Pietro Maximoff (breakthebarrier) wrote in marvel_prep, @ 2013-11-17 01:09:00 |
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Current mood: | bouncy |
Entry tags: | petra, quicksilver |
Log: Overdue
Characters: Pietro Maximoff & Christy Nord
NPCs: staff & patrons at Mario’s Restaurant
Location: Mario’s Restaurant
Timeline: Weds 13 November 2013 [Backdated]
Description: A long overdue night out
Rating: 15
Warnings: Obsessive eating disorder and suicidal thoughts :-\
They had talked about going out for a meal for a little while now, it had been something that had been bandied about but then they hadn’t gotten around to actually going out. It wasn’t a big deal as far as Petra was concerned; she would have rather have gone out and done something else anyway that didn’t involve food. She was really beginning to loathe the fact that her body required some kind of sustenance to keep going. She was getting by on the bare minimum but since he’d asked her nicely and she hadn’t wanted him to worry, she’d agreed to go out for pizza.
Jeans hanging off her in ways they never used to and battered converse on her feet, she had her hoodie wrapped around her tightly and was wrapped up in a coat with a hat and scarf to keep out the cold that she was sure was viciously attacking her like everything else in the world was right now. Like she was to herself.
She hadn’t seen Pietro around the campus, like she hadn’t seen John (and how she kept trying not to see Dominik but he always seemed to find her),, but it wasn’t a big deal. She just hadn’t been around as much as she used to be to be seen all that often and that was her fault, much like everything else.
“Table for two,” she said, being sat down at a table near the back in a booth as she waited for Pietro to join her, firing off a quick text to let him know where she was. God, just being around all of this food and all of these people had her skin crawling and her stomach roiling in protest. She just had to stick it out for a little while and she could escape somewhere. If she ate, she could just run it off later anyway, go and run in the gym or go for a run around the park. That wouldn’t do her any harm anyway, just running it off. That was what she needed to do.
She ordered a pitcher of water with ice and a soda for herself and the same for Pietro, knowing that he would be zipping in soon enough. Someone a couple of tables over turned their heads to look at her, like they recognised her, before they were asked to be moved to a different part of the restaurant. Petra felt a surge of self hatred twist up in her stomach.
She twisted the napkin around her fingers before she started pulling it apart, strip by strip, nervous and uncomfortable as she waited for Pietro to arrive.
It wasn’t a lack of want on Pietro’s behalf especially as after the MRA bullshit had blown off it felt important to connect with the people you considered close to you, touch base and feel things out. He was coping miraculously well, but then he and Wanda had never had the easiest of lives and as such they just rolled with the punches. Nothing beat people trying to burn your sister at the stake.
It didn’t take long for the speedster to arrive and it was as he did that he received the text from Petra, not bothering to reply given that in less than five seconds he was scouring the restaurant until sure enough he spotted Petra, but oddly enough he didn’t move just yet. She hadn’t seen him, but he had seen her and he could have sworn she looked… well, not right, like she was there but not. Oddly she reminded him of Wanda when she had been struggling in Transia. The thought was enough to send a chill down Pietro’s spine, but he pushed it to one side and simply headed over.
“Hey,” he greeted as he eased into the seat opposite to her. “You’ve not been waiting long I hope?”
When Pietro arrived, it was like a switch had been flipped in Petra. She sat up a little straighter, that haunted look Pietro had seen from his secret observations was still there but it was far more hidden, like she was pushing it all away - down out of sight. And she was. And it worked, for the most part. The two sodas were on the table, having arrived a couple of minutes earlier, though hers had yet to be touched, and the straws of the two drinks were lifted by the bubbles in the water.
“Hey,” she responded, scrunching the ripped up napkin into a ball as if that would mean he couldn’t see the damage she’d done to it. “No, not too long. I’d just got seated when I texted you.” She smiled a little, though it didn’t meet her eyes and she drew the napkin onto her lap so she could continue to rip at it without it being seen. “You had a good day?”
Sharp eyes picked up on the small nuances such as the state her napkin happened to be in and how her entire body language shifted at his arrival. It was as though Petra was in a movie and somebody had just called action. Pietro filed it away and helped himself to his glass, taking a healthy sip of the carbonated drink, nodding towards her own. “Not thirsty?”
