[For Parker, Parker (Not a Typo), and Illyana] Bothering Ms. Rasputin

[st_opsummoningme]

It wasn't precisely that Illyana could not or would not provide mentorship. She'd been instructed by enough of the X-men that she had seen it done. She had willingly collaborated, and on occasion, even encouraged. She knew what it felt like to bond with a team or an individual, and the greater accomplishments to be had as a result. (Things were progressing Acceptably with Corbie.)

But there was a certain rather enthusiastic type of student that generally required more patience than she was inclined to practice. Piotr found them inspiring. Kitty found them amusing. Illyana did not find them, generally speaking. They found her.

Such was the case with Peter's unscheduled delivery, after which she placed a succinct call to inform Parker that he ought to meet with her in the library at once if he intended to discuss the book he needed to return. She would also be available to instruct him on the correct donation procedure.

The other Parker, as it happened, was an entirely coincidental arrival.

Comments

[st_arkintern]

"Do you -- do you want to know more about where I got it?"

And before Ms. Rasputin can say anything to the affirmative, the words are pouring out of Peter.

"I found two of them -- the one on FTL and the one on time dilation in this weird little thrift shop in the kinda seedy part of town. This weird fish-person was the one who sold it to me, and they didn't seem to really know much about it when I asked."

And Peter did ask.

"The three novels, I got them from this regular bookstore near where the portal let out. I read the back covers, and none of them really seemed like the kind of thing I'd like to read, but I thought someone might enjoy it, and they were also on sale, buy 1, get 2 free. The lady at the front desk told me that it was a really popular series a few years ago, but the bookstore overstocked and now they have a bunch of excess copies that no one will buy because they already bought it."

And lastly--

"I found the cookbook in the trash. I wasn't like, looking for books in the trash, but I was trying to find some busted tech in the dumpster outside this tech shop and I just found it while I was in there." A beat. "I don't know what a cookbook was doing in their dumpster though."

That... was kinda weird.

[st_opsummoningme]

She stopped. And stared. She watched him as others might watch a trainwreck.

"Parker," she told him once he'd spent himself. "Before you say anything more to me, I want you to stop yourself and draw a breath to focus on the single most important piece of information that you mean to tell me, or a single question that you mean to ask. Express to me that single item. And then stop until I have a moment to react or respond. If you understand, demonstrate that understanding to me now."

[st_arkintern]

"Yes," Peter says, and he's about to say something more, but before he can actually push the words forward, he suddenly clamps his mouth shut. He looks at Ms. Rasputin the same way he looks at Mr. Stark, hopeful for approval.

[st_opsummoningme]

She raised her eyebrows at him expectantly. And waited. One...two...

Her brows relaxed.

"Returns are accepted-" She moved to the far side of the circulation desk to tap an empty desk tray with a RETURNS sign affixed to the front. "Here. I will make notations about the provenance of the books you've provided in the daily log."

[st_arkintern]

Peter neatly deposits the book into the tray, then looks over at Ms. Rasputin with that same is-this-okay? look that he gave her before.

"Um," he begins, letting the word hang uncertainly there for moment. "Is there... anything I can do to help?"

[st_opsummoningme]

"Your note indicated that you wanted to talk." She slid open one of the large ledger books atop the circulation desk to mark down the details regarding the new entries. "What did you wish to discuss?"

[st_arkintern]

"Oh, yeah," Peter says, as if just remembering that he had scribed this down.

"Uh, nothing," he continues. "I mean, nothing in particular. I just thought--"

He swallows, before he finally completes his sentence: "I just thought we could talk." A beat. "About stuff."

And it's only after the words have left his mouth that Peter wants to facepalm. So much for looking cool. Ms. Rasputin probably just thought he was an awkward dork. And Peter was pretty sure she'd be right.

[st_opsummoningme]

"We could, in fact, talk about 'stuff.'" She might have added a sharper barb to the remark, but stayed herself, though her hand continued intently at writing what needed recording.

"Kitty seems fond of you," Illyana spoke after a moment. "I'm trying to determine why."

[st_arkintern]

"I'm not sure either," Peter admits. "But, uh, maybe it'd help to -- to tell you about myself."

Peter swallows. There's no telling how Ms. Rasputin's going to take this.

