BIOGRAPHY - Page 5
Several weeks later, Pietro was shocked to hear from his father, Magneto, had reverted back to his villainous way and asked Quicksilver to rejoin him and Wanda in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Concerned over the influence Magneto seemed to have suddenly gained over his sister, Quicksilver agreed to rejoin his father, but contacted the West Coast Avengers‘ Doctor Pym secretly beforehand in order to act as a spy in Magneto's camp. He was completely surprised to observe the dramatic changes in Wanda's behavior... the result of a series of tragedies she had recently suffered, including the loss of her husband and the revelation that her twin sons were not real. Indeed, the Scarlet Witch was now even more hungry for "human" blood than Magneto.
Aboard Asteroid M, the Master of Magnetism tricked Quicksilver into revealing his true 
intentions, and Wanda lashed out at her brother with her hex power. Still, to their surprise, Pietro had been carrying the teleporting dog Lockjaw around in his pocket, shrunken courtesy of Doctor Pym, and the canine then transported all of them into the Avengers' grasp. Chasing Magneto off proved to be the least of their worries, however, as the Lord of Limbo Immortus chose that moment to carry through his lifetime plans to manipulate Wanda as a nexus being for cross-dimensional energies. After a complicated series of events, the Scarlet Witch was freed and returned to her old self. [Avengers West Coast #56-57, 60-62]
Pietro stuck around with the West Coast team for a time, while his sister was recuperating from her ordeal. He also participated in a race to determine which of Earth’s speedsters was the fastest. The race was organized by the Runner, an Elder of the Universe, with the racecourse covering the entire distance from Earth to the moon. Easily outrunning Black Racer, Super Sabre and Speed Demon, Quicksilver ended up in third place officially, only beaten by the Eternal Makkari, the Whizzer of the Squadron Supreme, and a mysterious and unidentified late entry. [Quasar #17]
During a battle with Ultron, Quicksilver and several others were transformed into robotic andrones. Fortunately, Wanda's power over probabilities helped Iron Man to find the exact frequency of ultra-violet light that would return them to normal. [Avengers West Coast #66-68]
When the time came to nominate a new full-time roster under the United Nations charter, Pietro stepped down into a reserve substitute role for the Avengers. Upon leaving the West Coast Avengers‘ compound and saying good-bye to Wanda, Pietro mentioned that he wanted to see more of the world. [Avengers West Coast #69-70] During all this time, Pietro and Crystal had run hot and cold in trying to repair their marriage. Despite technically living together, they were still spending more time apart from one another than together. Indeed, not long after Quicksilver left Avengers West, Crystal chose to leave Attilan and join the Avengers in New York, leaving the struggling married couple like ships passing in the night. [Avengers (1st series) #334-339]
At one point, Quicksilver's speed began to act up, accelerating his age and metabolism if he used it too much. After receiving a taunting postcard from "an evil individual" claiming 
responsibility for turning his powers against him, Pietro tracked him to the Washington D.C. area and contacted the newly formed government-sponsored X-Factor team for assistance. His condition turned out to be part of an elaborate plot by Mister Sinister and a closet mutant U.S. senator to discredit X-Factor for their own purposes. They were found out and their scheme was foiled, and Quicksilver learned that the "ricochet effect" being used against him was purely psychosomatic in nature: in other words, stress. With some effort, he was then able to overcome the detrimental effect on his metabolism, and chose to work with X-Factor full-time in Washington D.C. [X-Factor (1st series) #71-75]
One of X-Factor’s next missions involved a genetic research clinic where concerned parents could have their unborn children tested for mutant genes, implictly to influence their decision to adort the pregnancy. The staff had been warned about an imminent mutant terrorist attack, and X-Factor’s job was to protect them. Not all members of X-Factor could agree with the mission, as they felt it could be interpreted as them approving of what the clinic was doing. Pietro was one of those and he asked to be left out of the mission. He later explained to his teammates that he had been reminded of his own bigotry after Luna’s birth, when he couldn’t deal with the fact that she had not inherited any powers. [X-Factor (1st series) #78]
In the meantime, Crystal had settled in to living in Manhattan with the Avengers and Luna. In an attempt to reconcile, the estranged couple arranged for some weekend visits. Not much later, though, they learned of a possible threat to Luna from the fanatical mutant zealots, the Acolytes, who worshipped Magneto and saw his granddaughter being a normal child as heresy. [Avengers (1st series) #343, 350-351] Indeed, the Acolytes infected X-Factor‘s government liaison, Val Cooper, with a genetic parasite not long after, controlling her mind so that they could keep tabs on Quicksilver.
