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Somewhere in Manhattan sits an office building. It looks like most other office buildings around its block, tall and proud, with fanged gargoyles poised at the corners of the roof. The architecture in the lobby is elegant, with tall doorways and high ceilings. The elevator is a little more industrial. The door is a simple sheet of polished metal. And it is closing, slowly obscuring the visage of a grey-suited man who has just taken his place inside.
Almost late for his appointment, but finding himself with a half hour to spare in his rush over, Leonardo subconsciously stops the doors with his mind as he slips through and lets them close again. He has a small black briefcase in one hand and a biology book in the other, seeming to be around first year college level. "Almost late, but I have time to spare, that was close. Emma might kill me if I started missing appointments and messing my career up..." he whispers the last sentence under his breath, but now he notices there's someone else in here, a body almost completely ignored in his rush. "Oh, hel--" his voice is cut off when he sees the face, then the elevator light flickers for a moment in his surprise.
Magneto's brows knit when the door stops itself. His initial instinct is to frown down at the buttons, but only one of them is illuminated. Top floor, some thirty stories up. Then there is Leo, and all is explained. Stone still, he eyes the younger mutant with a bland mix of disapproval and distaste. The doors close. He does not say, "Hello," back.
Leonardo is quiet, his tense mood manifesting itself into trying /not/ to destroy a part of the elevator. Usually elevators are a somewhat safe place to be, usually there's nothing alarming enough to worry about suddenly wanting to throw things, but this is a bad situation where the only things to throw and/or crush are your lifelines. "So..." he starts, possibly in an attempt to make peaceful contact.
"So," Erik echoes, his voice an octave lower than the norm when the elevator car begins its slow ascent. His initial study of Leo complete, he turns his head to face forward again and laces his hands loosely together before him.
Leonardo is quiet for a few more seconds, opening up his book to try and read it to calm himself. "I'm working on my own plans now, that don't involve you, so I'm over that stuff." he decides to just blatantly throw out there. Hey, Magneto can't throw the car, he's in it!
"I am pleased to hear it," Erik tells the elevator door. He does not sound pleased. "Are you striving for world domination, or something more managable? New York City, perhaps." When it finally settles back upon Leo, the ice of his glare is chilly enough to be unfriendly.
Leonardo avoids direct eye contact, occasionally meeting them, but they seem to trail off. It's like looking directly into the sun, except it's judging you for additional damage. "I will rule the world with the help of like-minded individuals, but there's still the matter of it being filled with hateful warmongering monkeys. We'd be done by now if you would have simply agreed to help me."
Distinctly aware of Leo's avoidance of prolonged eye contact, there is a shifting and rustling of fine fabric when Erik turns to face him more directly. Awkward! "So, what you're /saying/ is that your failure thus far can be blamed squarely upon myself for not submitting to your grovelling demand for attention."
Leonardo's head almost drops to the floor completely when Erik directly faces him, though he forces his eyes up to at /least/ focus on his nose. "I'm simply saying that it would have been much faster. And not only that, but you completely nullified one of my plans, and for what, Human given freedom? I had a great plan for when the asteroid hit, even /you/ could have seen the genius in taking advantage of a greatly weakened world. I don't understand what your angle is, why would you help them?"
Conveniently, Erik's nose is rather large and therefore not difficult to focus on. He listens quietly to Leonardo's words, and glances just as quietly to the ceiling, as if considering something there. When he looks back down at Leo, there is a grinding sound, a whirr, and a jolt. The car stops, still reading '12' from the floor they just passed on their way upward.
Leonardo suddenly grows even more nervous, shown by the tight grasp on to the doors which cause them to groan slightly. "What? What's going on? What did you do?" he asks, now visibly all kinds of nervous. "I didn't mean any disrespect..."
"No?" Skeptical, Erik lifts a brow and glances to the doors at their groaning. Two metal-controlling mutants in a tiny elevator, and one of them is angry. A security camera in the corner fizzles, and smoke begins to leak out across the ceiling, dimming fluorescent lights. "Because I am almost certain that you just insinuated that I saved the world because I was too weak to destroy humanity."
"That's not what I meant." Leonardo corrects as he backs into the wall, finally managing to look Erik in the eyes for his next few words. "What I was trying to say is, you seem complacent, you never tried anything like Liberty Island again as far as I know. And now that you've saved the world, and they've given you freedom, you have even /more/ room to grow complacent." He stops, taking a breath and swallowing hard, beads of sweat beginning to appear on his forehead. "I'm not saying this is your fault, or that it's even bad thing for yourself, but I want you to know that this is what I think, constructive criticism, without you feeling insulted or disrespected. As a man, I admire you greatly, that never changed, but as a figure, as an idol, as /Magneto/, my image has been greatly skewed."
"Liberty Island was a failure." Erik does not blink. It's a little like being stared down by a slightly psychotic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Leo's retreat garners no reaction. Nor do beads of sweat or faster breathing. He takes a step for the younger man, and then another, quickly closing the distance between them. Not that there was much to close, with them being in an elevator and everything. "The assassination of Lowe was a failure. The electromagnetic pulse was a failure. My effort to /cross over/ from an entirely different universe or dimension to take control of New York with advanced knowledge of the means of its downfall was. A. Failure. So, Mr. Maxwell," Erik plants a hand against the younger man's chest and gives him a bit of a /shove/, further pinning him against the metal of the wall, "if you happen to have any /ideas/ cluttering the hollow cavern of your skull, I would very much like to hear them."
