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ax_mainTommy introduces Wanda to the werewolves over lunch. No one’s fast friends, but foundations are laid all the same - Tommy may live to regret this…
Brigitte stared at her sandwich, willing it to become more appetizing. She didn't get as sick as Ginger post-cure, but she tended to feel low-grade gross longer. And that mostly resulted in her being totally uninterested in food for a day or so. Picking off a bit of crust, she let it slowly dissolve on her tongue before swallowing, absently contemplating all the digestive enzymes in saliva. They were probably the reason they couldn't take the cure orally.
God, it had sucked to find that out.
Brigitte turned to her left to say something, anything, to Ginger as an excuse not to eat, but her gut clenched at the slice of greasy pizza Ginger was demolishing. Fuck, thank god her sense of smell was back to human levels.
Ginger wasn't paying attention, not really. She was on her third piece of pizza, a fourth waiting on her tray, but her focus was on the rest of the room. She was hungry.
...and not just for food.
She'd done this enough times now that she knew all the signs, but knowing didn't stop the ache. There were fine streaks of silver in her hair, and the beginnings of fangs in her mouth. Her body temp was up to, but that was only the second reason why she was wearing only a cropped, velvety black top (though it conveniently covered the scars on both her shoulder and her ribs) and a plaid miniskirt. Add her beat up leather boots and the bird skull necklace resting between her breasts, and it was obvious what else she was hungry for.
"Ugh," Ginger griped, dropping the half-eaten slice gracelessly onto the plate without taking her eyes off the lunch crowd, which showed a distinct lack of prospects. "I'm so fucking horny."
Brigitte, in a much more sedate long green and black plaid skirt and an oversized dark blue cable knit sweater, looked blankly at her sister for a good five seconds. She blinked, processed that, blinked again, and finally managed a vaguely disgusted, "Gross" before hunching back over her food.
Across the cafeteria, his tray loaded high, Tommy scanned the room looking for a likely table. He paused when he spotted Ginger and her sister, as scowly as ever. They'd obviously figured out where the stores were, since he was pretty damn sure Xavier never handed out loaner clothes that looked like that. Which was a crying shame. Still, they didn't look anywhere closer to relaxing than Ginger had when they'd met, and he decided to play out his hunch and see where it took him.
It only took him a second to find Wanda, and he slid in next to her at her table with a more serious nod than usual.
"Hey kiddo, what's up?" Wanda asked, crooked smile betraying no surprise at Tommy's sudden appearance and only a little at his expression.
"I'm considering some social engineering," Tommy replied, folding his arms on the table and frowning across the room rather than launch straight into eating. "Unless you and Xavier have a no-poaching agreement on newbies. And I'm not suggesting recruitment, just... there are a couple of new girls I kind of want you to meet. For their sake more than yours."
"O-kaaay." Wanda's eyebrows rose and she set down her fork and smiled. "You've got my attention. Why would the new girls benefit from meeting me, exactly?"
"Because they're pissed at the world, about the same as I was when I got here, but they're not chilling. And if they start running again, they're not going to get far before someone worse picks them up," he answered bluntly, nodding across the room to where Ginger and her sister were glaring at their plates. "Knowing there are other groups out there with back-watching possibilities might keep them alive longer."
Wanda turned to see who Tommy was indicating, and saw a pair of irritable looking girls, one of whom was wolfing down pizza while the other looked at her food as if it were possible it was going to jump off the plate and bite her. "Runaway sisters?" she guessed as she turned back to Tommy. "What do they do?"
"The hot one's a werewolf, and the quiet one sees ghosts or some shit. Horror movie stuff. The redhead's the one that bit Scott when he was leading the big hero rescue." Tommy snorted softly, and shoved some food into his face while she considered things. "It's real Hot Topic over there. Very Edgelord. But they've got some reason to be, considering the shit Ginger mentioned they've been through. Rehab, detox, the usual street kid routine, but with the whole 'locked up 'cause their powers freak people out' mutant thing on top to make life real fun."
"So, basically the typical Brotherhood recruit, you're saying?" Wanda made a face. He wasn't wrong about that part, and she definitely wanted to help, but there was something he didn't know. "Are you sure you don't want me to send Eileen over? Or Lance? I don't exactly have a great track record with the girls. Even your half-sister pretty much told me to fuck off."
"TJ did that?" Tommy's eyebrows went up. "Hunh. I'd be willing to bet that's more about whatever version of the Brotherhood she's familiar with in her world than with you specifically. She just about came out of her skin when I mentioned the name. I don't think those two have a great track record with anyone yet, honestly. You couldn't do worse."
"I have. Fatale threatened me with a knife." Wanda smiled faintly, remembering, then sighed. Obviously, this was important to Tommy - and just as obviously, she was going to give in and do it, just on that basis. She might as well just get it over with. "Fine, I'll talk to them." She cocked an eyebrow and eyed him curiously. "Did they really bite Scott? I've seriously got to give him shit about that - he never tells the interesting stories. Though I suppose that'd fall in the category of 'team activities'."
"Fatale threatens everyone with knives, me included." Though markedly less so over the last couple of months. "As for Scott... I heard it from Bobby, admittedly, but Ginger admitted it when I asked. She was in the middle of wolfing out or whatever it is her powers do when they go off, and he got in the way." And Tommy bit his tongue hard on saying anything else about Scott-fucking-Summers. He couldn't begin to understand why Wanda liked him, but since she did, he wasn't going to trash talk. Much.
"Come on," Tommy stood up and grabbed his tray, effectively changing the subject. "I'll introduce you. I'm definitely not Ginger's favourite person, but it's probably better than going in alone."
"You're making this sound seriously ominous," Wanda pointed out. She picked up her tray, however, and got ready to follow Tommy over. An introduction couldn't hurt.
A moment later, Tommy pulled out a chair for Wanda and then slid in to another one across from Ginger and Brigitte with a smile and a nod. "Ladies."
Brigitte froze when two people sat down at their table. At least she was used to the crazy friendliness of this place, enough that she could suppress most of her initial fear response. Also, being afraid sounded exhausting right now. Still, it was best to be cautious. With her head still tilted down, she looked them over. She didn't know the girl at all, except to know that she wasn't always around. The silver haired guy she was pretty sure was the one Ginger had spoken to early on. Tommy? The one who had been experimented on, and who was notable in that Ginger hadn't immediately wanted to destroy him, despite calling him a smart ass. Concluding that he must want to talk to Ginger, she swung her gaze over to her sister.
Ginger narrowed her eyes at Tommy, then at the girl with him. The fuck was this? She glared at Tommy again, and demanded bluntly, "What?"
