Warren & Tabitha | Friday Afternoon

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Warren sees Tabitha's shiner and expresses his concern. This somehow leads to dinner at a greasy spoon.




"Hey Tabs," Warren greeted his teammate as they left an X-Men meeting, falling into step next to her. "Are we going to have to start wrapping you in cotton wool? I'm not sure how I feel about such a pretty face being all battered and bruised like that." Warren was in a particularly good mood these days, which had a tendency to translate into being even more flirtatious than usual.

Tabitha tilted her head at her teammate and blinked, a little confused. "It's a black eye. I'm assured it will go away in time," she said with a grin. "But I think I have the whole big bang without countdown thing down now, without having to be angry enough to chew nails."

"At least it's in a good cause," Warren said with a big grin. "Have to say, sometimes I don't envy all of you and your exploding powers. Flying? Is pretty simple once you get the hang of it." Warren hadn't done much serious powers training since his school days. These days it was more about keeping his aerial moves sharp.

"Mmm," she stretched her hands above her head. "And here I was thinking about how awesome it must be to fly rather than blow things up. All these idiot bombs just make me have to down gel by the gallon because I keep forgetting to eat. Which reminds me." She scowled and pulled a packet of Gu from her pocket.

"It is just about as great as it's cracked up to be, I will say that. Until I have to hide the wings." Which is when it started to suck a lot. He glanced over to her, smiling a little. "You do realize I'm now honor bound to offer you dinner, and I don't typically take no for an answer."

She raised an eyebrow, eyes slightly widened with a little bit of surprise. That reckless streak that had been riding her for weeks kicked in. "Um, sure." She resisted the urge to touch her hair, but didn't realize that she'd bitten her lip. "When? Where? Are you sure?"

"Of course," he said with a laugh. "And whenever you like. Are you free tonight?" Warren didn't like to beat around the bush with these things. "And it's your choice of venue."

She snorted. "I work and I train, and sometimes I con Cammie into taking me to a bar." She thought a moment. "The only places I go involve twenty-four hour breakfasts. Are you up for that much bacon?"

"... You are the third person to question my meat eating habits recently. I'm starting to wonder about my reputation." He flashed her a grin. "Don't worry, I'll be able to keep up."

"Hey!" she protested. "Not everybody is a bacon person. You might prefer sausage."
Then she blushed.

Warren laughed and winked playfully at her. "I like all kinds of meat. So where is this place I'm taking you?"

She wasn't ready to admit that her innuendo was accidental, so she moved on. "A waffle place on the highway. Lots of truckers, but most of them are just there for food that doesn't involve paper wrapping. We can take Baby, if you're willing to be a passenger." She grinned at him, as if daring.

The blush may have given her away a little. Warren just happened to be in a particularly teasing mood. "Would I be taking my life into my hands by doing so?"

Her lips twitched, almost a smile. "Manuel certainly thought so, but he was a little-" misogynistic? Macho? "Old fashioned." She settled for a more neutral term. "I can assure you, my driving record is spotless."

"Well, I am definitely not Manuel." He grinned at her. "I'm sure there's a rule in the guy handbook about not letting a woman drive, but I've always been bad with those sorts of rules. So I'd be happy to let you drive."

~*~

Tabitha didn't even look at the menu. Her order involved more grease and calories than the average heart attack, but she figured the training session earlier in the day had earned it. "Horrified yet?"

"Not at all," he said with a laugh. Well, he wasn't with the menu. He did, however, stick out like a sore thumb just a little. No matter how hard he tried, he could never quite shake being an obvious rich boy. "I'll let you into a little secret. My body doesn't store fat, so I can literally eat anything I like and not have to worry about it."

"You shouldn't tell a woman that, at least women not me," she said with a laugh. "I discovered the hard way that I have to consume an insane number of calories if I want to use my powers *and* stay in shape. Amelia still gives me the stink-eye over that." She rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment.

"Not my fault?" Warren replied sheepishly. "I actually have to consume a lot of protein to keep up... well, something to do with my back muscles. If they start to deteriorate, I can't fly. Hank explained it to me once a long, long time ago, and I didn't understand a word of it. But I trust him, so. A high protein diet it is."

She nodded. "Not flying bad, meat good. I showed you my Gu." she made a face. "Carbohydrate gel is highly overrated."

