Molly, Marie-Ange, & Wade | Saturday Evening (backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

While out to dinner, Molly has a bit of trouble, Wade overreacts, and Marie-Ange manages to hold the entire situation together by sheer power of will.

NOTE: Warning for those with delicate sensibilities, as there's a fair bit of discussion of blood and menstruating.

Marie-Ange had to admit, while she had been extremely - and somewhat vocally - skeptical of this 'chicken and waffles' menu item, she was finding it tasty, if not something she'd have ordered without the matching pair of sad puppy faces from Wade and Molly. She held up her fork, with a neatly speared piece of waffle and bite of chicken and pointed it at them. "Yes, I like it. However if either of you ever tell anyone that I gave into puppy faces and sad eyes, I will send imps to slime you. Wade can tell you, this is a thing I have done to him."

"It's true," Wade said, nodding earnestly. "That's a thing she does. Convenient when you're stuck, but just kind of gross when all you really did was use up the last of the fancy coffee..."

Sitting next to Wademan at the booth, Molly paused mid-bite, her mouth dropping open like a fish. She leaned in, her eyes wide. "Really?" she said with a hushed whisper, glancing around to make sure people weren't listening in. Superpowers were serious business. She didn't like Mary Angie could make IMPS though. Wait....

"What's an imp?"

Marie-Ange laughed, and shook her head. "So much for my very intimidating threat, no?" She took her bite of food, and then set the fork down carefully, and took a small sketchpad from her shoulder bag. "Imps are little .. ah.. monsters, who are mischievous and tricky." She set the sketchpad down and flipped through it. "One of the things I make with my powers is imps to help me fetch things and do little chores for me. They are not real imps though, so I can make them go away just as easily as I make them." On the table, a grey and blue creature a few inches tall with spindly limbs and large bat like ears appeared, looked at Molly and winked, and then sat down cross-legged and began to pick it's nose. "And sometimes they are disgusting."

Not expecting an actual example of an imp Molly jumped, letting out a tiny squeak as she sat up washboard straight. But after a moment she got a little closer, grinning with a curled nose.

"Ew! Uh...hi..." she said, giving the tiny monster a wave.

"I'm Molly Grace Hayes. What's your name?" She glanced up to Mary Angie.

"Can he talk?"

"No, they cannot talk. None of my images can make any noise on their own, except to interact with their environment if they are very sturdy." Marie-Ange tilted her head at the imp and it waved at Molly, and then stomped one of it's feet, making a little pamf-pamf noise on the tabletop. "I have never named them, although Amanda once named several of the imps I made at a Christmas party, so this one might be Jose or Blotto."

Wade held is fist out to the imp. "Hola, little dude," he said, far more at ease with the creatures when they weren't crawling all over him and ectoplasm-ing in his face.

The imp picked itself up and pounded fists with Wade, and then walked over to the napkin holder and climbed up, sitting atop it with it's feet dangling. "When I first came to the mansion." Marie-Ange explained. "I was having trouble with the images getting away from me. Sometimes they would do things on their own, if I was not concentrating. Now they mostly only do what I tell them to, unless I am very tired, or very distracted, and then sometimes they act strangely."

Molly tilted her head. "Why? Why don't they just stop?" Did that mean they were alive? Since they did stuff by themselves and all...

"It was like dreams, I think? Where you cannot tell something in a dream what to do." Marie-Ange explained. "Or like when you are daydreaming and thinking about something but your teacher is talking about something else? It is just a part of my brain off doing what it wants instead of what it is supposed to do. Mine just happens to get up and walk around on the table from time to time."

"Mine would be so messy if it did that," Wade deadpanned, then grinned.

Leaning in toward Jose or Blotto, Molly reached out to try to pet it on the head. "Can you change what they look like? Like...um...like... a lil Wademan or a bunny or fish something?"

The imp actually moved in towards Molly's hand, doing it's best impression of a puppy - if a remarkably ugly one - trying to get an ear scritch. "I cannot change them once I have made them, but I can make anything I can see." Marie-Ange explained. "Within reason. If I try to make people they do not look real, and I cannot make things that are very very large." Not without giving herself a headache and that was just not something you told to a young girl. "Here I can show you." She flipped a few pages in the sketchpad, and had to stifle a giggle before setting the sketchpad down on the table. "See, I drew this for Wade one night when we were both bored, and he was insisting on watching that show with the older women who all live together."

