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Who: Remy & Wanda.
What: Dealing with some new arrivals.
Where: Their house!
When: After Wanda's conversation with Erik.
Notes: Backdated by a lot.

It would make more sense of her head were spinning. If she were astonished and shaken by the conversation she'd just had. That would be the normal response, Wanda thinks, but she's not normal and nothing about this situation is, either. The only constant is his behavior...and, she knows, something to come home to, after three years of building their ties to one another. She's grateful, as she hurries her way up to the front walk of the little house she and Remy have acquired, aware that it's a luxury she should never take for granted.

(Never again, anyway.)

She pauses, in front of the door. She takes a deep breath. And then, with a steadiness she does genuinely feel--it's not necessarily a good thing, that steadiness of hers, the intent behind her eyes, but she's comfortable with it for right now--she heads inside to see what she's missed.

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This is never a good sign, in their world, or frankly, in their relationship--but in a way, Wanda feels like it's better that they do this. Both of them have a tendency to keep certain things to themselves out of habit, and an inability to trust many others (admittedly, her trust issues were primarily exacerbated after she learned about her memory alterations regarding the twins) outside of this close-knit nest they've formed.

So she looks Remy in the eyes, takes a breath, and nods.

"It's all right. I'm listening."

But she's anxious, too, increasingly so, about what it might be.

Their relationship will never be free from road bumps or crazy happenings, their own doing or from external sources; the bright spot about this is that Remy is telling her at all and, what's more, was planning on doing so. (He wanted to tell Rogue about the Marauders, once. He'd tried to get her to touch him for it. Wanda'd had to get it out of his head by accident. Haphazard and broken as he is still, this is progress.)

"Something from Apocalypse is inside me still."

There is no easy or gentle way to say that. No way to cushion it without horror or dread; it's terrible. Flat out.

"When I was a kid," because there's context, and it's unpleasant context - that Wanda knows some of, in part, "Sinister did something to my brain to keep me from accessing the full spectrum of my mutation. Once he told me it was a block. Another time he told me he removed a part of my brain. I've never know for sure what he did. When I was workin' for New Sun, he overloaded me with energy that wasn't really mine, and ultimately, I burned it out of me. Now - Sinister fucked with my head when he was bringin' me back from being the Horseman. I thought he'd removed the block to make sure I had to come back to him, somethin' like that, but I'm older'n wiser, now, an' I had all that experience with New Sun..."

Remy trails off a bit, and runs one hand over his hair, faintly stressed by relating all this - it just feels unnatural, being so open with his business, even if he wants to be. Patterns of behavior over intent; he recognizes it for what it is, at least.

"I can control it. It was shaky at first but I've been doin' fine. I thought it was worse than it was, because this... stuff kept happening. I couldn't explain it, I couldn't remember. I wasn't sure what it was but I didn't want to worry anybody."

(Oh, Remy.)

He's quiet for a bit, sitting forward, elbows on his knees, hands laced, looking for a moment like he'd rather be up and pacing. When he speaks again it seems like a topic jump at first, inexplicable - but it's not.

"The last time I was in Utopia on my own - right as Summers was kickin' my ass out - the lot of 'em found out Illyana had been sent back to Limbo in a freak accident defendin' that girl Hope. Cyclops wouldn't let nobody go after her. He forbade it, 'cross the board. Everybody of any strategic value had to stay, he said. She weren't no priority, no matter how much Pete yelled."

Remy's voice is quiet; there's something under it, like bitterness, or maybe just the inevitable sort of exhaustion that comes from dealing with Scott Summers and the paramilitary bleakness of what the X-Men have become. Even Xavier these days... they've all given up. Rolled over for the new dawn of Frost and Summers, Leaders of Utopia.

"Finally he let Sam Guthrie - Cannonball - take a team and go, but he had to pick from people who weren't required on the front lines. Which meant folks who he thought were expendable, or the students. Kids, Wanda. Kids and people who have no business goin' to hell - and he was forcing them into Limbo, or sacrifice Magik.

