Wanda and Kyle, backdated birthday!

[x-scarletwitch.livejournal.com]

Things get a bit "ridic" when Kyle brings by gifts for Wanda.



As promised, Wanda's mid-day to early afternoon calendar for nonvital meetings had been cleared for when Kyle next stopped into the city. It hadn't been that hard - everyone seemed rather pleased that she was remembering to eat and enjoyed encouraging her better habits as Amanda sometimes called them. But it didn't mean that there wasn't work to be done while she waited for Kyle to finish up with Doug - simply work that could be paused at a moment's notice.

She happened to be fussing with something with her powers when Kyle did get to the office; normally, he could sneak up on her without an issue but movement in the hall made the lines of probabilty shift and split. Wanda frowned for a moment in confusion but then smiled as she turned off her powers so she could see past the impression of spinning threads and actually see the real world around her as it normally was.

"Man, you say bike like it's a tricycle or something. I don't call your computers names..." Kyle's voice came from the hallway, clearly the tail end of the conversation with Doug, and just before the knock at her door. When the door opened, he had a gift bag, inappropriately with Easter Eggs on it, and a bruise on his cheek already fading to dull yellow. "I have no classes this afternoon, which is the best thing ever. So I can totally come back and kick Ramsey for being a butt."

Wanda couldn't help but burst into delighted laughter at the sight of the Easter Eggs. "Kyle, you never disappoint!" Wanda pushed herself up from her desk so she could actually say hello properly with a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. "And what on earth did he do, drop you on your face?"

It was so weird to be around women who were tall enough to do that. The only other ones who did were either capable of flying, or his grandmom, and she had to either make him bend down - or got on a stepstool. Kyle grinned, and handed over the bag. "He dropped himself on my face. But he's limping so I got mine in. Man though, fighting short guys is like an entirely different set of skills." Of course, everyone was short to Kyle. "And yeah, I just ... the birthday ones were kind of ridic, and if I'm gonna get ridic, I'm gonna just go with totally ridic, you know?"

"When it comes to fighting the vertically challenged, you have my sympathies and understandings," Wanda said dryly, eagerly waving him to the chair on the other side of her desk. They could go eat later. Right now, she had gifts to open. Her family had managed to scrap by while she had been growing up but, even after all these years, things like this made her giddy beyond belief. And touched, very touched. Also, giddy. She was careful, though, to not rip the bag as she started to open it after she balanced it on her desk. "I shall have to remember to go, how did you say it?, "ridic" the next time I buy someone a present because this is fantastic."

"Picking the wrong kind of gift bag is kind of fun. It means you can just go with something you think somebody'd like even if it's not the right holiday. You didn't seem like the pink birthday cake kinda person." Wanda didn't seem like a 'pink' kind of person at all to Kyle. "Man, it's like short people just get more -mean-or something. I hear stories from Garrison about that little dude that trained him and Logan all the time."

Wanda beamed at him when she finally pulled out her gift even though she already knew what it was going to be. "I adore practical gifts," she told him, knowing that this was one piece of technology that she would have no issue installing. "Thank you, Kyle, this is a lovely gift."

"Isn't it cool? It goes like right in the helmet and then you can talk to people." Kyle was a little too into his, but it had totally helped against that dinosaur guy. "You just have to make it talk to your phone. Which, uh, okay, I totally bought Doug a box of donuts to make mine do it, so now you know his going rate. Maybe he'd do it for less for you though. I dunno."

"It will probably cost me some scotch," she murmured, turning it around in her hand to get a good look at the packaging. "Sadly, Henri is too far a drive for something as simple as this so I shall bring out the scotch, I think." And while Kyle's enthusiasm was always catching, Wanda could see the possibilities for the gift lasting years. It was amazing the things they were making these days. "I can barely get my phone to talk to me!"

Kyle made a face at the mention of scotch. "Hey, so, that stuff smells weird. Jared has some. Does it taste better? Cause vodka doesn't smell hardly at all but it made my mouth feel weird." Because if any "adult" wouldn't care that he wasn't quite 21 yet, it would be Wanda. She was cool. "It's all like, voice activated and stuff, so no poking buttons. It does sometimes call my voice mail if I'm telling at some dude in traffic though. I dunno what's up with that."

