Amanda and Wanda - backdated
Jul. 2nd, 2012 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logs(Reposted due to Dumb)
Amanda and her Boss Lady catch up over drinks and food. Wanda manages to get Amanda to actually open up about Genosha.
Warning: contains mentions of child death.
"I'll have the soup and sandwich special, Jess, and another pint," Wanda said, closing the menu as their waitress took their orders. She'd been in plenty of pubs, bars and restaurants over the last few months but it was nice to walk in through the doors to Finnegan's. Those from Snow Valley had claimed it as Their pub and Wanda had clocked a number of hours sitting in the various booths and at the bar over the years. The staff at the pub had changed only a little while she'd been away, so they hadn't so much as batted an eye when she and Amanda had trooped in with armloads of files and grabbed the back two tables.
She flicked through a few pages while she drained the remainder of her beer as Amanda placed her order, skimming briefly over the information before her though not really processing anything just yet.
"Fish and chips," was Amanda's order. "And a side salad." She held up her empty glass. "And a refill, thanks luv." She tended to thicken her accent at Finnegan's - the place certainly wasn't a proper English pub, but it was a pub and it spoke to her adopted ancestry.
As Jess went to place their orders and get their drinks, Amanda pulled over the closest stack of files on her side and sighed. "Bleeding network's like herding cats," she remarked. "Or toddlers. All this babysitting we have to do." She grinned as she said it, however. "Just like old times. 'S good to have you back."
"Honestly, it's good to be back. You know when I get sick of traveling that I have been doing too much of it. But I missed the people, too." She gave the stacks of folders a wry look. "Perhaps not the paperwork, though. That I was happy enough to leave to you ..." There was the guilt again. Wanda seemed to be swimming in it lately. Guilt for abandoning her friends for so long, guilt for abandoning Agatha now. There was no instant fix there, no right answer. Just ... a lot of paperwork.
"Don't worry about it. I needed the work and Nico needed the experience. She's turning out to be a good fit with our weird shite group - keen to work and not afraid to ask questions. The younger woman eyed Wanda. "And you're here now, where I can keep an eye on you."
She laughed at that because not only was she honestly touched by Amanda's desire to take care of her but it was amusing because, sometimes, it was far too close to the truth. Wanda held up her hands in surrender. "I promise, no faffing off without actual reason from now on. You can team up with Stephen to run herd on me when I forget to eat or get too much into the weeds with my work. I think he'll be grateful for the help, honestly."
"Me and Strange teaming up - no-one'll be safe," Amanda replied with a laugh of her own. "And Nico's keeping an eye on me, so we're all got eyeballs on us." She stopped and thought about what she'd said. "Luckily, not literally. 'Cause, yuck."
"Well, in our line of work, that might one day be a reality," Wanda said with a shudder. After Moreau, she wanted to stay clear of anything that resembled 'gross' or 'nasty'. "So, trust me, I am grateful that the only eyes on me are the ones still in various heads. I sometimes have to wonder at our conversations ..."
"Hazard of the job," Amanda said cheerfully. "Save the world from the arsewipes, have conversations involving wandering body parts. Still, 's better than when I was a nipper - Show and Tell would have been a nightmare if I'd actually been able to bring some of Rack's favourite magic toys to school."
Wanda snorted. "I can only imagine the reaction to some of the crap he probably had laying around," she said darkly. Evil wizards, dead or not, made her angry even before she factored in what Rack had done to Amanda. "Speaking of toys, we have all of Agatha's hidden treasures, well, hidden again but we'll need to ultimately go through the list with Stephen and see if there's anything that we need to destroy or use lurking about."
She thanked their waitress as their food arrived and suddenly gave Amanda a sly look as the waitress headed away. "Or figure out what small, safe trinkets we can use as bribes to reluctant contacts?"
