xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Wanda, relatives and plans

While helping Wanda unpack and reorganize, Marie-Ange gets a suggestion about what to do with her cousin, and also some possible answers about why her precognition was broken for so long.

The bedroom was a disaster area. Despite the high level of clutter that permeated Wanda's offices and rooms, this was clearly different. The bed usually echoed just a taste of indulgence - thick comforters paired with buttery soft sheets, overlaid with huge pillows - that was almost always made. Now it was rucked up because Wanda had been too busy since getting home and she hadn't been bothered with trying to make things tidy. Which was why the rest of it was a disaster as she tossed a suitcase onto the twisted covers and searched for the other duffel that had been tossed somewhere.

"Destroying your bedroom is not going to make unpacking any easier.." Marie-Ange had offered to help Wanda unpack, if only to make sure that the older woman had actually gone on vacation without any of her work. But before arriving, she had ducked out of the Brownstone to a nearby deli and gotten sandwiches and chips and bottles of water, because on top of over-working herself, Wanda also tended to forget to eat. Which was why Marie-Ange's arms were loaded with not just the carry-out, but a reusable grocery bag with snacks.

From the other side of the room, Wanda pulled a face at Marie-Ange before tilting her head as her eyes widened slightly. "Did you leave any food at the deli?" she asked, sounding a little wary. She normally had more than a sound appetite even if her eating habits were horrendous but it had been a causality of the attacks; slow in coming back, which explained why she had not yet regained the lost weight.

"I called ahead. They were prepared for a brownstone order." It was slightly telling that the local deli had given the occupants of the brownstone a reputation, but it was a well-deserved one. Marie-Ange set the bags down and tossed a keyring to Wanda. "Also, I forgot to give you your emergency keys back. Again." At this rate, she was just going to have everyone's keys re-copied just so she could not have to worry about it.

She managed to catch it before she slipped it into her pants pocket. "We either need to get you a set or teach you to pick locks," Wanda mused, raising an eyebrow at Marie-Ange even as she started to flip through clothes in her suitcase. "Speaking of. How is everything now?"

"I can pick locks. It seems rude to pick yours." Besides, she wasn't sure she could pick the locks on the apartments at the Brownstone. Jubilee could pick some of them, she'd certainly gotten into a few of their windows from time to time, but they had security that was supposed to prevent people like them from getting into their apartments. Marie-Ange sat down on one of the few empty spots on the edge of Wanda's bed and began absently folding shirts from a jumbled pile. "I have chronic insomnia, but six months without headaches means that I only need half of one of those little yellow pills to get rid of my migraines. My tolerance for them went down."

"Six months? I did not realize it was quite so long. But truthfully, I think you needed it. Our powers put different strains on us and while you were used to it - well, the rest was probably a godsend."

"That is the last time I remember having a headache. It may have been longer." Marie-Ange continued to fold shirts, occasionally holding one out at arm's length and either putting it in the folded pile, or tossing it over her shoulder into another separate heap. "Six months of sleeping well was more than I could have hoped for, but I am not sure it was worth it. I could have possibly prevented so much." Like Doug dying. Or Alison being kidnapped and brainwashed. Or Amanda disappearing.

Wanda shrugged a shoulder as she turned back to the bed, bras in hand as she tried to figure out which one went best. "Precognition is a tricky power at best," she responded. "Who is to say that those things wouldn't have happened even if you'd had your power? Six months..." She trailed off thoughtfully. "So before your so-called vacation from your visions, the last one you had was before the astral plane fiasco?"

"I think so. I thought perhaps I had seen something of that, but I am not sure. I had nightmares all the week before, but whenever the telepaths are involved, it becomes very confusing. Nathan always makes my precognition confused." More confused than it usually was, even. "Also, I have to ask, is that a bra or a bikini top because I am not sure I can tell." She pointed at the brightly colored scrap of fabric in Wanda's left hand.

"A bikini top or at least that's what I was lead to believe when I originally bought it." Wanda paused to muse at the scrap of cloth before tossing it into a drawer. She'd prepared for everything, she thought, with the right clothes and a very unEuropean approach to shaved legs. "Have you given it any thought that the astral plane attack is what caused the stopping of your powers?"

"What?" Marie-Ange was stunned enough to forget to speak in English, not that it mattered much to Wanda. "I.. I never considered that. But they... Doctor MacTaggart theorized that they were a type of psionic power, and I have been told they have an effect on my mental landscape. I have a ... a black hole, like one of those stars that eats everything in it's path. Or Jubilee." She went quiet, obviously thinking, and counting silently on her fingers. "The timing is right, I think. I am not sure, I will have to check my journals and my sketch pad, but I think you may be right."

