A/N : Honk if you love Dadneto!
By the following Saturday, everyone was feeling much more alive after a good thunderstorm, whipped up by their resident weather manipulator, had cleared the air. It was still warm and sunny, but no longer oppressively so. Gorgeous weather for a run, in other words. Used to being alone in the dining hall for a good long while, Peter froze with a glass of juice halfway to his mouth as he saw Erik walking across the floor toward him, yawning and stretching.
"Can't sleep?" Peter asked him, gulped down his juice, started in on the toast
"Nothing of the sort. I'm up early to see you"
"That's cute, Dadneto. Bonding time again? Don't you have things to go destroy instead?"
"Your sarcasm can be very unbecoming at times, Peter" Erik warned darkly, disarmed with a grin, reaching for the coffee, "If you're too busy to spend time with me, then –"
"No no really, it's cool!" Peter said quickly, "just… unexpected, that's all. You do know it's not even six yet, right?"
"Yes, and you have been awake since at least three I imagine. If you didn't have any other plans, I thought we could go out this morning. Just the two of us"
"Like anyone else is up," the boy muttered, demolished his fifth slice, "Why do people need so much sleep anyway? It drives me crazy… I mean, all they ever seem to do is sleep and then complain that they're tired when they've hardly done anything and then sleep some more, it's like –"
"Peter" Erik closed his eyes, looked pained, held up a finger, "a little peace? At least let me drink my coffee before you start. And make it a light breakfast this morning"
"Can you define 'light' for me?"
"Perhaps only twice as much a normal person?" Erik suggested. Peter looked aghast.
"Why you tryin' to starve me, man?" he asked in a small voice. Erik grinned conspiratorially at him and simply said
"You'll be glad. Trust me"
Peter had complained for most of the rest of the meal, and complained even more when Erik had walked straight to his car when they got outside. Erik almost turned back and abandoned his plan for the morning, wondering if he could actually put up with a whiny speedster for another second before he throttled the whine right out of him. He grit his teeth, got in the car. Started it, looked at Peter curled up in the seat looking thoroughly miserable.
"Are you going to sulk all day?" he snapped. Reached across and yanked the seatbelt around the boy.
"Only until lunch" Peter mumbled, sunk down in his seat and put his feet on the dashboard, started fiddling with the radio. "Where are we going anyway? Am I going to hate it? Chances are I'm going to hate it if you're going to half-starve me before we even go, you know I get really cranky when I'm hungry, right? You know I could faint and *die*? I'll tell Mom about this, you see if I – "
Erik reached into the back and dumped a bag containing several of Hank's finest Sawdust Specials into the boy's lap.
"What did I do?" Peter asked. Erik was surprised to see that his eyes looked a little damp, "Seriously, Dad, what the hell did I do to deserve this? Whatever it was I'm really sorry, can you maybe stop punishing me?"
"Are you going to bolt out of this car if I tell you where we're going?" Erik sighed, clenched his hands white on the steering wheel.
"No"
"A friend of mine in town is away for the week. He has a pool. I'm going to teach you to swim. Now do you understand why I don't want you to weigh yourself down?"
"I don't see why it matters when I sink anyway!" Peter yelled, "What good is knowing how to swim? For all you know I'm fast enough to run on water! I can run, Wanda can swim, that's the way it works, I don't need to change it, I don't WANT to change it, I. Do. Not. Care. That. I. Can't. Swim"
"Well you seemed to care quite a bit the other day!" Erik yelled back, surprised at his ferocity, "And if you're ever out on a mission and end up stranded in water, then you will certainly be bloody glad that you learned!"
Erik took his eyes off the road for a moment when no reply came. Peter had curled himself up even more, it was amazing how tiny a space he could fit himself into when he wanted to. Staring away from him out of the window, but Erik could tell by the little hitches in his chest that he was crying. He felt awful for yelling, tried a gentler tone
"Peter, I –"
"If you make me wear those dumb floaty armbands, I'm gonna kill you" he said bitterly, and didn't turn back for the rest of the journey or say another word.
The pool wasn't even as big as the one in the Mansion grounds, but Peter still eyed it as if it might contain lurking sharks. Stinging Erik with a glare and sitting down beside it in a thorough huff
"Did it cross your mind that I don't have any trunks, given as how I don't swim?"
He flinched as something hit him in the face, pulling the soft object away and holding up a pair of bright blue trunks decorated with friendly-looking cartoon dinosaurs. He gave Erik the hardest, meanest look he had. His father shrugged, slipping out of his shirt and folding it neatly.
