BIOGRAPHY - Page 9
Despite his departure, Quicksilver reunited with his former teammates for several subsequent missions, leading into the Siege of Asgard. [Incredible Hercules #139-141, Thunderbolts (1st series) #143, Mighty Avengers (1st series) #35-36] A new era began with Steve Rogers replacing Norman Osborn as "top cop" for the American superhuman forces and put the Avengers back in more secure hands. One concern that arose from the fall of HAMMER was a group of young superhumans who had been kidnapped, tortured or otherwise manipulated by Osborn in an effort to produce new super-powered assets for his Initiative. Out of concern that these kids might turn to villainy after their experiences if not properly guided, Rogers requested Hank Pym and several other Avengers act as instructors for the children in a new Avengers Academy setting. Quicksilver was among the inaugural faculty for the Academy, in part because Magneto's return as an ally of the X-Men made Pietro more inclined to distance himself from mutant activities at the moment. [Avengers Academy #1]
Whatever his intentions, Quicksilver found a surprise pupil in the Academy's student, Finesse. A polymath with the ability to rapidly learn new skills but a strong detachment to the emotions of herself and others, Finesse was among the more precariously positioned students on the hero/villain scale. Her drive to learn new talents at any cost worried Hank Pym, so he had her watch a recent television special about Pietro and the path of redemption. The unexpected result was that Finesse was able to read Quicksilver's body language during the interviews and footage to determine he was lying about the Skrulls replacing him during the infiltration. Armed with this knowledge, Finesse threatened to reveal Pietro's deceit unless he taught her something new... the extreme training tactics Magneto used on Pietro and Wanda as part of their Brotherhood initiation. Seeing little choice, Pietro agreed. [Avengers Academy #2]
Despite their unorthodox introduction, Quicksilver and Finesse began to work well together. She eagerly gobbled up any information he could provide on Magneto's tactics and warmed to Pietro's apparent disinterest in restricting her studies to "appropriate" topics. As a result, Finesse turned to Quicksilver when she decided to look for the Taskmaster, a criminal with similar photographic reflexes and whom she suspected of being her father. Well-versed in the topic of potentially unpleasant father figures, Pietro agreed to help Finesse in her search, while also cautioning her not to define herself by the Taskmaster's history. [Avengers Academy #6, 9]
In time, Quicksilver's greatest sin was set to be revisited when Magneto made contact with the Young Avengers. Two of the teen heroes, Wiccan and Speed, had come to believe they were the transmigrated souls of Pietro's lost nephews, Thomas and William, and intended to seek out the long-absent Wanda to determine if she was really their mother. Pietro anguished at the idea of Magneto getting his clutches on Wanda again or corrupting the family's next generation, so he intercepted the Young Avengers on their quest ahead of the other Avengers. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Pietro enjoyed meeting his "nephew" Tommy, a cocky speedster after his own heart. Quicksilver and Speed even had a brief race while grappling with Magneto's plans for the youngsters.
The quest continued and Wanda was found. Although she was amnesiac and powerless at first, her full power and memories were restored in time. Wanda was even prepared to undo the great crime she and Pietro committed, reversing the effects of the Decimation. Before she could do so, however, the X-Men arrived to either kill Wanda or take her into custody for crimes against mutantkind. While various factions squabbled, Doctor Doom intervened on the situation. It was revealed that Wanda's reality-altering power was not natural, but the result of tapping into the Life Force of the planet. Doom claimed this power from her before losing it altogether and the Decimation remained in place. Still, Pietro had reunited with his sister and that, for now, was enough. [Avengers: The Children's Crusade #2-9]
Quicksilver encountered his father again when Giant-Man invited Magneto and the X-Men to Avengers Academy to investigate the electromagnetic traces surrounding the apparent death of the Avenger Jocasta. Their icy encounter only got worse when Magneto stated the terms for his assistance -- Pietro must agree to no longer involve himself in mutant affairs. Magneto wasn't fooled for a moment by Quicksilver's Skrull story and felt his son's judgment too impaired to be allowed free reign. It was Finesse who came to Pietro's defense. The normally even-keeled polymath became livid at Magneto's treatment of her professor and started a fight with the visiting X-Men. After tempers cooled, Pietro agreed to Magneto's deal and parted ways with his father. Quicksilver and Finesse met up afterwards, and she told Pietro she no longer wanted him to teach her how to be like Magneto. She wanted to learn how to be like him instead. [Avengers Academy #22]
Soon, total war broke out between the Avengers and the X-Men. The Phoenix Force was coming to Earth and the mutants believed it intended to possess a girl named Hope Summers to undo the Decimation. The Avengers, on the other hand, were worried the Phoenix would bring only destruction, and battled the X-Men for control of Hope. Despite the chance to undo his own mistakes from the House of M, Pietro sided with the Avengers against the X-Men after they tried to kill Wanda, and for the chance to punch his father in the face. [Avengers vs. X-Men #2-4, Avengers Academy #29]
In a remarkable turn of events, the Phoenix Force was split into five pieces as the Avengers tried to deflect it, and that power possessed five of the X-Men instead of Hope, creating the Phoenix Five. As the Five traveled the world to perform acts of evolution and improvement to society, Phoenix Emma Frost focused on eliminating all traces of the Sentinel mutant-hunting technology... including a "domesticated" Sentinel partnered with Juston Seyfert at Avengers Academy. Juston was so attached to the Sentinel that Hank Pym and several students tried to fight Emma off, and Finesse tried to summon Quicksilver from Avengers business to help. Pietro actually applauded Emma's actions despite the rift between the two teams, and had considered the Sentinel an obscenity since it arrived. Still, he relented before Finesse's unusual display of empathy, and swiped out the Sentinel's CPU at super-speed, letting Emma destroy a decoy instead. [Avengers vs. X-Men #5-6, Avengers Academy #32-33]
