super speed. google it.

Check your privilege, Spoiler, Steph thought. She’d have to ask Quicksilver where he was from. Back home, international news tended to fall flat when the local ticker informed Gotham that the Joker set up charges all over East End just for shits and giggles. “That’s okay,” she assured him, waving his ignorance off. “We’ll steal a car sometime”—Tonight? She wondered, electing to bring it up after Anton was jailed— “and I’ll show you.” She should probably give him a driving lesson, while she was at it. What if he lost his speed someday?

Poor Quicksilver would be stuck riding the G train. That would suck.

Steph stowed the photo away in her pocket, smiling. “He’s clearly stuck in 2002,” she agreed, twirling her baton a bit. “Our play? Our play is you super speeding us in and me bashing his face in with this,” Steph explained. Then she and Quicksilver could drag Anton’s sorry ass to the nearest precinct with a note taped to his shirt. Classic. “Or I could play the distraction and you help all the girls get away,” she amended, thoughtfully. He could probably do both in no time at all, but this was a team effort. Steph was open to suggestions.

The good thing about working with Spoiler was the fact that even though he could trust her to curb the more violent streak that appeared when Pietro was typically dealing with criminals, he could also count on her to make a good time out of the whole thing. Most heroes were extremely boring, focusing entirely on justice and the good old American way, but she was different. “Cars go over a hundred miles an hour, right?” Pietro asked, slightly eager at the opportunity. Expanding his skills was something he always looked forward to, and the fact that his teacher wasn’t also a terrorist this time around had to be a good thing. “You ever taught someone to drive before? I might need to read your Yelp reviews first, you know.”

All her life, Lorna had longed to belong somewhere. She’d desperately attempted to dye her hair, to hide the green hue and pretend she was normal. When her powers developed, she’d longed for her foster parents to accept her, been heartbroken when they hadn’t. She’d gone to the X-Men, pretended not to notice the way some of the younger kids looked at her with wide eyes and clenched teeth every time she moved something metal around or otherwise demonstrated her powers in the Danger Room. For a long time, she’d been willing to cut off pieces of herself in order to fit in, been willing to change who she was and pretend the people accepting her would have wanted her just as much if she hadn’t hidden those parts away. 

Slowly, she’d realized that she deserved to be herself and be accepted and, unfortunately, that was when Magneto found her. He’d seen that vulnerability inside of her and preyed on it, told her that he knew who she was better than anyone and could help her be better. For the first time, Lorna hadn’t been ashamed of her powers. She’d felt strong, felt powerful and unapologetic at the same time. If she’d continued down that path, she had no doubt that she would have caved eventually, had no doubt that, given a little more time, she would have used her powers to send angry gunmen’s bullets back through their own chests, would have driven crowbars yielded by anti-mutant protesters into their own skulls. Was she a good person because she’d left the Brotherhood before that happened? She wasn’t sure. She thought the knowledge that that side of her existed might erase any opprotunity she ever might have had at anything like that.

“I’ve never been sure of that,” she replied with a dry laugh, shaking her head. “Not even once.” That was part of why she’d admired Pietro when she’d first met him, part of why she’d liked him so instantly. In retrospect, maybe it had been his blood calling out to hers, but at the time, Lorna had just liked how sure he seemed. He was who he was, and he hadn’t been making apologies for it. The attitude had seemed so unattainable, so unshakable. Then, it drove him to do awful, terrible things. She’d been jealous of the things that arguably made her brother into a villain, the qualities that allowed him to kill people without question. “I’m not sure we were protecting anyone,” she admitted. “I thought we were, but I think… I think he just told us whatever he wanted us to hear. I think he just wanted to make us feel like we were doing something right so we wouldn’t question him. And I guess it worked.”

Pietro was right, of course. They’d never know anything about where they came from unless Erik wanted them to know, and he’d never share the information with them without demanding something in return. Their father wasn’t the type to offer anything for free, even if he claimed he was. Every move he made was calculated. They’d all learned that the hard way. “I guess not. That —- That’s really fucked up.” It was obvious, but it needed saying. For all they knew, they could have had an army of half-siblings out there, and unless Magneto decided it benefited him to let them know, they never would. It was incredibly fucked up, and there wasn’t much they could do about it. Glancing up at the question, she offered him a small smile. “Right,” she agreed. She’d never belonged anywhere before, but maybe this was where she’d start. Maybe she could have something of a family with her siblings.

There was something in his eyes as he looked at her and, without knowing why, Lorna braced herself. It wasn’t enough. She winced minutely at the words, thinking of all the things he’d said to her. She was reminded of the snippets of memories from the flight her mother and stepfather had died on, of her mother’s words ringing through the plane while they fought. He made me feel special, she’d said, tears in her eyes at the confession. Apparently, he was good at that. “I don’t know what he believes,” she said quietly. “What he thinks he feels. But I don’t — He can’t. He can’t love us. You don’t do the things he’s done to us to someone you love. He doesn’t love any of us. He can’t.” Her voice was almost pleading because, in a way, she needed it to be true. She needed to think that they were nothing more than pawns to their father because, if they were more, it humanized him. It made him a man instead of a monster, and Lorna didn’t want that.

“For a second,” she replied. “After that, you’d feel bad.” She knew it was true, knew that no matter how much their father might deserve to die for what he’d done, it shouldn’t be Pietro that did it. He’d suffered enough because of Magneto, and he didn’t need to suffer any more. “She hasn’t told me about them,” she replied with a faint smile. “I bet they were, though. My foster parents, they were… They were good until they weren’t. When my mutation developed, I guess it was too much for them. I don’t even know if I can blame them.” Pausing, she glanced up, eyeing him uncertainly. “I think my biological mother was a good person. She made a mistake, but she wanted to make it right. To make up for it.” She looked down at her feet, closing her eyes and swallowing before adding, “I killed her. That’s the memory he took from me.”

When Pietro had arrived on Kate’s doorstep, ready to apologise just as she had said he would be all those months ago, he had told her that he still didn’t mind hurting people. He didn’t mind killing people, found nothing wrong with blood on his hands so long as it was unrepentant blood, blood that wasn’t worth saving once it was spilled. The Brotherhood, though, treated all humans as insects to be stepped on, things that didn’t need to be protected, people that they could ignore entirely. In that vein, there was no difference between how mutants treated humans and how they treated mutants for the past several centuries.