"It sounds pretty unappetizing. I think I'd rebel if I were you. I don't know how, I just would." He grinned, then looked up at the waitress that arrived. "You ready to order?" He asked Tabitha.

She caught the waitress looking at her eye, then giving Warren a dirty look. Tabitha narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to Warren protectively. She may have been a little terse as she gave her order.

"The other guy looks worse," Warren breezily informed the waitress before he gave her his own order, before turning to Tabitha with a cheeky smile. "My girl knows how to look after herself, doesn't she?"

Tabs bared her teeth in what could be called a smile, if one were generous. The waitress rolled her eyes and took the ticket back to the cook. Tabitha raised an eyebrow at Warren. "Your girl?"

"She already assumed it," he said with a shrug, before turning to look at her with a pathetic look on his face. "But I'd understand if you didn't want me as your fake boyfriend. With the whole..." He trailed off, cocking his head to one side and looking puzzled, as if he couldn't think of a single reason why she wouldn't.

She laughed and felt like the smile hadn't left her face all day. "Hold on, let me think, there has to be something." She scrunched her eyes up as if in thought. "I have it!"

Her expression turned serious. "You're prettier than I am."

Warren paused for a moment, thinking about that, his expression very serious to match hers.

"That's okay. You're hotter than I am, so it all works out." He grinned after that.

She couldn't help it, she blushed again. Two smoking hot men calling her hot in the space of a week? It felt good, especially after the confrontation with Porter.
"So what are the rights and responsibilities of a fake girlfriend?"

"Hrmmm, you know, I've never had a fake girlfriend before. So I think that means we get to make it up." He grinned at her. "There has to be food involved. Definitely." Warren was surprisingly unused to making people blush, and he was finding it utterly charming that Tabitha kept doing it. "What do you think?"

"More food means less Gu, I can only approve," she said thoughtfully. Then she remembered. "Wait, does this make me a beard?"

It's funny she should ask that. A week ago, Warren's answer might have been a little different, but today he just laughed and shook his head.

"No, just makes me the unlucky guy who is only pretending to be your boyfriend."
She pressed her glass of ice water against her face, in the hope that it might, might cool her blush. She also wondered if a person could suffer physiological damage from too much blushing. "Where is all this flattery coming from?" she wondered out loud.

"The bottom of my heart," Warren replied with a laugh, before sobering up a little. "Sorry, that was trite. But if you don't realise how gorgeous you are, I feel like the male population has let you down." There's a pause from him. "And female. So obviously it's my job to remedy that."

She sighed and shook her head. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but it seems like twenty-some years of not being noticed or not realizing the notice." She played with the straw in her water. "It's like I've been wearing blinders, and I can finally see. A bit overwhelming."

"A lot of it has to do with attitude as well," Warren said, actually being serious finally. "It's the difference between just being good looking and catching people's attention. And I think sometimes you're a little too shy for your own good."

She nodded. "I never would have realized it before. I was convinced that I was extrovert of the year, y'know?" She went back to avoiding his eyes. "I went out with Doug, back in the fall. We talked and he asked me if I'd have sex with him." She closed her eyes at the memory. "That night, god, I was so ready to jump at it. A million little things kept me from saying yes. Then," she shrugged. "He got me Porter, and now I feel a little freer."

"Being extroverted is different to being self-confident," Warren said with a small smile. "Porter, he was the guy you were looking for, yes? From your past."

She laughed humorlessly. "That would be him, Papa Fagan, in the flesh." Her free hand crumpled her napkin.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Warren was a good listener. Or great with distractions, if she didn't. Either way, he wasn't going to push her to talk about it.

"For the life of me, I can't remember if you were here when I got here or not." She shook her head. "I was a mess. Ran away from my dad and step-mom before I even really hit my teens. Porter was the one who made sure I didn't starve. He took care of us and taught us how to take care of ourselves. Then one day I go back to the flop to find him and everybody else gone." She shrugged.

"Any how, came to Xavier's, actually passed high school, blah, blah, blah. He showed up again, two years ago. He was all pathetic and asked for help with his current batch of kids." She started tearing her napkin into strips. "I, being far less intelligent than I should have been, fell for it. La-di-da, rescued by some mounties and the leather brigade, some new scars and drug addled memories of the whole thing." The napkin soon turned to confetti. "Seems explosions and almost getting caught by Canada's finest wasn't enough for Porter. He tried to get to Doug. Doug gave me the chance to get back at him. There were explosions. And that would be why I needed the one way flight back from Madripoor."

