Cal and Illyana | Backdated to 5/30
May. 30th, 2019 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainThe day after Genosha, Illyana pays Cal a visit.
She was staying.
Illyana wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that. About anything that had happened in the last twenty four hours, really, especially when you counted that by her personal timeline rather than an actual calendar. She'd hoped to talk it over with Kitty, but then the whole thing with Genosha had come up and Kitty'd taken off to get away from it all or whatever.
She couldn't even blame her, considering the number of times she'd done that, herself.
Still, she felt like she should check in with those friends she actually had at the school other than Kitty and Vex if she was going to be staying. She'd popped into Billy's room, but he hadn't been there. Neither had Tommy. The next stop was Cal and Caleb, and there she knew better than to 'port into. Setting off mystical alarms was never a good idea.
And so, she found herself doing something almost entirely foreign to her. Standing outside the room, she knocked.
Cal had been sitting on his bed and petting Abs absently, mind busy trying to figure out how to be there for Clint. There was only so 'watching him shoot' Cal could justify doing. The knock drew him out of his thoughts, and Abs came with him as he went to the door, mechanically scanning the hallway. No one, and he didn't figure Caleb would knock on his own damn door, so that left one likely suspect.
He opened the door to reveal Illyana, and relief washed over him. She looked all right. "Hey," he said, warmly, and stepped aside so she could come in.
"Hey. How's it going?" Illyana asked, offering a crooked smile as she stepped inside.
"You know. The usual," Cal answered as he closed the door. Abs barked happily at Illyana, tail wagging, clearly wanting to be shown some love. "Didn't just take over a country. How're you doing?"
Illyana wrinkled her nose, but crouched down and patted the floor for Abs to come over. "Oh, y'know, the usual," she echoed. "Also didn't just take over a country. Got grabbed there, though - that was fun. Except not so much. But that was a few days ago, your time."
"Shit. What happened?" She seemed alright, but if she hadn't taken part, maybe she wasn't really? Concern shone in Cal's gaze.
"Went to check out the beach in Genosha." She looked up from petting the dog and smiled a little. "Awesome beach. Their advertisement about welcoming mutants, though? Sorta misleading. Got grabbed in the bathroom, and next thing I knew? Pyro was pulling things off my head in some kind of lab. Took me forever last night to get the glue out of my hair."
"Shit," Cal repeated. Labs doing shit to mutants; he really didn't have a problem with what the Brotherhood had done, no. "Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?"
"I don't think so. I mean, I feel fine?" She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, still petting Abs who didn't seem at all upset about the attention. "No clue what they were trying to do, but I don't think they had time to do it. But I messed up the return trip from Limbo and lost a couple of days." She smiled crookedly. "The moral of this story is never take drugs and teleport. You'd think they'd make that one of those TV commercials, hey? Like don't drink and drive?"
"Give them time, they probably will," Cal answered as he joined her on the floor. He gave her a small smile. "I'm glad you're okay."
She smiled back and shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine. Missed all the fun, but - I guess I'm gonna have to get used to that."
Cal frowned. "Why's that?"
"Because I just finished talking to the Professor." Illyana looked up and offered a crooked smile. "I'm staying here. At the school, I mean."
"Oh!" Cal didn't bother hiding his surprise, since this was kind of completely out of left field. "Because of the Genosha stuff?" He didn't mind, but more than a few people did. He hadn't expected that from Illyana, but...
"Nah. I'm cool with that," she admitted, figuring Cal wouldn't hold that against her. "But Magneto' s back, and he never figured I was worth recruiting before; I doubt his opinions's changed. And, well, Pyro and I kinda had it out again, and I'm pretty sure I've had enough of that. So." She pushed her hair back from her face and shrugged.
"As long as it's what you want," Cal stated. And if he sounded a little uncertain, it was because he was. He'd thought they were like a super tight family, or so Yana had always said. Now it sounded like... not so much.
"I don't know what I want," she admitted. She'd liked the Brotherhood. The idea of moving to Genosha, not so much. "But it'll work until I figure it out. I just need to get in touch with Pietro and Nico and let them know what's up." She smiled faintly. "Maybe see if Nico wants to come here. I feel bad leaving my newbie."
"You think he might?" Cal asked curiously.
"I doubt it," Illyana admitted reluctantly. "He's not real big on the whole concept of school. Or people, really. But it could happen."
