#because i am spinning scotts limited life pov in my head | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

zywesrebro-blog · 7 years ago

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Freefalling

My name is Pietro Maximoff. I’m sixty nine years old, I’m an Aries, and my life has always followed the predominant assumption that everyone who meets me grows to hate me, one way or another.

Following Pietro on an average day, four months after his resignation from Serval Industries. 5k. Pietro Maximoff/Remy LeBeau. First person POV, character study.

My name is Pietro Maximoff. I am sixty nine years old, I’m an Aries, and my life has always followed the predominant assumption that everyone who meets me grows to hate me, one way or another.

I am currently falling at approximately one hundred and sixty metres per second, and the wind from the fall is pressing minimally at the back of my neck. I am on my back, my legs apart at a thirty degree angle, my arms similarly spread away from my torso. Above me, I can see the X-Jet I fell from, going to the edge of the craft and letting myself fall backwards.

An expression of horror had crossed over the face of Abigail Brand, but then she had seen my expression of calm, and had copied it.

Brand is a sensible woman.

The fall from a flight craft at eight thousand metres will take about forty seconds: for me, this is a leisurely relaxation, suspended as I am in the air, falling in slow motion. I look at my watch. I designed its prototype in 1969, not long after Wanda and I first came to America, but it has gone through a thousand evolutions since then, the least of which being its transformation into a digital clock face rather than an analogue one.

The time is 13:12:34, it tells me, in the upper right hand corner. The time between the thirty fourth second of the minute and the thirty fifth seems like an eternity. In order to measure my time, I divide the day not into twenty four hours, but into one thousand, four hundred and forty minutes, and subsequently into eighty six thousand four hundred seconds.

Abigail Brand is calm, in part, because Hank McCoy has told her that these minutes and seconds are my equivalent of hours and minutes, and that every day stretches on for me as months would for somebody else. She’s not stupid enough to feel any sympathy, but Hank does.

Sometimes, people hate me, and then they change their minds. I wish he never had.

Closing my eyes, I tip my head slightly backwards, moving my body at angle: immediately, the wind whistles high in my ears as I increase in speed, and I wait until I’m five hundred metres or so above ground before I whip my body to the side. My head is full with a torrent of mathematical calculations, but they’re not difficult any more, and they’re not even necessary – I can perform this sort of manoeuvre from muscle memory alone.

I hear the yells slowed down immensely as I bring my little tornado into control, sending dust, dirt and pieces of concrete swirling about me as I spin, suspended by my own momentum, in air.

The robot turns too slowly to realize her folly, and I slam her down onto the ground with the force of a hurricane. Dropping into the robot’s carapace, I slam my fist into its chest at speed, tearing into the metal and dragging it from its moorings (I feel my knuckles crack. They’ll heal within the hour.)

The girl inside is staring at me, coughing with the sudden punch to her back the fall had given her, and her eyes are wide with fear. She is terrified of me. She’s hardly the first.

I unbuckle her from the robot’s harnesses, pulling her out of its spark-hissing form, and in a second her hands are cuffed behind her back; I turn to face the extraction team. Hank is yet to land the X-Jet, so instead, I’m faced with Emma Frost, Scott Summers, and Ororo Munroe. Two out of three are staring at me stonily, and none of them say a word. Ororo has a slight smile on her face, but this is only because she has been struck, for a moment, by how our powers might intersect, if I used wind more often.

“Good work, kid,” Logan says, stepping forwards, and I gently push the girl toward him. She’s maybe eighteen, nineteen – the daughter of some mogul, and her work with technology has to be seen to be believed. Genius mutants always have it the hardest, I think – they’re the most likely to get bored.

“I’m nearly seventy, Logan,” I point out, quietly. He retorts with a gruff huff of sound, and I turn away, walking towards where the X-Jet is landing in Central Park. The city council hates it when they do that, but they hate it when children lead robots through destructive rampages through the city, too.

I step aboard the jet, changing out of my suit and into my civilian clothes.

“Thank you, Pietro,” Hank murmurs quietly as I button up my shirt. I look at him in the window of the jet, polished to a shine. He looks tired; he often does, these days. “Speed was of the essence.”

“You didn’t tell them you were dropping me in,” I say. Hank’s eyes flicker about the room, and his tongue, which is rough as a cat’s, flickers over his whiskered lips.

