xp_logs | Ev & Wanda, Saturday evening (Reply)

Ev and Wanda plan to catch up over dinner, but conversation ends up more intense and personal than intended.

"I sincerely hope you are no longer watching your figure," Wanda said, recalling their first encounter, as she opened the door to her suite to let Everett in. "I accidentally skipped lunch again and so placed the to go order on a rather empty stomach." Books and papers had been cleared off the table to make room for multiple boxes and a bag that looked like it could contain even more food.

And, of course, she'd already opened the wine.

"Just going to have to synch with Scott's brother to metabolize all these calories. It's the easier, less messy way to purge." Ev eagerly took a seat at the table, the first time he had seen it used for its intended purpose.

"Some mutants get all the luck," she sighed. "I would hate you for it but that would mean caring about calories. And as you can see, my metabolism has not changed much since we were first eating at this restaurant."

Ev cocked at eyebrow at her. "Now who's the enviable one? Gotta say, I'm surprised Hiro's is still in business. Salem Center's changed so much since we were kids, but this one little sushi place with its small counter and five tables is still there. Same old decor?"

"Mostly. I think the fish tank is a new addition. And by that I mean within the last decade." She held up a bottle of red wine and tilted it at him. "Would you care for some? If not red, then white or beer? Never let it be said that my bar is ever anything more than well stocked." In fact, Wanda tended to keep it better stocked than her poor fridge.

A memory, long forgotten, came bubbling back to the top of Ev's mind, of he and Wanda absconding with a bottle from her father's extensive and well-curated collection to accompany their meal of General Tso's chicken, Mongolian beef, and pan-fired pork dumplings. At barely seventeen, they had had no idea what they were doing, except it is what adults did, and by golly they were almost adults so why shouldn't they partake?

While never a wine connoisseur himself, pulling off this scheme with Wanda was enough to justify the next several days of cleaning the Danger Room locker room with a toothbrush.

So, smiling softly from the unbidden memory, he shook his head politely. "No thank you. Water will be fine."

She had to admit, the smile caught her slightly off guard, It was the most - unguarded she had seen him look since she'd stumbled across him in the hallway. Wanda turned, topped off her glass and headed into the kitchen. "Water it is then! If you change your mind, let me know. Though depending on when that is, it might be time for a new bottle." She returned and handed over the water with a smile. "The perks of being your own bartender."

"Tell me the truth, how often do you just happen to find yourself chasing mysteries in Napa or Bordeaux?" he teased as he accepted the glass. While Wanda situated herself, Ev reached into the paper bag and pulled out two large plastic containers of maki and nigiri. The sound he made at the sight of the spread would have made Homer Simpson proud.

Wanda's laugh filled the room, both at the ridiculous noise and at his teasing. "Oh, if I had such luck," she chuckled, cracking open small containers of wasabi and soy sauce. She didn't really have the right kinds of bowls to serve it in so the containers would have to do. "My life's mission, from here on out, is to find the wine cultists. You know there must be one at least!"

"There is a black market for high-end wines." FBI work, way below SHIELD's interest. "Selling cheap shlock for hundreds of dollars a bottle because it has a fake label on it. People will counterfeit anything."

"Well, I am certainly in the wrong line of work. Though I am not sure if I would do better as the counterfeiter or the FBI agent chasing them down. I suppose I could always play both sides..." The nigiri was to die for and Wanda sighed happily. "The wallpaper might be the same as when we ate there but the food is just as good as it used to be. I had completely forgotten about it until we were talking about it."

With impeccable care, Ev got a piece of maki from the soy sauce container to his mouth without leaving a trail of soy sauce in its wake. Now there was a superhuman mutant gift. "I imagine you'd be the reformed counterfeiter. Caught by the feds, offered a chance at early release if you cooperate and help bring down the empire you once served. But then undermined them at the end and take the crown as Queen of Bootleg Wine again."

