It occurs to Scott, after near colliding with Pietro Maximoff in the school bathrooms, that he's never really had a chance to look at Pietro before.

Perhaps it's a strange thing to think, but it's undeniable - made obvious by the fact that seeing Pietro like this - still and close up - feels distinctly strange and new. Scott's seen Pietro plenty of times, of course, but usually only from a distance - from the bleachers in the gym while Pietro runs around a basketball court or skulks by the doors with the rest of his little group of weirdos, or while the two groups are facing off in any context. Pietro is always at a distance, or he's a barely-seen blur of movement like a ghost, existing for a single instant before disappearing in such a non-pattern that seeking out his form makes one feel distinctly insane.

Scott tries to imagine if anyone gets the privilege - privilege? - of ever seeing Pietro in a relaxed state, close enough to see the details of his features without him taking a swing at them or swiping some of their possessions, but his mind comes up with no one except the other delinquents. Pietro is always close to them, but it's never really relaxed. Really, the four of them look like they at least kind of hate each other, and Scott can't imagine that any of those grimy creeps have ever taken the time to sit and examine Pietro's face - nor can he imagine Pietro letting them even try, as much as he likes to mouth off about being the most attractive out of the bunch by a mile.

Pietro is pretty, in a strange sort of way. He certainly doesn't look like anyone that Scott has seen before, even beyond his slicked-back hair - so completely white that it appears to Scott to be a perfect ruby red. Pietro has distinctly delicate features - high, elegant cheekbones and arched brows and a long chin - the sort of things that would make a girl beautiful. To most people, it makes Pietro weird-looking - it certainly makes him stick out like a sore thumb - but Scott can appreciate the aesthetic of it.

His mind, unbidden, poses him the question of if he'd be attracted to a female Pietro, but he nips that thought in the bud before it can blossom with a particularly firm finality.

For a moment, he allows himself to wonder where the thought had come from, until —

"What do you want, Summers?"

Despite himself, Scott jolts a little. It's as if he'd forgotten that Pietro is, in fact, real - not a painting or a doll - and is also certainly not the type to enjoy being cornered and scrutinised in a dingy bathroom by Scott Summers of all people, particularly not when he'd been interrupted emerging from a stall with a suspicious bundle of brown paper strangled in his long fingers.

Although, Scott thinks, Pietro could certainly have just sped off if he wanted to, before Scott would have even had a chance to notice he was ever there. Class has just started again after lunch, so it's not like anyone will be around in the hallways to witness it, either.

Scott had only dodged into the bathroom quickly because he'd spent the half of his lunch hour that he didn't spend eating helping Jean to track down a classmate who had borrowed a textbook she needed for her next class - a task he'd only been assigned because Duncan was out training on the football fields.

Scott knows he'll get chewed out for being late, but it's not as if he minds all that much. He'd just wanted a minute to himself, to calm down his bitter thoughts about Duncan and Jean. He'd even chosen the smaller and decidedly much grimier toilets near the back of the school, rather than the nicer ones at the front which most of the students use.

He'd had no idea that this was a place he'd find Pietro, but he supposes that it makes sense. Mostly, he's surprised that the others aren't around, or at least Lance.

"I'm in a bathroom, Maximoff," he says flatly, meeting Pietro's pale eyes through his tinted glasses as he tilts his head in a subtle challenge. For a brief moment, he finds himself wondering what colour Pietro's eyes are - if they're grey or blue or green, or maybe even silver. Like his hair, they're light enough to appear an almost pure red, and Scott wonders if they're a part of his mutation like his hair surely is. "What do you think I want?"

Scott watches Pietro's eyes narrow. His upper lip curls in distaste, surely irritated by the sarcasm. Scott knows that Pietro likes being the most quick-witted person in the room, likes outsmarting everyone, and he also knows that Pietro dislikes him largely because he's got that same knack for sarcasm, even if it's not quite as elegant and cutting as Pietro's.

"Really?" Pietro purrs, a direct contrast to the look on his face, like he thinks Scott so stupid that he has to make his mockery obvious. "With the way you're crowding me into this corner, it almost seems like you want something from me. Come for a fight, did you? Or are you looking for something different?"

