If there's anything to say, if there's anything to do, if there's any other way, I'll do anything for you.
Title: Morning Comes in Paradise (Mourning Comes in Light)
Author: kelly1_watxm
Summary: It's two months after the events of season one, and Pietro needs his team back. The former Brotherhood members are more than a little reluctant to rejoin--once burned, twice shy. First person Pietro POV. For andthexmen's Off-Season Fic Off #6, prompt #5.
Rating: M (18+) – language, sexual themes, adult concepts
Characters: Quicksilver, Avalanche, Blob, Toad, Shadowcat, Domino, Magneto
Pairing: falling apartPietrominic (Pietro/Dominic)
Warnings: See rating. 7200+ words. A vague glimmer of m/m slash. Also, darkishly ambiguous ending. Ceci n'est pas une pipe happy fic.
Disclaimer: Marvel owns all the characters. Thank goodness. I'm much too mean to them.
ANs: 1) Thanks to Foxieglove for being patient as my perpetual sounding board/putting up with my RR slacking to write this, and to LithiumAddict and Yukata Mizu Yosei for the encouragement even though you couldn't beta. I still muchly appreciate it. 3
2) This was written while listening to Vito's Ordination Song, and For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti, both by Sufjan Stevens, on repeat. The latter is the source of the title.
--------------
I find Dominic first.
When the little girl, all dark heavy bangs and wide brown eyes, opens the door to the apartment above a non-descript auto shop on the Upper East Side, I assume Father has made a mistake. I should know better than that; though he may make bold moves that sometimes do not come to fruition, Erik Lehnsherr does not make mistakes.
"Hi. Who're you?"
I kneel down to her height, the snow melting and soaking the front of my shins almost instantly, because that seems to be what I should do in a situation like this. To be honest, children make me extremely uncomfortable. They're far too fresh (not to mention suspiciously sticky) and I'm necrotic inside, and it seems like they know it when they look at me. Lorna has a talent for it, her wide, vaguely fearful gaze making me far more uncomfortable than Wanda's shrewd one. "Hey, kid." I squirm under the girl's scrutiny. I suddenly remember the Altoids in the pocket of my wool pea coat. "Uh...want some candy?" Great work, Pietro, why don't you get yourself a windowless white van while you're at it.
"Penelope, you know you're not supposed to answer the door." I straighten instantly, and I'm sure I look nothing but guilty. A very large, very unimpressed man is eyeing me suspiciously from behind the girl. I swear I just saw his biceps move of their own volition.
"Uh... hello, sir. I'm Pietro Maximoff and—"
"You're here for 'Nikos." I have no idea what a 'nikos' is, but I nod furiously under the cool malice in his voice, eager to agree, struggling against the flight portion of my fight-or-flight response with every fibre of my being. He pats the girl on the head.
"Sweetheart, can you please go get Uncle Dominikos," (Ah.) "for me? He's in the kitchen helping Mommy with the dishes."
"Okie doke." She's not even out of the entrance way before she begins yelling. "Uncle Nikos, there's a man in his pyjamas here to see you!" I suddenly wish I had gone with something a bit more discrete than viridian spandex under my jacket.
We stand there in silence for what feels like an eternity to me. "Um, you have a lovely home." I can practically feel the hatred radiating off of him. "May I come in?" The winter air is sharp and biting and I shift my weight from foot to foot on the outdoor stairs in an effort to stay warm. The man just glares at me. Both of us are startled by the sound of a plate shattering against the faux hardwood.
No one moves to pick it up. Dominic is paler than I've ever seen him, tea towel hanging limply at his side. "Pietro." He says my name in a tone somewhere between cursing and praying, and my stomach writhes in guilt. The man asks him a question in clipped, tightly controlled Greek, and Dominic gives a dazed half nod before averting his gaze to the floor.
"You should go." The threat is not stated but obvious, and I weigh my options for nearly five seconds before my decision is made for me by Penelope, who has just rejoined us.
"Daddy, Mommy wanted to know if she should make coffee...Oh, you broke something."
"Don't touch that!" Three voices shout in tandem (Hell, I didn't know I had a paternal bone in my body) and in that brief shift of focus, I am in the living room and cupping the shards of ceramic in my hands before anyone, myself included, really knows what has happened. The girl is startled by the noise and the gust of wind from my powers and she begins to bawl.
