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Pietro stood by the edge of a clearing that separated the dark forest behind him from an abandoned site of construction just ahead of him.
He had spent the past few hours in constant motion. His feet ached, his muscles burned, and he was certain he would collapse at any given moment due to malnutrition, and yet—
A sigh escaped him at length, shaky and uncertain.
And yet, upon finally arriving in Pruszkow and seeing firsthand the wooden house whose details he had committed to memory, he found himself unable to complete the last few steps that separated him from his goal.
It was problematic in theory, and nearly unbearable in practice. Reuniting with an estranged father who was ignorant of the fact that he had sired a son to begin with.
Stray thoughts, cynical and discouraging, crept into Pietro's mind with no remission now that his dream was elevated from the status of a childish fantasy to that of a concrete reality. And this reality came in the form of the very tangible, very lively house that stood a mere few feet from him.
Tufts of smoke rose from the chimney and dissipated before they could reach the clouds. The lights that shone from the windows were warm and inviting—a perfect contrast to the stale brittleness of the wintry air that froze Pietro's extremities.
It all called for him to go and knock and ask if could come in and—
But does he even want to have a son?
Not for the first time, this damning thought invaded his mind and laced every pleasant notion and fleeting dream with doubt.
His knowledge of the notorious Magneto painted the man as a callous visionary, unconcerned with familial attachments or with sentiments. His memory of Erik Lehnsherr, on the other hand… was so fragmented and brief that it hardly qualified as a basis for judgement.
To put it simply, Pietro had no idea if the next few minutes would be remembered as the happiest moment in his life, or the most bitter regret.
“No use prolonging the inevitable, though,” he mumbled to himself, blowing hot air onto his hands and rubbing them to ward off the cold. His heart was beating erratically, the adrenalin conspiring with his starvation to make him extremely light-headed.
“Okay, here we go,” he breathed, and took the first step.
He could very well have reached the doorstep at the blink of an eye, but he decided against it. There were certain moments that were better lived to the fullest, and with the snowflakes now shrouding his silver head with their gentle tranquility, he felt grateful for the stillness.
When he finally reached the door, he raised a blue-tinted hand to the deer-shaped knocker, hesitated for a second, then grabbed onto the metallic ring and gave three solid knocks.
He was almost sick with giddiness.
The few minutes that followed must have been the longest in his life.
Initially, there was no apparent response; no sign that anyone had heard him, but then, Pietro heard the sound of chatter—it was jovial and lighthearted, and he was confused as to who could be keeping his father company.
Then came the sound of footsteps. They grew louder by the second, and when he heard the telltale noise of a key sliding into the hole of its lock, Pietro sucked in a breath and braced himself.
His hands trembled, and he kept them occupied by fidgeting with the strap of his goggles—when did he remove them from his head? Doesn’t matter.
What will he say?
'Hello father' — no, too formal. ‘Hi dad’ — too unexpected, too weird.
Pietro squeezed his eyes in frustration and huffed. Why was this so difficult?
‘Hey man, remember me? I saved you from your prison in the pentagon and almost gave you a concussion like—ten years ago. Why am I here now? Well it turns out I’m your son. Crazy, right? I know what you’re thinking, it’s a bit late for any father-son bonding, but better late than never, right?’
… Right?
He hated this. Hated the uncertainty and hated the taunting possibility of rejection.
And he hated the waiting.
What was taking his dad so long?
Eventually, a different set of footfalls drew closer, and the door handle was no longer being jerked from side to side, but rather it gave an audible click as the lock was undone, and it was opened to reveal…
Pietro’s eyes widened.
… a woman and a child.
His heart fell to his feet.
The laughter in the woman’s eyes disappeared when she diverted her attention from the little girl to look at him. Evidently confused, she said something in Polish, but when he only blinked at her and continued to gape, she switched to English. “Can I help you?”