His hand sought the menu and he flicked through it using the tapered tips of his fingers because let’s face it Pietro could eat anything and everything, it was just the way he was built.
“Wasn’t bad, still hating on the school uniform. You?”
“Didn’t want to end up drinking it all at once,” Petra offered after a moment, fingers reaching out and curling around the glass, pulling it closer to herself. She wasn’t thirsty, no, and she wasn’t hungry either, but she couldn’t just hide away from the world as much as she wanted to. She was doing a good job of just fading away and she knew soon enough that people would just let her. They would stop trying. She ran her fingers along the condensation trail that the glass had left on the table and offered him another small smile. She shrugged her shoulders, shifting and tucking one leg underneath herself.
She tugged off her scarf now that she was indoors, it was still cold but it wasn’t as bitter as it had been and now the only cold she felt was the one inside her, not influenced by any outside force which meant it was a little easier to cope with. She went back to tearing the napkin into small pieces.
“The uniform isn’t that bad, is it?” she asked, “At least we don’t have to worry too much about what we’re wearing? I mean, on a daily basis, that is.” Hers didn’t fit her so well anymore, but then none of her clothes did. It didn’t even occur to her that maybe people had noticed. Why would they? “I miss when we had no classes,” she shared with a lift of her shoulder, eyes on the napkin as she shredded it before glancing back up at Pietro. “We haven’t spoken in a while,” she pointed out, “What’ve I missed?”
Pietro levelled those blue eyes of his on Petra when she remarked on the uniforms, eyebrow arched. “Seriously? It’s like being dressed up like a toddler.” His eyes took in the slightly thinner look to Petra’s face and the cut of her jaw which seemed more pronounced and his attention was quick but detailed enough so she wouldn’t notice him looking that closely.
“Just could have done without the giant robots,” he offered as he tapped his fingers against his foods of choice because he definitely couldn’t just have one or two things, he needed way more than that. “Or the dickheads wandering the streets with an authority complex and a trigger happy finger.” A brief commentary on the delightful police officers that had accosted him before slapping him with a collar.
Missed, what had she missed?
Pietro shoulders lifted. “I can’t think of anything, just settling back into school and trying not to be pissed at the world.” He caught the eye of a nearby waiter and proceeded to rattle off a very long list of what he wanted to eat before he turned his attention back to Petra. “You miss mysteriously vanishing girl?”
“Miss what now?” Petra asked with a slight frown of confusion before she ordered some potato croquettes and nodded when the waiter asked if that was everything for the table, assuming - incorrectly - that the large volume of ordered food would be shared between the two. When he rattled back the order to them both and had it confirmed, the waiter tipped his head and disappeared off to go and run it through the register to get the order rolling.
She took a sip of her soda and bit down on her lower lip, her body briefly rebelling her decision to swallow. Not now. She breathed in through her nose, forcing herself to just chill the fuck out and she shredded her napkin a little more, even though there was almost nothing left to shred. Her fingers had made quick work of it. “Nik and I had a run in with a sentinel,” she offered, “didn’t beat it or anything. We just ran away.” She gave a weak smile. Apparently everyone else had taken them down. Dominik probably could have done it on his own if she hadn’t been there to slow him down. He wouldn’t have been locked up if it weren’t for her-
She shook her head, trying to visibly dislodge the thoughts that had begun swirling around her mind again. Fuck. “What did you call me, just then?” she asked, other foot reaching out to knock against his shin under the table. That smile was a little easier, maybe? Was it? God, she didn’t fucking know anymore.
Pietro snorted quietly before giving a chuckle as he was kicked under the table, shoulders lifting. “You’ve been pulling a vanishing act as of late, Petra. Think I haven’t noticed?” He arched his eyebrow. “But I get it, settling back in, it’s weird. Just you know we’re all exactly where we were before this shitstorm happened.”
A not so subtle Pietro Maximoff nudge to say if Petra needed anything then she should and could come to him.
The mention of the Sentinel brought about a nod in the speedster. “I had something similar, two of them to be exact, but I like you and Dominik I got the hell out of there. In fact I made them play chase and had them beating each other up trying to catch me. Now that was satisfying.”
