Monday evening, Pietro and Lorna

[x-ccelerate.livejournal.com]

Pietro and Lorna finally have that talk. They're not ever going to be best friends, but it isn't as if Pietro's not accustomed to a certain amount of off-duty hostility in his teammates.



Lorna walked into the kitchen and frowned, a faint breath of air stirring her hair against her face. It could have been the heater or even the industrial fan above the oven but something told her that wasn't it at all. Something that shifted the EM fields restlessly. "Oh, I am so not in the mood for this."

"Neither am I," Pietro replied, suddenly leaning against the refrigerator, "but that nice peaceful avoidance we've both been enjoying isn't going to work for much longer, I'm afraid."

Lorna's frown deepened, not glared, just frowned in dismay. "So Scott's got you housebroken, huh? Wonderful. Fantastic even. What do you want from me?"

"Summers offered me a place on the team," Pietro said simply. "And I'm inclined to take it. But I've been a part of a group I couldn't trust. That isn't going to work again. He says he's going to avoid pairing us in the field, and that's a fine sentiment that the universe will no doubt take as a personal challenge, so I need to know if you can work with me, and if I can work with you. We need to settle this, as much as it can be settled."

It wasn't fair. She'd just come down to the kitchen for a bit of heavy cream--she'd run out upstairs and he was in her way. It wasn't fair. She spent a year trying to forget everything and here he was shoving it back in her face, asking if she could put it aside for his sake. "Whatever." Life wasn't fair. That much had never been news.

"Bottling it again," Pietro said, eyes narrowing, "won't solve the problem. I'm right here. Vent at me now so you don't end up doing it in the field and giving yourself something else to stick your fingers in your ears and wish away. Get it over with, so I can stop telling myself I deserve whatever you do to me, so I can stop feeling . . . " He dropped his eyes. "Why did you drop off that damn birthday cake? Was it a peace offering, or were you trying to make me feel what I did all over again, or what was it?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "It was a birthday cake. Because it was your birthday." Moron, she didn't say. "You weren't there. Could be that you didn't even know, we weren't sure. But that doesn't even really matter. What was her real name? We couldn't remember." She was using, unconsciously, Jim's language. Us, we, to describe a time when she couldn't have ever sworn to know what thoughts were hers.

"I only knew her as Malice. She and Toad always were the most vehement upholders of my father's 'mutant name' doctrine." Pietro sighed; what came next had to be said, but that didn't make it any easier. "I knew . . . earlier than the X-Men did. Not from the very beginning, not when he was planning it, but I suspected he was keeping something from me, and I found out what it was . . . right about the time he was sure enough of you to send you out."

"About the time we killed Alison's father." Some things she didn't care to push but she wasn't going to let him glide around what 'sending her out' really meant. "Before kidnapping Forge. That's a long time to know and not do anything." She walked forward, moving briskly, flicking her hand at the wrist. "You're in my way. I need the fridge."

"That's about right, yes." Pietro pushed away from the fridge, moving over to stand near the table. "Thirty-five days. I sat on it for thirty-five days, waiting for Summers to ask. I'd stretched my cover to the breaking point during an earlier incident. I had to wait for him to come to me, and give him the minimum possible amount of help. The chain of events that led to the X-Men finding you had to be absolutely unassailable under scrutiny." Pietro's voice was remote, and he looked anywhere but at Lorna. "So one man died, and two children were destroyed, and I have to live with that, because I refuse to cheapen it with self-justification. My wrong choices cost in blood and sanity."

"More than that. But I can't even tell you their names. They were just practice and...I wasn't there for it. But there were more than three we destroyed." She took the cream from the fridge, poured a little in a glass, checked the date and adjusted the mental schedule of her meal plans. "Just humans, though. Don't feel too bad." It was hard to say what Lorna actually felt about this--her tone was so completely casual.

That did make Pietro look up, a hard, angry glare. "Lives," he snarled. "Hopes and dreams and possibilities. Humanity is not diminished simply because we have the potential to surpass them. Those deaths were tragedies--don't you dare use them to throw my father's evil in my face." He reined himself in with visible effort, one hand white-knuckled on the countertop. "And in any case, I wasn't just thinking of them. I cost you, too."

"Your father cost me. Your comrades cost me. You did nothing. You did, quite literally, the very least that you could do." She picked up an orange. "No one will let me take the blame, Pietro, what makes you think that you're allowed to have any either? I get that you have your own layers of guilt and whatever and that's fine. But don't try to take mine, all right? I'm not finished processing it."

"Right. I'm not . . . I'm getting sidetracked." Pietro stood a little straighter. "What I mean to say is this. When I was with my father, I often had to choose to stand by, to let events take their course. When I did that, people got hurt; you, and the people my father made you hurt, and many others over the years. I wanted you to know that I never made that choice lightly, and I never ignored the cost, and it was always against my conscience. I will never be able to make up for the things I might have stopped and didn't. All I can do is make different choices, and with the X-Men that's what I intend to do. I am not going to stand by, anymore, when I see a chance to help. Too little too late, maybe, but it's all I have."

She dug her nails into the skin of the orange, peeled it away with a fine spray of juice and citrus scent. "I'm not going to stand in the way of anyone's redemption. If you need the X-Men, hell, you wouldn't be the first. I had to come back here, too. If what you're asking is can I work with you, yes. If you're asking if I trust you? No. Earn it. If you're asking for absolution," she shrugged, "go and sin no more."

"Not likely," Pietro replied bitterly, "but we may hope that they're different sins, at least. I'm not asking for your trust, only your professionalism. If you won't panic and freeze up if you're put in the field with me, if you won't . . . do nothing, should I find myself in trouble, that's all I'm going to ask of you, and possibly more than I deserve."

"I can work with people I don't like. Logan is still in one piece, isn't he?" It might almost have been a joke. Maybe. If you tipped your head and squinted a little. What came next, however, certainly wasn't, "This is my job, Pietro. Putting you in danger? That's not doing my job. Not looking out for a teammate? That's not doing my job. With no small thanks to your father, I'm one of the heaviest hitters on the team and I'm also damn good at my job. Just don't treat me like someone you owe something to." Then she rolled her eyes, "Christ, I sound like a poorly written Sci-fi channel movie. Yeah, we're good. I'll tell Scott that I promise to play nice with his new boy."

Pietro snorted. "I suppose if I didn't want to open myself up to cracks like that, I shouldn't have followed Summers home and allowed him to keep me. All right, then; glad we cleared that up. I'm sure I'll be able to manage not to afford you special treatment."

"Merci beaucoup. Are we done? Can I go now?" She actually did know how unforgivably rude she was being but...well, she'd told him upfront that she was anything but in the mood for this conversation.

"We're done. And it's your kitchen." In a rush of wind, Pietro vanished.