She helped herself to more rice, trying not to show just exactly how much that scenario appealed to her. Wanda was fairly certain she'd failed miserably. "I like the way you think," she said. "Queen of Bootleg Wine - but only the best - has a nice ring to it. I might reprint all of my Snow Valley business cards and have them say that. It would certainly be a conversation opener."

"It would be very romantic," Ev agreed. "Your fed handler would fall in love with you, and you with him, but you'd break his heart and feel awful, but it's your destiny to be free, even if you have to wonder what could have been. It's possible I watch too much bad television."

"Exactly how much Hallmark Channel do you watch, exactly?" she teased, ignoring that twinge about the romance. She'd been thinking about Simon recently, what could have been and what happened - brooding again, as Amanda called it. Wanda pushed aside those thoughts and finished off her wine. "Is that what you've been doing with your time since you've arrived? Then I am certainly glad you're being put to work with powers training!"

"At some point, you watch so much junk on the USA Network that all their shows start to blend together. But that is the plot in most of them. White Collar was pretty good, though." Ev's gaze fell to Wanda's now-empty glass for a moment before returning to their banquet. "So it was that garbage in between watching season 6 of the Simpsons for the two-hundredth time."

"Good lord. I see that Kyle's intervention was nearly too late! At this rate, you could probably easily quote most of those shows though..." She grimaced. "Please don't. Had I known that you were that bored, I would have staged an intervention of my own." Wanda gestured at the table and smirked. "Better to eat away your boredom, no?"

Ev pointed his chopsticks accusatorily at her. "I don't have a problem, I can quit any time I want. We don't all get to befriend B-list movie stars," he teased, nodding at the small framed photo of Wanda and Simon Williams sitting on the nearby end table. "What ever happened to that guy, anyway?"

For just a moment, Wanda froze. How could she have forgotten that Ev had not been back yet when Simon had died? Almost everyone else had been and she had just ... forgotten. And then she thought if she should tell him or shrug it off with a little smile and a knowing smirk, say the picture was a memento and they'd lost track of each other? But that wouldn't be fair to Simon, she thought fiercely, not with how he had died.

And, really, it wasn't fair to herself, either. Besides, ever since Everett had arrived at the mansion, they talked and had reconnected but mostly on the surface. He had been a good friend to her many years ago.

So, when the moment passed, Wanda sighed and peered at the picture, taken of the two of them on a beach not long before his death. "That depends on who you ask," she said, failing to make her voice sound less tight. "According to the tabloids and newspapers, Simon Williams died young thanks to a horrible accident. It's amazing what you can get the public to believe with just the right sources." She looked back at Ev. "It wasn't that simple or painless but he did die."

When Wanda did not immediately reply with one of he trademark sharp quips, Ev knew he had asked the wrong question. He had sensed a temporal manipulator here once; maybe he could find them and reverse time so he had not put a pall on their evening. But he appreciated — admired, even — her moxie to go on and answer his question sincerely.

He listened to every word and also to the words she was not saying. The truth hid in what she did not say, that Simon Williams had been more than a friend, that his death (murder?) was more than agony, that the scars Wanda carried still hurt as though they were freshly made. Ev had, through years of intense practice, learned to school his emotions and expression despite what any tormentor could put him through. But he did not practice this skill here, not with Wanda.

He set down his chopsticks on the little stand he had made from the paper wrapper, and held out a hand to her, offering some meager physical support but only if she wanted. "I'm sorry," he said, catching her gaze. "I didn't mean to be so flippant."

She tilted her head slightly, surprised at the gesture, but she reached out without hesitation with her own hand. Strong fingers wrapped around his palm and squeezed. "I would have been equally flippant in your place," Wanda smiled, "though the apology is appreciated, even if it is unneeded."

Wanda cleared her throat. "I failed him, you know," she continued evenly. "The stupid man saved me when I was supposed to save him. His death lingers but that, I think, will stay with me forever."

"I'm sure you didn't fail anyone," he countered. "If he died despite you trying to help him, then circumstances must have been beyond your control, and nothing you could have done, not preparation you could have made, would have altered the results." Though his tone carried sincerity with his words, he found his gaze slipping away from Wanda's, as if he could not look into her eyes while he spoke niceties he did not believe applied to himself.

