ax_main | Yana and Cal

Normal pizza time for normal teenagers here!

While in general, Yana'd found that the Brotherhood (and Pyro in particular) seemed to have a thing for diners, she'd fallen in love with a pizza place near the theater district. "You're going to love this place," she promised Cal as she opened the door to an unimpressive looking storefront sporting a small, hand printed sign that assured everyone that they served kosher pizza. "The pizza slices are huge, and you don't have to wait forever for them."

In fact, you walked up to the counter, where a line of huge pizzas waited behind a glass barrier, and just pointed to what you wanted. To the left of the counter was a line of tables leading further back into the store, past the pizza ovens, and you just sat wherever there was space available. It was easy, and the food was awesome. Win/win, so far as she was concerned.

Abs would've loved this place too, Cal thought, but sneaking a golden retriever into a pizza place was pretty fucking impossible, he was ready to bet. Not without a very liberal, excessive use of... probably either the Professor's and Loki's mutation. And a serious breach of ethics, probably, if you asked the old man. So yeah, he'd left Abs with Lucky before teleporting over to meet Yana.

"So what's the best here?" Cal asked, eyeing the pizza on display rather than the menu above. He'd eat just about anything, anyway, but he might as well try out one of Yana's favorites, if she was a regular here.

"This one." Illyana pointed to a pizza that was literally loaded with toppings. "Super supreme. Pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, green and red peppers, onions - pretty much everything except pineapple." She made a face and wrinkled her nose. "Wanda always orders pineapple. I'm not a fan."

Cal huffed out a chuckle. "Yeah, I'll have that one," he confirmed to the girl ready to take their order. "And, um. That one," he added, gesturing at another one that looked good, chicken and spice.

"One of those," Illyana confirmed, pointing at the first. "And a slice of the alfredo." She shrugged at Cal as she pulled cash out of her jeans pocket. "Haven't tried it yet. I'm not sure how I feel about pizza that doesn't have tomato sauce, but I'll try pretty much anything once."

"Plenty of awesome white sauce pizzas," Cal supplied, getting his wallet out of his back pocket to pay for his own slices.

"Probably? But I've never eaten them. So." Illyana grinned and shrugged, then passed the cashier her money. "Add on a can of soda," she instructed. "I'll get it from the cooler." The cashier nodded and handed her a plate with her slices. "So, whatcha been up to?" she asked Cal as she waited for him to pay.

"The usual," Cal answered, and interrupted their conversation to settle up. And then, as they made a stop by the fridge for their drinks, "You know, classes, running with the dogs. I've started practicing hand to hand with Clint." And look at him, coming out with that casually, like it was no big deal. He liked who he was with Yana - normal. Just a normal kid. As normal as it got for mutant kids, anyway.

"Oh yeah? That's cool." She smirked up at him as she started towards the table. "When you get up to speed, let me know. I could use a practice partner."

Immediately, Cal was thinking about how best to use his mutations - and not just the blinking - to get the drop on her, and not in a way that was even remotely normal. He shut down that train of thought, hard, and gave her a small smile. "Sure. It'll be fun." He sounded like he meant it, too, because what he meant was that he hoped it would be. He had to believe that that was in the cards for him, maybe, some day.

Illyana paused to grab a soda from the cooler, then walked over to the table. "You say that now," she teased. "Wait until I land you on your butt a half dozen times. I may not have any pretty technique, but I don't suck." She paused, musing over that. "Or I didn't. I'm way out of practice these days."

"Not practicing that with the Brotherhood?" Cal asked curiously as he took a seat across from her.

"Not really?" Illyana shook her head. "Everyone's happy to do powers training, but hand to hand isn't really their thing. Lance was taking the class when they were at the school, but..." She shrugged and took a bite from her pizza. It wasn't like he'd gotten all that far with it in the time the Brotherhood had been there. And besides, he was MIA.

"But what?" Cal prodded, not sure how she was going to finish that sentence.

Illyana blinked, momentarily confused, then realized the problem. With Wanda not dating Clint anymore, there wasn't any reason he'd know about the missing Brotherhood leader. "Lance went looking for Magneto and hasn't made it back." She grimaced. "Everyone's in a great mood about that. But no one's quite sure what to do about it, because we're not sure where he was when he went missing."

"Shit," Cal replied, very eloquently. His brows drew together, and his brain was going a hundred miles a minute coming up with all the worst case scenarios, so he tried, desperately, to stop it. "That's - that's bad, right?"

