x-men AU.

[justashotaway]

Since Warren disappeared back into a past she'll never know, Laura's felt more numb than anything. Something else should be there, some sensation besides he was here and now he's gone, but life doesn't seem to change much. She fights bad guys. She eats Chinese food. She falls asleep during a Golden Girls marathon with Gabby and wakes up at three AM with Jonathan sitting on her chest, staring unblinking into her eyes.

And if she misses Warren--or Scott, or Bobby, any of them--the feeling lives someplace inside her without drawing attention to itself. She does miss them, she knows that much intellectually, but she does not want to dredge up the sensation if it's willing to lay dormant someplace inside her.

More than anything, she's restless. And one night, when Gabby and Jonathan have both been invited to the school for some kind of party ("It's a lock-in," Gabby'd explained, "and I'm only going because there's going to be nachos"--which is true, if only because Gabby's never actually been a student there), Laura goes out, too. Not as X-23, but as Laura Kinney, in a leather jacket and black jeans, sitting down at a cheap bar beside a curly-haired girl and ordering a beer.

This, she knows, is how Logan would deal with heartache. She's not sure that's what she's feeling, and she knows better than to take Logan's habits as suggestions in general, but she's willing to give it a try.

Comments

meet cute numero uno

[sulahnan]

It's not until Laura is halfway through with her beer that Tessa, the curly-haired girl, decides to break the ice. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the noise of the bar, and lean in a little, but she's old hat at this.

This, of course, meaning making awkward conversation with strangers at bars.

"You get dumped?" She asks without preamble, leaning her forearms against the bar and tapping her boot against the stabilizer ring of the barstool.

[justashotaway]

Laura glances up sharply, drawn out of her distracted thoughts by the voice.  She'd smelled the girl next to her when she'd sat down, a mix of floral shampoo and sweat and alcohol, and dismissed her as neither a threat nor someone to focus on.  It only occurs to her now that the girl might've sized her up as well and come to different conclusions.

"Not exactly," she says, pitching her voice somewhere similar, in that just loud enough to be heard over the guy with a guitar at the other end of the room range.  (If she'd known there'd be music, she might have picked someplace else.)  There's no easy way to explain the details to a stranger--not in a single sentence, anyway.  And anyway, as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she finds herself pausing, brows knit together. "Is it that obvious?"

That they parted amicably on the occasion of Warren's leaving the the twenty-first century.  That isn't being dumped.

[sulahnan]

"Well, it was either that or you got fired, so," she shrugs and laughs at some inside joke with herself. "Yeah, kinda."

The door opens to admit a few more customers, and Tessa looks over briefly. Nobody she knows. Back to Laura: "I like to guess. See how close I get to being right. Sometimes. Obviously not everyone is approachable and stuff but it makes spending time in a crowd less boring." If boring is the word for it.

[justashotaway]

"I wasn't fired." She doesn't smile, but there's a kind of humor to how she says it, incredibly dry.

As the girl looks past her, Laura takes a moment to look at the girl. She's pretty, her nose very straight, her smile easy. "You spend a lot of time here?"

[sulahnan]

She laughs, mostly because that question sounds a lot like You come here often? but also because hell no she doesn't spend a lot of time here.

"Here? No, I'm just waiting for some work friends. They come here a lot." She runs a hand through her hair, almost tucking it behind her ear, then thinking better of it and just adjusting the lay of the curls over her shoulder. You know, the typical self-conscious tic of someone talking to an attractive someone-else. Then, she inclines her head towards Laura. "You? Come here often?" She can't say it without grinning, still finding it funny and cliche.

[clonepower]

[AND THEN ONE NIGHT AT LIKE MIDNIGHT

FROM AN UNKNOWN NUMBER]

tessa?????

[sulahnan]

who dis

[ Face: smushed against pillow. Phone: on bed beside pillow. Texting: left handed, one eye open. It's fuckin' midnight or whatever what hte fukc ]

[clonepower]

[who cares what time it is it's not like she goes to school]

i'm from new york university
i'm doing a survey of texters 🤳
are you dating anybody right now???

[sulahnan]

[ some people have to work tho ]

,,,,,,this is gabby isn't it

[sulahnan]

[ noonish, post-survey ]

it would seeeem ur sis got my number lol

[justashotaway]

She what?

[Cue an annoyed Gabby! someplace on Roosevelt Island.]

