{Author's Note: Wow. I really disappeared for a while there. My bad! It'll probably happen again . . . but if it's any consolation, I also always plan to come back.}
They made him leave in a wheelchair, which was completely absurd and absolutely unnecessary because his legs were perfectly fine . . . at the moment anyway.
It was the bits in the middle that were messed up.
And possibly the organ at the top, but he tried not to dwell on that.
His mom wanted to be there when he was released, but one of her coworkers had a sick kid and having been there and done that—not including Peter's current situation—she'd felt obligated to cover the other woman's shift so she wouldn't lose her job. Consequently, it was Erik who had the honor of escorting Peter back 'home.'
But much to his reluctance, Erik had to leave Peter to be wheeled to the main entrance of the hospital by a nurse while he went to retrieve whatever vehicle he'd commandeered from Charles to take them back to the school.
Personally, Peter thought he could handle the run back by now, which would save them both from this awkward fanfare, but he understood that Erik would prefer a bit more comfortable ride than one that involved Peter dragging him around at breakneck speeds. Though, based on how Erik reacted the last time Peter had moved him at superspeed, he thought the metal-bender could handle it, and maybe even get used to it, better than some people at least. Erik hadn't even thrown up or passed out on his first go of it, and that was step one of getting past Peter's form of travel, so he was already ahead of the game.
And Erik really should get used to Peter's preferred form of travel at some point because if they ever went off on some nomadic journey together, it would probably be better to be able to get them somewhere (or, more likely, away from somewhere) on a moment's notice. Not that Peter planned to start—or continue—a life of crime, but one didn't always plan these things. Sometimes you just stole a sign because it was there, and it was shiny . . . though he was pretty sure his dad's crimes were a bit more premeditated than his own, so it was possible that Peter's misdeeds would become a little more serious too. Again, not an ideal life plan, but he was just being realistic. Part of him had thought he would end up behind bars before he turned eighteen, so at this point he was just beating the odds everyday he roamed free.
The nurse—quite abruptly—left Peter as soon as they reached the hospital entrance, parking him at the front door and turning on a dime. Guess he had better things to do than push around Peter's dead weight, which, to be honest, was a little refreshing. It was nice to know at least one person that worked at this place thought there were more fucked up people to take care of than him. On the other hand, perhaps Peter had simply overwhelmed said nurse with his one-sided rant about Pac Man and how really it was pretty beatable once you realized there was a pattern to the movement of the ghosts and if you took it corner by corner you were well on your way to success. Either way, Peter was left with the task of having to keep himself entertained while he waited for Erik.
It was a good thing that Erik didn't take too long because such entertainment took the form of him attempting to do a wheelie on the wheelchair, which he may or may not have been physically up for doing. But when Erik rolled up to the entrance to meet his son in a red Maserati that gleamed in the sunlight and what looked like designer sunglasses, Peter let the front wheels drop, no longer bored because now he had So. Many. Questions.
Fortunately, Peter did not have to wait too long to interrogate his father because Erik wasted no time getting out of the car and approaching Peter like he expected the latter would let him push him in the wheelchair the remainder of the way or, perhaps even worse, walk him to the passenger seat like he was an elderly woman crossing the street, but Peter quickly shrugged off any proffered assistance, twitching away like a bat out of hell.
His father gave him a look, but he let him get settled in the vehicle without comment.
As soon as Peter was situated and Erik was back in the car with the driver door closed behind him, Peter pounced.
"Did you steal this car? From Charles? Or did he give you free reign to take any vehicle? What about the sunglasses? I honestly think they might cost more than the car. Do you have a license? I do. Obviously yours would be under an alias if you do, but did you actually take a driving test at some point? It took me four times to pass. I kept speeding. Like, I get going slow by a school, but I swear someone is trying to kill me when speed limits are 25 miles per hour or less. Luckily, they only make you do the test once though as long as you keep your license up to date, so at least there's that. No point to me having a license really, since I just run everywhere most of the time, but I wasn't going to be the only kid at school without a license ya know? And there was a brief period before the Nixon episode that I had to sometimes go through the pretense of attempting to be normal."
Peter took a breath and waited—very patiently he might add—for Erik to answer.
Erik glanced over at his son as they exited the parking lot, as if to confirm that it was indeed his turn to speak.
