ᴇʀɪᴋ (metalize) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-06-24 15:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, marvel: billy kaplan, ₴ inactive: erik lehnsherr |
WHO: Erik & Billy
WHAT: FAMILY SCHMALTZ (a tea party with Anka Irene, complete with cookies)
WHERE: Erik & Rogue's new place
WHEN: Idk recently?
WARNINGS: There's a hug
STATUS: Complete
One of the best things about his and Rogue’s new home was the sunroom - a room lined with windows, in fact, to really make one feel the indoor-outdoor connection; in the winter it would be nice when they craved sunlight, but they could also curl up by the fire. Tile and stone, blue ceramics, and they could open those windows to catch the breeze through the tops of nearby trees - and an additional pleasant part about the sunroom was that it was perfect for a good tea party. Just ask Anka Irene. The floor was slate gray, throw rugs over that with plenty of planter boxes for a floral accent (the bigger garden was outside - it wasn’t all the way complete yet, but Erik was confident vegetables and fruits and herbs would flourish) and a warm and inviting atmosphere. There was a table where Anka Irene had teleported to, carrying an armful of animal figures and plushies with her - she was busy introducing them all to Billy (her current tea party guest), levitating them with telekinesis as she said their names. “Uncle Charles the seal,” she shared, showing off the figurine before setting it down onto the table. “Peter the elephant.” “When I first asked her why Uncle Charles was the seal she said it’s because he has no hair,” Erik pointed out, doing his (grand)fatherly duty and carrying a tray into the room, laden down with teacups; cookies were baking in the oven, he’d get those in a moment. The tea party set happened to be a pink-splashed Disney princess theme as well - very fashionable. “He don’t!” Anka Irene squealed with laughter and, yes, alright - it was pretty funny. “I mean, that’s pretty accurate as far as fancasts go, I see it,” Billy said, snorting a laugh. Admittedly, he didn’t know Professor X well beyond his knowledge that came by virtue of being Billy. Other than that it was by sight from being involved in massive battles and going ‘oh, hey, the X-men are here, cool’. When Billy and Tommy had last been at the X-mansion, it was Emma who was in charge...and who also sort of tried to brainwash them into joining. Was having a tea party with a preschooler exactly what Billy pictured himself doing today? Nah. But family was family was family and helping Erik move proved to be a quick affair with teleporters and speedsters. So, okay, a tea party with his own personal introduction to all of Anka Irene’s stuffed animals it was. “Wait, why’s Peter the elephant?” Billy asked. His fingers danced in the air and with a few sparks of light, the elephant trumpeted mightly--for its small size, at least. “‘Cause he’s gray,” Anka Irene spoke matter-of-factly - and, well, surely that made perfect sense. In a toddler’s mind, it probably did. She made a delighted sound when the sparks of magic came to life and subsequently got Peter the Elephant to let loose with the trumpeting and clapped excitedly. That was sooooo shiny. Erik chuckled, arranging a little jar of honey and a creamer bowl with lid on the tray (they went full out with fancy tea parties in this house). “Which one is Uncle Billy?” he wanted to know. Though technically he supposed Billy was the nephew - but that was difficult to explain to a preschool-aged auntie. Anka Irene gave that some thought, then held up a rainbow plushie with a very pointed (soft, admittedly) horn on its head. “Unicorn! ‘Cause magic.” Now this plushie was officially dubbed Billy the Unicorn, so he ought to be pleased. “Woooow,” Billy dragged out the word in an attempt to buy himself some time to decide what to actually say. Well, a rainbow unicorn was pretty...spot on, he thought, but that didn’t ease the initial recoil. Couldn’t be something tough like a tiger or a T-Rex, oh no! But would he shatter the creativity of a preschooler and break her little heart into pieces? Of course not. “I’m so touched!” he replied instead, setting the unicorn down. “You know, let’s agree to keep that a secret between us though, huh? We won’t tell Tommy, we’ll just let that be a surprise that he’ll never find out!” Which wouldn’t be Billy’s luck, kids gravitated to Tommy. Billy joked that his brothers (also twins because the world was weird) Micah and Isaac liked Tommy way more than him, and Tommy relished in how cool they thought he was. Sure, the 50th time Tommy zoomed by with the twins clinging to him by sheer force of will and all of them screaming how amazing super speed was was a little obnoxious, but Billy’s relief in Tommy feeling like a part of the family outweighed that. Eager to move on from his glitter-fied animal persona, Billy carefully poured some tea into a Tangled themed cup for Anka Irene. Here