“I…” he stammered, still trying to adjust to the reality before him. “Um… I think I got the wrong house,” he said, thinning his lips and nodding gravely so as to showcase his sheepishness at what must have been a silly little mistake. “I'll go now.”
He pointed behind his shoulder with a thumb before turning on his heel in preparation to speed away and process this great disappointment. He could already feel a cold weight settling in his stomach and a heaviness in his chest.
But before he could move, the woman called to him. “Wait!” she said, and he turned to her with furrowed eyebrows. “This is the only house in the vicinity,” she began, a hesitant smile softening her visage. Although her accent was heavy, she was evidently fluent in English. “You won’t find any other place within a hundred miles. Are you looking for someone?"
After a moment’s deliberation, Pietro decided to tell her. It was a long shot for her to recognize the name, but he said it anyway. “Yeah.” The defeat was evident in his voice. “I'm looking for a man called Erik Lehnsherr.”
Midway through his sentence, the little girl piped with, “Your hair looks weird.”
There was no mockery in her voice; only genuine fascination, but her mother was mortified, and Pietro made an act of looking offended.
“Nina!” the woman chided, pulling the girl so that she was pressed against her mother’s side.
“I’ll have you know, my hair is a cause for envy for men and women alike.” He tapped her on the nose, and she giggled.
“I like it,” Nina admitted with a shrug and a grin.
Her mother returned to the original topic with a contemplative hum. “Erik Lehnsherr?” she muttered to herself as though to summon a memory associated with the name. Eventually she pursed her lips and shook her head apologetically. “I don’t know anyone with that name. It’s just me, my Henryk, and our little Nina who live here.”
Honestly, Pietro expected nothing else, yet disappointment made itself evident on his face nonetheless. “Don't sweat it. I’ll just be on my way.”
“Magda?” called a voice from inside the house, and for a moment, Pietro’s heart stopped beating.
It sounded so familiar.
“Who's at the door?”
Cold water rushed through his veins in lieu of blood.
The voice had drawn closer, and there was hardly any doubt left to be dispelled.
Yet when Erik, his father, appeared before him after he had given up hope on finding him there, Pietro found himself unable to say or do anything other than to stare ahead in shock.
For his part, Erik was certainly no less surprised to find Pietro standing at his doorstep. He was arguably more taken aback, as he had not expected to see the kleptomaniac at all.
Silence stretched between them for a few seconds, though it felt like an eternity.
Eventually, it was Erik who spoke first. “What are you doing here?” he questioned. There was a defensive bite to his tone—not truly hostile, but protective. It carried with it an unspoken assumption that Pietro might bring harm to the woman and the girl in some form or the other.
And Pietro had so many questions of his own. For some reason, they were all lodged in his throat in the form of a heavy lump.
Magda looked between the two of them before turning to Erik. “Do you know him?”
Erik breathed out through his nose, eyeing their visitor with tentative curiosity. “Yes, he’s…” he paused, taking in the expectant look in Pietro’s dark eyes, and eventually said, “someone who did me a great favor in the past.”
The corner of Pietro’s mouth rose in a wry half-smile. “Well that’s a gross understatement, but okay, I don’t mind a bit of intrigue.”
But his lighthearted tone was brushed aside as the wheels in his Erik's ever-calculating brain began to spin. He was suspicious of his visit.
“Did Charles send you to find me?”
Pietro's face twisted in confusion. “What, the loony professor with the fancy foster care center?”
It seemed that things were not going according to plan at all. Not only was his father's current living situation completely unexpected, but he was also doing a marvelous job at misinterpreting Pietro’s intentions.
And to make things worse…
“Henryk, what’s going on?” pressed Magda, her arms crossed over her chest.
… Who’s Henryk?
It was an agitating encounter. There was a sense of secrets being unearthed at an ungainly time, and tensions were steadily rising.