Leonardo thumps against the wall, not expecting such a hard push from a man Erik's age. He's quiet at the question, and at the rundown of Erik's plans and failures, seeming to for once have nothing to say until about a minute goes by. "Actually I /do/ have an idea, though it would compromise someone's security to tell you everything, I've run into a nice supply of unique individuals lately, one in particular whom will do whatever I like undetected. If I truly, honestly felt it would lead to something better, I could snap my fingers and have the president gone, but we both know that wouldn't do anything for either of us, me or you. I'm taking my time to find the best course of action to use my newfound resources."
Magneto keeps his hand splayed across Leo's chest, holding him where he is while he listens. He has coffee breath, which fails to make his close proximity any more tolerable than it might otherwise. "That is not a plan. That is an abstract collection of potential."
"Well..." Leonardo twitches his nose for a moment, staying still while in his continued mostly overwhelmed state. "It may not be a fully thoughtout plan, but what about you? Are you trying anymore? I'm not as smart as you, I'll be the first to admit that, but I'm trying very hard and I've even sacrificed my freedom to someone to get what I want."
"/Your/ freedom." Erik seems to find this ironic. His brows twitch upward, inquiring after confirmation. Perhaps confirmation that Leonardo isn't serious. He doesn't actually wait for it, though.
The elevator car drops.
Ten feet, twenty feet, thirty. Straight down. Then it stops again, just gradually enough to avoid shattering knees and hips and that sort of thing in the process, so that Erik is still on his feet when he tries to grab Leo around the neck with his free hand.
Leonardo's knees buckle, catching himself just as he's about to hit the ground. This is definitely some sort of roller coaster, a literal as well as an emotional one. "Yes..." he answers as Erik grabs around his neck, causing him to raise his hands to Magneto's wrists. "It wasn't completely my choice, but it was well worth it, I know that if I continue indulging them they will take me seriously enough to help me achieve my goals..." he manages to strain out, sighing and staring at the other man still, wondering what's going to happen to himself in this situation.
Magneto squeezes until he can feel Leonardo's pulse. Enough to make breathing a little difficult, maybe, fingers clawed like iron around the younger man's neck. His wrist is bony, and gives little under Leo's grasp. "You have never had you freedom taken from you. You have not /lost/ anything at all." He is angry. About what, it's difficult to tell, but he squeezes a little harder after a few seconds, as if he's just remembered something else to be irrationally furious about. "I could not allow the asteroid to strike. It would kill us all."
"Fine, I'll give you that, if you knew for sure it'd kill us all, but..." Leonardo is continuing to strain in Magneto's grasp, because if he's gonna die, he's gonna get everything he needs to say out. "I've definitely lost a good portion of my freedom, I can't even /think/ what I want to most of the time for fear of angering them. I'm practically someone else's toy right now, but I'm rolling with the punches in the hopes that it leads to something better..."
"Then you have given it to them voluntarily for your own gain. There is," he draws in a slow breath, attempting to smother the rage that steels his glare and bares his teeth all the same, "a difference. You are young, and you are foolish. Give me one more reason that I should not liberate your body from the ruinous influence of your head."
"I'm not like other people." Leonardo says as he tries to tighten his grasp around Erik's wrist, trying to offer himself /some/ freedom from the choking. "I didn't just see you as some menace or terrorist, I'm not even like your former followers. You may have changed my mind and made me stop my worship of you, but I will never deny that it was /your/ influence that made me who I am. You are the one single thing that shaped the very essence of my soul. You may not be what I believed you to still be, but like a faithful Christian believes Jesus will return, I still have faith that /you/ will return, and when you do, I'll be right there to follow you." He gasps more, not used to such physical treatment even if he does work out a lot. "I'm trying to continue what you were doing before, even if I'm no where near your level, hoping that you'll possibly one day guide me in the right direction. I believe in you, and I want to live to see if you'll live up to my expectations, I don't think that's too much to ask..."
Exasperation lines across Erik's brows and tightens around his eyes. Thump. He stiffens the arm he's been using to choke with, effectively thonking the back of Leo's head into the wall before he releases him. "I am tired of crazy people," is lamented (hypocritically) to himself, and the elevator door lurches screechily open. Ninth floor, apparently. "Get out."
"I'm not crazy, I'm just devoted to the cause." Leonardo says as he breathes quickly, taking deep breathes and immediately stepping off the elevator. He doesn't look back or say anything else, and he probably wont even get back on the elevator until he knows for /sure/ Erik is gone. Today has certainly been an experience.
Magneto just gives Leonardo a hard look from his position, still comfortably inside the elevator. If you are crazier than him, then you are definitely crazy. The receptionist on this level stares, possibly of the mind that they are both /quite/ crazy, and Erik leans to press a button. Miraculously, the doors are still able to close on their own.
Oh boy.