Pietro understood why people joined the Brotherhood specifically for that reason. He felt anger himself every single time he heard the word ‘mutie,’ every time a student returned to Xavier’s with tears in their eyes because the outside world didn’t welcome them as it should have. Pietro didn’t want to kill all humans - he had people that he loved, he had seen that there were humans out there who were willing to accept his people, that they were increasing in number every single day. He wanted to kill the humans that wanted to kill mutants, and that was all. Still, as time progressed, he realised that once again he had acted on impulse. He had jumped into something recklessly, he hadn’t considered it entirely, and he was trapped.

“You know where to draw the line, then,” Pietro said. “When to say that it’s been enough. I wish I could do that.” It was more of a confession than he had given most, but this woman, she was his sister. They might not have known that before, they might have been nothing more than acquaintances that were friendly from time to time, but they were blood. That counted for something. Magneto was blood, and for that reason, Pietro had been inclined to believe in him when he shouldn’t. He didn’t think Lorna was the same situation at all. Even if she was, he was willing to give her the time to prove that she was a complete dickhead. Hopefully that wouldn’t be the case. “We did take down some bad people,” Pietro said. “I took down some good people, too, which I’ll always regret but -- there were some terrible people out there, who wanted nothing more than to see all of us dead. Taking their lives isn’t something I’ll regret.”

Pietro had once wondered whether he was a complete and utter sociopath, because the blood that was on his hands because of Hydra had never bothered him. Now, he realised what the difference was. Back then, he had no choice. It was kill or be killed. Kill or watch his sister be in pain. Kill or be in pain himself. Hydra’s enemies were bad people as well, they did deserve to die, and although he felt sick at the fact he did it in their name, he didn’t resent the fact that he took them out. Innocent people, though, people that were killed only to get to other bigger threats, people that were killed as a message … Pietro felt the guilt eat away at him, and it was killing him a little more each and every day.

He took a sharp breath, listening to the desperation in Lorna’s voice, the certainty with which she spoke. “I …” Pietro cut himself off. He thought of all the things that he had done, from telling MJ that she must’ve never loved him the way she claimed, to fighting back against his sister, even if he had pulled his punches. “I think I’m the same?” Pietro said. It sounded like a question even to his own mind. It made him feel as if he had been punched in the gut by a genocidal robot, or like those bullets were tearing through him all over again. “I had people, people I loved more than anything, and I did some fucked up things. Said some fucked up things. Maybe -- maybe that’s what I got from him.” Maybe Pietro had never really known how to love someone. That didn’t seem possible, considering what he felt for Wanda in particular, but Magneto certainly thought he was acting out of something like affection, when all he was doing was breaking them in pieces.

Maybe he really was young, even now. Young and naive, because he couldn’t imagine walking away from the Avenges in a million years. All he’d ever wanted since he developed these powers was to be a hero, just like the Avengers, just like Mr. Stark. He wanted to be someone brave and powerful and able to make a difference – someone plain old Peter Parker could never be. Even now, he still got chills when he walked into a team meeting, when he trained in the Tower, when he woke up in the guest room that he’d pretty much claimed as a second home and realized it was all real. 

How did Pietro walk away from that? What made him decide that being a part of that wasn’t enough? “Not a great joke, dude!” he shouted. He was going to say more – something about how slowing down wasn’t the worst thing – but Pietro was already a blue blur, tearing off with the citizens in his arms. That’s when Peter knew it for sure. Whatever Pietro had done, whatever mistakes he made, he was still a hero somewhere in there. 

The thought hit him like a freight train, but it was nothing compared to Lizard’s claws. Peter got the one quip out, but then Lizard tightened his grip, squeezing off his air. Spots danced in front of his eyes – and his oxygen-starved brain still managed to wonder why they always described it as dancing because the spots seemed very still, even as they grew bigger and bigger. He could barely see when Lizard’s head turned, but he heard the shout. Pietro came flying in out of nowhere, and sent both Lizard and Peter flying. Peter sucked in air in deep breaths, and flipped, landing gracefully on the alley wall.

Lizard wasn’t so lucky – he slammed into the opposite wall. “Oxygen, really,” Peter quipped. “But the hand is appreciated.” He hoped Pietro could hear the genuine gratitude in his voice, but there would be time for thanks (and gloating on Pietro’s part) later. Right now, they had an overgrown reptile to deal with. “Let’s put this bad boy back in his tank,” he said, firing up a powerful web blast, and shooting it towards the still slumped Lizard. 

Pietro was only twenty-six years old, one of the youngest Avengers, but there wasn’t a day that went by where he felt it. Perhaps when he had been dating MJ, when the world had stretched out in front of him and he had realised how many years there were left, he had felt as if it was just the beginning, but the grand majority of the time it felt as if he had lived through several wars already, and bore the scars of it in every word he spoke. Some people were born with the predisposition for everything to go to shit, and clearly the son of M would have inherited that himself. His sisters didn’t deserve it, and so it made sense that it was Pietro making all of the mistakes, pushing himself further away even when he was trying to do the right thing.

He had thought that by making sacrifices, he had been doing something good, something decent, something worth doing. That hadn’t been the case. He had made mistakes, that was all, and now it seemed as if he was going to spend the rest of his life atoning for them. “I don’t have time to think up a great joke!” Pietro retorted. Spider-Man was the one that quipped during his battles. Pietro was entirely focused on ending them as quickly as possible and moving onto the next situation, which was what had served against him on the Brotherhood, preventing him from realising what he was truly doing.

“You’re safe here,” Pietro reassured the groups one by one as he set them down in the park, spending more than a few seconds with the children, ensuring they were unharmed. “Are you an Avenger?” one little girl asked, blinking up at him with something like wonder and amusement. Pietro smiled, tight at the edges, and ruffled her hair. “Used to be,” he told her. “Today, I’m just doing the right thing.” As he sped off to rejoin the battle, he thought to himself how many days he would need to do the right thing to make up for all those moments he had chosen the wrong. It seemed impossible, a mountain that he couldn’t see over, but nothing was outside the realms of possibility.

Like most only children, Lorna had longed for siblings once or twice as a child. The concept had seemed a good one, something she didn’t entirely understand but might like to. At a certain age, she’d understood that it wasn’t going to happen, realized that her parents had finished having children and was fine with it. Now, suddenly, twenty-odd years later, she found that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t an only child at all, had half siblings who were complicated, wonderful people that she didn’t remotely understand. She wondered if it was easier for the twins, who’d had one another all their lives and knew what it meant to be someone’s sibling. Lorna couldn’t relate to that, but she was willing to learn. She wanted to learn, wanted to know what that meant, what it felt like.

