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

[sulahnan]

And now it's her turn to find pictures in her phone. "I do! I have a cat named Regis, though sometimes I call him Batty Batkins because when I found him his ears were way too big for his head."

She turns her phone around to swipe through a series of photos, first of Regis as a kitten, a tiny grimy ball of fluff and ears, and a couple of his transformation from rescue to recovery. In the first photo he looks positively green, but in the last it's clear that it was just muck stuck to his white-and-grey striped fur.

"I found him in a dumpster after I moved here."

[justashotaway]

Laura looks at the cat with interest, from slimy infant to handsome adult.

"He's grown into them." Which is her way of saying what a cute kitty, and possibly also I'm glad you rescued him. She doubts the story would end as happily if he'd stayed in his dumpster--at best, the cats she'd met while living on the street had been made mean by circumstance.

Without thinking about it, she takes a moment to poke at her shoulder as she brings another bite of food to her mouth. It seems to have healed entirely, or as much as it will while she's using it to eat bibimbap.

[sulahnan]

Laura's shoulder-poke doesn't go unnoticed as Tessa pockets her phone.

"So. You have...claws? And heal fast--" Though from the way Laura has treated the gun wound, Tessa has to wonder if her date is healing as fast as she normally does. Maybe Laura just can't leave injuries alone, though, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing to poke and prod at something sore. "Do you have other powers?"

[justashotaway]

Laura nods, swallowing before she answers. There's no need to go into every detail, but even if she hadn't promised to answer Tessa's questions, she'd want her to know these things. It makes things feel a little more even between them.

"Stronger senses - hearing and scent, mostly. And a fast metabolism. It's very difficult for me to get drunk, or use painkillers." Beyond that, most of her skills - her ability to fight, the fistful of languages she speaks - are born of her mutation only insofar as her mutation was the reason she'd had to learn. "That is most of it."

[sulahnan]

"Oh. So you were painfully sober while I was getting tipsy and rambling at you at the bar, good to know," said less like an actual bad thing and more like a funny, embarrassing thing she did and isn't quite apologizing for. They're here now, after all, clearly it wasn't that bad.

[justashotaway]

"Yes." But there's warmth in how she says it, like Tessa would have had to work much harder to make it a bad thing. If it was anything, it was fortunate--enjoyable enough, at least, that their paths have crossed again, with great purpose. "Your interpretation of everyone's hopes and dreams was my favorite part."

[sulahnan]

She laughs, embarrassed, tucking her hair behind her ear only for it to fall around it once more. When she looks back up, in an effort to breeze past the urge she has to kiss Laura again--and probably keep kissing her, let's be honest--she loads up another spoonful of spicy bulgogi. "Your turn."

[justashotaway]

"Do you have any siblings?" she asks, both mildly curious and aware that they might want to move away from the subject of their last encounter. There's no possibility of bringing Tessa home tonight, with Gabby there, but the thought's crossed her mind--just now, specifically, watching her hair refuse to be tamed back behind one ear. "Or is that...complicated?"

[sulahnan]

"Only a little complicated," she says. "I don't have any siblings, but I grew up alongside my cousins so they're kind of like little brothers to me." She gets out her phone again to pull up a selfie with herself and her two cousins, making silly faces. "That one's Aaron, and that's J.J."

[justashotaway]

"They look like fun." She's never entirely sure what to say about children she doesn't know, but she's figured out solid answers by now. (They look like children Gabby would either adore or grow tired of within 5 minutes--it's hard to tell which. And as she'd never really had a childhood, Laura can't do much to compare.) After a moment or two, she adds, "Your turn."

[sulahnan]

"Yeah, they're little monsters," Tessa says fondly.

But she's running out of questions that don't bleed into awkward or unpleasant territory. Does it hurt every time your claws come out seems like it could be a bit of a downer if the answer is yes, and anticlimactic if the answer is no. So, with a sigh and a little grimace at the lame choice she's made, she asks:

"Are you Wolverine? I mean obviously you're not that Wolverine, but..."

[justashotaway]

It's a question she should expect--a question that, on some level, she does expect--but she doesn't expect it now. But it's here, the most obvious question a person presumably has after they see somebody sprout claws from her fists, and it's simple to answer. So she does.

"Yes." She's gone by Wolverine, even if she doesn't now; in the wake of Logan's death, it felt as if she'd had to. It kept him alive, in some small way, even knowing he was gone. "The one you're thinking of...he is my father."