"Well, I certainly think it tastes better but you with your senses -" Wanda shrugged one shoulder. "It is one of those cases where you will need to actually see for yourself." Frankly, she thought the drinking laws of her current adopted country ridiculous. Kyle was young but had a good head on his shoulders for, well, a young man. "To no one's surprise, I have a bottle still in my desk. Would you care to try?"

"Sure, why the hell not." Kyle said. "And dude, I hated blue cheese for like years and then hey, Laurie was being pretentious and making cheese platters and it was like, whoa, where has this stuff been all my life. So maybe my face is getting used to food my face hated before? Or maybe I have to go with the snooty people good stuff?"

Putting the gift down on her desk, Wanda couldn't help but laugh at that. "And yet for every snooty good person thing you like, there's a million bizarre donuts waiting for you, isn't there?" she teased. Wanda stepped behind her desk to open up the by now infamous drawer; from it, she pulled out a bottle of scotch and a glass. "And just keep in mind that people without your particular mutation dislike scotch."

"Hey, they're like organic locally-sourced donuts. Well, most of 'em. Donutulas is run by hippies." Kyle explained. "And dude, carrot cake donuts are the best, except for bacon donuts." It was just that they were so bacony. He watched Wanda pour, and accepted the surprisingly heavy glass. "Still smells weird but like, not as, uh, I dunno what the right words are. I think the stuff Jared gets is cheap. Cause he's a dipshit. So, is this one of those things you're supposed to like sip or what?"

"Sip," Wanda instructed quickly. "The last thing you will want if you react badly to it is a mouth and nose full of scotch. The last thing I want to do is have to run you down to the water cooler and shove your head in." Speaking of water ... she uncapped the bottle that was resting near her keyboard and placed it closer to Kyle. "Just in case. Far better than any dunking in the water cooler unless needs demand it."

"But shoving my head in the water cooler's on my list of stuff to do today." Kyle said, before taking a very cautious sip. Which resulted in what had to be the most ridiculous face he'd made ever, one eye squeezed shut, tongue out and face in a grimace. He took another to be sure, and the open and shut eyes switched. He didn't speak until he'd coughed a few times, and rubbed his nose a few times. "Okay, so I can.." Another cough. "Kind of tell why people like that but it burns and not just in my mouth. Ow."

Wanda covered her mouth but it didn't hide any of her bemusement; she couldn't help it, not when he was making those kind of faces. The last time anyone had made those faces, she was pretty positive it was a cartoon somewhere. "Even to those who are less sensitive than yourself, yes, there is certainly a warm sensation. Or burning, especially with the poorer quality drinks. Personally, I find it part of the appeal but I can see why it might not be up your alley. Though a number of scotch drinkers I know will say they grew to enjoy it - they could not stand it when they first had it. I am not quite sure if that is something you would be willing to put up with until you came to stand it. Probably better drinks of choice without the burning sensation."

"Sorry, I tried?" Kyle half-apologized, wondering if he could just chug the entire bottle of water. His face felt weird again. "Cammie says I drink fruity girl drinks, but I had like two, uh, vodka and orange juice. It's a tool, screwdriver or wrench or something." He hadn't paid attention. "But that just made my mouth kinda... I dunno, weird. Numb, kinda." It had tasted okay, and then he'd just felt pretty good. "Okay, that's weird. Am I supposed to like, get a weird sort of like, aftertaste? I thought that was only wine where people were all like pretentious with the berry notes or stuff. Because I totally taste ginger and maple and that's weird."

"Well ... actually, I should not be surprised that you are a super taster, not with your abilities. Most people cannot detect the flavors you are talking about, myself included, but some can. I think it must make eating and drinking both rather interesting and horrible at the same time, depending on what you're tasting at the moment. There is no hiding anything in your food -" Wanda blinked. "Between that and your healing factor, you would have made an excellent food taster back in the day, tasting some lord or lady's dinner to ensure there was no poison."

Kyle considered that, and then took the water bottle and drank about half in one long pull. "I think I'll stick with being a superhero and teaching, cause the pay is crap and I get my butt kicked a lot but it doesn't mean drinking one of Cammie's gasoline margaritas." It wasn't a euphemism. Gasoline, some kind of lemon or orange cleaner and crushed ice. And salt on the rim, of course. "I think I'll pass on the scotch next time though. Nothing personal, it's just that the burning's kinda too much right now, even with the cool like, supertasting thing I do."