Lorna raised a brow as Pietro repeated himself. A few months ago, when he’d been little more than a man she’d rescued from a chandelier, she would have teased him for it. Now, she held back, cautious. “You told me to eat it,” she replied stubbornly. “You made me think it was good! There’s no way you enjoyed it, anyways. I’m calling bullshit. That’s bullshit!” A smile played at her lips, widening when he refused a second plate and admitted defeat. It seemed to ease some of the tension between them, like a subtle reminder of who they were together. She shrugged as Pietro spoke again, eyes on Doom. As he spoke, her stomach tightened, and she clenched her jaw before glancing back to Pietro. “I kinda feel like I should blame you for this,” she admitted. “You pretty much said ‘what could possibly go wrong,’ which everybody knows is an invitation for shit to hit the fan, so. Your fault.” The crowd began glancing around, more than a few eyes landing on Lorna and Pietro with their brightly colored hair. “I’m all for superspeed,” she agreed with a brisk nod. “Just don’t, like, break me or whatever.”

Most siblings had more than enough time to get to know each other, to realise where they stood, to mould into each other and find their place in the family. Lorna had been closer to Wanda than Pietro before the reveal, and in the wake of it, Pietro felt as if he was scrambling to catch up. Then came the obvious question as to whether Magneto was enough of a connection to even consider a family at all - the man was a monster, in every conceivable version of the word, and Pietro understood now what it felt like to be caught up in his web, to be manipulated to his bidding. Still, when Pietro looked at Lorna, he didn’t see their father. He saw someone that reflected the same determination as Wanda, who shared his own stubborn streak, who had fought back against her own power and self doubt more times than she could count.

For those reasons, despite the father that bound them together, Pietro was determined to develop a relationship with his sister. Family meant more than anything else, it was unbreakable, the blood between them shared forever, and in a world that was ever-changing, having that stability was necessary. “My enhanced metabolism alters my, um, taste receptors. On my tongue.” If only Pietro had listened during Stark’s incessant rambling before the guy cut him off from Avengers’ networks - understandably, considering. “Of course you do. You’re blaming me for everything tonight, when for once in my life I have been completely innocent. I haven’t even threatened one person tonight!” It came close when a man butted into the line for the bar, but Pietro had refrained. Character growth! “Are we going bridal style or piggy back?” Pietro asked. “I’m only asking because some people get offended with bridal style. And there’s more chance of whiplash. You’ll be fine, though, I’ll go like, half speed. Promise. Cross my heart, hope not to die.”

Kate had made a lot of mistakes in her life. Some of them just as willfully as Pietro made his. She’d chosen to go after that Skrull alone. She’d chosen to leave Clint for all those months. And she’d chosen to kill that Syndicate member. It was the choices that mattered, and Kate knew making the wrong ones could eat you up inside. Hollow you out until there was nothing left but shame. 

Looking at Pietro now, that’s what she saw. Shame, guilt, regret. Remorse. She didn’t know how it happened, she hadn’t been keeping tabs on him. When she walked away, she walked away hard, and she knew there was no way to chase him down the path he’d chosen. He had to choose to come back on his own, or else it wouldn’t mean anything. She hoped he would, believed he would – after all, Pietro had a good heart in his chest. If he ever slowed down to think, he might even realize that. 

She couldn’t very well turn him away, not when he’d done so much for her in the past. Without him, she might still be stuck in that rut, that quicksand-like thinking that pulled her deeper and deeper into shame and dark thoughts. Pietro had made her face it head on, instead of closing her eyes and letting it swallow her whole. She hadn’t forgotten that. Never would. 

He moved past her slowly, like he was afraid he might spook her, scare her off from listening. But Kate just casually strode into the den, flopped down on one of the expensive couches like it was any other day. “Well, it’s not exactly my style,” she said, making a face at the overtly pretentious decorating scheme, the thousand-dollar artwork on the walls, the sofas designed to be viewed, not sat on. She deliberately put her feet on them now, shoes and all. “But it was empty, so I figured, why let it go to waste? It’s a decent headquarters.” The Young Avengers needed their own space, to train, to define themselves. So much of them was wrapped up in other, older heroes, but it was time for them to grow and come into their own. “Wood’s over there,” she said, pointing to it. “And there’s a lighter somewhere on the mantle.” She watched him as he moved, the nerves clear, the shame tying knots in his stomach that even she could feel. “If you were proud of it, you wouldn’t be here,” she said gently. “So maybe that’s a good thing. But last time we talked…” She trailed off, sighing softly, shaking her head. “You didn’t seem to care about hurting people. So what changed?” 

The issue with the Brotherhood, the one mountain that Pietro couldn’t clear without thinking about it a little more intently, was the fact that he had truly believed he was doing the right thing. When he gradually began to realise that there was something amiss he had continued to fight, at least until, as she always had, his sister showed him the way back to the light. At the beginning, though, there had been no question in Pietro’s mind that he had been converting to the side that would fit him the most appropriately.

He knew that the Brotherhood had done bad things, that they were considered terrorists, but one man’s terrorist was another man’s freedom fighter. The humans constantly rewrote mutant history in order to make those more powerful than they were seem small, they discriminated against them to keep them down and assuage their own fear, and so what was Pietro to do besides listening to what the leader himself had to say, and figure it out for himself? The Brotherhood was his birthright, it was his legacy, and if he hadn’t explored it, he would’ve spent his entire life wondering whether that was who he was meant to be, who he was destined to be.

Naturally, Steph had to elaborate. Gestures were also absolutely necessary. “It’s like when you’re driving,” she explained, placing her hands on an imaginary steering wheel, “and there’s an accident on the side of the road. And you sneak a peek as you pass it, and keep looking? That’s rubbernecking.” She paused. “You could probably just run back without needing to turn your neck, and you don’t need a car…” She was digressing, just a little.

For a minute, Steph wished for some super speed herself. Getting Quicksilver with jazz hands on video would’ve been the coup of all coups, the meme to end all memes. Instead, she pretended not to see it. “You want some style?” She asked, teasing. “Change your look to all purple. Eggplant purple. This makes everybody look good, trust me.”

