Vanessa & Wade | Late Friday morning

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

After a night out with Amanda, Vanessa takes the day off from work and heads to the mansion to exploit the gym and the pool. At the pool, however, she discovers a badly bruised Wade. Things get a little more flirtatious than she'd normally allow.

Wade had been swimming for almost an hour, making sure he took it slow because he never felt exhaustion creeping up on him when he was swimming like he did when he ran and he didn't want to wind himself or do something embarrassing like pass out and drown. Of course, his version of 'slow' wasn't necessarily everybody else's version. It did, however, involve breaks, which was why he was sitting on the side of the pool, his feet still in the water, when the door opened behind him.

Near silent footsteps brought Vanessa through the door. She had been sweaty from running and her time with the punching bag before she'd rinsed off. Now it was the water dripping down and getting under her feet that announced her presence in the room. While in the process of re-braiding her hair so it kept out of her way she spied the man on the edge of the pool. Wade Wilson, devoid of a handy paper target singing Bon Jovi. What a shame. A small smile curled one corner of her mouth upward, even as she noticed the light bruising on his back. "Rough night of sex?" Her advancing halted a few feet behind him as she looked over the bruises more thoroughly.

"Yep," Wade answered, tipping his head back so he could look up at Miss Vanessa Carlysle. Oh, she was in a bathing suit. Nice. Mm... it was a good thing she wasn't a telepath, because Wade's mind took a miniature detour down fantasy lane before he managed to reroute it. "Raunchy, raunchy sex. Involved walls." Only not really. The half-pint had left some impressive bruises on his front and his back when he'd hit the wall. "It was fun. Wouldn't mind a rematch, only maybe not until next week."

She had taken a few steps closer to him until she only needed to lean forward to look down at the much more impressive bruising on Wade's chest and stomach. "Mm...what sort of raunchy sex does that to someone?" Her braid hung down over her shoulder while she stood there leaning over him. "I've only seen bruising like that when someone didn't know how to use their flogger and didn't seem to like using it on a person's back." That, unfortunately, hadn't been that uncommon.

"The creative, raunchy kind," Wade said. Man, that swimsuit made her legs look like they went on for miles. Then he slid off the of the pool and into the water. "Race you!"

She raised an eyebrow, an amused expression coloring her face. "Really? Bruised guy wants to race me in the water?" She wasn't exactly a competitive swimmer, but Vanessa had swum two miles a day when she lived here and still did whenever she was around. She really needed to look into finding a pool near her place to use. After shaking her head at him a little, Vanessa stepped up to the edge of the pool off to the side from Wade. "Alright then." Vanessa's eyes flicked down to Wade and she smirked. "Go." Then she dove into the pool, the momentum carrying her considerably ahead of the bruised man.

Wade braced on the wall and kicked off - if she wanted to start out on uneven footing, that was alright. Wade had excellent balance. He grinned as he picked up speed, then closed his mouth because chlorine wasn't his favorite taste sensation in the world.

They hit the opposite side of the pool at about the same time and Wade let himself bob there for a moment. "Cheater," he said, waggling his eyebrows.

Vanessa smiled. "I didn't cheat. You just didn't think it through very well, did you?" She couldn't, honestly, say that she had ever tried to race when swimming. Sure, she pushed herself to go faster every time but personal, inward competition wasn't the same. Swimming was something that relaxed her. Racing seemed contrary to that.

"You smirked when you dove in. You cheated the spirit of the challenge and you know it." Wade wasn't upset about it or anything, though. He even tipped an imaginary hat to her. "But fair point. I didn't set parameters. Those are kind of key." He raised his eyebrows. "How's Sammy doing?"

She nearly asked who Sammy was before she remembered he had gone and named the paper target. "Sammy's doing brilliantly. He's hanging out in my office. I told everyone he was my new back up."

"You need back up?" Wade asked, letting himself float a little ways away. "I thought you almost never missed."

"I don't have to miss if I never see them coming," she pointed out. "Hidey holes are tricky things. So are snipers and mutants with all sort of weird abilities like walking through walls. Being observant and a good shot just won't always get you through in one piece. Thus, Sammy is back up."

"Cause nobody expects to the paper target," Wade said, nodding sagely. Treading water was boring, racing was fun, but he needed to be doing something. So he raised two fingers and gave her a small salute. "Have a good swim, Vanessa. I think I'm gonna go back to doing laps."

