closed ➠ we built this town on shaky ground

[windchasing]

Who: Pietro Maximoff, David Haller, Cassian Andor, Wanda Maximoff
Where: The hospital, people's respective homes.
When: Gently backdated to May 26th
What: Pietro wakes up after his death on May 20th, checks in with people
Warnings: Graphic description of death by electrocution & fire.
[Closed]

They tell him he was in an accident — a collision, and Pietro thinks, well, at least that is one thing to come out of their mouths that isn't a lie. Not technically speaking. He doesn't remember the impact, but he remembers running. Trees passing swift on his left and right and him believing, stupidly, that's all he would find out there. That the bit of metal he'd found in his leg was just a piece of stray shrapnel the doctors hadn't noticed before, that Poe and Steve had just been playing some kind of uncharacteristically elaborate prank, that of course Wayward Pines is isolated but there couldn't possibly be armed guards around its perimeter.

He remembers the sinking feeling in his gut as his speed abruptly sapped and he'd known they were right. Just before the fence came into view. Just before his feet failed to adjust to his slowed reflexes, before exhaustion overtook his limbs, before pain crackled through every nerve ending and his momentum hurled him forward despite it, before a blinding jolt of agony ignited his skin from the tips of his fingers to the cloying stink of burning hair and blackening flesh—

(Is that what it feels like to burn alive? Is that the last thing his mother had felt before she died?)

The minute the nurses leave him alone again, he runs his hands back through his unsinged hair, over his sore but unscarred skin, over the unshattered points of his elbows and knees, before his paling fingers come to press into the meat of his calf. Trembling nails dig into the skin around another small, hard lump.

Comments

[ouzel]

[ It only takes a moment - the gesture, the words running into one another - for Cassian to realize he's being too detached, too clinical about all this, and that it's not helping. It's not helping Pietro, anyway, and right now that takes a precedence over everything else.

He's already moving towards Pietro, raising his hands to put them on the teenager's shoulders before I couldn't compensate sinks in. Fuck.

Fuck.

Instead of answering right away Cassian pulls Pietro in to a tight hug.]

Everything has a power source, [ Cassian whispers, because it's important to answer Pietro's questions but it's not as important as this. 'I'm glad you're okay' doesn't begin to cover it, especially when Cassian is sure Pietro is not okay. He has a pretty good idea of what running into the fence full-tilt might've done, and then he remembers what he was told about what happened to Pietro's mother and Cassian squeezes all the harder. ]

[windchasing]

[ Pietro nods a few times, and it's hard to tell if that means he's agreeing or just that he wants to show that he's listening. Though not a small young man, he suddenly seems it, his broad shoulders crumpling into Cassian's embrace and his chin ducking against him like he can just hide there, just for a moment, until the screams stop. Cassian is here and safe and solid, and for all that Pietro obstinately plays protector for all his siblings, he can't deny that sometimes he needs them, too. Whatever unnameable force it is that keeps him on his feet, he feels like it's missing lately, like his supports have been cut out from under him, but that just means he needs Cassian and Wanda and Lorna all the more.

It isn't a need he allows himself to indulge in for long, though. He's not a child, he hasn't been a child since he was twelve, and as his trembling starts to taper off he fights to buck up again, to straighten and pull back and not be such a baby about this in front of Cassian, who he doesn't want to see him that way. ]

Well, now we know for certain it's part electric. [ Ha. Ha. He doesn't manage more than a shaky flinch of a smile with that quip, but he's trying. ] If we can shut it off, even for a second, I can get over it.

[ See? He can be useful, and not a liability. ]

[ouzel]

[ Pietro pulls away probably too quickly for Cassian to feel like his embrace really had the impact he'd hoped for but Cassian understands; he's still getting used to Poe's easy embraces and dismissing the idea that it means less for him to take some comfort in it, and Pietro and he are alike in a lot of unhappy ways. ]

Yes. [ Cassian decides he'll make a duplicate of BB-8's notes on the wall and what's beyond it for Pietro to read at his leisure; better an idea that talking about it in sight of the house's cameras. ] I know you could but you wouldn't be going alone, I won't hear of it.

[windchasing]

No— I can look after myself.

[ Pietro sounds exactly his age when he says that, and he knows it, but there's real distress in his voice too, tendrils of a fierce fear bursting through the cracks in his composure. One hand that had still been hovering near Cassian moves back to his forearm. Please no, please don't make him lose anyone else. ]

Listen to me, I am not the one I am worried about. I can outrun anything, I can dodge bullets, but not if they're aimed at you.

[ Then he has to stand in front of them. Obviously. ]