Embarrassingly, it takes Scott a moment to cotton on to what 'different' means, but then the recent rumours whispered in the boys' locker rooms come back to him, and he clenches his jaw.

He doesn't know who had started it, but someone started whispering and laughing about Pietro being a cocksucker, and from there a rumour had blossomed that Pietro dished out blowjobs frequently - with quite an impressive talent. No one could seem to agree on whether he did it for money or pleasure, whether he did it in the school bathrooms or a seedy gentlemen's club that surely doesn't even exist in a neighbourhood such as Bayville, but Scott had paid no attention to any of it. It was stupid and cruel and, while he disliked Pietro and the rest of that little group, he wasn't going to engage in bullying.

"I don't believe any of those stupid rumours," he says, with genuine conviction that seems to surprise Pietro, if the slight widening of his eyes and dropping of his cold, wicked smile is anything to go by. "And I'm not here to start anything. I just wanted a moment, alright? So you can-"

Really, he's planning on being calm and level-headed. Being the bigger man and letting Pietro scamper off to his class - or, more likely, wherever he sits to skip class - but then something catches his eye. Amongst the bundle held in Pietro's hand, mostly consisting of the brown of what Scott assumes to be parcel paper, he sees a glimpse of a brightly-coloured juice box. But not just any juice box, it's a weird foreign juice box that Kurt likes and insists the Xavier Mansion be stocked with.

Just as he'd remembered the rumours, Scott remembers Kurt whining at the lunch table earlier because his juice box had somehow disappeared from his locker, and then anger sparks in his chest with the same destructive inevitability as his ruby red lasers spark from his eyes.

"What the hell, Maximoff?" he demands, stepping forwards in a rush and somehow succeeding in snatching at the bundle before Pietro dodges away in a blur, though he's still trapped in that tight corner, blocked from escape by Scott's tall frame and broad shoulders. The clumsy swipe isn't enough for Scott to get the bundle off Pietro, but it's enough to make the smaller boy lose his grip, and the rubbish goes scattering all over the bathroom floor.

Just like Scott had thought, he sees Kurt's juice box, but he sees much more than that. He sees that the brown paper is, in fact, lunch bags, most of which feature stickers or little messages in pen written by students' parents, 'I love you!'s and 'Work hard!'s. Among them is the evidence of eaten lunches - plastic packaging from different snack foods and foil and Saran Wrap - though not a single crumb of food remains in any of them, like they've been rinsed or licked clean. The evidence is all there, and Scott looks at Pietro with anger blazing in his eyes.

"I assume you're not hoarding all of this to recycle it, huh?"

He steps forward and Pietro steps back, his narrow shoulders jolting when his back collides with the wall. He's in a distinctly defensive stance, his back straight and his face taut to try and make himself look scary, but Scott can see the anxiety beneath it all, can see the way he tries to avoid cowering beneath Scott's much larger frame.

He takes another step forward. He wants to feed into it - he wants to scare Pietro. It's certainly not the worst crime that the boy's ever committed, but thinking of all of those students going without food because Pietro wanted to be greedy pisses Scott off immensely.

"You know, I've heard plenty of rumours about you swiping shit before. You used to steal stuff from the lockers all the time until we got you caught. But now you're back to your old ways, huh? Getting greedy again, except this time it's literally."

Scott kicks at the wrapper of a Twinkie, though he can't even picture the image of Pietro scoffing it. Pietro is so thin and small and...elegant, Scott can't picture him eating anything except some fancy meal that's so expensive it's tiny.

Or, maybe, Scott can't picture Pietro eating anything at all.

For all the times that Scott has seen Pietro around, he's never once seen him with food - whether it's during lunchtime or after school or even outside of school, whether Pietro's sat on his own with a book or his cellphone clutched in his hand or with the others crowded around him, chattering or bickering or completely silent. He supposes that this is the reason, though. Pietro just prefers to eat somewhere decidedly less busy than the boisterous cafeteria or around his friends who'd surely try and swipe his food, and he prefers to supplement his own lunch with the stolen lunches of others.

Scott shakes his head as he reads the pen scrawled on one of the crumpled lunch bags -

"Michael,

Don't forget to study before your math test!

Do your best, I love you!