"The car belongs to Charles, yes, but no, I did not steal it. Hank and Raven dropped it off, so your guess is as good as mine as to whether they had his approval to do so. Given Hank was involved, I would guess that they did. I do not currently have a license. I've never obtained one legally. Any form of ID I acquire typically comes with few questions but at a high cost." Erik paused, lifting his sunglasses up on his head for a second and looking over at Peter again. "Now, the sunglasses, I borrowed from Charles. . . . perhaps without his permission. I may have asked Raven to swipe them for me."
Then Erik grinned at him.
Like he literally showed all his teeth. He was so proud of his little petty theft scheme, or perhaps just the possibility of annoying Charles that, despite everything that had happened recently, and Erik's casual mention of the particulars of a life of crime, Peter felt himself grinning too without consciously deciding to smile.
"What?" Peter asked, "Why are you so happy? Did you take a detour to drop another stadium on the White House to boost your mood while I was waiting?"
"No. But my son is out of the hospital. He will make a full recovery. He's happy enough to be freely asking me questions without being worried about the answers. And, it's a beautiful day, isn't?" Erik replied, letting his sunglasses fall back into place.
Peter felt himself reddening at his dad's comments. "Did I ask that many questions? I don't think I asked that many questions. Like a few. Maybe? Does that count as another question?"
"You're allowed to ask questions." Erik replied, still smiling, though in a much more reserved manner now. "Many of the darkest days in history could have been avoided if more people had asked questions instead of perpetuating ignorance to deliberately keep themselves in the dark."
And with that ray of sunshine, sharing time was over.
"Right. Well, here's one more question. Can we stop for food?" Peter asked, looking around the car like he might find some forgotten snack hidden away. Sadly there was none to be found because apparently when he wasn't high, Charles was a neat freak. Just another reason to dislike him.
"Hank will have food ready for you." Erik answered in such a way that Peter imagined Erik had made that as a demand—rather than a request—to their resident genius.
"Yea, I know he will because he's a total mom, but can we go somewhere for food that isn't the school? Or like, we don't even have to go for food. Can we just notgobackthereimmediately?" Peter asked hopefully.
Erik frowned, which looked much more natural on his usually stern face. "If you're fine without stopping for food, why not go back right away?"
Peter appreciated the fact that his father had understood his question. He never seemed to ask him to slow down—his speech or himself.
"Because when we go back, it's going to be a whole Big Thing. And whatever. I get it. I'll handle it. But I'd just rather put that off for a while." Peter said, looking out the window instead of at Erik this time, but he could feel his father's gaze boring into the side of his head nonetheless as they rolled to a stop at a red light.
A right turn would take them back toward the school.
Thirty seconds later, the light turned green.
And Erik turned left.
A short drive later, Erik pulled into the parking lot of a some craft beer and burger place that looked fancy enough that someone would actually come take their order, rather than them having to place it at the bar.
"We don't need to go to a sit-down restaurant." Peter said, eyeing the building warily. "I thought we'd just drive through somewhere."
And maybe drive in circles for the foreseeable future.
"And I thought I'd treat my son to a meal." Said Erik, reaching in front of Peter to open the glove box, then searching around a bit before he withdrew his hand and a wad of cash, neatly folded and held together with a clip. "Or, technically, it's on Charles, but I'm sure he won't notice." Erik added as he separated a few bills from the stack and then returned the still substantial pile to its hiding place.
Peter smirked at his father's nonchalance at using some of Charles' petty cash to buy them lunch. "But . . . aren't you worried about being recognized?" Peter asked, even as he followed Erik out of the car, fingers tapping restlessly against his palm as he walked.
"People aren't as observant as you might think. No one expects to serve Magneto a beer. . . even if it ends up being the last thing they do." But still, Erik made sure to put Charles' outrageously expensive sunglasses back on his face nonetheless.
"Oh. Kay." Said Peter, not exactly reassured if the reason people didn't realize they were serving Magneto is because they were dead.
They approached the restaurant entrance, and Erik held the door open for Peter, one hand on his shoulder as he guided him through the doorway, only removing it as they approached the hostess stand.
"Hi! Welcome to The Cellar! How many?" The young woman—who Peter thought was far too peppy considering she was working at a place called The Cellar—greeted them.
"Two." Said Erik, answering the rather obvious question, and Peter snickered internally because he could tell by that one word answer that Erik thought it was a needless question.
"Great! Inside? Or if you'd like, the patio is open today?" The woman responded obliviously with a smile.
