"Can't figure out if getting sent back home is better or worse than how things normally work, here." He's pretty sure it'd have destroyed any progress he'd made, when he was an inmate. Maybe that's why it never happened to him.
"I'm... scared to go home, I guess?" He's talked to Jean about this, to an extent. "But I have to. There's just so much going on there that's fucked up I don't even know what to fix first, or what needs to be fixed most."
"It made me think that home isn't real anymore. This place is. You can't dream up pain like this place gives. Sometimes I don't believe there is home anymore. If I ever see it again I'll look up and the admiral will be waiting."
This, he hopes Pietro understands, is part of why he's made so little effort to graduate.
"But. Anyway. What's the first thing you think of when you think of your world?"
"You have a point there." Sometimes the Barge is so surreal and strange it feels like a dream. But the experiences are so raw, burrow so deeply into his chest and bones, that he's not questioned their reality since his first couple weeks on board.
"My father." He doesn't even have to think about it.
"I'm hoping to figure something out that doesn't mean killing him. Eventually." Pietro, meanwhile, is incredibly uncomfortable with the idea. He still, on some level, loves his father. Quite possibly always will. It's a problem.
"Manipulative. Intelligent. Ambitious. Always ten steps ahead of everyone else. Nothing's ever good enough for him." He's never good enough, he means.
It's a familiar tune, don't kill him, don't hurt him, and Lark doesn't argue with it right now. For all he knows, Pietro feeling this way is keeping him from being an inmate.
"What does he want, though? If nothing is good enough I assume he's working toward something that he thinks will be."
"War. With him coming out on top and the humans coming out on bottom. Everyone else is a pawn. Or acceptable losses. Or both." The Brotherhood was generally both.
"He'll tell you it's for the good of all mutants. But he doesn't care how many of us he runs over in the process."
Lark is still trying to shape Pietro's father in his mind. "What's in it for him? Ruling the world? That can't last even if he succeeds, even if he takes only a small part. Other mutants with powers to counter his will come along. He has to know that."
"There aren't many mutants more powerful than him, and the ones that are close are pretty shit at getting along." Mutants in general are pretty shit at cooperation.
"He's not just powerful, though. He's manipulative. He knows how to play people, knows how to get them under his thumb, and nothing's beneath him." Not after what he did to his own children. "But I don't know what he wants, exactly. Just what he says he wants."
He hums, mind ticking through battlegrounds he's memorized. "Well, to say it in the most humble way possible, I'm good at finding out what people really want. We can put our heads together and do some research on him if you want."
"We can. Sometimes I think he just wants to see the world burn, though." And if that's the case... there's only one way to make sure everyone stays safe. His sister included.
Lark doesn't say it. Pietro knows, or if he doesn't, he will soon. So instead of presenting the idea again that Magneto may need to die, he goes a different--though perhaps no less difficult--direction. "How did you do it?"
Pietro shrugs. "The world needed to find out about mutants sooner or later. We were getting pretty hard to hide. We just... made sure it came out in the most alarming and unflattering way possible." He rubs his temples. "By luring all of us - the X-Men, the Brotherhood, his Acolytes - to the middle of a city and unleashing a giant mutant-hunting robot into their midst. Made national news in seconds."
"Sure it worked. He wanted to prove that humans and mutants couldn't live together in peace, and it sure got people scared. Got half of us captured, too. Brotherhood, X-men. Didn't matter so long as it furthered the cause, right?"
"Nah. Got to stick around a while. See the world lose their shit and start a goddamn witch hunt. Saw the X-men try to convince them we didn't mean any harm. As if ol' buckethead didn't mean every single thing he did." He's not sure he believes in peace for his home universe, even now. Even with a warden deal in his future.
"Got to have my sister try to kill me for it. Nah. I lived a while after that all went down."
"I'd still be an inmate if I was." He hesitates. "He hurt my sister a lot worse than he hurt me, though. Might've taken me way longer to see it, if it weren't for that."
"Yeah. Hospital. More like a holding facility masquerading as an institution. He said it'd help her. That she had anger problems and was out of control and her powers were too unpredictable. But she was nine years old. And I don't think he ever meant her to get out again."
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"I'm... scared to go home, I guess?" He's talked to Jean about this, to an extent. "But I have to. There's just so much going on there that's fucked up I don't even know what to fix first, or what needs to be fixed most."
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This, he hopes Pietro understands, is part of why he's made so little effort to graduate.
"But. Anyway. What's the first thing you think of when you think of your world?"
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"My father." He doesn't even have to think about it.
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He's tense now, agitated. Magneto always does that to him.
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"Manipulative. Intelligent. Ambitious. Always ten steps ahead of everyone else. Nothing's ever good enough for him." He's never good enough, he means.
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"What does he want, though? If nothing is good enough I assume he's working toward something that he thinks will be."
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"He'll tell you it's for the good of all mutants. But he doesn't care how many of us he runs over in the process."
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"He's not just powerful, though. He's manipulative. He knows how to play people, knows how to get them under his thumb, and nothing's beneath him." Not after what he did to his own children. "But I don't know what he wants, exactly. Just what he says he wants."
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"We started a war together, him and I."
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He's not bitter.
He's a little bitter.
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"Got to have my sister try to kill me for it. Nah. I lived a while after that all went down."
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cw: asylum trope
Re: cw: asylum trope
cw: asylum trope