thecapitol | I dreamed I had nothing at all ; OPEN

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I dreamed I had nothing at all ; OPEN

Who| Pietro and you!
What| Dramatic flopping.
Where| District 7 Suites, Training Center, the Lounge
When| Erhm. Anytime in the last few days?
Warnings/Notes| Dramatic flopping. Possible alcoholism.

[ 1; District 7 Suites ]

He stumbled more than walked through the lavish apartment. It was fancier than most buildings he'd lived in in New York, the floors didn't dip randomly, as was common in the older rehabbed tenements. Everything seemed perfect, pristine, as if inserting a human into the equation would ruin the image somehow. He ruined it. He stumbled instead of walked gingerly as one should, across plush carpet and rich hardwoods, he felt himself almost slip and struggled lamely to retain his balance over the cool tiles of the kitchen.

Earlier, Pietro had felt his stomach growling for perhaps the first time since his arrival in this strange place. Finally he took it upon himself to seek out food, the discomfort having grown sufficient enough to merit actual action. Upon reaching the equally lavish and appropriately stocked kitchen, however, he found himself at a loss. With is powers gone his appetite had also shifted and he couldn't live off of caffeine, sugar, and carbohydrates anymore. He observed the few fruits presented decoratively in a glass bowl on the counter-top, picking one up and blinking at it with only minimal recognition. He double-read labels, and then triple-read them, the information there but unprocessed due to the fact that he had read them too quickly. How cruel this was, how belittling.

—

[ 2; Training Center ]

Treadmills required no small amount of getting used to. Pietro stared down at his feet as he jogged. He could follow their movements which was, honestly, the first sign that something was terribly amiss. In the past, he'd be unable to use this kind of machinery, owing to the fact that, if he pressed himself, he would run it to its limits and the mechanics would crash in on themselves. Now he felt the burn of the incline, the urgency of the speed he'd selected. He wasn't out of shape for a human, he just wasn't himself. It was depressing. Disarming. Alienating.

He pressed the off button on the machine and had to jump to avoid tripping off of it as it slowed. It wasn't just his speed and endurance, his reaction times were also lessened. Captain America had warned him once, half a lifetime ago, about the dangers of relying on his powers for everything. Pietro had reckoned with the man's words a handful of times before, but now here in a strange and hostile land, they seemed to carry more weight.

His arms felt like lead and his face was flushed from the exertion. He felt himself sweating, sensed the droplets beading up on his nose and forehead, pooling at the back of his neck. At the periphery of the room there were towels. He made for one and narrowly avoided punching the wall.

—

[ 3; the Lounge ]

Alcohol made him feel free.

It wasn't healthy, not in the slightest, he knew that. But there was still something to be said for the shift in perception. Gradually the world had slowed down, back to its appropriate rate, leaving him master of it all. The warm golden lights in the room gleamed cheerily, reflecting off the dark wood and bronze of the bar, and the glasses and bottles behind it. Normally none of this would be affecting him as it did, but then normally he wouldn't need it to. He stared down the clear liquid before taking yet another shot. The vodka was good, great, even. He could feel it burning its way down his throat. He could track it. It was a sensation slow enough for him to follow its effects.

He waved to the strange creature behind the bar. In his liquor-addled haze, it reminded him of an Inhuman and he sneered at it with perhaps more vitriol than it deserved. Another glass was necessary, no, not a glass, a bottle. If the world had slowed, maybe he could make it stop entirely.

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Matt hadn't gone to the lounge to drink so much as to get away from it all. He sat alone sipping water, listening to the murmur of the other patrons, just trying to clear his head. There was too much going on, always too much, and sometimes he felt like he might explode from the sensations. It was good to get away, good to feel the quiet.

He'd been sitting silently for some time, picking through the assorted nuts and pretzels as he gathered his thoughts back up again. He'd tipped the bartender already and would again, once it was time to leave. He remembered what it was like to struggle to make ends meet. He was about to push another few bills her way when he thought he recognized someone at the bar. The other man smelled strange. It was a scent he couldn't place. He almost thought it was... No. It couldn't be.

"Excuse me. You seem awfully familiar," he said at last, face masked by his glasses and the amber lit shadows of the lounge. "Have we met somewhere before?"

Pietro dragged himself from his practically horizontal position on the bar. His blue eyes watered as he looked up at the man calling to him. The words slowly knit themselves into something intelligible, something of which he could make sense, and he frowned angrily as their meaning began to set in. Know him. No one knew him like this. No one could.

