Into every life, a little rain must fall

[Aqua]

(( set after "Fighting sleeplessness with TV"; open for Pietro ))



Emily stood not far from the edge of the lake, watching how the small rain beat the surface of the water. She was holding an umbrella. It felt strange; she hadn't held any since a few years ago, but she had to buy one now. Her life was full of strange things now, like towels, or that hairdryer she had to borrow from Cassie, or that bucket she had to use when changing water in her fishtank. Life had suddenly become much more complicated with the discovery of what her powers could do to her.

She had no idea where to move from that point onward, and practicing on herself again seemed too scary.

[Pietro Maximoff]

((OOC: This is set after “Not Just Another Day” but before “Three Weeks In” and all related threads.))

::Pietro had finished his security sweep and had decided to return to the mansion by way of the lake. The rain had long since ceased to bother him; when you ran with the wind, the other elements lost much of their majesty. As he circled the lake, he saw a familiar figure, holding an object of which he assumed she never had need. Umbrella did not belong in the same sentence as Emily, let alone in her hand. He slowed to a stop, a few feet from her so as not to surprise her with the breeze he created or with the sudden encroachment.:: “Hello Emily.”

[Aqua]

Emily turned her head at the familiar voice, her heart leaping up a little at the immediate recognition.

Her own reaction to his presense didn't lie to her - she stll had a crush on him, even though she had avoided running into him, as into mostly everyone else, the past few days, even though she had that... something happen with Jarod, something she couldn't quite place yet in her general picture of things. This was going to be uncomfortable.

"Hello Pietro," she couldn't help but smile. "What brought you out here into the rain?"

[Pietro Maximoff]

"It is five past the hour," ::Pietro explained that it had been time for his afternoon sweep. He gestured at the umbrella.:: "What brings you here with that?"

[Aqua]

"I wanted to take a walk, get some... space," Emily explained. "And the umbrella is because of the rain..." Wait. That was self-evident. Pietro was obviously asking about it for a different reason. "Because I don't use my powers..." Anymore. "Lately."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro shared that same need for space, for fresh air when he needed to think. The unwillingness to use her abilities he found amiss; in fact, it concerned him. He had first met her using her control over water to fill that fish tank, and he had seen her time and again use them, train them, try to learn as much as she could about herself. Even after the bank robbery and the loss of that girl Lily, she had still tried to train. What could have brought this on? Why now at this moment? His eyebrows drew closer together.:: "What troubles you?"

[Aqua]

Emily gave a small sigh at that question, gathering her thoughts. It didn't trouble her as much as it could have the day before when her mood had been at its lowest, and she was beginning to somehow get used to it, it it still wasn't a happy subject, naturally.

"Lots of things," she said but decided not to digress into more personal matters, not yet, at any rate, even though she felt she could share some of them with him. "There's more to my powers than I thought there was. It scares me to use them now."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro closed the distance between them, reached out to take the umbrella from her. He had been raised with a certain level of basic etiquette, and he could not ask her to hold her own umbrella when he was capable of doing it for her.

He knew her powers had great potential, had seen it with his own eyes. If there were more that she had not discovered until recently, the raw power could be frightening. At the same time, the control she gained from it would allow her to be freest of all, not constrained by fear. Those lessons had taken time for him to learn.:: "You can do more with the presence of water than you first thought?"

[Aqua]

Emily gave him a small grateful smile for taking the umbrella from her; the mere thought of holding one in her hand was on the verge of unbearable. However, that ended up in them standing close to each other under the umbrella, and this, in return, added some nervousness for her.

"No," she replied to his question. "My body is two thirds water. I can pull it apart into molecules. And, theoretically, can put it back together after that. The problem is, it works mostly in theory so far." A theory that she felt no happy rush whatsoever to test.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro nodded slightly, understanding. She had tried it at least once, and had difficulty with it, perhaps found it traumatic. There was a reluctance to do it again, which he understood far too well. That should not bring her outside with an umbrella.:: "I won't tell you the obvious solution. Instead, I'll tell you not to do it until you feel you can. You can still do everything else; nothing has changed."

[Aqua]

"I thought so at the very beginning," Emily nodded. "And then I realized that I... well, I can never be sure if I don't cross the boundary of my skin when I interact with water around me. And I don't want to walk around without my skin on."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro's expression remained solemn as he absorbed her reasoning. She was young; it was to be expected, yet if she did not recover this trauma, she might carry it with her for life.:: "Does it hurt you to do that?"

[Aqua]

"No," Emily said. "Thank goodness."

[Pietro Maximoff]

"Then why have skin?" ::Pietro asked. It seemed a shame to hinder herself in such a way for fear of something that was not damaging. Their experiences and scopes may differ, but he had similar problems in his own youth; he could not live without an outlet. He doubted she would be able to either.::

[Aqua]

Emily beamed at that. "You are kidding me," she stated.