"Honey, are you okay?" A woman comes bombing out of the kitchen with the fierce look of a mother protecting her child and, though she couldn't be more than 120 pounds soaking wet, I'm more terrified of her than I am of her husband at the moment. They check over the girl while I stand awkwardly with my hands full and out in front of me. Dominic still won't meet my eye.
"They- everybody yelled at me. But I didn't break it, it's not my fault and I was just trying to be a g-good girl and clean it up but then they yelled at me and I'm in trouble and I didn't even do anything." Her speech is punctuated in odd places by hiccups and sobs.
"You're not in trouble, sweetheart." The woman hugs her daughter and looks at us, equal parts confused and reprimanding. "Adelphos, what happened?"
"Dominikos dropped a plate; we didn't want her to get into the glass." He looks almost as anxious as I am under her possible wrath, and twice as ashamed.
"See Penny? Daddy and Uncle Nikos and his friend just wanted to make sure you didn't get hurt. So no more crying, okay? You stand here with Daddy and I'm going to clean this up and then we'll go to the kitchen and get a cookie."
The tears are forgotten. I really wish my problems could be solved as easily with empty calories.
"I am so sorry, Caroline." Dominic finally speaks again, but his voice sounds strained and unnatural. I don't know if he's apologizing to her for breaking the plate or making his niece cry or the fact that I'm standing in her family's living room.
"I have more plates, Nik, don't look so worried about it." She's retrieved a broom and dustpan from the hall closet and is hunting down the bright blue shards on the click laminate flooring. "Do I need to get you a cookie too?" I'm the only one who laughs, a little too loudly from nerves, and she winks at me. "So, are you staying for coffee? Any friend of Dominikos' is a friend of ours." She doesn't catch the quick look exchanged between Dominic and her husband, and I'm under the distinct impression she has no idea what kind of company Dominic used to keep. "I'm Caroline Kritikos, by the way."
"Pietro Maximoff. It's a pleasure to meet you." I go to shake her hand, but then realize mine are still full of what used to be a plate. I place the blue remnants into her dustpan like a gift instead.
"Thank you." Her smile is genuine. It's been weeks since anyone has smiled at me, weeks since I've had any human contact outside of Father, and the awful thrill of longing it sends down my spine is wholly unnerving. "Can I take your jacket?"
As I go to remove the heavy, slightly damp wool coat, I catch a glimpse of the five of us in the mirror hanging above the sofa. One of these things is not like the other. It's not just the fact that my too pale skin is damn near incandescent compared to their olive complexions under the compact fluorescent bulbs; it's that, without a doubt, they are all decent, upstanding people and I am so very obviously not. That hits me hard. I suppose I've never looked at Dominic that way before, but as I see him standing there, abashed, dish towel still in hand, I wonder how I missed it. What am I even doing here? "Uh no, thank you. I should get--"
"Pietro and I were going to have a beer around the corner." Dominic is already pulling on a parka that's seen better days. "Catch up on old things, yes?"
Adelphos and I raise our eyebrows at the same time and Dominic barely nods behind Caroline's back. "Right, a beer," I agree, prattling. "Around the corner. You know how it is when guys get together. Hardly appropriate conversation for a lady."
"See, Adelphos, someone thinks I'm a lady around here."
Dominic is following me down the icy steps moments later, after I've promised Caroline twice that I will come back for coffee another night and Adelphos has tried to make me spontaneously combust a few more times with glare alone while Dominic laced his boots. The knee-deep packing snow covering the sidewalk is torture to trudge through. If I go fast enough, I can stay on top of it, but Dominic is leading and I'm the one who came to ask a favour so I suffer in a silence that quickly becomes unsettling.
I try my best to fill it, somewhat impressed because I figured Dominic would be taking my head off by now. "I didn't know you had a brother."
"I have three. They live in Crete. Adelphos is my cousin." Dominic is clenching and unclenching his fists. He stops under the street lamp when we are about to turn the corner. "Wave to Penelope, Pietro."
Sure enough, a small dark head is peering out the window at us, avidly tracking our progression down the street. We both wave and get an enthusiastic kiss blown back at us. Dominic has me down on the ground the instant we turn behind the building. "You son of a bitch!" His blows are heavy and hard but ultimately slow and I could dodge them if I didn't think I deserved them.
