tampered | sometimes you're here [ongoing]

sometimes you're here [ongoing]

When; Last night, late evening.
Rating; PG-13? Serious business discussion might warrant some cursing.
Characters;

hexless,

alittlecredit,

bangyoudead.
Summary; Remember M Day? Yeah, let's not do that again.
Log;

Wanda gets back at around eleven o'clock, certain that a few people will still be lingering around the general vicinity of the apartment. Though the attacks have cleared up, some things have been settled for days, and privately some small part of her, in the back of her mind, will be sad to see the others go. The circumstances were awful, but she liked having a lot of friends around.

She also makes a mental note to touch in with Eden as soon as possible, but doesn't expect to see her back just yet, either. Wanda makes her way up the stairs to the apartment and, upon reaching the door, fumbles slightly with the key in the lock, wondering if she's just tired or the stress is finally starting to catch up with her. She told Niko she's still running on autopilot, but maybe being able to wander the streets casually has started to break that down.

It really has been a long week, but all she needs is a little sleep and to check on the others to reassure herself, and everything will be fine.

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Remy is half convinced this is the right thing to do and half convinced this is the stupidest most suicidal idea ever. As he's walking down the stairwell to Eden and Wanda's apartment (where has Eden been, anyway?), he has an odd moment where he thinks, 'If I was in my right mind, I'd tell Tony Stark we were doing this' - but it's fleeting and suppressed with immediate and complete hatred. It doesn't matter if it'd be logical or even sane for potential fall-out for the safety of the City; he's too livid and raw and too much a mutant to put that behind him.

He doesn't want to be doing this. Xavier should be doing this. Or Jean. If Jean hadn't died, could she have stopped it all? A woman, empathetic, not some cold, cruel tyrant like Emma. Could she have reached Wanda, where all the men who pulled her to pieces couldn't? Remy's not a telepath. He's not a healer. He's a thief who's moonlighting because the reality - his reality - is that he's exiled and abandoned and alone and these people just don't know any better yet so they haven't slammed the door in his face.

He looks over at Rictor for just a moment before knocking on her door.

A part of Rictor thinks that he ought to be more apprehensive about what they're planning on doing here, telling Wanda about herself or whatever Remy plans on telling her-- because Julio plans on falling in behind and providing solidarity. 'Solidarity' was a decent description of who and what he was. He should feel more apprehensive because it's possible Wanda could have a worse freak-out than the first time around, and worse things could happen. All that he's able to think is that if something happens, it ought to happen to him. He paid the price of her pain once already; instead of feeling put-upon, he suddenly feels as if it would only soften a second blow.

Which is why he isn't nervous about what they plan on doing, and his face shows as much as he stares back at Remy with a sort of consolate and determined but determinedly useless expression. He remembers this sort of feeling, even recently.

When Terry's dad died, he recalls.

Edited 2008-12-20 12:09 (UTC)

Wanda hasn't been inside for more than a minute when there's a knock at the door. She turns, less surprised than she could be, and spies out the peephole first like a good city girl in the making ought before she opens the door. Ric and Remy are, of course, pretty much always invited in, so she steps aside after smiling at them both.

"Hi, you two," Wanda says, "you didn't forget anything here, did you?"

They look a bit--something she can't quite place or name just yet, but she attributes whatever the off feeling is to the wear and tear of the week. They both need some peace and quiet, she decides, and it would be nice if the City would give that much for at least a little while.

"Um, naw," he says, suddenly feeling very much like he is not charming and not useful and totally out of his depth (which, to be fair, he is). But it's only for a second, and he sucks it up. He's done a hundred secret underhanded difficult things for Charles Xavier over the years. Just go like this is one of them, he tells himself. Life or death. And it is.

"We just wondered if we could talk for a bit. I know it's kinda sudden," he adds, politely apologetic.

Taking a long, quiet breath, he slips between Remy and Wanda and into the apartment, folding his arms over his chest and smiling in that way that people smile when they want you to know how totally relaxed and happy they are when they are completely not relaxed and happy. This is the last thing on Earth Rictor wants to be doing.

But that usually ends up being what he's doing in his life, anyway, so maybe he should just start scaling a bit back and aiming a little lower.

"Yeah, it's-- we just want to see how you've been lately, see if anything's been bothering you, right? And I needed to...borrow a couple eggs, so."