[sulahnan]

yeah it was hilarious

[ She sends screenshots. ]

[justashotaway]

Well, I'm glad it was funny.
We've had a talk about snooping and texting people at midnight. She's going to send you an apology.
She's asked me to ask you to come over and watch bad monster movies sometime soon.

[justashotaway]

They keep seeing each other, and texting each other, and sleeping with each other. And then it stops.

Not on purpose, of course. But she's never been the kind of superhero who mostly stops people from shooting up Chinese restaurants. Inevitably, something comes up that takes all her attention; in the span of a day, she's in Madripoor, investigating something off a tip from Daken.

Her phone buzzes, she looks at it, and she doesn't find a chance to respond. Her phone buzzes, and she doesn't have a chance to look at it. And eventually, it stops vibrating. She doesn't have time to do more than think of it once and feel a pang of regret.

A month spools out faster than she realizes, in the whirlwind of traveling and fighting and searching. The details don't really matter, mostly because the idea of making up an entire plot as background noise sounds like a pain in the ass tonight; the point is, she shows up on Tessa's fire escape spattered with a mix of other people's blood and her own. There's an ugly gash running down her back, and the fingers of one hand are pretty broken. A large patch of skin on her face is suspiciously pink and shiny, like it was recently regrown and hasn't entirely finished yet. She's tapping on the window with the claws of her good hand, looking like death warmed over.

[sulahnan]

Tessa is reclining on her couch in a hoodie and sweatpants, Regis on her lap and her laptop on her stomach. Some deeply chill version of How It's Made lighting up her face. Yeah, her TV is right there and she could be watching it on a bigger, better screen, but...well, she's not doing that.

It's Regis who reacts to the tapping first, lifting his head and staring big-eyed at the window. A far more subdued reaction than Tessa lurching up off of the couch and tossing her laptop onto the cushion at the far end of it.

"Ohmygod, Laura!" She stumbles over a floor cushion as she hurries to the window. Whether she actually pulled Laura into the apartment or if Laura entered on her own and Tessa just awkwardly hugged her in motion.

"What the fuck?"

[justashotaway]

Laura winces as she clambers inside, Tessa's hands too heavy on her body despite hardly weighing anything at all. One of her ribs might have cracked--that would explain some of the pain coming along with slipping inside a window.

"Your place was closer." Her voice is mostly breath, and not in an attractive way. Belatedly, she realizes that she'll probably end up bleeding on the floor; she's already tracking in dirt, though she hasn't actually noticed it yet. It's a problem for later, probably best solved by hiring a professional to come and clean up the damage. Right now, she's just uncomfortable, in the way anyone probably would be after a few fights. "I can go, if--"

If you need that. If she's too late to save this thing of theirs. Hell, if there's going to be an apartment inspection tomorrow and Laura's too likely to lead bloody handprints to trust inside. She can always just sleep on the fire escape, if it comes to that.

[sulahnan]

"Are you kidding?! You're not going anywhere, you're bleeding--" Or is that someone else's blood? It's all over her hoodie now but that doesn't matter, what matters is Laura, and what the fuck, and holy shit, etc. "Jesus, lay down before you fall down. Don't worry about the couch I can just get a new cover from IKEA."

And then she's off, running barefoot to the hall closet to rummage around for...something. First aid kit? But Laura heals really fast, doesn't she? Grab it anyway. Washcloth? They always call for hot water and towels in movies. Makes sense, because of the blood, right?

"Holy fucking shit," Back in the living room, she dumps the first aid stuff on the table and then rushes back off to run the washcloth under hot water. "Before you say anything I know that bandaids aren't going to help you but it makes me feel better to get them anyway."

[justashotaway]

They're on a date, wandering around Washington Square Park after dinner, when they run into one of Laura's old teammates. It's inevitable, really--New York City's filled with people, but the presence of the Xavier Institute means that the percentage of X-Men, both former and past, is a lot higher than average. And Laura knows a lot of them. It's inevitable that they'll meet some eventually.

Tonight, it's Bobby on a rare moment outside the school, and even though this is a time period from before he's dating Emma Frost's brother, let's just imagine he's dating Emma Frost's brother, because Bobby deserves nice things. This literally doesn't matter because Christian Frost isn't even here, but it's important, okay. "This is my girlfriend, Tessa."