"Nice to see you're settling in so well," Tommy batted the awkward right back at her. "Wanda, meet Ginger and Brigitte. They're new in town. Ginger, Wanda. And hi-" he nodded at Brigitte with a faint wry smile. "I'm Tommy. Finder of cookies and accidental welcome wagon. I assume I've already been soundly mocked and need no other introduction."
"And yet he introduces himself anyway." Wanda rolled her eyes but gave him a fond smile before turning back towards the girls. "Hey. I'd welcome you to Mutant High, but the irony'd be a bit much, considering I turned down the invite to move in."
Brigitte, after closing her eyes briefly in exasperation at Ginger's "greeting," had no idea how to respond to Tommy's introduction and therefore decided to move past it. She looked Wanda over curiously before settling her gaze on the table between them. A head tilt the only blatant signal of her interest, she commented, "I didn't think bald- uh, the Professor, would go for commuter students."
Ginger leaned almost imperceptibly toward Brigitte, elbows on the table and clearly sizing Wanda up over her last pizza slice. This wasn't some random social call. Tommy'd brought her here for a reason. "So," she began, voice syrupy sweet and a sarcastic smile in place, "what kind of freak are you?"
Wanda directed her attention to her glass. A moment later, it visibly shattered, but all the pieces remained in place and the tiny bit of water left in it began to only slowly leak out onto her tray from between the cracks. She looked back to Ginger and belatedly returned the girl's smile with an equally sweet one of her own. "One you don't want to fuck with. Done posturing now?"
Turning her attention to Brigitte as if nothing had happened, she shrugged. "I'm with the Brotherhood. The usual rules don't apply."
Tommy hadn't been sure what Wanda was going to do, but this new hex trick was one he hadn't seen before. He hunched over to get a better look, poking experimentally at one of the larger shards at the bottom of the glass
Brigitte, already wary from seeing Wanda shatter a glass with her mind, flinched a little when it collapsed at Tommy's prodding. He seemed more curious than tense, so she didn't think the demonstration had meant to be a threat, just darkly impressive. Flicking her gaze between the two and the glass, she swallowed her nerves and asked, "The brotherhood?"
“Wicked,” Ginger decided, impressed and clearly amused as the glass collapsed as Tommy messed with it. Now that was a bad-ass ability. And enough for her to overlook the ‘posturing’ comment. For now, at least.
Wanda's lips quirked up in a smile at Ginger's reaction, but she turned to the other girl. "Did you see the thing on TV with the guy who announced that mutants weren't going to sit back and be victims? He maybe got a little carried away," which was an easier way to explain it than getting into mind control with someone she'd never met, "but that's the general idea. We've got our own place - a few of us are taking some classes here, but we're not really part of the school."
Tommy snorted softly at the 'carried away' line, but he supposed that was as good an explanation of the old man's break with reality than anything else. He sat back, poking Wanda affectionately in the shoulder. "These assholes think they're so cool just 'cause they've got arcade machines," he joked, grabbing his fork again to keep eating.
"And given the amount of time you and Alex spend playing them? We're apparently right." Wanda smirked at him, then turned her attention back to the girls and shrugged.
Brigitte frowned. She sort of remembered that video, but she has been too worried with not starving or running out of the cure at the time to care about mutant politics. She did remember it sounding a little psycho dictator-y, and she didn't think that the Professor would be cool with that kind of belief growing in his school. "So... do you guys want to crush the humans, or was that the 'carried away' part?"
Ginger snorted a laugh into her drink. Arcade games, crushing humans... this was sounding more fun all the time.
"Mmm...let's go with we're mostly interested in crushing the humans who give us a good reason to crush them." Wanda made a face. "Unfortunately, there's not exactly a shortage. I'm guessing Xavier's at least warning newbies about the Right?" she asked, glancing over at Tommy for confirmation.
"As far as I know," Tommy shrugged. "I don't sit in on first day orientations. But it doesn't seem to come as a huge surprise."
Brigitte looked over at Tommy's arms, remember what Ginger had said about his scars. But she'd thought they were sort of a fringe threat, after all, there were so few mutants, how many could they have captured? Unless... they were why there were so few mutants. She paled and reached under the table to grasp Ginger's elbow, imagining what might have happened had they been captured by someone else after the library incident, or hell, any time they had been living in that van. Swinging her head up to actually look Wanda in the eye, she asked, voice low and serious, "How many of those fucks are actually out there?"
Ginger frowned as she felt B's touch on her arm, instinctively shifting her weight so she was both leaning into Brigitte and into the table, pulling the focus more onto herself - and her cleavage - while they waited for Wanda's answer.
"Good question. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer." Wanda made a face. "We took out one base last year. Tommy was responsible for them cutting their losses and abandoning another. We haven't found where they moved to, though - and we don't have any way of knowing whether or not they have more than one facility going at a time."
"And it's not just them -- there are subsidiaries. The guys who had Laura in Arizona weren't the same people, but they were connected. Different MO, same thing they wanted," Tommy added, his eyes on Wanda before he glanced away again, looking at the other girls. He'd folded his arms without realizing it, elbows tight and his inner arms covered. "Messing with our powers. That's where you need to worry about the child-soldier bullshit." Tommy smiled tightly.
Brigitte thought about commenting on the fact that bad guys weren't the only ones who could make child soldiers, and that love was just as twisted a motivator as fear... For fucks sake, they lived in America, land of the blindly patriotic. But she hurt too much to get into a pointless argument, and she wanted her questions answered more. "So, you took out the base? Or you took out the people?" She narrowed her eyes as she asked and flicked her eyes meaningfully down at the shattered glass.
“Both, hopefully,” Ginger said darkly, eyes flickering with an edge of something angry, and predatory. Memories of being caged, being drugged, being attacked, came swirling to the top of her mind. It hadn’t been the same, no, but close enough to remind her of the rage, and the power that came with it.
"Both," Wanda confirmed, not glancing over at Tommy. Either he knew about what Fatale had done or he didn't; now wasn't the time to get into it.
"It's an ongoing project," Tommy added, his tone a little flatter than it had been. "Extracurricular."
"Hmm," Brigitte leaned back so she was tucked behind Ginger's shoulder, hiding a wince behind the fall of her hair at her muscles protesting the movement. This was the most engaged she'd seen Ginger since they arrived. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Sure, fuck up mutant hating assholes, seemed like a good goal. She just wasn't sure she wanted to do the fighting. But Ginger loved any excuse to fight, when she was turning.
Ginger’s eyes flitted from Tommy back to Wanda, who was easily the most interesting person they’d met so far. Breaking shit with her mind and talking about fucking people up over lunch in the cafeteria? Finally, someone real. With an approving little smirk to Wanda, she just said, “Sweet.”
"Not sure about sweet, but someone's gotta do it." Wanda smirked back at the girl. "Sound like something you'd be interested in?"
