Chapter Text
“I’m a horrible person.” David whispers when Kurt finds him. David’s sitting in Kurt’s bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, back to the wall. “Ruth hates me.”
“Ruth does not hate you.” Kurt says, sitting next to him. “And you are not a horrible person.”
“She should.” David whispers. “Fuck Kurt, I can’t break up with her. She’ll be so mad at me.”
“David, you’re not malicious to her. What if you just ask her if she’d like a body? Talk to her.” Kurt says softly, taking David’s hand in his and squeezing. “It will all be okay.”
“How can you know that?” David says, finally turning to look at him, eyes wet with tears.
“I happen to know both of you and have been in my fair share of relationships.” Kurt says. “It will be alright, but you need to calm down, mein Freund .”
David rests his head on Kurt’s shoulder and laughs wetly when his hair hits his friend in the face, and soon Kurt joins in.
---
After Pietro’s “intervention” for Lorna that had really mostly impacted David, everyone turns in for the night. Terry’s the last to leave, sitting next to Pietro on the couch.
“Sure you still want to nominate me?” Pietro asks.
“Unfortunately.” She quips. “That exact kind of holding everyone accountable, even your friends, thing is exactly what we need here.”
“I hope you know you’re digging my grave.” He says as she stands to leave.
“Yeah well- we’ve got two different guys who can reverse death and I’m the goddess who guards the passage of souls- we aren’t letting you off the hook that easy.”
---
The nomination meeting is interesting. It’s no surprise that the entire island is there, but things feel… tense. Reporters from the Daily Bugle have come and Pietro makes long, awkward, uncomfortable eye contact with Peter Parker from across the room as they walk in. He supposes that it makes sense, they’re disrupting the ethnostate. They killed Professor Xavier, that’s big global news. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.
He admittedly doesn’t plan to pay the most attention to all of the nominations but Lorna’s promised to write down the list of candidates so he’s not overly worried about it. He spends the first half of the meeting looking around for David and Kurt, wondering where the other men are- they’d said they were going to be there. If he’s going to get laughed off stage he’d like to at least be able to get a drink with David after.
I’d like to nominate Paige Guthrie- Husk, for the transitional government. Chamber projects to the room, and Pietro watches in amusement as the girl Guthrie turns a bright shade of pink as she walks up to Rogue to accept the nomination. Oh he was so glad he didn’t work with her brother anymore.
“Any other nominations?” Rogue asks, staring out towards the crowd, and Pietro’s pleased to see a number of hands shoot up. It’s good that they’ll have no shortage of candidates to pick from, even if it means his friends are even more delusional than he thought they were originally.
“Aurora.” Comes a strong voice from the back of the room, Akihiro, Wolverine’s son- Pietro’s pretty sure Lorna had told him something about Akihiro and Aurora dating. That made sense.
Terry stands and for a brief, panicked moment, Pietro is sure she’s going to nominate him, but instead her voice rings out, almost deafening. “James Proudstar, Warpath.”
Next to him, Lorna deflates and Pietro frowns, nudging her with his shoulder.
A young man covered head to toe in eyes stands to nominate who Pietro had thought was his nephew’s boyfriend, unless he was wrong and this David character was dating the eye boy. He really needed to put lunch with Tommy on his calendar.
Lorna smiles fondly when seemingly at the same time, Karma and Mirage try to nominate each other, they hadn’t even bothered to let go of each others’ hand.
Storm, who according to Lorna’s paper, was among the first to be nominated, stands to nominate a young man named Nezhno who sheepishly but gracefully accepts the nomination.
He’s startled to find that Kevin stands to nominate someone, and prays that it isn’t him. But instead all his purple friend says is. “Egg.”
The room goes quiet, and Rogue looks at him for a moment. “Excuse me?”
“ Egg . Put him on yer damn council.” Kevin says.
The young man who is apparently “Egg,” looks at Kevin from across the room with a slack jawed expression, until the nudging from the group around him pushes him forward and up to Rogue to accept.
Jubilee stands and nominates Monet St. Croix, and Pietro nudges Lorna until she leans closer and then whispers. “Did Storm miss a memo about only being allowed to nominate someone you’re dating or want to date? Because if so, I’d like to be able to see which of you is nominating me .”