"The patio will be fine." Erik replied, no doubt choosing the outside location so that he could keep his sunglasses on without looking suspicious; as flimsily of a disguise as Peter thought it was, it was better than nothing. He might have been imaging it, but Peter also thought Erik made a point to annunciate his response, smoothing out his accent slightly, so that it was less pronounced.
"Okay. Right this way." She said, grabbing two menus from behind her stand, and taking off toward the patio entrance. Peter followed with Erik close behind. He could feel him hovering just at his back.
"Here you are." Said the hostess again with another smile, leading them to a table toward the end of the patio right next to the sidewalk. Peter noticed that her name plate had unnecessary capitalization and an exclamation point at that end, so that it read "ABBEY!".
Peter moved to sit down, but Erik put an arm out to stop him.
"Would it be a terrible bother to have that table back there?" Erik asked politely, gesturing to a table in the corner of the patio nestled between two brick walls of the building.
"Oh." Abbey answered, glancing over to where Erik had indicated, smile dropping slightly. "Well . . . we're not really sitting anyone in that section right now just because it isn't terribly busy at the moment, and there's specific sections we're supposed to fill first."
"I understand." Said Erik nodding amicably. "But . . . would it really be too much trouble, Abbey?" Erik asked, letting his sunglasses fall down to the edge of his nose, so that he could look the woman directly in the eyes. "I'd be terribly grateful."
For a moment, Peter thought that Erik had lost it, abandoning his flimsily disguise, and what was worse, as the young woman blinked up at him with her mouth parted slightly in the shape of an o, Peter was sure she had recognized Erik as the one and only Magneto, and he tensed, ready to grab Erik and run, even if it ended in his father puking and Peter in another hospital bed. But then, much to Peter's horror, a slight blush rose to her cheeks, and Peter realized that ABBEY! simply found his father attractive, and suddenly, Peter was the one that wanted to vomit.
"I guess it would be alright. Just this once." She said softly with a shy smile, as she regained her composure and led them over to the table in the corner.
"Thank you so much." Said Erik, moving his sunglasses back in place once more, as he smiled at her, and it wasn't even one of his manic smiles, but a small fairly normal looking one—much more human than shark, or, well, mutant.
Peter looked between them, and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep his eyebrows from furrowing in disgust.
The girl uttered a quick flustered statement that their waiter would be out in a moment, and then left them alone in a hurry.
Erik sat down casually in the chair that placed one of the walls at his back, apparently oblivious to Peter's revulsion at witnessing his father flirt with a stranger, or simply unaffected by it. Still reeling, Peter sat down across from him, but before he had even fully settled, Erik hooked one of his legs around Peter's chair and pulled it around the table in one fluid motion, so that Peter's back ended up with the other wall behind him instead of their fellow diners, which also left him kitty corner to Erik.
The chair moved so swiftly and smoothly, without the sound of metal scraping on cement that if Peter had to guess, he'd say the leg hook was merely for show for anyone that might have happened to glance their way.
"When given the choice, you should always put your back to a wall." Said Erik when the musical chairs act was over. "You're more likely to see an attack coming your way and pinpoint an escape route with a wall to your back than you are with your back to a crowd."
"Right." Said Peter, glancing over at the other unassuming patrons. A few looked like tourists, a couple like hippies, and there were a handful of families with kids. Very threatening. "So that's why I had to witness the flirting." Peter added pulling a face.
Unashamed, Erik replied, "Sometimes there are simpler ways to get what you want than using your powers. It's not a bad thing to use everything you have to your advantage. With a little more confidence, you could easily do the same."
"O-K. Moving on!" said Peter, clutching his menu too tightly and really not wanting to have a conversation with his father about how to seduce people to get what you wanted, though for some reason, Peter's reaction seemed to only amuse the other man.
Erik chuckled. "It's not embarrassing or shameful to use your gifts—powers or otherwise—for your own benefit, especially if it keeps you alive."
"Uh huh, well then maybe you should've just flirted with the President to get him to call off his mutant killing machines." Said Peter crossly. "It would've saved us all some hassle."
"If I had thought that would've achieved my goals, maybe I would have." Said Erik unfazed. "But I don't think I was his type. Regardless, in all seriousness, it's important for you to know these things. They could keep you alive."
"What flirting?" Peter asked, still very much wanting to move on from the conversation.