- Mom"

It ignites a very particular ache in his chest, just the same as it does every time he sees his friends interact with their parents. It's something like jealousy, something like a bitter betrayal from the universe, and he hates the experience just as much as he hates the selfish feeling itself. Just as much as he hates the memories of fire and falling.

"So, what?" he grits out, crushing the bag beneath his foot as he takes another step forward, close enough now that he can almost feel Pietro's breath coming out in shallow, rapid puffs, can see the way his birdcage ribs move beneath his tight black t-shirt. "Why'd you steal everyone else's lunches? Your own mom's 'I love you' wasn't enough? You had to steal someone else's?"

He realises that it's a bad step as soon as the words leave his mouth. It's too cruel - it would be too cruel to say to anyone, but he can't pretend that he doesn't know that Pietro probably doesn't have a cushy or even normal home life, despite how much effort he puts into his appearance every day - making himself look mature and put-together.

He can't pretend that he doesn't know that Pietro probably doesn't have a mother. He can't pretend that he didn't think about that right as he spoke, and had only found satisfaction in the fact that the words would hurt so much more, but he regrets it now - feels royally like a piece of shit as he watches Pietro's eyes swim through shock and grief and loneliness and fury in a single moment. In the next, his hands are colliding with Scott's chest in a brutal but ultimately weak shove, because Pietro is so tiny compared to him and has no hope of building up the momentum that he usually relies upon when he's crowded against a wall.

"Fuck you," Pietro spits, and the vulgar words sound strange on his tongue, his accent suddenly much thicker than its usual barely-there existence in the way his 'R's curl and 'TH's clump together. "I stole the food because I was hungry, alright, Summers? I'm not playing the part of your ridiculous super villain right now. This isn't a nefarious, selfish plot for you to foil, you stupid fucking hero. I was hungry, and—and I don't have any food. My stomach hurt. It...it hurt."

The drop from fury to vulnerability is so sudden and jarring that Scott doesn't know what to do.

He's suddenly very, very aware of how small Pietro really is, staring at him like this. His collarbones jut out, harshly enough to pull the neck of his shirt taut, though the pitch black material is tight enough for the rest of the details of his bone structure to be seen almost as clearly. The lines of his collarbones to his shoulders, his thin biceps leading down to sharp elbows and brittle-looking wrists. His shifting rib cage and his tiny waist, the almost concave appearance of his abdomen until his jeans interrupt, but Scott can see now that there's too much give to the waistline - enough so that it almost bunches up, making it clear that that pleather belt, hooked on the very tightest hole that looks as if it was made with a needle rather than by the manufacturer, is the only thing keeping them up on Pietro's narrow hips.

He feels like he's seen a whole awful slideshow of stuff that he was never meant to see - things he was never meant to learn, details he was never meant to notice.

He can't ignore it now, though. Can't turn on his heel and just walk away, not when Pietro's gaze is flickering helplessly between pure, unbridled rage and an exhausted sadness that Scott knows all too well. He's still hunched up, fluffing up his feathers like he's ready for a fight, but Scott has no interest - not in physical violence nor a battle of wits or even just being a dick.

He feels awful, in a way that's almost unfamiliar, and he has to resist the urge - surely stemming from him being a big brother - to just gather Pietro up in his arms and try to hug him better, without having to muster up the words to explain himself. Somehow, he thinks that touching Pietro at all would just get him murdered in some way or another.

He shakes his head, chewing on his lip for a moment before he forces himself to speak.

"I'm sorry," he says, and Pietro flinches as Scott takes a slow step backwards to increase the distance between them and crunches plastic wrappers and paper bags beneath his sneakers. Scott still can't quite wrap his head around how much there is - surely enough to feed five people. Had Pietro really eaten all of this by himself?

"I didn't...well, I guess saying 'I didn't mean to upset you' would be a lie." Scott lets out a short, awkward laugh that falls entirely flat, rubbing the back of his neck and staring down at Pietro's sneakers, which look entirely out of place with the rest of his outfit considering how dirty and torn up they are. "I guess I just didn't think about how much what I was saying would hurt. That was a dick move, I'm sorry. I know...how much that stuff hurts."