A frown flitted across Tommy's face, mostly aimed at Wanda. Of course he'd brought them together so that Wanda could talk to them, but he'd been imagining something a little less overt-recruitment. Now that she was actually showing interest in them, he found himself getting irritated without quite knowing why. "The point is," he broke in, "there are more options than either staying and drinking Xavier's Kool-aid, or running again. A lot of us here straddle the line."
Brigitte slowly let out the breath she'd taken to interject, trying to stop Ginger from possibly volunteering them for something they hadn't had time to think through yet. In the face of Tommy's backtracking she offered, "It's definitely something we'd like to learn more about." She was a little worried Wanda might only be interested in her sister's violent tendencies - people generally were only interested in Ginger - so she warned, "But we come as a pair." No way was she letting Ginger leave her behind again.
"No shit," Ginger muttered at B, not sure why she was making it weird. She did like that Tommy seemed uncomfortable though. "So, what's your side of the line like?"
Wanda, for her part, shot Tommy a look of genuine confusion before turning her attention back to the girls. So far as she could tell, she'd done what he asked - why he was being weird about it she had no idea. "You should come check us out some time, you can see for yourself," she told Ginger, then looked over at her generally quieter sister. "And yeah, I figured you came as a pair. You're sisters, right? I wouldn't ask one of you and not the other."
Apparently Ginger had forgotten how she'd just ditched Brigitte for a month after the jock invited her, and only her, into his circle. Whatever. Not like Brigitte had wanted to hang with those brain dead jizzbags anyway. She looked down and nodded at the table. "Yeah."
Tommy caught the movement and stole a moment to look the quiet one over more closely. She was doing the toe-forward-two-steps-back dance, like she was testing the waters very carefully. What was the deal? Was she afraid of Ginger? Or more to the point -- who had made Brigitte afraid of the world, and was Ginger helping or not? Family dynamics were the worst thing ever. She didn't look like anyone was hitting her, anyway. Even if that didn't always mean anything.
Ginger's eyes were on Wanda again, faint smile tugging at her lips. Most people were freaked out by them, the sisters with matching bird skull necklaces and weird clothes. And usually they liked it that way, but Wanda seemed like she got the inseparable thing. "Where can we find you?"
"Here's probably easiest - I've got classes a few days a week, and I usually hang out after to see what kind of trouble this one and his brother are causing." She jerked her head over towards Tommy and smirked. "I call Fatale to open a portal home if she's not here - you can just hitch a ride through. Or if she's here and I'm not, just ask her - you can't miss her, she's blue and her arm's in a cast."
Brigitte nodded at the table again and cleared her throat, feeling utterly drained for some reason. She'd blame the monkshood. "We'll do that."
The annoyance prickling at Tommy subsided once Wanda had stopped trying to invite the sisters along on the Right-busting missions. None of them had a stake in it the way the lab rats did; maybe that's why the conversation had been making him feel itchy. "I'd ask if you found Salem Center after all, but given the wardrobe changes I'm gonna guess that's a yes." And holy hell on Ginger's cleavage, but somehow ogling a girl's boobs while sitting next to Wanda felt wrong.
"Long fucking walk," Ginger griped at him. Seemed like these Brotherhood types had much better transportation options, not to mention bad ass powers.
"Told you to hook up with a teleporter," he pointed out right back with a flash of an insolent grin. "They're good people to know."
Brigitte looked back and forth between the two with vague horror. Was this... flirting?
Ginger just stared at him with her most unimpressed face, taking a large and somehow very sarcastic bite out of her pizza crust.
"You haven't introduced them to Mage?" Wanda asked Tommy, surprised. Turning back to the girls, she shrugged. "She's another option if you want a lift to our place. She's in and out all the time anyway."
"I offered, Ginger growled, I decided it would be a lot funnier to let them work it out on their own." Tommy finished his lunch and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.
Brigitte was starting to dislike this guy. Not that they needed help to walk a few miles in the snow, but still. She tried to cut that whole mess off, looking at Wanda again. "Is she blue, too?"
Ginger was still glaring at Tommy. "I don't growl," she told him flatly.
Wanda wasn't altogether sure she believed that, but considering Tommy'd dug himself in, she left him to get himself out again and turned to Brigitte instead. "Nah, blonde hair, blue eyes." She glanced around the room and jerked her chin towards where the other girl was sitting with her roommate. "Over there. Teleporting with her means you have a stopover in hell, but I think she's got it under control."
Brigitte flicked her gaze to the girl then back to Wanda. Then she re-ran what she just heard and blinked slowly. "In hell."
"Hell, Limbo - whatever." Wanda shrugged, then smirked. "You two don't seem like you scare easy. Shouldn't be a problem."
"It's a lot chiller there since we blew up Belasco," Tommy replied easily. "Nothing hassled us when Yana took us to Disney."
"Are you telling me that mutant powers have proven Judaeo-Christian theology?" Brigitte was waiting for one of them to give up the joke.
Ginger's eyes had narrowed as she glanced between them, not even sure what they were talking about anymore. Belasco? Disney? "This some kind of joke?"
"No, it's too weird to joke about," Wanda admitted. She made a face. "And...not really, I'd say? Different dimension. I don't know a whole lot about it, but from the sounds of it, it was shaped to look like someone's idea of hell? So I don't think I'd use it as any kind of proof of religion, myself. Just proof that people can be really fucked up." She waved it aside. "Anyway, it's a travel option. If you don't want to brave it, catch Fatale or the purple girl - they go direct."
"Clarice is purple," Tommy clarified, then did it again in a halfway decent Anthony Hopkins riff. "Clariiice. I've got history class with her. She's alright."
Brigitte stared at Tommy from the corner of her eyes, still wary. "So, like, is everyone here actually in the Brotherhood, or did you just bag all the transporters?"
Wanda laughed and shook her head. "Neither. There's..." she paused a moment, "ten of us total. Five of us taking classes here - the rest don't want to, and we're not going to make them." She cocked her head towards Tommy. "This guy and his brother are family; Tommy lives here," she made a face at him, but one which was obviously teasing rather than annoyed, "but as far as I can tell, he spends about half his time at our place. Illyana's dating one of our guys but is a student here. I'm pretty sure Clarice knows where we live, but Fatale's our only teleporter."
"I'm not the teleporter," Tommy clarified quickly, just in case Brigitte got the wrong idea. "My brother is." And that still felt so weird to say. But just saying 'Billy' wasn't going to make anything clearer at all. He grinned at Wanda with a bright flare of mischief. "And if you're getting sick of my face around your place, ground me."
Brigitte had no idea what to say to any of that, so fell back on her usual response of saying nothing at all.
"Hilarious," Ginger deadpanned at Tommy, totally uninterested in their inside jokes.
"Actually, he pretty much is," Wanda observed, turning back to Ginger with a look that made it clear that snarky comments at family members wouldn't be tolerated. "Is there anything else you wanted to know?"
