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"For the best. You don't want to fuck about with all this mess. People start throwing bombs around, gets messy. You can't predict what's going to catch." He sips his liquor. "Alfie behind all this? Didn't even tip me the nod."

He's more put out by that than he sounds.

"He's putting ideas in Todd's head, anyway. I don't like it. He convinced the guy to hit the infirmary, for fuck's sake." That just seems beyond reckless.

"I don't know what he's playing at, but it's not gonna end well."

"Certainly ain't started well. Listen - if this mate of your's gonna be this soft in the fucking head, sometimes it's all you can do to let him learn a hard lesson or two," Harry says, brutally pragmatic. "He can learn on his own time who his real friends are, can't he."

"Maybe. The situation back home is... complicated. I don't like the guy, exactly, but it's not like it's his fault he's mixed up in this bullshit."

Todd's just a dumb kid. They all are.

This is loud in Harry's mind, but he doesn't say it.

"He like you? Mutant?"

"Yeah. Dunno his story, 'cause that's not the kind of shit we talk about, but he's the youngest of us. Always figured he got ditched for being born freaky, until the boss or Mystique found him." It was a common enough scenario for the more obvious mutants.

"Yeah?"

He touches Pietro's hair lightly, brushing back a few stray strands.

"Could've taken better care of you both, couldn't they. If I had someone like you to look out for, you wouldn't have ended up in this shithole."

His heart leaps oddly in his chest, and his cheeks color despite everything.

"Nah. We were... the guys doing the dirty work. Cannon fodder. That was the whole point of having us around, as far as those assholes were concerned. The other guys were too desperate to say no - not when it meant they were out on the streets."

He lets his fingers brush Harry's hand, before pulling away again, uncertain. "You couldn't have done anything."

"You wouldn't have been my canon fodder," Harry says gently. "I've seen young men like you in that state. Not with your powers, nobody's got that back home. But boys who'd do whatever they were told just to keep off the streets, or the cells, or the fucking river. No matter how ugly. Because they were different - whatever form that took. It weren't right to them and it ain't right on you."

"No, I mean I- wouldn't have taken any other option. Maybe I would now, but who knows. I'm not good at telling the old man no."

And that's the rub, really. It's his father running the show, and there's no one he wants validation from more in the world. Maybe all the worlds.

"Shit, man. You don't want to hear this crap."

"Yeah, I do."

Harry wraps an arm around his shoulders, gives a companionable squeeze.

"You ain't got nobody else to talk to right now, do you?"

He sighs, leaning into Harry. "No one I won't disappoint. What else is new?"

At least Harry isn't lecturing. But he misses Anya, more than he has since she first went into the coma.

"You ain't a disappointment to me," Harry murmurs. "And no worthwhile friend of yours should be taking this as a chance to shake their heads and tut about how they thought better of you. You made a mistake, and it's eating at you. That's punishment enough."

"Most of my friends should know better. Not the first time I've done this kind of thing. Probably won't be the last." Because things keep coming around that drag him right back into these scenarios.

"Gotta admit, I don't really get you, Harry. Kind of okay with that, though. Thanks."

"My pleasure." He lifts his eyebrows. "What's not to get, eh?"

"You don't seem like the kind of guy who's nice just for the hell of it. Guess I'm not used to people liking me, either."

Happened more here, lately. Until they figure this most recent disaster out.

"How'd you wind up here, anyway?"

"You asking me how I died?"

"Not sure that matters." None of his business, anyhow. "D'you know why you're an inmate? I mean. You don't have to answer."

Harry shrugs, nonchalant.

"I worked in a shady business with some shady people, I'm afraid. Only way to make it in business, the time and place I'm from."

"This place has a thing about punishing people for doing what they have to to survive, huh."

He knows by now that there's probably more to the story, but he doesn't need to hear it. Even most of the wardens have done terrible things. And the ones that haven't tend to be annoyingly optimistic.

"This place has a thing about punishing everyone," Harry mutters.

He drains his glass and offers Pietro a top-up.

"...I was shot, incidentally. Not because of the job - my boyfriend. Took exception that I caught him playing away."

Pietro lets him pour the alcohol gratefully. "No shit. I don't really care if I'm here, I guess. But I mean, you've got people like Shiro-" Shiro. His stomach flips the moment he realizes he has no idea where she is.

He needs to call her. Soon. The idea that she might've been injured in all this...

...when he's done here. As soon as he's done here. He shifts in his seat a little. "Sorry, man. That has to sting, and I don't mean the gunshot."

Harry scoffs lightly at the non-pun.

"It's alright. It did, but...well, nothing to be done about it now, is there. Thought I'd be done with all that by the time I got here, but...."

He stares at Pietro for a moment and then trails off, sweeps a hand over his hair.

"Mm. Never mind, eh."

Even Pietro, as skilled at denial as he is, can't keep ignoring the growing something between them. He ducks his head, more out of embarrassment than an attempt to avoid Harry's hand.

"I... wouldn't blame you, man. If you were. Relationship stuff always seems more complicated than it's worth." But he's not as dismissive of the whole idea as he used to be.

"It is. It's a fucking mess, Pietro, always is," he says, easily. "Even when it's going good, it's a mess. Trick is to find someone who's worth the mess. Who makes it so however scared you are of being hurt, or messed about, even when it's happened a hundred times before - you'll still be work 'em. Because they're worth the chance."

He says it, every word, watching Pietro intently. Barely blinking.

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