Cannonball, Dazzler, an' Northstar, with Trance, Pixie, and Anole. I went. Kids, a speedster - Alison's an entertainer, not a soldier, and Guthrie's got no business leadin' nobody nowhere. He's a good kid but he's not hard enough for that. I knew it was gonna be a disaster. I could leave Utopia and I could leave Rogue but I knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I'd walked out knowin' they were heading off to Limbo like that."

Edited 2011-11-04 02:59 (UTC)

He's still mad about it, in a lot of ways. It would have been no problem to send Betsy and Colossus and be done with the thing in an hour. Fucker.

"...I remember gettin' there. And starting to look. Demons, hundreds of 'em, started crawlin' up outta the ground. They'd been waiting. And I remember Ali just - screaming, gettin' dragged under."

Remy's looking down again, at his hands, gaze distant.

"Twice before I've blacked out an' not known why. This time I remembered. Limbo is hell alive, a whole world made up of every nightmare, every dark force. It reached into me and yanked out Death in a heartbeat. I could see and hear everything that happened, like a dream. I couldn't control a damn thing. I had to watch as I broke down Alison and Jean-Paul, corrupted them into - I don't even know, minions. He had my voice and my face but it was somethin' else, with my hands. I woulda killed all of them, I -" He laughs, sharp and unpleasant. "- Got rid of every one of those damn demons, ended up freein' Illyana in the process, but then? Beat Sam within an inch of his life. Pixie n' Magik had to jam both their soulswords into me to get me to stop. An' even then..."

He shakes his head, shoulders hunched over. The memories disturb him more than anything has in a long, long time. "I still had to drag it outta my own head. They all think it was Limbo doin' it to the three of us an' nobody came after me and even asked, but I know what it was, it was Death. Apocalypse's Death. It's still in me."

She is mostly able to control her reactions as he speaks, until he gets to this situation that Cyclops had set up, this untenable problem. Then something in Wanda's expression changes. Instead of tensing, it's slack. It's the patient, almost absent sort of anger that only overtakes her on rare occasions.

If she saw Scott Summers right now, she doesn't know what she'd do to him.

The moment passes, with the lift of her chin and the twist of her mouth, the inscrutability eventually yielding genuine emotion, but...he's supposed to be better than that. Wanda can't even really call herself anyone's hero anymore, but in her absence, what the hell has become of the people she believed you could rely on to stay steady? Now they're power-mad, "cutting losses," playing games with people's lives.

Including Remy's.

The revelation of Apocalypse inside him takes her less aback than he might have thought, but it's horrifying enough that she looks at him with a kind of sympathy. If anyone understands what it's like to have something terrible and enormous in you, a piece of a monster, it's Wanda.

Chthon's never been able to claim her, but he's certainly tried.

"Remy..." She moves closer to curl one arm around him. Touch is one of their little reassurances between each other. It's impressive, she thinks, that he managed to hide this the hole time.

"I'm so sorry."

Sometimes he wonders - were they ever heroes, any of them? They tried to band together, to create an institution within society for mutants behaving with integrity and agency. To own their identities, and to make stand; they never asked it of all mutants, and never tried to speak for them all, either, but strove to protect and defend all the same.

It seems so different now.

He's surprised when Wanda touches him, even more when she says she's sorry - why, it's his fault, these are choices he's made - but then he's not, a heartbeat after. He turns against her and pulls her into his arms, practically into his lap, holding her like it grounds him (maybe it does).

"If anything happens to me, if it gets out of my head-" quiet, but very serious- "You have to drop my ass in Bonetown and keep me there. I can't risk putting you or the boys in danger, especially with Magneto around. I don't think anything here is on the level of Limbo as far as triggers go but I don't want to not have a plan if something does happen."

If he's dragging her almost into his lap, she may as well complete the task and end up there entirely, she figures, keeping her arm around him. Wanda squeezes Remy's shoulder, comforting. She doesn't know what that looks like for him, showing the face of what Apocalypse did to him, but she remembers that moment when her power went awry and she saw things in his past. It gives her a clearer idea than most people would have, she's pretty sure.