His knees are digging into my chest and my eyes are starting to blur from the pressure. Still, his body is warm and close and he smells just the same and my back arches slightly into his touch. "Two months, Pietro, two fucking months." He hurls the timeframe at me with another volley of punches. I honestly hadn't realized it had been that long. "I thought you were dead." I barely catch the whispered sentence as he climbs off of me, his breath rising in swift white puffs of exertion; my ears are ringing with what I hope is not a concussion.
I pull myself up into a sitting position a bit too fast. "Well, I'm not, Dom, and you could maybe show a little appreciation for that fact by not beating the shit out of me. Hell, you might even try looking happy to see me." Blood trickles out of my nose and stains the white snow.
My father works fast. Within two hours of our forced expulsion from Genosha, he had found someone to fabricate and leak an 'amateur' cell phone video of our demise at the hands of the phoenix to the press. As far as the world at large is concerned, Magneto and Quicksilver are dead. It was my duty, with wheedling and guilt and the promise to straighten up, fly right, and never ever return, to convince Wanda to not refute that (and to get a telepath to do a quick mind wipe of the people who saw us on the shores that morning.) She relented eventually, as a favour to me, (I felt terrible, even then I had a feeling that Father and I were going to try to usurp the throne from her someday) but not after trying once again to get me to stay with her. Not as co-ruler, of course, just as one of her good little minions (I felt less terrible after that.)
That's why I'm out tonight, tracking down my former teammates. Father and I have come up with a plan that will secure our rightful place in Genosha, our rightful place as homo superior, and the Brotherhood are among a handful of people I can trust. As Dominic cracks his knuckles and I anticipate another punch, I revise: they are the only people I can trust.
I flinch as his hand approaches my face, but he only pushes my head slightly forward and pinches gently below the bridge of my nose. I swat his arm away and scuttle backwards just out of his reach. He sighs. "I am happy you are not dead, Pie."
"Thank you." I have to admit, I was hoping for a bit more enthusiasm.
"Why did you not tell me?"
"Father wanted us to keep a low profile." Dominic's face twists when I mention my father. He's heard, more than anyone, all my self-avowals, all my denouncements, all the empty words I try to convince myself with that always leave me when I am in Father's presence. I had gone back to tell them. Every night that first week, I stood outside the Brotherhood's new base for hours, despite Father's wishes, wrought with indecision. "Letting the Brotherhood know right away might have compromised what we've been trying to do. And what we've been trying to do, interestingly enough, is why I'm here. I was wondering if--"
Dominic has never been easily swayed by my tangents and he interrupts me, his voice eerily quiet. "Pietro, why did you not tell me?" My stomach squirms guiltily. I had understood what he was asking the first time. "After Helen I... and then you too and I could not..."
He raises his arms uselessly as if he's unsure of whether to hug me or hit me again. I am a terrible person. I should have ended this years ago. Better yet, I should have never started it at all. I always knew I was going to disappoint Dominic one day. I disappoint everyone I who I care about eventually. Wanda. Father. It's like I'm hardwired for letting people down. It's much, much harder with Dominic, and I realize that it's because he's the only one who ever seemed to believe that I wouldn't.
To be honest, that's what had kept me from going back. Dominic was so proud of me when we saved the X-Men, so proud because he had thought that I had gotten out from under my father's thumb. He wouldn't have understood why I had to kidnap the Senator...what it would mean for the Brotherhood, what it would mean for the both of us if I could actually, for once, succeed in my father's eyes and then finally be able to walk away.
Everything went right... or wrong... or... I don't really know now, sitting on the sidewalk in negative temperatures, Dominic looking at me with so much hurt and betrayal and anger that I wish I could disappear. After I saved Father's life, after Wanda and Lorna let him down, I couldn't leave. When I'd finally been given everything from Father that I'd worked for, prayed for, almost gotten myself killed for, for my entire fucking life, how could I turn my back on that? (I thought I could. I really did. Why doesn't that count for anything?)
"What do you want me to say, Dominic?" But then how could I turn my back on the Brotherhood, on Dom, on the people who had been there, my strange and utterly dysfunctional surrogate family, even when my real family had abandoned me?
"That you are done with this. That you are done with him." It was unfair that I had to choose. Always. Father's respect of me for their safety. Their safety for his approval. His approval for their respect of me. I got so sick of balancing things. So I chose. I chose and I am happy with my decision, goddammit!
I was happy.
"Father's different now." I had my father's approval and that was enough--until he handed me the file with their addresses and asked me to bring them back. I wanted them back. I wanted Dominic back so badly.
