Lil (diamondhard) wrote in marvel_united, @ 2010-10-23 14:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | box, diamond lil |
WHO: Lil, Madison, and a cameo from Vance
NPCs: ---
WHAT: Lil returns Madison's watch. Surprisingly enough fighting does not break out.
WHEN: Oct. 20th before this
WHERE: Madison's classroom at Xaviers.
Lil almost turned around twice. She could’ve just stuck this in the mail, but she was more than halfway there, and it seemed stupid to turn around. So Lil had found herself parking a car in front of Xavier’s with her stomach in knots. This was a bad idea, but Madison had left his watch at her place, and it had set on her counter for ages. Lil knew it was his favorite. It was the one he always wore.
So after a quick internal debate on whether she was supposed to knock or not (after all it was a school, but it was also a residence), Lil remembered that she really didn’t care about her manners for the most part. It seemed to be between classes so she grabbed a kid and asked where Madison was. So with directions she made her way to a room. Peering inside, there were a few desks but it was mostly covered in junk. But his back was to the door. She could have just left it in a mailbox or something. “So how is that whole shaping young minds thing working for you?” She asked.
Madison had been thinking about his watch -- and he had been pretty sure that he had left it at Lil’s. But he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to try and get in touch with her and be all “so ... did I leave my watch there?” Because what if she thought he had left it on purpose? What if he had left it and she had chucked it? What if he had left it someplace else, and she thought he was calling her under the pretense of looking for the watch?
In the end Madison had taken the easy way out, and done nothing. Not even look for a new watch. Maybe he wasn’t taking the easy way so much as he was taking the lazy way . . .
He wasn’t being lazy now. No, today Madison had his back to the door of the art room with the door open - he hadn’t broken out his special toolbox, so there had been no need to lock the door. Besides, the post that Logan had made about being able to smell his cigars smoke had made Madison realize he was going to have to find someplace that wasn’t the art room to smoke his joints. He didn’t think Logan would say anything, but this was a school, and Madison figured he had best start respecting that fact.
(So what if he hadn’t respected that fact when he was a student? He was a teacher now or something).
Cupping his hands around the metal he was working with, Madison was kind of zoning out -- without the aide of any pharmaceutical items. He had to concentrate on what he wanted the metal to do, and right now he was trying to make tiny replicates of the light cycles found in the first Tron movie. Tonight was the inaugural meeting of the Sci Fi Club, and Madison wanted these ready for tonight . . .
“So how is that whole shaping young minds thing working for you?”
Madison jerked his head up, and spun around, the light cycle that he had been shaping falling to pieces of metal. He started. Lil. Was here. In the school. Standing there.
“Well. Going better then shaping this metal. Least I hope it is.” He used his powers to reshape the metal that he had been working with into a solid ball of metal. “What brings you to this neck of the woods Lil.” He sounded a bit wary, as he was wondering why the heck she was here.
Lil reached into her pocket and her hand reemerged holding his watch out near her head. “Heads up.” She said tossing the watch towards him. He’d either catch it, or he wouldn’t. She just didn’t want it with her anymore, because he’d reduced her to wondering what a left watch had to do with them like she was sixteen or something, and she didn’t like that feeling.
Jesus, she’d just finally decided that, ‘Oh yeah, Madison was just a forgetful idiot sometimes.’
“Figured you might be missing it.” She elaborated with a shrug of her shoulders. She knew it was his favorite one. He’d worn it for ages. Of course she could have just put that in the mail.
She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t help herself, but she did take a couple steps into the room. “What are you trying to make anyway?”
Madison caught the watch -- with a little help from his powers mind you. Still he caught it and looked down on it, thinking that damn yes his watch had been at Lil’s all along. He held it for a second, looking down at the watch before slipping it back onto his wrist.
“Thanks. I thought -- well I figured that I misplaced it.” Which wouldn’t be shocking or new as Lil would well know. “So thanks.” He levitated the metal that he had been working with, floating it up so that it was hanging in the air between them. “Well ...” He knew he could say that he was working on something cool, and awesome .... but Lil would see that for the lie it was. So time for the truth. “Making some miniature light cycles from Tron.” He stepped to the side so that she could see his desk -- which was covered with various bits of metal and works in progress's, and also had two miniature light cycles sitting on it.