he was thinking they were having maybe Kool-Aid at best! “So who else did you bring to the party?” Erik’s mouth twitched up into a half-smile, something subdued - but there was no shortage of fatherly pride that shone in cool blue eyes. And, well, he was also amused that Billy went along with the unicorn distinction even if it was less than cool to be associated with one of those things. “Yes, who else did you bring?” he inquired. “Ororo the tiger,” she replied, placing that one near the unicorn. “Wanda! The mermaid.” It was an Ariel doll, in fact, with red hair that Anka Irene had combed many, many times with a little plastic dinglehopper or whatever it was - she also wore a pink dress, ready for any castle ball. “Which one is Tommy?” was Erik’s next question. To that, Anka Irene reached for another plushie. “Squirrel,” she spoke matter-of-factly. That ought to make Billy feel a little better, at least? But then she turned her attention to the tea, levitating the porcelain cup. “Daddy! Can we get cookies?” “I’ll bring them in,” Erik promised. “Thanks for doing this, by the way,” he added, looking at Billy. “I’m sure a toddler tea party wasn’t on your list for today.” “A fast squirrel,” Billy allowed, out of loyalty to his brother, even though it was absolutely hilarious. He could already hear Tommy countering with something like, ’well squirrels are badass and can run up walls and you told me there’s a superhero who talks to squirrels and she beat Dr. Doom so there!!!’ Which, actually wasn’t untrue, so it made that a little hard to argue with. He waved off the thanks. “No big deal. I wasn’t doing anything anyway and I wanted to come over. But I only have brothers and they were never interested in tea parties so I’m new to the scene.” Really though, it wasn’t much of a stretch for Billy to get into. It was all imagination anyway, and Billy had always been good with that--cosplay and fanfiction and D&D, that was what that was. “How’s the place working out?” Billy asked. “It looks really good. What do you think, Anka, you like it?” Billy and Tommy still lived at the apartments and it worked for them for now. Maybe in the future, if their friends showed up or the situation changed, they’d find something else, but in the moment they had a space where they could eat cereal and pizza rolls, and then there were other spaces with their extended family where they were welcome too. “There’s flowers!” was Anka Irene’s delighted answer - Erik knew how she felt, however, since he too was pleased by the garden and almost-farm (he’d consider it as such) that they’d be able to cultivate on the roof, on their own private deck. There’d be plenty of room for grass, trees, perennials, and creeping herbs - all crisscrossed with stone paths, to really make it look nice. He’d already started, selecting plenty of plants known for their hardiness in the sun and the wind. “And strawbabies.” “Strawberries, yes,” Erik laughed a little. “It’s working out wonderfully though, I’m glad we moved. It seems like the perfect way to mark my almost-one year anniversary of being here.” He still was worried, of course - that he’d disappear all of a sudden, and find himself back in his own world as the Phoenix dust settled around them and a depressed Charles mourned his sister and nursed his emotional wounds, leaving Hank in charge of the Institute. And Erik wouldn’t remember a thing about this. Wouldn’t remember Anna or their daughter, or the family he’d built here - it was enough to have him really appreciating each and every moment. “You’re welcome to do whatever you’d like with your designated bedroom as well,” he added, getting up to fetch a batch of cookies from the kitchen. “You and Tommy.” There were plenty of rooms to spare, and enough bathrooms in case they had many houseguests at once. “Thanks,” Billy replied, smiling down at the table. “I mean, I don’t know how often we’ll use them, fair warning, but. Thanks.” Tommy especially, only because too much of something resembling family came with those pesky emotions he tried to stomp down before they became anything. Billy, by contrast, accepted it all easily--too easily, probably, so they balanced each other out well. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, well, not anyone here at least. Tommy, the speedster, always wanted an escape plan just in case. So Billy held on tighter, refusing to let Tommy ever run too far away. He started placing the animal figurines on top of each other in a precarious tower arranged by height. He wouldn’t let them fall though, because it was terribly rude to the party guests. “A whole year, huh? Look at that, a year goes by and you have multiverse kids and grandkids. Who knows, in another year you might have great grandkids and then what?” Which...would mean something coming from Billy or Tommy and, pass on that right now. Billy rolled with a lot of things in this multiverse mashup, but he wasn’t sure he could handle a