"Get outta here if you don't know"

[takeitslow]

Who: Peter (takeitslow), Wanda (seeingscarlet), and You
When: 15th to early 18th in the medbay, late 18 to the 23rd in the hold
Where: Medbay and the Hold
What: Directly after this. Peter really screwed up and now he's hanging out in the medbay until he recovers. Later he hangs out in the hold. Wanda's around to feild all your questions about how stupid her twin is.
Warnings: Discussion of character death, violence, and severe injuries



[Comment under the toplevel for which sibling you want to talk to. If you want a specific starter, please just oocly contact.]

Comments

[takeitslow]

That rant is too specific to be applicable to Peter's situation, and if he was more stable he'd realize that. He'd take a beat, think it out. Ask Sans if he wanted to talk about it. Be a better friend.

But he's not stable and this conversation is already spiraling beyond his scope of control.

"And what then? He would have killed one of you? Someone else gets put in the hold instead of me?" And it's hardly fair to argue that, isn't it? Not when Alice is sitting there for helping him. "He was pissed at me! I started this and no one else was supposed to be involved. No one else was supposed to get hurt. I was trying to keep anyone else from getting hurt."

But someone else did get hurt, and it's far too hard to think about it.

"I didn't want help, I didn't even want Alice involved. I'm the older bother, I'm supposed to be able to take care of this shit myself Sans. It's my fault he even threatened Wanda in the first place, I was the dumbass talking about her on these stupid watches and tipped him off about who she was. How was I supposed to tell my sister, who already lost one brother, that I put her life in danger and then tell her to fix it? How was I supposed to ask you that? How am I supposed to ask someone else to clean up my mistakes?"

There's something edging on hysteria in his voice. Because deep down, some part of him knows Sans is right. He knows Wanda was right to tell him off about not trusting in her. But he's the older brother, he was the only man in the house for most of his life. He's never known asking someone else to help when it was always his job to look after the rest. The truth is, it never so much as crossed his mind to get help.

He just doesn't know how to stop doing it alone.

"I thought he might stay dead. We'd get lucky and it'd solve everything. I had to try something!"

[skelepun]

It's Sans' cue to get up, pacing. Normally he wouldn't volunteer for any activity he didn't strictly have to engage in, but for once the heat in his bones is enough that he actively feels the need to shake it out.

Powerlessness, it's something he knows well. It's something he's taken a sick sort of comfort in more often than not -- knowing that no matter what you do, the outcome will eventually, inevitably reach zero again. You could slap the longest, most complicated equation their is next to times zero, and the outcome will always be the same.

That's what his life has been up to now. One big times zero next to every experience he's had, every piece of progress he's made, every relationship he fostered.

Having that assurance gone, knowing that what he says to Peter now will persist and affect him going forward... it's a new sort of powerless, really. One he has no idea how to deal with.

"There's more to being an older brother than protecting everyone." He finally decides, not quite catching Peter's eye. "You've gotta let 'em fail, you've gotta let 'em scrape their kneecaps once in a while, and you gotta trust them to carry you sometimes. 'Cuz if you're anything like me, they do that all the time pretty much without even trying. So just--"

Sans stops, pinching between his eye sockets. The slight irritation is a nice distraction from the buzzing in his skull.

"You're not just a brother, kid, you're part of a family. You don't keep family out of the loop."

[takeitslow]

He watches Sans walk, that constant burning sensation in his muscles that tell him to move worsening. But he stays seated, pinned by emotion and the nagging worry that he was setting another relationship on fire.

So he sits, never still while Sans gathers his thoughts and sits while he unloads them onto Peter.

No. It's the first think on his mind and it's nearly the first thing out of his mouth. He's barely able to bite down the urge to shout it, that damning thing called respect is all that keeps him quiet. He's the older brother and that's all it means. He has to look out for them, he has to keep them from his problems. Because if he doesn't, than what's the point to him? It's his one good contribution to the world, looking out for his siblings. It's the only thing he's never felt he screwed up.

Until now.

Sans is rubbing salt in the wound, to bring up how he's kept his sister in the dark. That first conversation with Wanda once she'd found out had felt like getting stabbed all over again. Not in how she yelled or threw his lack of trust in his face. She wouldn't. It was the kindness in how she treated him and the bone deep disappointment in her eyes. Even as messed up as he let himself get back home, with all the stealing and cop visits and the DNA, he'd never seen that from his sisters before.