"Considering how pissed off some of them are after our disappearing act, that's not a bad idea. Might as well use some carrots as well as the stick." Amanda grabbed the ketchup and squirted a generous portion onto her chips. "We'll be racking up the frequent flyer miles over the next month or so to settle things down again. Or at least, you and Nico will." Her grin turn smug. "Have I mentioned I like this 'porting trick?"
"...if you have, there is a very good chance I will have to apologize profusely and ask you to tell me about it again. I knew that you were teleporting by accident into cities, so to speak, but have you actually honed it?"
"Mostly. 'S limited, of course - only big cities, can't take anyone with me - but I can generally aim where I want to go and 'port within an actual city," the witch explained between mouthfuls of food - as always, the Pit needed filling. "Takes a bit of energy, tho' and sometimes..." She stopped herself and then shrugged. "Any way, yeah, no more turning up in Trafalgar Square in my PJs, at least."
Half of Wanda's sandwich was already gone, thanks in part to her dunking her bread into the soup, but she paused to laugh. "Oh, that was a time to remember! Times like that make me grateful to have the powers that I do. They might do incredibly strange things but they generally can be depended upon not to drop me into a different cities in just my night clothes." Generally. "That is fantastic, though. And useful, too."
"Subconscious issues suck," Amanda agreed. "But it's about time my powers didn't fuck me over in some way, so I'm not complaining."
"And it drops our expenses," Wanda laughed, putting her food to the side for the moment in order to pull over her beer and the first of many folders. "There is just so much to catch up on and even with Nico helping you these past few months, I know my vanishing acts have not helped." She looked at Amanda over some the papers and raised both eyebrows. "Between handling all of this and Genosha, Amanda, if you need a vacation ..."
"I'd rather work," said the witch with a small shrug, dipping a chip in ketchup. "'Sides, 'most everyone I care about is here. Apart from the family and Rom, there's no-one I'd rather hang about with."
Rubbing the side of her face, Wanda looked upon Amanda with a mixture of fondness and resignation. "The only reason I do not feel like I am looking into a mirror is that I have at least a foot on you," she teased, setting the folder back down on the table. Wanda leaned her elbows on the table and leaned her head on her hands. "Vacation or no, Amanda, can we talk? Call me fussy but I worry."
"You always worry," Amanda pointed out fondly. She pushed her plate away, appetite gone, and reached for her pint, taking a sip before going on. "I feel guilty," she said at last. "'Bout what happened to Rachel."
"Logically," Wanda said softly, "you must know that you couldn't have saved her. But I understand too well that logic sometimes takes a back seat. I'm here if you want, or need, to talk about it. If you do not, I understand but I'll just end up staring at you until you do, so ..." She was kidding. Mostly.
"I might have been able to do something." Amanda bit her lip, looking down to where she was shredding the beer mat that had been under her glass. "I still had the magic, Wanda. Even with my mutant powers gone, I still had that. It wasn't much, but it was more than anyone else had." And it might have been enough.
She nodded. It was so easy to second guess yourself once the heat of the battle and some of it was useful. Remember the mistakes, move forward and don't repeat them. But you could also drown yourself in the 'might have beens' and 'should have dones'. "And then what?" she asked, voice still soft and gentle. "You might - might - have been able to save her using the magic but you would have drained yourself doing so. And you and Rachel might, just might, have been somewhere else but the others ..."
"I know." That was what had made it so hard, why she stayed awake at nights. There'd been no choice, not really. One small girl in exchange for the lives and freedom of her team, the X-Men and, ultimately, Genosha itself. "Fuck me, I know. It's just..." Amanda paused again, trying to find the words. "When she was born, I hated her. I'd found a new family, was just sorting shite out, had Nate and Moira looking out for me like real parents would... and then she came along and all that love and attention got focussed on her instead."
"But you were another person back then."
