A/N: God, I love comments
This was a day when I went without Peter. The first day of summer, I was spending with my mother, as was done for most of my life. I explained it to Peter last night when he dropped me at my doorstep and said goodbye.
"You know, my mom is dying to meet you," I told him, leaning against the wall next to my door. "She thinks it's a miracle you haven't ditched me yet. She doesn't know you have superspeed, so... just wait until she does."
He smiled, "She seemed nice for the split second the other day when I ran past her. It was a split second because the door was mid-closing, but she's pretty, too."
"Oh Lord, please don't have a crush on my mom, Peter, that's the last thing I need from you." I snorted. I waved my hand around in the air, "I know she's an attractive woman, but... please don't."
He laughed at the ground, "No, I don't have a thing for your mom. Not yet, at least, I haven't actually met her."
"Ew, Peter, no-" I was laughing there was a moment of me covering my face and he grabbed my hands.
"Would you-" he moved my hands away from my face. "-Stop doing that? You're not ugly, stop acting like you are, it's really annoying."
It was habitual, the covering of my face when I laughed too much. Instinct, maybe, because I didn't want to be caught or seen with a laugh on my face in case I looked odd. I narrowed my eyes at him, "Fine."
"Good," he let go and rocked on his heels. The mood felt shifted, but where it started was already gone and unrecognizable. Odd. "I'll see you soon, I have the entire summer to bother you and you bet I will."
I was still wondering why covering my face would be annoying to him, as I found it peculiar that any sort of miffed-off-ness would come from me not caring for my own laugh. I didn't mind his thoughts, though- I liked knowing what was on other's minds. I shook my head at Peter, "Just no bothering me tomorrow, I spend the first official day of break with my mother. It's a thing we do every year and sadly, there are no men allowed." I paused, "I actually just realized I don't have any way to call you..."
"Oh," Peter said, whizzing off and coming back with a pen. "We have two landlines, but one is mine, so..." he grabbed my hand once again and wrote his number on my wrist. I watched as he wrote the digits with semi-messy writing. "That's a four, by the way." He said, chuckling.
"-And just in case you need to call me first," I took the pen from him and took his hand this time. You know, really if there was anything attractive to me about Peter, it would be his hands. Not that he wasn't attractive, he was good-looking as a person, but if anything appealed to me personally, it was his hands. I had always thought of really nice hands as artwork and he happened to have such.
"You okay?" Peter shook his hand a little in mine and I scrunched my nose and shook my head, snapping back to what I was supposed to be doing. I wrote my home number on his wrist and he took his hand back to read it.
I couldn't believe how much had happened that day. I slid down the wall and sat on the ground just going over it again. I often thought things over too much. He tilted his head curiously and then must have realized what I was thinking. He sat right down on the ground with me.
He looked entirely serious, but still looked partly concerned. "What you did today was really, really badass. You kicked that coward's ass and you stayed calm when his gun was pointed right at your head. Bam, bam, walls come down with your mind. I'm really lucky to have witnessed that and will brag about it until I'm 21."
"21?"
"I'll probably be dead before 20, so 21 is a stretch. I almost died twice today, once when,... you know and two, when that blue car went right over the hedge and nearly hit me. That was fun- especially because they were blasting The Beatles."
I nodded comprehensively and a small smile pulled at my lips, but I stayed on task. "Thank you for saving those people, though," -there was a heaving breath from me. Gratitude. "And for moving to divert the robber's attention from me. And for helping me through it afterward. And for ditching me when you broke the statue." I turned the grateful rant into something comedic, so I wouldn't feel too awkwardly for owing him so much.
"No worries," he puffed his chest out again dramatically, in play. But it deflated quickly when he saw a shadow move inside. My mother was probably listening, if I was being realistic. He took it as his sign to go and I stood back up, him standing with me. "I'll call you tomorrow, but don't think about this morning too much, alright? Get some sleep."
"You too. Thanks for today."
"Thanks for driving."
He waved and zoomed off and I went inside, grinning. Mother didn't say anything, instead, she sipped her white wine and raised her eyebrows at me, to which I rolled my eyes playfully, hopping up the steps to my bedroom, where I collapsed on my bed, exhausted from the day. I didn't know how well my mother would handle 'I took down a building but the owner didn't really care' because she probably wouldn't believe me. But who would, anyway?
I gave my flytraps a little bit of food each and looked out the window, where the edge of the sky was still blushed pink and the sky faded into a purplish-blue. My head was filled with so much to think about I just took a deep breath and stared out. I could smoke if I wanted to, but I was trying to stop so that I could continue smelling like orange blossoms and not cigarettes. The night breeze was so lovely when I was just downstairs, I opened my window and moved my flytraps from the sill to pry it open.
I stared at my dresser, where I kept a pack of cigarettes and my lighter and looked back out the window. Bad idea, bad idea... I always had a rule for myself that I smoke in moderation so that I wouldn't get attached, but the fear of getting attached was what kept me from moderation, as the fear didn't let me smoke at all. I figured it wouldn't hurt to relax a bit more before I was in for the night.
