multiversallogs | CLOSED :: i thought you died alone, a long long time ago

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CLOSED :: i thought you died alone, a long long time ago

Who: Pietro Maximoff & Erik Lehnsherr
What: Amiable father/son bonding, surely.
Where: X-Bros residence in Mafaton
When: Shundi afternoon
Warnings: None yet.

It's a gusty day in Mafaton, at least that's what seems, for all intents and purposes, to be happening in the block or two surrounding Charles and Erik's newly-rented home.

He wasn't lying when he told Wanda he only wants to talk their father – or this stranger who may or may not become the man they know, if he were to put it more generously. Pietro doesn't care to give Magneto the benefit of the doubt, whatever the universe. (Things won't be different, he reminds himself; they're never different.) But the fact is, Erik is an unknown quantity, and that alone is concerning enough for him to attempt to remedy.

And he can't avoid the man forever. If his run-in with Ilde proved anything, it's that the city isn't big enough for that. They'll have to meet sooner or later; he just wants to do it on his terms.

Apparently, that means staking out the neighborhood beforehand, intermittently and quicker than the eye can follow. There are brief flashes of him throughout the day, blurs of white and grey that are gone before one has time for a second glance, if anyone sees him at all. He notes the exits, what metal he can see from a distance, and waits to catch only one of its residents at home.

Finally, there's a rush of wind against the front windows and he's simply there, standing on the step. Knock knock?

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Erik is not so excessively wary (read: paranoid) here in Mafaton as he was back at the inn, and so he does not stand on the other side of the door, listening, before even asking who's there. He does scan the front stoop for the presence of unfamiliar metal, however, on his way over.

Pietro might see his lean silhouette moving past one of the front windows, backlit by a lamp in some other room. He is unhurried, still looking down at whatever's in his hands—and whatever it was has been set aside by the time he arrives at the front entrance, as it's nowhere to be seen when the door finally opens. It does not swing wide enough to be welcoming, but enough to show that he is not nervous of unknown guests. Nor is it nervousness that stops him stone still with his hand on the latch. Not exactly.

...Hi.

This had seemed like a much better idea a second ago. Throwing Erik a off balance had actually been part of the plan, but he hadn't really given much thought to its effects beyond 'slight tactical advantage.' Like what on earth he meant to do next.

There's a quick, awkward pause wherein he considers just disappearing again. He could be halfway across the city before the other man could bat an eye, and then he wouldn't have to deal with this at all.

"I thought we should meet," he says instead. It's curt, but not particularly more hostile than his usual charming self. He's simply very still, as if prepared to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Not dealing seems to have been Erik's primary tactic thus far in regards to his... not surrogate, not estranged, he doesn't even know what to call them—are they really his family at all? Wanda looks so much like her mother, though, and— well, he's looking at Pietro now, in person. The undeniable resemblance. That sense of surreality unfurling once again.
His son, standing here. Older than he is.

The words came easily for Wanda; to Pietro, has no idea what to say. But he has to say something, they can't just stare at each other.

"Yes." ...It's a start. He attempts to clear the dryness from his throat before going on. "I saw you on the network."

He gives a slight nod; no need for introductions, then. Pietro is lucky enough to have done this a few times before – not exactly like this, but he and Wanda were adults when Magneto first realized their relation, and it went significantly worse than this. And then there was Joseph. That was a bit different, but equally surreal.

It's not something you get used to, however. He isn't only staring, he's– studying. There's always been some resemblance, but being so close in age, it's a little uncanny. (Has he become his father, after all this time?)

"I don't remember you before you went grey," he says without the slightest consideration for how that sounds, like he just needs to establish that difference, between the two of them or between Erik and the father he knows. "Must I stand on the porch?"

Other people just ask to come in, Pietro.

Asking is customary, yes, but if he thinks anything of the demand, Erik elects not to show it. "Please," he says, and steps toward the door, widening the entrance—and that's all he says until his unexpected guest enters, assuming he does indeed do so presently. It is only when Pietro has gone past that Erik's gaze will break away, and only to scan the street for a hint of anything suspicious. (This is not specific to the visit, only a daily habit.)

The house is not especially large, but it is clean, with primarily white walls, wooden floors, and an abundance of doorways, most of which are open to promote a feeling of space. (Erik does not like any door to be closed unless there's a specific reason for it.) The rooms are mostly furnished, and the living room, visible from the front entrance, currently plays host to a small number of boxes as well, some open, some yet sealed.