He thinks of the disappointed look that Jean would surely be giving him if she were here right now, but it doesn't make him feel as bad as the look that Pietro currently is giving him, which he sees when he finally anxiously glances up. It sure looks like Pietro isn't used to being apologised to - he looks distinctly stuck between his anger and his upset, like he isn't sure which one makes him weaker, and his pale lips keep trying to shape words that never come out, switching between the shape of a vicious hiss and the shape of an unsure question.

It doesn't look like he's going to reach a decision anytime soon, so Scott does another thing that could probably be considered a dick move.

"Do you really not have anything to eat?"

It would be an invasive question to ask a friend, so asking Pietro - an enemy - feels doubly so. Scott isn't sure what he expects - he thinks he does sincerely want an answer, because the feeling in his chest burns just a little too much to be simple curiosity rather than a vague sort of concern, but he also won't try and force one if Pietro shoves him again.

The fight dissolves from Pietro, though, like cotton candy dissolving in water, and he finally seems to settle in a reluctant and deeply tired vulnerability.

"I never have lunch," he says, voice quiet and awkward but still rapid like it always is, like even his mouth moves too fast for the world around him. "I try to leave the food at home for the others. They need it more. And...and I need discipline. I need control. It's not a big deal. And it's none of your business."

The last statement, faster and more vehement than the rest, is clearly an afterthought, though it is true. It's none of Scott's business at all, but - like Pietro had said - he's a stupid hero, and he wants to try and do the right thing here. Although, he really wishes the Professor would choose a moment pretty soon to pop into Scott's head and instruct him on exactly how to do so, because the mention of 'discipline' makes Scott's stomach drop.

"What do you mean?" he asks, quiet like he's a little afraid of the answer, and he watches as Pietro sinks into himself even more, tension running across his skinny shoulders.

"It's not mandatory," he mutters, trying to speak with conviction, but he starts fiddling with his fingers as his whole body seems to start humming with a restless energy too subtle or perhaps too fast for Scott to really comprehend, because it seems to him like Pietro is still stood almost perfectly still - though he can tell, somehow, that that surely isn't the case. Really, Pietro looks like he's regretting ever standing still long enough for the conversation to begin, and Scott is very aware that at any moment he could lose this strange connection that's somehow been established, perhaps influenced by the environment or the unexpectedness of their meeting or just that awful button that Scott had managed to press to hurt Pietro more successfully than any time he's actually tried to physically hurt him.

"What isn't?" he asks, more firmly. "What's not mandatory?"

Pietro is silent, staring fiercely at the floor with his face curled into a furious grimace and his hands suddenly blurring, just barely moving at his sides. Scott reads it immediately as aggression - as a warning that he's about to be shoved or punched before Pietro disappears off to god knows where, never to be seen this close by Scott or anyone ever again, but even his natural fighting instincts seem to have taken a backseat. He doesn't tense up or get ready to dodge, and he certainly doesn't get ready to fight back - in fact, he just prepares himself to take whatever Pietro's going to throw at him before the smaller boy surely flees, but Pietro doesn't have a chance to do anything before the door to the bathroom is creaking loudly as it's all but thrown open, hitting the wall with a dull thud.

Somehow, that does succeed in kicking Scott suddenly into gear, and he - moving entirely on the instinct to protect - grabs ahold of Pietro's wrist and yanks him sharply to stand behind Scott as he whirls around to face whoever is entering, whether it's an innocent student who just needs the bathroom or someone here to start some shit with either Scott or Pietro.

"'Tro?" a voice calls, considerably gentler than their entrance would imply. "You okay in here? Toad said you never came ou—"

Scott freezes as Lance Alvers comes around the corner, relaxed for a moment before his eyes meet Scott's and he's suddenly in a wary stance, like a wild animal. His eyes narrow and his mouth opens, surely in question, but then his searching gaze which had been travelling over the rubbish covering the floor falls on the pale, delicate wrist held tightly in Scott's large hand, and realisation spreads across his face a split-second before anger does.

"Hey!" he barks, taking a warning step forwards and glaring fiercely at Scott. "The hell do you think you're doing, Summers? Let him go!"

Scott, still running on instinct, only tightens his grip and pulls Pietro further behind him. He recognises that Lance is angry, and that - to him - means he poses a threat that Pietro must be shielded from, but he doesn't manage to get a word out before Pietro is twisting out of his grip in an effortless manoeuvre, too fast for Scott to even feel until he realises that he's holding onto nothing but air and the space behind him is empty.

