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

[supersonic]

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?

Comments

[supersonic]

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.

[magnetic]

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.

[supersonic]

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.)

[magnetic]

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.

[supersonic]

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.

[magnetic]

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...