“Now—”

“You should have told them,” I murmur, before he can give me some explanation or excuse. Mutants like Summers and Frost are hyperfocused upon control, and they dislike having their thunder stolen from beneath them, even if Logan views it as an easy job. “You know their anger won’t be directed at you, if they choose to show it.” Hank’s eyes soften. He hadn’t thought of it that way.

Guilt shines from his face, but I have enough guilt of my own, and I don’t engage it.

Hank’s paw touches my shoulder as I make my way back toward the entrance of the jet. The blue pads are warm, the pressure of his claws soft against the white fabric of my shirt, and he says softly, “You should join us again at the mansion, Pietro. We’re lacking a mathematics teacher, at the moment, and no one can engage the children in the subject like you can.”

“I wish everybody would stop offering me employment,” I say. I left the X-Factor nearly four months ago now, and it seems that every day someone else is asking me to join a different team, and barring Hank, who seems to do it purely out of worry for me, the majority of the offers come with an element of superiority that I cannot stand. “My apartment works for me. I don’t wish to move.”

“You truly think the commute would be difficult for you?” Hank inquires, tone arch. Then, he says, “Pietro, I could replicate your apartment in its entirety. We’ve been expanding our basement space: I could give you your own kitchen, bathroom, and lock them to your DNA. The children wouldn’t be at risk.”

I stare at Hank’s face. I’m so struck by what he’s said that that it must show in my face, because his expression remains focussed in its earnestness, and I tear my gaze away from his eyes to instead look somewhere in the vicinity of his hairy chin.

“Pietro?” Hank asks softly. The first time Hank did an analysis of my body’s functions, I was coming up to forty years old, and I’d done it as a favour to him: it was a gesture of good will, to allow him to better understand my limits and my biology, and he’d realized in those three days the way that I perceived the world. So many people, after all, assume that I only see things as super slow when I’m moving at super speed, but in actual fact, things are always moving slow, and I’m always perceiving them that way. If my brain couldn’t think that fast, I suppose the stress of my condition would kill me, but it’s difficult nonetheless. I had to learn to speak and hear anew, when I was nine years old and my powers activated. Hank’s never looked at me the same since.

“I’ll give it thought,” I hear myself say, and I walk past Hank, putting my satchel over my shoulder – it holds my suit, my phone, my wallet, a tablet computer. The sort of thing one doesn’t wish to hold in one’s super suit. As I take the steps down onto the impromptu airfield, I see Frost speaking with the girl I’d taken in; Munroe is putting the remnants of the robot inside the plane, with Summers overseeing her work.

“Hey, kid,” Logan says. He has a cigar in his hand, but it doesn’t seem he’s smoked too much of it, and when he watches me, I feel uncomfortably analysed. Wolverine isn’t ancient, but despite his relative youth, he looks at me in the same transparent way that Charles Xavier used to look at me, and the way my father does, at times. He looks at me as if he can see everything I’ve ever felt, even though I know for a fact that he can’t.

“Logan,” I say quietly. I feel myself stiffen slightly, waiting for what it is he has to say: Logan’s eyes narrow slightly. What people underestimate about me is how much I can see in their faces, how obvious their micro-expressions are to someone like me, who can see every single tiny shift in the muscles of their cheeks, their mouths, their eyes. Logan knows, though. I remember a day when I was back at the mansion, forming part of a discussion group with Kitty Pryde about Jewish history’s intersections with mutant history, and a group of delighted children had demanded my opinion on some television show called Lie To Me.

I hate television.

“Hank invited you back to the school?”

“Yes.”

“You gonna?”

“I don’t know.” It’s honest. There’s little point in lying to the Wolverine. I look down at him, look at the way he’s leaning against the wall – there’s so much violence crammed into such a small form, with Wolverine. “You’re staying for the foreseeable future, I presume?”

“Yeah,” he says, bringing the cigar to his mouth. I first tried a cigarette in ’66 – Wanda and I had been in Paris, and while she was doing some job by the river, I’d slipped into a bar to see if they had any work going. I’d been eighteen, dressed as neatly as I could manage, and a man had took me by the arm, pulling me into his circle of students, all my age, and yet so much older, it seemed. A pretty girl had given me a drag of her cigarette, and I’d drawn in the tobacco a little too quickly, burned my mouth on the cigarette’s suddenly flaming butt. They’d thought it was a magic trick, and I left before they could think any differently. When I told Logan that story, a few years ago now, he’d grinned as wryly as I’ve ever seen, and promised he wouldn’t tell my sister. I wonder if he thinks about that moment as much as I do. “How’s retirement treating you?”