"No, no one ever does," she said in reference to the paper target comment. Then she gave him a nod and dipped back under water. Laps were routine. The motion of swimming itself was relaxing and being in the water allowed her muscles to unknot from the tension of boxing and running. It was Vanessa's way of cooling down, really, but it was more enjoyable than stretching. Besides, when she eventually got out of the water she knew that she would have that happy, boneless, almost tired but not quite feeling that made her want to curl up in someone's lap like a cat. Suddenly she missed Catseye a lot.

Time passed. The water was nice and, though the movement continually stretched his sore muscles, Wade made himself work through it because he'd be damned if he was going to cut his swimming short just because he'd let a half-pint in a cute hat ram him into a wall.

Of course, by the time he pulled himself out of the water and up onto the side of the pool, he was winded. Wade didn't get winded. At least not when in polite company, anyway. He braced his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath - should've taken another breather somewhere in the middle of all those laps.

Vanessa had been pushing off of the wall Wade had pulled himself up onto when he had done so. As such, she was down to the other end of the pool and back before stopping to watch his chest heave in an attempt to suck in oxygen apparently. Mentally, she prepared to dive to the bottom of the pool to retrieve him when he fell in head first. "You alright?"

Wade waved a hand at her to indicate he was fine. Because really, he was. It was just the damn cancer, apparently. The damn cancer that his healing factor was supposed to've gotten rid of and apparently hadn't. "Yeah, fine. Just need to catch my breath."

The metamorph swam up closer to him and folded her arms along the side of the pool with one overlapping his thigh. She looked up at him from where she laid her head on her arms, unconvinced. "You need to catch a bleeding oxygen tank, mate. Didn't anyone ever teach you to pace yourself?"

"I paced myself," Wade said. "And then you got here and I got distracted." He waggled his eyebrows, making sure he kept his hands away from her and away from his side. Putting pressure there would make the bruises hurt and he wasn't interested in demonstrating yet another weakness at the moment.

"That's my tertiary mutation at work right there," she joked with a smile. "I'm patriotically colored, and astoundingly distracting. It's a natural sex appeal but amped up to superhuman levels." Even though she was smiling and joking Vanessa was also still watching Wade closely. Whatever he said of his reason for not pacing himself, it still didn't change that he was sitting on a pool edge while breathing heavily.

Wade smiled a little and reached over to pat Vanessa on the head. "What's your first mutation, then?"

The arm partially perched on his leg unfolded and she indicated herself. "You're looking at my primary mutation. The first thing that manifested was my red, white and blue. Well, it might have happened in order of blue, white and red. I'm not sure on that one."

"So you got patriotic colors as a mutation?" Wade asked, brows rising. "Seems like you got the short end of the stick." And that was saying a lot, considering his issues with his own mutation.

She shrugged. "Maybe. But if I wanted to and you either agreed or were subdued I could have your powers, too. Not so short straw anymore, is it?" She smiled, because had totally failed to ask about her secondary mutation given she'd specifically said her supposed superhuman sex appeal was a tertiary mutation.

"How would you go about getting my mutation?" Wade asked, most curious than anything else. He just hadn't gotten around to asking about the secondary mutation.

"Like this." She placed her hand on the nearest bit of skin, which ended up being his forearm. "It's sort of sponge-like. Starts with physical attributes. Continuous contact for long enough and I'm you, DNA, fingerprints, voice, mental imprint and your mutation, whatever that is. I could demonstrate but I'm not sure my suit would survive very well." Wade's chest and shoulders were understandably broader than her own. The male skeleton was just proportionally different from a female's.

"Not really short end of the stick at all," Wade said, grinning. "Not sure you'd want my mutation, though. That makes for one hell of a power, though. Bet it came in handy on the job."

"It did. The only other mutant I worked with had a healing factor. It made getting injured a lot more bearable to hang out holding his hand for an hour and a half and then have most of my injuries healed inside a day depending how bad they were." Her hand slid off his arm and she pillowed it under her head again. His breathing had steadily been regulating, but not fast enough for her comfort or desire.

"Mostly human crew?" Wade asked, wondering if he'd ever seen her work. He'd done his own thing, for the most part, solo jobs unless he really needed the money and a group effort was required. Protection details usually involved several trained men and women coordinating with one another. Wet work - not so much.

