Raven walked down the hall, or perhaps more accurately, she prowled down it like a cat stalking its prey, outwardly calm, but on the inside, posed to strike.
As she passed each classroom, Raven could hear a teacher lecturing, or sometimes students chatting quietly. In the distance someone was vacuuming.
Despite all that had happened recently, life went on.
Her steps were smaller than normal—but no less stealthy—as she was currently disguised as a girl of about twelve. Raven couldn't recall the girl's name, but she was pretty sure it was Suzie or Sandy or something equally sickeningly sweet, but no matter, with students in class, it was unlikely that she would run into her doppelgänger.
Raven didn't know for sure that she would find Erik roaming the halls at this time of day, but there was a better chance of it now when the halls were nearly empty, than when the students were switching classes, grabbing a meal, or unwinding at the end of the day. She'd noticed that Erik tended to avoid the students—other than one particular silver-haired young man—whenever possible. Whether that was primarily because he knew most feared him or he could no longer stand to be around children, Raven couldn't say for sure; but whatever the reason, it was bound to be a tragic one.
Raven didn't need to surprise Erik. He wasn't the same man he had been twenty—or even ten—years ago. The worse he was going to do now was walk off while she was trying to talk to him, but still, even after all that had happened, it never hurt to, on occasion, try to catch the man off guard when one wanted to force a conversation. He hadn't changed completely. There might be times when Erik liked to hear himself talk, but often there was a difference between talking and an actual conversation.
Soft footsteps sounded ahead of her—speak of the devil and he shall appear—and Raven looked up to see Erik rounding a corner and heading her way.
He saw her walking toward him down the hall, and their gaze met for a second; but he averted his eyes immediately, as Raven knew he would. Erik might avoid all of the children at the school as best he could, but in particular, Raven knew he went out of his way to avoid the youngest students, girls especially. It didn't take a genius to figure out the reason—they reminded him of his daughter.
Having seen her—or who he assumed her to be—Raven thought Erik might turn tail and head back in the other direction, leaving Raven to try to corner him some other time. And he did pause for a moment, but she lucked out because the metal bender kept coming toward her, still carefully avoiding eye contact.
She waited until he was about a half a foot past her, and then—Raven struck.
She grabbed the front of Erik's shirt with one hand and his throat with the other, letting herself change back to her natural form to give her enough leverage to push him into the nearest closet, which happened to have been conveniently left just slightly ajar. Once they were inside, without even needing to glance backward, Raven hooked the door closed behind her with one foot.
Back against the closet's wall, Erik looked down at Raven, unimpressed
"Is . . . whatever this is really necessary?" asked Erik, sounding more exhausted than upset.
"Always." Said Raven, though that wasn't true at all. The truth was, they were both tired of fighting, but neither could ever completely stop.
They weren't built for peace.
But beyond that, Raven also wasn't too prideful to admit that she had a flare for theatrics, something that Erik, of all people, should appreciate, given that he liked to run around in full gladiator get up every decade or so.
Still holding tightly to him, Raven could feel Erik's pulse beneath her hand; his heart beat steadily, just as strong as ever, despite the pain it had endured and still held.
"Well, then, I'm at your mercy." Said Erik, with a slight upturn to his lips, but there was no real humor or bite to the retort, not like there had been ten years ago in that subway station when she had held him in a similar position. And when Raven looked into Erik's eyes, it was almost like looking into the eyes of a corpse. "Has another decade really passed again since we've been this close? Can't say I've missed the proximity all that much, though it's nice to see you don't have a hair pin to my throat this time."
"It was a knife asshole, but thanks for the idea." Raven rolled her eyes, though she wasn't truly annoyed. After all, she was the one that had accosted Erik in the hallway, so if anyone had a right to be annoyed, it probably wasn't her. Raven shook off any surfacing guilt at ambushing her . . . at ambushing Erik, and pressed on. "We need to talk."