"A whiny brat with a chip on her shoulder," Amanda admitted. "But there's a part of me, the deep down nasty part, that keeps suggesting I let her die on purpose. Because she took my family away from me." The witch snorted and shook her head. "Listen to me. 'M still a whiny brat. And I had to leave her there, I know I did, so the plan would work. There weren't any guarantees I could get her out, even - like I said before, I can't 'port with anyone else. I might have just gotten us both killed."
"I think there's a nasty part buried deep within all of us," Wanda said and then she pointed sternly at Amanda. "But if you were honestly a whiny brat, Amanda, then you would have finished speaking after that sentence. But you did not. You know you did what you had to do. Rachel's death ..." Her gaze slid along Amanda's shoulder to stare past her for a second as images of Nate and the little girl played through her mind. It snapped back to Amanda. "Rachel was not your fault and you realize that. It will probably take a lot more of you saying it aloud for it to sink in, for it to reach that part of you that believes it. You have an advantage - the rest of you does not."
"That's the job, doing what we have to do." Amanda sighed. "You know, I don't mind the not having a life or being able to hold onto relationships and the part where I end up black and blue every other week. Because it's part of the job and it's me paying the price. But it wasn't me this time. It wasn't any of us. It was a little kid who happened to be connected to the wrong people."
The pint in front of her was almost empty now and the remainder of Wanda's food had cooled enough to not really be appetizing; she could at least get another pint. Wanda caught Jess' attention and nodded at her pint glass. "I think we all try to have the answers for the situations we find ourselves in. But, fuck, I don't have the answer to what happened to Rachel. I wish I did. For my sake, for yours - for Nate and Moira."
"None of us do." Amanda didn't want to remember her trip to Muir, the grief she'd been privy to. "And we all wish we did." She drained her glass. "Well, 'm horribly depressed now. What say we get off our tits drunk and forget about all this, at least for tonight?"
Jess' timing was beautiful as she delivered two more pints and Wanda pulled hers closer to herself. "As long as we do not end up drunk dialing some of our magical contacts - though, god, the hilarity - then that sounds like the best plan ever." She held up her glass towards Amanda. "Cheers."
Amanda raised her glass in return and clinked it against Wanda's. "Cheers."
Amanda and her Boss Lady catch up over drinks and food. Wanda manages to get Amanda to actually open up about Genosha.
Warning: contains mentions of child death.
"I'll have the soup and sandwich special, Jess, and another pint," Wanda said, closing the menu as their waitress took their orders. She'd been in plenty of pubs, bars and restaurants over the last few months but it was nice to walk in through the doors to Finnegan's. Those from Snow Valley had claimed it as Their pub and Wanda had clocked a number of hours sitting in the various booths and at the bar over the years. The staff at the pub had changed only a little while she'd been away, so they hadn't so much as batted an eye when she and Amanda had trooped in with armloads of files and grabbed the back two tables.
She flicked through a few pages while she drained the remainder of her beer as Amanda placed her order, skimming briefly over the information before her though not really processing anything just yet.
"Fish and chips," was Amanda's order. "And a side salad." She held up her empty glass. "And a refill, thanks luv." She tended to thicken her accent at Finnegan's - the place certainly wasn't a proper English pub, but it was a pub and it spoke to her adopted ancestry.
As Jess went to place their orders and get their drinks, Amanda pulled over the closest stack of files on her side and sighed. "Bleeding network's like herding cats," she remarked. "Or toddlers. All this babysitting we have to do." She grinned as she said it, however. "Just like old times. 'S good to have you back."
"Honestly, it's good to be back. You know when I get sick of traveling that I have been doing too much of it. But I missed the people, too." She gave the stacks of folders a wry look. "Perhaps not the paperwork, though. That I was happy enough to leave to you ..." There was the guilt again. Wanda seemed to be swimming in it lately. Guilt for abandoning her friends for so long, guilt for abandoning Agatha now. There was no instant fix there, no right answer. Just ... a lot of paperwork.
"Don't worry about it. I needed the work and Nico needed the experience. She's turning out to be a good fit with our weird shite group - keen to work and not afraid to ask questions. The younger woman eyed Wanda. "And you're here now, where I can keep an eye on you."
