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Chapter Forty-Nine: Hadephobia

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With her fingers clasped tightly around the edge of a mustard-colored lunch tray, Nat sidestepped a cheese sandwich on the linoleum floor and moved blindly forward into the cafeteria mob. Distracted, she didn't notice the trail of carrot sticks that she left from the lunch line to the utensil table, where she also left behind her napkin and plastic Spork. Around her, hundreds of lipstick-coated sophomores and the bored-looking upper classmen, shouting to their friends and banging on the fronts of stubborn vending machines, milled about.

Her feet felt like lumps of asphalt glued haphazardly to the stumps of her legs. Her eyes refused to blink. With a vague sense of the forgettable that has crept unbidden to the surface, her thoughts still rang with the aftershocks of something strangely familiar but as faint as steam, like someone waking from a dream that they didn't quite want to remember. Her heart had ceased its rapid thumping and become frighteningly lethargic, leaving her with an uncomfortable stillness in her limbs and an anomalous bubble of rime behind her collarbone.

Looking back on the meeting in Mystique's office, she couldn't recall a whispered word of confirmation and not a nerve within her cluttered brain could conjure up the memory of even a tiny nod, but her recollection of his satisfied half-smile and the look in his composed blue eyes was vivid. Her muscles felt depleted and cool where his hand had rested upon her shoulder and fatigue had descended once again. Lord, how she was tired of that.

Nat wasn't entirely positive just how far she had gone, how deeply she had plunged herself into a realm of discomfiting deceit, when she agreed to his proposal. Truly, only God knew for sure if she had agreed at all. Perhaps she had merely shrugged, or given him an unperturbed "I'll sleep on it". Maybe she hadn't actually signed herself up for a task she was sure that she'd regret, and probably sooner than later. With any luck, she had imagined the entire encounter, and she could go back home with Evan and Rogue and Kitty and Kurt to procrastinate on homework and fight over television privileges. And maybe, just maybe, she'd wake up tomorrow on a marshmallow cloud and float above her troubles for the rest of time.

Then again, maybe she just needed to be smacked around with a big stick labeled "Reality, dumbass – get used to it!"

Her fingers tightened on her tray and her knuckles blanched when a devastatingly familiar scene caught her eye. Around a table at the far end of the cafeteria, looking intent and conversational, were her former teammates from the institute. Sickness filled her belly at the thought of what she may have done, what Magneto may have convinced her to do, but she bit her lip and tried not to dwell on it.

Kitty and Rogue were embroiled in deep discussion, each girl looking purposeful enough to scare away any other students who might have considered taking a seat with them. Evan straddled a chair and had his chin resting on the seat's back, a frown forming a dimple between his brows, and stared at the two speaking girls. Kurt, across from all three of them and facing in Nat's direction, was looking faintly distracted and more than a little nervous, and kept glancing toward the doors. When his eyes met hers his face lit up with an unintentional smile and he jerked his head suggestively toward the exit, trying not to garner any extra attention from his tablemates.

A chill raced down the length of Nat's spine, an unpleasant sensation to one whose body was becoming more and more comfortable in the heat of fire. Numbness was building in her skull and she tried to think fast, but it was as if mud and marbles were sifting through the wrinkles in her brain. Biting her lip, she shook her head and mouthed: "I can't," trying not to focus on the crestfallen expression his face exuded.

She forced a smile, feeling the corner of her lips twitching. "Later," she added, and he seemed to relax enough to nod and send her a tiny wink. Kitty and Rogue didn't notice, but Evan glanced quickly over his shoulder, giving Nat barely enough time to duck out of his line of site behind the burly back of a nearby football player. Bunching her shoulders and feeling her neck tighten almost painfully, she skittered away to another corner for her lookout. It was time to have a little talk with the blue-eyed speed demon.

She noticed him quickly by his recognizable shock of snow-colored hair, and heat flushed her face, anger almost overpowering her. Her cheeks pinkened as she strode hastily over, forgetting to be cautious of who spotted her now, and stood behind him for a moment or two. After all the thinking she had done about what she would say in this moment, and all of the fury that strained in her lungs, she couldn't think of a single angry word to blurt in his face. Instead, she swung around to the other side of the table and took the empty seat there, slamming her tray onto the table and sitting down with force and conviction that seemed to startle a smile out of him.

