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No less than a week after receiving the news that made him feel so bad, about the news and about feeling bad about the news, Peter sat on the floor with his back against the sofa and his head thrown back onto the seat cushion. He’s been sitting there for a while, turns out repressing emotions is difficult.
“Pietro, are you alright?” Erik asked from the doorway.
The speedster changes his position and puts on a rather impressive, fake smile faster than light can travel.
“YES! Yeahimfinegreatactuallywhywhatmakesyouthinkimnot?” He says way too fast for someone who doesn’t have Peter’s speed - which was nobody he knew of - to understand.
“What's the matter?” The younger mutant opens his mouth to speak, but the older adds, “at an understandable speed this time.”
“Nothing; I’m doing fantastic, thanks.” He says cheerfully.
“I know that you know that you know that I know that that's not true.”
“It is,” he insists.
“You don’t have to hide your feelings.”
“What if I want to?
“Then that’s an unhealthy coping mechanism that does not work and makes things worse, trust me I know.”
No reply.
Erik sits down on the floor next to him. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But bottling it up is not a good idea, I want you to know that you can talk to me and that I’ll do anything I can to help. Or if you just want to talk to someone about it, I am a willing ear.”
Peter still doesn't say anything.
“Would being alone for a bit help? I can leave if you want.”
Pietro leans against his father and buries his face in his shoulder in response.
“Is that a no?
Erik hears a quiet sobbing sound and his shoulder starts to dampen.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Erik wraps one of his arms around his crying son. This was not what he expected to come of this conversation.
They sat like that on the floor for a while. Erik was stroking his hair, and, every minute or so would softly whisper kind words to him.
The older man didn't think of himself as a very comforting person, nor did many other people. He was a scary, lonely, ex-terrorist, and many people didn’t know about the ex part. But when it came to people he loved needing comfort, he tried and thought he did alright (his loved ones thought he did great but he didn’t know that and wouldn’t believe them anyway).
Erik hasn’t had much physical contact in his life. A few months ago, just over two years after En Sabah Nur, Peter told him about his family and explained to Erik that he was a part of it, that he was his father. Both Erik and Peter are relatively neutral about being touched. They hugged after Erik found out about their relationship, but after that, there wasn’t much, neither were good at initiating it making it relatively rare. But this was different, Erik didn’t know why his son needed comfort but he didn’t need to know to provide it.
Peter’s tears stopped coming quite soon after they started, but the whimpering persisted.
“I wa-... think I want to t-talk about it now,” Peter said very weekly after what felt like a long time after Peter entirely stopped crying but was really not much longer than five minutes.
“Ok.”
“I think I’m a bad person.”
This statement shocks Erik. His wonderful child thought himself a bad person, there were so many bad people in the world, Peter was one of the few good ones, and the miniscule amount of great ones. He has to stop himself from trying to argue because, no matter how untrue what he said was, fighting wouldn’t help, and would probably prevent Pietro from talking to him. “Why do you think that, Mein Sohn?”
“I feel li- I rea- my s- it is just th….” He stops trying to explain.
“I’m not going to judge you,” Peter scoffs. “I’m being serious. I won't judge you.” He insists
“You don’t even know what it is,” Peter mutters.
“I suppose not, but I do know that you are an amazing, brave, and caring person who isn’t capable of anything as horrible as you seem to think because your heart is too big to be a bad person. Besides I’ve done lots wrong in my life, there isn’t much you could do to make me judge you.”
Pietro takes a big breath, then another and another, till he is able to speak. “I was on the phone with my sister ‘bout a week ago, and she told me she got engaged. She's getting married.” He pauses for a minute. “She is delighted, and he’s a good guy, and I’m glad she's happy. I’m just scared, I guess, I don’t know.”
Erik doesn’t push, just waits for an explanation.
“I’m not going to have that y’know and….” He can’t finish the sentence.
“Are you jealous? You don’t need to be; you are a lovely young man,” the metal bender pauses. "Jeder wäre mehr als glücklich, ein Kind zu haben."
“Eww, No! I’m not jel- that’s not the problem. I don’t want that, ever. I am not interested in… that sort of thing. I don’t want romance; I don’t feel it.”