"I will." It's steady, and not the dangerous kind of flat calm that she manifests on occasion. Matter-of-fact, more like. She is actually quite grateful for Bonetown, in a way. "If anybody can handle that, Remy, and, if necessary, lock you down until who you really are comes back to us, it's me."

And with Wanda Maximoff, that's not bravado.

"That's a promise."

Bonetown is frightening, but it's useful in a poignant way - the both of them, for a whole host of reasons, know how mutant abilities can hurt. (Society, the bearer, anyone.) It's a convenient niche that's more humane than the grotesque torture devices that the inhibitor collars are, and worlds better than violence.

Remy looks up at her, taking in the gravity of her words and the sheer capability she holds in her hands. There was a time when he wouldn't say something like you have to stop me, he'd have asked her to just kill him - but he doesn't want that, now. There's no lingering death wish buried in his heart. He's not sure when it changed.

"You know I love you, right?" Whispered.

There's a quiet little nod, and the faint curve of her smile, shadowed, somewhat, by all the ridiculous curls she's got. Wanda tips her head so her hair falls away from her face.

"I love you. And I am glad that you told me; I know it wasn't easy for you." She does sort of wish it had come sooner, as this is something of a one-two punch with Erik's arrival, but expressing these kinds of secrets is hard for both of them and she gets that there was never really a convenient moment. Things were crazy. They had been for a while. Instead of waiting for things to time up right, sometimes you just had to make it happen.

He leans back a bit, hands sliding up from her waist to her shoulders, holding her so that he has to look up to see her, and smiles - apologetic and affectionate at once.

"You deserve better than my shit, Wanda." It's less self-deprecating than usual; he's got a point, though. "I promise you that I will be here through this, for the boys, for you, for us. Nothing's more important than that to me."

Not his fears or his issues or his hang-ups. It's taken a long time for Remy to really come around to understanding how selfish keeping things hidden is, really, even though he was never malicious about it - he does all these stupid things sideways, but in his heart, this is what's important. Wanda being in Erik's line of fire terrifies him a thousand times more than his own demons do.

"I know."

Sometimes she wonders how much of the behaviors Remy's reviled for back home were self-fulfilling prophecies. If you constantly tell someone you expect the worst from them, you probably shouldn't be surprised, Wanda figures, that you get more of that behavior in return. It's not that she set about trying to change him, but more and more, as they occasionally encounter other X-Men that aren't Laura, it takes her aback at how they view someone she considers so loyal and brave.

Flawed, of course. But they both are.

"Sometimes I think...whoever may be responsible for all these moves, these transitions from city to city we have had over the years, they think they can break us." She meets Remy's eyes, smile reappearing. "We just keep proving them wrong."

Wanda's proud of them for lasting this long.

Remy is still the same man he's always been, it's just that with Wanda, he's able to behave how he's actually inclined to, instead of reverting into a mass of reactionary nerves and angry defensive behavior. There's that saying: true love doesn't complete you or change you, you're just a better person with them. When the hell did this happen?

"I meant it when I said I'm in it for keeps, chere. All these worlds, you and me."

Against all odds, they've figure it out.

Wanda curls her hand against the side of his neck and dips her head down to kiss him, just once, but lingering. "Do you think 'you and me' have a little time to ourselves to have a drink and...breathe, a bit, before the boys come in?"

"Sure thing." Murmured against her - Remy kisses her again, grateful and like a promise. (Of... many things, look, he's not a chaste preteen.) He sits back up enough and shifts his hold on her as if he's about to pick her up - maybe he is! "What do you feel like?"

Drinks, he means.

Wanda leans back just enough to give him a considering, playful look from her position perched on his lap. Which she's finding she quite likes, for the record. "If I started in on that, you'd never get out of this room."

Madam.

She taps fingertips against his shoulders. "I'm not particular, when it comes to alcohol. Not after this day."