After considering for a moment, Brigitte shook her head.
Ginger's focus was back on Wanda, but she couldn't quite get a total read on her. Definitely worth poking at some more. "When can we visit?"
"Gimme your phone." Wanda held out her hand. "I'll put my number in - you can give a call, make sure we're around."
All goofing and Wanda-teasing aside, Tommy watched Brigitte fold in on herself and he wondered again exactly what the deal was with the two girls. "You can have mine, if you want it," he offered Brigitte, a little more quietly. "Not making a move here -- but if Wanda's not around, I can run interference or make introductions."
Brigitte squinted at him, confused. She had no idea what the guy's deal was. She bit her lower lip before pulling out and unlocking her phone. She stared at the background photo - a selfie Ginger had taken, her arm casually looped over Brigitte's shoulder as they stared deadpan at the phone camera. She hesitated for a second before deciding that whatever, he could try to judge her for it, and handed the phone over. "Okay, sure."
Ginger was already handing her phone to Wanda, but spared a glance for whatever was happening with Tommy and B. The fuck did he think he was doing? Definitely playing her. She bumped her leg into Brigitte's under the table.
Tommy didn't notice whatever drama was taking place on the other side of the table, tapping his number in to the phone that Brigitte had handed him. It took forever to register each number, at least in comparison to the upgraded phone Kitty'd made for him months ago.
Brigitte clutched the phone as soon as Tommy gave it back, still wary of him. She couldn't tell if he was boisterous or calm or rude or helpful, which bugged her. A lot.
The awkward phone-exchange over, Ginger glanced around the room, clearly unimpressed but curious. “Anyone else with you that we’d know?”
Hmmm. Wanda looked around the cafeteria, then shrugged. "Not who's here right now, anyway."
Tommy tried to think back to places he'd seen the girls, a couple of conversations he'd mostly ignored at the time... "Don't you guys both have History class with Alex? That's the only one I can think of."
Brigitte considered, then slowly nodded. Another blond kid, intermittently around.
"The other Summers?" Ginger asked, surprising herself by remembering something from their previous talk.
"The one you didn't bite, yeah." Wanda quirked an eyebrow. "Do you do that a lot, by the way? Because from my side, that'd be a good thing to know."
Tommy snorted, not bothering to try and control the impulse. He hadn't known what to expect from the meeting, but the combination of sulking and bitchy vs Wanda's take-no-shit was just too funny. "Did you just ask her if they always bite on the first date? Kinky."
Wanda turned towards him, eyebrows raised and looking none-too-impressed. Yeah, it was funny - but it was the wrong time for funny. This was serious. "Grounded. Effective immediately. Behave yourself."
Tommy flashed her a W-for-whatever with his hands against his forehead, slouching back in his chair. "You're not my real mom." But he did shut up after that. For the moment.
Brigitte made a disgusted face at Tommy's question, and she was really confused by all the grounded talk and the mom comment (seriously, talk about kinky). But she honestly couldn't care less right now. "We'll defend ourselves." She just didn't mention that defense hadn't really been Ginger's motivation.
Good thing Brigitte was up to holding the conversation for the moment, because Ginger was still looking at Tommy like he'd just crawled out of a sewer - and like she could smell it. Kinky. Christ, fucking teenage boys couldn't get through lunch without making it about their dicks. Fucking typical, he was only here to get in their pants...
"Well, yeah. I'd expect that." Wanda looked from one of the girls to the other, then sighed. "Okay, you're pissed at Tommy, whatever. Just answer the question. Does that shit just happen? Or only when you're threatened, or...what? Because if you're gonna get bent out of shape over stupid bullshit, you're not gonna like our place much. And I promise I'm not okay with you biting my team just because they're being stupid."
"I don't bite," Brigitte gritted out. She was offended, but the rational part of her brain recognized that Wanda had a right to ask before opening up her doors. "Ginger had bitten two people in the five months she's been turned, once when she was," she glanced at Ginger, rolled her eyes, "horny and didn't know it would do anything, and once when we were out of our minds and felt attacked."
"Oh my fucking god, B." Ginger rolled her eyes, then looked back to Wanda. "We take a drug to keep from going full wolf and biting people. It sucks, but it works."
Unless they felt threatened, or the drug ran out. Still, it was an honest answer, and Wanda nodded. "Fair enough."
Tommy was finished with his lunch and getting bored with the conversation, still for too long. He pushed his chair back with a scrape against the floor and grabbed his tray. "This has been scintillating and all, but I have to jet. Ladies." He nodded to the Grumpy Sisters with a sharp grin. "I'm hanging with Alex this afternoon, so I'll probably see you back at your place," he added for Wanda as he stood.
Brigitte watched Tommy go, puzzled. He called them dumbass things like ladies but didn't seem overly skeevy, introduced them to Wanda but got weird about them joining her. She gave him a small nod of acknowledgement, and decided she'd figure it out later.
Ginger gave him an ew-face for the 'ladies' thing, but didn't say anything about it, turning back to Wanda with a look that was intense but also uncertain. "What's 'fair enough' mean?"
"See you then," Wanda replied to Tommy, smiling. She turned back to Ginger and shrugged. "It means fair enough. You can keep it in check." She let her smile fade, and met the other girl's eyes levelly. "I'm not gonna lie to you. A lot of my teammates give a new meaning to lack of social skills. It's their home; you're going to have to deal. If you can handle that? You're welcome to stop by, any time." If not? They were maybe better off here, where adults could jump in and play intermediary when personalities clashed. Fuck knew she didn't have the patience for that.
Not the best recruitment technique, but Brigitte couldn't fault the warning given their personalities. Still, she was staying out of whatever vibe Ginger and Wanda were creating.
Ginger could feel her sister’s wariness without needing even a glance at her, so she focused on Wanda, saying sarcastically, “Assholes and arcade machines - you sure know how to sell the place, don’t you?”
For all that it sounded like a bitchy comment, she was watching Wanda with unguarded interest, and the underlying question was real - how is that better than here?
"Or maybe I don't figure we need a sales pitch?" Wanda's eyebrows climbed, and she got to her feet and picked up her tray. "If you guys decide you don't like it here? Come check it out. We may not have the full service cafeteria, but we make a difference. I figure it's more than a fair trade." She turned towards Brigitte and smiled. "Nice to meet you." And turned to walk away.
Ooookay. Brigitte was intrigued, almost despite herself. She turned her head towards Ginger. "Well. That was interesting."
Ginger was scowling, but not too put out. B was right, this was interesting. “Field trip?”
"Not like we have anything better to do," Brigitte replied, playing down her interest.
Ginger wasn't fooled, but whatever, that meant they were on the same page. They'd wait a few days, of course, but that went without saying. Bored now, Ginger watched Wanda disappear. Definitely interesting.