Refraining from answering Magda’s question, Erik drew closer to Pietro, and the look in his blue eyes was severe. “You can tell him that nothing he could say or do will ever persuade me to return. I have a full life here, and I don’t want my peace to be disturbed by him ever again.”
Before Pietro could respond to this misdirected threat, Nina reached out for Erik with extended arms, and he took her into his embrace at once.
“Papa, are they taking you away?” she questioned softly, her eyes widening anxiously.
He hugged her close to his chest, one hand cradling the back of her head. His cheek was pressed against her hair, but he was looking directly at Pietro. “No one is taking me away.” And that claim, for all the wrong or right reasons, felt like a direct response to a confession that was yet to be made. “Isn't that right?”
At that moment, the picture became so clear. A perfect family of three, loving and strongly entwined, in the face of a stranger who posed a threat to their security.
Pietro swallowed heavily and gave a small, joyless smile as he attempted to square his shoulders.
“No one sent me here,” he said. His voice was uncharacteristically quiet, but nothing about this situation was normal anyway. “I came of my own volition."
The defensiveness in Erik’s gaze gave way to confusion.
“How about we continue this inside?” Magda suggested. Her sweater was too light for the wintry weather, and she kept rubbing her hands over her arms to salvage some warmth. “I made rosół for dinner — it’s a Polish stew. You must be very hungry.”
Truth be told, Pietro was famished. He had spent a considerable amount of time running at full speed, and having already consumed every available source of energy, his body felt weak. His saving grace came in the form of sheer stubbornness and the scattered remnants of his pride.
Still, he looked at his father to gauge his reaction, waiting for a confirmation that his presence was not unwanted.
Erik’s posture had eased, and he even gave him a small smile. “Come in.”
His daughter removed herself from his arms when her mother said, “Come on, Nina, let’s go set the table!” and she ran inside with a small expression of glee.
It was sweet, and that made it all the more bitter.
Erik stared after his wife and daughter with a fond smile as the two of them disappeared into the kitchen, then he turned to Pietro with a look that spoke of how lucky he felt to have them. Pietro tried his best to smile.
“Peter, was it?” Erik said. He ushered the younger man into the house with a hand gesture before closing the door behind them.
“Well — yes and no,” Pietro began as the two of them walked through a small hallway whose pinewood walls were beautified with framed photographs. "My given name is Pietro, but I go by Peter. Easier for people in the States to remember, I guess.”
Such details were usually kept to himself. No one desired to learn a fact that would soon be overlooked and forgotten. Pietro spoke of foreignness; of first generation immigrants that had yet to assimilate into American society; of complications and backstories that were distressing at worst, and exotic at best. Peter was simple. No one pried or formed assumptions about a Peter. And that was why he preferred to give it to the casual passerby or acquaintance.
But this was his father. And unlike with strangers, Pietro welcomed the notion of being a cause for curiosity this time. He wanted the questions and wanted the follow-ups.
He wanted the connection. Wanted it to run deep enough to seep through the past twenty seven years that he spent with an emotionally absent mother and a phantasmal image of a father.
Erik leveled him with a look; it was tired, as though burdened by the weight of understanding Pietro’s struggle perfectly.
“You should have no shame about your past. Nor any desire to conceal it.” Then he gave a small huff that posed as a mirthless laugh. “You must think me a hypocrite — living in the middle of nowhere under an alias yet lecturing you against the exact same thing. But I chose this life because my former decisions were…” he paused, a furrow forming between his eyebrows, “damaging. I’m not proud of all the pain that I caused. And I want to move past it.”
Erik then looked at Pietro pointedly and continued with a wry upturn of the lips and a raised eyebrow, “I dare say you haven’t had a similar experience?”
Letting out an amused breath, the silver head shook his head in negative.
“Well, there you go,” said Erik. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Your heritage plays a big role in defining who you are as a person. You don’t want to lose that.”
“No, I don’t,” confirmed Pietro in a whisper. “In fact, I’m very invested in that right now. You know, learning about who I am and all.”