Yes, eggs. He shoots Remy a distressed look. It was a good icebreaker, okay?

Something is definitely going on, they're indicating as much obviously and (more tellingly) non-verbally. Wanda nods, and takes a step back from the both of them, gesturing at the sofas and chairs, letting both men know they can sit down if they like.

"We've certainly got eggs to spare. Is there a reason something in particular should be bothering me?"

It's deliberately side-stepping and twisting the field of inquiry, but she did have a brief conversation with Remy before about feeling as though she was being--oh, protected, perhaps. Something to that effect. That feeling has only increased in the past week, though, and it's heightened by the conversation at hand.

Remy gives Rictor a look like, 'Dude, do not give me a distressed look right now' and moves into the apartment after him.

"Kinda," he says, quiet, in an almost too-honest-to-be-comfortable moment. "But it's a long story. So I figure we should all sit down."

He takes Remy's cue, having the decency to look sombre about the situation, especially after the look he's been shot. He bites his lower lip and throws himself down on one side of Wanda's couch, leaning over onto the armwrest and vaguely willing her to sit between them, and Remy to take the other side. He's not sure why he feels like this needs to happen.

Maybe he feels like they can contain her that way, her reaction, or her upset, or whatever.

He clears his throat to say something, but never does. Rictor doesn't feel like he has the right; it's not like he has an unbiased opinion, these days.

Wanda hesitates, staring at them both with contemplative eyes for a few seconds. Did someone die? She's trying to assess where this is going, and it's really doing a lot to make her anxious, since if they're being this cautious about it, it must be something really bad...she hopes no one has been hurt. She doesn't let herself imagine any more worst-case scenarios, though, and obligingly goes to take a seat on the sofa.

"You two are sort of making me nervous," she notes, with a small smile, "But go ahead."

"I get that a lot," he tells her - and while the over-done grin and flirtatious nature isn't present, there's a lightness there and he gives her a supportive smile. Whatever they're here to say, they're friends, they care about her. See?

"... Little while ago you asked if we were keepin' things from you," he starts. "This is.. concernin' that." A pause. "De other night, when we were helpin' Niko. You remember much of that?"

As Remy speaks, he feels awkward doing nothing. Everything is a slightly bitter memory again, and so he only tries to remember when they found out Sean was dead. Snaking a hand out, he takes Wanda's and holds it loosely in her lap.

If he opens his mouth, naturally he's going to ruin everything, so...he'll let Mr. Talker talk.

Wanda looks at Julio with a sliver of concern in her expression, and keeps his hand with hers, then. If that is to help her, she'll take the assistance. She suspects it probably will be needed in a few minutes, if this is really as bad as it seems. When she turns to glance at Remy again she speaks slowly and carefully.

"I remember when you hit him, and...he hit the wall," she says, frowning, "Is Niko all right?"

"Niko's fine," he assures her. "He's pretty tough. Thing is... I can't move people wit my mind. I just blow stuff up, fille." He smiles a little.

"You put him in that wall."

He shakes his head then, considering where this is going, what Remy plans on revealing, what he's going to have to say himself. It's an awkward position, given, but he's oddly grown attached to Wanda, perhaps because she's still 'one of them,' even if Julio isn't technically 'one of them' anymore to begin with.

"It's normal. We're not suggesting you're not normal."

She stares at Remy, blank and uncomprehending. Like anyone would be, if they'd lived what they believed to be a normal life and then heard this from someone--even someone they trust, and Wanda does trust them. She hears what Ric says, processes it, and still can't come up with anything that really works. That absolutely can't be true. She isn't like that, she doesn't do anything like that, she--

"How do you know it was me, though? In the City, it could have been anything."

--doesn't end up saying anything to that effect.

"I know because I know who you really are."

There's a cold weight to his words, and he realizes the danger they're in. This is a woman who does horrible things when she's overwhelmed. This is the woman who put him in a coma, one he's still recovering from. His mind isn't whole, because of her. But he's calm anyway.

"You're a mutant. You just can't remember, because you hurt yourself real bad an' didn't want to feel it anymore. So you used de ability you got to make that possible."