She laughed at that because not only was she honestly touched by Amanda's desire to take care of her but it was amusing because, sometimes, it was far too close to the truth. Wanda held up her hands in surrender. "I promise, no faffing off without actual reason from now on. You can team up with Stephen to run herd on me when I forget to eat or get too much into the weeds with my work. I think he'll be grateful for the help, honestly."
"Me and Strange teaming up - no-one'll be safe," Amanda replied with a laugh of her own. "And Nico's keeping an eye on me, so we're all got eyeballs on us." She stopped and thought about what she'd said. "Luckily, not literally. 'Cause, yuck."
"Well, in our line of work, that might one day be a reality," Wanda said with a shudder. After Moreau, she wanted to stay clear of anything that resembled 'gross' or 'nasty'. "So, trust me, I am grateful that the only eyes on me are the ones still in various heads. I sometimes have to wonder at our conversations ..."
"Hazard of the job," Amanda said cheerfully. "Save the world from the arsewipes, have conversations involving wandering body parts. Still, 's better than when I was a nipper - Show and Tell would have been a nightmare if I'd actually been able to bring some of Rack's favourite magic toys to school."
Wanda snorted. "I can only imagine the reaction to some of the crap he probably had laying around," she said darkly. Evil wizards, dead or not, made her angry even before she factored in what Rack had done to Amanda. "Speaking of toys, we have all of Agatha's hidden treasures, well, hidden again but we'll need to ultimately go through the list with Stephen and see if there's anything that we need to destroy or use lurking about."
She thanked their waitress as their food arrived and suddenly gave Amanda a sly look as the waitress headed away. "Or figure out what small, safe trinkets we can use as bribes to reluctant contacts?"
"Considering how pissed off some of them are after our disappearing act, that's not a bad idea. Might as well use some carrots as well as the stick." Amanda grabbed the ketchup and squirted a generous portion onto her chips. "We'll be racking up the frequent flyer miles over the next month or so to settle things down again. Or at least, you and Nico will." Her grin turn smug. "Have I mentioned I like this 'porting trick?"
"...if you have, there is a very good chance I will have to apologize profusely and ask you to tell me about it again. I knew that you were teleporting by accident into cities, so to speak, but have you actually honed it?"
"Mostly. 'S limited, of course - only big cities, can't take anyone with me - but I can generally aim where I want to go and 'port within an actual city," the witch explained between mouthfuls of food - as always, the Pit needed filling. "Takes a bit of energy, tho' and sometimes..." She stopped herself and then shrugged. "Any way, yeah, no more turning up in Trafalgar Square in my PJs, at least."
Half of Wanda's sandwich was already gone, thanks in part to her dunking her bread into the soup, but she paused to laugh. "Oh, that was a time to remember! Times like that make me grateful to have the powers that I do. They might do incredibly strange things but they generally can be depended upon not to drop me into a different cities in just my night clothes." Generally. "That is fantastic, though. And useful, too."
"Subconscious issues suck," Amanda agreed. "But it's about time my powers didn't fuck me over in some way, so I'm not complaining."
"And it drops our expenses," Wanda laughed, putting her food to the side for the moment in order to pull over her beer and the first of many folders. "There is just so much to catch up on and even with Nico helping you these past few months, I know my vanishing acts have not helped." She looked at Amanda over some the papers and raised both eyebrows. "Between handling all of this and Genosha, Amanda, if you need a vacation ..."
"I'd rather work," said the witch with a small shrug, dipping a chip in ketchup. "'Sides, 'most everyone I care about is here. Apart from the family and Rom, there's no-one I'd rather hang about with."
Rubbing the side of her face, Wanda looked upon Amanda with a mixture of fondness and resignation. "The only reason I do not feel like I am looking into a mirror is that I have at least a foot on you," she teased, setting the folder back down on the table. Wanda leaned her elbows on the table and leaned her head on her hands. "Vacation or no, Amanda, can we talk? Call me fussy but I worry."