"I don't believe we have," he replied, the redhead's image only barely registering past the ocean his senses were swimming in. Alcohol did funny things to the mind and he normally he liked it for that. Right now it made him dull, thoughtless. His words were slurred, his accent open as he did nothing to disguise it. If people were unintelligible to him, Pietro would make himself unintelligible right back. It was better that he think it intentional than deal with the idea that his lack of control might be yet another side effect of his missing powers. "You don't look familiar to me at all. I would apologize, but there isn't any use. Why bother with something I don't mean for a man I don't know?"

Free time isn't kind to Eva. She should be using her 'vacation', a long overdue respite from having to be a mother and a guide into the slaughterhouse to a gaggle of misfit personalities bearing her District's number, as a means to recuperate from the stresses of living. She should be sleeping, enjoying a good book, reclining in the Capitol sun until the rays burn divisions between her covered skin and her shoulders.

Instead she's at the lounge. Again. For the eighth night in a row, with a scrape along her ankle from where she fell down in her heels on her unfortunate stumble up her front stairs last night. She escaped her duties as Virgil to become, instead, a sullen maenad.

She isn't nearly as deep in her cups as Pietro, but her tongue's already greased up, sliding under a lip arched with disdain. Another Tribute, if the clothes are any indicator. Another sad foreigner either she, or some other District's beleaguered soul, will have to usher around.

She's so tired of it.

"And you don't even have an Arena under your belt yet."

Edited 2014-08-02 05:43 (UTC)

The woman's voice is distant until it hits him all at once. That means whatever it is he's drinking isn't working correctly. It was supposed to make things easier to process, not make them seem as if they were swimming. He frowned as the words processed themselves through his head. It was happening more quickly, but by no means quickly enough for his liking.

"They don't do very much research before they abduct us if they think any of that talk would truly scare me." And, indeed, it doesn't. He's seen this type of world before, fought his way through this type of world before. His powers might be a setback but they did not render escape an impossibility. He had regained them once, he would do it again. Pietro just needed time to make sense of everything, to formulate his plan of action.

"I have died at least three times in the past decade in terrible ways. I assure you, nothing here can frighten me at all." He sneers over his half-empty glass, not bothering to spare a look for the woman. She doesn't know him and he doesn't need to know her.

"Yes, yes, your world is special and you've done it all before. Believe me, I've heard it from people who look a little more-" she waves a hand at Pietro, long fingers twiddling a bit- "put together than you do right now."

She takes another mouthful of her own drink and closes her eyes as the alcohol courses through her like liquid metal into a mold. Maybe she's further gone than he is. She can't really tell from here, nor does she care; when she gets trashed enough, they'll escort her home and her reputation as a hapless, washed-up lush will survive yet another media cycle.

Pretending she's getting shitfaced for great justice is a convenient lie for the fact that she can't get through a day without shoving booze down her throat.

"All I'm saying is that you should have some pride now. You don't have an excuse not to until later."

After Charles got out of the Arena, having been one of the people who had won, he was displeased. Especially after finding out that he'd just have to go back into it. He had the things he had received from winning hidden in his room, to be saved for a rainy day, he supposed. Now, though, he wanted to blow off some steam. He was dressed in blue sweats and wore a yellow tee underneath. He started off jogging with the sweatshirt, and after awhile, pulled it off and continued.

For every mile he went, he started to feel better and better, at least temporarily. His body would ache, he would be exhausted, but maybe he would be numb for a few moments without having to indulge in alcohol. Stopping his run and stepping off of the treadmill left him feeling a little empty. He missed his friends, his sister, anyone from home. There was someone else there, and it wasn't someone he had seen before. Of course, with everything going on, he hadn't checked to see who had newly arrived, although he had noticed that there were new arrivals.

He watched him for a moment. "You're new here, aren't you?" he asked. His movement was cautious. New people could be angry, upset, and unpredictable. Charles didn't want to be the cause. "You'll get... accustomed to the routine quickly." He was careful with his word choice. It seemed distant. After all, there was nothing good about this place, and you didn't want to get too used to it. "I'd say welcome, but..." his voice trailed.

Then, with careful and expected politeness he said, "Charles Xavier," he offered his hand.