The majority of what Remy says doesn't mean anything to her, but it's the first sentence, the second half of that sentence, that visibly catches her. I know who you really are. Most of her protests: they might come from the same world, but how can he know? She's not anyone to know. She's just some girl. It's the sliver of space where she knows she should be a more complete person than she is, that she's playing the role of the woman she thinks she should have been, that makes her question herself, though.

Clint didn't have the nerve to say it. She'd killed him twice and he still loved her, for some reason she won't be able to fathom when she understands what happened, so perhaps it's understandable he didn't want to forcefully shatter her disguise. Clint isn't a mutant, though. It's a special club they belong to: one where you're born into risk, playing the odds. She used to be so good at that, too.

"Why are you telling me this?" Wanda asks, unsteadily, but there's none of that air of impending reality shift in her tone--just naked fear. She liked her illusion, but some part of her is perhaps wishing she could take it back. Maybe it's the same part of her that feels such intense guilt she tried to pretend it never happened.

Edited 2008-12-22 03:38 (UTC)

He lets go of her hand at that point, cupping his beneath his chin and turning away from her, and from Remy. He knows he shouldn't turn away, and that he should meet her eyes, but he can't force himself to. He's never done a job like this-- jobs like this were always left up to the Real X-Men, in a manner of speaking. It's new to him, and nostalgic, in a negative way. He can remember himself being in her seat, thirteen, seventy pounds when soaking wet.

No! Get back! Don't come any closer! I'm telling you, I won't let you use me. I won't--never met a mutant before... Didn't know what I was... only that it was terrible!

He clears his throat and pushes Jean and douchebag Scott very far out of his conscious mind and buries it a mile deep.

"LeBeau's telling you this because he cares. Because you put a guy into a wall, Wanda, and it wasn't your fault, but you need to know so it doesn't happen again. It's not to make you feel dangerous or weird. Just-- if you're informed, you can make the right choices for yourself. Nobody can use you."

Wanda distinctly feels as though there are two sides to this sit-down: the mutant power revelation, which makes her feel uncomfortable in a way she can't quite describe, and the fact that Remy (maybe Ric, too, who is hard to read in his own right) knows her, from somewhere, and nobody has said anything. Why?

What did she do?

There's resounding silence from the woman on the sofa for a long while, and then something terrible clicks in the back of her mind like a lock coming undone.

"In the lobby," she breathes, sneaking a wide-eyed, almost-panicked look Remy's way, "Oh--God."

She's remembering, and whether that is a good thing is subject to interpretation.

And then, with greater certainty, though she is dimly aware she's jumping from subject to subject: "Pietro. It was Pietro, and me."

It's Remy who takes her hands this time, and his grip is solid and, he hopes, grounding.

"You're gonna hurt yourself more with it comin' back in pieces like it is, leakin' out with your powers," he says, speaking clearer than usual. "We can't lie to you about it anymore because it's not fair."

Pietro's name is a trigger and he resolutely does not take his eyes off of Wanda. He knows there's some kind of history between the other man and Julio but this isn't about Pietro, it's about her. It's about Wanda and not the men who've carved out her life.

His lips thin at the mention of Wanda's brother, conflict swimming very obviously beneath the surface of his expression, which camps for a short time somewhere near 'resolute' before he continues, politely shoving his own issues away for the moment. What are his troubles, next to Wanda Maximoff's, after all. He doesn't know what she remembers. He doesn't know what she will remember, either. Once again, he looks to Gambit for help.

"Nobody blames you, Wanda. I'm sorry. Espero que encuentres apoyo en estas palabras."

Wanda, for her part, is slightly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things she's apparently done to other people. Guilt and shame are selfish emotions, she thinks, but she doesn't know any other recourse when she's hurt dozens--maybe hundreds or thousands--of innocents because she thought she knew what was best for them.

Like father like daughter, right?

"So--"

She stares at her lap, like that will help her puzzle out the rapid-fire memories reappearing.

"Why aren't you going to kill me? I was waiting for it. In Genosha. It's practical--in the Avengers, we..."

She trails off and looks over at Ric, suddenly.

Right. Guilt. Don't forget that one any time soon, girl.

"Because we ain't killers, Wanda," he says, passionate, something like bitterness sneaking into his voice before he can suppress it. He can lie to her for this. Part of him is shocked she's remembering so fast, but he knows how sudden and complete it was in the lobby of this very building, before everything had gone white.