“There’s this guy, Anton,” Steph answered, producing an old photograph of their target that she found online. This discovery happened purely by chance, but Steph was never one to back down from an opportunity. “He’s been trying to set up a trafficking ring in Hudson Yards to…uh, distract people from the demons and Doom and stuff. It’s still small, but…” She shrugged, eager to get going and punch Anton’s daylights out. You had to be some kind of evil to set a ring up while in another dimension. “It’s around, and we should put a stop it.” 

“Okay,” Pietro said, blinking a few times as he focused on what Spoiler was saying. “There’s just one problem with this whole explanation. Not that it wasn’t great, it was, and very entertaining, but it’s just -- I don’t drive. No one really did where I was from.” The main cities were definitely as developed as New York, but the little villages that the Maximoffs had hidden out in were another story entirely. People there could barely afford to keep clothes on their back, after all. “I appreciate it anyway. Thanks for introducing me to more American … culture? I suppose.”

Pietro made a noise in the back of his throat that clearly displayed his disbelief in that particular sentiment. “Blue is better” he added, rather petulantly. She hadn’t provided any evidence, so neither would he. Their arguments were typically settled on a draw anyway. They were both too stubborn for anything else!

“I’m from California,” Xavin said automatically. “Does that count as not from around here?” Truthfully, they weren’t sure they needed to hide all that much. It was fairly evident that this man wasn’t an ordinary human. Even if they looked past his appearance - it seemed possible for humans to look like whatever they wanted - the way he was constantly in motion, actually seeming to vibrate, was definitely not something an ordinary human could do. At least no ordinary human that they had met. Far more likely, he was one of the varieties of enhanced humans, which meant they had at least a little in common. And they could pretend to be a mutant, if need be, if that became necessary. They’d done so before, fairly successfully.

Giving him an unimpressed look, they continued “Since I moved here, there has been open warfare in the streets of this city twice, with a silent invasion sandwiched in the middle. Why do you expect me to be surprised by this?” It was a reasonable question, they thought. Considering everyone that had happened, someone standing up to the demons in the streets, doing something about them, was actually the least surprising thing they’d seen in a long time. “Not every rule is reasonable,” they agreed cautiously. Some, of course, were necessary. But some of the laws humans insisted on were foolish. They could easily see that, and they wondered sometimes why the humans couldn’t. “I don’t believe that’s how that saying works,” they said, with the hint of doubt that came from growing up not human.

While they weren’t sure they believed what he was saying, they were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay,” they said simply. Then, watching the exchange with the man behind the stand with no small degree of entertainment, they added “I think you sounded too sarcastic. You may have offended the nice hamburger man.” They delivered this advice in their most solemn voice.

“Counts enough. Different kind of life out there, isn’t it?” It wasn’t quite as far away as Pietro had come from, but there was still something to be said for the connection that existed between outsiders, regardless of how far they were from home. New York was built up of them people that came from far and wide. It was part of the reason his sister adored the city so much. Pietro, although he had been loathe to admit it out loud even to this moment, found himself settling down roots among the cracked pavements and yellow taxi cabs as well. Finding stable footing was something he had never imagined, seemed too good to be true, but maybe there were good things out there that he hadn’t yet ruined, that he might not ever bring to disrepair.

Pietro laughed, shrugging as he did so. “Fair enough,” he replied. “Still, on the way here I heard a woman say that the most devastating thing that had ever happened to her in her life was Starbucks getting her latte order wrong and giving her full fat milk as opposed to 0%. Sorry if I don’t have faith in people’s perceptions.” This person, though, did seem a little different than the normal. Pietro had learned a long time ago not to take the fact that any person he talked to was a civilian, but heroes, despite their numbers, were few and far between. There was no reason to assume this person was amongst their ranks. “Finally, someone who sees sense!” Pietro declared loudly, ignoring the looks he received from passersby on their phones. “It’s close enough. I’m making that saying better.”

@gcttagofcst

She never saw him coming her way, but she did hear him. Usually. Metal would rattle, the ground would shake, and streetlights would hum, sparking life into the old bulbs. Quicksilver, she thought with relief, feeling her cape snap sideways in the sudden burst of wind and sound. Searching the area for him was a lost cause (and probably funny-looking from his perspective), so Steph simply waited for him to show up, smirking behind her mask.

“Don’t you walk anywhere?” She asked, when the familiar head of silver hair slowed down enough for her to see him. “Or do you rubberneck your way through town all the time?” 

As far as complications in relationships went, briefly dabbling with terrorism came pretty high up on that list. With most of his old friendships more than a little strained, Pietro was grateful for the fact that there were others that had remained more or less the same as his allegiances had shifted, and eventually his vigilante career had established. Spoiler was one of them, and tonight he knew exactly where to meet her, only a few steps away from the docks, even though they were both more than aware that was a demon hotspot.

Tonight would be fun, he could feel it.

Alex drops his arm when the guy retreats with a humiliated look on his face, but decides it’s probably better to stay where he is just in case he decides that he’s not done with being a dickhead–which considering the state of the city at the moment and the publication of the list, would be far from surprising. “Don’t mention it, this whole thing is ridiculous and it was a lot less messy than just straight up punching him in the face, which was my other thought. But that would have meant I’d really have no way to get out of dinner with my brother, and I just can’t handle that today.” He chuckles and rolls his eyes, shrugs his shoulders. Of course he loves Scott, and most of the time Alex is greedy for every second that he can steal with him, but sometimes it just feels like too much–Scott will look at him like he’s a ghost and will disappear if he looks away, or Alex will feel guilty that his memories of their parents and their life together before the crash are faint–some days there’s just too much tied up in it. 

“Well, you have one anyway.” He smiles warmly and tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket and shrugs again. He sounds surprised at the fact, and Alex wants to say that he doesn’t really care about the politics of the Brotherhood versus the X-Men or whatever, but he’s had enough of politics in the past week to last him a lifetime, so he moves past it. “And I’ve been told by several homicidal maniacs that I’m even more powerful than my brother, so maybe you even lucked out. You’re also lucky that I wasn’t lying about my meeting with my advisor either–it really did run long and I think I might actually pass away or potentially burn this whole shop down if I don’t get coffee in my bloodstream.” 