Brigitte stared at her sandwich, willing it to become more appetizing. She didn't get as sick as Ginger post-cure, but she tended to feel low-grade gross longer. And that mostly resulted in her being totally uninterested in food for a day or so. Picking off a bit of crust, she let it slowly dissolve on her tongue before swallowing, absently contemplating all the digestive enzymes in saliva. They were probably the reason they couldn't take the cure orally.
God, it had sucked to find that out.
Brigitte turned to her left to say something, anything, to Ginger as an excuse not to eat, but her gut clenched at the slice of greasy pizza Ginger was demolishing. Fuck, thank god her sense of smell was back to human levels.
Ginger wasn't paying attention, not really. She was on her third piece of pizza, a fourth waiting on her tray, but her focus was on the rest of the room. She was hungry.
...and not just for food.
She'd done this enough times now that she knew all the signs, but knowing didn't stop the ache. There were fine streaks of silver in her hair, and the beginnings of fangs in her mouth. Her body temp was up to, but that was only the second reason why she was wearing only a cropped, velvety black top (though it conveniently covered the scars on both her shoulder and her ribs) and a plaid miniskirt. Add her beat up leather boots and the bird skull necklace resting between her breasts, and it was obvious what else she was hungry for.
"Ugh," Ginger griped, dropping the half-eaten slice gracelessly onto the plate without taking her eyes off the lunch crowd, which showed a distinct lack of prospects. "I'm so fucking horny."
Brigitte, in a much more sedate long green and black plaid skirt and an oversized dark blue cable knit sweater, looked blankly at her sister for a good five seconds. She blinked, processed that, blinked again, and finally managed a vaguely disgusted, "Gross" before hunching back over her food.
Across the cafeteria, his tray loaded high, Tommy scanned the room looking for a likely table. He paused when he spotted Ginger and her sister, as scowly as ever. They'd obviously figured out where the stores were, since he was pretty damn sure Xavier never handed out loaner clothes that looked like that. Which was a crying shame. Still, they didn't look anywhere closer to relaxing than Ginger had when they'd met, and he decided to play out his hunch and see where it took him.
It only took him a second to find Wanda, and he slid in next to her at her table with a more serious nod than usual.
"Hey kiddo, what's up?" Wanda asked, crooked smile betraying no surprise at Tommy's sudden appearance and only a little at his expression.
"I'm considering some social engineering," Tommy replied, folding his arms on the table and frowning across the room rather than launch straight into eating. "Unless you and Xavier have a no-poaching agreement on newbies. And I'm not suggesting recruitment, just... there are a couple of new girls I kind of want you to meet. For their sake more than yours."
"O-kaaay." Wanda's eyebrows rose and she set down her fork and smiled. "You've got my attention. Why would the new girls benefit from meeting me, exactly?"
"Because they're pissed at the world, about the same as I was when I got here, but they're not chilling. And if they start running again, they're not going to get far before someone worse picks them up," he answered bluntly, nodding across the room to where Ginger and her sister were glaring at their plates. "Knowing there are other groups out there with back-watching possibilities might keep them alive longer."
Wanda turned to see who Tommy was indicating, and saw a pair of irritable looking girls, one of whom was wolfing down pizza while the other looked at her food as if it were possible it was going to jump off the plate and bite her. "Runaway sisters?" she guessed as she turned back to Tommy. "What do they do?"
"The hot one's a werewolf, and the quiet one sees ghosts or some shit. Horror movie stuff. The redhead's the one that bit Scott when he was leading the big hero rescue." Tommy snorted softly, and shoved some food into his face while she considered things. "It's real Hot Topic over there. Very Edgelord. But they've got some reason to be, considering the shit Ginger mentioned they've been through. Rehab, detox, the usual street kid routine, but with the whole 'locked up 'cause their powers freak people out' mutant thing on top to make life real fun."
"So, basically the typical Brotherhood recruit, you're saying?" Wanda made a face. He wasn't wrong about that part, and she definitely wanted to help, but there was something he didn't know. "Are you sure you don't want me to send Eileen over? Or Lance? I don't exactly have a great track record with the girls. Even your half-sister pretty much told me to fuck off."
"TJ did that?" Tommy's eyebrows went up. "Hunh. I'd be willing to bet that's more about whatever version of the Brotherhood she's familiar with in her world than with you specifically. She just about came out of her skin when I mentioned the name. I don't think those two have a great track record with anyone yet, honestly. You couldn't do worse."
"I have. Fatale threatened me with a knife." Wanda smiled faintly, remembering, then sighed. Obviously, this was important to Tommy - and just as obviously, she was going to give in and do it, just on that basis. She might as well just get it over with. "Fine, I'll talk to them." She cocked an eyebrow and eyed him curiously. "Did they really bite Scott? I've seriously got to give him shit about that - he never tells the interesting stories. Though I suppose that'd fall in the category of 'team activities'."
"Fatale threatens everyone with knives, me included." Though markedly less so over the last couple of months. "As for Scott... I heard it from Bobby, admittedly, but Ginger admitted it when I asked. She was in the middle of wolfing out or whatever it is her powers do when they go off, and he got in the way." And Tommy bit his tongue hard on saying anything else about Scott-fucking-Summers. He couldn't begin to understand why Wanda liked him, but since she did, he wasn't going to trash talk. Much.
"Come on," Tommy stood up and grabbed his tray, effectively changing the subject. "I'll introduce you. I'm definitely not Ginger's favourite person, but it's probably better than going in alone."
"You're making this sound seriously ominous," Wanda pointed out. She picked up her tray, however, and got ready to follow Tommy over. An introduction couldn't hurt.
A moment later, Tommy pulled out a chair for Wanda and then slid in to another one across from Ginger and Brigitte with a smile and a nod. "Ladies."
Brigitte froze when two people sat down at their table. At least she was used to the crazy friendliness of this place, enough that she could suppress most of her initial fear response. Also, being afraid sounded exhausting right now. Still, it was best to be cautious. With her head still tilted down, she looked them over. She didn't know the girl at all, except to know that she wasn't always around. The silver haired guy she was pretty sure was the one Ginger had spoken to early on. Tommy? The one who had been experimented on, and who was notable in that Ginger hadn't immediately wanted to destroy him, despite calling him a smart ass. Concluding that he must want to talk to Ginger, she swung her gaze over to her sister.
Ginger narrowed her eyes at Tommy, then at the girl with him. The fuck was this? She glared at Tommy again, and demanded bluntly, "What?"
"Nice to see you're settling in so well," Tommy batted the awkward right back at her. "Wanda, meet Ginger and Brigitte. They're new in town. Ginger, Wanda. And hi-" he nodded at Brigitte with a faint wry smile. "I'm Tommy. Finder of cookies and accidental welcome wagon. I assume I've already been soundly mocked and need no other introduction."