"Fingers crossed," Cal replied with a small smile. "I mean, there's a bunch of us asocial types."
"I'll point that out to him. Maybe it'll help," Illyana replied, smiling back crookedly. "He can have company being asocial. Though I think that maybe defeats the whole asocial thing."
"Some of us make that work?" Cal offered. Company being asocial was pretty much how Caleb and he had bonded, after all.
"You're not asocial. You hang out with me," Illyana pointed out. "You're just selectively social."
"I'm pretty sure Nico hangs out with you, too," Cal pointed out.
"Well, yeah. But..." She made a face. "Okay, you got me on that one."
Cal smirked and saluted her before sobering up. "Anyway, you have friends here whether he comes along or not. How are things with Kitty?"
Illyana shrugged, her shoulders slumping. "I don't know? Ok, I guess. She kinda took off with that English guy she's not-dating as soon as the news came on from Genosha, so it's hard to say. But she said it didn't have anything to do with me." She pushed her hand back through her hair. "Anyway, she's in an apartment now, so the Professor put me in with Vex. At least until her roommate comes back from wherever."
"That's good, right?" Cal checked.
"Yeah. I mean, I kinda figured I'd just move back in with Kitty?" Illyana admitted. "Which was dumb, because she told me she was moving into graduate apartments, but I didn't really put two and two together." She smiled a little. "Don't get me wrong - I'd way rather move in with Vex than anyone else I can think of. Jeanne-Marie and I used to hang out, but - well, then she got the personality that thinks I should be exorcised. So there's that."
"She's gone anyway, right?" Cal asked.
"Yeah." Illyana grimaced. "I didn't even realize that. I just - I guessed somehow, I figured nothing much would've changed. Dumb, I know."
"I felt pretty dumb expecting everything to have changed while I was locked away," Cal replied, doing his level best to sound casual as he brought it all up. Turned out he was the one who had changed, more than anything else. "Guess our expectations rarely match reality?"
"Guess so." Illyana eyed him curiously. "What didn't change?"
"The world, I guess?" Cal offered. "But you know, it kept on turning, same shit different day."
"Seems like it pretty much does," she agreed. She grinned, a little. "Which is better than it not turning, at least? Because I'm pretty sure that could be a problem."
"On many levels," Cal confirmed with a nod.
"What would you change, if you could change something?" Illyana asked curiously.
"Change about what?" Cal asked, reaching over to pet Abs, who dutifully came closer. "The world?"
"Yeah. Or whatever, your choice." Illyana pouted a little at Abs, just on principle.
Or whatever. Cal didn't want to look too closely at the fact that his first impulse would be to make it so his father hadn't died. That was a can of worms best left securely taped closed and forgotten at the bottom of an unused closet. Instead, he turned his mind to world-changing options. "I mean, if I could change something, I'd make it so people weren't afraid of us." There, that was the sort of normal wish normal people would make. Right?
"You sound like the Professor," Illyana replied, her lips twitching upward as she looked from Abs up to his face.
Cal snorted. "I bet he'd be all, 'You can't wish fear out of people, Cal. That is a long, arduous road, and you have to walk each step with them' or whatever."
Illyana laughed. "Okay, that does sound like him," she admitted. She leaned back on her hands. "I'm still not sure the Brotherhood doesn't have the right idea. Let them be afraid; maybe it'll keep them from messing with us."
"I'm pretty sure it isn't stopping them from doing shit," Cal pointed out, looking down at Abs as his small smile dimmed.
"You don't know that," Illyana pointed out, just a little defensively. "Maybe things would be even worse."
Cal did not want to get into this. He swallowed, then shrugged. "Either way, it's not working." Genosha was added proof, in case all the fucking rest of it wasn't enough.
Illyana shrugged. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't - personally, she thought the Brotherhood taking over Genosha was a sign that they had the right idea. But she knew better than to say that around here. "Neither is the Professor's spiel," she offered instead. "You can't make people not be afraid."
Cal also did not want to end up defending the Professor's point of view, but it would also feel wrong not to say anything to that. "Yeah, I just pretended to be him saying that," he simply pointed out, his focus still on Abs, hands running over her fur as she settled against him. There was no fight in his tone, just the opposite. He looked up at Illyana. "Look, can we not - nobody's got it right, because there's no magical solution to this bullshit. Can we leave it there?"