“Messy and ridiculous is basically my life right now,” Pietro said with a smirk, but he supposed the same could be said of the past four years, give or take. Life in Sokovia had been hard, they had been sick and sore on the streets for the grand majority of it with not enough to eat or wear, but poverty was simple in a way heroics weren’t. Physical pain was something that he could handle, mental pain was another thing entirely. “But if we both punched him, we could definitely get out of dodge before he even knew what hit him. Literally.” Advocating punching random humans in the street merely for irritating him was quite close to his father, but Pietro supposed it was warranted. It had been a hard few days for the city, everyone was on edge, and he was allowed to be a part of that. “You could always just get a sign and write ‘telepath convention on 103rd Street,’ and that would definitely divert him long enough for you to get other dinner plans,” Pietro suggested. He had many weaknesses, but one that he didn’t seem to have was a predisposition to his heart leading the way. A small blessing, amongst it all.

It was hard sometimes, saving people who didn’t quite deserve saving. It had never come naturally to Lorna, never been something she excelled at without thinking, without flinching. The X-Men jumped in and saved people who wanted them dead, stood up for politicians who’d put them in camps or engineers who built giant robots dedicated to eradicating mutantkind, and Lorna went along with it because that was what heroes were supposed to do. She never believed in it the way they did, never felt the intense hope that the ordeal would change people the way the other X-Men promised it would. She wanted desperately to help her people, and for a time, the Brotherhood had seemed like a better way to do that. Their methods were violent and unforgiving, but they were effective. They kept mutants safe.

If not for Magneto admitting to what he’d done, if not for what he’d told her, she had no doubt that she would have given in to his twisted morality eventually. She would have used her powers the same way he used his, would have been just as destructive and violent as she had been as a child when she’d twisted the plane to pieces around her and torn it apart. That violence had always lived inside of her, always hovered quietly beneath the surface, and it still did. She didn’t think it would ever go away, didn’t think she’d ever be completely rid of it. It was a part of her. It was in her blood.

“I didn’t,” she agreed, because at least that was true. She hadn’t killed anyone for him, hadn’t gotten to that level. “But I didn’t exactly stop it, either. I didn’t care who he was hurting as long as he didn’t do it in front of me. Like turning a blind eye to it made it go away, like not watching what he did meant he didn’t do it. I didn’t kill anyone, but I didn’t save anyone either.” Was that just as bad? Was letting terrible things happen to people and excusing it on the same level as having a direct hand in it all? She’d heard once that in order for evil to win, all it took was for good people to do nothing. Maybe the phrase would be easier to apply to the situation if she knew whether or not the term ‘good person’ still applied to her at all. “He let us work together,” she repeated, venom in her tone. “I don’t think he ever would have told us. If me and Wanda hadn’t found out on our own, I don’t think he ever would have told us for certain.” She was quiet for a moment, considering. After a pause, she asked, “Do you think there are more? Do you think he just has children in every corner of the globe waiting to be manipulated by him?” She had no doubt that their father wouldn’t clue him in if that was the case, not unless he thought he could use the information to get them where he wanted them. Every move Erik Lehnsherr made was done to manipulate, and his children were not exempt from that. If anything, his manipulation only seemed to intensify where they were involved.

She nodded as he spoke, relating intensely to the sentiment. Was this going to be their lives now? Were the three of them going to spend every second of every day fighting to be better than their father? “Then don’t be,” she told him, talking to herself as much as him. “You’re in control of your own life now. You get to choose how to act, who to be. If you don’t want to be him, then don’t be him. Be you. Make up for what you’ve done, be better. You still have people in your corner.” She’d never had siblings before, never had much of a family at all, but she thought you were meant to fight for them. She thought you were meant to stand up for them, to be there for them. She could do that, she figured. She could be in his corner if he could be in hers.

For the first time since the conversation started, a genuine smile slid across her features. “Okay,” she agreed. “We don’t have to be good, and we don’t have to be bad, either. We can just be us. Anything’s better than him, right?” Luckily, Lorna didn’t think they had to aim very high to be better people than their father. She saw the anger simmer across her brother’s face the moment the realization hit him, recognized the way his eyes were burning from all the times she’d seen the expression on her own face in the mirror. In that moment, she saw the family resemblance between the two of them better than she ever had. “Pietro, no,” she said softly, putting a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “It won’t do anyone any good.” She was rarely the levelheaded one in any situation, rarely argued against violence where violence was absolutely warranted, but he’d just spoken about how much he didn’t want to be like their father, and killing him would only push him closer to the person he didn’t want to be. Lorna couldn’t be the reason he turned back to that, couldn’t be the thing that made her brother into a man he hated. “That’s a pretty good reason to get out,” she pointed out quietly. “You got out because you love your sister, because you didn’t want to be the sort of person who’d fight against her. That’s a good reason.” She snorted when he spoke again, shaking her head. “You know you’re better than you give yourself credit for, right?” 

Pietro's conversion to the Brotherhood had started almost the moment that he arrived on American soil. Xavier’s had been a place that felt more like a family than a school, which was the entirety of the reason why he felt deeply uncomfortable being among the X-Men’s ranks. He had lived his life with Wanda and Wanda alone, and that was enough for him, that was what safety felt like. Still, his sister had grown close to a lot of people in the school, and so he had spent more and more time there by extension. He had found himself in the library, pouring through Magneto’s lore, the books that had been composed about his speeches. Pietro had never been studious, but those books were something that captivated him, the idea that the mutant gene made him something special, made them the next phase of evolution, that one day they would rise up above their oppressors, and then they would know even a fraction of the pain that they had caused for hundreds of years.

Genetics meant destiny, according to Magneto. For other people that might have been a relief, to know that they belonged, to know they had a clear line to follow. For Pietro, Wanda and Lorna, that was a death sentence. It meant they were destined to become the villain of the story, a person that manipulated those around them, people that they were supposed to love, for their own ends. Pietro stepped back and he looked at his life thus far and he could recognise, now, that he had been Magneto for a lot longer than anyone might have suspected. He had never seen a sign of the Master of Magnetism in his sister, despite her arguments, but he saw Magneto every single time he looked into the mirror. Once, that had been a good thing. Now, it was a nightmare, reminding him how easily he could go down that path, how he almost already had.