"You knew all about this, didn't you, Maximoff?" she finally sputtered, leaning in over the table to keep her voice from carrying too far.

Surprise clouded his features as he frowned over at her. "W-what?"

"Magneto!" A girl in a wool jacket looked up from her meal and scowled in their direction, and Nat's cheeks colored further. She lowered her voice and continued. "His little…plan. How long have you known about what he wants me for, hmm? Did he just tell you today, or have you been in on it all along?" She cocked her head to the side, and sunlight filtered in through the skylight to play off of her hair. If she hadn't been wearing an expression of absolute rage, she might have looked pretty.

Pietro stabbed a soggy ravioli square on the end of his Spork and stared down at his food, trying to appear uninterested and even confused. "I haven't got any idea what you're talking about, Fairbanks."

"Typical."

The steadfast denial in his features trembled ever so slightly as he shifted in his seat, bumping the leg of the table and sending a spray of milk across the tabletop, but the gleam of anger remained sharp and bright. "Knock it off, already! The whole world isn't involved in some sort of conspiracy against you, for Christ's sake!" With one hand, he swung his napkin like a crude matador's cape, pretending to be fending off monsters and villains in the air. Across the room, a single pair of dark eyes lingered on the quietly chatting teens a bit longer than necessary. Kurt, trying not to be seen by either Nat or his tablemates, turned and exited the cafeteria quickly before he could be stopped.

"But you are!" She narrowed her green eyes, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Figure it out! I'm with the Brotherhood because I have to be, not because I was invited or because I thought it sounded like a good time." Slowly, Nat dropped back into her seat, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples as if they hurt her. "There's just too much. Mystique couldn't hate me more, you…obviously have problems with me, and now this." She squeezed her eyes shut tightly to keep the light from seeping in. "I'll be damned if I go through with this."

Pietro licked his lips and tried to avert his gaze. "Oh, come on. It's not all that bad."

"You don't know whether or not it's bad!" Nat shouted again. She frowned, feeling the fury in her gut subside a bit as she stared down at Pietro's bowed head and the gaunt shoulders that seemed to pull inward as he shrank against the table. "Okay, fine. Based on your logic, maybe it's not," she paused to breathe in deeply, "but to me it is."

Raising a white eyebrow, Pietro smiled lopsidedly and nodded. "I know how that goes." He dabbed the spilled milk delicately with his napkin. "You've just gotta look at things from a different perspective. If you just stopped seeing the world as if you were a traitor—" she glared at him at this and he rose his hands defensively "—and tried to think of this as a chance at an entirely new start, things might look a lot different. Stop imagining that you need to make it up to them, and maybe you'll be able to move on."

"I do owe them a lot, though. Even you can't deny that." She sighed. "Besides, that's not what it's about right now, Maximoff. Not anymore," Nat said softly, trying to keep her voice from wavering. She clenched her teeth and tried not to make eye contact with her fair-haired companion, who was diligently staring at her with a measure of intensity in his expression that made her start to panic. There was something in blue eyes today that made her distinctly nervous, and urged her to glance away. There was the promise of something dangerous in cornflower steel this afternoon. She paused to take a deep, wavering breath. "Tell me what you knew, even if I won't like the answer, and even if you don't want me to find out." Her chin dropped to her chest, and she shook her head slowly as if she were trying half-heartedly to loosen something inside. "I need to know."

"You need to know what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Stop it."

"No, really. What—" he swallowed hard "—what is it that you're so determined to find out? Maybe this is for the best…you know, like starting over? You haven't got anything to feel bad about. I mean, you've got a whole new chance here. Why spoil it by trying to dig around in what's done and over with?" He fiddled with his utensils, looking nervous and unaware of the movement and action around him. His face was hazy, his gaze unsteady, and his words were getting quicker and less easily distinguishable. Nat's breath, too, quickened at her sudden realization: something was distinctly amiss here.

"Because I need to know, Pietro." He winced at the use of his first name, which she noticed but tried to ignore. "You know what he wants me for, don't you?"

With a loud sigh, Pietro slapped his hand down on the tabletop and stared across at her. She didn't flinch. "Why do you care so much?"

