AMARA AND PETER | Peter Maximoff

s i x

~ 𝐏𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫 ~

"Peter? Is that you?"

The sound of his mom's voice when he opened the door made him curse. "Yeah."

"Could you take out the trash for me?"

"Yeah."

He sped down to his room once he was done, hoping she'd completely forget about him and do her own thing.

The newest addition to his growing collection of stolen arcade items was also his newfound favourite to play, the Heavy Metal Meltdown pinball machine. Unlike every arcade game known to man, pinball didn't have a pattern. It wasn't predictable and didn't have the same outcome every time. It made it a lot harder for him to lose interest in the game, even though his reflexes were still more than capable of keeping up with the random movements.

His high score was wicked good, too. He played with the same ball for almost an hour when he got it and only had to step away because Lorna asked him for help on one of her science projects.

Using the same quarter he always did, Peter booted up the game and sat down, preparing his mind to be numb for the next three hours. It was how he wanted it to be.

The sound of his mom's footsteps only ten minutes later made him groan. He didn't feel like talking.

"You've been lying to me."

Peter rolled his eyes and kept playing his game. There were a lot of things he'd been lying to her about.

"When was the last time you visited the X-Mansion?" she asked.

"Last week," he answered, reaching into his pocket to pull out a smoke.

"Really?" Her tone was accusatory, but he didn't flinch. He'd been on this side of an argument too many times to be worried. "So, it hasn't been six months?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Went last week. Talked about controlling emotions."

"Then why did Charles call to ask me why he hasn't seen you?"

He shrugged. "Must've been a different Charles."

"I'm being serious," she scoffed. "It'll do you some good to act that way, too."

Sure it would, but he couldn't be bothered enough to give it a try.

"You're lucky he's so concerned about you, Peter. He could have given up on you a long time ago. You need to respect him, and respect the time he takes to help you."

"All he does is tell me about how shit I am, Mom," Peter argued, letting the pinball fall and swivelling around to face her. "He doesn't help anything. He just asks how I'm doing, gets upset with me for not changing, and the conversation's over. I don't want to see or talk to him."

"Well, maybe if you got a job-"

He didn't care how over-exaggerated his groan was. "How many places do you want me to apply to? Even if I apply to every store in this fucking town, no one wants to hire a speedster kleptomaniac."

"There are more options than retail work, Peter! The diner-"

"Absolutely not."

"The bakery!"

"I will eat all of their food. Guaranteed."

"The post office! What can you steal from there?"

"The fucking mail, Mom, it's like goddamn Christmas morning!"

"You can cut grass! That's a job!"

"Yeah, and the machines they use to-"

"What about the X-Mansion?"