"It can't hardly be good." Illyana made a face and picked a piece of sausage off her pizza, but just stared at it for a moment before putting it back down. "He's not just the leader, he's like, everyone's big brother, y'know? And he was the first member of the Brotherhood, other than the twins. It's not like he'd have just decided not to come back and taken off. Besides," she shrugged and looked up from her plate, "he wouldn't have done that to Pietro."

"You should talk to the Professor," Cal said, and he sounded a little urgent, but this was bad. A mutant kid missing. The Right was dead, at least. Right? Right. "Sometimes he can locate people."

Illyana shrugged awkwardly. "That'd be up to Wanda. I don't know that she'd ask, though. The Professor pretty much knows us when he wants something." Or... well, maybe that wasn't quite fair, but she was pretty sure it was the general consensus, anyway.

"You can't know that if you don't ask for help," Cal pointed out. He seemed to have completely forgotten about the pizza in front of him.

"True. But I'm pretty sure everyone would argue that the Brotherhood looks after their own." She grimaced. "Except we can't really look after him if we don't know where he is. I tried to scry for him and couldn't find him, even."

"He's warded against magic?" That was enough for Cal to forget what he'd been about to point out - that they weren't exactly doing a bang up job of looking after their own, apparently.

"Maybe? There's always places I can't scry," Illyana admitted. She picked up her pizza and took a bite. "I have a miserable time looking wherever Wanda is; even now, I have a hard time scrying the base, and I live there. Billy's not a whole lot easier. Could be something as simple as a mutant with powers like theirs somewhere nearby."

"Not sure that's much better," Cal pointed out somberly. They were powerful mutants.

"Well no, they're missing. That's not good." Illyana frowned, her forehead furrowing. "That's not what you mean, though, is it?"

"I mean - what's happening to them?" Cal replied, the look in his eyes making it clear the possibilities were freaking him out. "Who's got them? Who else is -" He cut himself off when he realized his emotions were leaking, and just focused on breathing and strengthening his shields.

Illyana froze as a wave of panic washed over her, and bit at her lip to try and suppress a soft whimper. It passed, though, as abruptly as it had begun, and she forced herself to exhale. Cal, then. She waited until he looked as if he'd pulled it together, resisting the impulse to reach out and squeeze his hand, then continued as if nothing had happened. "I don't know. But I'll let you know when we find anything out."

"Yeah," Cal acknowledged, because he had to say something, right? Something that wasn't, sorry I just made you freak out because I can't fucking control myself. "Thanks."

"Sorry." Illyana gave him a genuinely apologetic look and shrugged. "I kinda suck at knowing what to say. You know that."

"You don't have anything to apologize for," Cal replied with a shake of his head, for all that he wasn't really looking her in the eyes. The pizza he had no interest in eating was interesting, wasn't it. Fuck, he'd tried so hard to just be normal around Illyana. As normal as he could get, anyway. He sighed, frustrated with himself, and wiped his hands over his face. "Sorry. Just. Fucked up shit in my brain. You really should talk to the old man." It wasn't right, leaving anyone to the mercy of who the fuck knew what, when there were still avenues to be explored.

"Like I said, I'll mention it to Wanda. She might've already." She shrugged. "Nothing to apologize for, though. It's not like everyone doesn't have shit that freaks them out." Her forehead furrowed. "No one I know, anyway."

"You know a lot of fucked up people," Cal pointed out wryly, very much including himself in that group.

"Well, yeah." That pretty much went without saying, really. Everyone in the Brotherhood was fucked up in one way or another. Still... "I know people who aren't though, too. And there's still stuff they freak over." She shrugged and picked up her pizza. "I think it's normal."

Maybe their freak-outs were normal. Leaking your panic around? Not so normal. Cal hadn't really felt normal, not deep down, in a long while now. He wished Abs was with them, so he could pet her and soak up her affection some. "Sure," he agreed, anyway, because the quicker he went back to pretending that he was normal, the quicker he would feel better. Fake it til you make it. He picked up the second slice of pizza and forced himself to take a bite. "So, how are things with Pyro?"

There. Normal question, between normal teens.

Ok, they were pretending instead of talking. That worked. Illyana shrugged, willing to go along. "Ok? We haven't had any blowups this week so far, so that's something." Granted, that would probably change if she told him who she'd been hanging out with, but there was an easy way to avoid that. Even if she had the feeling that wasn't how it was really supposed to work.

"You usually fight every week?" Cal asked with a slight frown.

"It seems to happen a lot," Illyana dodged the question with a shrug. "Is that normal?"

"I'd say it isn't a good sign?" Cal offered. "But my longest relationship lasted three months, so you've got me beat by a bunch. You two have gotta be doing something right."