Edited 2014-08-04 02:52 (UTC)

The name registered before the rest of the man's words did. He blinked, bleary-eyed at the stranger. He didn't look very much like the Charles Xavier Pietro knew. For starters, he was at least three decades too young. More than that, however, he seemed to carry himself entirely differently from the Professor Xavier of his timeline. And, having dealt with quite enough alternate Professor Xaviers, it gave him reason for pause.

Nevertheless, there was something familiar about the subtle accent, the intelligent lilt to his voice. Pietro had heard it before in darker times in his life. He reciprocated the gesture, shaking Charles' hand quickly but firmly before pulling away again. "Pietro Maximoff. Quicksilver. If we haven't met yet, we should."

His words were clipped, but not too fast to be understood. Running forced his heart-rate up, made him feel somewhat like himself again. "But I'm afraid I don't do well with routines or playing the subservient prisoner. May I ask how long you have been here?"

"In the future," Charles said without pause. He remembered speaking to Matt when he arrived. He had mentioned that in the future Charles would have students, and that they knew each other. Another, then? Sure, he was skeptical of Matt's words, but he didn't entirely distrust them. He disliked the idea of people being here who had at some point placed trust in him, though.

"Just short of three months," Charles answered. "It isn't about playing prisoner." Although they were. "It's about understanding what can and will happen is worse than what goes on there." Charles wasn't very strong when it comes to this, but he knows better than to openly discuss disobeying or misbehaving. There were eyes everywhere.

He dips forward again, his balance being thrown by both the visceral, gut reaction to her words and the alcohol swirling around in his bloodstream. How terrible it is to have a normal, human metabolism.

"I have plenty of pride," he laughs, and thus ends up spitting the words more than actually saying them. There's a heavy vitriol that's only punctuated further by the ambiguously Eastern European accent he can't be bothered to keep from slipping into his voice. "Woman, whatever you have seen before it is nothing compared to me. Your leaders do not know what hell they have wrought upon themselves, bringing me here and handling my body as they have."

He looks up, finally. His eyes are impossibly light blue. They reflect eerily amid the pale skin and silver hair. "Now go away and leave me to my drink. Your opinion was neither requested nor is it welcome."

There was something, after all of his experiences in the last few years, that rubbed Pietro the wrong way about such conviction regarding the future. He had seen it --several its, actually-- embraced that which he considered to be inevitable, only to play a part in a horror beyond his true comprehension and have men greater perhaps than him, at least at the time, turn it all on its ear and then stand it upright again. No, the future was beyond any one person's knowledge, and nothing about it was ever cast in the proverbial stone.

He frowned at Xavier, in a way which was thoughtful rather than distinctly unfriendly. It took some effort. The angles of his face were too much like his father's. They made every expression seem too severe. "Forgive me, Professor, but in the future none of those comments will sound very much like you at all."

It wasn't that Pietro had faith in Charles, not exactly. Rather, it was that he had known the man, one way or another, since he was a teenager. Magneto's antithesis was all light and faith in humanity, things that can and would happen were neither here nor there.

A thought occurred to him and Pietro could have smacked himself for not thinking of it sooner. His reflexes were an illusion of what they should have been brought on by the endorphin high. "Where are the X-Men? Do they know you're trapped here?"

It was all a little odd to him, still, he smiled. Even if it wasn't necessarily the most sincere. "Well, that would be why that is the future, and this is the now."

Still, someone knowing him in the future meant that there was a possibility that there was information about him that was outside of his control. He wasn't about to ask on camera.

"The X-Men?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. He was technically a G-Man, if he wanted to get down to it. He'd never heard of anyone referring to them as X-Men. He observed Pietro carefully, though. It was oddly familiar to him, but not close enough to necessarily grasp it.

"Nor is it prohibited."

There's an element of desperation to Eva's haughtiness. She's like a territorial beast defending her hardwon pride, convinced that any encroachment could contaminate the whole hoard. And Tributes are on that very very short list of people she can lord herself over.

"If you wanted to avoid, what is this, heckling? You would have made the Avoxes bring you vodka in your bed. In my unrequested, unwelcome opinion, either you're lonely or you want an audience for your pity party."

It may sound a little better if she weren't slurring her words in the back of her mouth.

"Your team, Professor," Pietro replied, trying not to let the bitterness seep into his tone. The funny thing is that he wasn't necessarily still bitter, it was merely a matter of habit at this point. Since Pietro was sixteen years old, the X-Men had, more often than not, he had been their enemy. It was difficult to get out of that mindset, even decades later.