"People do not change, Pietro." He rubs his temples. "You have not changed."
"What the hell does that mean?" It comes out harsher than I intended. I'm genuinely curious. A constant in our relationship has always been that Dominic loves me for me...in spite of me.
I don't understand why he's being so difficult. I can have everything, everything I ever wanted now. I just need him to come with me. "You are still so fucking selfish." Well, I only... and he doesn't really.... Shit. Hey Dominic, why don't you leave your lovely family, with whom you've recently rekindled a bond after my father manipulated the tragic death of your wife for his own purposes, (I've never told Dom, but sometimes I wonder if Father had something to do with that car crash... he has a way of getting the things he wants one way or another) for a toxic, manipulative relationship with me, peppered with intermittent bouts of people trying to kill us? Clearly, I had Dominic's best interests at heart when I came up with this plan. "You did not even apologize to me."
Defensive snark is my default emotion. "I didn't come to say sorry, I came to see if you wanted a job." If I apologize, it means admitting--to him, to me-- that I've made the wrong choice. And it's all I have right now, that tenuous conviction. "If you don't, it's no skin off my back." I shrug casually, forcing myself to put up the detached facade that's taken me years to perfect. I am a professional at being an aloof asshole.
"This is all business to you then, yes?"
I stand, brushing snow from my coat, smirking coolly. "That's what it's always been, Dom." I focus on his forehead instead of his eyes. I can't look at his eyes. "Geez, you throw a guy a little pity sex..."
There was a time when Dominic would've been able to tell I was pushing him away purposely, that I didn't really mean it. He takes another swing at me and this time I dodge his fist. "Go fuck yourself, Maximoff." I left for two months without so much as a note. I let him think I was dead. I watched him mourn me as I stood outside the window and I didn't do a damn thing about it. I suppose I can't really blame him for believing that I was capable of fabricating feelings for four and a half years. I probably am. But I never did with him. He looks over his shoulder once when he walks away from me.
I've fucked myself, alright.
-------
My reunion with Fred is significantly less emotionally charged, and I'm infinitely grateful for that right now. "Good to see you, 'Tro. Take a seat."
Having paid my twenty dollars cover, I find myself in one of the back offices of Quad X (the first X stands for the X-gene, the triple X remains universal), where Fred is working security six nights a week. He took his break as soon as he saw me. A cheap plastic chair protests beneath him. "Uh...no thanks, I'll just stand." I am sceptical of the relative levels of possible latent VD in places like these. Heavy bass booms on the other side of the wall.
He looks at me levelly. "It was shit of you to leave us."
"I did what I had to." I'm not in the mood for a lecture.
"Yeah...I guess." That's conversation enough for Fred on the subject. He smiles knowingly at me. "Petros break your nose?"
I know I look rough, despite having cleaned up most of the blood in the bathroom of a coffee shop on the way here. "Possibly." I'm not sure if it's legitimately broken, but my nose is tender and swollen and I have a feeling that when I wake up tomorrow morning, it's going to be very, very bruised. I don't really want to talk about it.
Though he may not be the sharpest, Fred remains one of my favourite people to work with. He asks no follow up questions and cuts right to the chase. "What do you need, sweetheart?"
Sweetheart? The hell. "Well--"
"Can you do this up for me, Freddy?" I realize now that he was addressing the topless woman who is standing behind me in the doorway, holding a corset. I don't know if I'm more distracted by her skin (the same electric pink as the bubblegum she's snapping between perfect plump lips) or her breasts (obviously fake but perky and roughly the size of cantaloupes.) She doesn't catch me looking; there are more than a few benefits to being fast. "I know I'm a pain for always asking, but no one gets it as tight as you, and otherwise everything's bouncing all over when I'm on the pole for my first song."
"I think you'd get better tips that way." I chime in, keeping my eyes up. Living with Domino has given me incredible restraint in the face of unfathomable tits.
"But it's uncomfortable." She wiggles her way onto Fred's lap, and he's smiling like he's just won the fucking lottery. It occurs to me that Fred is currently getting more action during this exchange than I've had in months and that's more than a little depressing. There is an inordinate amount of bouncing going on. "Your little flatscanner friend got a problem with mutants, Fred?" I've focussed my attention on the floor, unable to maintain a diplomatic gaze on the woman, and this is apparently egregiously offensive of me. "Listen, get the fuck out of here if you're going to have that attitude. Every girl's pink where it counts." She's being intentionally crude now. I'm really doing well interacting with people today.
