Tuesday afternoon, Pietro and Kurt

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Pietro and Kurt both arrive in the gym looking for a more social workout; they get the social, but not so much the workout. Still, they have a lot to talk about and a lot in common.



He usually went to the gym at times when it would be empty or nearly so--during the night or early in the morning--just because he liked to have quiet for practising the trapeze. There were exceptions, however, and today Kurt was down there for practise just after lunch. There was nothing wrong with being social sometimes, after all.

Which was, if Kurt only knew it, exactly what Pietro was thinking as he made his own way to the gym. True, the only equipment he really needed for a workout was a floor and something to use as a pull-up bar, and true, his suite had both those things, but after the poker game--which even Pietro had to admit had been a success--he was starting to believe that he really was going to need more contact with other people. In principle, anyway. In practice, he was probably going to open the door to find someone who'd been honing a grievance ever since he arrived. But then, nothing ventured, nothing gained; he pushed open the door and stepped in.

He was lucky, as he was only the second person to arrive, and the first had no grievance against him. Kurt smiled from where the trapeze was just swinging to rest against the wall. "Good afternoon."

"Wagner!" Pietro greeted him almost cheerfully. "Or 'Sefton,' now, I suppose? Maybe there's something to this nonavoidance concept after all. How are you?"

"I will still answer to either name", Kurt assured him. "Though Sefton is official, now. And I am well enough, all things considered. Yourself?"

Pietro shrugged noncommitally. "I've had better holidays. None in the past few years, granted, but this quarantine business was rather diabolically timed. I was looking forward to being able to spend this Christmas with the family I'm not trying my very best to have legally executed, especially with most of the other people I wouldn't mind celebrating with gone to be with theirs."

Kurt nodded with a wry grin. "It could certainly have been better. Though in my case, it is not so much that I would see my family legally executed, as that... they either do not want to speak to me, or cannot do so openly for fear of disownment. Except for Amanda, who was cast out even before I was."

Pietro winced. "I was always afraid my mother would cast me out, once I left to look for my father, but she never did--and neither did Wanda, when the clan passed to her. I certainly gave them enough cause, but . . . they had more faith in me than I did, I suppose. How are you holding up?"

"I have my sister, at least", was the half-answer. "And the people in this mansion. As far as family goes, it is not a bad substitute. And I know that Stefan did not like the decision, and contacts me when he can. So I manage."

"Manage," Pietro echoed, a bitter twist in his voice. "I've been just managing for too long. I keep hoping for something better, but all I seem to end up with is more obstacles."

"Perhaps when your work against your father is done, and you can take off that bracelet", Kurt suggested quietly, teleporting from the trapeze to the floor. "When you are free."

"We'll see," Pietro said wryly. "No doubt something else will present itself. Summers calls me a pessimist, but the weight of empirical evidence is on my side." He tilted his head. "What about you? Or is it still too early to see past the managing?"

"I should probably try", Kurt said after a moment. "To see past the managing. It has been... too long. And I suppose now I am more free than I have ever been."

"There's a difference between the freedom you choose and the freedom someone else forces on you, though," Pietro pointed out. "With the choice, well--" He snorted. "You're not necessarily happier, but at least you can console yourself with the fact that you did make your bed." He paused. "I know I'm no one's first choice of confidant, but if it would help . . . after all, even here there aren't too many other children of the Brotherhood."

"Only the three of us in the world, that I know of", Kurt agreed. "Which is probably a blessing. And I think it would help just to have someone who does not need at least that part explained."

"Well, I'm offering, if you feel the need." Pietro laughed suddenly. "I think the only thing that shocks me about this is the idea of being the Amazing Nightcrawler's sounding board. I think my sister had your poster, at one point."

Kurt blinked. "She never told me that part. I always knew that I was locally famous, if nothing else, before I came to America, but... well, I suppose that would still count as locally famous. And perhaps there was more than I knew, I did not leave the caravan very often..."

Pietro waved a hand. "I could be wrong; we were both in college by then, and too busy to visit much. I heard enough about you that I caught a show once, though. Impressive, though I'm not generally one for circuses."

"I started training young", Kurt said modestly. "And of course, I have my advantages."

"Quite true." Pietro grinned. "I'd imagine most acrobats would very nearly kill for prehensile feet and a tail, even discounting the agility. And there's quite a lot to be said for being able to enjoy your mutation. That's . . . well. One of the unalloyed good things about being here. Opportunities to simply have fun with my speed were few and far between when I was working with my father."

Kurt nodded. "I imagine he preferred to keep track of you? That would make really cutting loose with the speed difficult."

"That, and ground-based sonic booms aren't exactly subtle, or conducive to staying below the government radar." Pietro smirked. "Literally speaking, sometimes. Not that I've had much opportunity for that level of cutting loose since I've come here, of course, but the possibility exists, and I've found plenty of scope for the more subtle amusements."

"And no one here would say you cannot do that", Kurt told him. "Though you might find complaints from those with sensitive hearing. Sam has had that problem before."

Pietro snorted. "I get complaints whatever I do. But it's not the noise that's the problem, so much as it is the lack of space. At any kind of reasonable speed I can cross the school campus nearly as fast as you could--and then what?" He shook his head. "I am, as I think I may have mentioned, really looking forward to the day I get this damned shackle off."

"Do you know yet how much longer it will be?" Kurt asked sympathetically.

"Another month, maybe two. I have a lot of files, and the copy I'm being forced to rely on wasn't designed for easy retrieval." Pietro grimaced. "I'm having to rely on internet archive sites to find the oldest ones, now, and I'm starting to think the only way I'm going to get everything is to write a worm program and hope somebody's nearly-computer-illiterate grandmother has no antivirus software and a browser cache she hasn't cleaned out in three years."

"A month or two is not so bad", was all Kurt could offer. "Not as bad as it could be. And what will happen if you do not retrieve everything?"

"I have to sit through Cooper being smug at me," Pietro said distastefully. "For one thing. I'm not sure it would really damage my immunity deal--they'd be happy enough with half what I'd like to give them, I'm sure, and I'm past halfway now. But that woman would find some way to make me regret every single hole in the record." He paused for a long moment. "And then . . . I gave my word. Not to Cooper, obviously, I'd never give her that kind of leverage. But I promised myself, when I started this, that some day I'd make Father answer for everything he's done. Everything. Not just whatever I could manage to scrape together." He set his jaw. "Looked at one way . . . every hole in my files is a murder unavenged."

Kurt looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. It wasn't as if he couldn't understand that. "Then I wish you luck in finding the last pieces."

"Thank you. I think I'll need it."