Illyana blinked, surprised by his reaction. "Yeah, okay. Sorry. What do you want to talk about?"
Ugh, he was being weird again. Cal grimaced. "Sorry. Just - everybody's been talking about that shit nonstop, like that's gonna change anything." At least the Brotherhood had done something.
"Yeah, I know. I've been biting my lip a lot," Illyana admitted. "No one really wants to hear my opinion on it, and I'd rather not get into any fights my first day back. But we can talk about something else, it's fine."
Cal was just grateful she was letting them move on, honestly. "Thanks. I'd almost rather people went back to stressing over finals." None of it was exactly easy on his shields, but finals stress had been more manageable, at least.
"I don't have to worry about those, at least." Illyana grinned smugly for a moment, then wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "Not until the end of summer, anyway. I'm assured that if I 'apply myself diligently', I'll be able to finish off the year I bailed out on over the summer. Yay."
Diligently; that sounded like the old man alright. Cal smiled a little at her unenthusiastic conclusion. "Well, I mean. You wanna stick around here or you wanna get it over with?" There was a reason he hadn't gone overboard catching up with classes; he wasn't ready to graduate. So that was absolutely a proper question, and not a rhetorical one.
"Oh, I definitely want to get it overwith," Illyana assured him, though without a great deal of enthusiasm. "I'm already a 16 year old freshman. If I want to graduate, I'm going to be here forever already." Not that she really cared all that much about graduating, really, but being in classes with people her own age wouldn't suck.
Cal grimaced. "Yeah. You know what you wanna do after?"
"Not a clue," she admitted. "You?"
Cal shook his head slowly. "I got nothing."
"Well, maybe something cool will pop up," she offered, then smiled a little. "If not, you can always copy my powers, and we can put UPS out of business. Y'know, 'When you really, really need it - yesterday."
"I think the time stuff would break my brain," Cal admitted with a bit of self-conscious, but amused smile. Besides, Limbo didn't feel like his kind of place.
Illyana sighed dramatically. "Everyone says that. It's really not that hard."
"Maybe just accept that it is for most people," Cal wryly recommended.
"Oh, I have. I just like complaining about it dramatically," she admitted with a grin.
Cal huffed out a laugh. "Good job, then."
Illyana laughed and took a bow as best as she was able while sitting. "I figure it makes up for all the things I don't get. Including how Caleb manages to just come up with spells out of his head. SO unfair."
"Well, he spends days working on them," Cal pointed out with raised eyebrows. He was forever impressed with Caleb and everything he could do, but it always took time. That kind of made it even more impressive, though.
"Yeah, and it took me weeks just to adapt his string spell to do a ward rather than an alarm." She pouted for a moment, then looked a little smug. "It worked, though. Eventually."
"What does it do exactly?" Cal asked curiously.
"Sets up a barrier around the room that no one can get through except the person who sets the spell. Well, and whoever they specify." She grinned. "Somewhere in Genosha, there's a hotel room no one can get into. Serves them right."
Cal chuckled. "Does it last forever?"
"Not sure," Illyana admitted. "The original's been working for a few months in Limbo, but that's not really a good example, y'know? I should really go back in time and test it, huh? Set a barrier up and then check on it in the present?"
"Caleb's stuff is pretty temporary," Cal remarked with a nod. "Always good to know how long your spells last, right?"
"True." She wrinkled her nose. "I should probably go get my stuff out of that hotel room, just in case. Except I really don't want to go back there."
"I'll go, if you - wait, no, I couldn't get into the room," Cal realized as he offered.
"Yeah, I can't modify the spell from here." She looked up at the ceiling, considering. "Maybe I should just try and 'port my stuff out." She grinned, just a little evilly. "And leave Pyro's there." Granted, he could just go get it himself, but it was entirely possible he wouldn't think of it for a while. He was probably pretty busy.
"You two are really over?" Cal asked with raised eyebrows. He couldn't say that sounded like a bad thing, given everything Yana had told him about their relationship, but, well...
"I think so. No," she corrected, remembering everything Gilmore had said, which basically matched up with things Kitty and Cal had not-quite-said. "We're definitely over."
Cal grimaced in sympathy. "I'm sorry it didn't work out."
Illyana shrugged. "I'm sick of him being an ass about my friends. I mean, I was knocked out, collared, drugged, tied to a table, and had just watched...well, something that had happened in Limbo in the past." She waved her hand to encompass past Limbo occurrences. "And after all that? He stood there and called Kitty a bitch." Or Cat, she guessed, but considering that she was pretty sure at this point that they were the same person? It was the same thing.