"Ah." Warren had listened intently to what she had to say, not saying anything but just letting her talk. "And now you're free of him? Completely?"

Tabitha pointed to her face. "I, ah, apparently still have some anger issues," she said, another shrug. "But I see them now, instead of hiding behind them, I guess."

"I'm not sure I can totally approve of working out your issues in such a manner," he said, a teasing note in his voice. "But I understand. And being aware of your issues is better than not."

"What's that catch phrase? No pain, no gain?" She grinned. "Besides, nothing like a little pain to remind you that you're alive."

Warren just laughed at that. "Oh honey, there are a lot of things that are great for reminding you you're alive, and they don't involve pain."

"Okay," she allowed, "it's the best thing in my experience," she corrected.

"You know that just means I'm going to have to expand your horizons now," Warren flashed her a slightly wicked grin.

"Fake dates to help the fake girlfriend cred?" She asked with a grin. "Bring it on, Mr. Worthington."

Warren smirked back. "I didn't say they had to be fake." The waitress arrived with their food at that point, halting the conversation as she rather ungraciously placed his plate in front of him. Warren was actually a little amused - he was so used to waiters falling over themselves to suck up to him, this was almost a refreshing change.

Tabitha forgot all about Telford Porter for a moment. Luckily the arrival of the food kept her from combusting with her blush. She dug in to the hash browns with probably more enthusiasm than necessary.

Warren smiled a little, letting the silence settle as he also tucked into his food. At least for awhile, once he demolished most his bacon and sausage he paused for a moment, letting the food settle.

"So other than getting into fights, is there anything else you'd like to do you never have?"

She blamed the first answer that popped into her head, and resulting blush, on Wade and Warren. "Hang gliding!" She blurted.

"Hang gliding?" Warren grinned. "Hang gliding it is. I have no idea where you can do it, but I'll find a place. And you can go hang gliding."

She grinned, relieved she'd made it through the moment without complete mortification. "It's the closest thing I can think of to your type of flying," she confessed.

"Well if that's what you want to do," he replied with a grin. "I can just take you flying myself. That's much simpler, and far more fun."

Her face lit up into a huge smile. "Really?" She almost bounced in her seat. "That would be wonderful."

"Just consider me your fairy godfather." Warren paused for a moment, and then just laughed at himself. "That sounds a lot gayer than I intended, I have to say."

"Aww, you could be my Daddy Warbucks?" She suggested, barely able to contain her laughter.

Warren had a slightly pained expression on his face. "Only I don't have to go bald and get fat to do so. Or sing." There was a pause. "You know what, I think sugar daddy works better. Let's go with that."

She leaned her cheek into her hand. "Can I call you Papa?" she teased.

"Keep smiling at me like that, and you can call me anything you like," he teased in return.

Her eyes widened and lips parted. She was kind of enjoying this flirting thing and only hoped she was doing it right. "I dunno," she said. "I could probably come up with something that will make you run for the hills."

Warren grinned at her comment, leaning back as best he could in the seat and watching her. "Do your worst. I have very tough skin."

Her lips pressed together in thought. "Snookums? Pookie? Honey pot? Big Daddy?"

"Could you call me any of them with a straight face, baby doll?" Warren was having a hard time keeping his straight, just listening to them.

She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. "Doubting me already, Tweetie Red Hot Snugglepoo?"

"Oh no no no. Actually, I do, absolutely draw the line at Tweetie." He looked at her with puppy dog eyes. "Do I really look like a canary to you?"

She attempted to look properly chastened. "Dove? Swan? Goose?"

"Oh, now you're just asking for trouble," Warren attempted to be serious, but just ended up laughing. "What am I going to do with you, sugar pie?"

"Do I need a spanking, Papa?" she said in a small voice, eyes wide and attempting to look as innocent as possible.

"You know what," he said in a low voice, leaning in and cupping her chin in his hand. "I'm starting to think you might." He winked and let go of her chin, before tapping her on the nose and leaning back. "I'm going to have to keep a very close eye on you."

Her heart stuttered at the contact. She recovered her composure after he moved away, put a hand over her heart. "Me? I assure you, I'm harmless."

"It's always the harmless ones," he replied, and then grinned. "Don't worry, I like trouble."