moodboard : peter “ quicksilver “ maximoff 

The quiet was welcome in a way that might have surprised the people who used to know him. He was a natural yapper but in his time away he'd learned to live with silence and stillness even and especially when it felt like sandpaper on raw nerve. So he waited quietly and let the blanket of anticipation settle over them hard. It reminded him of the cats he sometimes found on the streets of Paris. The ones where he just needed to wait silently until they came to him, the trust fragile as a pane of ice.

And then Pietro started talking again. And he listened. And he hoped.

"When I left, left all de most impo'tant t'ings behind." Remy said while his heart rattled around inside his chest. He could feel the hurt he'd caused and knew they were going to have a hell of a road ahead trying to even start to repair it. But he'd put in the hard work before on himself and he cared about Pietro far more than he'd ever cared about himself.

"Ain' been wit' no one else. Tried a date'r two but dey wasn' y' an' just stopped." He squeezed both hands again and worried his lower lip with his teeth, anxiety leaking through. "Been missin' y' every day, cher. Whatever ground rules y' got. Ain' want no out."

There was a damn foolish urge to interrupt the conversation and try to kiss Pietro like it was some kind of movie. If it had been twelve years ago? He probably would have done something like that. But he knew better and if things worked out they would finally have the time he'd lost them.

"What y' need from dis one, Pietro? Just name it."

Without much thought to how the action could be interpreted (not that he cared in the moment), Pietro was suddenly on his knees, straddling Remy's waist with a hand firmly against his chest, fingers splayed. It had been years, Pietro knew damn well he was stronger than he looked, even if he was still in recovery. Even if Remy wanted to move, he wasn't getting away easily.

Pietro knew him better than that, though.

"No more secrets. No more lies. No more "better off dealing with it alone" bullshit. Fuck your pride. Fuck my pride. We talk, like fucking adults. And if you fucking bail on me ever again, I'm hunting you down to the ends of the Earth and I will fucking kill you. Are we clear?"

Ah, the most loving of threats.

And he did love him. He'd never stopped, no matter how much he'd wanted to hate him. It was what made this all so much more difficult than it needed to be.

"I can't do it again, Remy. I just can't. I can't fucking handle being left behind again and again and again, I can't fucking do it. I wanted to fucking die, do you understand? I don't feel things like "normal" people. Everything is a catastrophe unless it's a world-ending disaster, I cannot handle you leaving again. And right now, at this very second, you are so incredibly lucky that I'm not pissed enough to put your ass through the roof into the basement."

Then, impulse took over. He wasn't about to give him a moment to speak. Not yet, anyway. Instead his hand moved to grip Remy by the jaw, holding him still and leaning down to press a crushing kiss against his lips. Not ideal for a reunion, especially with his leg screaming in pain, but he was simply punctuating his point.

"Oh really, darling? Care to test that confidence~?"

"Y' right." The agreement was soft and sad and he was wholly unprepared for the way Pietro turned into him. Their hands still held together, the hard smack to his chest, was the closest he'd been to the man in over a decade. He turned his head and let strands of white hair tickle his face but resisted the urge to curl all the way around Pietro... if only because they were still on the roof and this was not the safest or most comfortable.

"I ain' said not'in' dat I should'a. De most we talked was dat dis one weren' supposed t' drink wit'out y' dere an'... well, guessin' y' found de bottles. Know dat weren't happenin'. Kept breakin' dat promise. It weren' somet'in' dat dis one had a whole lotta control over at de time. Were tryin' but it weren' workin'. Needed help but... how could I ask fo' help when we had actual life an' death t'ings t' worry 'bout? Sure ain' felt like dat were possible..."

Remy hoped Pietro hadn't found all the bottles. There were so many bottles. In their room, in their things, in the library, in the kitchen, in the boat house... He hoped that Logan had found at least a few. He hoped none of the younger kids found them. His hiding places were decent enough in his own memory but those memories were soaked in bourbon and couldn't really be trusted.