"And yet he introduces himself anyway." Wanda rolled her eyes but gave him a fond smile before turning back towards the girls. "Hey. I'd welcome you to Mutant High, but the irony'd be a bit much, considering I turned down the invite to move in."
Brigitte, after closing her eyes briefly in exasperation at Ginger's "greeting," had no idea how to respond to Tommy's introduction and therefore decided to move past it. She looked Wanda over curiously before settling her gaze on the table between them. A head tilt the only blatant signal of her interest, she commented, "I didn't think bald- uh, the Professor, would go for commuter students."
Ginger leaned almost imperceptibly toward Brigitte, elbows on the table and clearly sizing Wanda up over her last pizza slice. This wasn't some random social call. Tommy'd brought her here for a reason. "So," she began, voice syrupy sweet and a sarcastic smile in place, "what kind of freak are you?"
Wanda directed her attention to her glass. A moment later, it visibly shattered, but all the pieces remained in place and the tiny bit of water left in it began to only slowly leak out onto her tray from between the cracks. She looked back to Ginger and belatedly returned the girl's smile with an equally sweet one of her own. "One you don't want to fuck with. Done posturing now?"
Turning her attention to Brigitte as if nothing had happened, she shrugged. "I'm with the Brotherhood. The usual rules don't apply."
Tommy hadn't been sure what Wanda was going to do, but this new hex trick was one he hadn't seen before. He hunched over to get a better look, poking experimentally at one of the larger shards at the bottom of the glass
Brigitte, already wary from seeing Wanda shatter a glass with her mind, flinched a little when it collapsed at Tommy's prodding. He seemed more curious than tense, so she didn't think the demonstration had meant to be a threat, just darkly impressive. Flicking her gaze between the two and the glass, she swallowed her nerves and asked, "The brotherhood?"
“Wicked,” Ginger decided, impressed and clearly amused as the glass collapsed as Tommy messed with it. Now that was a bad-ass ability. And enough for her to overlook the ‘posturing’ comment. For now, at least.
Wanda's lips quirked up in a smile at Ginger's reaction, but she turned to the other girl. "Did you see the thing on TV with the guy who announced that mutants weren't going to sit back and be victims? He maybe got a little carried away," which was an easier way to explain it than getting into mind control with someone she'd never met, "but that's the general idea. We've got our own place - a few of us are taking some classes here, but we're not really part of the school."
Tommy snorted softly at the 'carried away' line, but he supposed that was as good an explanation of the old man's break with reality than anything else. He sat back, poking Wanda affectionately in the shoulder. "These assholes think they're so cool just 'cause they've got arcade machines," he joked, grabbing his fork again to keep eating.
"And given the amount of time you and Alex spend playing them? We're apparently right." Wanda smirked at him, then turned her attention back to the girls and shrugged.
Brigitte frowned. She sort of remembered that video, but she has been too worried with not starving or running out of the cure at the time to care about mutant politics. She did remember it sounding a little psycho dictator-y, and she didn't think that the Professor would be cool with that kind of belief growing in his school. "So... do you guys want to crush the humans, or was that the 'carried away' part?"
Ginger snorted a laugh into her drink. Arcade games, crushing humans... this was sounding more fun all the time.
"Mmm...let's go with we're mostly interested in crushing the humans who give us a good reason to crush them." Wanda made a face. "Unfortunately, there's not exactly a shortage. I'm guessing Xavier's at least warning newbies about the Right?" she asked, glancing over at Tommy for confirmation.
"As far as I know," Tommy shrugged. "I don't sit in on first day orientations. But it doesn't seem to come as a huge surprise."
Brigitte looked over at Tommy's arms, remember what Ginger had said about his scars. But she'd thought they were sort of a fringe threat, after all, there were so few mutants, how many could they have captured? Unless... they were why there were so few mutants. She paled and reached under the table to grasp Ginger's elbow, imagining what might have happened had they been captured by someone else after the library incident, or hell, any time they had been living in that van. Swinging her head up to actually look Wanda in the eye, she asked, voice low and serious, "How many of those fucks are actually out there?"
Ginger frowned as she felt B's touch on her arm, instinctively shifting her weight so she was both leaning into Brigitte and into the table, pulling the focus more onto herself - and her cleavage - while they waited for Wanda's answer.
"Good question. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer." Wanda made a face. "We took out one base last year. Tommy was responsible for them cutting their losses and abandoning another. We haven't found where they moved to, though - and we don't have any way of knowing whether or not they have more than one facility going at a time."
"And it's not just them -- there are subsidiaries. The guys who had Laura in Arizona weren't the same people, but they were connected. Different MO, same thing they wanted," Tommy added, his eyes on Wanda before he glanced away again, looking at the other girls. He'd folded his arms without realizing it, elbows tight and his inner arms covered. "Messing with our powers. That's where you need to worry about the child-soldier bullshit." Tommy smiled tightly.
Brigitte thought about commenting on the fact that bad guys weren't the only ones who could make child soldiers, and that love was just as twisted a motivator as fear... For fucks sake, they lived in America, land of the blindly patriotic. But she hurt too much to get into a pointless argument, and she wanted her questions answered more. "So, you took out the base? Or you took out the people?" She narrowed her eyes as she asked and flicked her eyes meaningfully down at the shattered glass.
“Both, hopefully,” Ginger said darkly, eyes flickering with an edge of something angry, and predatory. Memories of being caged, being drugged, being attacked, came swirling to the top of her mind. It hadn’t been the same, no, but close enough to remind her of the rage, and the power that came with it.
"Both," Wanda confirmed, not glancing over at Tommy. Either he knew about what Fatale had done or he didn't; now wasn't the time to get into it.
"It's an ongoing project," Tommy added, his tone a little flatter than it had been. "Extracurricular."
"Hmm," Brigitte leaned back so she was tucked behind Ginger's shoulder, hiding a wince behind the fall of her hair at her muscles protesting the movement. This was the most engaged she'd seen Ginger since they arrived. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing. Sure, fuck up mutant hating assholes, seemed like a good goal. She just wasn't sure she wanted to do the fighting. But Ginger loved any excuse to fight, when she was turning.
Ginger’s eyes flitted from Tommy back to Wanda, who was easily the most interesting person they’d met so far. Breaking shit with her mind and talking about fucking people up over lunch in the cafeteria? Finally, someone real. With an approving little smirk to Wanda, she just said, “Sweet.”
"Not sure about sweet, but someone's gotta do it." Wanda smirked back at the girl. "Sound like something you'd be interested in?"