“A much better way to spend your twenties than the way I spent them, that’s for certain.”
The two of them were standing by the kitchen entrance, and the feeble source of light illuminated Erik’s face while casting Pietro’s in shadows.
It was almost surreal. His father’s face was riddled with painful tokens of years past, but they were largely hidden under the surface. Instead, what shone through was a hopeful and happy surrogate for the person he remembered from ten years ago.
And Pietro wanted to latch onto some of that happiness; to become a part of it.
At the same time, he feared that he might steal it indefinitely.
What was the right course of action? Should he say it or should he not?
His heart was pounding at the self-imposed urgency.
He wanted to say it.
‘I'm your son, dad.’
‘Dad, I’m your son.’
‘Dad…’
The word, so short and simple, never managed to make it past his lips. In fact, it remained lodged between the crevices of his windpipe, right behind his heart. And its weight was heavy. It pressed him to let it out, yet became stuck whenever he tried to say it.
His reverie was promptly interrupted by Nina's excited declaration, “Aaand… done!”
Pietro looked to his side to see an elegantly set table, with simple yet tasteful cutlery. The steaming stew was carefully poured into ceramic bowls, with a basket of fresh bread and steamed vegetables placed on the side to complement the meal.
The smell was absolutely appetizing, and his stomach gurgled in anticipation.
“You can sit next to Nina, um…” Magda began, signaling to him before trailing off with a hum that called for him to give his name.
And so he said, “Pietro,” and his eyes caught Erik’s as they shared a secretive grin before his father moved to claim his own seat.
It was a simple gesture, yet it caused a flutter of joy to course through his chest.
“Pietro,” she repeated with a smile, extending a hand in invitation for him to sit down, which he promptly heeded. “Is that an Italian name?”
“Romani,” he corrected. From the periphery of his vision, he noted that Erik was busy filling his daughter’s plate with carrots, at which she comically frowned. And something seemed to compel Pietro to give details for which no one asked, his heartbeat increasing notably at a surge of adrenalin. “Well — you see, my mom is originally from Sokovia.”
Upon hearing that, Erik stopped his motions as he abruptly froze, leaving his hand to hover in the air before he could bring his spoon to his mouth.
His attention, laser sharp and inquiring, was entirely fixated on Pietro now.
Very few people survived the Sokovia bombing.
Erik knew that. Pietro knew that. And his heart started beating even faster.
Yet he went on with his elaboration, speaking with effortless nonchalance that failed to convey how anxious he was becoming, “But yeah, she gave me and my sister Romani names. Never asked why, to be honest.” With unsteady hands, he began to eat.
Magda hummed, her brow furrowing slightly. The air she gave off was that of polite curiosity, not aware in slightest of what was transpiring around her table.
“Did your father have a say in your names?” She asked, glancing towards her husband with a teasing smile. “Henryk and I argued for two whole weeks on what to name Nina. He wanted to call her Edie, but, eventually, I won.”
Nina scrunched her nose at her parents, though it was only a brief acknowledgement, and soon she was once again occupied with her food.
As for Erik, he humored his wife with a small, amused snort, but it was evident that he was far more interested in what Pietro had to say. He returned his intense gaze to the silver-head as he awaited his response.
“I never knew my father.” The bread that was fresh out of the oven felt inedibly stale when tried to swallow. “In fact my mom and dad weren’t married when… you know,” he thinned his lips and tilted his head to the side, where an innocently confused Nina was seated, in a silent explanation for his censorship.
Then he continued, “Everything I know about him comes from little stories that my mom used to tell me when I was a kid. Basically I thought he was like… the coolest person ever.”
It was nearly impossible for him not to look at Erik then; a gravitational pull all but forced him to lock eyes with his father as he went on. “She told me about all the ways he wanted to change the world. And how I wouldn’t have to be scared of being the way I am when he finally managed to do it. She said that he was out there, somewhere, looking out for me. Making sure that I had a better life than he did."
