Saturday morning, Pietro and Scott

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Pietro gets tired of waiting for his post-Kansas-City notadebriefing and goes looking for Scott. To no one's surprise, the conversation turns into an informal job interview.



Pietro's knuckles beat a quick tattoo on Scott's office door. There was every chance the other man had sequestered himself down in the restricted areas of the mansion, given the current situation, but perhaps he hadn't--and if he hadn't, well, Pietro was tired of waiting for Summers to conveniently drop by to ask, with no hidden agenda whatsoever, how things had gone in Kansas City. International incident or not.

Scott was, as a matter of fact, in his office rather than in the basement. He'd remembered he had a stack of quizzes that needed grading, and needed grading now, as they were running a few days late on the Grand Schedule Of Scott's Life that he kept in his head. (The Grand Schedule shifted back and forth depending on various interruptions, but it did keep track of everything.) He would have done just about anything to go upstairs and get some sleep - he'd done another late-late com shift and hadn't actually slept prior to it -but that would have to wait a few hours more.

The knock came on the door and he looked up, a bit irritably. Interrupting my marking that I need to do before I can sleep, I might bite them, whoever it is- "Come!"

"Hello, Summers," Pietro replied, closing the door behind him. His eyes widened slightly as he took in the tableau. "Well, I suppose that explains why you haven't been to see me yet. You look like hell, and that pile of papers is almost verging on messy."

"I'm fine," Scott said irritably, running a hand through his hair and then rubbing at his jaw - only to pause, feeling the stubble. "Except I clearly haven't shaved. Whoops. Wow, has my old preppy-headmaster-camoflauge gone out the fucking window the last several months."

"No shave, no sleep, and you're horning in on my irritability trademark. I should sue, except you're on a teacher's salary." Pietro jerked his chin at the pile of papers as he dropped into a chair. "What's that, and would it go faster with help?"

"Engineering quizzes. You know, in my copious spare time I take part in an organization that pushes for enriched engineering-style classes in high schools? My life is all about cognitive dissonance, you know. It's no wonder I've had multiple nervous breakdowns in the last five years." Scott paused, blinked, and then offered Pietro an overly-bright smile with a gleam of real humor behind it. "Oh, look, I just joked about my mental health. Progress!"

"Whee," Pietro replied deadpan. "Toss a few of those over so I can use my diploma for something other than consultancy work for investment seed money, and then if my helpfulness hasn't pushed your cognitive dissonance into the red maybe you'll calm down enough to ask me what you want to ask me about Kansas City."

The fake smile turned into a crooked grin that had all kinds of slightly manic amusement behind it. Oh, this so entertained him, Scott reflected; he wasn't fooling Pietro in the slightest about Kansas City and the issues behind it, and it didn't matter. "What I wanted to ask you?" he said, with an entirely unconvincing innocent look as he handed over a stack of quizzes. "Oh, was it worth the argument with Cooper? I did intend to ask you that."

"Yes," Pietro replied simply. "Where's--ah, red pen, good. Yes, it was worth it." He snorted softly. "Though the real price is that I've used up my one effective self-righteousness card, so I'm stuck here while someone is bombing us all over the world. I'm tempted to point that out to the next person who says I didn't do enough when I was working against my father. Not that anyone has, lately. Nobody even told me I shouldn't begrudge homeless people for being unwashed. I was a little disappointed."

Scott just gazed across the desk at him, his lips twitching. "So I'm going to interpret that as 'Yes, it was a rewarding experience'. And maybe that you're developing a taste for such rewarding experiences?"

Pietro handed the completed stack of quizzes back to Scott and blew a tiny wisp of smoke off the end of his pen. "And that I'm willing to humor you even when you are carrying around a giant neon sign informing anyone within three hundred feet of your ulterior motive." He gave the other man an dramatically serious look. "I've grown as a person, Summers. I expect a cute little animal to follow me home in some amusing way any day now."

"Don't knock it - something cute and fluffy can do wonders for your outlook on the world," Scott said, deadpan. "And before you say anything about my turtle, he's a pet with symbolic value, and no, I'm not going to burden you with the explanation behind that." He gazed across the desk at Pietro, his lips twitching again. "So. Having grown as a person, you're..." He left it open, so that the other man could fill in the blanks.

"Looking for something a bit more substantial to do with myself from here on out. I got to see the people I helped. They were real. I didn't have to worry about what helping them would cost me later--I'm not even all that annoyed about losing the chance to do something for the bombing victims, though the irony doesn't escape me." Pietro raised an eyebrow. "Should I be worried that this is starting to sound like a job interview?"

