Brief return

[Shade]

((Set during the time Shade stays at Gambit´s apartment, a few days before the posh dinner // thread closed to anyone but Pietro))

It was early afternoon when Shade stepped onto the mansion grounds. Since the accident she had been there only twice; once when she had asked Xavier for help, the second time to get her things together with Gambit. She didn´t plan on staying long as she was still staying in the city, but when taking a walk around the park with Rogue she had remembered that her pearl necklace was still in her dorm. She needed it for the date they had planned for Friday so she had decided to come to the mansion and get it before returning to the apartment.

It was fully summer now and apart from a few students, many faces unfamiliar, there were no people to be seen. Most likely a lot of them were swimming in the lake or had taken a time out to do a trip to the nearest beach or the city for shopping. Smiling to herself, engrossed in her own, rather pleasant thoughts, Shade closed the iron gates that led onto the grounds behind her.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro had just finished his early afternoon security sweep, and sat on a bench. The grounds had been quiet the past few days, and he had been in better spirits because of his dates with Typhoid. Aside from the swollen cheek he'd earned in a recent fight, life was fine. Hearing the gates open, he turned his head to see who was entering.::

[Shade]

Shade had a look across the grounds first, just because it was a fine day and the landscape around her looked too pretty not to be taken in properly. Turning her head, she noticed someone sit on a bench not too far away and for a split second the young man´s features made her believe he was his father. She didn´t know how she would react if she ever saw Magneto again, but after a brief moment she knew it was not necessary to think about that sort of question. Pietro.

She had not seen him ever since the unfriendly encounter she and Rogue had had with him and his sister. The two of them didn´t seem to mingle much and Shade had been in and out of the mansion a lot recently. She had not even known they were still staying here and after their first meeting and especially the way the two of them had treated Rogue, she did not feel too friendly against the young man. On the other side, she had to notice, his presence did not evoke the repulsion she had expected either, nor did it evoke the wish to just vanish and walk by unseen to avoid an encounter - which was maybe due to the fact that her self confidence had grown since she had last seen him.
"Hello." she said unsmiling, but without a snap when she pulled the gate close behind her.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro tried to place her, then remembered, his face hardening at the memory. Rogue's friend, the one who had come with the child to disturb he and his sister. He had not laid eyes upon her in months, nor had he cared to ask where she was. Yet she greeted him, and he inclined his head.:: "Good afternoon."

[Shade]

It took him a moment, but the way Pietro´s expression changed, Shade could tell he could sort her in after a moment. She was about to scowl but didn´t thinking that not even Pietro could dampen her mood these days; there was no reason for it, she was above that. One simply couldn´t get along with anyone, that was how the world was like, but still. There were enough reasons to do differently. Life was short as she had learned, short and fragile and as she had told Rogue days ago, they had to stick together, they, mutants. Her grudge against the other man lingered, but she pushed it back and nodded although she did still not smile. "Pretty calm day." she commented on the fact that there were few around.

[Pietro Maximoff]

"Yes," ::Pietro agreed, no smile on his lips. He knew nothing of her, save her name and that she kept poor company. And that she seemed to want to strike a conversation.:: "Yesterday also."

[Shade]

Why was she even standing here, Shade thought shouldering her hand bag, her eyes slightly narrowing. Typically Shadey, she thought, seeking harmony. She had not thought about that unpleasant encounter much since the subject of looking for Erik and being worried for him had been somehow... replaced, become irrelevant after a while. For a moment she considered justifying herself, telling Pietro she had not wanted trouble with him as she didn´t even know him, but then her pride kicked in. He had attacked her just for the reason of her associating with Rogue, what sort of a way to treat people was that anyways?

"Good to hear." she said doing a step towards the grounds. "doubt that´ll change with you guarding the gates." She couldn´t help it, her words didn´t sound as neutral as she had intended them, but a tad ironic.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro slid down the bench, making room for her to seat herself if she wished. The fact was, she was one of Uncle's teachers, and a woman, and as much as he didn't like the company she kept, she shouldn't stand if she would rather sit.

He caught the irony in her words, but without a sense of humor, he wasn't able to let the matter drop. His voice low as he responded.:: "Somebody has to."

[Shade]

Her step had been towards the mansion rather than towards the bench. Shade felt reluctant to get too close to him, the memory stubbornly keeping her wary; maybe it was also the uncanny resemblance with his father, she couldn´t tell. She had noticed he had gotten up but didn´t take the hint, guessing he was offering her the seat just because he felt he had to, not from friendlyness. She remained standing.

"I know." she said after a moment, no more irony in her voice, looking at him directly. Returning his fathers gaze had been difficult and his resembled them but Shade found she had enough courage to stand the young man´s gaze. "whatever you think of me which doesn´t seem to be too much, still, thanks for watching out." She didn´t know Pietro but he seemed protective. As he was still staying here, whatever she thought about him as a person, he seemed to be taking things seriously as they should be taken. And apart from that she was not scared of showing her gratitude, for her it was just pure honesty, no stepping down in front of him, rather a demonstration that she felt apt to stand on one level.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Being thanked was not what Pietro expected from her. She stood, as though she had something to prove, to either him or herself. He did not care; let it be her discomfort. Still, on some level he appreciated that. One should never become endebted to an enemy. And if she and Rogue were still friends, that was what they were on some level. He couldn't bring himself to say she was welcome; despite the courtesy, there was no truth in it. He settled on a different phrasing, one that would also make the point he was here to stay.:: "I'll continue to do it."