Her hand was still curled around his and Wanda tugged gently on it as she shifted, the angle of her body now more towards him than before. "I know that tone," Wanda mused. "It sounds remarkably like the same sort of tone I have taken since Simon's passing and, sadly, at other times prior. If you wish to talk about what is causing it..."

Wanda wouldn't push or pry but there had always been something hidden about Everett. They were no longer children and their lives had changed them dramatically but there had been a wall there - and she had a feeling it wasn't just between the two of them. More like between everyone.

So perhaps it was time, if not to tear down the wall, then to at least permit limited passage. It had been just about one year since the deaths of the Secret Warriors. Ev had kept it mostly to himself ever since, only allowing a small handful of people in on a need-to-know basis. It was time to rethink that policy.

"You . . . are probably going to need a lot more wine for this," he teased lamely, steeling himself to tell his story. "I had a strike force at SHIELD. Mutants. I hand-picked and trained them myself. Nick Fury himself commissioned us. SHIELD's answer to the X-Men, which is a whole lot of politics we don't need to get into. We'd been on the trail of this organization called Janus for years, and this operative of theirs, a former SHIELD scientist himself who'd apparently grafted himself with mutant DNA . . . think your father's power, but gravity rather than electromagnetism."

"Oh, well ... shit."

There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. Wanda had been an operative too long to not know where this was probably going. Still holding Ev's hand, she grabbed the bottle and poured herself a full glass of wine. He wasn't kidding. She probably was going to need this.

He would spare her the details even as the vivid memories played in his mind. The screams, the blood splattering against the floor, the bones crunching under a gravity as strong as Jupiter's, the acrid odors of blood and vomit and excreta as bodies were torn apart and lives snuffed out with nary an effort from the murderer.

"He took them all out." Ev's voice was suddenly gravelly. "Jin, Carl, Ajit, Alexa, Janet. Just . . . gone. I could synch with Hall, sort of. Enough to survive, but." But not enough to keep his team alive.

It went where she knew it was going to go but it still made her breath catch. "Oh, Everett, I'm so sorry." Forget the wine. Wanda's free hand curled around the top of Ev's so that she clasped it between hers.

His voice caught in his throat, and it took him a moment to be able to speak again. "Thank you. And, ugh, sorry. I can usually tell this story without losing my composure. You drugged the sushi, didn't you?" he teased, his gleaming eyes meeting hers and his hold on her hand tightening. "One of these was poison blowfish?"

Wanda smiled though it was tinged with a little sadness. "I'm pretty sure that involves more thrashing about. Too bad you have had no wine or we could place the blame there." It was times like this that she was left wondering how they had gone from innocent teens at the school to a place where things like this could happen. It was not the first time she had had those thoughts and probably would not be the last.

She squeezed his hand back as she continued, "I am sorry but I am grateful that you, at least, made it out."

"When I write my tell-all memoirs and they make a movie out of it, they'll make me seem more valiant than I was." He forced a smile before letting go of Wanda and returning to his meal. "How did we get on this tragic topic in the first place? It has no place over dinner."

"Can I blame you?" Wanda asked, accepting the change in conversation. "That always worked for me when we were children, though Charles always ruined it in the end."

A small smile tugged at Ev's lips. "For a man with limited mobility, he was an ace cockblocker." More than a few times, he had just happened to pass by wherever Ev and Wanda had stolen away to for privacy, thus ending their rendezvous. Better Xavier than the other headmaster, at least for the sake of Ev's health.

She couldn't help it, she broke out laughing. Never - ever - had she really thought of the words 'cockblocker' and 'Charles' in the same sentence but she was sad she hadn't really known it when she was younger. That chased away the last dredges of sadness and regret, at least for Wanda. Wiping her eyes and chuckling, she reached for her glass of wine. "By the way, I did tell you there was pie for dessert, yes?"

That news was so good that Ev was almost glowing. He actually might have been, not bothering to hold back his aura. "So much for keeping my figure after all."