I slipped into my pyjamas, which were just an old t-shirt from a consignment store and a pair of silk shorts and grabbed the cigarettes along with my book. It was a book written by my mother's friend about a bridesmaid in love with the groom at a wedding. It was romantic and pulled on my heart if I read it in the right setting. With my things, I stepped from the foot of my bed onto my window sill and scooted out onto the roof.
There I lit my cigarette and took my hair out of its ponytail. My hair blew in the wind that carried the smoke away. My nose was still pulsing a little from the incident with the keys but I was smiling. I finished three chapters of the book, reading it over for the seventh time while the air became less sticky and cooler, to the point where I stepped inside, tucked my things away, brushed my teeth and went to bed.
But I kept recounting my day over and over and just being filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for Peter. It was so weird, but there was another feeling of luck or... purpose. I was supposed to be his friend and that just felt like the only real explanation I could find.
This morning was bright and came with the questions my mother let slip the previous night as we sat on the back porch drinking tea together. "So, you skipped the last day of school. Tell me all about the escapades you went on with your brilliant and oh-so rebellious friend Peter." She said, a little flounce to her voice. She wasn't angry at all, rather, she was interested. How she knew was just the mother's instinct... or maybe it was a call home once they checked and saw I was fatherless.
I smiled to my tea, "We just drove in his car all day until we ended up at this statue place and we walked around there for a while. Nothing special, really. We were responsible, no drinking, no smoking, just music and... he's an awful singer."
"Is he now?" Mother laughed and twirled her fingers around her curls ere scrunching them, seemingly lost in thought. I sipped my tea and watched a bird hop along the lawn, waiting for her to say what was on her mind. "You aren't dating, now are you, Venus?"
"God, no," I spit my tea in the bush in a stream as I had spoken with a mouthful of the drink. Mother kept chuckling. "It isn't like that with us. He sees me as a cousin or sister, at best."
She seemed to understand I was speaking the truth. "I still want to meet him, though. He's already helped you skip class, what's next, jail?" She was joking again. "I kid- It was the last day of school it didn't really matter anyway. Seemed like you had fun, I'm glad you have a friend."
I nodded and continued to watch the little bird. "I think I need you to paint that bird," I suggested to her and her face just lit up and in moments she was sashaying into the house for her supplies. I had provoked a day of painting and I knew this would only end in one masterpiece on her part and one snake-like bird on mine.
Events lead into events and we were painting on the back porch while discussing everything from grades to dinner, to the cut on my nose and somehow ended up on the topic of bra sizes, which oddly enough reminded me of Peter saying, 'good, because wow'. If my own boobs reminded me of Peter Maximoff, that was probably an issue.
Mother had painted half of her bird while I was painting a measly little sun on the corner of my canvas. "I don't get how you put a brush to canvas and get a lifelike bird. You see the bird and you can use the exact right colours and make the right shapes with your hand, somehow."
"Coordination, my love. Years of study and practice with my hands." She smiled to herself and I knew exactly what she was thinking and shook my head in mock disapproval. She turned and with a stroke of the brush painted my cheek green. "You're green, Venus Green."
"God I hate colour jokes," I rebutted, painting her cheek orange. "Did you forget it's your last name too?" I laughed as she dipped her brush in the paint again and splattered it across my face and in my hair. I gasped and she shoved her canvas out of the way while I attacked her with my brush again. We were laughing and soon ended up with empty jars and covered head to toe in different colours and shades.
"I have become the art," Mother said, picking everything up. "So has the porch wood, but I don't think I care." She bent down and turned the globs of paint into flowers by smearing with the paintbrush she held between her delicate fingers. I wished I had the comprehension to come up with that idea. "Go wash off and I'll be in soon."
I nodded and walked around her and inside. My clothes were probably wrecked, but it was just shorts and an old t-shirt, so they didn't need to be thrown away. I cleaned it off of my skin and the bits on my clothes were dry, but the red had stained bits of my blonde hair pink and wouldn't budge, so I gave up and made lunch.
https://open.spotify.com/track/5RgFlk1fcClZd0Y4SGYhqH?si=8f0ab388a7c04577
My mother always had such a lenient, care-free, lively personality and it really was a wonder how I turned out to be so distant from others when she was such a social woman. I was only like her when we were alone or when I was with the people I liked. I envied her in many ways but at the same time knew that she'd tell me that I was the person she envied to be. When I was around six I told her I wished I had skin and curls like hers and I didn't understand why she just smiled and told me that I was beautiful, so dismissively.
Being a woman of her race and sexual preference and being born in 1934 was hard on her. Her entire life she was called awful names and treated badly. I hated the idea that anyone would judge anyone by race or who they loved but it was out of my grasp and the most I could do was talk them down when they gave her a dirty look. The only time I would talk to strangers without being spoken to first would be to tell the racist scumbags to fuck off. Nobody was deserving of that treatment, let alone my mother.
She was strong and she was lively and never let people like that get her down and that was what I envied most out of all her qualities. The ability to still be a strong woman after facing so much in her life was so admirable and I often made sure she knew it. She came inside, went upstairs to change and came back down all cleaned up. She pat me on the cheek as I cut the grilled cheese sandwiches I had made.