"You always kind of made him sound like an asshole," Cal admitted with a grimace. What he meant was, it wasn't surprising to hear. "But hey, I'm glad he at least got you out of there?"
"Yeah, me too." Illyana sighed. "He literally tore the place apart - or burned it down, anyway - to get me out. Which makes me feel kinda guilty, but...honestly, he would've done the same thing for any mutant. It wasn't anything to do with me." Or maybe it was, but that didn't make the rest any less true.
"I kinda hope it still had a little something to do with you, or he's way worse of an asshole than I thought," Cal remarked. He hesitated for a few seconds, then plucked up his courage and offered, "Do you want a hug?" She sounded fine, but it didn't mean that she was, and she was his friend, and he could do this if she wanted a hug, dammit. The progress he'd made had to be good for more than making out with Loki.
Illyana blinked, surprised and touched by the offer considering how hands-off Cal normally was, then offered a crooked smile and shook her head. "Nah, I'm okay. Or, y'know, mostly. Besides," she admitted, "if you hug me, I might start crying? And I'd really rather not."
"I get that," Cal said with a nod. He wished he could make it a standing offer, in case she wanted to cry down the line, but - one step at a time. He was sure that he was a far cry from being able to offer 'any time'. But offering at all was progress, at least.
"Whatever I can do to help," he offered instead, with a small smile. "Let me know, right?"
"Well, right now? You can grab Abs' leash so we can take her for a walk? If you've got time," she added as she pushed herself to her feet. "I mean, if you've got stuff to do, I can go for a walk by myself? Or I can take Abs for one if you're cool with that."
Abs started barking enthusiastically after Illyana's first use of the word walk, tail wagging. Cal chuckled. "Well, now you've gone and done it." He crouched in front of his dog and petted her neck. "Shit yeah, we're going for a walk. You want that, huh? Let's go." A pink portal appeared beside them as he stood up, and Abs didn't wait before running through, and out onto the Xavier's grounds. "After you," he said, gesturing for Yana to go through. He was ready for finals. He could get back to studying after this.
She was staying.
Illyana wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that. About anything that had happened in the last twenty four hours, really, especially when you counted that by her personal timeline rather than an actual calendar. She'd hoped to talk it over with Kitty, but then the whole thing with Genosha had come up and Kitty'd taken off to get away from it all or whatever.
She couldn't even blame her, considering the number of times she'd done that, herself.
Still, she felt like she should check in with those friends she actually had at the school other than Kitty and Vex if she was going to be staying. She'd popped into Billy's room, but he hadn't been there. Neither had Tommy. The next stop was Cal and Caleb, and there she knew better than to 'port into. Setting off mystical alarms was never a good idea.
And so, she found herself doing something almost entirely foreign to her. Standing outside the room, she knocked.
Cal had been sitting on his bed and petting Abs absently, mind busy trying to figure out how to be there for Clint. There was only so 'watching him shoot' Cal could justify doing. The knock drew him out of his thoughts, and Abs came with him as he went to the door, mechanically scanning the hallway. No one, and he didn't figure Caleb would knock on his own damn door, so that left one likely suspect.
He opened the door to reveal Illyana, and relief washed over him. She looked all right. "Hey," he said, warmly, and stepped aside so she could come in.
"Hey. How's it going?" Illyana asked, offering a crooked smile as she stepped inside.
"You know. The usual," Cal answered as he closed the door. Abs barked happily at Illyana, tail wagging, clearly wanting to be shown some love. "Didn't just take over a country. How're you doing?"
Illyana wrinkled her nose, but crouched down and patted the floor for Abs to come over. "Oh, y'know, the usual," she echoed. "Also didn't just take over a country. Got grabbed there, though - that was fun. Except not so much. But that was a few days ago, your time."
"Shit. What happened?" She seemed alright, but if she hadn't taken part, maybe she wasn't really? Concern shone in Cal's gaze.
"Went to check out the beach in Genosha." She looked up from petting the dog and smiled a little. "Awesome beach. Their advertisement about welcoming mutants, though? Sorta misleading. Got grabbed in the bathroom, and next thing I knew? Pyro was pulling things off my head in some kind of lab. Took me forever last night to get the glue out of my hair."
