Erik startled at the insistent tap to his shoulder. He nearly dropped the jackhammer held between his hands. It would have toppled over onto the freshly-cut cement sidewalk that he was gouging with the machine's business end, if he had not managed to catch it.

He needed to dig down through several layers of concrete, rock and other more earthen materials to reach a certain part of the main water line, and his overseer had told him that it had to be done before lunch. If he had not been halted, he might have made his way past the final obstacle to his goal: the loose soil beneath harder, more unforgiving layers. Once that had been reached, he could have grabbed a shovel and made short work of finding the pipe that supposedly lay underneath. Distracted as he was, it was a wonder that he did not puncture through entirely and cause more damage than what was already there. A slip up like that could have cost him a good portion of his paycheck in fines. They had told him that there was a leak in the copper plumbing that ran this way, and they had pinpointed its approximate whereabouts and left a handy orange flag fluttering above it. All that Erik had to do was dig, and hope that he didn't negatively affect the problem.

Annoyed at having been interrupted, he yanked out one of his ear plugs and lifted both brows behind his protective goggles in an angry way at the office girl who had tapped him. She was almost brand new, young and pretty and impressionable. Her name escaped him. It was something like Sharon or Shannon, he thought, not truly invested in the effort it took to recall the name of some inconsequential someone. Noting how she shrank from his furious expression, Erik softened it to one of exasperation and relaxed his body language into a stature that was less threatening. There was still a trace of ire to his tone, though he attempted to reign it in to a mild, "Yes?"

"Call for you."

Sighing, Erik propped the jackhammer against a nearby concrete divider for the main road that would run out front of the would-be gas station. He waited until the girl had scurried off and he was relatively certain that no one was looking. His fellow workers were each occupied with their own tasks, and they were not likely to look over and notice what could be taken for a man in momentary meditation. Erik concentrated on the earth underneath his feet, his pale blue-green eyes sliding closed; he could use his magnetic mutation without alerting other people that he was doing it, for the 'fingers' of his gift were invisible to the naked eye. Down those fingers traveled past any and all barriers, be they man made or natural, until he could taste the copper of the thick water piping. It had a flavor not unlike blood mixed with clean water and traces of dirt.

Within seconds he could feel where the pipe had been compromised, likely by a mild earthquake. Before now he had told himself that he would mend the pipe without the benefit of his ferrokinesis, not out of some misplaced sense of propriety and not because it was 'cheating,' in a way... More, he had experienced what it was to suffer the suspicion of those who were suspicious of issues having been solved too easily. The views on mutants in this country were as prejudiced overall as they were in the rest of the world. When he allowed his gift to overtake him, he forgot about all else in his surroundings-about the chill on the breeze that kissed sweat lining his arms, about the possibility of social and political complications related to his hidden abilities. He could become one with the metal. It could be made to do his bidding as easily as another man might command a dog to sit or stay or fetch. He willed the break in the pipe to close, to pull together like the flesh on either side of a wound, and he could feel it when it healed. There would be no further need for anyone to dig down into this spot, he made sure of it.

He hated contract work, but there was a gas station to be built and he had licenses enough to qualify him in nearly every facet of the construction jobs required for such an endeavor. This meant that no matter what needed to be done on the job, it was likely that he could do it and be counted upon to do it right. And it kept him out of the blacksmith forges and steel mills and factories that ruined his eyes and made his head ache for days after every shift. He actually quite liked forging metallic items, was fascinated by the chemical elements involved in the process, and his unique 'skillset' with that sort of thing meant that he had a particular talent with the materials. It was the presence of toxic smoke that choked those atmospheres which made it nearly insufferable and made working out of doors much preferred. Rarely was he put in a position where he could discreetly use his ferrokinetic abilities to make simple a given task without alerting the attention of every intrusive brown-nose within sight; that didn't matter so much, though. He often didn't need to introduce his mutation in order to finish a job. The physicality of his work intrigued him. He liked to keep his hands busy, and he liked to build things. It was when other people got in his way that the allure was tarnished by their incessant presence.

The dust and pebbles that had accumulated upon the faded black tee shirt and blue jeans that Lehnsherr was wearing followed him as he walked toward a small, single-wide trailer home reserved for the human resources aspects of the current job. The inside of it always smelled like burnt coffee and caulking no matter where they parked the thing. When Erik entered, the floor was already littered with various debris from other workers who had trampled in before him, so he wasn't overly concerned with brushing his own collection of filth off. Though he was mildly curious about who would be calling him at work, he was none too pleased to be faced with even a small delay in his assigned tasks for the day. It wouldn't bode well for his reputation on the site. He had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew what the impromptu summoning was all about.

The moment he picked up the idling call and barked a curt greeting, Erik could tell that he was doomed to lose what little time clocked in that he might have had remaining in his shift. Pietro was in trouble again. Whether or not it was common for a nine-year-old kid to cause as much mischief as his son did on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis, Erik didn't know. His own childhood was certainly rife with a similar level of clashes against whatever authority figure had deigned to put him or herself in his way back then. What he did know was that his only child's rebellious streak had something to do with Pietro's mother having decided that she no longer wanted to participate in his life.

She had never been much for commitment. In the beginning of their painfully brief relationship, Erik had found that quality attractive about her. She was free-spirited and aloof and had not a care in the world to weigh her down, so different from every other German woman (or man) that Erik had ever become romantically involved with. Different as well from Erik, whose demeanor could accurately be described as 'prickly' and 'too-serious.' Those descriptions only tended to come from people who wished to remain polite about it. More than once, Magda had used words like 'icy bastard' and 'reptile' to describe her former fiancee. That was back when she still spoke to him, or their son, at all.

Rubbing his dirt-lined features with an equally unclean hand, he listened to the receptionist for the school principal as she went through the motions of informing him that Pietro had been in (another) fight, and that Mister Lehnsherr's presence was required at the soonest possible time to have a word with their guidance counselor, one Mister Xavier. Erik sighed again. He told the woman that yes, he would come and speak with the man about his son. It was only a matter of time before they asked him to do so, he knew. Several notes written on ominous yellow papers had accompanied Pietro home from school in the last couple of weeks, urging his father to 'have a talk with him.'

This Mister Xavier and Erik had not yet met, but Erik almost felt as though they had, considering the vast number of written correspondences that they had exchanged. This latest fight seemed to have tipped the balance over from the school tolerating Pietro's behavior to their becoming fed up with it and quietly demanding an explanation for it in person from the troublemaker's main role model. The receptionist assured him that Pietro was not seriously injured, but that Erik's presence was requested all the same.

He smacked the receiver back down on its cradle hard enough to make the young woman seated at the desk on which it was perched flinch. It was going to be one of those days. He squared away his boss, telling him that he had no choice but to tend to family matters, and was a little surprised when the old man agreed that such issues were more important than work. For now. If it became a habit, they would no doubt have a very different conversation. Erik clocked out and climbed into his truck a few moments later, already tired despite the still relatively early hour of the day. He would not bother to go home and change or shower; if they wanted to pester him at his place of work, then they could damn well deal with a bit of dust on their floors.