[ it's a good question, one wash doesn't blame him for having. even if his attitude is petulant and frustrating, and wash understands that pietro doesn't really mean it as a question as much as he means it as a self-important gotcha. he's going to answer was if it was a question, anyway, with the kind of infinite patience that only comes from a man who's spent far too much of his life grappling with self-important little bastards just like pietro. ]

It's a tool. Like many tools, it's imperfect, but not using any is worse. Its not just a way to get me to stop. The fact that it exists might make it easier for you to let go, to trust me, to give into instinct just a little more.

[ a shrug. ]

There's no shortcuts. If you're brand new, or even if you aren't, some things are just going to be messy. [ he gestures between them. ] If that's what you want, then that's fine. Safewords don't work for everyone, and I've had worse than you.

[ much worse. but clearly pietro is inexperienced enough that wash feels the need to at least make sure the tools and options are known to him. so that at least he has the option to consider them and dismiss them rather than just barreling staight ahead with nothing in sight.

he keeps watching pietro play with the rope -- partly interest, just to keep learning the way he moves, he fidgets, committing all of it to memory. partly to make sure that he doesn't start fraying the rope. another part just because when he knows that pietro is clearly uncertain about being restrained at all, letting him handle it more might be one way to help ease his mind into it, on some slight, subconscious level. ]