"Sometimes I wonder." Illyana sighed and shook her head. "Sorry. Honestly, things are okay. I'm just trying to decide if I should mention lunch or just pick up a few hours in Limbo so he doesn't realize I was gone." She smiled faintly. "Maybe I'll just tell him I went out shopping with Vex."

"You have to lie to him about hanging out with me?" Cal really didn't like the sound of that.

"Not really," Illyana admitted. "It's just one less thing to argue about if I don't mention it, y'know? He makes snarky comments about most of my friends from the school. And then I get mad, because they're my friends and then...yeah. Overrated."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but..." Cal hesitated, then did ask. "What are you doing with him?"

"Umm, dating him?" Ilyana's eyebrows rose and she offered a crooked smile. "He's got his good points. Besides, when we broke up it really sucked and I missed him."

"Yeah, I guess I'm asking what are his good points," Cal pointed out with a small wince. It wasn't like he was an expert at relationships, but fighting all the time and not being able to talk about your friends sounded like red flags to him.

"He cares about me. And his team," Illyana said without hesitation. "He'd do anything for them." Because there was no doubt of that, at all. She paused, though, and set down her pizza. "He...never makes me feel like there's anything wrong with me. You know? Not from the start. I mean, I know there is? But it's never felt like it, with him."

Cal was silent for a beat, and then gave her a small, genuine half-smile. "That is pretty cool."

Illyana nodded and smiled back. "Yeah, it is. It's kinda the best. So, maybe worth some fighting, y'know?"

"I guess." Cal shrugged. "You're the only one who'd know, really."

"You don't think so?" She looked at him, more curious than defensive.

"No, I - meant that," Cal replied with a small frown. "You're the only one who'd know. I wouldn't." One way or the other.

"Oh." Illyana let her smile fade. "Sometimes I'm not sure. I mean, I don't mind fighting? But sometimes...sometimes I feel like he doesn't really care about anything that's important to me."

"Kinda what the whole friends issue sounds like," Cal confirmed with a nod.

"Yeah, I know." Illyana sighed. "I mean, I get why he has an issue with my friends? Or why he had one, anyway. But that was ages ago. And, I mean, I left the school mostly because of him. What more does he want?"

"Guys, you know," Cal told her, smiling a little at the obvious irony. He took another bite from the pizza. "I thought you really liked it there."

"Oh, I do - I mean, I like the people? But..." she made a face. "I don't know how to explain it. I feel like...I'm missing out, kinda. I mean, the one thing I liked about the school was that even if I didn't really fit in there, I could, I don't know, kind of fake it? And it felt like I was almost normal." She smiled a little. "No one's normal at the base. And they're proud of that, which is awesome. But sometimes...sometimes it was kind of cool to be close."

"I feel that," Cal confirmed. It echoed the way he was handling his time at the school pretty damn well.

Illyana smiled. "Which is why I like you," she informed him, lifting her bottle of soda in a toast. "You get it."

Cal gave her a small smile. He wasn't sure how much of a good thing that was, but hey, at least Yana let him pretend he wasn't as fucked up as he was. And that was definitely good. "Worse reasons to like someone," he told her, raising his own drink back to her.

"Definitely." She "clinked" her bottle against his - plastic didn't clink well, but it was the thought that counted - and took a drink. "So how're Clint and Caleb doing? You guys get your three person room yet?"

"Well, it's not really ours, but we're bunking together already while they're redoing the boys' dorm," Cal confirmed with a nod.

"Aren't they mixing up the dorms once they're done, though? So maybe it'll be yours." Illyana grinned. "If you like it, I'd hang posters and stake your claim. Or better yet, get Caleb to ward it so no one else can get in."

"I don't - really care, honestly," Cal admitted. It just felt weird, the idea of staying in a place that was not meant for them, originally. But as long as the three of them were together, nothing else much mattered. "It's a room, you know?"

Illyana considered that, and nodded. "Yeah, I get it. As long as the people stay the same, it's all good."

"Pretty much," Cal agreed with a half smile. Honestly, he'd go just about anywhere as long as he stayed with the two of them. Sure, it wasn't healthy, and it had been pointed out to him in sessions, but he wasn't sure he'd ever be completely healthy again, anyway. And this was the kind of unhealthy he wouldn't want to live without.

"You should all just go Brotherhood," Illyana pointed out. "I'm pretty sure that's 95% of why everyone's there." She grinned, a little. "Maybe a little less for Pyro and Eileen. They really are into the whole mutant superiority thing."

"Yeah, I don't know," Cal answered, a little awkwardly. The whole point was that where they were didn't matter, so why change anything? Besides, it did matter a little, and Xavier's meant classes, and much needed therapy. He wasn't looking to give that up unless he had to. (Meaning, unless Caleb and Clint were leaving.) "Xavier's works for us so far, you know?"