"I don't think anyone else really knows what…what he asked of me, except maybe Mystique. Magneto might've planned this whole thing out, but I doubt that he pulled it off by himself. Somebody had to have helped him, and I think that someone was you. All I want to know is what you know." He fidgeted slightly, and a flare of anger blazed up in her cheeks. "Fine. Don't tell me. I already know. In that case, why were you willing to go along with it?" Her voice remained curiously steady, stanch despite the anger that threatened to creep in. The thirst for understanding won out over the desire to slap Pietro in his arrogant little face, and she tried to make that clear to him in her silent body language and the look in her eyes.

Practically fuming now, Pietro launched himself out of his seat and started storming away. "Just drop it, alright? So I know! It's not like he's asking you to, I don't know, sell children into slavery or something!"

"No, but he wants me to abuse my powers!" Nat added, louder than she should have but not quite shouting. Again, the wool-coated girl looked up in surprise, and Nat blushed once more. Pietro, however, glared at the onlooker until she rose to her feet and scurried away, apparently terrified by this oddly timed and bizarre-sounding argument.

Turning his back to her, Pietro stared at the floor, shoving his hands in his pockets, his outburst quelled almost immediately. His hands lodged within the denim compartments at his hips, he could make out the faint, healing scars on his palms, the remnants of a fire he'd started not long ago, and felt a crushing sense of guilt. "God, you even sound like one of them…"

"And what's so bad about that?" Nat demanded, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Nothing. Except you might one day regret it." He kicked at the leg of an empty table, making a paper cup teeter and fall to the floor. He turned slowly back to face her, coming in to close up the several feet of empty space between them lest they be overheard, and whispered, "Look. I don't want you to explore this too far. When Magneto wants something, he goes out and gets it. If you go along you'll be guaranteed his favor. He's a powerful man. He can make you powerful, too."

Nat's eyes widened and her mouth popped open. It was a few long seconds before she was able to make herself form coherent words. "You…you can't be serious."

"Of course I am. You've already agreed to it anyway, haven't you?"

Shame cascaded down upon her. "Yes…but I was…I mean, I had to."

"You didn't have to do anything. You went along because it makes perfect sense." He clamped his hands into fists to try to ignore the mental sting of those scars. "All you've got to do is help get rid of Xavier's threat if the old man comes to. It's as simple as that. You haven't got to kill him or even hurt him. Just get rid of his ability to go into people's heads. Easy as pie, you know? I know you can do it. Just a few mental fire barriers and voila! All you'll be doing is eliminating the possibility for future conflict, after all."

Nat furrowed her brow and glared at him, beginning to tremble. "By eliminating one side's ability to fight back! Would you think of it the same way if Xavier were to propose that I render Magneto's powers useless?"

Pietro's upper lip twitched into an awkward smile. "That couldn't happen. Magneto's powers aren't…in his head the way the professor's are. Xavier's become too dependent on his abilities, anyway. It would probably be good for him to stop being able to make everything go his way all the time." He stepped a bit closer and leaned casually against a table so the two were face to face, a bit too close for Nat's comfort. "Come on. It'll be easy."

"This isn't easy. It's horrible! How can he even ask me to do it? How can you?" She shot herself backward by slamming her palms against his chest, making him stagger backward a few feet. "It was you who told him I'd be a part in it in the first place, wasn't it? And you probably pretended to be my friend just so you could con me into this bloody nasty plan of his!"

Pietro reached forward and grasped her shoulders to keep himself from falling after the jolt of her shove, feeling her hot skin beneath the fabric of her shirt. "I never said that you would do it! I never made any promises. He figured out who you were by himself." He glanced around and lowered his voice, which seemed almost to echo as the cafeteria began to clear. Neither of them had heard the bells that ushered the students back to class, and neither made any movement to obey them. "And I most certainly never 'pretended' to be your friend!"

"Of course not," she snapped, yanking her arms from his grasp. "You just pretended that you cared enough not to let me get killed. What does a person like you know about friendship, anyway? From what I've seen, you only consort with people you think will be some sort of benefit to you! That's why you dragged me into this spider web and let Magneto get his claws on me, isn't it? You know that if you deliver a prize into his hands he'll reward you for it eventually!"