She nodded. "Four of us before I left. The crew doesn't work anymore, and there's only three of us left now anyhow. One decided he wanted to chase the skirt that he kept having to leave full time, I had decided to stay here already and I'm not really sure what the other's doing but I'm pretty sure he's in Ireland this month."

That... sounded vaguely familiar and Wade, going with his gut instinct, let the topic drift away. "Ever miss it? The job, I mean."

"I did for a while, but not any more. I found other stuff I'm good at that I like and care about. I've found people I care about aside from the guys in my crew. And I actually spend most of my time wearing my own body these days, which before coming here I hadn't done in almost ten years." It was weird to think of it like that. For about eight years she had spent most of her time in mimics to blend in or infiltrate. No wonder her own identity was so fucked up when she first came here for help.

"That's a long time to be somebody not yourself," Wade said, thinking back to all the identities he'd taken over the years. Yes, there'd been different names and sometimes different ways of dressing, but generally speaking, he was always himself, no matter what name he was going by. It'd be weird, he thought, to suddenly have an actual place that was... permanent. Somewhere that he intended to stay for the foreseeable future. He went into everything he did with a plan for an exit route in place already.

Breathing was a little easier now, at least, so he leaned back on his arms and kicked his free leg up so he could wiggle his toes. "I good, I swear - didn't mean to interrupt your laps."

She regarded him with an unconvinced expression and slightly pursed lips. "I'm not going to keep swimming when random-guy-who-can't-pace-himself might keel over any moment. And if you're breathing that heavily you would likely drown before you managed to swim back to the surface. Thus, I'd rather stop and watch said possible victim." She glanced from his toes back to his chest. The look at his chest quickly became pointed. "You're still not breathing normally, though. Either you're really out of shape, really bad at pacing or you're sick and should take a trip down to see one of the doctors."

Wade snorted softly. "I'm really out of shape and really bad at pacing myself," he said, sliding out from under her arm and standing up. He wasn't as stiff as he would have been if he hadn't been moving for the last two hours, but he was sore. So maybe ordering pizza and chilling in his new room would be a good idea for the evening. "But I'll stay out of the water, just for your peace of mind."

"It's so rare we get the pretty ones around here," she joked, "so I had an agenda to ensure. I'm sure you understand." She grinned and pushed away from the wall, moving with a lazy backstroke.

"You think I'm pretty?" Wade asked, grinning. "But I don't have any make-up on!"

Her grin took on a cheeky tint and remained on her face. "I prefer both my men and my women without makeup. I like to see what I'm paying for, after all, and makeup is false advertising."

"I only charge the ones I don't like - baby, you could have me for free."

Vanessa shifted until she was upright and treading water. She considered him with a tilted head, then licked her lips. "Mm...can I hold you to that?"

Wait, was she serious? Wade couldn't tell. He was usually really good at reading people, but she was in a bathing suit and all wet...

"Absolutely," he said, grin brightening a little.

A mischievous, sneaking smile crossed Vanessa's lips as she continued her stroke to the far end of the pool. She stood up in the shallow end and leaned against the wall, watching Wade from across the water. There was something very appreciative and utterly sexual about the way she was looking at him. Vanessa was playing the part and not really considering if she meant it or not. But if you took away the purple-black bruises, he was pretty damn attractive. "And what can I do with you when I get you for free?"

"Pretty much anything you want," Wade said, not really thinking. "I mean, I'm not into kinky stuff. We should probably have pancakes before you go doing anything with me for free, though."

"I've done kinky," she told him with that same tone in her voice as her eyes held looking at him. She pulled her braid over her shoulder and started to take it apart. "I'm not really into it. I can think of much better uses of my time when naked than whips and wax and restraints. Restraint really has no place in my bedroom, the literal or the figurative one." She bit her lip, mostly to help mask the amused smile when she considered pancakes. "Ah, so there is a prerequisite to me having you. See, I knew you didn't mean it when you said I could have you for free."

Vanessa dipped down under the water and came back up with her hair loose and hanging free of its braid now. It wasn't much of an effort for her to hop out of the pool from the shallow end, long legs were quite useful for that. She made her way around the pool with slow, casual grace and an intentional sway in her hips. After all, her towel was down by Wade.