"Shit," Cal repeated. Labs doing shit to mutants; he really didn't have a problem with what the Brotherhood had done, no. "Are you okay? Did they do anything to you?"
"I don't think so. I mean, I feel fine?" She sat down on the floor, cross-legged, still petting Abs who didn't seem at all upset about the attention. "No clue what they were trying to do, but I don't think they had time to do it. But I messed up the return trip from Limbo and lost a couple of days." She smiled crookedly. "The moral of this story is never take drugs and teleport. You'd think they'd make that one of those TV commercials, hey? Like don't drink and drive?"
"Give them time, they probably will," Cal answered as he joined her on the floor. He gave her a small smile. "I'm glad you're okay."
She smiled back and shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine. Missed all the fun, but - I guess I'm gonna have to get used to that."
Cal frowned. "Why's that?"
"Because I just finished talking to the Professor." Illyana looked up and offered a crooked smile. "I'm staying here. At the school, I mean."
"Oh!" Cal didn't bother hiding his surprise, since this was kind of completely out of left field. "Because of the Genosha stuff?" He didn't mind, but more than a few people did. He hadn't expected that from Illyana, but...
"Nah. I'm cool with that," she admitted, figuring Cal wouldn't hold that against her. "But Magneto' s back, and he never figured I was worth recruiting before; I doubt his opinions's changed. And, well, Pyro and I kinda had it out again, and I'm pretty sure I've had enough of that. So." She pushed her hair back from her face and shrugged.
"As long as it's what you want," Cal stated. And if he sounded a little uncertain, it was because he was. He'd thought they were like a super tight family, or so Yana had always said. Now it sounded like... not so much.
"I don't know what I want," she admitted. She'd liked the Brotherhood. The idea of moving to Genosha, not so much. "But it'll work until I figure it out. I just need to get in touch with Pietro and Nico and let them know what's up." She smiled faintly. "Maybe see if Nico wants to come here. I feel bad leaving my newbie."
"You think he might?" Cal asked curiously.
"I doubt it," Illyana admitted reluctantly. "He's not real big on the whole concept of school. Or people, really. But it could happen."
"Fingers crossed," Cal replied with a small smile. "I mean, there's a bunch of us asocial types."
"I'll point that out to him. Maybe it'll help," Illyana replied, smiling back crookedly. "He can have company being asocial. Though I think that maybe defeats the whole asocial thing."
"Some of us make that work?" Cal offered. Company being asocial was pretty much how Caleb and he had bonded, after all.
"You're not asocial. You hang out with me," Illyana pointed out. "You're just selectively social."
"I'm pretty sure Nico hangs out with you, too," Cal pointed out.
"Well, yeah. But..." She made a face. "Okay, you got me on that one."
Cal smirked and saluted her before sobering up. "Anyway, you have friends here whether he comes along or not. How are things with Kitty?"
Illyana shrugged, her shoulders slumping. "I don't know? Ok, I guess. She kinda took off with that English guy she's not-dating as soon as the news came on from Genosha, so it's hard to say. But she said it didn't have anything to do with me." She pushed her hand back through her hair. "Anyway, she's in an apartment now, so the Professor put me in with Vex. At least until her roommate comes back from wherever."
"That's good, right?" Cal checked.
"Yeah. I mean, I kinda figured I'd just move back in with Kitty?" Illyana admitted. "Which was dumb, because she told me she was moving into graduate apartments, but I didn't really put two and two together." She smiled a little. "Don't get me wrong - I'd way rather move in with Vex than anyone else I can think of. Jeanne-Marie and I used to hang out, but - well, then she got the personality that thinks I should be exorcised. So there's that."
"She's gone anyway, right?" Cal asked.
"Yeah." Illyana grimaced. "I didn't even realize that. I just - I guessed somehow, I figured nothing much would've changed. Dumb, I know."
"I felt pretty dumb expecting everything to have changed while I was locked away," Cal replied, doing his level best to sound casual as he brought it all up. Turned out he was the one who had changed, more than anything else. "Guess our expectations rarely match reality?"
"Guess so." Illyana eyed him curiously. "What didn't change?"
"The world, I guess?" Cal offered. "But you know, it kept on turning, same shit different day."
"Seems like it pretty much does," she agreed. She grinned, a little. "Which is better than it not turning, at least? Because I'm pretty sure that could be a problem."