[sulahnan]

"Oh! That...yeah that makes sense," Simple, easy. Tessa shrugs and finishes off her bulgogi, sliding the bowl to one side so she can lean on her elbows once more. "Well, now that lame question is out of the way."

[justashotaway]

"I think this date was a success," Laura observes, a hint of amusement in her voice. She's finished, too--or mostly so, more interested in Tessa than in scraping every crispy bit of rice from the bottom of the bowl. Beneath the table, her foot brushes against Tessa's. "Nothing about it has been lame."

Even questions that might seem silly and obvious.

[sulahnan]

Tessa smiles and gives Laura's boot a return tap with her sneaker.

"Second time's the charm, I guess." Even though she's out of ideas for questions to ask, at least ones that comply with the tacit rules of their getting-to-know-you game, she doesn't really want the date to be over. "Your turn."

[justashotaway]

Laura considers--but everything she thinks of asking sounds like meaningless small-talk or potentially unpleasant. She doesn't know which lines Tessa would rather they didn't cross, but she can tell enough to guess she shouldn't ask too much about where she came from.

Besides, if she inquires, Tessa might do the same, and there are few subjects she'd less like to go into than her early years.

In the end, she asks the thing she most wants to know in that moment. "Would you like to go for a walk? If it isn't getting too late."

[sulahnan]

Inside Tessa's head, the victory music from some video game plays.

"Yeah. Yeah I'd like that."


It doesn't take long after they leave the restaurant for Tessa to loop her arm through Laura's, matching her stride so it doesn't make walking difficult. It's like holding hands, but in a way that allows for keeping your actual hands in your pockets. Win-win.

"Where to?"

[justashotaway]

Laura smiles, and even if she doesn't play video games, the effect's about the same.  They're out of there in a few minutes, back in the cool night air, with Manhattan echoing its city sounds around them.  (Someone's watching a Bollywood movie a few stories up.  There's a baby crying somewhere, a siren going off, everything that makes the city feel alive continuing on around them.)

"Anywhere," she says, entirely willing to go where their feet take them, especially so long as Tessa's arm is linked with hers.  There's nowhere they won't be safe, or reasonably so--though traipsing through the city at night isn't, she knows, everyone's tendency.  "We can wander.  Otherwise, there's a coffee shop nearby."

[sulahnan]

"Ooh, that's a bold option, three dates in one night? Powerful," She laughs, even though she's only half-joking. It would be a power move to cram three dates into one 24-hour span. "Honestly I'm good with either."

[justashotaway]

"Does it become a new date every time we go someplace new?" she asks, a laugh hiding someplace deep inside her.  She's pretty sure every dinner-and-a-movie experience counts double, in that case.  

Some part of her is tempted to lean her head against Tessa's, an instinct she observes as much as feels.  It's this, more than anything, that makes it feel as long as it's been since she was last with someone.  And none of it is necessary, strictly speaking, but being here now makes her remember why it's enjoyable. 

She starts them walking vaguely toward the coffee shop, with an eye toward wandering further afield as seems appropriate.  "If it does, we might be able to fit several more in."

[sulahnan]

Good question! Tessa considers it for an exaggerated moment.

"Only if it's a typical date locale, I think. Coffee shop, bar, restaurant. Dinner and a movie can count as one, but only if it's planned beforehand. Things like the aquarium, zoo, or museum count as one each, and food can be folded into that so long as it's something like ice cream or funnel cake. Or hot-dogs."

It's a set of rules she's making up on the fly, but she's very confident in every decision she counts off on her fingers.

[justashotaway]

"I see," Laura says, playing along. "No one told me dating was so complicated."

Admittedly, dating's not something she ever got much instruction on, but the fact of the matter is, she'd never have imagined up so many rules.

[sulahnan]

"So complicated, it's honestly admirable that anyone does it."

[justashotaway]

"Very brave of us," Laura agrees.

From there, they talk about stupid things, nothing that matters too much and everything that doesn't: the best bad movies, the worst bad songs, how much mattar paneer is too much, museums and restaurants and zoo animals and how few constellations can be seen in the city. When they get to Tessa's apartment building, she jokes about not inviting Laura up on the second date, and Laura takes that as a not interested.

So they kiss, and it's a night. A good night, at that. It's been a long time since she's gotten so close to laughing with someone she doesn't know well--but Tessa draws it out, like poison from a wound.