Double the Pietro

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro gazed at her and shook his head, before raising his hands in defeat. Were he not himself, he might scoff; he had no place to begin with this.::

[Typhoid]

She saw the frustration. "How about one thing? Don't try to tell me all at once."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro blinked a single time to himself, although it was rapid. He might laugh a humorless laugh, if it were in him, but it was not; he had not laughed in fourteen years.:: "I'm not even the fastest man in the world anymore."

[Typhoid]

"Because he's here?" she asked, gently.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro took "here" to mean "exists" rather than was present at the Institute, and he nodded slightly.:: "Yes."

[Typhoid]

Typhoid was no therapist; she didn't have the encouraging words that perhaps the Professor might have. But she would try her best. "You believe the rest of us judge you by what he does or is?" she asked in mild disbelief.

[Pietro Maximoff]

"No," ::Pietro was fairly certain that nobody judged his potential by how fast he was, although he was sure that everyone judged his lack of potential for the relative...simplicity of his powers. But he judged himself that way, and the loss of that title was a hard blow to take.::

[Typhoid]

"Pietro..." She shook her head, at a loss. "Everyone has an equal in powers. I have people who are above my level, so does the Professor. It's...normal."

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro did not care for giving petulant answers, which was why he did not sight and proclaim that she "did not understand," which she did not. He had detested his powers growing up, surrounded by people - related to people - whose potential far surpassed his own. He had been taught that his powers were useless beyond manual labor, and that his fighting style had to be savage, uncouth, as a result. His powers had massive drawbacks, the likes of which other speedsters did not, and the *only* benefit was that he could say that he was the fastest. It was the only compensation for being unable to turn off his powers, for the physiological problems, for the slurred speech and ADHD symptoms. Not only was he bested in his own domain, but his double had those other abilities which made him uncomfortable, and then he was capable of interacting with others normally, far more easily than Pietro himself, and he seemed to be more satisfying sexually, although that last he would *never* speak of to anyone, not Wanda, not Samson, and not Rossignol. He sighed, and then managed to say,:: "It is not the same."

[Typhoid]

She frown, unable to find words, and finally chose to switch forms, fading into her more 'ghostly' appearance, a power she generally shied from simply because it made her vulnerable. But there was something he had to see. She held out her hand. "Can I show you something?"