“You were sure of who you were,” Pietro said with a shrug, even though none of this conversation felt casual. Truthfully, he had no idea how to interact with Lorna, how to be a part of her life. She was his sister, but she hadn’t been there since birth, hadn’t been beside him in everything. Yet, like he had said, she was here. That meant something. “Considering how much of a dick our dad is, that’s a really cool thing to be.” Lorna, surely, had to have the same identity crisis as Pietro had when his parentage was revealed. She had to wonder who she was, how many people had lied to her to hide the truth. Still, she knew that taking a life was something she didn’t want to do. How many could say that with certainty, in the life they led? “Hey, I turned a blind eye to a lot of it as well,” Pietro said. “I thought we were protecting mutants, and we were. I didn’t pay attention to the people we were hurting as a side effect.”

Wanda had known about Lorna before him. Pietro didn’t have any right to be even irritated by that considering the fact that it had been his decisions that caused the bond to break between them. Besides, it was Lorna’s secret to tell, her choice whether she wanted Pietro in her life. (Was that what this meant, her coming to him? That she wanted a relationship?) “I don’t think we’ll ever know,” Pietro admitted, a muscle in his jaw tightening. “No one can even get into his mind as long as he has that thing on his head.” Surely if Xavier could get through that barrier he would have by now? Surely he would have prevented Magneto from doing all the things he did, even if it meant taking away his free will? “Yeah. Yeah, I have people.” Pietro paused for a moment. “One more person than I had before, right?” It was a tentative question, though he said it fast enough that it might be mistaken for confidence.

If there was one thing Lorna never did, it w as turn down free food. That was part of the reason why she’d come to the party in spite of her reservations about the man throwing it. There was no telling how many more chances she’d get to enjoy free food that was actually enjoyable, no way to know just how far the food they had in New York would go even with President Doom adamantly insisting it would last them as long as they needed. She hadn’t gone to the party looking for much more than a meal, but so far, she’d been having fun anyways. Hanging out with Alex away from the crowd was relaxing, and mingling in with people she knew and people she didn’t was fun, too.

Turning at the sound of a familiar voice, she offered Pietro a smile. “Hey,” she replied, feeling a little uncertain at the sight of him. She still wasn’t sure exactly how to react to her new siblings. She and Wanda had discussed their situation at length, talking about what they wanted their relationship to be, but she and Pietro hadn’t really gotten that far yet. Reaching over, she took one of the sausages from his plate and popped it into her mouth. “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten,” she told him, making a face. “I can’t believe you made me eat that.” She made another face as he cheered for Doom, trying to school her features into something a little more neutral as someone looked at her. “Yeah, what a guy,” she agreed dryly, glancing up as the man himself got on stage. 

Going from one sibling to two was something that should not have been as complicated as it was, but when the sibling came fully grown, twenty-odd years later than most people met their little sister, that was to be expected. When Magneto had told Wanda of Anya, Pietro had immediately responded to the news with excitement, eager to expand the family, but that had been when the twins would face it together. Now, Lorna was walking into a relationship that was deeply strained, trying to find her footing, and Pietro wasn’t exactly sure how to help her in that regard, only that he wanted to (though maybe that was as good a place as any to start).

“Hey,” Pietro repeated, before he realised that he had said that before, and swallowed thickly. Luckily, the awkward tension was somewhat relieved when Lorna made a face, and Pietro found himself laughing. “I did not make you eat it,” he argued. “I just suggested that you should. I, for one, think they’re delicious.” At his words the waiter walked past again and offered him the plate, and Pietro grimaced. “Okay, you’ve made your point,” he said as the waiter walked away once again. “You know, we should be grateful. Most of these parties end up with some kind of war happening at the end of them. Calm comes before the storm, all that. At least tonight there’s only bad sausages to deal with!” With that, Pietro went silent, listening as Doom spoke. He could feel the smile drain from his face, the sense of foreboding building in his stomach. “Hey,” Pietro said, knocking his hand against Lorna’s arm, “I get the feeling we should leave.” Doom flashed up a list, and the crowd immediately broke into conversation. “I vote for superspeed, honestly. You in?”

She remembered once, when she was very young, she came across her mother crying. It was late, far past her bedtime, but her mother hadn’t complained when Kate wandered into the study and hugged her. She told Kate she had just finished a shift at the soup kitchen, and heard some terrible news. One of the men had broken his promise to her, and it devastated her mother though Kate didn’t understand why until she googled the obituaries the next day. She saw a story about a homeless man, found overdosed. 

Standing in front of Pietro, listening to him tell her he was leaving the Avenger’s, abandoning his sister, all to go team up with terrorists – Kate had wanted to sob just like her mother that night. She understood now, what it was like to watch someone you care about just throw everything away. To watch them take a risk with their life, one you knew could end horribly. She had tried, she couldn’t deny that, but it hadn’t been enough. And as she walked away, knowing the road Pietro was headed down, she didn’t just wonder if she’d been wrong about him – but whether he’d been wrong about her. Would a better hero had been able to stop him? Change his mind?

She’d never know. There was no way to know. All she knew was her heart lurched unpleasantly at the sight of him, but she couldn’t shut the door in his face. Not now, not if there was hope. “Apology not accepted. Yet,” she said, stepping back, to let him inside. “There’s a den over there,” she said, nodding towards the left. “It’s got a fireplace, and it was where my therapist and I used to talk. It’s good for secrets. And confessions,” she said pointedly. “C’mon, Sonic. Let’s hear it all.” She’d light a fire, she’d make him sit still for once in his life, and she’d listen. Obviously he had a lot to say. 

Pietro had never asked for forgiveness before. He had never begged someone to understand where he was coming from, either, or asked them to stay, or fallen in love with someone so hard that losing her came damn close to breaking him. Living in Sokovia, being Hydra’s pawn, moving between states in Eastern Europe until the Avengers burst in with their genocidal robot and their city-lifting escapades meant that by the time Pietro made his mistakes and realised the need to apologise for them, the person that he had betrayed, the people that he had hurt, were dead. Dead or gone, never to see him again, vanished into the night because that was the only way that they could survive.

Relationships like what he had in America, relationships that were to exist and last for the foreseeable future, were something that were novel for him to navigate, and he knew thus far he was doing an absolutely terrible job. He had abandoned the Avengers, his sister, his family for a man that was his by blood, but had done unforgivable things. He had left without remorse, it had taken weeks for him to realise what he was doing was something worth being ashamed about, and even when he did, it had taken fighting against his sister for him to truly be able to leave the Brotherhood’s ranks. Pietro wasn’t strong. He wasn’t a hero. He was just a man with extraordinary abilities, but even those paled in comparison to the integrity, the goodness, that other heroes showed on a daily basis.

