Beacon Harbor Boardwalk This street forms a long, lazy semi circle along the south east coast of Beacon Harbor Bay. The boardwalk begins just after the long stretch of rubble and boulders that separates the beach and boardwalk from the docks to the west. The boardwalk follows the curve of the coastline, with a number of shops and restaurants scattered among residences. A wild variety of shops, catering to the beach and surfer crowd, begin to pop up as the boardwalk fades into the beach the further to the east one travels along. As the coastline turns northward, the beach becomes more rocky, a wild, and dangerous place for surfers. --Piotr-- A very tall and well-built Caucasian man that looks to be in his mid- to late twenties, Piotr has short black hair and piercing dark eyes that, upon closer inspection, lend you to thinking that he bears a tragic burden at all times, no matter what his words or deeds are to the contrary. He speaks with a thick Russian accent in a deep, impressive voice. He is currently wearing a loose-fitting (not baggy) pair of jeans, big black combat boots, a blank grey sweatshirt that stretches across his massive chest and a weather-worn brown jacket that doesn't look like much in the way of style, but looks like plenty in the way of warmth and comfort. --Pete Wisdom-- Rather tall, but standing with an eternal slouch, Wisdom carries with him an aura of disreputability even when he's shaven and his clothes are clean and pressed. His left eye is covered unceremoniously by a black patch, a nasty scar running from above his eyebrow through down to his nose; other, lesser scars appear elsewhere. His remaining eye is a distractingly bright blue, and reflects a bitter cynicism, and it's apparent from the lines around it that he's likely earned the right to be jaded. The man's face is thin and pale, and his nose looks to be a bit thicker than it should be at the top, as though it'd been broken before but set correctly. His hair is jet black and somewhat long on top, though it's been cut recently and is short enough in the back; it has a tendency to fall into his face and shade his expression. Suits look absolutely natural on Pete, which is good, because it's all he'll ever wear. The one he's wearing now (which bears a remarkable resemblance to the one he wore yesterday, and the day before that, et cetera) is black, made of a fairly respectable fabric, and cut to a 'modern' style (which isn't the same as a modern style). Both the jacket and the trousers look almost streamlined; their lines coincide with Wisdom's. The lapels are narrow and point a bit upward, there're three buttons down the front instead of two, and his tie (made of matching material) is narrow. Around his neck, sometimes visible, is a thin silver chain from which conflicting pendants hang: a silver Star of David, smooth from age, and a tiny St. Jude medal. It's approaching sunset; Wisdom isn't actually /in/ the harbor. He can't swim, and doesn't have a boat. So. He's really actually on the boardwalk closest to the docks, leaning on the rail and watching the colors in the sky. Because he's Mr Paranoia, however, he's not lost in it; he's got his attention split, partially focused on the walk behind him, partially on any monitorable approaches to him, and whatever's left over is what gets spent on the Red Sky At Night, gleaming over the city's lower buildings, getting dark over the water itself. He straightens, fishing in his pocket; his movements are efficient, restricted. Oho. Cigarette. For its lighting, he leans back on the rail, because no one's likely to try and shoot him from the water. If the walk behind him is being monitored, he is more than likely to detect the quiet approach of a hulking fellow who's happened to pick the same walk to take in the seaside view. He tries to walk gently, but it's made harder to do on the occasionally rickety wood, especially by a man this size. His face, however, harbors no intentions that would cause alarm. In fact, he's in standard American 'ignore strangers' mode. He does, however, carry a backpack... and he slings it off his shoulders for a moment, preparing to dig inside it... Cigarette lit, Pete glances up, and freezes. It took him a moment to place Scott, because hello, no visor - but there's no way. There's no way Wisdom would ever fail to recognise the face of the man who ruined his life, destroyed Kitty's, and, in turn, had his cut short by the spy himself. The jacket helps, too. It looks an /awful/ lot like one someone else wore, a long time ago, where he came from. But it was much bigger on her. He's frozen, though, because as much as everything in his head screams for an attack, he's made a promise - and besides. It's obviously not the same one, that one was dead two years. This one, equally obviously, is quite alive. Either way, it's a good twenty seconds before he can take his cigarette out of his mouth and speak up. "Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin." Stony, stony