“I have not been vanishing,” Petra protested a little defensively. “I’ve just been-” what, Christy? She asked herself, you’ve just been what? Sneaking away so that you don’t have to be around people? Reminding yourself every day what a burden you are? Of course. She shrank a little, even when she didn’t mean to at the mention of how they were in the same place as they had been when this had all started. She didn’t think that was true. “If you say so,” she offered instead. “And I- I haven’t been vanishing. I’ve just felt restless.” It was a lie, but it was as close as she was able to be to the truth. It had always been different with Pietro, she’d never felt that she had to protect him as much as Dominik. But Dominik was different too. Dominik had always been different. More different than anyone else.
She swallowed, took another sip of her drink. “Settling back in has been hard,” she added because that was the truth. It was the truth for everyone, and Pietro had been the one, that first time, who had convinced her to stay. Caught her by the hand and held it. She felt her throat tighten a little. She would never have that again, would she. Not with anyone. She cleared her throat past that lump, hating that there was a slight waver to her voice when she first spoke that was gone after the first couple of words. “You did? Wish I coulda seen that. Like I said, Nik and I just ran away. He was incredible, though, standing up to it.”
The whole time Petra was speaking Pietro was watching, synapses firing off sparks of thought and following them even before she'd finished her train of thought, everything moving faster in his head than anybody else's. Something wasn't.. right, but he couldn't put his finger on it. But having grown up with Wanda as a sister Pietro knew what sort of things to watch out for in people and his interest despite his quickness could become quite fixed if he wanted.
He picked at a nearby bread basket because yeah, hungry.
"It was fun," he offered with a smirk. Pietro noted the praise heaped upon the Greek by Petra and tipped his head. "I can't imagine you just stood there."
“Fun isn’t the word I would use to describe it, I have to admit,” Petra said with a shake of her head, watching Pietro dig into the bread, pieces disappearing quickly. Fair enough; he was hungry- he was always hungry, it was a constant state for him. Was sure he would have to finish off her croquettes; she didn’t think she could eat six of them anyway. She was just trying for his sake. “I think I’d go for terrifying.”
She shook her head, “I didn’t, but- if I hadn’t been there- I think he would have stopped it on his own. As it was we just had to run.” What had she done? Not a whole lot, she thought, mindset messing with the memories of how she’d saved him from being arrested again, stopped that metallic monstrosity from capturing him. She wet her lower lip. “But he was awesome. I bet you were too.”
Pietro definitely had a different take on the world from everybody else and the things that should traumatise rolled off his back, but maybe that was done to his upbringing and his unique mutant ability? He’d demolished the bread basket and was now sipping at his drink, eyes fixed on Petra.
“It was a fucked up time. Let’s hope it never happens again or I think the world will actually explode.”
Petra snorted, squirming again under Pietro’s intense gaze. She didn’t know what he was looking at. She wouldn’t want to look at her for that long, or that intensely, so what was he doing? She ducked her head a little. “Let’s hope. I’d like to think this time I’d go out fighting,” she said, an odd choice of words for the tone of conversation they were having, but she seemed not to have noticed. “I wouldn’t want to be arrested again. That’s for sure.”
Those were an odd choice of words or at least that’s what Pietro thought, but he filed it away. “They’d have to catch me first.” And they wouldn’t. He was too quick and had evaded worst things. “But my sister tells me I should stop being so bleak about the future and live more in the present.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Wanda’s the optimist out of the two of us.”
“At least you balance each other out.” She offered with a shrug of her shoulders. “But your sister’s right. You should look to the future instead of the past. Or something.” Huh. Rich words coming from her, but she wasn’t about to claim to not be a hypocrite. “Can’t be too optimistic; it happened once. It’s only a matter of time before it happens again. And what then?”
She shook her head, “But you can’t worry too much about it. It’s not happening now so you need to focus on what you do have, right? And you have your sister and your friends and stuff so it’s not so bad, is it?”
“Didn’t say it was,” Pietro said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I just don’t buy into this is a time for peace bullshit they’re flinging around. No harm in being prepared.” Not being prepared the last time had given the government the upper hand and Pietro felt it vitally important to be ready a second time around.
He tapped his fingers on the table, restlessly twitching as he did.
“Guess you’re right though, about the focusing on what you have.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think we’re safe,” she agreed, “Not by a long shot. If the lady that asked to move tables when she saw m-” she cut herself off at a surge of something thinking about why that woman would have asked to be moved away, “me sitting here,” she finished. “I don’t think anything’s okay by a long shot. But I think they’re preparing. You taking part in that thing with Callisto?”