The image of Betty White in greek-style armor with a red and gold star motif was only about six inches tall, but it strode the length of the diner's table like it owned it.

Wade grinned and settled back in his chair even as he held his hand out palm-up to the mini Betty so she could climb on it if Marie-Ange wanted her to. "Seriously, this is still one of my favorites."

Having pretty much forgotten about her food long ago, Molly's eyes widened. "Whoa...It's Granny Goodness," she said, tilting her head quite curiously. She glanced up at Mary Angie.

"Is she evil?"

"Only if I make her do something evil." Marie-Ange said. "They are still mostly under my control, so I suppose it would depend on if you thought I was evil or not." Philosophy with a slightly odd fourteen year old. "But I was actually going for Wonder Woman, instead of Granny Goodness, but it is hard to tell when she is so small."

Squinting, Molly nodded quickly as she processed all the info. "Oh!.I don't think you're evil Mary Angie....Are you? But yeah...Granny Goodness has different arm---Wait, you like comic books too?" she said.

"I do not think I am evil." There was a loaded question, one Marie-Ange was definitely not answering honestly. "I like some comic books, and some of my friends like them quite a lot - Doug, I think you know him, he is blond and wears glasses and works with me? He likes comic books, and so I have read quite a few of his. They are also good for images for my power. Very useful, to have pictures of Supergirl and Wonder Woman when I need to make someone to fight a... " Nazi. Assassin. hired thug. "bad guy."

Molly grinned brightly, practically wriggling with excitement. "Really? Really? That's so cool! I....don't... think I know Doug...Oh....Is he the picture guy?"

Bouncing her feet against the bottom of the booth, Molly bit her lip. "I need to go to the bathroom. But...when I get back can I see Supergirl?"

"No, that is Artie. Doug is the computer guy." Marie-Ange explained patiently. "And yes, I think I have a Supergirl drawing in here somewhere." She made a little shooing gesture, and flipped through pages in her sketchpad. At worst, she would draw one. It would not take -that- a long.

"I know Artie...He's image guy. Doug is picture guy. He makes the pictures on the journals that move. He's friends with Wademan," Molly said, grinning at Wademan as she hopped out from behind the booth and headed toward the ladies' room near the back of the diner.

"Okay I'll be back!"

"And she's off like a shot," Wade commented, laughing quietly as Molly headed toward the bathrooms. "Thanks for coming with, ladybird. I'm pretty sure the half-pint had more fun in the last ten minutes with your little dude there than the last couple hours."

"If I admit to enjoying the last ten minutes, am I going to be forced to also admit that I do not mind young teenagers and children as long as they are capable of feeding themselves and having conversations in complete sentences?" Marie-Ange asked, with an amused smile. "Besides, I do not often get such a genuinely delighted reaction to my images. Usually it is more "Why would you even make that?" - of course, most of the time her images were less friendly themselves.

Wade grinned. "Nah, I wouldn't force you to admit that. But I feel I should point out that the information, since it was basically freely given, is now stored in the filing cabinets of my mind." He tapped his temple and waggled his eyebrows a little. "And I always like your images. Unless they're exploding on me. But the little ones who bring me chocolate milk and apples from the kitchen when we're watching those fashion things of yours - I like them a lot."

"The filing cabinets of your mind sometimes seem terribly disorganized. You will remember that I enjoyed this, and the phone numbers of five hundred different taco shops across North America, but cannot remember that the fashion show I like is Project Runway?" Marie-Ange teased. "Perhaps we should have someone organize them for you. I am sure Emma would be happy to."

"Hey, I can remember the dude who's always going, 'Make it work!' He's pretty funny. And those taco shops are vital to my survival, we've been over that already - I'd perish without tacos. And chimichangas. Oh - we should stop on the way back to the mansion and get some choco tacos, that'd be awesome." Wade grinned. "Emma's been in my brain already, anyway, and she seemed able to navigate it well enough."

"I do not know what a choco taco is." Marie-Ange said, affecting an artificially flat tone. "And I am afraid to find out . I think it would be something awful and I would have to kill it and traumatize poor Molly."

"Dude, Molly ate like three choco tacos last week, you would totally not have to kill them," Wade said, laughing. "But you would totally have to eat one. A caramel one that was light on the choco part of the taco." He waggled his eyebrows a little, still smiling.

Wade's phone suddenly buzzed, then buzzed again.