Since when has it been rude to not stare? For all his megalomaniacal tendencies, Father focussed our upbringing around instilling antiquated ideals of decorum that I can't seem to ever break. They don't mesh well with my personality, and I spend the majority of my life ill at ease in my own skin. But I know damn well whether or not I'm being impolite.
Fred is holding her by her corset laces. "Calm down, Candy." I snort; I'd put money down that that's her real name like Quicksilver is mine. "'Tro's a mutant too." The fact that Fred has become the voice of reason in the room is sobering.
"I'm terribly sorry... Candy." I look her straight in the eye, all bullshit sincerity and charm. "My intention was not to offend." I have absolutely no problem apologizing when it doesn't matter and I don't mean it. I'm quite good at it, actually. To be honest, I'm not even really sure what I'm supposed to be sorry for.
She seems placated. "Nah, I overreacted. I'm just so used to people staring; when someone doesn't, it feels weird... You pans have no idea how lucky you are." (I struggle with the slang. Pan. I know I've heard that before.) She shakes her head and stands. Fred frowns, then brightens as she adjusts the top so her cleavage becomes a bottomless chasm. (Right. Pans. P.A.N.s. Pass as normals.) "That's why I got into this, you know? If I couldn't stop people from staring at me, at least they'd be doing it on my terms." It strikes me that I've done very little in my life on my own terms. Of course...I get the one self-aware stripper in all of New York. "Thanks, Freddy." She gives him a peck on the cheek as they announce her name over the P.A. system, gone in a flash of fuchsia and jiggling.
"God, I love this job. So what'd'ya need from me?"
I laugh to myself. "There is absolutely no way I'm going to convince you to come work for me now, is there, Dukes?" I'm happy for him, I really am.
"Freddy, one of the doors got jammed in the change room again." Another scantily clad, gorgeously firm woman appears behind me. "Can you come unstick it for us?"
"Yeah, 'Tro, not gonna happen. Somehow, you in a g-string is just not as appealing." He grins at me as he gets up. "Duty calls."
-----------
They've rebuilt the wall since my last visit. As I stand outside, waiting for the moment the security cameras swivel into the 0.7 second blind spot that I had exploited in the fall, I wonder what kind of budget they have on repairs. I can't even make an educated guess; the Brotherhood were always working on a shoestring. Not that we bought a lot of things legitimately anyway.
To be honest, I would have never, ever expected to find Mort here. An MRD holding facility perhaps, a police station, Genosha... hell, even with Sinister. But Mortimer Toynbee, X-Man extraordinaire? That's rich. I chuckle as I move down the hallway. It's the second last door on the right, third floor, east wing. I don't know how Father manages to get this kind of intelligence. I probably don't want to.
I pause outside of Mortimer's room, smirking at the little X on the doorknob. Fifteen today. Whenever we face off against the X-men, it's one of my hobbies to count the sheer number of X's branded on them and their accessories. (X-cessories, hah!) Nike doesn't even have that kind of coverage. There is no doubt in my mind that if Charles founded Genosha instead of my father, it would be called "X-Island," or something equally banal. I've yet to determine if he simply lacks imagination or if he's more narcissistic than he lets on.
Shadowcat (Pryde, is it?) suddenly appears through a wall in the hallway less than ten feet away from me. Fuck. I briefly consider taking her down, but the last time I tried I ended up being intimately acquainted with unconsciousness. I do my best to look as natural as an intruder in bright green spandex can possibly look. She yawns broadly and turns in the opposite direction, presumably towards the bathroom I just passed. Too close. I need to do this fast, but I really don't anticipate having any problem getting Mortimer to come with me. He's practically got sycophancy down to an art. It could be trying at times, but after Fred and Dominic, I could use some unquestioning obedience right now.
Mortimer is snoring lightly when I enter. I notice immediately that he's cut his hair short; he looks about twelve years old like that. It's only just after one and I'm a little surprised he's already asleep. Honestly, if anyone had ever wanted to take down the Brotherhood, all they had to do was show up at our door before 10 in the morning. We had all been night owls and late sleepers.
Of course, the X-Men probably have Mortimer running drills at dawn before they go out for an important day of saving kittens and hugging homo sapiens and sticking their noses into business that isn't theirs. There's a difference between being good and being dim-witted optimistic idealists that the X-Men never seemed to have learned. I'm not being cynical here, just pragmatic.
