Jay and Ruth - Central Park

[kentuckyromeo]

Continued from here.

"Wait, Jersey? Sorry, I gotta go..." He half sat up, furthering the joke, even though both of them knew he wasn't going anywhere. Of course that's as far as he went, propping himself up on his side with his elbow so he could look down at her.

"I knew a couple other people in school who were born with their powers. Most seemed like ones that'd be easier to grow up with than just spring up out of the blue one day." Not that being a mutant or manifesting one's powers was ever easy. "So you're not that special," he teased, lying through his teeth.

She was more special that he could explain.

Rogue and Carol - Dom and Cordelia's coffee place!

[misscaroldanvers]

The cute girl with the cute gator stories was Carol's new favorite person (sorry Vic) and she was the only person keeping Carol remotely sane. They had formed a quick, easy bond in the couple of weeks since they'd met, and while Carol still wasn't sure if Rogue 'took after her moms', to phrase it delicately, Carol was like, drunk in her crush.

So when she invited Rogue for coffee in the late afternoon, it was a friend thing, but it also sort of wasn't; every minute felt like a date because Carol just wanted to kiss Rogue all the time. So she was sitting with her coffee and a gigantic cookie, and she was going to read a book and wait for Rogue, but the words had absolutely no meaning. So instead Carol looked at the cute blonde barista, and looked at the door to see if Rogue was coming in, and at the door again, and at the door again, and... well, you get the picture.

Cordy and Dom

[luckydom]

A few weeks after this

So for some fucking reason Dom and Cordelia had decided to try being a thing? Again? It was such a risky proposition and it was so tied up in trauma. Moreso for Cordelia, yes, but Dom had her own shit from that time, particularly the things that had led to her being hospitalized, and diving back into something, no matter how tentative, was like a reckoning.

So Dom had gotten herself a therapist. And she still wasn't sure how to pay for it, though she knew if she asked Johnny she would help, but that was fucked up. But anyway, that was a problem for next week's Dom - this week, she was doing it.

She was quiet and broody after the first session, but still wanted to see Cordelia, so Dom headed to Cordelia's place without asking first. Still just taking a moment to enjoy the reassuring feeling of knowing where Cordelia lived. She slipped into the building behind someone else who buzzed in, and made her way to Cordelia's door, knocking.

Wade and Terry

[supercrazy]

Wade had really tried to stick around. When he and Terry had left New York to make a life together, he was genuinely happy, genuinely calmed. He felt almost like a real person.

For a little while.

Like, a few years.

Wade had never loved anyone like he had loved Teresa. It was an unnervingly real connection, a terrifying, blessed thing he couldn't quite understand but had tried very hard to trust and believe in.

But his mind always played tricks on him. His memory was bad, his disorders were bad, and he was a dying man who would never die.

So Wade had sought help. He really wanted to be better, for Teresa. He wanted to have a life with her in a shitty apartment, getting by, having great sex and leaning on each other. And through various channels (petty crime came easily to Wade, okay?!) he had heard of people who could maybe bypass the mutant shit and fix his mind.

Only they had royally fucked it up.

It's been years now. He didn't have memories for a long time, but when they came back, they came back hard. Wade knew he was more scrambled than ever, and maybe those fucked up scientists were looking for him? But he wanted - needed - to find Teresa. To apologize for disappearing again. To reassure himself that she was real, and, by extension, so was he.

It was just - he couldn't remember where they had lived. He knew what it looked like in the abstract - like feeling color - but he just couldn't retrace his steps.

So Wade was in New York, where they met, flying under the radar, causing minor mayhem, drinking, whatever. It was a dark bar, an Irish pub, tonight. He sat, and he drank, and he listened to the fucking fiddles. It was dumb, but it reminded him of Teresa.

Billy and Teddy - Rumor Timeline - Midtown Comics

[realityshaper]

Billy didn't really like coming home anymore. It just felt like school shootings and agonizing lost love. Once Billy had gotten it into his head that maybe, this whole time, he had been controlling the only guy he'd ever loved, he'd had to get out and not look back.

He'd switched schools, stopped watching all his favorite shows - they were all of Teffy's favorites too - and he wasn't totally miserable anymore, because it had been such a long time - but home was tricky; home was where he had met Teddy.