A frown flitted across Tommy's face, mostly aimed at Wanda. Of course he'd brought them together so that Wanda could talk to them, but he'd been imagining something a little less overt-recruitment. Now that she was actually showing interest in them, he found himself getting irritated without quite knowing why. "The point is," he broke in, "there are more options than either staying and drinking Xavier's Kool-aid, or running again. A lot of us here straddle the line."
Brigitte slowly let out the breath she'd taken to interject, trying to stop Ginger from possibly volunteering them for something they hadn't had time to think through yet. In the face of Tommy's backtracking she offered, "It's definitely something we'd like to learn more about." She was a little worried Wanda might only be interested in her sister's violent tendencies - people generally were only interested in Ginger - so she warned, "But we come as a pair." No way was she letting Ginger leave her behind again.
"No shit," Ginger muttered at B, not sure why she was making it weird. She did like that Tommy seemed uncomfortable though. "So, what's your side of the line like?"
Wanda, for her part, shot Tommy a look of genuine confusion before turning her attention back to the girls. So far as she could tell, she'd done what he asked - why he was being weird about it she had no idea. "You should come check us out some time, you can see for yourself," she told Ginger, then looked over at her generally quieter sister. "And yeah, I figured you came as a pair. You're sisters, right? I wouldn't ask one of you and not the other."
Apparently Ginger had forgotten how she'd just ditched Brigitte for a month after the jock invited her, and only her, into his circle. Whatever. Not like Brigitte had wanted to hang with those brain dead jizzbags anyway. She looked down and nodded at the table. "Yeah."
Tommy caught the movement and stole a moment to look the quiet one over more closely. She was doing the toe-forward-two-steps-back dance, like she was testing the waters very carefully. What was the deal? Was she afraid of Ginger? Or more to the point -- who had made Brigitte afraid of the world, and was Ginger helping or not? Family dynamics were the worst thing ever. She didn't look like anyone was hitting her, anyway. Even if that didn't always mean anything.
Ginger's eyes were on Wanda again, faint smile tugging at her lips. Most people were freaked out by them, the sisters with matching bird skull necklaces and weird clothes. And usually they liked it that way, but Wanda seemed like she got the inseparable thing. "Where can we find you?"
"Here's probably easiest - I've got classes a few days a week, and I usually hang out after to see what kind of trouble this one and his brother are causing." She jerked her head over towards Tommy and smirked. "I call Fatale to open a portal home if she's not here - you can just hitch a ride through. Or if she's here and I'm not, just ask her - you can't miss her, she's blue and her arm's in a cast."
Brigitte nodded at the table again and cleared her throat, feeling utterly drained for some reason. She'd blame the monkshood. "We'll do that."
The annoyance prickling at Tommy subsided once Wanda had stopped trying to invite the sisters along on the Right-busting missions. None of them had a stake in it the way the lab rats did; maybe that's why the conversation had been making him feel itchy. "I'd ask if you found Salem Center after all, but given the wardrobe changes I'm gonna guess that's a yes." And holy hell on Ginger's cleavage, but somehow ogling a girl's boobs while sitting next to Wanda felt wrong.
"Long fucking walk," Ginger griped at him. Seemed like these Brotherhood types had much better transportation options, not to mention bad ass powers.
"Told you to hook up with a teleporter," he pointed out right back with a flash of an insolent grin. "They're good people to know."
Brigitte looked back and forth between the two with vague horror. Was this... flirting?
Ginger just stared at him with her most unimpressed face, taking a large and somehow very sarcastic bite out of her pizza crust.
"You haven't introduced them to Mage?" Wanda asked Tommy, surprised. Turning back to the girls, she shrugged. "She's another option if you want a lift to our place. She's in and out all the time anyway."
"I offered, Ginger growled, I decided it would be a lot funnier to let them work it out on their own." Tommy finished his lunch and leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.
Brigitte was starting to dislike this guy. Not that they needed help to walk a few miles in the snow, but still. She tried to cut that whole mess off, looking at Wanda again. "Is she blue, too?"
Ginger was still glaring at Tommy. "I don't growl," she told him flatly.
Wanda wasn't altogether sure she believed that, but considering Tommy'd dug himself in, she left him to get himself out again and turned to Brigitte instead. "Nah, blonde hair, blue eyes." She glanced around the room and jerked her chin towards where the other girl was sitting with her roommate. "Over there. Teleporting with her means you have a stopover in hell, but I think she's got it under control."
Brigitte flicked her gaze to the girl then back to Wanda. Then she re-ran what she just heard and blinked slowly. "In hell."
"Hell, Limbo - whatever." Wanda shrugged, then smirked. "You two don't seem like you scare easy. Shouldn't be a problem."
"It's a lot chiller there since we blew up Belasco," Tommy replied easily. "Nothing hassled us when Yana took us to Disney."
"Are you telling me that mutant powers have proven Judaeo-Christian theology?" Brigitte was waiting for one of them to give up the joke.
Ginger's eyes had narrowed as she glanced between them, not even sure what they were talking about anymore. Belasco? Disney? "This some kind of joke?"
"No, it's too weird to joke about," Wanda admitted. She made a face. "And...not really, I'd say? Different dimension. I don't know a whole lot about it, but from the sounds of it, it was shaped to look like someone's idea of hell? So I don't think I'd use it as any kind of proof of religion, myself. Just proof that people can be really fucked up." She waved it aside. "Anyway, it's a travel option. If you don't want to brave it, catch Fatale or the purple girl - they go direct."
"Clarice is purple," Tommy clarified, then did it again in a halfway decent Anthony Hopkins riff. "Clariiice. I've got history class with her. She's alright."
Brigitte stared at Tommy from the corner of her eyes, still wary. "So, like, is everyone here actually in the Brotherhood, or did you just bag all the transporters?"
Wanda laughed and shook her head. "Neither. There's..." she paused a moment, "ten of us total. Five of us taking classes here - the rest don't want to, and we're not going to make them." She cocked her head towards Tommy. "This guy and his brother are family; Tommy lives here," she made a face at him, but one which was obviously teasing rather than annoyed, "but as far as I can tell, he spends about half his time at our place. Illyana's dating one of our guys but is a student here. I'm pretty sure Clarice knows where we live, but Fatale's our only teleporter."
"I'm not the teleporter," Tommy clarified quickly, just in case Brigitte got the wrong idea. "My brother is." And that still felt so weird to say. But just saying 'Billy' wasn't going to make anything clearer at all. He grinned at Wanda with a bright flare of mischief. "And if you're getting sick of my face around your place, ground me."
Brigitte had no idea what to say to any of that, so fell back on her usual response of saying nothing at all.
"Hilarious," Ginger deadpanned at Tommy, totally uninterested in their inside jokes.
"Actually, he pretty much is," Wanda observed, turning back to Ginger with a look that made it clear that snarky comments at family members wouldn't be tolerated. "Is there anything else you wanted to know?"