future kid just yet. “Hey, I saw the school pop up. Are you interested in seeing it, or is that,” he pulled a face. “Not in the cards.” There was no pressure to use either bedroom - Erik just wanted to make sure they knew they had options. Family was important to him and while he wasn’t prone to hovering or pushing very hard, he still thought that some things were worth making known - like the fact that Billy and Tommy had a place within their family. They were always welcome. “Great-grandkids,” Erik wheezed out a laugh, carrying in a plate of cookies - they were still warm from the oven and smelled like both vanilla and rich chocolate, though they were at least cool enough to pick up and eat. It was always tempting to cram hot, barely-formed cookies into your mouth, despite the risk of burning the roof of it. Or your tongue. “Well, if great-grandkids were to happen, I would adore them I’m sure,” he said, offering the plate but making sure to tell Anka Irene, “Guests first.” He let Billy select which cookie he wanted - some had chocolate chips, some had peanut butter cups, others had M&Ms. It was a whole variety, and he was free to take some back for Tommy as well. “As for the school, I - will probably head over there at some point.” He already taught at the DOA school and didn’t think he wanted another teaching gig on top of that - not to mention he still doubted Charles’s insistence that he’d make a good teacher anyway, despite how well his foreign languages classes seemed to be going. We were always our own worst critic. “I helped rebuild it after it was destroyed. Me, Charles, Jean. It was a combined effort. Hopefully it will actually get a chance to thrive here.” Guests first was a nice rule, but very hard for a preschooler to follow, so Billy nudged an especially large M&M cookie Anka Irene’s way. What good were alternate universe uncles/nephews/whatever the relationship was if they couldn’t spoil the niece/aunt/small child? For his part, Billy took a chocolate chip cookie and was surprised to discover it was as good as it looked. Who knew Magneto could bake! Billy’s mom could, but her cookies always had a healthy spin on them like flaxseed or wheat germ or something else to help growing bodies. Not that there was anything wrong with that, really, but it was just nice for a chocolate chip cookie to taste like a chocolate chip cookie! “What--” Billy glanced over at Anka Irene, unsure of how to ask without scaring her, which he definitely didn’t want to do. That the school had been destroyed wasn’t a huge shocker, unfortunately that happened a lot to the Xavier School. During the Superhero Registration Act disaster there had been a lot of talk about what side the school would stand on--and Emma Frost subsequently saying that no one ever cared what happened to mutants before, so they wouldn’t care now. There was no doubt that the school and everyone involved had been through hell and back, and it was a shame that that seemed to be true across realities. He tried again. “Is everything...okay, there?” Erik took a cookie too, one of the peanut butter types (chopped peanut butter cups, as good as it would be to have a whole one on there) and broke it in half to try it out. He could bake pretty well, so was proud of his efforts - cooking for the family was something he liked doing anyway. It was relaxing - a lot more so than beheading corrupted cultists or going after murderous bunny rabbits. “Yes, it’s alright,” he assured, as Anka Irene lifted a couple more stuffed animals using a telekinetic flex and arranged them with the others - satisfied that they were all in their designated spots for the tea party, she munched on her cookie and sipped her tea while chatting with (bald) Charles the seal and Tommy the (fast) squirrel. “The destruction happened in the 1960s - or, well, it happened again in the 1980s. That was when I went to help rebuild.” Peter had been there too, but Erik hadn’t known about how they were related at the time. And that was the last time he saw Peter too, for awhile. “Turns out a school for mutants was a prime target - who would have thought?” he added with a bit of light sarcasm. “But right before arriving here, Charles sort of retired and left the Institute with Hank. It seemed to be doing well in the early 90s.” Billy’s eyebrows lifted and his mouth twisted in agreement with the sarcasm. It was too easy for people to hate, especially when they didn’t understand, and the line between fear and hate was often razor thin. “Tommy and I didn’t go,” he offered. “We’re also not entirely certain if we’re mutants--we probably are, given that neither one of us were exposed to anything, bitten by anything, carried any kind of magical item, or were bestowed powers by a deity, and we were born to humans.” He ticked off each thing on his fingers. It wasn’t an exhaustive list either! Nerd. “But the Avengers Fail Safe Program found us instead of Cerebro, so,” he shrugged. “We