He had really thought he was going to marry that boy one day.

Instead, Billy was avowedly sngle, probably for life. How could he ever know if someone had free will around him? It was becoming second nature: Billy was friendly but reserved. No one ever got too close.

And now when he dreamed, it was hardly ever about a boy that sometimes turned green. Even his nightmares were rarely about a classroom and the friends of humanity.

He was so used to his solitude that during this visit he didn't even list his instructions to the universe to protect Teddy: "I don't want Teddy's life influenced or changed by mine". He just spent time with family, and wandered old streets, and ended up at Midtown comics, browsing.

Rusty and Sally - California life

[slightlyfiery]

They hadn't planned on getting pregnant, but when had Rusty and Sally ever planned on anything that had happened to them?

Rusty was getting so excited about the idea of a little messy scrappy kid, and he was diligently reading parenting blogs, even though they were so corny and fluffy and frankly for the rich. And he hated reading things. But he would do it for the baby.

He was careful about cooking food that was good for Sally and the baby, or at least none of the stuff that would kill them, and he had spent the previous day making a crib out of cheap lumber. It actually had come together pretty well, and he was excited to paint it. They just had to pick a color, and Rusty would go get the paint and spent their Sunday fixing it up.

It was actually the first thing he thought about when he woke up, mumbling, as he opened his eyes, "Is yellow too much for the crib?"

He reached over, as always, to wrap his arms around Sally - but yelped, when her forcefield propelled her away from him and off the bed.

"Uh. so... no to yellow?" he asked, from the floor.

Crystal - Seeking Help

[elementalista]

Crystal was new to America and new to New York. The only reason she was here was because, well, she didn't know what else to do.

Being a mutant was so, so hard. The situation for mutants was worse where she was from - she was legitimately afraid for her life - but in New York, some mutants lived and loved openly. Crystal wanted to do that. She wanted to be a person.

Online, she had heard about a kind of outreach sanctuary run by young mutants in the heart of the city. All the talk was very vague (it had to be, to protect the place and everyone who might use it), but everyone she spoke to, even in veiled terms, told Crystal that the people there could help her build a life she could love, if she just went there.

So she went.

She hoped that once her family saw that this wasn't futile, they would join her. Even though right now they didn't believe - believing she was more or less signing a death sentence.

But Crystal had to hope for a better life.

The building was nondescript, but Crystal was sure, somehow, that she had the right address.

She walked in, quietly, taking note of all available exit points, just in case.

JP and Alex (it works because Kari said so)

[thenorthstar]

Jean-Paul is having the worst year of his entire life. And he has had some terrible years. He thought there would never be anything worse than the year his sister was tortured, saved, and then begged to come home to hide where she felt she belonged - just when Jean-Paul was trying to make a life in New York.

But things had gotten better. Jeanne-Marie was stronger, sometimes. And Jean-Paul had found the purpose he'd always longed for in sports. Skiing suited his mutation but didn't totally draw from it; it was like he finally had a way to channel this thing he couldn't bear to live with.

And he did it. He won gold.

And he was outed as a mutant, stripped of his medal, and all but exiled.

Jean-Paul didn't know how to come back from it; his pride was too great for this blow.

So, New York. Again. So, museums, and coffee alone, his sister too afraid to venture out unless she was too comfortable to venture out.

Usually the park wasn't his thing, but there he was at Madison Square Park, relishing the brisk chill of oncoming fall, idly watching squirrels, clutching a cup of (bad) coffee. Trying to learn to be still.

Wanda and Pietro

[quicksilvery]

They were supposed to be finally free. They were supposed to be fine. No spectre of their father hanging over their heads. No need to repress their love. No need to be anything except their perfect, uncompromising selves.

Pietro was supposed to be finally, finally able to love Wanda with all the fierceness of his wretched heart in their own home.

But Lorna, their father's fucktoy/mentee/imaginary daughter, was in their home. Their safest place. Their only place.

He thought he might go mad.

He was lying facedown on the couch, one hand tapping by his side - so fast that it was nothing more than a soundless blur - waiting for Wanda to come home from class, for their precious hour or so before Lorna would show up.