"In the broom closet?" He asked, letting a little exasperation bleed through in his response.
Raven shrugged as best she could while still holding him in place. "It seemed as good a place as any. Not so easy for you to avoid me this way."
"I didn't realize I needed to. And I could free myself at any time. It would only take a moment." Said Erik matter-of-factly, and as though in confirmation of that statement, the metal hanger beside them swayed ominously as if compelled to move by a non-existent wind.
"Probably, but you won't." Raven replied confidently, but also more softly this time.
Erik didn't acknowledge her statement, instead addressing the reason behind her waylay.
"What's so important that you had to corner me in here?"
"Your kid." Said Raven, not mincing words.
Erik breathed heavily through his nose, and Raven felt his throat constrict. "What could you possibly mean by that?" His response was more of a rumble—just short of pure rage—than a spoken reply. "My daughter is dead. Just like her elder sisters before her."
Raven's grip on Erik's throat loosened slightly in shock. Raven didn't know that Erik had more children before his youngest daughter and most likely even before Peter. The curious part of her wanted to ask about them. What happened to them? And did Peter know? But Raven didn't need to know the answers to those questions. Just knowing Erik had lost more than one child told her more about him and his jaded personality than a response ever could. And besides, even if she asked, Raven knew Erik wouldn't give an explanation, not to her.
"I wasn't talking about your daughters." Raven pressed on before Erik could reverse their roles and possible choke the life out of her. "I meant your son."
A slight panic flashed across Erik's face before he was able to hide it away, and though she no longer longed to see Erik brought to his knees for trying to kill her or any number of his past acts, it was nice to see an emotion replace that dead stare he now seemed to wear permanently, even if the emotion wasn't necessarily a good one.
"I don't—" Erik started. Raven didn't know if he was going to deny his connection to Peter—probably for one chivalrous reason or another—or simply cut off the conversation completely, but she didn't give him the chance.
"You don't have to lie. I know Peter's your son." Said Raven, gazing at Erik intensely.
The statement hung between them for a moment before Erik broke the silence.
"How long have you known?" He asked finally and quietly, like he thought if he acknowledged the truth, it might turn out to be a lie.
"Since just before Cairo." Raven answered. Her hand still rested on Erik's throat, but it was more of a caress now than a restraint. "Peter told me."
Another emotion flashed across Erik's face, and this time Raven had more trouble placing it, but she thought it might have been hurt—hurt that Peter had told Raven of their relationship before he'd told his own father.
Raven hadn't asked Peter how the big reveal had gone down, but it was obvious as early as a few weeks ago that it had, given that Raven had noticed that the two men spent so much time together as of late, despite her refusal to outright admit that fact to her brother because she had no desire to feed his need to control and/or fix everyone.
"Don't take it personally." Raven continued before Erik could linger too long in his current state of inadequacy. "It was when Stryker was holding us. The kid was anxious and scared. He tends to talk a lot—even more than usual—under those circumstances if you haven't noticed. He probably would've told Hank, or even Moira, just as easily as me, but I happened to be standing closer to him at the time."
"I see." Said Erik not looking convinced, and for a moment, he made no further comment, but then he seemed to remember that there had to be a reason Raven was bringing up their relationship in the first place, which she had yet to reveal to him. "What of Peter then? You said we had to talk about him."
Raven could tell the gears in Erik's mind were rapidly beginning to turn, running through all the scenarios of how Peter might be in danger, and if it was his fault.
"Take it easy." Said Raven, loosening her hold a little bit more. "He's not in trouble. But given that you obviously think he would be if everyone found out that you're his father, then if you want to keep that a secret, you need to give the kid some space. Charles is asking questions—about why you're spending so much time together and what you could possibly be discussing."
Erik frowned, brow furrowed. "It's that obvious?"