“It’s not as relaxing as I expected.” Logan snorts, tipping ash onto the ground, and he shows his teeth. “The X-Factor is doing very well without me, though – better press.” They are. There was a photograph on the news of Remy LeBeau with blood on his face, carrying a child from a building as it collapsed around them, and I haven’t heard a single bit of criticism in any of the mainstream news.

“More casualties, though,” Logan points out, dryly, and I see the way his eyes focus on my face, looking to see if I’ll weaken my resolve or show any guilt. I don’t. There have been one or two deaths – the X-Factor not getting there in time, or not being able to move fast enough, but no more than any other super team on the circuit. Logan’s smile deepens. “You working on your gadgets and stuff, huh?”

“They’re not gadgets, Logan.”

“Nah, they’re not,” Logan agrees. “I saw the budget the Xavier School puts for Magda Korp. in Emma’s office. What do you do with all that money?” Pietro can’t help but smile a little.

“I donate a lot of it back under my own name,” I say in a mild tone, and Logan sniggers. The irony of the situation delights him – of every person at the Xavier school, Hank and Logan are the only people aware of who owns the leading corporation in the world for the creation and design of prosthetics and learning aids for mutant children and teenagers. Pietro started the Magda Korporacja in 1982, stationing his offices out of Chicago, and now that he is no longer a member of the X-Factor, most of his time is focused upon his own work, at home. Logan opens his mouth to keep on talking, but Summers approaches us, and I turn to face him.

“Just be careful,” Logan says. Despite my best efforts, I feel my brows shift furrow in perplexity.

“What are you talking about?” Summers asks. Looking over his head, I can see Hank and Abigail peering out of the cockpit, exchanging words – it’s difficult to read Hank’s lips, as a result of the shape of his face, but I can read the questions Abigail is asking him on hers. We must be better than television for her.

“Maximoff wants to fuck my kid,” Logan says. I feel my eyes widen before I can force my expression back to something resembling neutrality, and then I turn to meet the gaze of Summers’ visor: disgust shows in the shift of his lips, as well as a mild curiosity. In the moment, I simultaneously despise and admire Logan’s quick thinking.

“Laura’s gonna tear you apart,” Summers says, with a slight satisfaction. It irritates me, how his disgust gives way to a sort of smugness, and I feel the desire to cut through it like a knife.

“Daken, actually,” I correct him, replacing one lie with another, and Summers actually recoils. If I could see his eyes, I wonder what would pass through them – fear? Uncorrupted surprise? Further curiosity? The visor is crucial, of course, but not for the first time, I find myself wishing it wasn’t there, so that I could make a measure of Summers in the way I can of other men.

“I can’t exactly see him settling down for a candlelit dinner,” Summers says.

“Who says that’s what I want?” I ask. And there it is – not just horror, but a mix of something else, more curiosity, intrigue. I see Scott’s tongue flicker against the upper part of his lip, and I tilt my head slightly to the side, looking to Logan. Logan’s making a face, his nose wrinkled – what I can see in the slow-motion movement of other people’s faces, he can smell in the air. What must that be like? He and Hank have the same supernatural awareness of other people’s feelings, their inner thoughts, and it might not be as exact as telepathy, but a man like Summers should know better than to underestimate it. “See you, Logan.”

“Bye bye, kid,” Logan replies, and I don’t bother with the ultra-slow walk I’ve perfected for life among the normal people – for me, it’s a brisk walk, but it’s at my speed, and the New Yorkers I pass by see only a grey-clad blur of motion, but this is a city of mutants, and no one bothers to complain – not within my earshot anyway.

I don’t bother with the elevator in my building – it runs at a safe speed for every other tenant in the block, and I prefer the stairs anyway. I head up to the fourth floor, unlock the door, and step inside.

“Tommy?”