Normally, Wade would have ignored the vibrating, but then his mobile kept buzzing and he frowned. Normally people weren't quite so adamant about getting in touch with him. "Hang on," he said, sliding his fingertip across the screen and then tapping in the four digit code to unlock the phone. The texts that greeted him involved words that, after Genosha, he'd basically hoped to never, ever see or hear in relation to one of his people again.

Can you come get me?

I'm squishable again. I see blood.

I think someone shot me...My back hurts. But I didn't hear anything.

Can you come get me?

Dropping the phone to the table, the mercenary headed for the restrooms as he unbuttoned both of his shoulder holsters beneath his jacket. It wouldn't do to run - that would just attract attention. No, whatever was going on in that bathroom with Molly, Wade wanted to make sure he took the perpetrators by surprise.

Marie-Ange was halfway up before she even picked up the phone, and sat right back down again after seeing the second and third texts. She shook her head, frowning and with great care neatly wrote out a "family emergency - apologies - we will be right back." note for the waitress. Hopefully an extra-large tip later would be enough to cover the sudden departure, and the commotion that was likely to happen if someone saw Wade barging into the women's room all guns and over-protective nature.

Then she stood, and made her way to the women's restroom faster than she thought she could move, pushing rudely past a middle-aged woman and her sticky child and into the small room. "Wade, go pay the cheque. I have this."

Wade had his guns half-drawn when Marie-Ange spoke and he paused, though he didn't take his eyes off the closed bathroom stalls. "She said blood," he muttered, hoping the woman with the sticky child would go away before he had to do something to scare her off. He hated scaring women with sticky children - they usually had enough trouble to deal with all on their own.

"She thinks she's been shot. I'd like to shoot whoever shot her."

"Wade." Marie-Ange's voice went quiet, and insistent, before Molly could even answer. "I promise you Molly was not shot. Go pay the cheque, I will text you." She reached out carefully and put her hand on one gun. "Molly? Did you find blood when you went to the bathroom? On your clothing?" She called, voice pitched to carry.

Molly's purple sneakers were barely visible under the bathroom stall. They twitched a little at Mary-Angie's question and drew out of sight.

"A...a little...." she said quietly, panicked. "In...somewhere....not good."

She fell silent a moment, sniffling.

"I'm dying, aren't I?"

Wade's hand twitched a little, but the pressure from Marie-Ange's on the gun kept him from drawing it. "You're not dying," he said, though he hadn't figured out what was going on and there didn't seem to be anyone other than himself and his ladies in the bathroom. "You're definitely not dying." Then he looked at Marie-Ange and muttered, "Right?" She said she had this. He believed her. He just wanted to make sure he wouldn't need to come back to shoot someone later.

"I sincerely doubt Molly is dying." Marie-Ange said. She had grabbed her bag on the way to the bathroom, and dug in it with one hand, going in all the way to her elbow before pulling out a slim cylinder wrapped in yellow and white and waving it in Wade's face. "And of course my bag is entirely useless today." She glanced at the stalls, considered how terrible it would be if she abruptly barged in on Molly by going under the door and dismissed the idea, moving to sit down on the floor across from the stall instead. "Your mother and father owe me a dry cleaning bill." She said, crossing her legs and resting her elbows on her knees. "No one shot you, and I think you are still, what did you call it, unsquishable?" she said, and motioned towards the door at Wade, mouthing "Go. I will text." at him.

Molly's sneakers came back down to the floor, though she remained sitting.

"Really?" she asked hopefully.

"But, But---the blood and...my back. Its starting to really hurt. I saw the shows....you lose blood and then die."

"I think no more Doctor House MD for you, yes?" Marie-Ange said. "Or Grey's Anatomy or whichever show you are watching that taught you that there is only one way for blood to come out." She sat up straight, back pressed against the wall and made a little shooing motion at Wade. "Did... oh merde, I cannot believe I am asking this, Molly, did your mother and father tell you how people have babies?" She asked, and then hastily added. "If they did not, I promise you are also not having a baby in addition to not dying."

Wade re-holstered his guns and secured them, hearing just enough of the conversation as he left the bathroom to figure out that things weren't what the text messages implied. They were something completely different and it was just good luck that Marie-Ange had been with them on this particular trip because he didn't know how he'd have been able to handle this by himself.

"You don't wanna go in there," he told the mother with the sticky child. "Really. I'd suggest the Chinese place next door." The mother looked from Wade to the bathroom door and then turned around and took her child with her. Good thing, too.

He took care of paying for dinner and got their things wrapped up in to-go boxes, then left their waitress a disproportionately large tip. He was in the process of sitting down when he phone buzzed again.

