In-between
*
It wasn't supposed to go down like this.
This was a *wake*, for chrissake. They were supposed to be mourning a superhero. A guy in spandex, who was a hero and helped people. Someone Pete would never be, that's for sure
Someone who was dead, but that's beside the point. Brave people are often foolish people, and Pete was in no state of mind to deal with the rest of this lot without getting drunk.
He wasn't the only one, he noted with a bleary eye. Domino was passed out on a table, her mouth slack. Cable was sitting beside her, hand on her shoulder. He was drinking steadily, but it didn't seem to dull the ache.
It wasn't working for Pete, either, but he downed the glass anyway.
He didn't look around for Kitty -- she was conversing with Logan. He was surprised at how many X-ers had actually shown up. He'd known Val, from back in the days of yore, and Kitty had come with him. But Cable, and Domino--
Of course, Domino would have known her.
It was a Who's Who of villains and the people who fought them, often at the same tables. He sat alone, and no one felt safe enough to broach his circle.
He was actually going to miss Val, for some reason.
The last time he saw her, when was that? Sweden, possibly, but that could be his half-drunken memory playing tricks on him. '95, was it?
Yes, it was probably that one. He still remembered that night she almost got him killed by that --
Well.
He should have expected this, he realized, looking away from the sight suddenly passing his field of view. When an X-er dies, all X-ers come to sniff the body. It was like a big ole' family. Or a demented ant farm.
Staring dubiously at his empty glass, he wondered whether he should be alarmed that the thought of seeing this particular person, here, never even crossed his mind. Was it the tactic senses that they said were the first to go?
"No," his own voice murmured, bitingly. "It's the ability to make yourself ignore things that you'd rather not think about."
That particular person was, if to jump by his careful, perfectly executed steps, well on his way to drunkness himself. Not that Pete was looking, of course. And he was heading -- what else? -- towards Jubilee's table.
Well, that was what a family gathering was supposed to be all about, huh? The one step they still needed to go was for Jubilee to drag the kid off to meet Logan and Kitty, and they'd have it better than Christmas. Home For the Holidays.
All My Children meets Pete's Worst Nightmares.
Pete looked away, an interesting development, considering he hadn't been looking in the first place. It wasn't like Kitty didn't know about Espinosa. Hell, it wasn't like *any* X-er didn't know about Espinosa. And him. It was Angelo's four months distance from his eighteenth birthday that saved his ass from being considered a child molester -- not that he cared, but the legal trouble could be... problematic. As it was, he'd never be welcome into any X-Group again. A real shame, that.
Kitty... Kitty never fully accepted that. It didn't help that there was so very little, such a precious little he was willing to say about it.
Kitty was a bystander, on a subject most people were unwilling to consider themselves bystanders in. It was about *morality*, after all, and *what God said*, and *what was right*.
It was never like that for Kitty. She just didn't understand.
***"I mean," she said that night, their first night together, as they sat and spoke little into the night. "I know I don't have room to talk. I was twenty two myself when we started, Pete, I know that. Brian... Brian talks about it like it was the obvious next step."***
"Oh good," he murmured. "Now I get morality lectures from Braddock."
"Well, I may still be in touch with them, but that doesn't mean I listen to what he says." She had gazed off into the darkness. "But Pete, I... I don't consider myself twenty four, somehow. I never have. And he's barely even legal."
"I don't think your age ever really got into the question," he said, quietly. "Not where it mattered. Until you put it there."
"And him?" she had said. "His age didn't come into it either?"
"No, it did." Silence, pressing, expectant. He coughed and looked away. "That was different."
"All right," she said.
It was what caused their second big fight, really. And the fifth. Had a lot to do with the first, probably, somewhere beneath the admittable surface.
The questions she didn't ask, she threw at him instead, at the most painful times. Those times of high-level artilery when he brought out her leaving, her choice of normal life over him just so she could dump normal life in favor of her X-Men. It was often a simple question of who got the big guns first, really.
At least they'd managed to avoid those things since the last time they had moved back in together. Maybe it was a sign that they were healing.
Bullshit, really. He knew to read signs better than that. And it wasn't like, after so many repetitions, he still didn't recognize the pattern.
A movement at that spot he had definitely not been staring at drew his eyes. He allowed his eyes to admit they were looking over in that direction, at the same time that Jubilee glanced over at his solitary self.
What a mistake that was.
She stood up, with a pleasant smile to Angelo, Penny, and Roger -- the kid who came out of Korea a few years ago.
Then she turned her gaze on him.
*Oh God, I don't deserve this tonight.*
She sat down with him, and helped herself to a drink from his bottle. "Wisdom, long time. Still playing at suburbia with Cat?"
He gave her a non-committal grunt, and then asked, "You're not legal, yet, are you?"
She downed the glass. "Isn't there some sort of code that says one drunk cannot deny a fellow sulker a drink?"
Angelo stood up, to leave the room, and Pete put his eyes firmly back on his glass. "Mmm."
She splashed more into their glasses, and said, "I only met Val once, y'know. At Emma's place. It's weird to think she's gone."
Pete watched Domino part the crowds of federal agents, leaning heavily on Cable's arm but swatting him away when he tried to help her stand upright. "Why is it that whenever something goes wrong, Dom drinks, Cable gets all introspective, and you start being snarky?"
Jubilee shrugged. "Habit."