"Should'a found a way t' call." He murmured softly and brought his other hand up to rest over the one on his chest now. "Dere was dis part'a me dat were afraid if I called y'd ask me t' come back. An' it would just get worse. Left y' de means t' make a fresh start an' hoped--" he stopped, cleared his throat, and pushed on, "--hoped dat y'd leave wit'out dis one here. Hoped dat dere wouldn't be no ties here no mo' an' dat y'd sell de Dalí an' maybe Evangeline an' get away. Maybe y' even show up in Paris."

In the hindsight of a decade of sobriety, it wasn't a good plan. Not without discussing it, not without so many details they hadn't gone over. For his mental state at the time, though? It might have been the best he was capable of.

"Never tried t' hide from y'. Ain' knew dat he wouldn' tell y' where dis one were. Ain' even been usin' no pseudonyms'r not'in'. Just been Remy LeBeau. In Paris. Goin' t' school an' payin' taxes an' workin' a real job an' missin' y' every single day." Remy squeezed both hands and felt slightly guilty at the first fluttering of happiness that came from having Pietro in his arms again. Like a missing piece. "Ain' goin' nowhere wit'out y' dis time, cher. Not unless y' send me away. Might be late, but I'm here fo' y' in any way y' gonna let me."

"Il n'est jamais trop tard pour bien faire, hein?"

Pietro was quiet, probably too quiet for the speedster in a normal moment, but he was weighing his responses carefully. Was he genuinely willing to put himself in a position to be hurt again? After twelve years of feeling broken and abandoned, was he really going to allow this man back into his life? Was he really considering this? Wasn't it too soon?

He knew he wouldn't even be thinking about it at all if Remy had just kept his distance, even at the mansion. He could have managed, somehow.

All this closeness had done was make the ache worse.

There were so many things to discuss, and he absolutely had questions regarding Remy's time away, his reasonings, why he even decided to bother coming back at all...but that wasn't where Pietro's brain was. There was a far more complicated subject on his mind, one that had been plaguing his thoughts for over a decade and he was certain had been driving the telepaths in the mansion fucking insane.

Literally anything else could wait, his brain was waking up again and this was more important, urgent, his anxiety was spiking, his heartrate had him feeling like his ribcage was about to split open, impatient--

This could potentially be horrible.

"...Evangeline is in Logan's garage, the one at the back of the property. The "emergency exit". He's been keeping her tuned up and taking her out for a ride once in a while. Everything else from the townhouse is in storage. I couldn't let anything go." And quieter, like it hurt. "I couldn't let you go. There hasn't been anyone else, couldn't be anyone else, and trust me a few have made some fucking feeble attempts--"

Likely that was not something that was ever going to change. Pietro raised his head a little, glaring daggers at the man he'd, technically, never actually broken up with in the first place.

The anxious, crushing pressure on his hand was more than welcome, it hit a part of him that craved the contact even if it came with that hint of pain. He let the statement sit in the air between them for a few long moments before he lifted their hands to press a kiss against Pietro's knuckles. Slow, probably achingly slow for someone who experienced things so fast, but still far too fast.

"Well if y' ever misplace dat pride, dis one c'n give y' a lift wherever... even t'ough y' used t' carry me around mo' often'n not." Remy smiled, their hands safely lowered between them, though the hold was no less tight. He let the silence fall again and then added, "Heavier now. Put on mo' weight while I weren' smokin' an' drinkin' an' savin' de world."

Not that the Danger Room and his current training schedule weren't bringing all the definition back to his stomach and arms and he had to admit he was looking better in the mirror though he'd never looked bad. The smile faltered a moment and he squeezed softly.

"Really ain' drinkin' no mo'. Not like dat. It'll a'ways be somet'in' dat dis one struggle wit' but been goin' t' t'erapy an' meetin's an' puttin' in dat work. Real sorry dat I couldn't get dat t'gether when we was... hell when we was kids. We was barely mo'n kids..." Another soft squeeze followed and he turned fully to face Pietro.

"Real glad t' be here wit' y' right now."