"How did you come by this address?" He has an idea, but asks anyway, because it's something to talk about.

The tension in him, the watchfulness–-neither lessen with being invited in. Pietro doesn't consider this safer, it just seemed less awkward than talking at the door. He glances over the space as he enters, though it's difficult to tell how much scrutiny he gives anything; his gaze doesn't dwell on anything in the house for any perceptible measure of time, but then it hardly needs to. It's safe to assume he isn't missing much.

"My sister provided it." A beat. "On the condition I refrain from antagonizing you," added with a slight begrudging air, lest anyone get the impression Wanda would hand out Erik's address easily.

Turning back toward the other man again, "She mentioned, I hope, how my father and I get along?"

"Not in any great detail." But he has an idea about this, too, if only from the phrasing of both that answer and the question that followed it. He's not sure if strained is the correct word to apply; that remains to be seen.

Erik leaves the front door, now closed (and left unlocked), but only to move away from it. His hands rest on his hips as he stops there in the hallway, purely out of habit, his forearms bare, cotton sleeves hiked up to his elbows. Perhaps the two of them will simply observe each other for a time while an old clock ticks somewhere nearby. ...Unless Pietro is impatient to speak, of course. He'll have to break the silence, either way, or else it will be broken by an offer to get something for him from the kitchen—a drink, or something. Or they might start speaking at the same time, and do one of those awkward conversation dances. Who's to say.

Lucky for them, impatience is kind of Pietro's default. There is a pregnant pause, yes, but it simply does not take that long for him to think through anything, even so delicate a subject as putting his relationship with Magneto into words. It's not that he's trying to spare Erik anything, really; it's only that these are his feelings, thank you, and therefore none of the other man's business.

"Let us say 'badly' and leave it at that," brisk. He shifts his weight. It would be easier to just be out with it.

"You should know that I do not share my sister's optimism." In...anything, but specifically regarding Erik. "I do not expect to mean a thing to you, nor you to me. If you are to have a place in Wanda's life while we are here, it is unavoidable that you should have some part in mine, but I hardly expect us to be friends."

The straightforward approach is something Erik can appreciate—and that's where he leaves it, mentally, as considering any immediate commonalities between the two of them will only make this more awkward.

"That's fair." It's hard to argue against Pietro's position. He feels the same way about all of this, generally. (Sometimes.) Still, although he's not about to beg any of these people to give him a chance, it would be something of a relief not to feel like everyone is just quietly waiting for him to fuck up—he spends enough time doing that himself, honestly, although usually not on a conscious level.

...And yet. "May I ask why that is?"

That Erik doesn't argue earns him a few--very tentative--points in his favor, though the expression on Pietro's face looks more like he's wondering if the civility is some kind of elaborate trap. He's never known his father to accept the boundaries he sets out; he's known his father to break into his home to see his grandchild and be somehow surprised when Pietro fails to appreciate his familial dedication. (Does this mean he doesn't care at all? And what does that matter, if there's nothing between them?)

"Would you like a list?" Unnecessarily flippant, perhaps. "Because I do not trust you, to be quite honest. Because at best you are a stranger, and at worst you are well on your way to becoming the man I know. Because the last time I put my faith in my father he nearly killed me, and I am wholly uninterested in repeating my mistakes."

('Nearly' isn't accurate, but the truth seems shameful somehow, admitting he means so little to his own father that a fit of rage is reason enough to dispatch him; he can't quite bring himself to throw that in Erik's face.)

"If there is some compelling reason I should befriend the younger, alternate universe iteration of someone I know only as a megalomaniacal madman, however, by all means."

Erik listens to this elaboration patiently, outwardly calm, and moving only to lift his arms into a slow fold across his chest. He did ask, he has to remind himself. He asked. Pietro did not burst in here and start announcing suspicions without prompt. This does nothing to loosen what feels like a fist clenched hard in his guts, but it does assuage the instantaneous knee-jerk impulse to tell the man to get out.

Perhaps now that ticking clock moment can occur, if only briefly.

"I can think of no such reason." Unlike his alternate, perhaps, Erik is not (yet?) capable of putting on an air of complete dispassion, but he is definitely becoming unresponsive. Wilfully so. "And since neither can you, apparently, this begs the question: why are you here?"

Because.