He frowned, the expression drawing harsh lines around his mouth and brow. His silver eyebrows knit together in a concerned expression so perfect it might have appeared feigned on anyone else. On Pietro, however, it was just dramatic enough to be appropriate somehow. "I might prefer the Avengers, but there is no discounting the X-Men's loyalty to their own."

It all came back to him like the lyrics to an old Celine Dion song. Matt sat up straight, furrowed brows partially obscured by his ever present sunglasses. "No, no. I know exactly who you are. Maximoff, right? Pietro Maximoff. It's been a long time, but I never forget that..." Smell? No, not quite. "That accent."

He waved for the bartender to return again, and this time he ordered one of whatever Pietro was drinking for himself and another for Pietro.

"They've collected themselves quite an assortment of Avengers, haven't they." Matt smirked a little, nodding his thanks as the bartender fixed their drinks. "You really don't recognize me, do you? Well how about that."

"It is by certain social mores," he's sneering again. Pietro knows enough about manners and courtesy to be well enough aware when he's breaking them. It's the same intrepid, third-party perspective that let's him see Eva for exactly the meddler she is. "Or do your people generally interrupt strangers at dinner, or out shopping, or at whatever other public function?"

His own words are slurred, half from his accent, or at least, that's what he's letting himself believe.

"Anyone with any amount of self-respect refuses to drink in bed. Audience be truly well damned."

There were a swarm of questions he could ask, and Pietro regretted the loss of his speed for the umpteenth time since his arrival if only for his inability to rattle them off as quickly as they appeared, jogging foggily and with no clear distinction through his mind. He settled for squinting critically at Matt, his eyes taking on an impressive glassy blue color from some combination of the alcohol and their own abnormal paleness. He paused. He did know this man. It shouldn't have taken him so long to recognize him, not when his name had been plastered around every disreputable tabloid in New York and not a few of the actual daily papers only a short time ago.

"Matthew Murdock," he observed finally, after what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a slightly awkward number of seconds. The bartender presented them with their drinks, and Pietro turned his gaze onto the clear liquid-filled glass instead. Maybe he'd had a few too many. "I was put off by the lack of red leather and driveling conspiracy theories regarding your nocturnal habits."

However Matt might respond to that, Pietro didn't believe for a moment that the man wasn't Daredevil. Still, while he'd never been granted the luxury of a secret identity and probably wouldn't have been able to maintain one even given the chance, there was a certain comfort and security in anonymity. It didn't take a genius to see that.

"There are other Avengers here?" The change of subject was abrupt, but not half as abrupt as it might have been. Frankly, the Avengers are a more interesting topic than anything else presently touched on. "Who? Should I start blaming Henr-- the Wasp now, or after we finish our drinks?"

Eva snorts. It's unladylike, a clear escapee from her habits usually held captive by her sobriety. "That's cute. You think you're people."

It was never the difficult part for her to adjust to; she grew up with Capitol surveillance throughout her District, watching the Tributes before her being broadcast in their most intimate and vulnerable moments. She was prepared, at least intellectually, to be robbed of the ability to expect that she had any privacy or say in what happened to her.

Even a conversation is a lot to ask for when it only comes when given permission.

"Self-respect? I'd rather think it's self-delusion. You're getting drunk anyway, no matter where you do it. You're kidding yourself if you think that it makes you a better sort of person, more self-possessed, to do it in an acceptable location."

There's entirely too much use of the prefix 'self' in her statements for someone who doesn't quite believe in it.

"And I think that you're rather self-absorbed if you think that I care what you or your people have to say on the matter." The words are abnormally crisp and clear for someone who's just been slurring through a terrible accent not to mention practically drinking his weight in vodka. They're delivered lightly, deftly, with a sort of blithe and dismissive arrogance most people can't stomach in themselves.

Pietro twists the small glass in his hand. It catches the yellowish light in the bar and for an instant, it reflects in his silvery white hair and they both share a matching glow. But there's no grand enlightenment to be had in the half-empty glass and after a moment's reflection, he drains it bitterly. As it burns its way down his nigh pickled throat the world seems to slow again. "And as a point of fact, I am homo sapien superior, of a genus far beyond what you might consider to be a mere person. I wouldn't normally harp on such a technicality, but since you did bring it up. I am more than a person, and that is something your ignorance shall not take from me. Now go, and take your vile simpering to someone with patience, idiocy, or digestive fortitude to be bothered with it."