Softly, he added, “I just never really understood why he had to be so far away to take care of me."
Erik’s face was leaden. The breath that he exhaled was shaky, and his grip on the spoon threatened to bend its stem. His gaze dropped onto the plate before him, though it was distant and calculating. Shreds of denial still clung to him, parasitic and self-contradictory.
Pietro cleared his throat, lightheartedly ending his monologue with a grin. “Anyway, I outgrew these stories. Became disillusioned and all.” Then, he turned to Nina and said, “Try to postpone your twenties as much as you can, they really suck.”
But she merely smiled sympathetically in response, perhaps sensing his inner turmoil.
It came as a complete surprise when Magda reached out and placed a comforting hand on top of his own. Her face was etched with maternal concern, from the crease of her eyebrows to the downturn of her lips. But then she smiled and gripped his hand more tightly before releasing it, and Pietro was surprised to find out that solace did not always require words to be communicated.
“Have you tried reaching out to him?” she said. “Perhaps your mother knows something that could help you find him.”
The anticipation came back in full force. “She did tell me something. More than than that, she recognized him on TV.” There was no turning back now. Pietro was numb as he spoke. He looked at Erik again. “After all, not many people can control m—“
And Erik stood up at once, startling everyone around the table as his chair scraped against the wooden floor.
He looked at Pietro in a completely different light now. There were traces of false familiarity and impossible recognition — after all, he had never met his son before, but the prospect of kinship seemed to eliminate the tediousness of logic.
In his face was a vast spectrum of emotions that flicked into and out of existence in rapid succession. There was shock; realization; understanding; dread; regret… fear?
In the midst of them all, Pietro searched for happiness.
When he failed to find it, he searched for any other telltale sign of acceptance.
But his father’s face was hardly graced with any pleasant emotion.
All of this passed in the matter of a few seconds, and the silent exchange between them ended when Erik loudly said, “I just remembered — the boiler still hasn’t been fixed.” He turned to his confused wife. “If we leave it any longer, the whole house might explode.” Then he faced Pietro again, and his words carried a double meaning, “Would you mind if you helped me? It won’t take long with the two of us on the job.”
Pietro let out a silent ‘oh’, but he quickly schooled his features and passively said, “Yeah, sure."
As the two exited the kitchen, Magda's questioning call for her husband was left unanswered.
Once they were out of sight, Erik hastened his steps, and Pietro slowed his own to match his father’s speed. It felt like his head was drowned in ether; his grasp on reality was feeble and the moment felt so surreal.
When they reached the door leading to the basement, Erik swiftly turned on his heel to regard his Pietro, his gaze flitting across the younger man's face to take in his features — to attribute significance to what he once took for granted. The similarities between them were faint and not at all remarkable, but the longer he looked, the more evident it became.
Pietro was his son. And there was no doubt about it.
Erik's mouth was agape with words that never came out. There was no mistake about the intensity of what he felt — his eyes were a clear window to the turmoil inside of him, their icy blue turning glassy as they became obscured by a watery sheen.
But every emotion that took root and thrived inside of him met a swift death when he attempted to vocalize it.
His instincts, made callous by years of loss, and fretful about what he could lose, compelled him to shut off every feeling that threatened to disturb his logic; his security; his family.
And he ignored the pang that reminded him that Pietro was his family, too.
Sealing his eyes closed for a moment, he collected the conflicted pieces that tore at his insides and put them back together in an ill-fitting mosaic. When he opened his eyes, the emotions were nowhere to be found.
“When did you find out?” he said in a whisper.
Just as quietly, Pietro said, “A few months ago.” He reconsidered, and even more quietly, he added, “A year, maybe.”
Erik swallowed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index. This was one of the few situations that he faced in his life in which he had absolutely no idea what to do.