"Hey, Mortimer. Wake up." He jolts upright with a noise somewhere between a squeak and a yell. (Sixteen, an embroidered X on the t-shirt he's sleeping in.) I hold my hand over his mouth; his breath is loud, and hot against my fingers. "Shh, shh, shh. Calm. It's just me."
I pull my hand away experimentally.
"Pietro!"
"For the love of God, Mort, keep it down," I hiss. "I'm not exactly welcome here."
"Sorry." He ducks his head. Finally, someone remembers that I'm their leader. "I mean... it's... you're alive!" Mortimer hugs me hard around the waist. After about thirty seconds, it gets awkward and I extract myself.
Still, I have to admit that his enthusiasm feels pretty damn good. I can't keep from grinning. "Come on, grab your stuff. I'll take you back to base."
"Wait, what?"
Sometimes I forget myself and talk too quickly. I take pains to enunciate this time. "Grab your stuff and I'll take you back to base."
"But I can't just... I have obligations. I'm an X-Man now."
"Obligations," I snicker, shaking my head. "Mort, come on, you're not an X-Man. What? You and Cyclops sit at the breakfast table discussing how much you love flatscanners and eating Cheerios?"
"Corn Flakes." Mortimer draws his spine straighter and looks me right in the eye. I've known him for almost a year and he's never done that before. It's unnerving. "They're really not all that bad, Pietro."
Ah hell, he's drank the Kool-aid. "The X-Men are not all that bad? Wolverine is not all that bad? Seriously, Mortimer?"
"Okay, well Logan can sometimes be an asshole." Mortimer finally looks away. "But at least he's an asshole who wants me here."
I cringe, remembering taunting Mortimer at the MRD facility. I wasn't really going to leave him in there forever. Probably. And Fred and Dominic were just as bad if not worse than me. "It's going to different this time, Mortimer."
"Different how, exactly?" He definitely no longer looks happy to see me. "I'm part of a team here, Pietro. An actual team--with real leadership and members who legitimately look out for each other and don't just fucking leave!"
"Mort, quiet, please."
There's a knock on the door. "Mortimer, is everything okay in there? I heard yelling." I have just enough time to get under the bed before Pryde phases through the door. Her toenails are painted garishly pink (Seventeen and eighteen, purple X's on each of her big toes.) "What's going on?"
Mortimer hesitates for half a second. He's not going to tell her. "Quicksilver's here. He's under my bed." Fucking traitor. He starts to prattle. "I didn't invite him, I swear, he just showed up and--"
"What a jerk." Pryde knows I can hear her, and she obviously thinks this is hugely derogatory. 'Jerk' is one of the nicer things I've been called tonight. The swift kick she places through the mattress and into my shins is significantly more devastating. "Come on, phase with me and we'll go wake up the team."
I'm long gone before they get back. There's only one more name on my list.
_______
"I'll be with you in thirty seconds, Pietro. Amuse yourself."
I take a seat on the floor. 'Pietro seems to have power issues surrounding women, possibly stemming from a lack of positive female influences in his immediate support center.' That was one of the conclusions of the psychiatric evaluation Father ordered for us when we were fifteen. Obviously I wasn't supposed to see it, so obviously I broke into the shrink's filing cabinet after hours and read what he wrote about me. Personally, I think having Raven Darkholme as a semi-regular, pseudo-violent, and extremely reluctant babysitter is what did it, but then again, I don't have a fancy degree in anything.
Domino is lying on her stomach, staring down the sight of a sniper rifle in a furnatureless apartment on an island in the South Pacific. A large crowd is gathered around a stage on the street below, growing restless as they wait. Not a single muscle moves under the tight black leather, and I idly wonder if she would agree with that evaluation of me.
It was Mystique's friend's fault that Wanda and Lorna and I had to sit in that stuffy office, with the calming neutral colours and the uncomfortable microsuede couch, for an hour weekly for almost a year. Irene had seen that one of his children (nothing more specific, because the future was vast and ever shifting and other mystical bullshit like that to cover her ass if she was wrong) was going to kill him someday, and Father was terrified. He, of course, lied to us: 'I just wanted to ensure you're happy and well adjusted.' I used to read the psychological archives in our library before each session, throw in sentences here and there to mess with the doctor for my own amusement. 'Pietro appears to have difficulty balancing his heroic tendencies with homicidal ones.' Possibly not my best plan. I was the one who inevitably ended up banned from Genosha.
