(no subject)

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

At the tail end of a Danger Room run, Jean and Wanda discover that Wanda's powers come with a type of self-defense reaction. No one's seriously hurt though they both have to wonder if getting up is a good idea or not. The conversation somehow manages to slip towards a possible, and hysterical, revision to the costume and hot tubs. And chocolate ice cream!



Jean was starting to get a headache. This had actually been a fairly productive session, and several of her ideas about how to hunt Wanda down without her telepathy had paid off to varying degrees, and she'd gotten much better at intentionally looking at the world through the telekinetic force lines, but doing that all the time was draining, to say the least.

She was clearly not the only one who was getting tired. Jean had started getting flashes of Wanda's mind during the last run, but the other woman could clearly tell when her powers slipped, because the flashes never lasted long and she moved every time they happened. Or, at least, she was never still wherever the flash had come from by the time Jean got there. Even when she 'flew'.

It was their last run, and Jean wanted it done. She briefly contemplated a more wild attempt to bring Wanda out when another of the flashes came and, without even really thinking about it, Jean reached out. She just wanted this to be over, and when the opening into Wanda's mind came she grabbed at it. If she could freeze her in place or stop her from turning her powers back on...

Wanda had been pushing herself in ways that she really was not used to. Thanks to Scott, she was used to tiring Danger Room sessions but that had always been different. This time she was constantly on the move, sometimes barely avoiding Jean's advances especially towards the end. And having her powers on for this long was more exhausting than she thought it was going to be when she'd first suggested this.

The other problem was the hex rings around her hand. It was like being one of those rave light bulbs, even when she managed to suppress some of the glow. Between suppressing the glow and the length of time her powers had been active but not used, it was no wonder she was starting to loose the focus necessary to have them on.

In the last one, Wanda had turned a corner and found herself in a dead end of the maze. The rings around hands faded and the red light stopped bouncing off the walls. Sighing, she turned to leave as she brought the power back up...

Right as she felt something slam into the reviving shielding her powers gave her. The timing...had it been a second earlier, it would have gotten through with no worries. A second later and it would have bounced harmlessly off and the chase would be on again. But the telepathic push hit right as it was renewing itself, not down, not up, but middling, so the spike drove in further.

And Wanda's powers took offense.

Being lashed out at by pure chaos, Jean thought afterwards, really hurt. She stared up at the Danger Room's ceiling, contemplating not moving for quite a while. Something one of them had done had triggered the room's fail safes and the labyrinth was gone, and if she could turn her head she'd be able to see the exit all of ten yards away. Ten yards she really didn't feel up to crossing right now. "What the hell was that?" she asked the ceiling.

"Ow," was the only response for a few seconds as Wanda blinked up at the ceiling on her end as well. Oh. Jean had been much closer than she had originally thought she was, she realized, letting her head kind of flop over to one side. "I am not one hundred percent sure, but it felt like a giant hex bolt, only gone into radius. And not, you know, with the decaying parts." There was a pause. "I hope. All of your bits are intact?"

Well, at least Wanda seemed to think those words made sense. Which meant either Jean wasn't supposed to know what they meant, or she'd lost part of her memory. Again. She wondered if that was why her head hurt so much. "Well, I'm fairly certain I've got all my bits. Or at least they all hurt. And I'm going to assume this is not phantom pain from lost limbs. We have more than enough amputees wandering around."

"If I managed to blow off one of your limbs, I would never hear the end of it from Scott." Rolling over hurt, she thought, but it was better than staring up at the ceiling. Now she could rest her head on her arms and stare at Jean. Much better. "I suppose I should try and figure out what just happened. But my hair hurts."

"I would be equally cranky, be assured. And more likely to make you fetch and carry stuff. Although it would mean I would never have to go back into surgery..." And that actually sounded tempting. God did she need a break. "I will see your hair hurting and raise you my fingernails aching."

"A live of servitude would probably beat this." Pillowing her head as comfortably as possible, because Wanda had no plans on moving for a little while, even if it meant that the next group for the Danger Room had to carry her out. Hey, there was an idea. "Fingernails trump hair. This didn't happen before, either when you touched my mind or just bounced off the nothing that I project..."

"No, definitely not," Jean agreed. "I would have remembered this if it happened before." The idea of sitting up sounded terrible. Lying on the floor was not great, especially with the pain and the headache and all, but it was better than getting up would be.