He didn't say I love you, because it felt like that might be a breaking point. Even if every inch of him practically shouted it. Like it always would for him.

God, his stomach was turning flips. They weren't stupid teenagers anymore, so why was he feeling so awkward and anxious and fluttery over a kiss to the knuckles?

Why was he nervous?

"You never really talked to me about it." The statement was blunt, but it was true. Pietro wasn't stupid, he had found some of Remy's stashes of booze from time to time. It was just that after living with Alvers and Duke for so long it hadn't really occurred to him that it could be a genuine problem for him back then. He pieced things together over time, especially once Remy had vanished, and it had only made him angrier.

Remy had been the only person he had left that had given a shit about him, but he wasn't worth talking to about his problems to maybe help him work through them? In hindsight, Pietro absolutely had not been in the physical or mental state to help anyone, much less himself. It didn't stop him from feeling really really hurt, though.

They had needed each other, more than anything more than ever, and all Pietro had felt was abandoned and useless.

That feeling had lingered.

Fuck.

Turning onto his side on the fucking roof was a horrible idea, especially onto his right side, adding pressure to his leg. It didn't stop him, though. Still gripping Remy's hand with his right, Pietro hid his face against the man's shoulder, his left hand moving up to Remy's chest...and giving him a rather firm SMACK, with a half-hearted balled-up fist.

“Good morning mon lapin.”

Quicksilver & Gambit - All New X-Factor (Issue #1) (1/?)

"Both? Kinda..." Remy looked back at the phone and shrugged, "Do a lotta readin' on restoration techniques but mostly stick wit' de traditional met'ods. Y' know, hand restorin' take longer but it's... peaceful." He shook his head and gestured with the phone again.

"Even if I ain' interested, gotta read up on it 'cause dere gonna be people askin' me since I'm younger'n a lotta de others in de field. A lotta art restorers been in de game a long time. Some'a dem ain' even good wit' smart phones." He sighed the sigh of a person who while not necessarily young themselves has nevertheless been put into the role of "The one who can fix the printer" on too many occasions.

"How were de rounds? C'n put dis away if y' wanna find somet'in' mo' fun t' do."

"Patrol is usually uneventful. On a good day, anyway. Most I'll come across is stupid teenagers doing stupid things out on the edge of thw property or in the woods, tell 'em off, make 'em come back to the mansion." He shrugged, letting himself lean against Remy a little, his chin resting on the man's shoulder. "It's tedious and boring, but it gives me a chance to have a run, keep the strength up in my leg, keep me from going completely bonkers here..."

He hated it there, but it was fairly consistent. It was just boring, and boring equaled bad. Heaving a sigh, he pulled out his own phone to fidget with if nothing else.

"Well as long as y' interested, ain' mind pissin' y' off just a little." The compliment was received and met with a far more confident grin before he turned back to what he was doing.

"Now dis, dis ain' not'in' interestin'. Someone developed dis new technique fo' restorin' art usin' laminate masks over de pieces instead'a restorin' by hand. People talkin' 'bout it." Remy gestured with his phone some and turned it towards Pietro despite being pretty sure it was only of interest to him, "What y' up t' other'n checkin' in over here?"

"...so is this information for future business ventures or purely recreational?" It was a light tease, but it could also be interpreted as a genuine question; both of them had dabbled in theft and "property retrieval", after all. Restoring antiques of any sort for a higher price margin wasn't exactly a stretch.

"Yeah, know dat, cher." Remy was so careful to remain as still as possible in case any sudden movement actually scared the speedster away. "A'ways pissed y' off a little. Even when we was basically kids."

Another pause followed and he turned his head to offer a shy grin, "Seem t' remember y' like when dis one pissed y' off."

"You certainly kept things interesting. Which is a compliment I don't give to...well, anyone." And it was true. There weren't many people that could be unpredictable enough to keep him on his toes, even in small ways, not to mention doing so without pissing him off on a regular basis. Remy could be challenging even on a good day, and that wasn't a bad thing.

But he absolutely wasn't going to tell him that.