If there was an easy answer to that question, he would give it, instead of pausing here tight-shouldered and awkward like all his vulnerabilities had suddenly been put on display – but of course there is an easy answer, the one that comes to mind without his bidding and against all his efforts to bury it – because he wants things to be different.

From an outside perspective, it doesn't look like he moves so much as blurs, briefly, in the direction of the door, but he steps back right where he started again. A hand pushes back through his hair instead, still fast enough to be barely visible, but more controlled.

"I only thought–" lamely, shaking his head, "It was better to do this here than in front of Wanda next time she invites you for dinner." A misdirection, but not a lie; he'd meant this to be a kindness, of sorts, at the very least to Wanda.

It is difficult not to be fascinated by Pietro's unique movements, even despite the current conversational tension. He is not distracted by them, but mindful, and now abruptly, acutely aware that this visit could end, could have ended, at any instant. But it hasn't. He gave the man an obvious and easy out just now, and still. It hasn't.

Something in Erik softens—and in his expression, too, almost imperceptibly.

"Quite right." And in his voice. "I'm sure she would appreciate it."

It may in fact end very soon; it's difficult to be riled, exactly, by what is if anything a decrease in hostility (he knows better than to get his hopes up over a slight softening of demeanor, and yet–), but the longer they stand here, the more uncomfortably exposed he feels.

He is a grown man, however, and he refuses to be skittish of all things. After a beat, he nods once, as if accepting that they've found one small point of agreement.

"I assume I don't have to tell you, if you hurt her – or the boys – in any way, you may find yourself on a thousand-mile-per-hour run without an oxygen mask." ...Just, y'know, so they're clear on the ground rules here.

Yes, of course. Ground rules. Threatening a man in his own house is, in general, a pretty good way to get his hackles up. Being no exception to this, Erik smiles, in that thin way he does when he doesn't feel like smiling at all, draws a deep breath in and pushes it out through his nose. There's that little knot between his eyebrows, finally come home—it's never gone for too long.

"Sorry, what was that?" Please feel free to reconstruct that sentence.

His gaze sets on Erik and goes still. If Pietro recognizes (or...cares about) the inherent rudeness of what he's said and where, it doesn't show, but he's far from unaware of the change in the other man's smile or the danger implied therein. He lifts his chin, the barest few millimeters; if anyone was under the mistaken impression he might back down, that's probably a no.

"You heard me well enough." Without apology, although it's without particular venom, either. Like he'd been reading off a grocery list instead of threatening potential asphyxiation, as if he's simply like this, sharp-edged and preemptively protective to the complete, irrational disregard of anything else, Erik's feelings included. "Would you rather I didn't warn you at all?"

As if not murdering anyone who harms his sister is not an option. (...Sir.)

Although he does find Pietro's prickly and uncompromising nature somehow endearing in the vaguest sense—likely only due to the idea that the two of them may be related—there is no way in hell, frankly, that Erik's pride can endure this without raising its head. And so it has done.

"Actually, I would rather believe that someone who claims to know me somehow would not think me foolish enough to require it. But it seems that ship has sailed." His stare is likewise fixed, and growing harder by the minute. "And since I cannot say I know you at all, I should advise you to keep a similar warning in mind."

Oh yes he did.

The fact that Pietro knows this about his father, and about himself—that they both have that immutable pride and hair-trigger temper—really ought keep him from getting into conversations like this, or at least make him pause once they've begun to consider that he could easily defuse the situation instead of aggravating it, if he was just willing to yield an inch. But he isn't. Because this is his sister, his family, and it's too deeply ingrained by now, this instinct to fight before he so much as thinks, which was once vital to their survival and now just makes him that much more difficult.

And because he cannot, in fact, ignore a threat from this particular man. (Even a well-deserved one.)

He takes a step toward Erik – and only a step, but in less time than the blink of an eye it gets his message across well enough. It could have been two, it could have been a lot more than a step before normal-speeded reflexes would even have had a chance to kick in. Is that really a fight you want to start?

"I will." And then he's gone.

He does not want to start that fight, no, but he would if necessity called for it—the same way Erik will fight anyone who gives him, as he sees it, no alternative choice.

There's no sense in opening the door to look after Pietro, he knows, so he doesn't. He just stands there, still in the same place he was left, arms still folded, and looks to the ceiling. Closes his eyes. Attempts a moment of decompression. Ultimately, it fails to be effective.

This family...

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CLOSED :: i thought you died alone, a long long time ago

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