As the war with the X-Men came to a close, the staff considered the future of Avengers Academy and its students. The core group of students were granted their own unique form of junior official Avengers membership and allowed to go their own way if they chose. Quicksilver shared one last private moment with Finesse, as she found her classmates partnering up and moving on without her. She drifted in to privately watch television with Pietro, having nowhere else to go, and he lightly comforted her with the declaration that her friends might peak in high school, but her future would only grow brighter. Finesse took Quicksilver's words to heart and put her Beta security clearance to work learning more and more about the Avengers operations in her spare time. [Avengers Academy #39]
When the Academy stopped hosting full-time students, Pietro drifted away from his teaching role, although he still remained on-call with the Avengers' reserves. [Avengers Assemble Annual #1] Quicksilver responded to an unlikely call when his half-sister Polaris was found tearing up a bar in New York. Lorna was feeling unstable after her X-Factor team disbanded following the Hell on Earth War, and was drowning her sorrows. Pietro tried to calm Lorna down, but neither their old friendship nor their "family history" allowed him to help. In the end, Lorna was arrested by the police for her actions, and there was nothing Quicksilver could do about it. [X-Factor (1st series) #260]
As a result, Pietro was a little perturbed when he learned Polaris was tapped to lead a new team of X-Factor as corporate-sponsored heroes for Serval Industries. Havok, Lorna's ex and current leader of the Avengers Unity Division, was similarly concerned about Lorna's mental health and Serval's true intentions. Havok asked Quicksilver to join the team on behalf of the Avengers and report back to him how Polaris and Serval were doing. Pietro was uncomfortable with the role of being Alex's "spy", but he was concerned about Lorna too, and agreed. Polaris didn't appreciate Quicksilver's sudden interest in being her big brother, but relented and allowed him onto the initial team, joining her and Gambit. (Remy immediately called it that Pietro was an Avengers spy, but nobody listened to him.) [All-New X-Factor #1]
The three of them had an awkward first mission for Pietro, when they discovered an AIM scientist experimenting on mutants in order to grant himself their powers. The mutants in question were Fatale, Reaper and Abyss, the X-Cell who had been plucked from an extra-dimensional void they retreated into after Pietro's ill-fated attempt to jumpstart their powers with Terrigen. They were less than thrilled to see Quicksilver on their rescue squad, although Pietro continued to maintain the fiction that it was a Skrull posing as him during that incident. [All-New X-Factor #2]
X-Factor roster continued to grow with former X-Men Danger, Cypher and Warlock added to the team. Quicksilver continued to report back to Havok, although he became even more uncomfortable with the arrangement. While Lorna had her issues, being the literal Big Brother looking over her shoulder didn't seem necessary. [All-New X-Factor #5]
Pietro and Douglas bonded over a video blog of Georgia Dakei (daughter of an outspoken anti-mutant advocate Scott Dakei), which appeared to show her in trouble at home. They convinced Lorna to take the team to visit and check on her welfare. The situation was much more complicated than they expected. Georgia turned out to be a mutant, leading her father to disown her and leave Georgia in Serval Industries' custody. They then inadvertently learned Dakei was NOT her biological father, and her birth parents were still living. Pietro again pushed Lorna to allow Georgia to connect with her birth parents if she wanted, especially considering their own issues with adopted versus biological parents. Of course, Georgia's biological parents turned out to be a super-villain named Memento Mori and a former mystic seeking to increase her power, but you can't win them all. [All-New X-Factor #7-11]
The day finally came when Serval Industries was prepared to announce their X-Factor team with a press conference. Unfortunately for Quicksilver, Havok declared he was suitably satisfied that Polaris was operating stably as X-Factor's leader, and prepared to end Pietro's spy mission. Alex welcomed him back to the Avengers, but Pietro found he didn't want to return. When Alex tried to insist, Pietro terminated their arrangement completely, saying he was proud to remain with the "misfits" of X-Factor and wasn't willing to leave them for the Avengers anymore.
He might have reconsidered if he knew what was coming. At the press conference, Polaris introduced Quicksilver and the X-Factor members one at a time before addressing their mission statement. She was interrupted, however, when Fatale crashed the event and publicly accused Quicksilver of the acts he committed while misusing the Terrigen Mists. Instead of waving her off or letting security deal with Fatale, though, Quicksilver decided to come clean about his actions for the first time since the Skrull invasion. He admitted publicly and on camera that there was no Skrull imposter, and he was completely in control of his own actions. Pietro took full responsibility for what he had done to Fatale, the Inhumans and others following the Decimation, and left the press conference after announcing he would accept any punishment the authorities brought against him.
Pietro was alone in his room later that night when he received the first sign he had done the right thing. His daughter Luna had arrived at Serval Industries, seeing him for the first time since his web of lies first began. By finally owning up to his actions, Pietro had regained the respect of his daughter and he was lovingly reunited with Luna. [All-New X-Factor #12] When Crystal came by looking for her daughter, she and Pietro had a mostly civil discussion, and she agreed Luna could stay with him at Serval for a time so they could renew their relationship. [All-New X-Factor #13]