face. Piotr has walked up near to Pete now, having taken nothing but a passing notice of his presence, having learned that people generally prefer to be left well enough alone. After digging a sketchpad and a pencil out of his bag, he places it aground for a moment, and he's begun searching for a particular vantage point... and suddenly, his name is spoken. In a tone that he cannot immediately place, which puts him on edge. He turns warily in the direction of his addresser... finding him unrecognizable, try as he might. He cocks an eyebrow at him. "Have we met, sir?" The *absolute* lack of recognition on Piotr's face relaxes Pete slightly, but slightly is all, so far. The Englishman still doesn't move, except to take another drag of his cigarette; the nicotine's the only thing keeping his hands from shaking. "In another world, I knew...a version of you. A version of you that cost me both the love of my life and my redemption." He pushes off the rail, finally, taking a step forward. And his voice, now, his voice is calculatedly conversational, quite edgy itself. "Tell me, Rasputin, do you know Kitty Pryde?" Piotr widens his eyes at this man's response... good lord. He has yet to really hear stories of a malevolent version of himself from any dimension... and of course, the big Russian immediately starts to assume the guilt that this version of himself has caused pain to anyone. Way to come down on a brother... but at the mention of Katya, his insides tighten up a bit more. After a pause, trying to discern this man's intentions, he replies with a short "Da... I do." She's only the love of his LIFE so far... but he tenses up, preparing to steel up if necessary... Oh. Shit. He does? He didn't 'did', he 'do'? There's an almost wild look on the skinny black-haired one-eyed man's face, at this, until he clamps down on it, tensing incredibly. "She's - she's *here*? She's alive? She's /here/?" But Piotr knows her. And he knows his own counterpart died a lifetime ago. "She's alive and you know her!" It's an exhalation, mixed disbelief and joy and abject /terror/, because she's not his Kitty and she won't know him - but Wisdom doesn't come any closer. Piotr blinks a bit at this rather excitable reaction that he was not expecting. He then shakes his head... "Nyet, no... I am sorry." He doesn't know HOW sorry. "She is not here... not that I know of. A version of her WAS here... older than the version I knew... but she has since vanished." There's a deep sadness at the thought of that. "Presumably retaken by the Infinity Force..." Great... this man has been an utter bother to encounter. Not only is he accusing him of misdeeds in another dimension (well, sort of), but now he's digging open old sorrows. The heartache is fresh again. "How do you know her?" he asks, questioningly... still curious about this man... feeling a little off-put by him. Well, if there's one thing Pete's good at, it's being a bother. At Piotr's negative response, he looks away; finally, his motions are loose and haphazard - it's more out of apathy than any semblance of relaxation. "I...was assigned to work with a team she was on. Excalibur. For their first mission to Genosha. And - she helped me, afterwards, with the taking out of a truly evil black ops organisation. And then we fell in love." Here, his monoptic gaze flickers back up to Rasputin, gauging his reaction. "I proposed to her, and she said yes." Piotr has no real reason to feel this way, but he's positively shaken by this last revelation about Katya. MARRIAGE. To someone else. To this jittery British man with the cigarettes. His eyes remain wide... his body remains tensed, but that heartache just keeps growing. "And... I suppose this alternate version of me... did something reprehensible..." he says, with a rather profound sense of guilt that any form of himself could bring harm to Katya... Yeah. How d'you think Pete feels just now? But he can't shut up. He can't. He has this opportunity that really isn't one, and he can't just let it go. "Oh, yes," affirms the one-eyed Englishman. "Yes, he did." At least he says 'he' instead of 'you'. "The first time he came back, looking for 'his Katya', he caught us kissing outside, then waited until Kitty was gone to attack me. That was sorted out only because McTaggert had her bloody magic medlab there on Muir and could save us both." His voice is getting more emotional with every word he says, fuller and more real, a far cry from the restraint of his first words this evening. "And then, because they couldn't bear to break Xavier's heart with the news that his favorite son had gone quite fucking batty and tried to kill his competition, Excalibur kept him on. And Kitty and I moved on. It got to the point where we *breathed* in unison, where she could predict my thoughts, where I couldn't live without her." A pause, and Wisdom fixes on Piotr's face, watching his eyes. "That's when I proposed, and to my dying day I will keep her expression of rapture in my