Checkmate: Games of War » [Cherik]

Chapter Six

"Pietro, honey; where are you going?" Marya asked, seeing her son squatted on the front door mat knotting his laces on his favourite trainers; electric blue with the silver lightning bolts streaked down the sides.

Before his mind even conjured up a lie to cover him, he spluttered the truth. "To the diner, why?" A version of the truth, albeit.

Tapping of a toe called his attention, and he craned his neck to look at her. The stern look on her face injected a dose of fear into his heart.

"Seeing Crystal again?" A smile began to stretch across her face.

He sighed out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. "How'd you guess?" He gave a nervous titter and stood up.

"You don't wear those shoes just for anyone," his foster-mother pointed out perceptively.

"You got me(!)" Pietro mocked, holding his hands in a surrender. "Guilty as charged(!)" He pecked his carer on the cheek and hugged her tight. A pang of guilt sat with him, but so did a sense of righteousness.

"Don't stay out too late." She planted a sloppy kiss on his cheekbone and stroked the apple of his cheek. "And don't get yourself into any trouble..!" She held him at arms length, squeezing his biceps and lodged a stray ribbon of hair behind his ear. He gave his make-do mother an angelic smile. "You're growing up into a fine young man, Pietro Maximoff... I'm so proud of you." And with a kiss on the forehead, she unleashed him.

"I love you ma'," he promised, with his lopsided smile, hands buried in his pockets self-consciously.

"Go and have fun," she encouraged, opening the door for him, where rain was just starting to spit from the grey sky. "Dinner will be ready at six," she reminded him, tucking a few dollars in his back pocket. "I love you too."

With a flash of a grin, he zoomed away, in a stripe of fluorescent blue that dissipated at the end of the street.

He arrived at the diner practically bone dry, having passed the dusting of rain by, and pressed his nose up against the glass of 'Bessy's', sheltered under the awning. Vapour crept up the window, channelled from his mouth and nostrils and blotted out the inside.

The place was bustling as usual: crammed with families, with kids running about the square tiled floor, teens loitering by the jukebox and adults sitting at the counter on the high stools. He couldn't distinguish any clear faces in the crowd, but in a booth, towards the back of the diner with its neon lights, offensively bright walls and red and white padded seats, he saw a stray banana milkshake sitting on a table top. All the extra toppings: a swirl of thick voluptuous cream and shavings of dark chocolate. Across from it, a whiskey, a fat rounded ice cube floating in the bronze liquor.

A bell tinkled as he rushed through the door and started towards the table, in the secluded part of the diner. The sound of clanking plates and the mouth-watering scent of waffles and pancakes filled the air and he sauntered all the way past the counter to the table.

"Hey, Pietro!" The auburn haired girl called, ferrying stacks of sticky plates and frothy tall glasses back to the kitchen.

"Hey, Crystal," he murmured coyly, his eyes shyly directed at the floor. "How's things?"

"Good. Busy as usual!" She complained, dumping the stack on the counter with a clank. "How's things yourself?"

"Good. I don't s'pose you've seen some guy-" he rummaged his brain for a description. "Tall, dark hair, who happened to order this milkshake?" He gestured back towards the table, praying that the description marched the owner of the stray drink.

"You mean the weirdo with the-" the cleared her throat. "Deep brooding voice and the frowny face?" She imitated, then giggled in a spritely fashion.