Wanda warmed up to the idea and when she spoke, it was also in French as her mind slipped easily from one to the other. Not as smoothly as Doug but, then again, when it came to languages he was Mr. Smooth, no doubt about it. "If your mind is like a black hole when it comes to telepaths and powers of similar ken, then I would not be surprised that something went wrong. All of that psionic energy? People are still recovering from the effects to this day, others might never recover."

"At least I did not think I was twelve again and feather my hair?" Everyone had heard about that eventually. "I wonder how irritated Doctor Farouk would be if I simply announced that it was all his fault." She tapped her fingers against the bedspread a few times, and then laughed. "Except that I think everyone might start blaming him for everything if I did not specify..."

Wanda pulled a face at that. "Please specify. The last time the good doctor got into a snit, he almost got eaten in Parisian sewers. Besides, I'm currently slightly fond of Farouk; he was a brilliant substitute nurse when he didn't have to be. But don't simply shelf it. I'm enough of an opportunist to realize that you could always use that to snag a favor."

"I do enjoy his sense of humor, when it is not directed at my choice of footwear." Marie-Ange said lightly. "I am still not happy with him for almost getting Paris eaten by a god-monster. I like Paris." As much as anyone could, at least. It was at times, dirty, smelly and full of mimes, but then, so was New York. Except for the mimes. "I fully intend to use that against him at the best opportunity. Having a second problem to hang over his head simply means that I have two chances instead of just the one."

The other woman laughed as she fished out socks to put away. "It's never a bad thing to have future ammunition, that's for sure. And, you know, one of these days, I will actually get to a big city without the purpose of it being to save it," Wanda sighed. "Though I am not such a big fan of Paris, though I love France. Give me the countryside of your country, Marie-Ange, and I could die a happy woman."

"I think I like it even better knowing that if I go home, my cousin is not there." Marie-Ange griped. "Although, it does taint New York that he is here and seemingly moping about the mansion. I thought he would have run off to hide by now." She'd tried to be good and not complain about Jean-Phileppe overly much but sometimes he just made her a little bit crazy. Crazier.

"If he is unhappy there, why not persuade him to go away?" With a sigh, Wanda sat on the bed and rubbed at her shoulder - it popped a little and she grimaced. "For a few days if nothing else." A smirk grew. "You could always do what I did. I banished my not so better half to a far away island."

"If I did not think it would give Doug a tiny aneurysm, I would kiss you." Marie-Ange said, with no small amount of wicked glee. "I wonder if I could talk him into being banished to the same island." It would not actually be a -bad- idea to have her cousin talk to Pietro, and if things went especially well, both of them would drive the other mad, and that was a win-win situation in Marie-Ange's book.

Wanda's smirk only grew at the thought of tossing Marie-Ange's emo cousin at her brother. And then she broke into open giggles. "We should tell Pietro that it is an envoy that we are sending to meet with him and not tell him who it is..."

"That is mean and cruel and ... and I do not have any more adjectives because all the rest are the same things and besides, Jean-Philippe deserves all the scorn he can get. He called me a fat cow." Marie-Ange may have sounded just a bit sulkier than she intended. "And he causes people many headaches, and he made Mark upset." She was well aware she was being immature, but her cousin brought out the worst in her.

"Then allow me to be judge, jury and executioner in this," she replied, rubbing her hands together. "Go tell that oh so charming cousin of yours that he's Attilan bound and I'll let my oh so charming brother know to expect an envoy courtesy of Xavier's."

Marie-Ange giggled quietly, almost bouncing on the edge of the bed. Almost, because that much glee over how irritated her cousin would be was probably not terribly nice of her. But after all the trouble he'd caused, she thought he deserved it. "We should probably book him a direct flight, or perhaps one of us could go with him. I am not sure I want to lose my cousin in an airport." Not after what happened the last time he went off on his own.

Wanda gave her a look. "Do you really want to travel all the way over there with your cousin? Why not simply take him there and give him over to the airport personnel like a child traveling alone? Besides, I just saw my brother and a few months between visits is a nice thing."

"Because if you see him too often, you start trying to see if you can make his pants fall down all the time?" It wasn't even so much a joke as nearly a certainty. Marie-Ange nodded, almost to herself. "I could blackmail him into letting me make sure he gets on the right plane. I know he has more control of his power than he likes to claim, I do not think flying will be as troublesome as he may like to say."

"OOoh, blackmail. There is a reason we get along so well."