Gravitas
Conditions: Angry, Guilty.
Burn: Two.

His father's presence hit him with the weight of a mountain, a surge of conflicting emotions rose in his chest, threatened to constrict his throat. Love, Hate, Respect, Fear, Joy, Betrayal. He took a deep breath to steady himself. As his father spoke of Atlas, he nodded, replied, weakly, timidly, "I remember you crying," he couldn't hold his father's eyes, but he remembered that night, it scared him, his father had always seemed invulnerable to him, that was the first time he'd seen that side of him, frail, weak, tired. "It woke me, so I got out of bed and watched from the banister, the door to the study was open." He paused, took a breath and continued.

"Mother tried to console you, but you --," he mentally chided himself, he didn't want to bring up his mother, he didn't want to remember that they were a fractured, broken family. He allowed himself a second, nodded as his father broached the subject of why he'd reached out to him.

"It is," he paused again, he wanted to go through the minutiae of his day, the details of his encounter with Firewing's para-mercenary forces, the tenement conflagration, his subsequent de-brief with the League, their offer of apprenticeship, and his subsequent confrontation with Chama and Centurion.

Part of him wanted to explicitly deny his father that, why should he go to him for advice, when he left their family, left them, for his crusade. He furrowed his brow, focused on moment, his offer of aid to Centurion and his allies.

"I'm sure you saw the news feeds from earlier today," he collected his thoughts, "Firewing and her mercenaries targeted a young hero, an ally to Centurion and his crew. Darkpyre." He bowed his head respectfully, he didn't know the man, but the loss of someone willing to risk his life for others, that was still something to be mourned. "They set explosives, Chama confirmed that they had achieved their objective. I ran into them as they were exiting DarkPyre's sanctuary, thought they were Humanity Now forces," he could see the flash of hatred across his father's impassive face, though it was gone in an instant reigned in with an iron clad will. "I was wrong, Firewing ambushed me, left me for her mercenaries, with the help of Centurion's crew, Tank and some kid calling himself Solar Flare, we stopped them."

He was going into details, and that was dangerous, he didn't know how his father would manipulate events. Maximus was fairly certain that he wouldn't directly attack him, but he certainly had the capacity to play his allies against one another should that provide him with an opportunity to advance his own goals.

"I need to find Firewing, because apparently she's working with Nihilus, and somehow Halcyon City is on his radar." He looked up at Atlas, back to his father ... he held his eyes this time, fought back the tears, the rage, the hurt, "I gave my word, dad," he sobbed, despite his best efforts to reign it in, he missed his father, wanted to run to embrace him, " ... please."