Pietro was definitely lying on top of someone, he gathered. He didn't know why he hadn't gotten up, or why he had allowed himself to fall in the first place, but now he was lying on top of someone. Actually, he knew the reason, as that was because he was lying on top of Julia, who, until just a moment ago, had been supporting him with her shield.
"Did I break the Barricade?" He whispered to himself, eyes wide. Within a second, he was crouching in front of her, looking at her face. "How is she still sleeping? Is she a phaser? Does it only happen on the full moon? Is it the full moon? I'll call you Ghost Barricade." Pietro grinned to himself, what a cool name, before getting a icy pole and eating it in the parlour to consider the situation. With the frozen flavouring gone within less than a minute, only the stick remaining, Pietro leaned into Julia's face, freaked out by how close he could actually get. He went to poke her cheek with his index finger, only for it to stop short around an inch from her face. Even when she was asleep she had walls up, he thought to himself. Considering the stick in his hand for less than a second, he reached out, tapping her swiftly in the cheek, a pink spot appearing where the stick had just been.
"Barricade! Barricade! Look, its me! Look!" He grabbed the shield around her shoulders, trying and failing to shake her slightly. Julia made a noise of distress in the back of her throat and Pietro could feel the uneasy vibrations of her shield beneath his fingers. But he was close than anyone had been in years now, almost grabbing her shoulders, being close enough to touch, to hug (she had once admitted to him that the last person she had been in contact with was her mother, over five years ago, and she missed human contact more than she could bare sometimes), and he wasn't going to pass that up without her knowing about it.
"Julia!" Pietro's whining voice seemed to resonate within the brunette's subconscious as she mumbled out a small sentence.
"I didn't mean to hurt you." She groaned, wrapping her arms around herself. This didn't deter Pietro, who simply stored away the information in the back of his head. He let out an exaggerated, but still very fast, sigh.
"You're so useless sometimes, Barricade, you can't wake up when something cool's actually happening." He groaned, sitting down on the ground in front of the sofa, leaning back to rest his head on her calf. There was a moment of silence before he could hear her shallow, gasping breathes, the rumblr of her shield behind him and as he turned he saw the unbridled fear in her eyes as she stared at him, but it wasn't her, she was trapped in a nightmare, seeing someone who wasn't there, someone who made her terrified. Then, her mouth opened and a scream that would have woken the house ripped from her lungs, accompanied by the grenade-like explosion of her shield, sending Pietro flying, smashing into the opposite wall with a sickly crack. Silence that is only broken by Julia's frightened gasp is what coats the room for the next minute as she stares in shock where Pietro is crumped on the ground, unmoving.
"No!" She blurts it out, her voice strained and scared as she cries the word over and over, not daring to get closer to him for fear of hurting him with her shield. "Please be all right." She gasped out between sobs, before looking around herself wildly. "Somebody! Anybody! Please!" Her voice rose to a shrill screech and she could already hear the rumble of footsteps. It was followed by a slower pacing of footsteps scattering back to where they came from. Only one person came to check what was wrong, not that Julia minded in hindsight, she really didn't need the rest of the school seeing her breakdown.
"Jules? Julia, what's wrong?" She heard Alex's call from the top of the stairs, voice alert despite his spikey bed-head and track-pants-singlet pyjama combination.
"A-again… It happened again." She whispered, sure she looked a mess, arms wrapped around herself, hair messy, pyjamas skewed with panic and tear-stained cheeks. Alex's eyes were full of pity as he descended the steps slowly.
"Is everything all right?" Hank's voice was sharp, as it normally was, peering over the edge of the bannister to where Alex was approaching Julia slowly. She had buried her face into the pillows beside herself, muffling her sobs as they wracked her body, making her ache with worry and loneliness. "Julia, is everything OK?" Hank asked, softly, slowly, seeing the crumpled form of Pietro and Alex's sustained approach.
"It happened again." Alex said, before making a grunt of frustration, his hands pressed to her shield which was slowly growing in as she continued to cry. "You need to calm down. You could hurt a lot of people." He told her seriously as the shield began to expand rapidly. It froze in place and Alex could feel the vibrations beneath his fingers until it suddenly disappeared and Julia was gasping for breath, trying her hardest to keep her emotions under her control. "I'll get Speedy Gonzales over here, you comfort Jules." At Hank's affirming nod, Alex's swift strides took him over to Pietro, lifting him up and carrying him to the sick ward.