"I'm Peter Parker. I'm fifteen years old, but I'm going to be sixteen at the end of the month, if you're calculating twelve months from my last birthday. Normally my birthday's June 30th, but the date I came here didn't really line up with the date here."

He could say more, but he figures it might be a good idea to stop there. He looks over at Ms. Rasputin pensively. "What about you?" he asks, wondering if he can somehow get away with more than two questions.

[st_opsummoningme]

"Time, space, and age are all malleable concepts," she told him without looking up from the ledger. "Particularly in regards to inter-planar transportation. When I was a child, I briefly disappeared from my family home by all Earthly accounts. When I re-appeared, I seemed to have aged by ten years."

[st_arkintern]

Two questions isn't enough, Peter tells himself, because he has about a billion questions he wants to ask right now. Instead he just asks two:

"Did you, like -- actually live those ten years, or did you just age? Or was this like, a Big thing, minus the electronic fortune teller?"

[st_opsummoningme]

"I lived them," was her answer, though it was hardly a complete answer. "But consider - in Limbo, where time and space can be manipulated to suit the whims of a demon mage possessing enough power, what does 'ten years' mean? What does ten years feel like?"

They were, apparently, rhetorical questions.

"...And I have no idea what an electronic fortune teller has to do with anything. You will have to draw some of your own conclusions."

[st_arkintern]

Peter doesn't say anything for awhile, considering this. He can't imagine not really being there for ten years. It was like Ms. Rasputin had been put into some sort of magic coma.

"How, how did you feel later? I mean, about all of that? I mean, yeah, maybe ten years doesn't really feel like anything to you when you're in a magic demon coma. But that's ten years you're never gonna have. That are like, gone from your life. Don't you feel anything about that?"

[st_opsummoningme]

She finished her writing, and looked back up at him impassively. "I was not a comatose vegetable for ten years, Parker. Limbo is its own world. I was removed from one plane, existed on another, and then returned. That time was not 'gone from my life.' I lived a different life entirely."

[st_arkintern]

Okay, this is confusing.

"Whose life did you live? Was it your life or someone else's? If it was your life, was it like, another life? Were you just another Ms. Rasputin, just in another reality, kind of like there's multiple Peters in multiple timelines? And if you were someone else, who were you?"

It's only after the surge of questions have left his mouth that Peter realizes he stopped listening to Kitty's advice.

[st_opsummoningme]

Her cold eyes narrowed at him with pointed warning. Illyana had not forgotten the instructions that she herself had given him earlier, though it seemed Parker had. She refused to join him in chasing his conversational tail all day.

"I'm not speculating on theory. I'm telling you my own experiences, in my own words. If you can't come to an understanding about what those words mean, so be it, but I am not a puzzle or a guessing game for you to play when you are bored, whelp." And people wondered why she wasn't inclined to share.

[st_arkintern]

If Peter is at all bothered about being called a whelp or by Ms. Rasputin's piercing gaze, it doesn't register on his face.

"If people don't understand you, how are they gonna understand unless you explain it to them?" Peter asks. "It's fine if you don't want to talk about it, but you just got to tell me that."

[st_opsummoningme]

"I made an attempt. And I am done attempting for now. Particularly with you." She turned away from him entirely to attend the spellwork required to add the new items into the greater library catalog. "Leave, Parker. I will not tell you a second time."

[st_arkintern]

Peter presses his lips together. "I still need to pick out another book," he says after a moment. "Are you still going to make me leave?"

[st_opsummoningme]

"If that was your priority, you should've planned accordingly. You can return at a later date, preferably when I'm not working. And yes - I am."

Illyana didn't even need to look up from the books to do it. She simply focused on Peter and pushed with the energy of the wards. The magic materialized in the air to become a set of illuminated glyphs that activated immediately to evict the intruder. She didn't push the wards so fast that she expected to throw him from his feet, but neither did she hesitate to put the full force into the magical shove that would deposit him across the threshold on the other side of the open doors.

[st_arkintern]

Peter can feel Ms. Rasputin pushing him out of the library with whatever magic or ability she has. He's pretty sure she didn't intend to, but she'd already answered one of the very first questions he asked: what kind of powers she had.

Peter presses his lips together, remembering what Kitty told him.

"See you later, then," he says. And with a small wave from the other side of the door, he walks down the hallway, and back to his room.