She nodded, “And you do have a lot, you know.”
Pietro turned his head as if that would reveal the woman who had asked to be moved but it prove fruitless because he hadn’t been there at the time and therefore couldn’t find her face in the people scattered around them. “Mm, yeah. Don’t know how much help I can be, but you know, every little helps or that’s what they say anyways.”
It was weird, him having a lot, all things considered.
Pietro never thought he’d be in that position, not him, not ever.
“I’ll bet you did enough laps of the tunnels to know them fairly well,” she pointed out, “And if they’re thinking of putting something similar underneath the school, what better person to test them than a speedster? I mean, you’d get it done a lot faster than anyone else.” She shrugged her shoulders and took a sip of her soda again, fingertips stroking up and down the length of the glass and then drawing concentric circles in the condensation on the table almost absently.
Petra offered him a smile, it didn’t reach her eyes, but she was trying. Didn’t that count for something? “Don’t sell yourself short, Pietro.”
“Mmm, fair point,” Pietro agreed with a nod of his head as he resisted the urge he had to fidget because sitting still had never come easily to him. Having the collar on even for the brief time that he did had been enough for him to fully appreciate how integral to him his power happened to be and he wouldn’t change a thing, he really wouldn’t.
He helped himself to a further sip of his drink then cut his eyes upwards, to rest them on Petra. “So, how you doing? I mean, with everything? Wanda and I seem pretty settled, but then we’re kind of used to upheaval.”
“I’m alright,” Petra lied automatically, holding his gaze for a split second before she focused back on her drink, turning the glass on the spot. “Just tired. Still trying to get used to sleeping at the school and stuff again.”
Pietro found it interesting and worrying how Petra wouldn’t maintain eye contact, Pietro was far sharper with people than most gave him credit for. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. “I’m gonna call bullshit,” he stated bluntly. “You don’t seem alright, you seem… different. Can’t put my finger on it, but it’s different.” Like Wanda different.
Petra frowned at her drink, pulling it closer to her and curling her fingers around the cold glass. She didn’t look up at him again, trying to formulate what to say because a panic gripped her chest. A panic that had her wanting to flee, to just get away- to leave and just- just disappear. Disappear. Like if she could close her eyes and just turn into the earth she could so easily bend to her whim, fall apart into its welcoming embrace and be done with the world. Find a peace she was so desperately chasing but unable to find.
She shook her head. “I- I- I’m just tired and-” but it was weak. It was a weak argument. She’d never had to be strong for Pietro the same way she thought she had to be for other people. “I- I don’t-” her voice wavered a little bit before she took a sharp breath in through her nose. “I’m okay, Pietro-” Lie. Liar, her mind was screaming at her, reminding her that all she did was mess things up and hurt people and- She flinched as her conscious mind was a whirlwind of hateful spiel at herself. God, what was wrong with her? What was wrong with her?
“It’s just taking me longer to adjust,I guess?” she tried, wishing so much that he would leave it alone- she- she couldn’t do this right now. She felt sort of sick.
The speedster’s eyes narrowed in the corner and his sharp mind ticked over all the things she was saying or rather the things she wasn’t saying by what her body language was screaming. What? He was good at reading people, he’d gotten the knack of it from watching out for Wanda for so many years.
He didn’t believe her, but he was starting to sense that he should ease off on the pressure. Maybe he’d talk to Wanda about all of this? She was better with this sort of thing, at being subtle that was. Pietro went in both guns blazing.
“You know if you ever need anything I’m there, right?”
Petra nodded her head, “I know,” she said, “But I wouldn’t want to be a bother anyway, just- wouldn’t want to be a burden.” She was spared from him having to reply as a small army of wait -staff turned up with trays of food for Pietro, looking confused as to where to put it. Petra indicated that they should pretty much just pile the table up with his food, pointing out the tiny plate with six small croquettes on it as hers.
Even looking at that food- it set her stomach churning. She was wasting it, eating it herself. Someone else probably needed it more. She was just a drain on the resources of the city. Of everything. She took another sip of her drink.
“There are another nine meals in the kitchen,” the waiter said, looking seriously confused as to what was happening in front of him.