became Young Avengers instead.” Which he supposed worked out in the end. Whatever found Tommy soonest was what Billy would have gone with. “What were you doing?” Billy asked. That was--a lot of years. How did the man not age? Their Erik was older, certainly, but the silver hair was deceiving. He still gave everyone a run for their money as the Master of Magnetism and showed no sign of slowing down. Admittedly, Erik had been doing a lot. He’d try to condense it into a smaller anecdote, however. No one wanted to be here all day listening to his life story - then he really would have to break out the ‘back in my day’ way of weaving tales and the Werther’s Original candies. “I’m certain it would be easy to figure out if you have the x-gene for sure, but that would be up to you and I’ve a feeling you are as well - that you both carry the x-gene, I mean,” he said, dusting cookie crumbs off his hands. It did tend to run in families. A lot of research was still being done about the whole thing, and it was slow-going since humanity liked to jump in with ‘you don’t belong in the world’ every so often but Erik was confident that more research would lead to more discovery. “I was working to establish Genosha as a safe haven - bring in mutants who had nowhere else to go, who had been shunned by society,” he added. “The US government so generously gave me the island to do as I pleased, with the stipulation that I never leave it and become a menace to them again, of course.” Erik’s tone was wry as he explained. “I was fine with that. Even if it fell by the wayside when the Phoenix force took over Jean after an X-Men mission gone wrong, apparently, and we all got involved. People were killed. I lost two of my fellow mutants who helped me build Genosha. After everything I planned to return to the island, and was trying to get Charles to come with me.” He had one of Anka Irene’s toys in his hands - the tiger, flipping it over a few times. “Somehow I doubt that he will but I ended up here so I can’t say for sure.” Charles was just as stubborn as he was - and always did what he wanted to do anyway. Now government menace, that definitely sounded right, Billy thought. And look, it wasn’t that he thought their Erik’s techniques were justified or correct--he didn’t, there was a reason why Wanda and Pietro wanted nothing to do with him. At a certain point in time he lost sight of everything else except being right, and when he lost that, he lost everything else. Maybe he never really had perspective on anything else, Billy didn’t know. When he and Tommy had last seen Erik, he was a man without his family and he wanted them back. Whether or not it was too late, or that Wanda and Pietro should have forgiven him wasn’t Billy’s to say. But Erik’s entire family had been wiped out, and that forged Erik into Magneto. Billy took another cookie, this one peanut butter cup and then broke that into pieces, merging two of the cookies together to make a mega cookie. “Do you miss him?” “Yes, I do.” Erik didn’t have to think long and hard about that or anything. His relationship with Charles was complicated but the man was still important to him - even if Erik had never thought Charles’s dream was actually possible. He understood the desire to focus on the minds of humans for change, in order to protect lives in the long run - where Erik disagreed, however, was the idea that mutants had to be perfect to be considered ‘worthy’ of being treated the same as humans. His kin had to be a step above in order to be equal - that injustice was what he fought against. And he fought it violently - he wanted change now, he wasn’t so concerned with the slow going process of winning hearts and minds; he didn’t want mutants to be sacrificed at the altar of history - slowgoing change wouldn’t save the mutant being experimented on today, one who would die tomorrow. Hence the conflict of ideals with him and Charles. A constant conflict. “It’s sort of like when you overall love someone but you have moments where you don’t always feel that way,” he added. “I’m not sure how else to explain it, but. I do miss him. He’d be happy to see all of this,” Erik gestured around, vaguely. “And would never let me live down being a grandfather at such a young age.” That was said teasingly because, well. Neither of them were very young, they just looked as if they were. “I don’t know if he has any kids,” Billy confessed, chuckling. “I mean, I would think I would know since I have encyclopedic knowledge of all things superheroes, but like I said, we’re not super close to the X-men, so I can’t help you there.” He watched Anka Irene play with her toys, each of the animals getting served tea and carrying on intriguing conversations with each other. And then, Billy found himself talking again, surprising even himself. “It all reminds me of my friend Nate.” And oh boy, was that like ripping off a bandaid on a wound that had just healed over. Nate, who had