"Perhaps, but I meant being observant and learning what you can from your surroundings and the people you encounter, and using it and others to your advantage." Said Erik, directing his gaze out at their fellow patrons, clearly seeing something different than Peter—the plebian that he was—and his untrained eyes.
"I've got nearly three decades of experience staying alive you know." Said Peter, trying not to sound petulant, but, at the same time, it wasn't like all of those years had been a walk in the park. Some of them had quite literally involved him running for his life.
"I know." Said Erik, sounding far too world weary at the admission. "But, I have slightly more experience than a twenty-something."
"I'm almost thirty." Said Peter defensively.
"When you are still counting your age in almosts and nearlys, believe me, you are still young." Erik replied, and then regretfully added. "But I am well aware of how old you are."
"Okay, well, you haven't been teaching me this stuff before." Peter argued. "I'm not really in the practice of picking out suspicious characters. I'm usually the most suspicious person in a room."
"I know I haven't, but I should have been. But the school is relatively safe, and I grew complacent." Said Erik, running one hand through his hair.
"I've literally been skewered, kidnapped, and nearly engulfed in flames at the school, and I've been there less than a year."
"I said relatively. In any event, all the more reason to start teaching you now." Erik reasoned.
"I know I just gave you a laundry list of incidents, but I'm not helpless, alright?" Peter replied with a frown. "You and Chuck would've died in the Pentagon without me. I know it probably didn't look like much to you guys, but like, I did some impressive shit to get us out of there."
"I know you did. I am impressed by you, Peter. I always will be." Erik said in response to Peter's outburst.
"Ah cool. Good. That's—err—thanks." And it was his turn to go slightly red.
"But that doesn't mean you don't have more to learn." Erik continued. "Though, you're right. It's easy to forget just how powerful you are. Everyone at that school would've died if you hadn't saved them after my misguided stop there with Apocalypse, but you saved everyone."
"No I didn't." Peter said looking down at the table, digging his nails into the wood. There was a little notch in the wood that looked almost like a bird, trapped, forever motionless. "I didn't save Alex."
"That wasn't your—"
Erik started to speak, to offer Peter platitudes that he didn't deserve, but at that moment, their waiter had the poor or—in Peter's opinion—the good timing to arrive at their table to take their order.
A few minutes later, their orders were in and their waitress—who was only slightly less chipper than Abbey—was gone, and Peter was forced to turn his attention back to his father.
"What was the extra to-go burger and fries about?" Peter asked, hurrying to continue onto a different topic before their conversation could circle back around to the previous discussion. Erik didn't seem like much of a burger and fries kind of guy, let alone immediately after just eating.
"I thought it would be obvious that it was for you." Erik asked, the corner of his mouth turning up slightly.
"But I ordered?" Peter replied. He was a little distracted by the whole having a meal out in public with his dad and all and his ever present anxiety that he was going crazy, but he was pretty sure he had in fact held an intelligible conversation with the waitress that resulted in him ordering something edible to consume.
"Not enough." Erik said simply with a shrug.
"Right, well, I guess you gave up on my light or bland or whatever it was eating order rather quickly." Said Peter stirring the ice in his water around with his straw. "One moment you're jumping down my throat about chips, and the next you're getting me fried food. Not that I'm complaining, but you're giving me whiplash, man."
"I spoke with your mother after your late night request, and she said that when you're sick, it's better to at least try to keep up your normal eating habits. Although I think your usual diet could do with a bit of variation, you'll recover more quickly if you can keep up your usual appetite." Erik explained, and then after a moment's hesitation. "And she, admittedly, has much more experience when it comes to you than I do."
Peter squirmed awkwardly in his chair, an unwilling satellite for his father's guilt. "Not that I don't appreciate you letting me make my own food choices, but you're taking advice from mom now? Is this gonna be like a new thing? I thought—I mean—you didn't really seem to be on the same page the last time we were all in the same room together."
"You'd rather I didn't speak with her?" Erik asked curiously.
"It's fine; I guess. I just didn't know what you guys had been doing was considered speaking. There's usually a lot less yelling when I'm speaking with someone." Peter said pointedly.
"I confess we didn't handle our initial reunion very well. Despite our years apart, we know a lot of things about each other that I'm sure we would both rather not have to recall. But we're both adults. Much more so now than we were twenty eight years ago. We chatted, and we agreed that we can be more civilized to each other, especially when it comes to you." Erik replied, as if him and Peter's mom reconciling wasn't one of the weirdest things to happen in Peter's life.