After a series of traumatic events, the government ordered the members of X-Factor to take part in counseling sessions with Dr. Leonard Samson. The psychiatrist got Quicksilver to 
open up and uncovered the reason for his arrogant and aloof attitude, or his PMS (Pietro Maximoff syndrome), as Val would call it. Because of his own incredible speed, Pietro experienced everything around him as if in slow motion. He compared it to standing in a line at a banking machine behind a person who doesn’t know how to use it. Next to everyone gets impatient in such a situation, only Pietro’s entire life is that situation - he is always surrounded by people slowing him down. [X-Factor (1st series) #87] Over the next few weeks, Quicksilver continued to consult Dr. Samson, and he began to understand how he appeared to others. He also followed the psychiatrist’s advice to find himself a hobby that he could perform at his own pace and turned to sculpting. [X-Factor (1st series) #94]
When Pietro came to Val Cooper requesting time off for an attempt at reconciling with Crystal, she granted his leave of absence and even provided a getaway cabin for the couple... but also alerted the Acolytes so they could put their plans into motion. Pietro and Crystal's rendezvous started off well enough, and they were on the road to making peace with the mistakes of their pasts. However, an Acolyte agent posing as a tabloid reporter showed Pietro a series of photos depicting Crystal out dancing with Dane Whitman, one of her fellow Avengers. He also claimed to have even more "explicit" photos in reserve. Quicksilver threatened to murder the man if those pictures ever saw print, and the mood between he and Crystal soured irreparably with the trust gone between them. [X-Factor (1st series) #88-89]
After driving a wedge between Pietro and his wife, Val continued her appointed mission and tried to alienate him from his fellow members of X-Factor as well, driving him further from all his existing ties in the hopes that he would retake the legacy of Magneto, as the Acolytes wished. The mutant terrorists put their plan into full swing during an attack on a hospice in Virginia. One of their members, Spoor, allowed himself to be captured by 
the authorities and paraded in front of X-Factor by Val Cooper. When Quicksilver entered the room, Spoor pretended to respect Pietro as a messiah figure and "confessed" the location of the Acolytes' next assault, an out-of-the-way military base called Camp Hayden. Val, still under Acolyte control, took Quicksilver and the mercenary Random there without the rest of the team, under the stated assumption that all other Acolytes would passively submit to Quicksilver's word just as Spoor did. As it turned out, Camp Hayden was actually the hidden base for Project: Wideawake and the new Sentinel development program. Having followed Val and Quicksilver, X-Factor were furious that the government was using them as licensed mutants on the one hand, yet building mutant-hunting robots on the other. Surprisingly enough, Pietro actually defended the government's right to build Sentinels, recognizing humanity's need to defend itself against the Acolytes of the world. Naturally, the Acolytes chose that moment to attack. In the midst of the battle, their leader, Fabian Cortez, offered Quicksilver a place at the head of the Acolytes. Pietro was instead horrified at the very idea of following his father's path, and rejected Cortez's suggestions. [X-Factor (1st series) #90-92]
Still, the incident was unsettling for him, made all the worse when, weeks later, Magneto himself returned to assume control of the Acolytes and began his war against humanity with new zeal. 
Quicksilver took a leave of absence from X-Factor when he was asked by Professor Xavier to join a small strikeforce of X-Men to penetrate the defenses of Avalon, Magneto's orbital base, and disable the threat it posed. Xavier had picked the members of the assault team either because their powers matched the requirements for a stealth mission or for their strong desire to settle unresolved conflict with Magneto. In Quicksilver’s case, both reasons applied. However, the plan went awry and they were forced into a direct confrontation with Magneto himself. While fighting his father, Pietro said that he was tired of running away from his problems. Considering his issues with Crystal and the inability to trust or to belong a direct result of his upbringing, Quicksilver blamed Magneto for the lack of any parental guidance. Magneto didn’t want to hear any of that and was about to slay his only son when Wolverine intervened, only to suffer all but irreparable injuries. Xavier then ended the fight by erasing Magneto’s mind. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #304, 306, X-Men (2nd series) #25] Afterwards, Pietro recuperated with the X-Men for a time before deciding whether to return to X-Factor or devote his efforts full-time to reconciling with his wife.
Magneto’s legacy would continue to stir up things, though. As he had been condemned as a false prophet upon Magneto’s return, the Acolytes' former leader Fabian Cortez was on the run. 
A desperate man in need of a new powerbase, Cortez helped incite a civil war in Genosha. To aid in his bid for power, Cortez even kidnapped Luna from Avengers Mansion, and used her as a human shield to protect himself from retribution. Quicksilver traveled to Genosha with the X-Men in an attempt to reclaim his daughter, and soon met up with Wanda and Crystal, who had journeyed to the island with the Avengers for a similar rescue mission. They confronted Cortez, only to find him half out of his mind with fear of Magneto's latest follower, Exodus. His fear was justified when Exodus arrived in Genosha, slaying Cortez and taking Luna as his own hostage. Only a combined effort by the X-Men and Avengers managed to disrupt Exodus' fanatical plans for Genosha. In retreat, however, the Acolyte lashed out at Pietro with his psionic powers, significantly injuring him. [Bloodties crossover]