"I'd pay for the pancakes," Wade said, eyes stuck on her hips for a moment before they moved lower. Jesus, her legs really did go on for ages.

She was watching him as she walked so she noticed where his eyes lingered. It was remarkably easy to not smirk at that even though she normally would have. "Well then, you just let me know when you're in the mood for pancakes, aye?"

Wade picked up Vanessa's towel and offered it to her, his eyes having made their way back up so they could meet her own. "How about now?"

She nodded thanks when she took her towel from his hand. After wrapping it around her waist a hand reached out. Vanessa's fingertips trailed the darkest of his bruises. "She won't mind my laying claim over your time?" The question was more playful than serious, but she wasn't entirely discounting that they very well could be bruises earned during raunchy sex.

Since the half-pint was like five, Wade was pretty sure she wouldn't mind him going for pancakes with the hot blue woman who knew how to handle guns and knives. God, he really liked that she knew how to handle her weapons. "Definitely not." He reached out, fingertips trailing along her forearm to her elbow.

The moment he touched her Vanessa knew she should dial back or completely kill the flirtation. It would get her in trouble one way or the other and she knew it. But it was sort of like being in a wagon and realizing ten feet from the top that the downhill was much steeper and longer than you'd anticipated. Brakes weren't always easy to engage. Especially when the heat of his skin seemed to leave trails up her arm where he touched.

Head tilting to the side, Vanessa caught sight of a scar down Wade's side. Her fingers went from the bruise to the scar and traced down it. "See, who needs kinky sex when work already leaves scars, hm?" Her voice was much softer than she'd meant for it to be and the softness of it lent a sense of intimacy to the moment she'd not intended. Given the rarity of intimate moments she had over the past few months, she could understand why she didn't mind how this started to feel like one. In the back of her mind Vanessa could hear herself saying this guy was far too much trouble for her already. And it reminded her that she was just playing around.

"Yeah, that's kinda always been my thought," Wade said. He left off that his childhood hadn't really left him with the desire to hit people outside of work or to be hit at all himself. It was easy to compartmentalize things like that. Wow, it'd been a long time since he thought he actually had a shot with anybody - mostly he just flirted to flirt and to put people off their guard so he could get away with sneaky things.

Her fingers went from the scar on his side to the ones down his arm. When they got to the tips of the scars the motion had pulled her arm from its position and it left her fingers precariously close to Wade's hand that had been at her elbow. Vanessa's fingertips lingered at the end of those scares, as if they had no path left to follow so they couldn't move. Her head tilted back upward so she could look at his face again. "So. Pancakes?"

"Pancakes - definitely," Wade said, doing some quick compartmentalizing so he could get his head back on straight. He needed to get his game face on big time. "Meet you up front in ten?"

Vanessa nodded. "Alright."

- - - - - -

Once they've both dried off and changed they head out for pancakes, get to know one another a bit better and discuss the details of payment needed should Vanessa want to have him.

When a guy opened the car door for a woman it made everything feel remarkably like a date. It wasn't a date, obviously. But he had opened the car door and now he was in the process of opening the door to the diner for her. She raised an eyebrow, her expression mildly inquisitive. But she also said nothing and simply walked in through the open door. "Why pancakes?" she asked while tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. Vanessa had left her hair down so it would dry faster but she was so unused to it that it was mildly distracting to feel her hair on her neck and shoulders.

"Because they're delicious," Wade answered. "And also, they come with hashbrowns and bacon and a myriad of other wonderful foods. Like syrup, which definitely counts as a food." He let the door close behind them and then made sure she sat down before seating himself. They were in a diner, so it wasn't like he could pull her chair out or anything, but hey - it was the thought that counted. "Also, orange juice."

She watched him with interest. Vanessa wondered at him not sitting down immediately. Maybe it was a paranoia thing. She had intentionally taken the side that put her back to the door. If he had come out of the job more recently than she had then he would appreciate having that viewpoint. "Syrup's not a food, love. It's pure sugar. Only sticky." Vanessa didn't eat things with syrup on them much. She just didn't have the sweet tooth for them.

"Sh," Wade said, reaching over like he was covering the syrup's ears, even though it didn't have any, given it was an old coke bottle with a funny stopper on the top. "You'll hurt its feelings." He grinned, though, and shrugged. "I got no problems with sticky."