"I couldn't find your size in adult colours. I didn't think you'd mind"
He turned away, looking back a moment later to see his son shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, hugging his arms around himself as if to try to conceal as much of his body as possible, scowling as if he could somehow develop eye-blasts any moment if he glared hard enough. To make matters worse, he felt tiny next to his father, who had a remarkably good body for his age, strongly build and deep-chested with hard, muscular legs. At least he'd inherited that much. He watched Erik descend into the pool, didn't move an inch. Erik waded over, held out both arms.
"Come on," he said as gently as he could. Peter didn't move, "We're just going to try and float for a little while"
At last, the boy lowered himself down to sit on the edge of the pool. He looked petrified, swallowed hard.
"You promise I'll be safe?" he asked. Erik thought he sounded so young it hurt his heart, "You'll keep me up, won't you? You won't let me drown?"
"I promise," Erik said solemnly, feeling his son's arms shaking as he finally lowered himself down into the water. Just stood for a moment. Peter's legs felt like jelly, feeling like his head would go under if he moved the slightest fraction of an inch. He shivered.
"It's cold" he complained
"You'll acclimatise fast enough. Now, just trust me, alright?"
He looked down into his son's huge, terrified eyes, tried to project all the caring and protectiveness he felt into his voice. Peter had a death grip on his hands and wasn't letting it up. This was going to be a very long morning. Eventually the vice-like grip had relaxed a very little, allowing Erik to move and place one hand on his son's back.
"Try and lay back," he said soothingly, "I've got you, don't worry. Just lay back and take your feet off the floor, I'll catch your legs"
"No way dude, no way no how!"
A little splash and Erik was alone in the pool, looking around for a minute before he had spotted Peter huddled into a ball with his arms clamped around his knees, as far away from the pool as he could get. He sighed. Climbed out, went to sit beside the little shaking bundle and put his arm around him.
"Look, I had a talk to Hank, when I had this idea," he said quietly, "He says you should float better now than you did when you were younger, now that your mutation has settled properly"
"Why?!" Peter demanded, voice sounding small and strangled, "I'm no fatter than I was, and I'm *definitely* heavier, why should I float any better now?"
"Hank thinks that part of the pain you had when you were growing up was the structure of your bones changing. As you know, you have bones like a bird – very light and hollow, filled with lots of pockets of air. Without full-density bones to drag you down, it shouldn't matter that you don't have any fat to keep you afloat. We think it should help you a lot, if you'll try"
Peter didn't say anything for a long while, until at last he had looked up at his father and tried out a smile. It was a tiny, wobbly effort, but it made Erik feel slightly better.
"Did Mom tell you I liked dinosaurs?" he asked. Erik smiled back, even laughed a little.
"No. Just a lucky guess"
"I can't get in there again, I can't make myself do it" Peter took a deep, shuddering breath, "But if you carry me in, I'll try not to freak out, okay?"
Erik nodded, scooped him up.
It took Peter almost an hour to stop shaking, repeatedly stopping at the last moment before he allowed himself to take his feet off the floor. Eventually though, he had trusted Erik enough to hold him and done it.
"See?" Erik told him, smiled down though the boy had his eyes tightly shut, "You're quite safe. I bet if I took my hands away you'd stay floating just fine"
"Don't you DARE!" Peter yelled at him, but when his eyes flew open he saw that Erik was standing with his arms hanging by his side. Clamped down hard on his panic, fought the urge to thrash. Forced himself to lie still and trust that Erik wouldn't let his head go underwater.
"Am I floating?" he asked, voice shaky. Erik nodded, smiled proudly at him. Then he was suddenly climbing up his father's body like a cat, arms and legs both wrapped around him, trembling again. Erik clutched on tightly to the wet slippery body, waded over to the side and set him down. Peter gave him a mournful look, pulled the offered towel around his shoulders and hunched over, folding his arms tightly around his stomach.
"Please can we stop now?" he begged, "I genuinely think I'm gonna faint from hunger in a minute. No kidding this time"
Erik laughed and clambered out of the pool to dry off, believed him. Truth be told Peter had already been unexpectedly patient, he'd been able to hear the poor kid's belly growling for the last fifteen minutes but he hadn't even complained until now.
"Get dressed then, and we can go find you something horribly greasy" he picked his son up and set him on his feet, dried his hair off roughly, "I'm very proud of you, you know"
Peter grinned shyly at him, pulled him into a dripping wet hug.
"We can come back tomorrow though, right?"