The crowd erupts into applause as a man in a military uniform steps up to the podium. I am not surprised Domino chooses this moment to fire, but I am surprised that, when I follow the trajectory, too fast for most people's eyes, it doesn't hit the dignitary but instead explodes the back of the skull of a man standing amongst the throng of people. No one around him even notices as he drops. I try not to throw up. Domino's hits are always so... visceral.
She rolls lazily onto her back before pulling herself up cross legged, facing me, her gun cradled in her lap. Her expression is composed and hard to read. "I was wondering when you were going to show up. Your father really needs better informants. He should know that I'd be watching to see if someone was looking for me."
"You knew we weren't dead." I'm not really all that shocked. She doesn't miss much.
"You know what they say about cockroaches, Pietro." She bites her lip with a half-smile, shaking her head. "Only Dominic and Mortimer were really in that camp. Neither of them wanted to believe you could be that much of an asshole. I, on the other hand... Well, you're fast enough to outrun an explosion like that. I am curious about a Barrett M82 at close range though." She has her gun aimed square at my chest and I am no longer sure if this is witty banter or if she legitimately means to kill me. I've always appreciated that Domino is a very deadly lady, but I think, up until this very moment, I've taken the fact that she was on my side for granted.
"I--"
"One mil to take you out, though I'm supposed to wait. It's two for your father." She smirks coldly. "You're officially half the man he is." She's trying to get a rise out of me. "I was considering taking the job pro bono but, you know, a girl can buy a lot with a million dollars." (Most people have read a few Grishams and assume pro bono means 'for free'. It's actually a shortened form of pro bono publico, Latin for 'for the public good.' I can't help but feel Domino knows this.)
"Dom, come on, we've known each other for what-- five, six years? You don't want to shoot me."
"You honestly have the nerve to play that card with me, Pietro? Do you even know what loyalty is?" Her anger is calm, frigid, terrifying. "I'll tell you what it's not. It's not slinking away in the middle of the night to a man who sold us out in a heartbeat. And you know he's been so good to you over the years. Hell, you didn't even leave a note. We wasted four days combing MRD facilities, Xavier's, hospitals, looking for you while you were off playing kidnap-the-senator with daddy."
"How did you--?"
"Don't interrupt. Even after I saw that bullshit video on the news..." She sighs. "Two weeks we waited around for you to come back. Because, surely, after all this time, you owed us a little honestly. Surely, you wouldn't leave us to hang after we'd been through so much. I mean, how long were we all together?"
I realize it's not a rhetorical question when a bullet grazes my upper thigh. "What the fuck, Domino!?" It was only a warning shot but still, the blood wicks quick and red down my pants and it stings like a bitch.
"How long were we all together? How long have we been a team?! Do you even know? Did it ever even matter to you?"
My memory is spurred on by the fear that she's going to shoot me again. "November 2004. It was just you and me and Dominic and we were working out of that rat trap apartment in Jersey above the Chinese food restaurant- we had egg rolls for Thanksgiving. I was terrified of you both. Do you remember how badly I botched our first job? I was so eager..." God, that seems like it was a million years ago. The wave of nostalgia comes heavy and fast out of my mouth. "Fred was 2006, sometime in the summer. We were pulling recon on the MRD, and we turned a corner and there he was. He'd broken out of his cell and was sitting on Colonel Moss. I thought I was going to die laughing....Mort at the end of 2008. I know you guys were mad I brought him on the team but come on, eight months and twenty two captures, that's got to be some kind of record. We got so familiar with the floor plans of the detention facility because of that kid." I'm laughing but my eyes are hot and wet. "I really fucked up this time, didn't I?"
Domino lowers her gun. "Yeah, Pietro, you really did."
She's getting up to leave but I'm rooted to the floor, thinking of going back without any of them; just Father and I, alone. "I'm sorry."
"I know, and it's nice to hear, especially if you actually mean it for once, but it really doesn't change anything at this point." She sighs again, digging gauze and antiseptic out of one of the pouches on her belt and tossing it at me. "It's Wanda, by the way. The hit. If either you or Magneto start shit in Genosha, she's got me on retainer. After that stunt he pulled with the Sentinels, I don't blame her, and if you're with him...?" Her hand is on the doorknob. "I shouldn't be telling you this but, well, I'm not you; I don't leave my teammates to twist in the wind. You show your face on that island though..." She makes a pistol out of her middle and index finger and fires it at me as she walks out of the apartment. "You're out of warning shots."