On his lap she remains, in that case - even as he stands up, yes, lifting her easily with one arm under her knees and the other staying at her back. "See I'd dare you, but then one of the boys'd walk right in, no?" The trials and tribulations of parenthood, his good-natured smirk seems to say. ('Upstairs, then', also.)

"I believe we got beer, some cheap market wine, two leftover wine coolers an' the bottle of god-only-knows whiskey I got bribed with last week."

When he settles her on the kitchen counter he stays close, one hand on either side of her hips against the edge of the tile.

"Almost certainly," she confirms for him, with a breezy note to her voice--she doesn't like to risk it, but it's just a hazard of a full house.

When Remy sets her on the counter at this angling, Wanda helpfully uses her knees to snag him by the legs, tugging him just a that little much closer. She tips her head back, smile slight but definite. Her hands, meanwhile, go to his shirtfront, pressing there. "I don't think I really want to open hard liquor with the boys somewhere around here. Wine is okay for me."

...if she wants that to be acquired, she's going to have to let go. Dilemma.

Edited 2011-11-07 12:15 (UTC)

"S'good idea." Indeed, the nearest wine bottle is stuck in the top shelf of a cabinet over there, notably out of immediate reach... and Remy declines to make a grab for it, anyway, instead leaning into Wanda's hands and flashing a bit of a smile before he kisses her.

At least they are in the kitchen and not on the sofa if anyone busts in, right? Right?

At least. Wanda should probably be more concerned with the potential interruptions, but everything falls together with Remy so nicely, especially as it pertains to physicality. She also can't resist reaching up to give his hair a good tug, because she is terrible in the stealthiest way.

She follows that up by breaking apart just enough to breathe.

"Wine?" Did you forget, sir?

It's so innocently posed that she must be trolling. Especially since she still has her hand in his hair, though it's looser, now.

Yes, he did.

(Well.)

He's got his hands on her hips now, holding her close (as if she's going to bolt away, sitting on the counter), and if she thinks he's got any objections to her particular methods of distracting him then she's just not paying very close attention. Remy glances cabinet-ward, turning his head a bit as if considering, and then turns back, brushing his nose against hers.

"This is pretty cool, isn't it?"

Sneaking around in their little house, dodging sleeping (maybe) children upstairs. So what, super villain in-laws and promises to disable one another in disaster have interrupted. That's life.

She can't help giggling a little, just briefly and faintly, which is not a sound most people ever hear from her in the first place. Wanda drags her nails lightly against the back of Remy's neck, going 'hmm,' ever so thoughtfully, as though she isn't doing anything at all.

She's not really all that invested in getting that. Surprise.

"It's wonderful, in fact. There's something about us and kitchens, though, have you noticed?"

Wanda distinctly remembers that conversation when the toaster or whatever it was exploded. And she had no pants on.

He loves that sound, and he grins, swaying against her playfully and nearly-kissing her lips - it might be teasing, but then he says:

"I think there might be somethin' about us and most places, chere, but if you can stick a do-not-disturb-bubble over this kitchen I ain't gonna complain-"

He probably wanted her to bite him for that, but boy, does he get his wish, if that's the case. While she rarely ever thinks of him in terms of comparing Remy to men she's known in the past, the amount of playfulness in their relationship is sort of unprecedented for her.

Wanda sort of thinks maybe that's part of what makes it stick so well.

"Somehow I think that might be an abuse of my powers," Wanda says, mock-reproachfully, "and furthermore it would almost certainly wake someone up."

Jeez, Wanda, it's like you aren't trying to deter him at all.

He nearly cracks up after she bites him, and he ends up laughing against her shoulder, muffled. "You know," he says, and takes the opportunity of his proximity to investigate her neck, jaw, her ear- "So might creepin' up the stairs, which you think feels most lucky?"

Wanda is momentarily derailed by the little sound he manages to elicit from her, but she's coherent enough to speak, fortunately.

"Let's risk those stairs," she declares. "Everything else can wait."

It doesn't have much of a choice.

He grins, and pulls her into his arms again, purposeful.

"Yes ma'am."

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