After considering for a moment, Brigitte shook her head.
Ginger's focus was back on Wanda, but she couldn't quite get a total read on her. Definitely worth poking at some more. "When can we visit?"
"Gimme your phone." Wanda held out her hand. "I'll put my number in - you can give a call, make sure we're around."
All goofing and Wanda-teasing aside, Tommy watched Brigitte fold in on herself and he wondered again exactly what the deal was with the two girls. "You can have mine, if you want it," he offered Brigitte, a little more quietly. "Not making a move here -- but if Wanda's not around, I can run interference or make introductions."
Brigitte squinted at him, confused. She had no idea what the guy's deal was. She bit her lower lip before pulling out and unlocking her phone. She stared at the background photo - a selfie Ginger had taken, her arm casually looped over Brigitte's shoulder as they stared deadpan at the phone camera. She hesitated for a second before deciding that whatever, he could try to judge her for it, and handed the phone over. "Okay, sure."
Ginger was already handing her phone to Wanda, but spared a glance for whatever was happening with Tommy and B. The fuck did he think he was doing? Definitely playing her. She bumped her leg into Brigitte's under the table.
Tommy didn't notice whatever drama was taking place on the other side of the table, tapping his number in to the phone that Brigitte had handed him. It took forever to register each number, at least in comparison to the upgraded phone Kitty'd made for him months ago.
Brigitte clutched the phone as soon as Tommy gave it back, still wary of him. She couldn't tell if he was boisterous or calm or rude or helpful, which bugged her. A lot.
The awkward phone-exchange over, Ginger glanced around the room, clearly unimpressed but curious. “Anyone else with you that we’d know?”
Hmmm. Wanda looked around the cafeteria, then shrugged. "Not who's here right now, anyway."
Tommy tried to think back to places he'd seen the girls, a couple of conversations he'd mostly ignored at the time... "Don't you guys both have History class with Alex? That's the only one I can think of."
Brigitte considered, then slowly nodded. Another blond kid, intermittently around.
"The other Summers?" Ginger asked, surprising herself by remembering something from their previous talk.
"The one you didn't bite, yeah." Wanda quirked an eyebrow. "Do you do that a lot, by the way? Because from my side, that'd be a good thing to know."
Tommy snorted, not bothering to try and control the impulse. He hadn't known what to expect from the meeting, but the combination of sulking and bitchy vs Wanda's take-no-shit was just too funny. "Did you just ask her if they always bite on the first date? Kinky."
Wanda turned towards him, eyebrows raised and looking none-too-impressed. Yeah, it was funny - but it was the wrong time for funny. This was serious. "Grounded. Effective immediately. Behave yourself."
Tommy flashed her a W-for-whatever with his hands against his forehead, slouching back in his chair. "You're not my real mom." But he did shut up after that. For the moment.
Brigitte made a disgusted face at Tommy's question, and she was really confused by all the grounded talk and the mom comment (seriously, talk about kinky). But she honestly couldn't care less right now. "We'll defend ourselves." She just didn't mention that defense hadn't really been Ginger's motivation.
Good thing Brigitte was up to holding the conversation for the moment, because Ginger was still looking at Tommy like he'd just crawled out of a sewer - and like she could smell it. Kinky. Christ, fucking teenage boys couldn't get through lunch without making it about their dicks. Fucking typical, he was only here to get in their pants...
"Well, yeah. I'd expect that." Wanda looked from one of the girls to the other, then sighed. "Okay, you're pissed at Tommy, whatever. Just answer the question. Does that shit just happen? Or only when you're threatened, or...what? Because if you're gonna get bent out of shape over stupid bullshit, you're not gonna like our place much. And I promise I'm not okay with you biting my team just because they're being stupid."
"I don't bite," Brigitte gritted out. She was offended, but the rational part of her brain recognized that Wanda had a right to ask before opening up her doors. "Ginger had bitten two people in the five months she's been turned, once when she was," she glanced at Ginger, rolled her eyes, "horny and didn't know it would do anything, and once when we were out of our minds and felt attacked."
"Oh my fucking god, B." Ginger rolled her eyes, then looked back to Wanda. "We take a drug to keep from going full wolf and biting people. It sucks, but it works."
Unless they felt threatened, or the drug ran out. Still, it was an honest answer, and Wanda nodded. "Fair enough."
Tommy was finished with his lunch and getting bored with the conversation, still for too long. He pushed his chair back with a scrape against the floor and grabbed his tray. "This has been scintillating and all, but I have to jet. Ladies." He nodded to the Grumpy Sisters with a sharp grin. "I'm hanging with Alex this afternoon, so I'll probably see you back at your place," he added for Wanda as he stood.
Brigitte watched Tommy go, puzzled. He called them dumbass things like ladies but didn't seem overly skeevy, introduced them to Wanda but got weird about them joining her. She gave him a small nod of acknowledgement, and decided she'd figure it out later.
Ginger gave him an ew-face for the 'ladies' thing, but didn't say anything about it, turning back to Wanda with a look that was intense but also uncertain. "What's 'fair enough' mean?"
"See you then," Wanda replied to Tommy, smiling. She turned back to Ginger and shrugged. "It means fair enough. You can keep it in check." She let her smile fade, and met the other girl's eyes levelly. "I'm not gonna lie to you. A lot of my teammates give a new meaning to lack of social skills. It's their home; you're going to have to deal. If you can handle that? You're welcome to stop by, any time." If not? They were maybe better off here, where adults could jump in and play intermediary when personalities clashed. Fuck knew she didn't have the patience for that.
Not the best recruitment technique, but Brigitte couldn't fault the warning given their personalities. Still, she was staying out of whatever vibe Ginger and Wanda were creating.
Ginger could feel her sister’s wariness without needing even a glance at her, so she focused on Wanda, saying sarcastically, “Assholes and arcade machines - you sure know how to sell the place, don’t you?”
For all that it sounded like a bitchy comment, she was watching Wanda with unguarded interest, and the underlying question was real - how is that better than here?
"Or maybe I don't figure we need a sales pitch?" Wanda's eyebrows climbed, and she got to her feet and picked up her tray. "If you guys decide you don't like it here? Come check it out. We may not have the full service cafeteria, but we make a difference. I figure it's more than a fair trade." She turned towards Brigitte and smiled. "Nice to meet you." And turned to walk away.
Ooookay. Brigitte was intrigued, almost despite herself. She turned her head towards Ginger. "Well. That was interesting."
Ginger was scowling, but not too put out. B was right, this was interesting. “Field trip?”
"Not like we have anything better to do," Brigitte replied, playing down her interest.
Ginger wasn't fooled, but whatever, that meant they were on the same page. They'd wait a few days, of course, but that went without saying. Bored now, Ginger watched Wanda disappear. Definitely interesting.