---------
I have to come back at half the speed because of my thigh, barely going fast enough to stay on top of the water, which means I'm soaked by the time I make it to New York City and half frozen when I walk in the door at 3 a.m. I'm shivering and my leg hurts and my nose hurts and all I want to do right now is take a long hot shower and climb into bed.
"Ah Pietro, you're home." Of course. I can't even have that. I generally take comfort in the fact that Father suffers from insomnia, it's the one thing that makes me believe he might actually be human, but tonight I'm in no mood. He seems pleasant. He's been trying at least, I'll give him that, even though I realize now that it's much, much too late. "How did it go?"
Once again, I'm struck with the distinct impression that Father has set me up to fail. I can't stop my teeth from chattering. "Well, I'm covered in my own blood and no one else is here. So clearly, pretty fucking successfully."
It's amazing how a man who is willing to commit genocide can still cringe at a swear word. "The kettle's on in the kitchen." He's gotten used to me snapping at him by now.
I'm moderately calmer when I return forty seconds later, having traded my wet clothing for pyjamas and poured myself a mug of tea. Father surrenders the blanket he has across his lap to me as a gesture of good faith. I wrap it around myself as I take a seat on the sofa. "Does this mean we have to the scrap the plan for Genosha?"
"Of course not, Pietro. There are others with similar talents who will be suitable and have less...obvious ties to us." People are just tools to him, to be used and used up. The fact that I set out to do the same tonight makes me burn in shame. He hands me a stack of files off of the coffee table and I flip through them: Julio Richter, Guido Carosella, Victor Borkowski, Pamela Greenwood. I don't recognize any of the names. I wonder if he's got a folder tucked away somewhere with my replacement all lined up. I hope so. "The Brotherhood were not my first choice, but you seemed so fond when you spoke of them. I wanted to give you the option of working with them again. I'm sorry it went poorly for you."
I touch my nose carefully. The irony that my father trying to be kind to me ends with similar results as when he is being malicious does not escape me. "Not your fault." It's one of the few things in my life that isn't. Except...not really. I make my own choices; I've made my bed and, as I decided on the run home, it's about damn time I start lying in it. "What's our timeframe like now?"
"Pushed back, but not inordinately." Father has been speaking to me like an equal for the last two months. It was something I basked in at the beginning. "Four days to get the team together. Three more for briefing."
"I'm still going in alone first, right?"
"Yes, the plan itself hasn't changed." Father has caught the tone of urgency in my voice and he's scrutinizing me carefully. "Is everything alright, Pietro?"
"Yeah, I'm just tired."
"Of course." He looks sceptical, but he drops it and I am thankful for that. "You've had a long day. I'm sorry for keeping you up."
"Don't worry about it." Father apologizes a lot to me these days, as though a few sorrys might make up for twenty-seven years of emotional negligence. "I'm going to bed though, or I'm going to I fall asleep right here. Goodnight Father."
"Goodnight Pietro."
When I am in my room, I lay a towel across the crack at the bottom of the door and climb into bed. Under the sheets with a reading lamp, I'm fourteen again, hiding girlie magazines and hoping Father doesn't catch me. Except, tonight, my clandestine stash is a notebook, four envelopes and a pen. I'll mail them the day before. I hope Domino still keeps that P.O. Box in Boston. I start with her letter first.
Hey Dom, I've got to confess, I'm not too happy about how we left things the last time we talked, so I thought I'd drop you a line. How's the millionaire life treating you? Wanda better have paid you or I'm going to haunt the shit of her. Did you buy a pony? I hear ponies are popular among girls. And the mercenary set. So, you know how I'm the type to be very: "I'll admit I'm wrong over my dead body"? Funny thing...
I pause, wipe my eyes, try to blot the smudging ink with the edge of my bed sheet. I can't get Penelope's words from earlier in the night out of my head as everything is irreparably shattering around me. It's not my fault. (Then whose is it?) Everybody yelled at me. (And, God, I deserved it.) I didn't break it. (Or at least, I didn't mean to...I never wanted it to be like this. I never wanted to use them and then toss them aside. I never wanted to become my father.) I bury my face in my hands.
I was just trying to be good.