"I don't have a team," he answered. "I'm a teacher, Pietro." He would let the other take that as he wanted. He didn't technically have a team of his own, but he did work on a team. He didn't want to go talking about and freely offering this information to the citizens of the capitol. If they thought, for some reason,t hat he had an organized group of mutants, they could bring the others there. They would provide a lot of excitement in the arena. Excitement that he didn't want to give them.

"You can't contact people outside of here. I have tried to reach friends at home. There is at least one who would have answered me loudly if he had been able to hear me."

Edited 2014-08-12 05:25 (UTC)

In this place, this other world, was there even a point to keeping up any pretenses about his other life? He wanted to guard his privacy and his identity even now, but what was the point of it? Daredevil didn't exist here. Only Matt did. So he just let it go. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't worth the fight.

"There are others here. Tony Stark, Thor, Steve. Charles Xavier is here, too." He took hold of his glass, sniffed the contents before taking a sip and shrugging. Not terrible. "But they're not the men I know. They're from a parallel universe of some kind. They didn't know who I was. They recognized Natasha, but they got the details about her all wrong. And as far as I can tell, Pym's got nothing to do with this business. It's something else completely."

"Teaching and leading teams of would-be terrorists are hardly things which are mutually exclusive." He couldn't help the slight condescension from sneaking into his voice. Pietro had always held a particular opinion of the X-Men, even when fate had arranged things such that they were on, more or less, the same side. They may have been righteous mutant separatists, but they were still separatists and extremists all the same. They could claim the high ground to the Brotherhood, but not to much else. At least not in his assessment, which, naturally was preordinately disposed against them.

He softened his expression slightly, or attempted to do so. The slightly inhuman pallor and harsh angles of his proud face made that difficult. Doubly so now, when it was only out of residual youthful regard for the man with whom he was speaking. "I take it, then, that your powers are as useless here as mine. That is truly disappointing. You have my deepest sympathies. I mean that."

"Well, thank heavens for that." Pietro replied quickly, not quite abnormally quickly, but quickly enough all the same. He couldn't decide quite whether it was good or bad that Pym was nowhere to be found. It would have at least given him a convenient focus for his rage. It would have simplified things, streamlined them. Instead, he was left with with a dozen thoughts coursing through his head and the impulse to dash off and pursue each of them simultaneously.

"And I would assume that their powers are as useless to them as mine have become." The were harshly accented and bitter, as if channeling his anger through them would help to make some course of action more clearly apparent between the haze of the world and the vodka. "No matter. We are Avengers. We will find some way out of this."

"You care enough to keep responding." And she rolls her eyes, because whatever hierarchy Pietro believes he's part of isn't the one which keeps her ground to the floor. It's not one that hurts from a lifetime of seeing the truth in it.

"You're a Tribute. The most you can hope for here is a half-life more befitting of a hamster or a dog than a human being. Maybe one day you'll find yourself a Mentor and be able to lay claim to not being lowest on the pecking order, but as long as you're here, that's the way of it."

She purses her lips and shrugs. "And if I'm ignorant, you're stubborn."

"No one seems to have powers here." Except for him, but he wasn't about to give as much away, not to someone like Pietro and not with the Capitol eavesdropping on them from every conceivable vantage point. "Except in the Arenas. Then it's a free-for-all bloodbath. Turns out when you give a man permission to kill, he's likely to do it."

It all pissed Matt off royally, made his doubts in humanity even stronger. But more than that, it made his need for vengeance... for justice all the more rampant.

"I'm not normally a team player, but if you need a hand in this, know that I'm with you guys on this one." He had to be, for his own sake and for the sake of every innocent person who'd been dragged into this nightmare.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Charles answered. His expression read not hing but confusion when Pietro talked to him like this. (It was probably so unfamiliar to him, Charles knew. Especially if he was used to another, different, version of himself.) He didn't want to seem lost, though. He had to remain in control of himself and his situation.

Then - of course - he had to mention powers. Charles' expression hardened. His jaw tightened, and his body was suddenly stiff and uncomfortable. He stared straight through Pietro. He wouldn't admit to what sort of powers he had, at the very least. He was specifically told not to, and he wasn't about to. "Everyone here is in the same position. If they have something at home - they don't have it here. Don't feel bad for me."

He tried to force himself to relax, but he couldn't. He needed to tell him not to talk about it, without saying it. "I don't know what you can do, but it doesn't matter here."

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I dreamed I had nothing at all ; OPEN

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training center.

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