~I am sorry to ask, but I do not want to leave Molly~

~Can you get pads. I cannot suggest a tampon to her~

~Find a store, and a female employee. They can help~

Wade blinked for a moment, then nodded to himself and tapped out a reply. Got it. Pads. I'll be back soon.

With that, he picked up their boxes of food and headed for the door, checking both ways to see where the nearest drug store would be. Upon locating a likely candidate, he made a beeline for it and pushed open the door with what he felt was a good amount of authority. Or something. Walking up to the first female employee he could find, he simply said, "I need pads for a 14 year old girl. I have no idea what that actually means. Please, educate me in the way of pads." He paused to let his request sink in, then concluded, "I don't want to take something back to her that she can't actually use."

The clerk gave him a blank stare for a moment, then gestured for him to follow her as she made her way to the feminine hygiene aisle of the store.

Wade prepared to be educated.

~***~

"Babies?" Molly echoed to Mary Angie, frowning with frustrated puzzlement

"Sorta...They...they come out of your belly? I forgot. Why?"

They didn't explain a lot about it. They were busy with...doctor stuff.

"W...what does that have to do with this?"

She kinda didn't wanna know.

"Remind me to tell Wade he owes me all of the chocolate in the world." Marie-Ange said idly. "And you as well, I think. I think the best way to explain this is to start by telling you that there is no way on earth you are going to have a baby right now, but your body has decided that it is ready, even if the rest of you is not." If anyone else had been in the bathroom, they would've seen the red-haired frenchwoman with an uncharacteristic embarrassed expression. "Your body made an egg, you did not get pregnant, and so now instead of being pregnant, you have... Americans call it 'your period', and it happens once a month for a few days."

Molly stared down at herself, then back up to the door with a horrified look. Her voice was small, but remarkably high pitched as she shook her head.

"What? But...but no. I don't want it to. Why did it do that? Is there a way to make it stop?"

"Perhaps, but it is not always healthy to do so, and you would have to see the doctor for that." Marie-Ange began. "And that is something you should do anyway, but it is uncomfortable and can be embarrassing." She pressed her fingers into her temple and tried to force the headache that was coming on to go away. "It happens when you are a teenager. I was twelve, but not everyone has it happen at the same age. I can explain why it happens if you like, but it means talking about your... " She was a spy! She had infiltrated countries! She had shot Cammie once! This should not have been this difficult to explain. "parts that make babies."

Her statement was met with silence, as the shoes under the stall shifted and Molly fidgeted with her shirt.

"Do we have to?" Molly said. It all seemed very important and big and scary and hard to understand. She could fight bad guys but not this. She didn't like that.

"No, but you have to promise me you will talk to one of the doctors, so that you understand. Sometimes they can give you a pill or shot that can make it happen less often." Marie-Ange said. "And you will need to be very careful to try to remember about this. It is very important to not forget." If nothing else because she did not want to explain every month to Molly Hayes what a period was.

"But....I'm unsquishable," Molly said, glancing up with a frown. "I can't have shots. The needles break."

Doctor Beast and Doctor Ghost had tried before.

"I am sure the pill will be fine, if they decide you should have it." Marie-Ange offered. "It helps stop the organs in your body from making the chemicals that make this happen." Because "and will keep you from ever getting pregnant" was just simply not something she was going to say. "A lot of women take the pill, to make their periods less uncomfortable and have less pain. The back pain is because sometimes the muscles inside your body will cramp - like if you run too much and your legs hurt? It is a little bit the same thing."

Wade walked back into the restaurant, past the slightly confused waitstaff who nonetheless accepted the bag of boxed food from him as he juggled the other bags he'd brought back with him, and straight into the women's bathroom. "I return victorious," he said, putting one bag from the drug store on the floor and sliding he beneath the stall door, eyes trained on Marie-Ange. To her, he showed the second bag and mouthed thank you. "Take the bag, half-pint, and Marie-Ange will explain how it works while I go sit down at the bar."

Picking up the bag, Molly opened it and stared down at the package that felt like a pillow except it had a white sleep mask on it. Wait...this looked familiar, though. She saw it somewhere before. It wasn't a sleep mask.

"Wait...I thought it was supposed to be blue." Eyes widening a little, Wade shrugged helplessly. "I got what the woman at the drug store said to get. She was really specific about length and wings and... things. So I got what she said. I'm... sorry it's not blue?"

