Marvel Oneshots

Magic Trick (Pietro Maximoff)

Written for Fictober 2022 on Tumblr!

Prompt: "You're looking, but you're not seeing."

Summary: Pietro and Y/N have been dating for a while, and have often been put in charge of watching Wanda and Vision's kids. When they're left to spend some time watching Billy together, it might not be long before they're thinking about having kids of their own.

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I smiled to myself as I watched my boyfriend, Pietro Maximoff, hold up a coin in front of his nephew's face. Billy frowned in concentration, staring hard at the coin in his uncle's hand. Pietro had done this trick twice already, but since Billy was still a toddler, he hadn't quite caught on to Piet's secret.

"Are you watching?"

Billy nodded intently, clearly taking this deadly seriously.

"Good. Then in three... two... one..." Pietro moved the coin closer to Billy and then further away with each number. Finally, after one, he moved his hand again and suddenly the coin was gone!

Since I'd dated the speedster for a few years now, I knew he'd just used his super speed to toss the coin into his other hand without Billy seeing. But Billy didn't have super speed, and he'd only recently turned four, so he didn't know that.

"What! Uncle Piet, where'd it go?" cried Billy. Pietro just grinned.

"Haven't you learned by now?"

Quickly, Billy's hands flew to his ears. Pietro (again with help from his super speed) had pulled the coin from Billy's ears twice in a row now.

Pietro shot me a smile while Billy felt his ears, and I smiled back. I always loved spending time with Wanda's kids, especially when Pietro and I were working together to babysit. He was just so good with them, it never failed to make my heart melt.

"Uncle Piet, it's not there!" Billy finally declared. Pietro just grinned at him, and reached forward slowly. With a super speedy wrist flick, he passed the coin from his off hand back into the one reaching for Billy's ear. Like the last two times, Billy didn't notice. Pietro paused a moment for dramatic effect, then pulled his hand away and showed Billy the coin resting in the palm of his hand. Billy's mouth dropped open in awe.

"Not bad, eh kiddo?"

Billy stared at the coin for another minute, then his head snapped back up to look at Pietro.

"How do you do that?"

"Magic," Pietro answered with a shrug.

"Uncle Pietro, you don't have magic! Only Mommy has magic!"

"How can you know that for sure? Your mommy's my sister. Maybe I have magic like her and just never told you."

Billy paused like he was really considering Pietro's words. Then, after a few moments of careful thinking, he looked back at Pietro and shook his head confidently.

"No, you and Mommy would have told me. You're fast and she's magic, just like Tommy's fast and I'm magic!"

"Hmm..." Pietro put his hand on his chin and pretended to think carefully. He looked at me like he wanted help finding the answer, and I nodded my agreement with Billy. Piet and I both looked back to Billy, who seemed very pleased to have made such a good point. "I guess you're right. I'm not magic. So you must need to pay attention more carefully when I do the trick."

Billy's mouth dropped open in outrage. "I paid attention! I was looking the whole time!"

"Ah, that's your problem," said Pietro, leaning back casually on his hands. I smiled and settled in to watch him. "You're looking, but you're not seeing."

Billy frowned, clearly not satisfied by his uncle's answer, so Piet sat forward again and held out the coin to show Billy.

"When I wave the coin in front of your face with my hand, I'm trying to get you to look at my hand, and only my hand. What you need to do is see what I'm trying to distract you from."

With that, Pietro went through the motions of his trick again. Billy watched intently, and when it came time for Pietro to toss the coin to his off-hand, this time he didn't use his super speed.

Billy's eyes went wide. "Were you really doing that every time?"

"I was, with a little more flare." With that, Pietro tossed the coin from one hand to the other again, this time using super speed. Billy's eyes went wide, and then he laughed.

"Uncle Pietro, that's cheating!"

"How is that cheating?" asked Pietro, playing mock offended. He put his hands on his chest like he'd been wounded, then turned to me. "My love, was I cheating?"

I shrugged. "You said you were doing a magic trick, and sneakily using powers definitely counts as a trick. Sorry Billy, my verdict is no cheating."

Billy threw up his hands like he couldn't believe us, and Pietro and I shared a laugh. I could've spent hours doing nothing and everything with these two boys, but unfortunately, we were supposed to get Billy back to Wanda in time for dinner. With a sigh, I stood and went over to Billy, holding my hands out in a peace offering.

"Come on, after all that magic I think it's time for us to go get some ice cream and get you back to your mom," I said. Billy instantly perked up, smiling at me excitedly as he took my hand.

"Yay! Let's go!"

He hopped off the chair he'd been sitting in and used his other free hand to grab Pietro's, pulling us along as he walked in the middle of us. As we headed out the door, I shared a soft smile with Pietro, my heart practically melting at the scene I got to be a part of.

As we walked Billy down the street to his favorite ice cream shop, swinging him between us as Pietro cracked jokes and Billy laughed like a maniac, I couldn't help imagining what it would be like for the two of us to have a kid of our own. And when I caught Pietro's eye as we handed Billy back off to Wanda and Vision a little later, I could tell he was thinking the exact same thing.

We were going to make great parents, whenever that day came.