"Knock it off!" He bellowed, a few strands of colorless hair falling into his face. His pale cheeks looked pinker than normal, his mouth turned into a snarl. "There's no way in hell I'd let you go into this if I thought it would put you in danger! All I did was make sure that you'd come to us!"

"Fine, then," Nat said as she waved her hand dismissively. "You go ahead and see it that way. You gave me some clothes and let me off in the city, where you knew I'd have no chance of getting along by myself, so I'd come crawling back in the end. Brilliant plan, Mr. Maximoff."

"Hey, it was a lot better than that!"

Eyes narrowed, Nat glowered at the fairer teen, metaphorical fire dancing in her eyes. She might not have noticed if it wasn't for the sudden paling of Pietro's frenetic face. "What?"

Pietro, white as the frost on a December morning, glanced away, looking noticeably embarrassed and frustrated at having let something slip. "Nothing."

"No, what? It was something, I can tell," she spat out quickly, crossing her arms and staring at him.

He peered back and then down at his feet, trying to gauge her reaction, to temper the beams that he had so unwisely begun to trample across. Nat made herself stony-faced and stared back with resolve, her determination to hear his answer more than matching his will to keep quiet. Two wills rubbed against one another, two rough-fronted granite beasts bearing down on each other's jugulars. "I…" He paused to gulp, a lump of solid apprehension drifting down his throat.

"Tell me, dammit! Or is this just more of your self-important bragging?"

Irritation overcame the embarrassment and wariness in Pietro's eyes when his head snapped up to face her. "Screw off, you snotty little brat! You'd be homeless if it weren't for me, or stuck back at that stuffy old mansion being groomed into Xavier's perfect mutie paper doll!"

"What…" Nat paused a moment, making sure she had heard correctly, her mouth open in surprise and the bright jade orbs of her eyes looking clear and brilliant with distress. Could he possibly have meant that? "What do you mean?"

Pietro blinked, his tongue dry and stiff, and stared back at Natalie. He tried to think of something to say but choked on the words.

"Why, Pietro? Why would I still be at the institute if it weren't for you?" Frenzy fluttered past her gaze and her hands flew about her face in disquiet like a pair of startled creatures. The silence of the emptied room seemed to echo and expand, filling all the cracks and crevices in the walls with a shrieking, overwhelming hush. They stared at one another, fear of discovery in one pair of eyes and fear of the truth in the other. "I thought I had no choice but to come with you, after the others abandoned me." Sarcasm rang in her tone, a harsh parody of the friendly, slightly nervous voice he recognized as hers.

There was the longest of pauses, both staring at the other with an expression that spoke more than words would have done. Slowly, in defiant submission and apology, he rose his hands to chest level, splaying them like crucified criminals. Her stare delayed itself on his long olive fingers is if it had become caught on the ridges of the tiny, healing burns that were apparent there, now that she'd gotten a closet look. A random thought of something she had learned long ago from a girl at summer camp fluttered past her mind, and she absently noted that his love line had been severed. His palms were slightly pink and raw with repaired skin, the bandages so recently removed that the flesh looked clean and newly born. They were the scars of fire. Nat knew them well. She'd seen them before. More than once she had actually caused them.

Reality rose to choke the frantic-looking girl and suffocate the last few bands of clear-headedness that held her in place. She wavered on her feet. The temperature rose around the two, making the air shimmer and dance with heat, but Pietro seemed unfazed as he stared back at Nat's gleaming green eyes, which glared with an angry blaze of their own. Bottomless pride welled in her chest when she realized that she hadn't roasted him alive.

A deep breath calmed her racing thoughts. "You tell me not to be afraid of my own potential evils," she whispered, carefully enunciating each word, "because you're creating your own. Even more, you don't want to be alone in them." Slowly, she shook her head and his broken-secret hands were lowered sluggishly to his sides. "I'm not a good Christian, Pietro. I don't fear a hell made by God." A smile skittered across her lips, and he stared back in blunt astonishment. "I only fear the one I make myself, and that's much worse."

Blinking back dry tears that she feared would fall but took no action to do so, Nat moved backward toward the doors at the rear of the cafeteria, which by now was nothing more than an empty room populated by tables, chairs and two mutant teenagers. Pietro stood rooted in place as he watched her exit, not realizing that he may never have a chance to tell her the things that desired so much to surge forth from his lips.