"Uh huh sure. Great." Peter replied, trying to reign in his panic at the realization that his parents would probably be talking about him for extended periods of time and who knew what would come of that? It might have been his dream at one point in his childhood, but the reality of it seemed a lot more terrifying.
Trying to calm his nerves, Peter turned on his Walkman—which had been returned to him upon his release from the hospital—and put a headphone over one of his ears.
"Are you alright?" Erik asked, concerned.
"Great." Said Peter, starting to sound like a bit of a parrot. His leg had started tapping rapidly in opposition to his response. A sharp pain shot through his abdomen—still not completely healed—as a result, but he ignored it just like most problems in his life.
Peter watched his father's eyes dart to his leg and back up again. He appreciated the fact that he didn't say anything about it, though it sure looked like he wanted to.
"I know that music is a distraction for you, and there's nothing wrong with that, but out here, you've got to be careful not to lose focus. You always need to be aware of your surroundings when you're not among our own kind." Erik lectured.
Great. They were back on the life lessons again.
"I know that." Peter replied, not having the energy to point out Erik's blatant human-hate—or at least mistrust—when he'd just talked about making nice with one . . . who he'd literally fathered a child with, which obviously had not involved keeping ones distance from someone who wasn't their 'own kind'. "I usually keep one ear free for that reason. But it helps me. The music. It can speed up with me, but if I need to, I can keep it slow—er normal speed, I mean—and it's well, it's easier to stay present if I have the music grounding me in the time everyone else experiences."
It was a crutch. He knew that. It had been so even before his powers came in, and especially After. But he didn't want to let go of it. At times, it seemed like music was the one constant in his life.
"I didn't realize." Erik replied, quietly.
"No reason you should've. It's not like I advertise it. It's easier if people just think I'm constantly bored, which—to be fair—I am. Most of the time. But it's better than people realizing just how much my Walkman is like some weird security blanket to me." Peter replied nearly soundlessly, playing with the song's speed for a just a moment before he shifted back to his father's perception of the world.
"Thank you for telling me." Erik said, matching Peter's pitch.
"I know you're not going to tell anybody, so . . ." Peter shrugged.
"I won't, which is why you can tell me what happened at the hospital the other night too." said Erik, smoothly transitioning as if hoping that Peter would be caught off guard, and spill his guts, which nearly worked.
"What? That was—I—nothing. That was nothing." Peter replied hastily.
"It wasn't nothing. You were scared of something."
"I wasn't—I'm not—I don't want to talk about this!" Peter answered, trying and failing to emit an aura of calm as he reflexively shifted away from his father.
"If someone threatened you or if something happened that put you in danger. We have to talk about it. I need to know these things, Pietro. No matter how old you are."
"There's nothing to talk about! It's nothing!" Peter exclaimed again. "Just drop it!"
"You can tell me what happened." Erik repeated, calm to Peter's frenzied.
"DAD! I SAID I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!" Peter replied, loud enough now that—much to Peter's embarrassment—people at the nearby tables looked over at them. One woman sitting with a couple of teenagers, even met Erik's eye and smiled knowingly, as if to say kids, right?
"O-kay." Erik answered, rather stiffly, looking slightly pale all of a sudden. Peter guessed that he had probably just made him nervous by bringing attention to their table. He himself was anxious that he'd just blown Erik's nonexistent cover, but when he glanced sideways at their fellow diners, everyone seemed to be returning to their own conversations.
"We don't have to talk about it right now." Erik continued, drawing Peter's attention back to him.
Peter felt some of the tension leaves his shoulders at the promise of the subject being dropped. It's funny, the things that do and do not stick out to someone when they're stressed. Peter felt like he could pinpoint every single set of eyes that had turned toward them the moment of his outburst, but not for one moment did he realize that he hadn't addressed Erik by name.
For the next few minutes the duo alternated between silently sipping their water and making overly polite conversation about the weather, Bobby Fischer, and, for some reason, Peter's discovery of runzas when he spent a week in Nebraska on a whim until he'd finally caved and called home and his mom had flipped out on him, perhaps because he'd been seventeen at the time.
Before Erik had an opportunity to dig into that adventure, however, the waitress returned with their food, which was truly once again impeccable timing. If he were paying for the meal, he'd leave her a huge tip, but he wasn't so he'd have to rely on Erik—or technically Charles—to do so.