wanted to be better, Nate, who had believed in Billy when Billy didn’t believe in himself, Nate, who had come from the timestream to save them all, Nate, who had destroyed Jonas in his rage and wanted to reset the timeline no matter the cost. Because Cassie had died. Billy turned his focus to his tea cup, a small whirlwind forming in the center so that the liquid spun along the walls of the cup and the middle was hollow. “Iron Lad? I don’t know that you’d ever come across him. He’s the one who brought us together in the first place to stop--himself, basically. And he was smart, and funny, and had no idea how to grow a superhero team of teenagers, but none of us did.” Billy swallowed, thinking of the books he’d read and the therapy he’d gone to. Feel the feelings and give them a voice. “He time and dimension traveled to escape from his future self, Kang the Conqueror, which is the worst name but I go by Wiccan so I guess I don’t have much room to talk.” He rolled his eyes, forever with the self-deprecating humor as a shield. “He left, but then came back to save Wanda and me--and then our friend Cassie died and he wanted to go back into the timestream to save her.” “We didn’t get along, in the end,” Billy said, shrugging, feigning nonchalance terribly. “Cassie dying is like, my biggest regret ever, I miss her every day, but I know now that I can’t fix everything, even as much as I want to. But Nate, he wanted to fix everything, no matter the cost. And that was making him become what he didn’t want to be. And even still, I miss him.” Erik frowned a bit, brow crinkling thoughtfully. “No, you can’t fix everything,” he agreed - his accent was present in those words, soft, but still there. Difficult to tell what kind of accent he even had anyway. Probably German, but it had been so long and he hunted so many Nazis across the globe, becoming a polyglot to fit in and keep his work going, that his timbre was often simply a mish-mosh of cultures and sounds. “It’s not on any one person to fix either,” he added. A lesson that Charles himself needed to learn - and had, in a way that was as blunt as being kicked in the shins, multiple times, after Raven was killed due to Jean not being aware of the extent of her power or able to control an unstoppable force that sought her out because of that power. Charles had taken it upon himself to fix her when she was a young girl - to block off what was within her head, thinking it was best for her and those around her. And it had been wrong to do. “Some things - they are just meant to stay broken, as much as we wish otherwise. Life doesn’t have to work perfectly, or be perfect, for it to be good or fulfilling.” He reached over, feeling the emotion roll off of Billy even if he tried to keep it in check - and Erik scooted around to hug him, somewhat tentatively. “I don’t know of your friend, but - I don’t blame you for missing him. Relationships can be complicated. Not always black or white.” Billy looked like he wanted to argue, but, well, what was he going to say, exactly? That he could fix everything--he could alter the very fabrics of time and space and reality (although it made him really sleepy, so)? ...But that wasn’t fixing it, that was forming the world to be what he thought it should be. And, see the example of him pulling a version of Teddy’s mom out and it actually being an interdimensional parasite who tried to destroy the multiverse and eat him in the process, Billy didn’t always make the wisest of decisions. Except when playing his first MtG card, obviously. He leaned into the hug, even as Billy’s nose wrinkled, not all that differently from his soul mom’s. “I know. Or, well, at least, I’m trying to know that. My therapist would say it’s a process. Tommy would say I’m an idiot, which actually, is also good to hear.” He stuffed another cookie in his mouth. Right, that was enough of that. “That was some pretty good grandfatherly advice, you know. I still feel like you might need to carry around those butterscotch candies for the full effect, maybe stare off at a lake or pond for a moment of gravitas, but otherwise, pretty good.” “We’re all idiots sometimes,” Erik chuckled - and he squeezed Billy’s shoulder, then leaned back far enough to hold the young whippersnapper’s face in his hands for a moment or two, an affectionate cradle the way a parent would hold their child; he’d done it many times before, unconsciously with his own children, and probably would again even if it made Billy’s nose crinkle or Tommy want to run off into space to escape the feelings. “But thanks - glad you liked the advice. There’s more where that came from in the future, however.” Nothing he would give right now, since he’d already used up his quota of Wise Anecdotes for the day - in the meantime, they’d just enjoy the rest of these cookies and more tea. Along with Anka Irene’s animal stories, and for now, all was right with this rather shaky and unpredictable world. |