---
Ruth materializes out of David’s head and flinches when she realizes that Kurt is standing with him. “Yes?”
“I-” David starts, uncomfortableness exuding from every pore of his body. “Doyouwantabody?”
Ruth swallows hard, equally uncomfortable. “David, why is he here?”
“Ah- uh moral support.” Kurt says sheepishly. “For whichever one of you ends up needing it most.”
“Do you….want a…..body?” David repeats, much slower but somehow much more anxiously. “I could make you a body.”
“You’re only asking because Pietro yelled at you.” Ruth says.
“No.” David says, refusing to look at her. “I’m asking because Pietro made me realize that I’ve been a piece of shit and I don’t like being a piece of shit.”
“You never asked before.”
“You- you told me you didn’t want a body and I didn’t think you’d change your mind.” He sighs. “I’m not a mind reader, Ruth.”
David, you’re the world’s most powerful telepath. Ruth projects throughout his mind, then aloud. “You mean you haven’t thought about me .”
“That’s not true-”
“I live in your head darlin’.” Ruth says, tired sounding. “You can’t lie to me, I’m an afterthought.”
“Do you want a body?” David asks again, more confident. “Ruth, please-”
“ Yes .” She says. “Just the way you remember me.”
In an instant the body materializes and Ruth implants herself into it. When she stands, pushing herself off the ground, David tries to hug her, all awkward limbs and pointy edges but she pulls away before he can. “We’re late.”
“For what?” David asks.
“The nominations. We’re late.”
“You’re not stuttering.” David says, quickly matching her step as he follows her to the meeting.
“Not for now.” Ruth answers, walking through the aisle in Arbor Magna and not stopping until she’s seated next to Pietro.
He turns to look at her, visibly surprised. “Ruth?”
“Remind me, sorry.” She says. “Can you nominate yourself? Sorry.”
Pietro grins and David does not like the feeling it conjures in his stomach. “If you don’t, I’ll nominate you.”
Ruth stands, and doesn’t complain even once when Pietro helps direct her so that she’s actually facing Rogue when she speaks. “I’d like to nominate myself. Sorry.”
Rogue smiles, kind. “Alright. Are there any other nominations before I make my own nomination?”
It’s like the room is waiting with bated breath, more eager to hear Rogue’s nomination than they had been each others’ and Pietro wants to run away. To hide from this responsibility that he had agreed to. Wanda hadn’t come, telling him that her presence would only make things worse if the reaction to his nomination wasn’t good. But he knew where she was waiting for him, and sink or swim he knew that she’d hold him through the weight of their judgment. So he sat, locked eyes with Rogue, and nodded.
“I’d like to nominate someone who has become a dear friend to me, and someone I’ve learned to trust with my life.” She swallowed, and then continued. “Pietro Maximoff, Quicksilver.”
Unlike with the other nominations, there was no clamor of applause, no loud whistle, no celebration. There was merely the creaking sound of weight shifting on wood as the population turned to look at him, eerily silent. The older faces among them looked insulted, the younger, scared. He scanned every face he could see before they’d even had time to blink, and felt weighed down by their disappointment . He wasn’t what they wanted. He’d never been what they wanted.
His father - Erik meets his gaze cooly, expression outwardly unreadable. But Pietro had lived with the man, he knew the minutiae of his cruelty. He could tell that his father wanted to hit him. To punish him for the embarrassment that was his existence here. His father’s upset was the only thing that spurred him to his feet, and from his seat to Rogue’s side where he accepted the nomination before disappearing.
The guest bedroom of Rogue and Gambit’s apartment had become a second home, even if Wanda had been the one of the two of them taking the bed more often than not since their arrival here. Pietro threw himself on it, landing hard on his sister, though she didn’t complain. Wanda held him tightly, the steady pressure of her hug grounding him as he wept.
As Wanda comforted her brother she had to fight back the relief that washed over her at the reaction to his nomination. It was selfish, she knew she was selfish when it came to Pietro- but she didn’t really want to share him with the island even if she knew he deserved to lead here. But the island, these X-Men, would take him from her. And they had made it clear that she was not welcome here.
They were still in a guest room because that’s all they could ever be here, guests .