***Pete stood up, not really feeling his body. He was far from drunk, because all his thoughts were completely coherent. "Where's Kitty?"***
Jubilee shrugged again. She watched him gather up his coat, and then asked quietly, "Are you going to talk to him?"
Pete chuckled. "Should I?"
She slapped his arm, none too soft. "You don't call, don't write, don't visit in three and a half years... I dunno. You do the math, brain dead."
Pete had a face of disbelief. "Haven't grown up much, have we, Lee?"
"I can drink as much as Sean now."
Pete rolled his eyes. "That's nothing. *Moira* could drink as much as Sean."
She pouted for a minute, and then her face turned serious. "Just so you know, you're one heartless bastard. I couldn't believe you left, y'know."
Pete told her, "I know."
She shook her head, and answered, "No... you don't. You know what he did when he found out that you and Cat were back together? Joined the fucking military, for god's sake."
"But he made lieutenant. So some bloke thinks he's doing a good job."
Jubilee looked surprised. "You knew?"
Pete spotted the man in question out of the corner of his eye, and sat back down again to make sure that they weren't on a direct line of sight.
"You knew. You've been keeping up with the gossip, Mr. I don't give a shit. Oh wow... I can't believe it."
Pete grabbed her hand tightly, painfully. "Keep your bloody mouth shut, Lee! I've got enough problems with Kit as it is."
Okay, so perhaps the alcohol was getting to him a little bit. He never would have told anyone about him and Kitty fighting otherwise, least of all Jubilee.
"I'd say you pretty much deserve that," she said. Her lips were tight and bloodless, and Pete was almost tempted to wait and see if she would admit he was hurting her. Oh yeah, much too much alcohol.
He let go in a rush the minute that thought went through his head, just a split second before she said, quietly and without inflection, "Let go of my fucking hand, Wisdom." And the look in her eyes made him think that maybe, after all, little Jubilee did grow up some.
"Just keep that motormouth under control and we don't have a problem," he grumbled, his tone a little more subdued than neccessary.
"Some of us, anyway," said a flash of teenage grumpiness in her voice. Then the fire was back, just as cold as it had been a moment before. "And if I don't talk, you know just for who I'll do it."
He tried an ironic chuckle, glancing away. "What, you're afraid it'd break his heart to think me an' Kit aren't livin' the happily ever after?"
"No," she said, and stoof up. "I think you already broke his heart enough. And I think he doesn't need to think anymore about you, period."
His glass, he noted to himself, was empty again. "You know, Lee, usually I'd ask you what you thought you were doing making another person's choices for him."
"Save your br --"
"--Usually." He stifled the urge to wave a hushing finger, stared hard into the distance. "It's just that, this particular minute, I happen to completely agree with you."
This took the words completely out of her mouth, at least as such ever happened with Jubilee. It took her a minute's recovery to say, feebly, "Right. Make sure that doesn't happen again. It's scary."
He didn't comment on the quality of that wisecrack, just watched her turn away, take a step. Watched her hesitate and turn back to him. "I still don't like you, Wisdom. You know that, right?"
That one slmost got a smile. But he was so tired suddenly, and her voice was so halting. "Yeah, I gathered that somehow."
"Good," She said, and hesitated again. "Cause sometimes I think I'm almost forgetting that."
And then she turned and fled.
*
He was still sitting in the corner of the room, watching Domino swagger back and forth, telling Val stories and trying to cheer people up. Strangely enough, it was working, and the long faces had started smiling, the tears abating somewhat. People who knew Val were remembering her, not missing her.
Pete didn't want to remember Val -- there was too much baggage with those years. Just like he didn't want to remember Jubilee, who'd gone home, for the same reason.
Or any of these faces. They all held a photograph, or a smell, or a tug that pulled his head back to places it had left, happily, years before.
Kitty was angry with him again. This time, it was for wanting to go home.
"These are my friends!" she hissed at him.
That's nice, he thought. These are my lynch mob, settled down to wait the execution out. Pardon me if the welcome is frosty.
Emma was a girl he *did* miss, in a perverse way. But thinking of her made him trudge down paths that were vacated, and nothing could be gained from looking at Angelo's face, and remembering how it shone when he came.
Not that he was looking at Angelo.
Kitty came up behind him, and put an arm on his shoulder. She smiled at him. "Alright, Pete. We can go now."
He stared at her, insensed. "How kind of you, to let me leave such a wonderful party."
She looked at him, partly puzzled and partly angry herself. "I thought you wanted to come!"
"I did! But I din't. Ah, forget it Kit. Let's just go."
He started to stand up, gather his coat again, when she placed her hands on her hips. "No. Tell me what's wrong."
He stared at her for a minute, wondering if she had any idea what the fuck was wrong. If she had, he was in deeper than he thought.
Examine her face, peer through those angry brown eyes-- no. She was upset that he was upset, and angry that he was being quiet.
Fuck it, then.
"Kit, just... nevermind." It was too much energy to fight with her, and he didn't want to bring up any more hurt between them. They had enough on their own.
He noticed a few pairs of eyes drifting their way, attracted by the quiet, angry whispers. Oh, lovely. Just what he needed. Fan-bloody-tastic.
More of an audience for the ongoing, quite public trial of Pete Wisdom, bastard extraordinaire.
"Pete... I don't get it. What's wrong?" Her voice was rising in intensity and volume, and he started walking towards the exit. "I'm leaving, Kit. I'm not the type to be dissected in public."
He'd had enough of that already.