"Because we care 'bout you an' you're our friend. Because if people had cared about you to begin with none of this would have ever happened."

He leans forward on the couch, closer, nearly itching to respond with some form of intimacy, but it's quashed as quickly as the urge comes-- bury it, bury it, bury it so deep, hold your head up, Rictor.

"Because we aren't the Avengers, and we aren't practical. We're--" Mutants? No, not anymore. The only ones allowed to have a relevant fucking opinion? The truth, but he can't say that. "--not going to treat you like a liability and take you out back like Old Yeller, Jesus Christ. You treat me good as a person. Se lo debo."

She sort of wonders why she isn't really crying, but she feels vulnerable in the same way. Wanda stays like this, framed by two people who hardly know her, not really, but decided they care and are doing this for her. Her head feels like it's splitting open, judging by the wince she's wearing, and she half wants to sleep forever just to pretend she doesn't remember with increasing intensity, but...

"Okay," she exhales, "I--oh, God. I'm sorry. I wish I could be sure--I don't think I'm making this up, so if I'm not, I'm sorry. To both of you."

Remy wonders how much a part of her wants to remember - it must be aggressive, for her to crumble so easily beneath her own spell that's blotted out her mind.

"Things happen," he says quietly. "Sometimes, really bad things. We've all... had things go wrong wit our abilities. Things we can't control. It's why so many of us work so hard to help people. I'm not mad. Not at all."

The vast majority of it is that feeling of uselessness--she wants to be able to help actively in the field, instead of just staying home and worrying about the domesticity of it all. She might not precisely be a born warrior, but some part of her knows that ignoring her powers means she's better of on the sidelines. Wanda can't handle that.

Selfish again, probably, but here she is.

She closes her eyes.

"Things we can't control," Wanda repeats, inclining her head, "Yes. That's how it is. Xavier used to...keep me asleep. So that I wouldn't hurt anyone."

She's thinking maybe she should do that again for a little while, as cruel as it had sounded to the others back then. This is one of the most dangerous times to be around her, during a serious change in psyche, and there's a not quite lucid quality to the expression in her eyes when she opens them again, like she's uncovering reality for the first time.

Edited 2008-12-22 05:18 (UTC)

He doesn't say 'I know', because he doesn't, really. He knows in theory, and he knows from overhearing people - the dream team at the mansion never cared much about keeping the likes of Gambit in the loop with things like that, but he heard about it anyway.

After, of course, everyone heard about it, in hyper-exposed detail. Everyone formed opinions and, mostly, it was that the entire thing laid on the shoulders of her family and the people who neglected her to this degree.

"You feel like you gon' hurt anybody, Wanda?"

He wants to say something, but he isn't sure what. He isn't the best in these situations, and Wanda, she doesn't know him from Adam. His opinions-- Rictor has a tendency to not walk the middle of the road, and a tendency to switch from condemning someone to apologizing for them. Things are never what they seem like they are on the surface, he's felt that way ever since his time with Cable.

What he wants to say is, putting you to sleep doesn't solve anything, it just makes things worse by delaying and obfuscating and putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. Instead he puts a heavy hand on her shoulder and says:

"She's not gonna hurt anybody."

She's starting to piece together how she wants to answer that (she rarely ever wanted to hurt anyone, not really, but she ended up doing it repeatedly anyway), but at Ric's hand on her shoulder, she lets him answer for her, turning her head to almost-smile up at him.

This is called 'numbness,' this stage she's entering now. She remembers it first like deja vu, and then more thoroughly: when Pietro was with her in Genosha, sitting quietly in the dark, but this time around she seems to have more options. Maybe.

"I won't," she promises, putting as much sincerity into it as she can, "I don't want to hurt anyone. I'd like to sleep, though. My head--I can't think clearly like this, and I want to say things to the both of you that make sense."

She's not sure she thinks as clearly as she used to believe most of the time, not any more, but saying that won't help matters.

It was rhetorical, anyway. He knows she doesn't feel like hurting anybody - and it's something she should realize for herself. If she doesn't want to, then she won't. If she's in control of herself and able to make her own decisions with a support group versus a bunch of people out to use her, then she's not a liability or a danger. She's a person.

"... I'm sorry for springin' it on you."