“And?” Pietro asked, lifting an eyebrow before casting his cool blue eyes to the waiter. “Why are these meals not on this table?” To him it seemed pretty clear and obvious, he’d ordered all that food because he could and would eat it all, his metabolic rate was insane. But that was to be expected, he was a speedster after all.
He was distracted so much so that he missed how Petra regarded her food.
Petra snorted into her drink when Pietro challenged the lack of food and she just drew the plate that had her tiny meal on it closer to herself, shifting up the booth. “It’s okay,” she said to the waiter, who just looked baffled, “There’s enough room. The food’ll be disappearing faster than you can bring it out.”
She looked at the silver-haired speedster. “Maybe eat some of this first, and then they can clear those plates to make sure there’s enough room for the other meals?” she pointed out, feeling that surge of nausea again. She swallowed. forced it down. No. Not now. Not today. Not in front of Pietro.
The waiter nodded his head and looked at Pietro for final confirmation of what he should do.
Pietro met his gaze and nodded his head. “What she said.” And thankfully that seemed enough to send him away from the table, leaving Pietro in peace with his food and Petra. Petra who looked like she was mimicking the appetite of well a bird, huh. Pietro helped himself to his food, the amount vanishing quicker than it had time to sit on the plate and steam. Not that he was rude about it, far from it, he ate surprisingly well all things considered.
“You wanna do something after food?”
Petra picked at the croquettes on her plate, managing to eat about one and a half over the course of Pietro devouring his food in front of her. She didn’t watch, she sort of just dissected her food into small pieces and chewing it far more than was strictly necessary.
“We can do if you want,” she offered with a half smile in his direction. “You have any ideas?” It wasn’t like he needed to burn off those calories; he did that pretty much on the spot. “I don’t mind.” It was just- she felt- “Aren’t you- I mean- don’t you have other stuff to do?” Other people to hang out with that were way more fun than Petra? She wasn’t that fun person anymore - if she ever was. She was just damaged.
“I cleared the whole day,” Pietro said with a pretty effortless lift of his shoulders. Surprisingly despite his abrasive nature Pietro did go to extreme lengths for the people he cared about. “So to answer your question I do not have anything else to do ‘less you have?” He lifted his gaze and rested it on her. “And I figured, movies or something like that.”
Petra shook her head, “I-” she swallowed, “-don’t,” she finished lamely. Why had he cleared the day? Why would he do that? Why would he do that for her? Didn’t he know? Hadn’t he got the memo? She wasn’t worth anyone’s time, let alone people like Pietro and John and Dominik’s. She wasn’t- she just- just wasn’t. “But movies and stuff- sounds good. Or, like, an arcade?” Because she had a feeling Pietro would want to burn off some of his energy and he was a good partner to have at arcades, even if she didn’t get the same enjoyment from them as she had done before.
“Are you sure? I mean- that’s-” she shut herself up before she gave anything away, going back to picking at her food before pushing the plate away. “You wanna finish those?” she asked. He needed them more than her anyway.
“You’re seriously not going to finish those?” Pietro asked as he’d decimated his food and was left picking at what was left, which to be fair wasn’t a whole lot. “You sure?” Because it didn’t seem like a lot of food, especially as Petra seemed slender enough as it was without eating. Pietro couldn’t put on weight but he could lose it so it was a constant battle maintaining what weight he did have, but he managed it, always had.
“But an arcade, that sounds like fun. Let’s do that.”
He picked up what was left of her food and finished them off.
Petra nodded her head, finishing off her drink and pulling her hair over her shoulder, depositing enough money on the table - the school pocket money was generous and she didn’t spend it on anything, really, at the moment - to cover half of the meal, knowing Pietro would cover the other half, and got to her feet, brushing herself down from imaginary crumbs and lint and whatever else might be clinging to her.
She felt like everyone was watching, which they probably weren’t, but how many people in here knew she was the mutant that was arrested for killing a cop? How many people had asked to leave because of her? She drew her shoulders into herself and glanced at Pietro again.
“Can we get out of here now?”
And cover the other half he did, tossing out notes before shrugging his shoulders. “Sure, if you want.” Whilst being a mutant terrorist’s son Pietro didn’t much care for the regard of strangers which might explain why he wasn’t quite so self conscious being out in the public eye like Petra.
Fuck them all.
“C’mon,” Pietro said as he took a hold of Petra’s hand and they soon left the restaurant, heading towards the nearest arcade.