“Do you want to feel it?” Erik asks, mainly because he can tell Peter both wants and needs to speak about it (but also because he’s genuinely curious).
“NO, I don’t care. I mean, sometimes,” when he was first discovering this about himself he was sad that he wouldn’t get some of the experiences people in relationships get, and sometimes he still is, but he came to realise that he was repulsed by actually doing many of experiences, and the ones he did want could be done with friends or family, “but it’s not that..”
He stops talking for a short while.
“The problem is that I am scared shitless that it’s going to happen to everyone, everyone is going to fall in love and get married and have kids and move on to the next stage in their life, and I am not, I’ll be alone, like properly, because they are all going to become like obsessed with love and spent less time with their friends. And if I don’t go on to that phase, I won’t have a partner to not be alone with.” His speech is muffled by his crying but easily legible.
“Not all of us will,” Erik kisses the top of his son's head, “I won’t, and not all your friends are going to ignore you if they fall in love, and there will be others who feel like you do and aren’t going to fall in love. You have some great friends. I doubt they’ll leave you, and I haven’t met your sister, but you’ve told me a lot, and she sounds pretty good as well. And love is complicated,” after a little delay, he says, “not everyone will react the same to it. Most people still spend lots of time with their friends, with their family, after they start dating, after they get married, and after they have kids.”
“How do you know?” He says quietly, “A-and what if you are wrong?” He whimpered. “I’m so fucking afraid, Dad. I don’t want to be alone.”
Dad wasn’t a term Peter used commonly when referring to Erik but it was frequent enough that it didn’t shock either of them when he said it.
Peter started sniffling again. Erik pulls him in closer, “Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re not going to be alone. It’s alright. I’m here. I love you. Du bist liebenswert und mutig und ehrlich und vor allem ein GUTER Mensch.” He starts stroking his head again. “Any friend of yours would have to be stupid to leave you behind.
“Jean and Alex’s brother are dating, aren’t they? Have they abandoned you?”
“No.”
“And your sister just got engaged but they’ve probably been dating longer than that, did she leave?”
“Well yeah, kinda. She started distancing herself from me, then we stopped talking for like three years.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologising, you didn’t do anything.”
“No, but I’m still sorry. She didn’t have to treat you like that, you shouldn’t of gone through that. You don’t deserve that.”
“I guess, but there’s nothing to be done.”
“Look, I know you're not going to like this but; the best way to manage this is to talk to her, tell her you are scared.”
“No, I don’t want anyone to know., her east of all,” he mumbles. “I should be happy for her,” he insists. “And I am, I’m just whatever this is as well. It’s selfish.”
“This doesn’t mean you're a bad or a selfish person. You’re not asking her not to get married, the fact that you feel so guilty about this shows that this isn’t a selfish want. You’re scared of losing someone you love, everyone is, that's probably one of the normal unselfish human experiences.” Once again, Peter says nothing in reply. “You want to know something?” Erik says quietly. “I’m terrified of losing you, Pietro.” Peter turns to look at him. “I’ve lost many people in my life, until a few months ago I thought all my family was dead. I can’t go through that again, I can’t lose you. You go on the X-Men missions and I’m so, so proud of you, you are so heroic and do so many amazing things. But I am always awfully afraid, there are so many opportunities for injuries and-”, he stops, he can't even say it, “-worse.”
“I’m sorry dad, I don’t mean to scare you. I am careful.”
“I know you don’t, you don’t need to apologise. And as for being careful, we both know that's a lie, I’m at most of your debriefs.”
“I’ll try to be in the future.”
“You say that now.”
“Hey, I never said I would succeed, just try.”
“I question the amount of effort that's going to be going into this.” He says lightheartedly.
Peter gasps, “I can't believe you think so little of me! I mean you’re probably right but still.”
“So dramatic,” Erik mutters.
“It’s the principle! You have no faith in me.” Peter jokes.
“I have faith, just not in your ability to be cautious.”
“How dare you!”
He sighs, “are you going to continue talking about your sister or are you just going to keep exaggerating?.”
“I love you, dad.”