He wants to say he's sorry for the whole thing, but that's getting into territory of about him versus about her.

"No, please, you were brave. You did what Clint was scared to do," she tells Remy--both of them, actually. She's wondering what she'd say to Clint now if she saw him--it would be nice to say she understood but right now she doesn't understand much of anything. Especially not how he could do what he did if he knew who she was, and not...

Well, she supposes she has time to not think. Not thinking sounds like the best plan she's come up with in a long time.

There will be backlash for this later, she knows, for suppressing her reaction the way she is, but she really meant it when she said she didn't want anyone to get hurt.

He stands slowly, glancing between the two of them before moving to the door, his hands in his pockets. Maybe Remy will stay here longer, he doesn't know, but for himself, he sees 'I'd like to get some sleep' as a polite request to vacate and let her be raw and emotional in privacy.

At least, that's how he would be reacting, so maybe he's just projecting.

"You gonna be okay?"

Wanda does think she needs some time to herself, largely because she doesn't think they want to see any Magneto-induced meltdowns, but she bites her lip and suddenly (with a glance back at Remy, like she's warning him what she's about to do and not Ric) slides off the sofa, too. At the door, she throws her arms around Ric and hugs him, nodding a little.

She doesn't know him that well, but she knows enough to feel comfortable doing this, so.

"I don't know, but I'll try. Thank you."

He stands after she does and puts a hand on her back as she hugs Ric, supportive. He doesn't throw the other man any looks, because this isn't some moment for teasing or laughing.

"We're all here together," he tells her, gentle. "Means we're in this together. You ain't alone."

It's awkward, one of the most awkward things he's been involved in since arriving in this whatever-place. He's not used to women like Wanda. He's used to women like Tabitha, Dani, Terry, Monet, Rahne. Women from whom a hug was either a threat on their side or something liable to get him kicked through a wall. He tries his best to keep his shoulders relaxed anyway, patting her on the arm before sliding away and moving for the door, lingering on the doorknob.

"Anything happens, anything at all Wanda, you call me. I don't know how much good I'll be able to do, but I'm okay for helping clean up overfilled bathtubs and running off to tell everyone that Timmy's down the well."

She can sort of tell Ric isn't really used to people (women?) like her, not quite a ballbuster by any stretch of the imagination, but never passive. Wanda steps back, against Remy's hand--because all of them seem to be using touch to ground the conversation and each other, she's noticing, and she does think it helps her--and nods.

"I will."

He wraps one arm around her and presses something chaste and barely a kiss at all to her forehead.

"We're just upstairs. Get some sleep, no?"

It's not like either of the men will, he figures.

Wanda glances up at Remy when he does that and thinks--he must have known when they first met, but he did a good job keeping things carefully compartmentalized this long. She owes him a lot. So she hugs him, too, a little tighter and a little shakier at the same time, with that undercurrent of barely-concealed instability people acquainted with her illness have seen before.

"Yes." She will probably take something to aid with that, but just this once. Not too often. "I, um--"

Wanda steps back and gestures, loosely. "It can wait. I'll see you both later."

The knob is turned and he slides out of the door, blinking a little at the slightly brighter, flourescent lights of the stairwells and hallways. He looks back, feeling something, something, he's not sure what, for just a moment as he stares over his shoulder at the two of them and tries not to be completely resentful because he doesn't blame Wanda. And they don't need his issues.

Still, he wishes he could be Remy, in a hundred different ways.

"Forever if you want it to, cielo."

This is Rictor, exeunt stage left.

Edited 2008-12-22 08:27 (UTC)

He watches her with compassionate eyes, not saying anything but squeezing her hand as she pulls away. Whether the pattern of her life wants to accept, they're - he is - here for her. Not because he's altruistic or a leader but because he's here and he knows it's right and he figures this is something he can do for mutantkind after having screwed his own people so many times in recent history.

And he likes Wanda. Maybe even loves her, as his companion and as his comrade. She's compassionate and bright and she's like Ororo and Rogue and Jean and all the women he heels for on command. He glances up as Rictor comments, and then looks back at Wanda.

"Bien dormir, belle." it's accompanied by a soft smile, and he slips out as well, back to the roof, where there is no sleep and no peace coming til morning, or whenever she deigns to speak to them again.

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sometimes you're here [ongoing]

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