”

Magneto wiped away his tears and smiled as he recalled. “Yellow, it was her favorite because the sun is yellow and I always called her my little sunshine.”

Wanda smiled softly, her own eyes shining with emotion. “That’s beautiful. She sounds like the loveliest sister.” Wanda then raised her free hand and waved it over the brown leaves. Her red Mutant powers leapt forth and in the blink of an eye the bouquet of leaves transformed into one of yellow roses. “Now we have some flowers to leave for her.”

Magneto smiled, holding back a fresh wave of tears. “What a lovely gift you’ve made for her. I know she would be so proud of you.” Magneto turned to Pietro, “And you as well, Pietro. She would have loved to be your big sister. She would have taken care of the both of you so well.”

Pietro wiped his arm over his eyes. “Wait here,” he said, and with that he jumped up and sped off at top speed. Seconds later he was back, his arms filled with a huge array of wildflowers. In the space of a breath he’d arranged them into a lush wreath to frame the grave marker. “Sorry I never got to know you, big sister, I’m sure you would have been the best.” Together, he and Wanda decorated Anya’s grave the way Magneto wished he could have done all those years ago.

When they finished their task, the pair of them stepped back and looked at the beautifully decorated grave. “Is there anything you want to say, maybe a prayer or a poem?” Wanda asked. “I’m not familiar with the Jewish customs.”

A small pain lanced through Magneto’s heart. Of course they wouldn’t know such things, they were raised in a different culture. They had no reason to know the customs of their ancestors. “There are some prayers one might say, but I don’t really follow those beliefs anymore.”

“Then why don’t we make our own tradition,” said Pietro. “For this family.” Hearing that word from Pietro was like a balm to Magneto’s heart.

Wanda nodded. “Yes, something special from us to her.”

Magneto stood. “Last time I was here, I sang her her favorite lullaby. Will you sing it with me?”

The pair of them nodded. Magneto started, going slowly as he said each Yiddish phrase and waited for them to repeat it. It was a short song, the type you sing as you bounce your baby to sleep or sing with them before bed. Within a few repeats they had both gotten it and were singing it with him. Reaching out, Pietro took Magneto’s hand in one of his own, and Wanda’s in the other. Wanda took Magneto’s other hand, completing the circle as the three of them sang a lullaby for Anya.

When they left the graveside and returned to New York, Wanda invited Magneto inside for coffee and the three of them sat together, somewhat subdued, but between them now emanated a closeness that had not been present before.

A cry from the upstairs alerted Pietro that Luna was done napping and he darted upstairs to fetch her.

“Father,” Wanda asked, “do you have any pictures of Anya?”

Magneto nodded. “One, everything else burned in the fire. This one was saved because I always kept it in my wallet” Reaching into his jacket pocket, Magneto pulled out a photo in a clear plastic case. He gazed at it a moment before giving it to Wanda. “That’s your mother and Anya a few weeks before we left the Carpathians. They were my everything.”

Wanda took the photo as Pietro came back downstairs, Luna cradled in his arms. Wanda showed the photo to her brother. “She’s just a baby,” Pietro remarked, holding Luna a little tighter. “Just a little baby.”

Wanda traced her fingertips over the photo before raising it to her lips and giving it a soft kiss. “Hey sis, even though I never met you, I wanted to say that I love you.”

Warmth bloomed in Magneto’s heart upon hearing that. To know his children loved their sister made the distance between Anya and her siblings seem a little smaller. Made his life feel less like it was carved into pieces and made it seem possible that it was some sort of whole.

Pietro came to stand by Magneto. “Hey, um, Dad, do you want to hold Luna?” Holding her out he placed the baby in Magneto’s arms. Magneto looked down at the face of his granddaughter, her innocent eyes looked up at him as she gurgled and reached out to grab his nose. All three of them laughed and Magneto smiled at his family. He still had many amends to make, but the healing had begun.

#X-Men #Magneto #Erik Lehnsherr #Fanfic #Fanfiction #Magda and Anya #Wanda Maximoff #Pietro Maximoff #Family #6k words #Hurt/Comfort #Grief #Mourning #Child Death #Healing #AO3 #FFN

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