"Look, Wanda already talked me down about not telling her. I know I got to stop pretending that she, that any of them need me to take care of them like that." Because as much as he wants to be, he's not their older brother. He's not Pietro, he's not older and wiser and that hero they knew. He's out of sync with them, and it's something Peter's only noticing now. This family doesn't need him in the way they did at home.

"But I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to just let it go and let them just-" He makes some vague hand gestures, sighs and drops his face into his hands. The excitement is wearing down, the fight draining out of him. It leaves Peter just feeling tired. "Maybe I just don't know what I'm doing."

[skelepun]

Still standing, Sans is struck first by how small Peter looks. It's a rare sensation, finding someone else smaller than him -- a position reserved for little children and littler monsters, two kinds of people in short supply on the Moira.

But still. Peter looked small.

If Sans had a gut, it might be twisting right about now.

"Kid..." He begins, heaving a breath of his own before kneeling down in front of him. "You made a mistake. It happens. Do you wanna know how many ways I fucked up looking after my family?" If Peter was going to answer, Sans makes sure to beat him to it. "Well, it's a lot. Lot more than you, that's for sure. All thing's considered this screw up is, y'know... fixable."

A big deal, yes, but Sans knows when a battle's revved to go into extra innings and when you need to call it early. There will be time for this talk again, when cooler heads might prevail.

"You're young. That's not a crime."

[takeitslow]

He's not crying, that's not why he's refusing to look at Sans. He's too old for there to be tears over his mistakes. He's nearly a damn adult, not some child who broke the window. He's mature and capable of dealing with his emotions like a man's supposed to.

It's just that he's not been talked to like this in a very long time. Not since he was little, when his powers first started and the problems first started. Back when his mother would find him with bruised knees and a wet face and remind him broken glass could be put back together. He'd do better next time. It wasn't the end of the world.

He's not crying; his chest just hurts because maybe he's not fully healed yet and his eyes just burn because he won't stop rubbing at them. He's not looking at Sans, because he just doesn't want to. That's it.

"You think so?" It comes out small and childish and tight with too much emotion. He sort of wants to punch himself for it, smooth move Maximoff. Sans doesn't need to repeat himself and Peter needs to get up, face everything that's being said here. If he's going to be an adult, then he actually needs to be one.

But maybe there's a part of him that's still that ten year old, needing to be reminded again that it wasn't the end of the world.

[skelepun]

No tears. And if there are, Sans staunchly refuses to notice them, eyelights fixed instead on Peter's own.

"J's gonna come back." Sans reminds him, voice unwavering on that point. He refuses to entertain the thought that she wouldn't. "Your sister's already forgiven you ten times over. Rinzler is... we'll deal with him. There's gonna be a way to make this stop."

If has to put the scare into the program himself, welp, them's the breaks. He slaps Peter quickly on the knee, rising to his feet.

"C'mon, kid. We gotta get you back before anyone figures out you're missing."

[takeitslow]

There's a part of him that's been terrified that she won't, mind stuck on the worst case scenario. Sans's simple affirmation shouldn't make him feel better, and that feeling of reassurance probably won't last long once he's left alone in the cell to wait, wait and wait, but for the moment it works. It's like running cold water over a burn or scratching at a mosquito bite; a temporary relief but relief all the same.

It's good enough to carry in the moment.

He scrubs at his face a few times, taking a deep breath before taking his hands away and standing up. His eyes are red rimmed and glossy, but he doesn't look like he's about to burst into tears anymore. He gives Sans a shaky nod and a shakier smile.

"Yeah. Can't have you getting into any trouble over me."

[skelepun]

"Me? I never get into trouble." He offers a hand to Peter, hoisting the kid up. The gesture is all it takes, and by the time Peter is standing the world has once again melted away -- replaced with brief blackness before fresh surroundings filter in.

Bars are between them again, Sans' skeletal hand still holding fast to Peter's through the thin gaps. He withdraws it slowly, forearm making it's way through without so much as snagging on the bars. An advantage of being all bones.

"I should go." He decides, not quite making moves to leave just yet. There's a beat before he continues, eye sockets pressed with rare and highly fleeting earnestness before he erases it all with a wink.

"Be good."

And in that moment, he's gone.