Xavin wanted to explain to him just how much they understood fault, and the readiness of this world (and others) to assign it whether it was earned or not. Although in their case, they’d managed to be faulted both for violence and for lack of it. First by their parents, who had tried their hardest to mold them into everything a Skrull ought to be. And then, by their friends, when they’d assumed they knew how to exist among other beings and couldn’t even approach those they wanted to know without violence. But their understanding of how easy it was to fall on the wrong side of blame was too much tied up in what they were, so the explanation had to stay private.

“I don’t think I would be,” they said softly instead, vague, but still getting their point across. “Surprised, that is. But killing these things can only help people.” They wanted to think that most people would agree. They might still struggle, occasionally, to find a balance between the morals their parents had tried to teach them and the ones they’d learned since they came to this planet, and to decide for themself how to put what they settled on into practice. In this moment, they weren’t struggling at all. The demons were not human, and they were a serious threat. Doing what was needful to make them stop being a threat was a good thing, without question. “You don’t seem very convincing,” they pointed out. “But I still have no intention of calling the police.” 

They frowned.  “If you’re broke, perhaps I should be the one offering to buy you a burger. Though admittedly, that wouldn’t work as well for a bribe.” But then, they didn’t really need to be bribed to keep their silence, so it wasn’t a bribe at all, really. Just a hamburger.

Most people would have been raising their eyebrows at Pietro within a moment of meeting him, or at least feeling a tad uncomfortable at the words that were coming out of his mouth. It was clear to look at him that he was a mutant. He did not pass in the same way as his sister had for all of those years, his hair was a bright brilliant white that few accepted as dye, and he rarely stood still, instead vibrating in place. It was impossible to pretend to be human, and his father was of the opinion that they shouldn’t even attempt to try, but that meant that oftentimes Pietro was treated with hostility. His fall from the Avengers wasn’t something heavily publicised, but it was still something people could’ve heard of through the grapevine.

For both of these reasons, someone sticking around in front of him without flinching was almost a novelty, nevermind the brief moment of hesitation that hung between them, almost as if the person was contemplating how to say they understood completely where Pietro was coming from. “Guessing you’re not from around here either, then?” Pietro asked casually, though the insinuation in his words was far from that. “Americans tend to be surprised by everything.” There was no doubt in his mind that this country had more than its fair share of violence, but compared to the former Iron Curtain states, they were in a relative place of Eden. “Breaking the rules a little bit never hurt anyone.” Compared to what he had been doing the past few months, breaking the laws entirely, that was true. “It’s the spice of life, as they say.”

It was hard not to look at Pietro and see the look of crushing disappointment on Wanda’s face. No, no it was more than disappointment – it was grief. Like the brother she had always relied on, the twin who was her other half, had died. For real this time, and in a way there was no coming back from.

But Peter had always believed in second chances. And third chances, and fourth chances – and maybe that was naive or whatever Frank Castle had said, but it was a core part of him. Something he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. And why would he? The alternative was looking at Pietro and seeing nothing but a lost cause, and Peter knew that nothing was ever that simple. 

“Uh huh,” he shot back, almost smirking under the mask. “It’s the new thing, buddy. We’re all picking our favorite super-bads and –” Peter had to stop mid-sentence to duck under Lizard’s tail and backflip away from the swipe of his claws. “Patience is a virtue, ever hear that before? Some of us don’t have superspeed!” He shot a web towards Lizard. It went wide, sticking to a light post instead. “Then get to it!” he yelled, taking a running start and leaping towards the villain. He landed on his back, and immediately went for the blinding tactic, aiming for Lizard’s eyes. Out of the corner of his own, he could see Pietro speeding off with the civilians, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Only for a moment though – even blinded, Lizard was still dangerous. One of his huge claws reached back and snatched Peter by the neck. Spots danced in front of his eyes, his feet dangled off the ground as Lizard held him up in front of his maw. “Dude–” Peter choked out. “Two words. Breath. Mint.” 

The Avengers had never been a team that Pietro had particularly aligned himself with. He had been a part of their ranks, had been one of their own on battles and had been front and centre when Jameson’s lackeys came around to take photographs of them to later rag on as much as possible, but that didn’t mean that they had any kind of special place in his heart -- or at least that was what Pietro had assumed. He had never shared Peter’s enthusiasm for the team, hadn’t dedicated his life entirely to being a part of them, but when they were gone, he had noticed their absence. Maybe that was what family was, after all, not missing something until they weren’t there anymore, a fundamental piece of his life missing.

Either way, he had other things to be focusing on besides his inner quandaries at that time, something that he was insanely grateful for. “You’re lucky he cut you off, because you were about three words away from being so embarrassing I would let you be eaten,” Pietro deadpanned. Dodging the Lizard’s claws was easy, but helping the civilians get out of dodge was a little more complicated. “Maybe for people too slow to be impatient!” Pietro called back. Group by group the onlookers were removed, placed into a safe spot on the greens of Central Park, and left to go about their daily business as if their lives hadn't been in grave danger mere moments before. New Yorkers, man. One thing that Pietro did notice was that he had absolutely zero exhaustion where before, he would have been panting within moments. Maybe Magneto had a point -- at least when it came to his teaching. “Hey, Gecko!” Pietro yelled. The Lizard turned to look at him, and Pietro jumped up onto one of the benches, using it as leverage to launch himself into the air. He punched the Lizard right below the eye, applying a bit of superspeed for good measure, and landed on the ground again with a satisfied smirk. “Need a hand?”

For other people, family was everything. It was something Lorna had heard said a million times over the years, something she’d accepted as the truth simply because it was repeated often. When her powers developed and her parents responded by throwing her out in the streets, entirely unapologetic, she’d begun to doubt the common phrase. She knew now that they’d never really been her family, that they’d taken her in after her biological mother’s death and housed her out of a sense of duty towards her mother’s husband, but they’d never cared for her the way they should have. When she uncovered her hidden memories, when Wanda showed her the truth about her biological mother’s death, Lorna sort of figured she’d missed her shot for family. Her mother was dead and she had no one to blame but herself, and she had to learn to live with that.

