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.