"That was your mother's craving meal when she was pregnant with you." She said, pouring glasses of lemonade to replace the tea that went cold during our paint fight. "You bet I was making it 24/7, her cravings were violent. Probably why you ended up such a chubby baby was because you lived off of grilled cheese in the womb." She was laughing to herself and I brought the food to the table, smiling.
"Is that why its the only meal I know how to make?" There was a mutual laugh and I sat down and began to eat with her. I was seriously asking myself whether or not to tell her I had knocked down a building yesterday. Small mishaps with a daughter who had powers was usual, mistakes did occur, but telling her I took down a small restaurant was definitely something else. Thank god she changed the topic again.
Mother finished chewing and leaned into me the way one would to exchange a secret. "I want to know more about your friend Peter. I caught a glimpse of him out the window yesterday and he has silver hair!"
I simply nodded, "He was born with it, actually. A genetic mutation."
"Is his hair soft?" Mother whispered back.
There was a nose scrunch on my part, "Mom... well, I haven't really touched his hair." She rolled her eyes to show that she was teasing. She took a bite of her grilled cheese the same moment I did and we both snorted at it, struggling to keep the food in our mouthes. Table manners did indicate a person's class and maturity, but with her, she didn't care and neither did I. We calmed down and continued to eat and I told her more about the things Peter and I did yesterday.
When I was finished telling her about the feeling of driving without a hood on the car, she looked a little more serious. She enjoyed the story, but something else was on her mind. "Venus, does he know you have abilities?" Oh.
I suppose this was where I was supposed to tell her how Peter has superspeed. But I was afraid of outing him at the same time. Was it my place, or would Peter not care? I took a breath, "Yes. But he won't go around telling people about it, I promise you he wouldn't." Mother looked worried for me, afraid that a wrong move would have me taken and experimented on. I decided to tell her. "He has a similar issue."
Her eyes immediately widened. For sixteen years I was the only one she knew of that could do odd things like this. "What do you mean?" She asked, clearly intrigued and confused. I understood her expression entirely.
"Well I have my thing with sound and... sounds. He has abilities, but they aren't the same as mine. He's fast."
"Fast?"
"He can run at superspeed. He can run from this house to the Whitehouse and back and you won't even have finished blinking. He can move so fast you can't see him come or go. That's his ability. So he does understand me and what I go through and we can be open about it and that's why he and I became friends so quickly. Because we've both never had someone else with abilities to talk to and we get along well."
She looked absolutely thrilled and it was apparent to see how her intrigue heightened. She clasped her fingers together and her smile brightened and her eyes screamed curiosity. "I never knew there were more people like you out there, Venus... we must have him over for dinner. I must meet him and I must check to see how soft his hair is."
"Mom-"
"I'm joking!" She protested, throwing the crusts of her grilled cheese into the bin and heading back into the kitchen. "Can he be here for dinner, Venus? Can you call him?"
I laughed nervously and stood up, following her. Would she be this obsessive in twenty minutes? Was she being serious? She was rushing to get food from the fridge, "You want to break tradition to meet a friend I've known for a week?"
She looked up at me, trying her curls into a bun, "You're really against it?" She stopped in her tracks, her lips pursing and eyebrows knitting.
"No, I'm just saying there is no need to rush this, mom. I'll ask him to swing by maybe next week. You don't need to cook a big meal." She bit her lip as she saw how ahead of herself she got and chortled, shutting the fridge. "I think we'll fair better with waiting it out anyway."
"Maybe you're right." She blew a curl from her face and kissed my cheek. "I'm just excited for you my love. I'm happy you have a friend and... a friend with abilities like yours is ten times better... what are the chances?" She put her hands on my upper arms and squeezed her comforting, motherly squeeze. "Surprised he's stayed around so long, though..."
"Mom!" I gasped. She laughed and twirled me around. She was always flittering all over the place, but I went with it and we spent the rest of the day talking about everything and nothing. By the end of the night her nails were painted the colours of the rainbow and mine were deep green. After dinner, she finished her painting of the bird from memory while we talked about my childhood and the record player played B-A-B-Y by Carla Thomas.
Even though I kept back the truth about the entropy I had caused yesterday, I knew mother would be okay if I did tell her. If not now, eventually, I hoped. But I was too scared, so I chose against it. She kept asking about Peter and the things I knew about him and never dropped her teasing tone the entire time. She was genuinely proud of me when she dropped the facade that I was incapable of friendship.
Before bed she wrapped me in a large hug. A proper one, like she had at the beginning of the week. She smelled good and she was always warm. "Goodnight, my love." She said quietly, "Sleep well."
She pat my cheek again and went upstairs to her bedroom and I watched her with admiration in my eyes. She had no idea that when she said she was proud of me, I wished to say it right back to her. The woman who changed hobbies every day, rushed for events that she planned in her head in a matter of seconds. The woman who takes care of herself and her daughter with a smile despite everything she's faced in her life. She was hiding her feelings from me and I knew it, because I saw how she doubted her parenting, but she's always a great woman to me.