Wanda pulled a face to rival the one Kyle had made just a few minutes ago at the idea of one of Cammie's personal drinks before she waved off Kyle's comment. "You do not have to like everything that someone else does so no apologies are needed. You tried it, which is enough. There are a million other drinks in the world that you will find more to you and your senses liking, I am sure." She put the scotch back in the drawer, the former file having been labeled by Illyana as 'D is for Drunks'. "Besides, that simply means more for me."

"That's how I feel about using ground beef for nacho dip." Kyle said, agreeably. "It grosses out everybody except Laura and maybe even her but hey, more for me. And hey, I have plenty of time to try cause dude, two of those vodka and orange juice things and mostly I just had a numb mouth for a little while." Not that he'd expected to get drunk, there was plenty of evidence to suggest people with his kind of healing factor didn't.

"You know, I have a high alcohol endurance and I still find myself envious of those with healing factors," Wanda sighed. "By the time you finish drinking, you are mostly sober again, though I suppose it might get frustrating from time to time."

"Maybe. I dunno. I mean, maybe I wouldn't wanna get drunk? It sounds like there's a lot of barfing involved, if Jared's any, like, indication." and Kyle would give just about anything to never be anything like Jared.

"I do not know this Jared, though I have seen him on the journaling system, but he does not sound like someone you should hold up your every day standards to. The thing about drinking is that most people learn their limits after a few years - if they wish to drink to the point of vomiting, well, there might be deeper issues."

"Believe me, if I end up nothing like that dude, I'll consider my life a success." Kyle said, wryly. "Sides, he already thinks I'm a d-bag for studying, so I'm pretty sure he'd think I was even more of a loser if I told him I wanted to teach." He made much less of a secret of it now, but men who wanted to be teachers still got shit.

Unlike Jared, Wanda's reaction was quite enthusiastic. "You want to teach? Really? Kyle, that is fantastic. It is not every day that I hear someone wants to teach - teachers seem to sometimes fall into it quite by accident."

She leaned forward and braced her arms against the desk. "If you need anything, such as recommendations or names of people to talk to, you have my contact information. I have quite a list of people I can call upon and, this time, none of them deal in esoteric information." Wanda paused. "Well, some still might but I can promise to tell them not to talk about it if you are looking for a quick conversation."

"It's not really a secret or anything now, but yeah. Probably gonna end up at the mansion, cause damn, I got enough problems with people on campus thinking I'm a freak, I'm not sure I wanna deal with crazy parents who don't want a mutant teaching their kid that Moby Dick's a penis metaphor." Actually, Kyle though, he might not want anyone teaching a kid that, but that wasn't the point. The stupid book was stupid. "And that'd be cool. You know everyone!"

"If the mansion is where you want to be, it would be a good place to teach. We both know how that place has the ability to turn lives around -there is something nice about giving back to such a place, isn't there?" Laughing, she leaned back in her chair and shrugged. "Well, almost everyone but enough to count. Though if I do not know them, that means they are not important enough to know, yes?" Not quite true but Wanda had never let that stop her. "Why don't we do lunch and we can talk names of important people for me to mention you to."

"I'd rather teach at a bigger school." Kyle admitted. "But at least for now, I might as well start at the mansion and figure out what I can figure out. I'd have to quit the X-Men if I went full-time to teach and I'm not sure I wanna do that either." His loyalty to the team was a conflicting, a little, with his desire to teach, but there wasn't a lot he could do, not just yet.

Wanda knew exactly what he was talking about. She'd juggled jobs for the last portion of her life out of loyalty to once place or another. Wanda had never quite been able to give up on some of them - they had put far too much into her for her to simply walk away. "It is a difficult juggling act," she responded. "But I think you, of many people, would be able to balance it well. You have probably learned from the mistakes of watching others not be able to do so, after all."

"Yeah, but pretty sure I'd lose a job anywhere on the outside if I came in blown up, or called saying I was sick or something." Kyle explained. "I get blown up kind of a lot." Which made holding down a regular job a pain in the butt. "So yeah, gotta make that decision eventually."

"But thankfully," she reassured him, "not any time soon. So enjoy what you can - erm, maybe minus the blowing up, if you will?"

"Dude, like a year. I do student teaching my last semester." Kyle said. "Actually, can I have more scotch? I wanna erase the fact that I just realized I'm gonna have to start dressing like a grown-up soon."