heart." *Then* he looks away, he flicks his cigarette carelessly into the open water. "And then he came after us both. If he couldn't have 'his Katya', then by god, he wouldn't let me." Piotr just listens. That's all he CAN do, really. It's obvious this man has a lot to get off his chest... and even if this is not really HIMSELF that the man is talking about... he feels it is the least he can do to absorb this diatribe. And that it becomes... the pit of grief and horror within him only swells the longer he draws this out. He lost Katya... but the mention of McTaggert brings to mind a world similar to his own... he lost Katya. He had managed to botch his relationship with Katya in his own world... and it was only his exile here that caused him to lament his actions ruefully. And when she appeared here, it... it was almost a second chance, were it not for the woman he'd met here... but he was so torn... he was so drawn to her, still... and although he has never thought about this... there is a part of him that can very well feel how distraught he would become over seeing Katya devoting her life to someone else... promising to love another and ONLY another. It's like a new, sharp knife twisting in the hole left by a prior, blunted axe. But no... he would never resort to brutality over this, would he? He could NEVER do such a thing... he could never hurt her, no matter how much it hurt him to let her go. He cannot look at this man anymore... his head bows, and he turns away slightly for a moment... almost raising his hands for him to stop, his eyes closed... the pain on his face more than evident. He didn't do this... but it's starting to feel like he did. He doesn't want to hear more... but he knows he will hear it all, in gruesome detail... because this man needs this moment... and it does not seem to be his right to deny it... Actually, no. The pain on Piotr's face completely derails Wisdom, once the other man gets to the point where he has to look away. Deep within Pete, there's something screaming 'Wisdom, you DAFT PRICK! You owe NO APOLOGIES! This isn't the man, but he's close enough, isn't he? Don't you have to take it out on him? Don't you owe it? IDIOT!' But equally loud is something from the *core* of his being, something that can't stand seeing this level of pain on anyone's face. Especially not when he's the one dishing it out. He looks away, himself, and takes out another cigarette. Yeah, he's lighting them with his hands, but that's a side note. "He's dead now, too. I'm all that's left of the three of us and there's nothing left to me." Piotr wants to drop to his knees. He wants to drop to his knees and sob as if he's just watched someone kill Katya himself. The mere thought of this.. the imagery, well... it's likely to haunt him for years to come. He somehow, someway, manages to retain his limited composure, sliding his hands down his face and opening his eyes to look at the moonlight for a moment, having dropped his pad and pencil to the dock planks underfoot. His eyes have a glistening, watery shimmer to them. This is not something he could ever imagine doing... and now he's been forced to imagine it. And it's that bitter, cold summary that this man offers that finally forces him to turn back and face him. He watches this man for a moment, swallowing hard his sudden grief. For the longest moment, he can think of absolutely nothing to say. Really, what DO you say when you find out an alternate version of yourself murdered someone's fiancee? He tries to clear his throat, and it hurts. A lump has swollen up in his throat that makes it harder to breathe. "I... can offer nothing... that would ease your pain..." he manages, after a long, awkward moment. "All... all I can offer... is profound regret..." he coughs slightly, trying not to choke on his own quiet voice... "... my deepest sorrows... and... utterly inadequate apologies..." A tear starts to streak down his face, followed shortly after by another. That whole knee-dropping and sobbing thing? Yeah, Pete's been there too. And he wanted a /rational/ Colossus to feel what he knew the one he killed never would be able to. He wanted at least a taste of emotional revenge. But it's ungodly hollow, and he knew it would be going in, but he did it anyway. He went and did it anyway. He could have kept his mouth shut, or he could have said something else - but he didn't, and now the big Tin Man is crying in front of him. And apologizing from deep within himself. And now - now all Pete can feel is utter disgust with himself. Oh, if only Kitty could see him now. His cigarette-holding hand comes up, safe-side-in, to cover his face briefly; he leans against the rail again, and there's literally nothing left of him. "Don't apologize. Don't apologize, you didn't do it. Don't let yourself be broken by a fucking pathetic wreck of a human being. You're more than I can ever be, if you feel the need to apologize for a /counterpart/." Listless voice, slightly muffled by his hand.