“Hey, Uncle P,” Tommy’ voice rings through my apartment, sailing with ease under the high ceilings, and I close the door behind me. Tommy is sprawled on the sofa, and his fingers move over the reinforced controls of my modified Xbox at speed, and I lean on the back of the couch behind him, watching the screen. It’s not one of my games – it’s some zombie game, with the predominant focus seeming to be on violence and gore. “You left your window open.”

I slap him – lightly – upside the head, and say, “No, I didn’t.” Tommy chuckles to himself, sending bullets through the oncoming torrent of stumbling monsters, and I walk into the kitchen, putting a wok onto the hob and flicking on the heat before moving to wash my hands. My kitchen is dangerous for most – my water pressure is enough to flay the skin off most people, and by the time I dry my hands on a towel, my wok is hot enough to cook chicken – less than twelve seconds. “Have you eaten, Tommy?”

“Uh-huh,” Tommy says, distractedly. A lie. I press my lips together, resisting the urge to roll my eyes (“That’s an ugly expression, Pietro,” Marya Maximoff used to tut at me, when I was still very young, and I don’t even remember what her face looked like, but I remember the cadence of her voice), and I take some chicken from the fridge, beginning to chop it into pieces. “You got any bacon?”

“Yeah, Rabbi Greenberg says it’s full of nutrients,” I retort, and there’s a short pause.

“Oh, right, yeah,” Tommy says. “I forgot.” I can’t help the chuckle that draws itself from my mouth, and I pour oil into the pan, massaging seasoning into the chicken on the chopping board. “Guess I can’t have cheese on my chicken either, huh?”

“You can have cheese on it if you want, but I won’t be having any on mine,” I say, and I flick the chicken into the pan, dropping in some peppers, some tomatoes, some crushed cloves of garlic. Outside, it begins to rain, and I watch the rain as it falls past my kitchen window, the little droplets going slowly, slowly, down towards the ground. I feel my lips quirk up into a smile: I love rain. Cooking at my speed involves a lot of concentration: the temperatures are too high not to keep my gaze upon the pan, because otherwise the chicken will stick or burn, but it can be done, and not with too much difficulty.

It’s not uncommon for me to return home and find Tommy in my apartment, eating the food from my fridge, playing games on my television, or reading books from the mini library in my guest bedroom. Tommy has a place of his own, but he shares it with a few people his age, and much as he studies my modifications of games consoles, the games don’t run as smoothly as they do here. Tommy never realized, I’m sure, how much his encouraging me to play videogames would benefit him, in that regard, but I actually find some enjoyment in having the consoles there.

When I can use them, of course.

I don’t mind.

I drop a few handfuls of noodles into the pan, stirring them into the mix, and I pick up the note sticking from the fridge: Hey, Pietro, I came over earlier and waited for an hour, but you didn’t seem like you were home soon. I wanted to ask if you wanted to go halvesies with me and Tommy on planting a tree for Grandpa for his eighty-fifth birthday. Text me. Billy. I arch an eyebrow, then drop the paper into the recycling bin, grasping the wok by the handle and giving it a light shake.

I don’t understand Billy, and I don’t pretend to: even in my converting to Judaism six years ago, spending time together at holidays, Billy and I have very little in common, though he is just as likely as Tommy to break into my apartment and “hang out”, though usually he’ll just sit in my living room or on the guest bed and read or surf the Internet. Tommy comes to my apartment because he likes the relaxation of an environment tailored to speed like his own, because food is expensive and he knows he’ll be fed here, because (for some reason I can’t entirely fathom) he has affection for me, and enjoys spending time with me. Billy shows up because he vaguely wants my approval, and because none of his bizarre little friends will look for him here.

“Did Billy tell you about this tree thing?”

“For Grandpa? Yeah, he says it’s like a whole thing, you buy a tree in Israel and you get like, a certificate and stuff, right? He gave me a pamphlet.” I hear Tommy swear before the television flickers off, and then I feel the shift in the air as he moves into the kitchen, looking over my shoulder. “You nearly done?”

“I thought you said you’d eaten?”

“I wasn’t listening,” Tommy admits, and I flick my head toward the cupboard behind me: he takes out two shallow bowls and sets them on the table, and with a set of tongs I put out the chicken stir fry on the plates, and then he asks, “You gonna go in for the tree?”

“No,” I say. “I’ll give you the money for your half, though.” Tommy seems to weigh this up, then he shrugs his shoulders.