"Julia-" Hank put his hand out, testing to see if there was a shield; where there wasn't one seconds before, he could feel the edge of it pressing back against his palm.
"Stay away from me." She told him, her voice as level as she could make it, eyes wide and fearful at her own potential. The shield gave him a slight nudge and he stumbled back. She wasn't looking at him, she was staring straight ahead, her lips in a thin line, knees pressed to her chest, nails digging into her calves where Hank could see a thin line of blood ooze its way down her leg.
"It… um… its not your fault." He told her, quietly. Her sharp gaze turned to him, the shield rumbling ominously.
"Then whose fault is it?" She didn't wait for a response. "I need to be a better mutant. Have to be. It will keep happening. I'm a defensive mutant… was, anyway. This isn't defence, its idiocy. I shouldn't have been a mutant, I'm not any good at… anything." Her eyes glazed over as she turned away, her gaze fixed on some point in front of her that had captivated her attention not too long ago. The shield slipped from beneath Hank's grasp like a wounded dog, leaving his to catch it as it slowly detracted. He noted where it usually stopped, but it kept going, shrinking and moulding as it got closer to the little mutant.
"Julia…" He muttered, "You're not meant to be a perfect mutant." He marvelled at his own ability to comfort the distraught teen (his brain noted that the last time he had talked with someone like this - different situation entirely - was the night Raven rejected the cure, over a decade ago). He and Charles had shared a falling down boarding school for the better part of a decade and the closest they got to comfort was Charles's teary-eyed, drug-induced confessions starring Erik as the bad-guy or the good guy depending on his state of mind, and Raven - always Raven - as the lost little lamb. Charles never really got over losing her. "Pietro's going to be fine and you'll get stronger… I mean, growing stronger is easier said than done but -"
"Thank you." Julia's quiet thanks interrupted Hank's spiel, and he noted how tired she sounded. The shield snapped back into its usual place, knocking Hank back a foot.
"Ah, well, no worries." Hank said, a slight smile on his face, which faltered, "Are you OK?" He asked, tentatively.
Julia nodded and yawned, her movements much more natural and flowing as she loosened her grip on her legs, though some of the tension in her body remained. "Just focusing." He told him. Seeing his frown, she let out a sheepish grin, "Alex once told me that true focus lies between rage and serenity." Hank had heard that saying before and he also knew Alex wasn't quiet so elegant in his speech.
"Charles said that…" Hank told her, his words slow as he tried to pinpoint the circumstances that they had been said. Julia snorted with laughter.
"That makes more sense." She told him, but she scowled quickly as he followed it with:
"… to Magneto." Because none of the original group called Magneto 'Erik' anymore; it was too personal and too nice for all he had torn apart their small family they managed to find, despite the fact that much of that was attributed to Shaw. To Alex, he was 'metal-dick', the one who sucked the happiness from the school and its Professor. To Hank, he was simply 'Magneto', Raven's cute codename falling like poison from his lips. To Charles 'Old Friend' did well enough, or even, simply 'him' and Hank knew who he was talking about. 'Erik' was too nice for him.
Julia's face had soured considerably and she wrinkled her nose, but suddenly, in her haste to remove the image of herself in a metal helmet, the words, "I should go to Pietro," blurted through her lips and she slapped a hand over her traitorous mouth. No! Bad, Julia. You hurt him! Stay away!
"That, that's not a bad idea. If it would alleviate your doubts, I see no reason in completely isolating him." Hank, in rumpled bed clothes and skewed glasses, nodded his head towards the wing of the mansion where Alex had disappeared down. "If its happening again-" He paused as Julia's muscles tensed and her shield knocked him unceremoniously, "I would like to know what happened from his perspective. If you don't mind, I'll ask you a few questions too." Julia made a noise of protest, whether it was to the prospect of questions or to the fact that Hank had begun moving, but she stood and followed him. "After you've had a sleep, of course." Hank assures her, his eyes flicking to the clock which read three thirty.
"Thanks." Julia mumbled, rubbing her tired eyes, eager to curl up into one of the squashy, comfortable chairs in the sick ward that Xavier had everywhere in this mansion.