"I wonder if it's a self-defense...thing," she mused, waving a hand around. "I mean, when the powers are on it's like...what is it like? I've never had anyone describe it to me."

"Hmmm," Jean said, trying to think how best to describe it. "Well, it's not really like being blind, so much as you've just gone invisible. You just... aren't there. I can see you, but only with my eyes, and all my other senses tell me you're not there. Very strange. But if I go pushing at it, there's this... static-y sort of thing."

"I know I have normal shielding when my powers are not on. So it very much is a side affect of the powers themselves." Wanda nodded and then winced, regretting the movement. "You must have hit upon a safe guard of some sort. I don't know if that's normal though, for powers to have safe guards against other powers. Though the last thing that would be good is for a telepath to take me over while I'm in the midst of controlling chaos, that might get messy."

"I don't know," Jean said, finally managing to turn her head to look at Wanda. "This is definitely the first time I've run into anything like that." Sighing, she considered the other woman, who looked no more comfortable than she felt. "We should probably consider getting off the floor."

"Why? I'd say it's comfortable but it has to be better than standing." Still, the floor was cold on her skin where her uniform didn't cover. Like her head. A mental image of the leathers coming complete with full hoodies made her giggle slightly and she sent the image towards Jean. Full leather hoodies at that.

Laughing hurt, but that was worth it. "Dear God, can you imagine the hat hair?" To prove her point, Jean shared the image of the photographs of Hank after they'd finished painting Billy's room and peeled him out of the saran wrap.

The laugh came out in a great snort and if she wasn't already on the ground, she would have ended up there. "I barely convinced Kylun to wear a tux," she laughed, "the fight we'd have with this...but we'd all be ninjas! Bad hair ninjas!" She was probably a tad punchy.

The muscles in her stomach and her face were far too sore to be laughing this much. "I dare you to suggest this to Scott and 'Ro and Al..." Jean said when she managed to stop giggling.

"And Scott! Don't forget Scott!" The mental image this time was of Scott in a ridiculous hoodie thing with his visor strapped over it, only showing his mouth. The ribs were starting to protest but oh, it was hard to stop laughing. It had been a very long couple of weeks.

Well, that got her to move at least a little. Jean curled into a little ball, laughing so hard she was clutching at her sore sides. She couldn't manage words, but the image of what Ororo's hair would look like with the static charge from her lighting bolts combined with the leather hat head was too good not to share.

If anyone had seen the two of them sprawled on the floor laughing their fool heads off, they would have called for Samson. In complete and total revenge for that image, Wanda sent over one of Charles in it. "No bad hat hair problems!"

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow," Jean said between gasps of laughter, not certain if it was the physical pain or the mental shock of that image that she was complaining about. "You're an evil woman, Wanda."

Still laughing, it was funny because it was true, Wanda managed to get herself up on her feet. "Owwwww," she whined, offering Jean a hand to pull herself up with. "My body demands chocolate ice cream for all the bad things I have done to it." Another laughter racked her and she doubled over, still on her feet though. Bully for her!

Feet went underneath, head went above, this was working! "Mmm, your body is clearly in the right. Chocolate ice cream, followed by... I'm waffling between hot tub and bubble bath." Jean considered. "Possibly both. We could put bubbles in the hot tub, but the last time I did that Charles was not happy. I don't want to think what Cain would have to say about it."

"We can always distract him with the leather hoodie idea," she pointed out, making sure they were both on their feet properly. Wouldn't do to have them both wind up back on the floor, Wanda wasn't sure they would be able to make it back up. "Because that? Sounds like heaven."

"The Cain-hoodie would be very large," Jean said, contemplating the image and sharing it with Wanda. She was too entranced by the idea of the hot tub to lose it to the giggle again, but that came close. "And I wonder if it would work to just use the usual distraction. You know, a pair of beautiful women in a hot tub, which is also a bubble bath..."

Linking her arm through Jean's, mostly because it was hard to move, Wand grinned at her. "So, do you think we should go brave the wrath of Cain and Charles? At this point, I honestly think it would be worth it. And anything either of them say to me will just get met with 'Hoodie!'"

A spare giggle escaped. "An excellent idea, yes," Jean said. "But first, the ice cream."