Any attempt at not taking that last comment as innuendo was futile. Vanessa was left with pursed lips in her attempt to not smirk. "I'll make sure I remember that."

It wasn't long before their waitress showed up at the table. After greeting them the older woman pointed a pen in Vanessa's direction and said, "No coffee," with finality.

Blue hands went up in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not ordering it, I swear. I don't think he could handle me on caffeine." The waitress raised her eyebrow. "Orange juice?"

The waitress nodded, then looked at Wade and gave him a friendly smile. "And what'll you have to drink, honey?"

"Just water," Wade said, quirking an eyebrow at the caffeine exchange. He wondered what kind of trouble Vanessa had gotten herself into the last time she was here. "Thank you," he said as the waitress turned and went off to get their drinks. "I guess you're pretty familiar with this particular diner?"

"I used to live at the mansion. One day I was dead tired and stumbled in, I think after a night drinking with a couple mates, and got coffee. By time the caffeine kicked in I was sort of bouncing off the wall, which I sort of do anyway but I tend to control my restless energy better most of the time." And her fingers were lightly tapping on the back of her hand as evidence of said restless energy. "She hasn't trusted me with coffee since."

"Huh," Wade said, considering that for a moment before a grin spread over his lips. "Noted. You fidget a lot? I thought I was bad - but then, caffeine doesn't really do much for me, so even if I drank three pots I'd just be myself. I mean, maybe I'd be myself but in the bathroom instead of talking to you, but still myself. Not really hyper."

"I don't really have the insane mutant metabolism. I just have an excessive amount of energy because I'm in shape and eat like a person's supposed to half the time, which means if I skip a meal sometimes I end up totally unfocused, too." Vanessa was sort of like a guy that way. If she didn't eat every few hours then her concentration sort of went out the window. She kept more to an athlete's diet of eating five to six times a day whenever she could. Her body hated her when she got so busy she forgot to eat. "But I don't really fidget a lot. I don't think anyway. I run a lot. And I don't sit still for long periods of time well. And I fall asleep during movies. If I'm not engaged in something I get restless and distracted and need to go find something to do. But carrying on a conversation is generally enough to make me still. Unless there's caffeine involved."

Reaching across the table, Wade put one fingertip on the upraised knuckle of Vanessa's middle finger and grinned. "My conversation not titillating enough for you?"

Her fingers immediately stopped tapping on the back of her other hand. She smiled at him and there was a touch of sheepiness to it. "You're plenty titillating, love. It's sort of the work out high wearing off. I could easily curl up with a book and fall asleep right now most likely, but there's still that adrenaline buzz. I'll calm down."

Moving his hands back to his own side of the table, Wade let a quiet laugh escape him. "So you like running, hunting, and probably climbing trees but you fall asleep during movies. Interesting."

"Yeah..." She shrugged in that what-can-ya-do sort of way. "Takes me about four tries to get through a movie. Unless it's a documentary. Or the history channel. I can stay awake for history. Anything else and not so much." Their waitress showed back up and deposited each of their drink orders in front of them, then took the rest of their order and shuffled off again. "I'm a terrible girlfriend or mate for homebodies and couch potatoes."

"Good thing I'm neither of those, I guess," Wade said, waggling his eyebrows. "I like the running and the climbing trees. I'm alright with hunting. I like sparring better. Obviously I'm a fan of swimming."

Vanessa smiled and said nothing about his comment of being neither a homebody or a couch potato. "I like sparring some of the time, but it's not on my favorite things list. Unless it's boxing. I love boxing. And mountain climbing. And ice hockey. And baseball. Or museums. I've got a thing for museums, especially the natural history one in the city."

"You seem to have a thing for history in general, if what you said about the history channel and documentaries holds true," Wade said, tipping his head to the side a little before reaching for his water so he could take a sip. "I like history alright, but it sort of depends on what time period. All that stuff with royalty and inbreeding, that's not so interesting for me. Tactical formation and technique during the second World War, though - that I think's interesting. Development of weaponry from the Civil War to the Vietnam War, that sort of thing. I'm pretty good with boxing. Can get by when it comes to mountain climbing... but God help me if you put me on skates of any kind - that's just a disaster waiting to happen."

A disaster, huh? Vanessa grinned. "Wanna go ice skating?" Her look was all mischief, and she most likely wouldn't really try to get him on the ice. But then again, she'd dragged Sam out on the ice once and he'd wound up mostly watching her skate while he sat on the sidelines.

