The Mutant Manifesto

Erik turns to look at her. He has an inherent mistrust of people who show up and sound too good.

He lifts an eyebrow faintly.

"And you are?"

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She yelled “outlaw country” right before we heard the police siren

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You and your sister are supposed to keep each other out of trouble.

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not to shatter an illusion but....

we have never done that...

a single time.

ever.

we are VERY good at getting into it though. a+

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So who is going to have to come get you when you get into something you can't get out of?

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and that's why you're first on my speed dial list! 😀

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Part of me wants to tell you that you're on your own, but the other part of me wants to say 'that's my girl'.

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I'm very good at invoking mixed feelings like that in people :D

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Just remember rule #1: don't get killed.

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In all of the times that Peter had imagined, as a child, knowing who his father was, living in the same house as his father, Peter had never imagined it quite like this. Not the location, with the giant house turned into a school. He never would have imagined that. It's the relationship itself that he had never imagined in this way. Perhaps because of the relationships he had seen his friends have with their fathers, and the families he watched on TV, he had imagined having a father to be...easier.

Magneto had had another child, hadn't' he? So he must know something about how it works. But somehow he and Peter just aren't quite what the other wants. They haven't managed to get past the awkwardness of Peter's confession of their relationship. It seems Peter hadn't found the best way to tell him. Not that Peter had any idea what would have been. Just blurting it out when the two of them were alone was obviously not it. He maybe should have mentioned it before half the school knew, too.

But, for better or worse, they're both here, and they have to figure out how to deal with it. At least they have other people who can act as buffers.

Peter is on his way out of the kitchen with an open bag of chips (one of his many, many snacks throughout the day) when he sees Erik passing by. He holds out the bag to Erik. "Want some?"

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Yeah, he should have mentioned it before anyone knew. Erik Lehnsherr did not care for being humiliated in front of all he had left for a people and if there's been a tension in him around Peter, it's been that.

That and the sudden death of his younger child suggesting that being Magneto's son maybe wasn't the best thing for Peter anyway.

He looks at the chips with the faint frown of someone being offered something unfathomable, like Peter is holding out a bag of thumbs.

"No, thank you," he says politely. He glances down the hallway, in the direction Peter is headed. "Where are you going?"

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Are you judging his food choices, Erik? Should you really be judging any of his choices at all? It's not like they're a weird flavor like parmesan barbecue pizza or something. If you had to eat pretty much constantly to maintain energy, you'd lower your standards too.

"To my room."

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He makes a vague gesture.

"Would you rather..." He trails off. He has no idea what Peter likes to do, besides eat garbage and listen to music. "Talk?" It's the only way to find out.

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He could have been back upstairs before Erik had even known he was there, and back before he had admitted the truth of their relationship, he might have done just that. But he had gone looking for Erik for a reason, and talked to people who knew him, and finally admitted it personally. Meeting his father, filling in some of the blanks on a full half of his history, is exactly why he had left his mother's house in the first place.

He shrugs, a 'why not' shrug rather than an 'I don't particularly care' shrug. "Sure. I haven't got anywhere else to be." He's got time. It might just as well be spent doing this as something else.

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Clearly he's eager to clear the air, Erik thinks wryly. He makes a sweeping gesture towards his office.

"After you."

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He could be to the office in less than the blink of an eye, sparing both of them the walk there, but he won't. He doubts that would make things any less awkward between them, for him to have to wait for Erik to catch up. So he keeps things to a normal pace, one that allows them to walk together. He also slows down the pace of his snacking, doing that at a normal speed too, so that there's only the occasional crunch of a chip as they walk.

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Once they get to the office, Erik offers Peter a chair before settling behind the desk himself.

"How are you settling in?"

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"Okay." It's a transition, but he's glad he decided to stay here. "It's better than still being in my mom's basement. I'm not a total loser anymore." He doesn't know if that's the sort of comment that Erik will appreciate though. He crunches a few more chips before continuing. "It's nice to be around other people like me."

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Erik considers him for a moment.

"That was always the whole point of our movement, you know. To bring people like us together. To protect them. To let them be who they are without being afraid."

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That makes sense, and he doesn't have a problem with that. He likes it here, and he certainly is less weird here than he was in his actual high school. But there's still one thing it seems like Erik is missing in the middle of his justifications. "Well yeah. But that doesn't mean they have to be afraid of us."

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"Does it not?" Erik props his chin on his fist. "How does that work?"

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"Because that makes it sound like we're a threat." That seems like an obvious answer to him. The one thing leads to the other, and he doesn't want to be seen as a threat. Because he's not.

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"The alternative is that we have to be afraid of them. Do you like living that way? Hiding? Pretending you're one of them when you're so much more?"

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"None of them were afraid of me until you told them they should be. They only have to be if we make it that way."

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