Molly blinked. "Wings? I get wings?" she said, a bit of excitement creeping into her voice before she remembered the last part.

"No like..the...um..." She chewed on her lip, making a face. "Stuff...on the...TV. Its blue! This is...not blue. Mary-Angie said it's my period...which sounds like something to go to class on cause there's a lot of stuff..." She tilted her head.

"Wademan do you get periods too?"

"Er," Wade said, realizing his quick and dirty education in feminine hygiene products hadn't prepared him for this. "I think... I mean, I'm pretty sure the blue stuff on TV's just to show... y'know, how ah... absorbent the... pads and things are? Like how well they work? And if they just used water, you couldn't see it as well. And if they used red, they'd probably make old people die of heart attacks or something. And no, no - I don't get periods. I've got... y'know. Guy parts. Only girls have periods." Which might have been over simplifying things a bit, but Wade figured he'd done enough talking. "I'm just gonna - yeah. Bar."

And with that ever so eloquent parting, the mercenary left the bathroom and sought out the person he'd given their food to when he reentered the restaurant before making his way to the bar to to get himself a beer. A very large beer. It wouldn't really help, but it would give him something to think about other than wings and absorbency and red versus blue.

Marie-Ange had her hands over her mouth, and her feet were scraping along the floor trying not to laugh. And failing - some oddly light giggles came out between her fingers. "Men do not get periods, no. They do not have to carry a baby, so they do not need to have the same organs, so no blood. But rest assured, teenage boys have their own embarrassing moments, just not the same ones. The pad is to keep your clothing clean - there is an adhes... a side with paper on it. You should peel the paper off, and then it is sticky - that side goes down, and then you wrap the parts that look like wings around so it does not move around."

"Um....okay...." Molly said with a frown, then peered down at the little pillow. It looked like something a dog would use as a pillow. Like a chihuahua. She liked chihuahuas. They had a commercial with a chihuahua in it.

Blinking a moment, she glanced back up, trying to remember what she'd said. Everything suddenly seemed fuzzy.

She fiddled a bit with the pillow, trying to open it, but when she opened the sticky part over the top part of the pillow it got stuck to her hand and she flicked her hand back and forth trying to get it to come off.

"Um..."

"Oh dear God what now?" Marie-Ange muttered, and then rested her head against the wall and hoped Molly had not heard that. This was not her forte at all. "What has gone wrong? Is it defective? You can just open another one." She rubbed at one eye and decided the headache was frustration, not an extremely poorly timed warning that she was about to go have one of her little moments. "There should be a little waste bin in the stall with you. You can put the one that is broken in there, if you need to. It is where they should go when you have to change them."

Wade drank his drink and went over the things the very nice sales associate at the drug store had told him about pads and such. He went over them in his head and wondered if things should be taking this long. He'd never done it himself, obviously, but unwrap, peel the paper away from the sticky bit, stick it on, pull the paper off the sticky wings, stick them on, and bam, his ladies should be back out in no time.

They weren't.

After taking another long pull from the beer the bartender had kindly supplied him, he checked his watch. Wade would give them another five minutes before he steeled himself and went back into the war zone. Such as it was.

Meanwhile, back in the bathroom stall Molly could tell Mary Angie was getting unhappy. She had the 'I very much disapprove of this Molly Grace Hayes. Stop this right now,' tone of voice her mother got when she did something she didn't like.

"Sorry...." she squeaked, then yanked off the thing from her hand and threw it in the trash. She tried again. This time she had better luck. After a couple of minutes the stall door finally opened and Molly walked out

"You should never apologize unless someone asks for it." Marie-Ange said, eyes still closed and with her head still against the wall. "Sometimes people get upset at the whole world and not at you. For example, I am the worst possible person to have been here for you, and yet, the universe has stuck us together. I think to punish the universe, we should demand ice cream brownie sundaes."

Molly wasn't quite sure how to react, and blinked at her for a moment or two before slowly nodding.

"O...kay," she said, peering at her curiously.

"Which is to say, I am not upset with you, just the circumstances of no one having warned you of this thing." Marie-Ange explained as she picked herself up off the floor. "Or in simpler terms, someone should have told you. It should have come with the explanation of where babies come from."

Wade looked up as Marie-Ange and Molly came out of the bathroom and the only thing he could do was nod along in agreement as they talked about chocolate sundaes with nuts and cherries and caramel and marshmallows. He'd buy as many ultra-sugary toppings as they wanted after they finished dinner.