"Bad plan, sweetheart," Wade said, shaking his head. "These feet weren't made for gliding. But I could handle a trip to the museum or something. Or some boxing - we could see how that goes. Is it too icy to go mountain climbing? Is there such a thing as snow climbing? Glacier climbing?"

"There's ice climbing," she offered. "Which I've never done. But one of us has a healing factor and the other one is stupid." The smile she wore was a clear indication of trouble, or possibly insanity. "I probably shouldn't get you injured or put you in life threatening situations for at least a month, though. Part of a relocation acclimation period or summat."

"Pssh - I'm completely acclimated. I don't need a relocation acclimation period - show me a wall of ice and I'm game," Wade said, grinning because... well. He hadn't had anybody to actually do things with in a while. Outside of jobs, he didn't interact with people regularly enough for them to figure out what he was interested in and offer things like ice climbing.

"Ambitious, are we?" He also seemed entirely sincere about being up for it. Vanessa gave him a lot of points for that. Because if he would actually let her drag him off to go ice climbing she might have to keep him. As a friend, she reminded herself. "Alright, I'll work on finding us a wall of ice thick enough for ice climbing, then." And she would as soon as she was back in the city.

"Sweet," Wade said, rapping on the table with his fingers for a moment before grinning. "I don't actually have a lot of stuff going on, though I did tell one of the kids at the mansion that I'd help him with some kind of building thing he's doing. I get bored really easily, so I need things to occupy me." He wondered if she liked the Golden Girls. He wondered if that would count as a movie.

"I was like that when I first got here. Now I spend most of my time working. But since I kicked everyone else out of the office earlier in the week I took today to flee. Entertaining yourself with books for days when not answering the phone is fine, but one place for too long." She shook her head. "Twitchy. Even with running in the mornings. Which is why I came to exploit the gym and pool today." Vanessa rolled her shoulders, then her neck and finally slumped down against the back of the booth.

"You know what always gets to me? Planes. I hate traveling in general, but especially on planes. Cooped up for eight hours flying over an ocean with a huge dude on one side snoring and a kid playing video games with the sound on on the other side - getting yelled at by the flight attendants when I stand up to walk around. Jesus, breathing recycled air." Wade shook his head, obviously still annoyed at the flight over from Muir. "That makes me twitchy."

"What, you don't just pick your favorite flight attendant and find somewhere to pass the time with her?" She waggled her eyebrows. "I mean, that's what I do on flights to help keep my twitchiness down. Otherrwise I have to read and even that doesn't do any good. I wind up with all that pent up energy driving me nuts for days afterward. Thus, flight attendant. Solves most twitchiness problems."

"Let me tell you about my flight attendants," Wade said, holding up one hand, index finger extended. "Lucy was twenty eight and imminently eligible, only she was also married. Emmett was fifty and I don't really swing that way, joking aside. Amelia was sweet but also somewhere near fifty. Harriet kept telling me I looked just like her ex-husband. Kind of killed the mood."

"That's tragic," Vanessa replied with sincere sounding sympathy in her voice. "They really ought to work on their hiring practices. You should have flown on Virgin Atlantic. They basically hire flight attendants to be hot and sort of dumb. Which is too bad for me because dumb really doesn't turn me on and you can only keep a woman silent for so long during sex or immediately before it."

Wade had been doing a pretty good job of keeping his mind away from images of Vanessa doing dirty things to flight attendants - he'd been kind of proud of himself. But then she had to go and say that and his mind just entirely derailed... fell right into the deepest part of the gutter and he had to take another sip of water.

Luckily for him, their food arrived and he didn't have to worry overmuch about the scene currently playing out in his mind. If he tried hard enough, he'd be able to ignore it! Sure - right. That was likely to happen. "So, how long've you been out of the business?" Rerouting his poor, dirty little train of a mind might help him some.

"About two and a half years now, I guess." She gave the waitress a smile and speared a blackberry with her fork. She'd gotten pancakes because that was technically the deal, but instead of bacon or hash browns or any of that she had fruit. While she chewed her berry Vanessa regarded Wade thoughtfully. "I'd ask how long you've been out, but I'm not actually sure if you are. Are you?"

