xp_logs | Pete/Dom, Saturday night

Posted a little early, because I'm not sure if I'm going to be at home at the right time. Saturday night, Domino tracks Pete down in a bar in Boston, and the pair of them wish she hadn't.

That Pete looked good was something of a shock. Clean shaved, showered, dressed in a clean, well pressed suit, with his tie neatly done up. If Domino hadn't known better, she'd have thought he was trying to looking like James Bond.

Pete looked up at her approach, and she hesitated just a second. There was a deadness in his facial expression that wasn't right. Not when directed at her. The only time she'd seen him look like that was when he was about to hurt someone.

"Hello, Dom."

"Pete." Domino's eyes flickered around their surroundings uneasily. No obvious threats, but this felt wrong. She could even feel her power pushing, already. "Mind if I sit down?" It really wasn't a question. "I think we need to talk."

"Be my guest." Pete gestured to the chair in front of him.

"Thank you." Domino sat down, her posture tense, almost rigid, the fact that she was perfectly ready to lash out perfectly obvious to anyone who knew her. And Pete knew her better than most. "So," she said. "I was beginning to wonder why I hadn't heard from you, so I dug around a little. Didn't really come up with anything until I got over to this side of the pond, at which point I started to hear some pretty disturbing things. So... just what the fuck are you doing?" It came out conversationally. If he wanted to play this way, she'd play along.

"Doing what I said I would. I've been reminded what happens to my family when everyone else forgets to be scared of me, so I'm taking steps to make sure they're not going to forget again."

Then the mask dropped, and he just looked tired and resigned, as he continued.

"And I'm making sure that Shaw and his friends don't move on Xavier's because of what I did to de la Rocha."

"So you keep the bastards from the gates by joining them?"

Pete smiled, just slightly. "Should've known I wouldn't have to come right out and tell you. How'd you figure it out? Was it the outfit?"

He shrugged.

"I can't go back to Xavier's even if I wanted to. I owe Emma some favours. And I want to make sure that no-one forgets to be scared of me again in a hurry. So yeah, as of a week or two's time, whenever we can all get together in the silly outfits, I'm the new White King."

The White King. He was going to be the White King, sitting at the same table as Sebastian Shaw and that bitch Selene, and fuck, if only she could pretend this wasn't actually happening... Domino's hands clenched and unclenched into fists under the edge of the table. "You were so fucking sure that you had to do what you did to de la Rocha," she said, her voice tight, shaking just a little now. "I knew it was going to cost you, one way or the other... but this is stupid, Pete. One of the reasons you did this was to protect Amanda, and now you're going to turn around and playing fucking courtly games with the bitch who put her through hell?"

"It'll keep her alive." Pete snapped back. "I'll play games with whoever I fucking have to to keep me and mine, and it turns out that the Hellfire Club are offering the best in town for doing just that."

"I would say you can't be serious, but I know you too well to think you're joking." She put both hands on the table, more to keep herself from doing anything stupid like reaching for a weapon on pure instinct than to reassure Pete. "Has it occurred to you that Romany and Amanda might consider the cost of their protection a little too high?"

"Romany's always known the score. She'd do the same thing in my place, and you're fooling yourself if you think different. Amanda'll cope. She might decide she hates me, but as long as she's alive, I'll live with it."

"And what about you?" she challenged him, unable to quite keep the pain out of her voice. "Are you going to be able to live with yourself?" But there was something telling her already that this was futile. That she wasn't reaching him here, no matter what she said.

"A lot better than I can live with the prospect of trying to play nice and save the planet for another two damn years, only to find someone else I give a shit about dead." Pete couldn't quite keep the raw edge out of his voice. He paused then continued in a calmer, flatter tone.

"I've done my time trying to be a good guy and it turns out that I'm not very good at it, and it doesn't fucking work anyway. So I quit. I'm going to stick to what I was trained to be."

"What you were trained to be?" Her voice ramped upwards in volume, almost involuntarily, and it took a physical effort to lower it again. "You were not trained to be one of them, Pete! You may not have been a fucking good guy, but you weren't--"

She cut herself off, brutally. What was she doing? Her hands clenched into fists and she leaned away from the table. "Fuck this," she said, and the bitterness was almost overwhelming. She shoved it all down beneath the surface, gave him the stone-faced expression that wouldn't have looked out of place coming from Nathan. "I don't know why I'm bothering. You've obviously made up your mind."

Pete sighed. "Yeah, I have. Time to stop lying to myself and everyone else. I kill people, Dom, and I’m through pretending that there's any moral high ground in it."

"And what about the middle ground? You know, all the space between being a moralistic idiot and sitting across the table from Sebastian fucking Shaw?"

Pete shrugged. "I've worked with plenty of people I didn’t like before. Don't see he's much different that the bastards that had me killing innocent people before. At least working with him is on my own fucking terms."

"Well, how fucking wonderful for you that you're where you want to be, then." The stone-faced expression was cracking, and Domino started to push herself up from the table. She needed to get out of here before she broke down, or worse, lashed out at him.

"Did I say that? I'm dealing with life the best way I can fucking see to do it. If that means I've got to leave some things I care about behind, then that's what it means, but I'm through getting fucked over by bastards just because I'm not willing to play their way."

Domino stopped. "So," she said, her throat so tight it was hard to force the words out. "I guess here is where I get to be selfish and ask you whether I'm one of those things." There. It was said, and as much as her common sense and her pride wanted to tell him that she was damned well going to be one of those things if he was going to do this, that he didn't have any say in the matter, there was part of her that just. Couldn't.

Pete couldn't meet her gaze.

"Yeah." He said quietly, and looked away. "I think we've just demonstrated that, haven't we?"

A little part of her died right then and there. But she raised her chin, ignoring the stinging in her eyes and stared right at him, another part of her very coldly and deliberately burning this moment into her memory.

She should have known better. She never should have...

"Ah, well." Her voice was light, brittle, and if there was a suppressed scream trembling beneath the words, he could damned well at least do her the courtesy of pretending he didn't hear it. Or she was going to go for his throat, right here, and consequences be damned. "I should have figured. A little bit of me goes a long way, after all, or so I've been told."

Pete opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it, and closed it again. When he did speak, all he said was "Look after yourself, Dom."

"Nadia, Pete." When he just stared at her, she bared her teeth in what might have been a smile if there'd been just a little less pain behind it. "My real name. In case you'd ever wondered." She got up, pushing shaking hands into the pockets of her jacket. "Goodbye," she said, and turned away, imagining she could feel his eyes following her all the way out the door.