"Oh! Hey!" Bobby reaches out to shake Tessa's hand, and there's a certain light to his expression that says I like you even better now that I have context. "Bobby Drake. I'm Laura's coolest friend. You know, objectively speaking."

"I'll explain later," Laura mutters, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.

[sulahnan]

It's too much to process in the moment; being called her girlfriend and being introduced to someone who needs no introduction, interpreting his expression and coming up with something funny to say? It's too much for one brain to handle. Which is why she just picks two of those to focus on.

"Funny, she never mentioned you," Tessa says, shaking Bobby's hand and making a face that fully telegraphs the whole that's a joke thing. Then, she looks at Laura. "That's cold, Lo."

Ice puns.

[justashotaway]

"Oh, no," Laura groans, but in that performative way that says I'm secretly pleased with what's happening here. "I think I'm already regretting introducing you."

"Couldn't possibly." Bobby gives her a look, and she gives him one right back. This isn't quite her ideal--Laura thinks introducing Tessa to Remy first might have been the most comfortable option, among her various teammates and friends. But Bobby's probably the best person to start with, from Tessa's end of things. Remy can be a lot to take in. "How long have you two been dating?"

[sulahnan]

Well, that's an easy question. Tessa thinks back to that night at the bar--but no wait, they didn't officially go on a date until the dim sum incident, which was...fuck.

"Five? Months? Ish." That's a long time. That's a long time. The last time she was in a committed relationship it only lasted seven. They're two months shy of that benchmark. She looks to Laura for verification of her estimate. "The dim sum shooting was five months ago, right?"

Shit Hits the Fan in Manhattan

[sulahnan]

So the Avengers destroyed Tessa's apartment building.

Probably not on purpose, of course, but when a high-speed super-chase spans the length of Manhattan, places are bound to suffer for it and the big boss battle happened to take place in Inwood Hill Park, a few blocks north of Tessa's place. Collateral damage, or whatever.

It's all over the news already; reports of Iron Man and whoever else battling to protect the people, interviews with witnesses and firefighters, and even a passing comment from Tony Stark himself. Something about scheduling a press conference.

And the last text Laura received from Tessa was sent about an hour ago, saying that Regis got out and she was going to go find him before their date.

Regis and Tessa are both fine, if dirty and sweaty and stressed, sitting on a bit of concrete foundation that used to support a wrought-iron fence across the street from her doorstep. EMTs and fire crews rush past in all directions, Regis meows inside his carrier, and Tessa is just staring at the rubble that used to be her home. Well, shit.

"There goes the neighborhood," she mutters. "Literally. Heh."

[justashotaway]

She figures it out on her way out the door. Gabby says something about the Avengers, all the details on Twitter zero in on Tessa's neighborhood, and suddenly, there's a terrible sensation in the pit of Laura's stomach. Yanking on the suit, she just about runs the entire way across Manhattan.

And she's too late to do anything, once she sees the apartment building. She's leaping toward it, ready to dig through the rubble with everyone else, when she sees the street fly by under her feet and just the right flash of dark hair in the crowd catches her eye.

So much for saving anyone--right this moment, anyway. She hits the ground and starts running for Tessa.

And once she's there before her, she nearly skids to a stop, crouching down and tentatively pushing back a lock of Tessa's hair with a gloved hand. Stupid, in retrospect, putting on the suit for this. But if Tessa'd been inside-- "Are you all right?"

[sulahnan]

It's not that she doesn't know Laura is Wolverine; they've been over that, time and time again. She should be used to it by now, surely. But it still takes the space of a slow blink to register who it is asking if she's okay and brushing hair out of Tessa's face. When it sinks in, she smiles, relief clear on her face and in her voice.

"Laura, hey, hi! I'm fine, really. Just kinda gross. Didn't you get my text?" She pulls her phone out of her pocket, but the cracked screen says it all before she even unlocks it. Of course Laura didn't get the text she sent fifteen minutes ago. "Oh. Heh, guess not."

[justashotaway]

"Wolverine," she corrects softly, but at the moment, she doesn't really care what Tessa calls her. Just that she's here to call her anything at all. "What happened?"

Regis takes that moment to meow loudly--presumably, he needs everyone to know he's outside, please pay attention--and Laura glances his way. Was there a vet appointment? She doubts Tessa got that much advance notice about her building falling apart.