"On many levels," Cal confirmed with a nod.
"What would you change, if you could change something?" Illyana asked curiously.
"Change about what?" Cal asked, reaching over to pet Abs, who dutifully came closer. "The world?"
"Yeah. Or whatever, your choice." Illyana pouted a little at Abs, just on principle.
Or whatever. Cal didn't want to look too closely at the fact that his first impulse would be to make it so his father hadn't died. That was a can of worms best left securely taped closed and forgotten at the bottom of an unused closet. Instead, he turned his mind to world-changing options. "I mean, if I could change something, I'd make it so people weren't afraid of us." There, that was the sort of normal wish normal people would make. Right?
"You sound like the Professor," Illyana replied, her lips twitching upward as she looked from Abs up to his face.
Cal snorted. "I bet he'd be all, 'You can't wish fear out of people, Cal. That is a long, arduous road, and you have to walk each step with them' or whatever."
Illyana laughed. "Okay, that does sound like him," she admitted. She leaned back on her hands. "I'm still not sure the Brotherhood doesn't have the right idea. Let them be afraid; maybe it'll keep them from messing with us."
"I'm pretty sure it isn't stopping them from doing shit," Cal pointed out, looking down at Abs as his small smile dimmed.
"You don't know that," Illyana pointed out, just a little defensively. "Maybe things would be even worse."
Cal did not want to get into this. He swallowed, then shrugged. "Either way, it's not working." Genosha was added proof, in case all the fucking rest of it wasn't enough.
Illyana shrugged. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't - personally, she thought the Brotherhood taking over Genosha was a sign that they had the right idea. But she knew better than to say that around here. "Neither is the Professor's spiel," she offered instead. "You can't make people not be afraid."
Cal also did not want to end up defending the Professor's point of view, but it would also feel wrong not to say anything to that. "Yeah, I just pretended to be him saying that," he simply pointed out, his focus still on Abs, hands running over her fur as she settled against him. There was no fight in his tone, just the opposite. He looked up at Illyana. "Look, can we not - nobody's got it right, because there's no magical solution to this bullshit. Can we leave it there?"
Illyana blinked, surprised by his reaction. "Yeah, okay. Sorry. What do you want to talk about?"
Ugh, he was being weird again. Cal grimaced. "Sorry. Just - everybody's been talking about that shit nonstop, like that's gonna change anything." At least the Brotherhood had done something.
"Yeah, I know. I've been biting my lip a lot," Illyana admitted. "No one really wants to hear my opinion on it, and I'd rather not get into any fights my first day back. But we can talk about something else, it's fine."
Cal was just grateful she was letting them move on, honestly. "Thanks. I'd almost rather people went back to stressing over finals." None of it was exactly easy on his shields, but finals stress had been more manageable, at least.
"I don't have to worry about those, at least." Illyana grinned smugly for a moment, then wrinkled her nose and shrugged. "Not until the end of summer, anyway. I'm assured that if I 'apply myself diligently', I'll be able to finish off the year I bailed out on over the summer. Yay."
Diligently; that sounded like the old man alright. Cal smiled a little at her unenthusiastic conclusion. "Well, I mean. You wanna stick around here or you wanna get it over with?" There was a reason he hadn't gone overboard catching up with classes; he wasn't ready to graduate. So that was absolutely a proper question, and not a rhetorical one.
"Oh, I definitely want to get it overwith," Illyana assured him, though without a great deal of enthusiasm. "I'm already a 16 year old freshman. If I want to graduate, I'm going to be here forever already." Not that she really cared all that much about graduating, really, but being in classes with people her own age wouldn't suck.
Cal grimaced. "Yeah. You know what you wanna do after?"
"Not a clue," she admitted. "You?"
Cal shook his head slowly. "I got nothing."
"Well, maybe something cool will pop up," she offered, then smiled a little. "If not, you can always copy my powers, and we can put UPS out of business. Y'know, 'When you really, really need it - yesterday."
"I think the time stuff would break my brain," Cal admitted with a bit of self-conscious, but amused smile. Besides, Limbo didn't feel like his kind of place.
Illyana sighed dramatically. "Everyone says that. It's really not that hard."
"Maybe just accept that it is for most people," Cal wryly recommended.
"Oh, I have. I just like complaining about it dramatically," she admitted with a grin.
Cal huffed out a laugh. "Good job, then."