[Shade]

Normally, Shade was noone who would remain that stiff in a conversation. She was usually open towards others, mostly friendly with a few exceptions and these were cases where she clearly stood her ground and told her opinion. Of course Pietro would not show any signs of friendlyness, surely he was far too brazen for that she thought by herself, but then she suddenly thought that it was untypical of her to one, let some attitude like this get to her and two, let things stay unsettled and her opinion on something unspoken. If this had just concerned her she could have shrugged it off and told herself that she didn´t bloody care what that guy thought of her and she really didn´t care about that. What bothered her on the contrary was when others attacked her friends - and she considered Rogue to be one of her best friends, her best friend here, among mutants. She wouldn´t give Pietro the triumph of herself cowering before him, letting herself look as if she was backing away or giving in, least of all as if she was scared of him. She wanted things clear.

She gave a very brief and barely visible mod, pushing back the slight anger that came over her at his cold behaviour that told her clearly what he thought of her - harlot´s friend. She turned to face him fully. "It´s good to know we´re being protected." she said, remembering what Rogue had said. If the mansion was attacked again, she would rally the brotherhood to help. "it should only be clear who the enemy is. Someone who accidentally disturbes your sleep hardly qualifies as one."

[Pietro Maximoff]

"It's quite clear who the enemy is. Murderers, genocidal maniacs, and their aids," ::Pietro replied, temper beginning to flair. He wouldn't sit here and listen to a speech about how the Brotherhood was misunderstood. Since returning, he had learned even more about their activities, which made his blood boil. Ororo had told him about how Magneto had left Uncle to die in Alkali Lake, a weapon targetted to kill every human on the planet with his mind. The humans may have started it, but innocents were never to be fought. Millions of human children lives, moments away from being extinguished, in the name of Magneto's war. It made him sick.

He thought his Uncle's philosophy of peace naive, foolish, even unattainable. There would always be resentment, but co-existance was possible. He and Wanda had found it, those years they traveled Europe, and Pietro would do everything in his power to get that back. Slaughtering humans or mutants wholesale was something he would fight to prevent. Their looming threat had to be destroyed, but he refused to take other villains to bed in order to attain that goal.

He met her gaze, regarding her with a mixture of repressed anger and pity. Another of Magneto's followers, brainwashed into thinking his means were acceptable, because of what he lived through. If it was fair of Magneto to hate all humans because his childhood was ruined by them, then Pietro and Wanda should kill mutants for the same reason. They didn't, because, unlike their father, they weren't mad. He spoke, perhaps the longest string of words he'd said to anyone since returning. His tone eerily patient, thought the anger boiled beneath it.:: "A man would risk hundreds, thousands, millions of lives, while saving his own, to kill those who, through an accident of birth, are different than he is. He would scar, injure, threaten countless more. All in the name of his so-called chosen people. Erik Lehnsherr is no different than Adolph Hitler. He deserves no sympathy, no assistance, and those who follow him will get what they deserve."

[Shade]

Shade listened calmly, never breaking eye contact. She could look him in the face, there was no need to back down, there was nothing she would have to hide from Pietro in that respect, nothing she would have to feel ashamed for. The way he looked at her and the way he spoke sounded like he saw the need to persuade her of something and it meant another thing: that he thought she was a Brotherhood member. Her own history and emotional turmoil that had been connected to her membership there, the reasons that had led her there were nothing of his concern and Shade found him not worthy of knowing anything of this. Still, she would not suffer an indirect accusation.

"I know how that sort of madness functions." she said, her voice low but not intimidated, steady. "even if only in theory. It´s always the same mechanism, built on fear." She kept his gaze with a mix of stubbornness and determination. What she had thought about Magneto, how she had seen him concerned him just as little and was none of Pietro´s business. "This may surprise you, but I am not one of Magneto´s followers."

[Pietro Maximoff]

"Eva Braun wakes me one morning, and I'm to take comfort her cohort isn't a believer," ::Pietro replied. He did not believe that the woman before him had never been one of Magneto's followers. She may have come to her senses and stopped, but he could not set aside past affiliations so easily. She failed to see why he and Wanda had been angry, and therein lay the problem. They had fled to Europe to escape that filth, and yet it followed, corrupting minds of younger generations. The crime was that more people weren't infuriated by it.

Her comment about fear sparked his temper, but it was over Magneto, how he had robbed he and Wanda of the life they had built together. How he had frightened those people who had come to trust mutants, leaving he and Wanda scorned. Fear was a terrorist's main weapon, not his enemy.:: "You wanted to make your point; you made it. You wanted my explanation, and it's fallen on dea ears."

[Shade]

Shade´s eyes sparkled with barely held back fury at the comparison, her lips becoming a thin line. That was even worse than ´harlot´s friend´ and Pietro either knew that or simply blurted out stupid parallels he saw fit as he had drawn the Hitler parallel already.
"Eva Brown´s cohort." she said finally, raising an eyebrow, her voice a lot more calm than she was. "I´m impressed." She wouldn´t argue with him on that, it would be forsaken effort. He was full of bitterness and anger and trying to persuade him he was comparing Hitler´s wife to a confused teenager would fall on the same deaf ears he accused her to have. Had he been someone else, she would have slapped him for the insult, not just against herself but also against Rogue, but he was not worth the attention.

"It´s two couples of deaf ears then." she concluded.