“Okay,” he says, and he takes his bowl before heading over to the sofa again: he catches himself just before he sits down, and then alters his course, moving to sit at the living room table. I can’t help the slight smile on my face: Luna is a well-behaved child, but without a particular rule in place, she does as she pleases. I’ve never banned guests from eating from their laps in front of the television, but Tommy looks for signs of disgust, of distaste, in me. I wonder how much we really have in common, sometimes – it seems like too much. “What you gonna get him?”

“I bought him a sweater from that Judaica store in Brooklyn. It has Magneto was right written in Hebrew on it, and a big knitted picture of his face.” Tommy starts laughing, and I grin to myself as I take down two glasses from the cupboard, pouring myself a glass of lemonade and pouring orange juice out for Tommy. He flicks two coasters into place on the table, and I set the glasses down, sitting down beside him.

“That’s crazy, man,” Tommy says, and he begins to eat. “You think he’ll like it?”

“He’ll be a mixture of delighted and disgusted. That’s my general goal on these occasions.” Father’s birthday isn’t until next month, though, so I’m going to suspend my anxieties for the time being. Tommy and I make idle conversation as we eat, and it’s pleasant enough – I’m well-used to eating alone, but I take no issue with having companionship. It’s nice.

After they finish, I take the bowls to the sink and wash them up, setting them upon the draining board.

“I’m gonna head out. I’m meeting David and Loki for drinks in Manhattan. You wanna come?”

“No,” I say bluntly. Tommy grins.

“Yeah, I figured. See ya, Uncle Pete!”

“Goodbye, Tommy,” I murmur, and I focus on washing up the wok and spatula as he leaves. I realize, after a few moments, that I haven’t heard the door slam closed, and I frown, stepping away from the sink and leaning back to look at the door. I stop, holding the towel in one hand and a plate in the other.

“Hey there, cher,” Remy says; in contrast to Tommy’s voice, Remy’s voice is obscenely low and he speaks far too slowly, but I force myself to concentrate on it, on analysing the words as they’re spoken, despite their slow speed. “Had some uncle-nephew time, huh?”

“He just stayed for dinner,” I answer, and I wipe the moisture from the plate, putting it away. Remy is wet from the rain, his coat heavy with it, and he pulls it from his shoulders: he knows me too well to hang it on the coat rack, and instead holds it out from me so that I can hang it from the bar above the bath instead, which is precisely what I do. I flick the kettle on (I brought it home from a trip to Limerick a year or two ago, as Americans don’t really sell electric kettles), and I feel myself strangely struck by his presence as he closes the door and carefully takes off his shoes, setting them beside the doormat.

Except for his appearances on the news, I haven’t seen Remy since I handed in my letter of resignation to Serval Industries: I still see Lorna when Wanda or Billy forces us to have a family dinner together, or when she and I train together in the basement of this building, but everyone else, I avoid – it’s pretty nice, not having Danger’s irritating steadfastness in my life, I have to admit.

“Would you like coffee or tea?” The surprise has hit me hard: rather than the usual jibes I know I’d fall into, I feel myself settle into polite hospitality, and I feel a twinge of self-loathing.

“Nah, cher,” Remy murmurs, walking into my apartment as if he’s been here a thousand times before – he’s not been here once. “Let Remy make you a nice cup of cocoa.” He comes towards the kitchen, but I block his entry.

“I can make hot chocolate,” I say, quietly. “But you can’t use anything in my kitchen. You’ll get hurt. My appliances run too hot and too fast.” Remy freezes, something similar to uncertainty passing over his face: his features show no distrust and no hurt, but merely surprise, and the slightest bit of shame.

“Right. Sure, sorry – Remy didn’t mean ta worry ya.” He settles down at the kitchen table, and then says, “I’d like a cup of joe, if ya don’t mind.”

“No,” I murmur, and I find it curiously close to true, turning around and pouring some ground coffee beans into a mug, following it with some hot water and then some milk, some cream, some sugar. LeBeau likes his coffee sweet – I know that like I know there are stars in the sky. I set the mug next to him, upon a coaster, and he looks up at me. He looks thoughtful. “Why are you here?”