"Relax, Lance," Pietro scoffs, already on the other side of the room at the taller boy's side with a casual smirk on his face and a handprint of developing bruises around his wrist. His other hand is rubbing gingerly but seemingly subconsciously at the marks, his gaze fixed on Lance and the task of distracting him from Scott. "What are you getting your panties in a twist for? I don't need you to come be my knight in shining armour. 'Specially not against Summers. Everyone knows I could take you both down in a heartbeat."

Scott still feels like he's trying to catch up. Part of him still feels like he's still holding onto Pietro's wrist, and it occurs to him then that he's not used to Pietro like Lance clearly is, because Lance tears his gaze away from Scott easily and looks down at Pietro and laughs, unphased by the lightning fast twist of events. "Oh yeah?"

He looks down, and Scott sees his eyes darken again when he sees the purpling bruises marring Pietro's skin. His hand twitches at his side, like he's suppressing the urge to reach out and touch the marks, and his eyes once again snap up to stare right at Scott, somehow ice cold and blazing with anger at the same time. Pietro looks up too, looking between them, and then he rolls his eyes as if there's no real weight at all to the tense aggression simmering in the atmosphere.

Scott still, absurdly, wants to grab Pietro back from Lance, and Pietro's moving restlessly like he knows this.

"Come on," he says to Lance, speaking even faster than usual. "Bored now. Let's go somewhere. Ooh! Let's go freak people out in the park. Betcha I can knock over more people than you. Race you to the car."

Scott blinks and he's gone, the only evidence of his exit being the gust of wind that kicks up the rubbish covering the floor. For a single moment, in the silence, he's convinced that he'd imagined the whole situation - or at least imagined those glimpses of vulnerability that he'd seen in Pietro, imagined those painful details of his seemingly starved appearance - but then there's a series of harsh crunches as Lance stalks towards him, crushing paper and plastic beneath his boots until he's almost nose-to-nose with Scott.

"You listen to me, Summers," he murmurs, voice low and gravelly and dangerous. "You stay the hell away from Pietro. I find out you put a hand on him again, and I'll make sure your whole stupid goddamn mansion is on a fault line, and you and every single one of those other X-Brats will find yourselves getting crushed while you sleep. You get me?"

Scott meets his eyes, lips quirking in a challenge that he doesn't quite feel like he could actually follow through with. "Thought Pietro said he didn't need you fighting his battles."

It's definitely not a good idea to feed into Lance's anger like this - Lance is always a bad person to anger, and not only because his powers come out with his rage and his powers are what decide exactly how much danger Scott is in of getting swallowed up by a fissure or crushed by a landslide.

Scott isn't quite sure if he's imagining the way the ground beneath him seems to start to tremble just slightly, like Pietro had when he was getting worked up, but he doesn't let his gaze slide from Lance's, even when Lance's eyes grow just that bit more deadly.

"Screw what Pietro said. You keep your hands off him and you stay the hell away from him. We Brotherhood boys have gotta look after each other, yeah? 'Cause God knows nobody else is looking out for us."

Lance steps back then, and - like Scott had done earlier - kicks at a wrapper just to watch it go fluttering off. He very pointedly crushes and tears a paper bag with a mother's sweet message on it beneath his dirty boots as he turns, and then he's exiting the bathroom like nothing had ever happened at all, and Scott is left alone with a sea of torn up rubbish and a million thoughts swirling through his head, only to be met with another.

"I admire your efforts," the Professor's voice, calm as anything, echoes in his mind, "But I fear that boy - Pietro - cannot be helped."

Scott thinks, 'That's bullshit,' just a moment before he can stop himself. He knows that the Professor hears it, but he composes his thoughts and tries again anyway.

'He can be. I know it. I know there's more to him. And I don't think I can leave him now.'

Miles away, in the Xavier mansion, Charles' face curls into a rueful smile at those familiar words, in the same moment that Lance's large, calloused hand curls around Pietro's.

[A/N: Hey! Thank you so much for reading! Hopefully you enjoyed - please leave a review if you did, and let me know if anyone actually wants to me to continue this lol

Is anyone even still in this fandom? Is this mic on? Hello?]