"I haven't taken a job in something like seven, eight months," Wade said, slicing into his stack of pancakes with relish. He'd gotten himself a side of sausage and a serving of fruit, because that was tasty and countered the sweetness of the syrup nicely. "Went to Muir in June of last year and kind of got stuck there until they shipped me over here." Inconclusive tests and needing more specialized attention was kind of a bitch, so far as Wade was concerned.

"Muir?" She raised an eyebrow at him. That was a research facility. "What landed you at Muir and then saw the necessity for you to head to the mansion? Usually that works in reverse order."

Wade took a massive bite of pancake and chewed for a minute before swallowing so he could say, "Told you, my mutation's doing weird things. I went there because my doctor told me to. Then those doctors sent me here. I just wanna figure out what's going on so I can get back on the job." In fact, his mutation had been doing weird things for a good long while - it just hadn't interfered with his ability to do his job until last year. That was when he'd finally decided to figure out what was going on with him.

"What sort of weird things does a healing factor and speed, agility and strength do?" She considered how winded he was from swimming earlier. "Enhanced stuff overtaxing your system and since there's no technical damage your healing factor has nothing it can do to help so you get over exhausted when you shouldn't be?" He'd said he wasn't sick and that's all she could think of that made sense.

"Something like that, I guess - that's why I'm here, though," Wade said, shrugging. "To try and figure it all out, then to see if there's something I can do about it." He ate another mouthful of pancake because he sure as hell wasn't mentioning the damn cancer.

She shrugged. "That's better than why I showed up for help. Remember how I said I can take a mental imprint? It's sort of like a personality thumbnail. A layer that lies over my brain so I can sort of switch between thinking through things the way my mimic would and the way I would. I used to use my abilities for infiltration. Only I went from one to the other without spending much time in my own head for a while that I sort of got...lost. Nearly killed one of my guys. Once the job was done I took off, came here for help. The security guy who was here then was a dick about it, too. Doesn't much like or trust people in our line of work. Which was fine, until he outed my job to everyone on the journals when I was expressly trying to keep it under wraps to help further minimize the likelihood of someone following me back here."

Wade frowned at that. "What, he have moral issues with people taking paying jobs or something?" He knew that some people thought mercenaries were literally just guns for hire who'd take any job so long as it paid enough, but most of the time they had their own set of codes that they operated by. God knew he had his. "You said 'the security guy who was here then' - does that mean he's not here now? Cause I can out my own damn self if need be, I don't need somebody else doing it and spinning it however he wants."

"He thinks we're all amoral assholes who don't know what we're doing, are in no way comparable to a soldier even though we work beside them often enough and people in our field have usually served. He's got beef, I don't know. But no, he's not here and hasn't been for a while. Xavier has a training facility out in California and a bit over a year ago decided to get the reserve people over there more operational so he went along with some others. Jean was over there for a while, I'm not sure if you've met her yet. Hot redheaded doctor? The one who actually smiles, that is. Voight is sort of...severe."

"Hot Doc Jean!" Wade grinned. "She introduced me to the coffeemaker everyone says is gonna take over the world." He ate a piece of melon almost contemplatively. "I served. It wasn't as fantastic as idealists make it seem." He'd like to hear the guy tell him to his face that he was an amoral asshole who didn't know what he was doing. Chances were, this guy'd served as well, so they'd probably be evenly matched. Maybe. Wade had some tricks up his sleeves, though. "It keeps telling me I want vanilla lattes. I kind of just want water, though. Coffee isn't my favorite thing."

"Never listen to anything that insists it knows what you want without adequate experience to back it up," she told him and sipped her orange juice. "Animate or not. That's like having a girlfriend who picks out your clothes for you. If you want water then just avoid the machine and get it from the fridge, aye? I've heard about the coffee maker but I like my cafe and it's about the only place I'll get coffee these days." She was eying her pancakes but stabbed another bit of fruit instead of digging into them. Vanessa wasn't exactly against pancakes, but she didn't really eat them either.

Wade looked down at himself, then plucked at the front of his shirt. "I've been able to dress myself since the age of four. It might not always match, necessarily, or be what other people like, but it's sure as fuck more comfortable than some of the stuff I've seen guys wearing these days. Don't get me wrong, I clean up real nice and all, but there's nothing wrong with sweats and a t-shirt. Or jeans. Where's your cafe?"