"Which is cool," Illyana assured him with a self-conscious, crooked shrug and a smile that matched. "That's the important thing. But you can't blame me for trying. It'd be cool to have you and Caleb around."

"Hey, we'll always have pizza," Cal retorted with a half smile.

"True. Besides, it's probably better to not have Wanda and Clint in the same place," Illyana acknowledged with a grin.

Cal huffed out an almost laugh. "Tell me about it. You know what happened there?"

"I wish. I walked in when Wanda was telling Eileen, but when she saw me she stopped talking." Illyana pouted, just for effect, then grinned impishly. "I did hear that Wanda dumped a punch bowl over his head. Did she really?"

"Apparently," Cal confirmed with a wince.

"So he did something," she reasoned. "I don't know - what've you heard?"

"He didn't wanna go into details, and I didn't push," Cal replied helplessly.

Illyana sighed. "We're never going to know," she said, disappointed. "It's so weird - usually nothing stays secret at the base. I swear sometimes people know what Pyro and I are fighting about before we do."

"You'd probably all know if they'd fought at the club?" Cal offered. People he didn't know at school but who had been at that party would probably know more than he did, too, but he wasn't going to investigate. He'd been curious enough to ask Yana when she brought it up, but it was Clint's private life. He'd share if he wanted.

"They never did that I heard," Illyana admitted, "which means they probably didn't." She shrugged and offered a crooked smile. "So, what's the gossip at the school? Anything good?"

"Not that I know of?" Cal said, which didn't really mean much. It wasn't like he had a big social circle, and he would've mentioned Natasha Stark's arrival, but it would have felt like a breach of confidence, of what the school promised. "Things have been pretty quiet since, well, Yorkland. What about you?"

"Nothing, really. Pyro and Mort got into a fight with some flatscans a few months ago - I think I forgot to tell you about that - and Wanda was pissed, because she says they started it just because they were bored. But really, I think we all are, kinda - I mean, there hasn't been much going on. Wanda's not really the field leader Lance is," she admitted, "so we haven't been doing much. Well, Pietro's been updating his social media stuff, but that's pretty much it. I've actually been to the school a few times, at least partially just for something different to do."

"What do you do with all your free time?" Cal asked. "I mean, it sounds like non-stop summer break."

"Well, we divide up the shopping and cleaning and cooking and stuff, so that takes time," Illyana pointed out. "And I've got a dimension to run, though really, I don't have to take time to do that. But Pyro gets pissed if I time it all the time, so mostly I don't. But I work on my spells and stuff." She grinned and shrugged. "Otherwise? I don't know. Screw around. Get high with Pietro. Go with my newbie to raise the dead. There's always stuff to do. It just gets old sometimes."

"I wouldn't know what to do with myself after a couple months," Cal admitted. To be honest, he probably wouldn't know what to do with himself after a couple of weeks.

"Yeah. I swear, sometimes I actually miss classes." Illyana made a face. "Never thought that would happen."

Cal smiled at that, a small, understanding smile. "Structure is kind of important, it turns out."

"Who knew, huh?" Illyana smiled back and took a bite of her pizza. Actually, she kind of did - it wasn't as if life with Belasco had ever been unstructured - but everyone had made it sound as if no structure was the ultimate teen goal. Maybe she was even weirder than she'd realized, because it seemed kind of overrated to her.

"Only every responsible adult out there," Cal remarked with a grimace. It kind of sucked to prove them right, but hey. It was what it was.

"I don't know that many responsible adults," Illyana mused. "I mean, I knew the teachers at the school and stuff? But it's not like I ever had any real conversations with any of them except the Professor, and he was usually lecturing."

"Pretty sure the lectures are exactly when they tend to go on about that," Cal pointed out with a half-smile. Or had that just been his dad? Not that he wanted to think about him.

"Gotta admit, I never paid that much attention." Illyana smiled a crooked smile and shrugged. "It was always kind of blah blah blah think before you act blah blah don't agitate Tamara blah blah about your attendance. Though I guess that last one might've been structure related, huh?"

Cal's smile widened a bit. "Probably, yeah. That and your education, anyway?"

"Hey, I got plenty of education growing up. I bet the Professor doesn't know how to take down a two headed sabertooth tiger, let alone cook it," Illyana pointed out, trying hard not to grin without a great deal of success. "By comparison, the stuff they teach all seems pretty not useful."

"You often run into two-headed sabertooth tigers here?" Cal asked with raised eyebrows.

"Not so far, but it's New York. I figure it's just a matter of time," Illyana retorted with a smirk.

Cal smirked. "Very probably."