Then came Magneto. He dropped a bomb in her lap and expected her to respond with gratitude, told her of her half-siblings while refusing to divulge any information about them. If he was the only family she got, she figured she’d been better off with no one. Family went from a vague concept to a nightmarish reality, and with no hope of finding her half-siblings and no idea of what they might be like, she’d figured it would stay that way. Finding out what she had about Wanda had been purely accidental, a stroke of luck that she hoped was good. She knew now who her family was, but while Magneto fell definitively under the descriptor of ‘bad’ and Wanda clearly under the one of ‘good,’ she had no idea where Pietro fit. Did his time with the Brotherhood damn him, or was he saved by his  decision to leave it? If he was terrible for joining them temporarily, did that make Lorna lost, too? “I think being away from them is enough of a start,” she said quietly. “For both of us.” 

She’d heard of Anya from Wanda only briefly, heard of the cruel way in which Erik had revealed their sister’s fate. It was strange, knowing that she’d had yet another half-sibling who’d died long before Lorna was even born. It felt like it should hurt, like she should feel that a part of herself was missing, but it didn’t. She couldn’t mourn what she’d never known, and people could hardly be born with pieces missing. She’d much rather focus on what she’d found than what was lost, anyways. “He wouldn’t tell me anything,” she said quietly. “He said — He told me I had half-siblings, that they were in the city, but when I asked… He told me he couldn’t say anymore. That he had to respect their privacy. Your privacy.” Coming as it had, moments after he’d admitted to digging through Lorna’s mind and picking apart her memories to keep her from knowing what she was capable of, it seemed laughable. She found it hard to believe that their father cared about any of their privacy. He saw them only as things to manipulate, to control. To him, they were little more than potential weapons. “I’m here,” she repeated, still utterly uncertain. This all felt so strange, so unknowable. How did you navigate through life going from an only child one moment to someone with a pair of siblings the next? They didn’t exactly make ‘how-to’ guides for this.

As he spoke again, expressing his fear that becoming like their father was inevitable, Lorna shook her head. “I think… I think the fact that you’re asking yourself that at all means that you’re not him.” The path to hell was supposedly paved with good intentions, but didn’t it say enough about a person if they simply wanted to be decent? Wasn’t trying to grow, to be the sort of person who did the right thing for the right reasons in the right way enough? “I’m not sure I’m good,” she admitted with a shrug. “I fell for what he was saying, too. I don’t think… I wouldn’t have left if it hadn’t gotten personal.“ She paused for a moment, closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath. “He stole my memories, Pietro. Plucked them right out of my head when I was a kid. If he hadn’t done that, if he hadn’t told me he did it, I think I’d still be there. I don’t think that makes me good. I’m not sure I can be good.” Her voice was small at the confession. Was there any hope for her? For any of them? Wanda was a great hero, an Avenger through and through, but what if she was the outlier? 

Pietro wasn’t entirely sure what was wrong with him, if it was even something that could have a name put to it. His life had been dedicated to survival for almost its entirety. On the streets of Sokovia, he had stolen and felt no remorse for it, because what was to feel guilt for, when all he was doing was keeping food on his family’s table? With Hydra, he had killed because he knew that they would only hurt him if he didn’t, and by extension that would hurt Wanda. (Her weakness had always been him, her only weakness, and he hated himself for that.) The Avengers and X-Men had preached that life should not be extinguished, that everyone should have the opportunity for a second chance, and Pietro had rolled his eyes, had known from past experience that there were people out there who could never be redeemed. He knew that the ‘good guys’ were only tempting fate allowing them to live another day.

That was why he had assumed that joining the Brotherhood would be an easy call to make. He could kill in the name of his people, could make it so that mutants never again had to fear those who would rather make them extinct than live with someone different, someone terrifyingly powerful in their cities. Perhaps if things had been as simple as that, if Pietro had only been killing those that had done something wrong rather than those who it served as a message to kill, then he would still be in his father’s employ. Fighting people that were good, though, even if Pietro didn’t entirely believe in their methods, was not something he was willing to do. Hurting his sister -- that was something he wasn’t willing to do, and he would fight to prove that until his dying day, even if she never spoke to him again.

“You didn’t do what I did,” Pietro said slowly. Lorna was binding herself in with him, was throwing her hat into the ring of familial villainy, and that wasn’t fair. “You don’t know what I did, how many I … how many I killed for him. He gave me a mission, told me to jump, and I said how high. I never questioned it.” Superspeed meant that Pietro could complete hundreds of missions in a night. For the Avengers, that had been a blessing. With the Brotherhood, it had turned out to be a curse, meaning he barely had time to recognise what he was doing, to think about it, before dozens were dead by his hand. They weren’t good people, but only now was he realising that might not matter. “So he let us work together,” Pietro said lowly. “He let us work together, never once telling us?”

Magneto had manipulated Wanda, had taken advantage of her good heart. He had never shown the same concern, the same affection, for Pietro, and so he had assumed that he had his eyes wide open when it came to his father. In the last moment, though, the man had said those three words, words Pietro wasn’t sure whether he had meant or not. “I don’t want to be,” Pietro said finally, voice thin. As the days passed, as he realised what he had done, he grew more and more exhausted. He had never been this tired before. Even after his parents’ deaths, he had been angry, never empty. “I don’t want to be what he is. I had a good life, Lorna, you know? I had people -- people who loved me, really loved me.” Whether he could ever get back to that, whether he deserved to, was another story entirely. Pietro sincerely doubted both counts.

Pietro had been of the opinion that he would rather die than go to Doom’s stupid party. Then, on his nightly run around the city, he had seen the party raging on in the Empire State Building and had been inclined to check it out. Just a quick run through, he had told himself, but that plan, as so many other plans of his did, changed rapidly. He spotted green hair first, and then heard laughter, and he stopped himself about a metre away from Polaris, Lorna Dane, his sister. It wasn’t as if he had come to the party specifically to run into someone that he knew because he felt lonely or anything, that would be pathetic and Pietro Maximoff, while he was many other things, had never been pathetic. Mostly. It was just a coincidence, really, his own curiosity leading him to this place.

Even in his own mind the argument didn’t land, but luckily Pietro didn’t think Lorna would question him too intently. He pushed his hair back, smoothing it out from the wind, and grabbed a few of the appetisers that the waiters were carrying around the party. “Hey,” he said, figuring that was as good a start as any. “Tried any of the sausages yet? They are really good.” At that, Pietro popped one of the appetisers in his mouth. The sausage was absolutely disgusting, but he forced a grin after swallowing it basically whole regardless. “A really acquired taste! Doom, um, knows his stuff.” Another partygoer looked at him, raising her eyebrow. “Go Doom?” Pietro attempted. “Wow, tough crowd.”