"You always worry," Amanda pointed out fondly. She pushed her plate away, appetite gone, and reached for her pint, taking a sip before going on. "I feel guilty," she said at last. "'Bout what happened to Rachel."
"Logically," Wanda said softly, "you must know that you couldn't have saved her. But I understand too well that logic sometimes takes a back seat. I'm here if you want, or need, to talk about it. If you do not, I understand but I'll just end up staring at you until you do, so ..." She was kidding. Mostly.
"I might have been able to do something." Amanda bit her lip, looking down to where she was shredding the beer mat that had been under her glass. "I still had the magic, Wanda. Even with my mutant powers gone, I still had that. It wasn't much, but it was more than anyone else had." And it might have been enough.
She nodded. It was so easy to second guess yourself once the heat of the battle and some of it was useful. Remember the mistakes, move forward and don't repeat them. But you could also drown yourself in the 'might have beens' and 'should have dones'. "And then what?" she asked, voice still soft and gentle. "You might - might - have been able to save her using the magic but you would have drained yourself doing so. And you and Rachel might, just might, have been somewhere else but the others ..."
"I know." That was what had made it so hard, why she stayed awake at nights. There'd been no choice, not really. One small girl in exchange for the lives and freedom of her team, the X-Men and, ultimately, Genosha itself. "Fuck me, I know. It's just..." Amanda paused again, trying to find the words. "When she was born, I hated her. I'd found a new family, was just sorting shite out, had Nate and Moira looking out for me like real parents would... and then she came along and all that love and attention got focussed on her instead."
"But you were another person back then."
"A whiny brat with a chip on her shoulder," Amanda admitted. "But there's a part of me, the deep down nasty part, that keeps suggesting I let her die on purpose. Because she took my family away from me." The witch snorted and shook her head. "Listen to me. 'M still a whiny brat. And I had to leave her there, I know I did, so the plan would work. There weren't any guarantees I could get her out, even - like I said before, I can't 'port with anyone else. I might have just gotten us both killed."
"I think there's a nasty part buried deep within all of us," Wanda said and then she pointed sternly at Amanda. "But if you were honestly a whiny brat, Amanda, then you would have finished speaking after that sentence. But you did not. You know you did what you had to do. Rachel's death ..." Her gaze slid along Amanda's shoulder to stare past her for a second as images of Nate and the little girl played through her mind. It snapped back to Amanda. "Rachel was not your fault and you realize that. It will probably take a lot more of you saying it aloud for it to sink in, for it to reach that part of you that believes it. You have an advantage - the rest of you does not."
"That's the job, doing what we have to do." Amanda sighed. "You know, I don't mind the not having a life or being able to hold onto relationships and the part where I end up black and blue every other week. Because it's part of the job and it's me paying the price. But it wasn't me this time. It wasn't any of us. It was a little kid who happened to be connected to the wrong people."
The pint in front of her was almost empty now and the remainder of Wanda's food had cooled enough to not really be appetizing; she could at least get another pint. Wanda caught Jess' attention and nodded at her pint glass. "I think we all try to have the answers for the situations we find ourselves in. But, fuck, I don't have the answer to what happened to Rachel. I wish I did. For my sake, for yours - for Nate and Moira."
"None of us do." Amanda didn't want to remember her trip to Muir, the grief she'd been privy to. "And we all wish we did." She drained her glass. "Well, 'm horribly depressed now. What say we get off our tits drunk and forget about all this, at least for tonight?"
Jess' timing was beautiful as she delivered two more pints and Wanda pulled hers closer to herself. "As long as we do not end up drunk dialing some of our magical contacts - though, god, the hilarity - then that sounds like the best plan ever." She held up her glass towards Amanda. "Cheers."
Amanda raised her glass in return and clinked it against Wanda's. "Cheers."