"Depends. Are you going to be worried if I offer you a job?" Scott leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his unshaven jaw again - and the scars on the side of his face an instant later, in a nervous mannerism he hoped Pietro didn't catch. "Because that's the logical next step, after hearing something like that. I know you spent quite some time thinking that we were the people you called in when you needed something blown up, but I think you're probably starting to realize that's not the case. And if I let you into the database to actually see the sort of thing we've been doing when not blowing stuff up for you, I think that realization's only going to continue to solidify."

Pietro sighed. "I was afraid that's where you were going with all this. You do realize, putting me on the team might land you a mutiny or two? I'm not out of my father's shadow as far as some of your people are concerned."

"There's a more central concern, actually," Scott said wryly. "Can I put you on the team? Or rather, when can I? You're still wearing that damned ankle bracelet. When do you think you might be rid of it?"

"Monday. Tuesday at the outside." Pietro smiled thinly. "You'll remember that I told Cooper no more than a week? She's holding me to my word." He shrugged. "I'll actually likely have everything collated tomorrow, but the weekend and the federal holiday might skew the timing on the formalities, I'm not sure."

Scott straightened in his chair, and the expression on his fashion was suddenly, dramatically different than it had been. There was something almost... avid about it, like he could see something he wanted very, very badly right there within his grasp, and the look in his real eye was strangely fierce. "There would be training," he said, in a voice that suggested he had a lot more to say but was working very hard on not letting it all come out at once. "Less than if you were eighteen years old and fresh out of high school, but you're not used to working in a team context, either. And our big book of tactics does actually extend beyond 'Blow that up' and 'Catch that tsunami'."

"I've done some work in a team context, you know," Pietro retorted irritably. "We had that discussion about unit cohesion a while back, if you'll remember. Granted, the X-Men have somewhat different strategic and tactical goals than I'm used to. And speaking of unit cohesion, you still haven't really addressed what you'll do about people walking out at their first sight of me in a uniform." He eyed Scott. "And I'm not a new bike under the Christmas tree, Summers. That glee is downright disturbing."

But you're so SHINY! Scott thought, but did not say. He even managed to keep his expression mostly serious. "I don't know that you're going to have that many people walking out at the sight of you in black leathers, Pietro. We're a fairly practical bunch, and we adapt well... mostly. Think of the different backgrounds of some of our members. Don't you think there were a few raised eyebrows when Charles recruited the ex-mercenary? Or when we put a pop star into a command slot? Or when Cain volunteered, since he's... well, Cain?"

Pietro twirled the pen between his fingers until it hummed. "It's not raised eyebrows I'm concerned about. It's the people who don't fall under 'mostly.' I've squared things--I think I have, at least partly, anyway--with D'Ancato, and I think we could work with each other. Dane is a whole different story."

Scott nodded. "She is, most likely," he said simply. "And I'd probably avoid pairing you in the field. But you don't get in the way of someone else making a contribution to something important because of personal issues."

"That's it. That's my point exactly." The pen stopped, abruptly, pointing at Scott. "Before I tell you yes or no, I want . . . to at least try to find out if my presence on the team would get in the way of her contribution. Since I'm sure you'd rather have both of us than either one alone."

Scott spread both his hands wide. "Of course. You should talk to her - I imagine the two of you have been avoiding each other enthusiastically for the last few months."

"That's one way of putting it," Pietro muttered. "She did drop off a birthday cake, but I don't have the slightest clue what if anything it was supposed to mean, other than the obvious."

"Lorna can be hard to read," Scott said, in something of an understatement, "but... I have faith in her. She doesn't have to like you to work with you. God knows I'm not best buddies with some of the team, but most of us have a mutual respect in each other's... professionalism," he said, with only a trace of irony. "We may be mutant vigilantes, but that doesn't mean we don't know what's required to work as a team."

"Well, give me a chance to track her down and settle things, insofar as they can be settled, and then . . . we'll see." Pietro gave Scott a sour look. "So had we gotten through the front gates yet when you started thinking about headhunting me?"

"To be honest, I was always hoping it would come to this in the end," Scott said, without a trace of shame. "The key, I always figured, was when and how you realized that there's more to doing good than just stopping evil. And yeah, I know how horribly cliched that sounds, but... I think you get my point."

"At least I don't have to tell you it's a cliche." Pietro shook his head, smiling. "Well, you win. I wish I could see my father's face when he hears."

"I'm sure he'll save up at least a little of his reaction for the next time you meet," Scott said wryly.