"In District X in the city, down the street from my office." He had been out of the country for at least the better part of the last year while at Muir so it was possible he had no idea what District X was, but if he didn't then he could always ask. "And sweats just don't scream 'hey, don't you want to come straddle me' like jeans do." There was that mischievous look on her face again. "But skinny jeans, and tight tee shirts don't scream it either. Hipsters, never going to get laid by anyone other than other hipsters. No man who loves his balls wears jeans that tight."

Sticking his leg out from beneath the table so Vanessa could see his jeans, just in case she hadn't noticed them before. "I am one hundred percent in agreement with you. Also, no pancakes, no free Wade. What, do you like waffles better or something?"

"I'm considering them." Though her nose wrinkled a little. She'd poured a small amount of syrup on them when they'd arrived, but she otherwise had left them untouched. "There's sugar and flour and about no nutritional content and I'm not generally a pancake person. Or a waffles person. But I agreed and I keep my word so they will be eaten." Then she cocked her head to the side and asked, "What do you cost me without the pancakes? Out of curiosity."

Wade ate half a piece of sausage in one bite and then chewed while he thought about that. "A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck," he finally answered, grinning.

"A bushel and a peck of what, precisely?" Even as she asked she cut into her stack of pancakes with the side of her fork.

Tapping one cheek, Wade laughed. "This right here."

"You want a collection of cheeks?" She knew it wasn't what he meant, but she had asked of what and he had indicated his cheek. "I'm not sure my mutilating living or dead people to give you a bushel of human cheeks is really the way to start things, do you? For one, all that carving and blood and inevitable screaming really kills my libido."

"Huh," Wade considered that for a moment, then shrugged. "You could give me bushel and a peck of knives, I guess. Knives you would have theoretically used to mutilate people but decided not to because we want your libido intact."

"So the price for me to have you," there was intentional innuendo on the word have, "is an enormous quantity of knives which could be put to mutilating and a hug?" Wasn't that a combination.

"I'm not a cheap date," Wade said, nodding sagely. "Alternately, you could give me a kiss with that hug and we could call it even. You could have me any way you wanted me."

Vanessa tried to ignore that last bit. "It would take me a while to get that many knives together to constitute both a bushel and a peck." Only she failed at ignoring it and felt a small upward tilting of one corner of her mouth. "Any way I wanted? A kiss isn't nearly as useful as all those knives. And I'm not sure how pancakes and kisses compare. But a kiss you could have gotten much more easily." Then she raised her fork with a piece of pancake on it and wrapped her lips around the fork, pulling it off slowly on purpose. She even smiled a little as she did it.

"Pretty please?" Wade grinned, then picked up strawberry from his fruit salad and offered it to her.

She swallowed the pancake and cocked her head to the side. "I thought the options were either pancakes, loads of knives and a hug, or a kiss and a hug? Are you renegotiating the terms under which I can have you now?" After considering the proffered strawberry, Vanessa leaned forward over the table until she could take it from his fingers with her teeth.

"Whatever gets us to the point where you're having me," Wade said, voice dropping as he drew his hand back across the table. Wow, was he ever distracted now.

Vanessa noted the way his voice dropped. She would have smiled but instead was left to lick the taste of strawberry off her lips. "Mm...I'm sure we can manage to find a way to work that out. In time."

"I'm a patient guy," Wade said. "So you take all the time you need."

"I'm decidedly impatient," she told him after another bite of pancake. "So I guess I'll just have to entertain myself with the pretty masses of women until I make up my mind about how and when and how thoroughly I want to have you." Pancakes were so not her thing. Vanessa picked up a raspberry with her fingers to eat. "Unless you have other ideas about that."

Finishing off his pancakes, Wade sat back and just watched Vanessa eat that raspberry for a moment. "Mm... nope. I'm pretty sure I'm good with just waiting for you to make up your mind. I mean. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for helping you make up your mind a little faster, but... y'know. From where I'm sitting, the view's damn near perfect. So... I'm in no rush."

She smiled from around her trapped lower lip. "Mm...the perfect answer." She ate another berry, eyes watching him intently all the while. "Because I really don't think pancakes and I are meant for each other." Vanessa turned her plate until the fruit was all that was facing her and the pancakes were on the opposite side. What was it about him that had her completely crossing the flirtation line? And why didn't she care at all that she was doing it?