The hope in Pietro’s face was painful to consider. It latched onto every gesture and every word that came from Erik; and seeing it progressively die as he failed to produce the desired response gave rise to no small amount of guilt.
“Does your mother know you came to see me?” he asked.
This made Pietro wince, as though remembering something that he actively worked to forget. “No, she thinks I went to the arcade to play games.”
Involuntarily, a disbelieved laugh escaped Erik. “You told your mother you were going to the arcade, and went to a foreign country in another continent instead?”
With a shrug, Pietro said, “Believe it or not, I’ve done and said much stranger things.”
Erik’s face became solemn again. “Is she doing alright?”
“She’s…” he stopped himself, thought things over, and sighed. “She has her off days. Unfortunately they’re more frequent than her on days, but…” he trailed off.
Discussing his mother’s mental health was never something he enjoyed; especially with his estranged father who very much left her to fend for herself and their two children.
Upon remembering this, he became pensive. His sister, Wanda, insisted vehemently against him telling their father that she existed. In fact, she disliked everything about his plan to visit Erik, warning him that he was ‘setting himself up for a great disappointment’.
But though he had sought her council on the matter, much like he did whenever he was conflicted about something, he disregarded her warning and went to Poland all the same.
He spared Erik another glance and saw the conflict on his face. Knowing that he had another child would only serve to make a difficult situation even worse, and so he refrained from saying anything.
Erik cleared his throat. “I… don’t remember her like that.”
And the thoughts that came to Erik were not pleasant at all. He heaved a heavy breath. The years that separated him from Pietro’s mother were numerous — a lifetime in its entirety had elapsed, and the person that he became was nothing like the person of before.
Two personas, two chronologies, two lives. And he simply couldn’t be brought back to whom he used to be.
Unfortunately for Pietro, he was an extension of the person that Erik had been, and his presence brought to mind many painful memories that had been repressed.
Then he remembered that his son was a mutant, and that mutants were a cause for great suspicion in the small town of Pruszkow.
Should the local authorities find out —
His daughter —
Thinning his lips, he looked at Pietro. “Pietro, what did you hope would happen when you came to see me?”
His voice was quiet, and that made it all the more daunting.
Pietro furrowed his eyebrows and stammered for a moment. “I…” He thought for a second, and eventually said, “I don’t really know. I just…” He gave a feeble shrug. “I just knew that I had to see you. Talk to you.” Then he frowned. “Are you… upset that I came?”
“The life that I have built here,” Erik began, thinking hard to find the right words, “is very fragile. If I do anything wrong, it can be taken away from me.”
Oh.
“If anyone becomes suspicious that I, or the people around me, are anything other than ordinary… then I risk putting my whole family in danger.”
Family.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Erik looked Pietro in the eye, his gaze softening. “I can’t let you be a part of my life.”
For the longest time, Pietro could only stare at his father — could he even use that label anymore? — with vacant eyes and a broken heart.
His inner monologue, cruel and scathing, played in his head without remission.
Idiot. What did you expect? That he would drop everything and change all of his plans to accommodate you? Did you really forget who your father was? You deserve this.
“I'm so sorry,” Erik’s voice interrupted his reverie.
Pietro forced himself to snap out of his self pity, adopting the most insincere grin that he could muster. It looked completely out of place when one considered the misty cloud that obscured his vision.
“Hey, it’s totally cool,” he said. “I didn’t have any expectations. Just thought I would drop by and introduce myself. It wasn’t anything serious.”
“Pietro—“
“So yeah, now that I’ve done that, I should be on my way.”
“Pietro.”
“Tell the missus and the kid I said bye.”
He turned his back to Erik, preparing to speed away.
But then Erik said, “I'm proud of what you’ve become. Truly.”
And Pietro allowed the facade to drop.
Slowly, he turned to look at his father who was not enough of a father, his face dark with exhaustion, and gently said, “You don’t know me to be proud of me.”
And before Erik could reply, Pietro was gone.