"Here we are." The waitress said brightly as she placed Erik's meal in front of him and went to do the same for Peter, which shouldn't have been a problem, but Peter should've known that nothing in his life could be simple because as she set the plate down in front of him, she accidentally knocked his silverware to the floor.
"No worries. I got it." Said Peter, reaching down to retrieve the fallen cutlery.
"Sorry about that." The waitress said as Peter reappeared from under the table and handed her the fallen utensils. "I'll get you a new set in a flash."
"It's fine." Peter replied, and then, when her face dropped further, he earnestly added, "Really. No big deal."
It was then that Peter noticed that the woman wasn't looking at his face, but rather, she was staring at the hospital band still on his wrist. Peter hastened to pull his sleeve down over it, but the damage was already done.
"Sorry—I'm—I'm really sorry. I'll be write back with a new one." She said hurriedly, scrambling to take the silverware from him, and then took off in a rush presumably to complete the task.
Shit shit shit. Peter repeated internally. He'd forgotten about the stupid hospital band. He'd gotten so used to wearing the bracelet Erik had made him that he'd completely forgotten to take off the damn label that branded him as a walking liability.
They hadn't let him remove it at the hospital when he'd changed back into his own clothes since he wasn't technically discharged yet at the time. He'd meant to rip it off as soon as he was free of that place, but he'd gotten distracted—typical—and forgotten.
Face reddening for the umpteenth time that day, Peter tugged at the unnecessarily strong plastic with his opposite hand, trying and failing to remove the offending item from his arm, which—fortunately—wasn't the arm with the suspiciously hand-shaped bruise. The last thing he needed was Erik seeing that and asking even more questions Peter didn't know the answer to.
"Calm down." Said Erik, placing his hand over's Peter's wrist to stop him from uselessly digging the band further into his arm.
"I want it off." Said Peter, gritting his teeth in anger and embarrassment, and nearly pulling his arm free from his father. He was overreacting. He knew that. But he could overreact about this. This thing that was tangible and real and wouldn't get him put in a loony bin if he freaked out about it.
"I know. I can see that. Just give me a second." Said Erik, still holding Peter's wrist steady as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a switchblade, because of course he would have a weapon with him. Even though almost anything could be a weapon to Magneto, apparently one could never have too many options when it came to being prepared to maim or seriously injure.
Erik flipped the blade open without touching it, gently placed the blade under the band, and then easily cut through Peter's self-labeled handcuff, slipping it from his son's wrist and tucking it and the knife back into his own pocket.
"Thanks." Said Peter, gruffly, his cheeks burning.
"There's nothing to be embarrassed about." Said Erik, clearly reading the discomfort on Peter's face, which didn't do anything to make him less embarrassed. "There's any number of reasons you could've been in the hospital—a checkup, a sprained ankle, a sore throat—and even if she knew why you were in the hospital, which she couldn't have, there's nothing shameful about it."
"Yea, I know. It doesn't matter." Said Peter, but the heat on his face didn't leave because it did matter. To him anyway. The way she had looked at him, it was clear she knew something was wrong—he was wrong, and most people could see that on their own without the obvious label. He didn't need something—something else, something more—that was basically a red flag to the rest of the world to highlight the fact that there was something not quite right about him.
"I can see you don't mean that, but think of it this way, at least that band was easily broken. Some labels stay with us forever." Erik replied, and Peter knew without Erik pointing it out or sliding up the sleeve of his jacket, which label he was talking about.
"Sorry. You're right. I was being stupid." Peter replied, now feeling embarrassed and guilty, though he knew that hadn't been Erik's goal.
"Don't call yourself stupid. Enough people in this world are going to push you down and push you around without you pushing yourself down too."
"Hmmm. Not me, man. People always come at me, and I'm just like whoa, 'don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge.'" Peter joked, plastering on a smirk. It was his usual mask, and he thought he wore it quite well.
Erik frowned. He seemed to do that a lot when Peter was around, notwithstanding their earlier car ride. "Whose bothering you?"
"No one, Erik. I was just quoting a song." Well, not exactly the part Erik was asking about, but details, details. "I'm fine. Calm, cool, and collected. All while being completely sober, so I'm in top form for sure."
"You can tell me if you're not, you know? You're not going to scare me away. If anything, you should be wary of me. It should never and will never be the other way around."
"I know." Said Peter, but knowing it, and believing it, were two very different things.