"Maybe not to everyone and I don't think Charles is going to use his powers to figure out exactly what is going on with you two, but he won't have to if you're not careful. I could tell that Peter had told you just based on the fact that you and Peter are hanging out like—well like you're father and son. And I'm not saying you should keep that a secret. I get why you think the less people who know the better, but whatever you and Peter decide to do isn't my business. But I'm just saying, if secrecy is your goal for the time being, then you'd better be more discreet about your interactions. It might not take a mind reader to notice that you're related you know. When you look past your obvious differences, there do tend to be some similarities between you two, the brow furrowing for one." Said Raven, gesturing up at Erik's eyebrows with the hand that had been on his chest before she let it fall back to its place.
Erik's brow furrowed even more at that statement, as though it was news to him that his son had inherited any of his genetic traits or habits, but he didn't question or deny the accuracy of her claim, instead, he circled back to one of her previous comments. "He didn't tell me. . . . Not really. It was an accident that I found out, and when I pressed him about it, only then did he confirm the truth of—of what I am to him and he to me." Erik said looking down at the ground, and then he added more quietly. "He was scared to tell me. . . . He was—probably still is—scared of me."
The snarky part of Raven wanted to say that maybe he had a good reason to be frightened given that his only interactions with his father up until recently had been in life threatening situations, but she held her tongue. Rather, taking an uncharacteristically kind approach Raven replied with what she believed to be the truth. "He would have told you eventually. He wouldn't have let you leave before you knew. . . . And he wasn't scared of you. He was scared of rejection, which was obviously unwarranted."
Erik opened his mouth to respond, probably to refute Raven's statement, but before he could say anything, behind her, the closet door was wrenched opened and light streamed in upon them.
Raven turned her head to look behind her. For a moment, she was blinded by the light and could only make out a lithe silhouette in the doorframe, but then her eyes adjusted and she locked eyes with the one and only young speedster they had just been discussing.
Peter stared back at her—or, more accurately, them—wide-eyed. He still had one hand on the door knob and the other rested on the handle of a vacuum.
Raven was going to say something, provide explanation, and, more likely than not Erik was going to too, but before either had the chance Peter stuttered out a few panicked words.
"Oh—um—sorry—I'll just—"
And then the speedster zipped away, leaving the vacuum swaying in his absence, until it toppled to the ground with a crash.
Oops. Raven thought. She could image how it looked to the young man—her and Erik in the small dark room, bodies pressed together. And to be honest, despite the part of her that always wanted to hit Erik, there still remained a small part of her that maybe wished that vision of her and Erik were true—that they could be what they were once before. But that was a fantasy. They were no longer the same people. And they wouldn't be good for each other, not in that way; they never had been.
"Well thanks for this," said Erik, finally shoving her hands off of him. "Now I've got to go deal with that."
Raven snickered, but stepped aside to clear the way for him. "Relax, embarrassing your kid is all part of parenthood . . . I'm told. Besides, he's like twenty-seven, is your kid, and has your bone structure, I think he knows how the birds and bees work at this point."
Erik frowned again, clearly not use to having a fully grown child literally running around. "Be that as it may, I'm trying to build a relationship with my son founded on mutual respect. I'd rather not have him form an impression of me as the kind of man who has his way with a woman in a cupboard, especially when it's not an accurate impression." Said Erik, going to step by her, but Raven grabbed his wrist as he passed, stopping him.
He looked down at her hold then back up to her face, questioning.
"Erik . . . I want you to have a good relationship with Peter, I do. And I even think that maybe you shouldn't bother trying to hide that he's your son because you think he needs protecting. No matter how you see him, he's a grown up, and he can take care of himself. But whatever you do, don't hurt him . . . He's . . . he's too good for that." Raven said, squeezing his wrist gently.
Erik swallowed and cleared his throat before responding. "I know that. I don't plan too."
Raven sighed, not loudly enough to be heard, but the sentiment remained. "You never do."
And then she released him and walked away, leaving Erik partially in shadow.
{Author's Note: If Raven was an animagus, her animal form would be a cat. Change my mind.}