“Would you believe I missed ya?” Remy asks, and I settle slowly into the seat across from him, watching Remy’s expression. He doesn’t look like he’s lying, doesn’t show any signs of it – Remy’s a good liar, but I know from experience that I can pinpoint the initial signs of deception in him. I can’t quite see what he’s feeling, because his face is a mask of neutrality…

But how can I judge him? Don’t I do the same?

Remy looks down at his coffee mug, at the soft swirl of cream as it sinks slowly into the dark liquid, and then he looks up to me again. I’ve always found it strange how engaging Remy’s eyes are – his sunglasses are hanging from the collar of his shirt, baring them to the room, and Pietro looks at their black shape, the little dots of red that form his pupils.

Remy and I share so little in common, but one of the things that we do share, that we always have and always will share, is that our secondary physical mutations – his eyes and my hair – makes us immediately visible to passers by even if we hide our primary mutations. In some ways, that places us on level ground.

“Why’d you quit Serval Industries?” Remy asks. The question is slightly heavy, weighted down with some internal uncertainty… But Pietro doesn’t always tell the truth. Sometimes, a half-truth is what one needs.

“During the six months I worked in the X-Factor, I received twelve thousand, nine hundred and thirty two pieces of hate mail. Six hundred and nine of those were threats upon my life. Fifty seven were threats upon my daughter, and my nephews.” Remy stares at my face with so much shock, and I wonder how he couldn’t have realized, how he couldn’t have known. “That isn’t especially unusual, Remy. I’m sure you get similar missives, but Serval Industries looks after your fan email and your PO box. I’ve had messages like this for a long time, and it was just too much for me.”

“That’s it?” Remy asks. “That’s the reason?”

“Yes,” I murmur. “I’ve been receiving messages like that for forty years, Remy. It isn’t the end of my life. I just didn’t want to deal with them anymore, particularly not after Luna was in the press, and Billy and Tommy.”

“How many messages you got since you left?”

“One thousand three hundred and nine.” Remy whistles, taking a sip of the coffee: cream clings to his stubble, and he wipes it away with the back of his hand.

“Seems ta me like that’s still a lot.”

“It is. But it’s never as much when I’m out of the public eye.” Remy drums his fingers on the table: he seems anxious about something, or worried, and I have to wonder if he’s working up to something. Asking for my help? No, he’d have gone to someone else, anyone else. “You’re not here to ask me to come back, are you?”

“Nah, nah. No.” Remy meets my eyes. “I came to ask ya out for dinner.”

“Dinner? I’ve just eaten, but we can speak here, it’s quite secu-”

“Naw, it’s not about security. S’about dinner, cher. Dinner. Drinks.” What the Hell is he going on about? “God, Maximoff, ain’t anybody ever asked’chu on a date before?” I feel my jaw drop. I must look ridiculous, gaping at LeBeau with my mouth open like a fish. “Look, lemme explain… I kinda figured you’d come back, and then ya didn’t. A week went by, a month, two months. We moved on, teams change. But I still missed ya. Couldn’t make head or tail of it – and you know how good I am with coin tosses, huh? So I thunk about it—”

“Thought,” I murmur, the correction falling from my mouth unbidden.

“I thunk about it… And I figure we should go out on a date, non? Nice food, maybe a little wine, some passionate sex, and we can go from there.”

I’m staring at him. I can’t quite stop. I study his face, searching for some implication that this is a joke, but I see nothing but seriousness: I’ve never contemplated a date with LeBeau, but for the occasional castaway thought that he’s pleasantly built for a man, and I feel as if I’ve been stunned.

“Alright,” I hear myself say. The word echoes in my head.

“Really?”

“Were you not serious?”

“Yeah, I sure was. Just wasn’t sure you were, honey.”

“Have you ever known me to be anything but serious?”

“Let’s go to that wine bar out by the docks.”

“Do you like wine?”

“Sure do.”

“Now?”

“Why not?”

My name is Pietro Maximoff,. I’m sixty nine years old, and I’m an Aries. If I had to be brutally honest, I would tell you that I am so, so used to people hating me that when I’m faced with an admission of anything less, I don’t know what to do with it.

I am currently pulling on my coat so that I can go out on a date with my former team mate, a man who I believed, without a doubt, despised me, Remy LeBeau.

#pietro maximoff #quickbit #remy lebeau #gamquick #fanfiction #marvel #marvel 616

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