Illyana laughed and took a bow as best as she was able while sitting. "I figure it makes up for all the things I don't get. Including how Caleb manages to just come up with spells out of his head. SO unfair."
"Well, he spends days working on them," Cal pointed out with raised eyebrows. He was forever impressed with Caleb and everything he could do, but it always took time. That kind of made it even more impressive, though.
"Yeah, and it took me weeks just to adapt his string spell to do a ward rather than an alarm." She pouted for a moment, then looked a little smug. "It worked, though. Eventually."
"What does it do exactly?" Cal asked curiously.
"Sets up a barrier around the room that no one can get through except the person who sets the spell. Well, and whoever they specify." She grinned. "Somewhere in Genosha, there's a hotel room no one can get into. Serves them right."
Cal chuckled. "Does it last forever?"
"Not sure," Illyana admitted. "The original's been working for a few months in Limbo, but that's not really a good example, y'know? I should really go back in time and test it, huh? Set a barrier up and then check on it in the present?"
"Caleb's stuff is pretty temporary," Cal remarked with a nod. "Always good to know how long your spells last, right?"
"True." She wrinkled her nose. "I should probably go get my stuff out of that hotel room, just in case. Except I really don't want to go back there."
"I'll go, if you - wait, no, I couldn't get into the room," Cal realized as he offered.
"Yeah, I can't modify the spell from here." She looked up at the ceiling, considering. "Maybe I should just try and 'port my stuff out." She grinned, just a little evilly. "And leave Pyro's there." Granted, he could just go get it himself, but it was entirely possible he wouldn't think of it for a while. He was probably pretty busy.
"You two are really over?" Cal asked with raised eyebrows. He couldn't say that sounded like a bad thing, given everything Yana had told him about their relationship, but, well...
"I think so. No," she corrected, remembering everything Gilmore had said, which basically matched up with things Kitty and Cal had not-quite-said. "We're definitely over."
Cal grimaced in sympathy. "I'm sorry it didn't work out."
Illyana shrugged. "I'm sick of him being an ass about my friends. I mean, I was knocked out, collared, drugged, tied to a table, and had just watched...well, something that had happened in Limbo in the past." She waved her hand to encompass past Limbo occurrences. "And after all that? He stood there and called Kitty a bitch." Or Cat, she guessed, but considering that she was pretty sure at this point that they were the same person? It was the same thing.
"You always kind of made him sound like an asshole," Cal admitted with a grimace. What he meant was, it wasn't surprising to hear. "But hey, I'm glad he at least got you out of there?"
"Yeah, me too." Illyana sighed. "He literally tore the place apart - or burned it down, anyway - to get me out. Which makes me feel kinda guilty, but...honestly, he would've done the same thing for any mutant. It wasn't anything to do with me." Or maybe it was, but that didn't make the rest any less true.
"I kinda hope it still had a little something to do with you, or he's way worse of an asshole than I thought," Cal remarked. He hesitated for a few seconds, then plucked up his courage and offered, "Do you want a hug?" She sounded fine, but it didn't mean that she was, and she was his friend, and he could do this if she wanted a hug, dammit. The progress he'd made had to be good for more than making out with Loki.
Illyana blinked, surprised and touched by the offer considering how hands-off Cal normally was, then offered a crooked smile and shook her head. "Nah, I'm okay. Or, y'know, mostly. Besides," she admitted, "if you hug me, I might start crying? And I'd really rather not."
"I get that," Cal said with a nod. He wished he could make it a standing offer, in case she wanted to cry down the line, but - one step at a time. He was sure that he was a far cry from being able to offer 'any time'. But offering at all was progress, at least.
"Whatever I can do to help," he offered instead, with a small smile. "Let me know, right?"
"Well, right now? You can grab Abs' leash so we can take her for a walk? If you've got time," she added as she pushed herself to her feet. "I mean, if you've got stuff to do, I can go for a walk by myself? Or I can take Abs for one if you're cool with that."
Abs started barking enthusiastically after Illyana's first use of the word walk, tail wagging. Cal chuckled. "Well, now you've gone and done it." He crouched in front of his dog and petted her neck. "Shit yeah, we're going for a walk. You want that, huh? Let's go." A pink portal appeared beside them as he stood up, and Abs didn't wait before running through, and out onto the Xavier's grounds. "After you," he said, gesturing for Yana to go through. He was ready for finals. He could get back to studying after this.