“Misplaced like everything else?” She said, sure it was annoying, and sometimes she had refused to let him touch important things she might need. Madison was a bit scatterbrained, but she hadn’t really minded that much. “It was no problem.”
She would have known if he was lying. She knew Madison’s tells fairly well. So she sort of lifted an eyebrow when he said what he was building. It was so Madison. Somethings really didn’t ever change. Besides she figured there were far more dorky things to be caught making anyway. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and touched one of them. So she knew he was a little particular about his stuff. She didn’t want to start a bickering match or anything, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She was a bit curious. “So the question is why?” She asked leaning against the desk when she pulled her hand away. She didn’t know why she cared to know.
“Like everything else.” Saying that he misplaced things didn’t put Madison on the defensive -- well most of the time. It was a fact. You didn’t give him things unless you wanted to maybe never see said object again.
He had to resist the urge to snap out a ‘don’t touch that!’ at her. It was a reaction that Madison had -- yes he was really anal and odd about people touching his things. However he was making these to give away, so really he knew there was not point about getting weird about someone handling them. So he managed to bite his tongue, and not say anything -- she had brought his watch back. That earned her the right to touch the light cycle replicas. Besides, wasn’t like she was trying to touch one of his wrenches ...
Now he had a feeling that his response to the question of why was going to elicit some laughter. Oh well.
“There’s ... the school has ... Gudio and I ... there’s a sci fi club. We watch movies. Tonight’s Tron, hence the ... Tron toys.”
Lil had learned long ago if there was something of Madison’s you didn’t touch it was his actual tools. She’d borrowed a wrench once to fix a pipe when he was gone, and it was almost a prelude to WWIII in their house. Although she had a feeling it could have something to do with the fact that she hadn’t actually put it away properly. So from then on she didn’t touch his tools or his toolbox, including an incident where she let the pipe stay broken out of spite when her shitty patch job hadn’t held.
He was right about the laughter. She gave out a snort, trying to keep the laugh inside but it came out loudly as her face lit up smiling and shaking her head. “A sci-fi club?” She asked, picking up a random metal scrap to keep her hands busy. “So this place is like paradise to you then.” Seriously he was heading up a sci-fi club and making Tron toys. “I’m assuming it’s a new club you and Guido decided was a good idea one night after drinks.”
Madison remembered the pipe incident -- and the aftermath which he thought of as the leaky pipe incident. (Just because he could reshape metal didn’t make him a plumber, damnit. So out of spite he had refused to look at the leaking pipe, and procrastinated about calling a plumber.)
“It’s pretty nice here.” He would allow that much. “Be better if --” He stopped. As he had been going to say that it would be better if he was in a country with universal health care, one where people called it a couch, not a sofa, and pop not soda. But he wasn’t going to start up with the whole “left Canada” thing again with Lil. They where having a civil conversation after all, even if he knew she was most likely laughing at Gudio’s and his sci fi club on the inside.
“Actually we decided it was good idea after a conversation about a Star Trek pizza cutter.” He was quiet for a second before he let out a snort himself. “Oh god, that sounds worse doesn’t it?”
Lil was actually really curious as to his unfinished thought there, and she couldn’t stop her big mouth. “Better if what?” She almost winced at that. Her mouth got her in trouble often. In fact, her lack of tact was the reason she was in New York in the first place. Apparently, her tone offended some lieutenant governor. She quickly shook her head. “You don’t have to answer. It was just.. me running at the mouth.”
And for the second time in a couple of minutes Lil snorted again. “Yes, yes, it does.” She bit her lip. “I highly recommend you tell people you were drinking.”
“Better if they had more Tim Hortons. Or any actually.” If this teaching thing didn’t pan out, Madison sometimes wondered what one would have to do get get a Tims’ franchise set up in New York. Surely there was enough ex-pat Canadians in the city to make a go of things -- and once Americans discovered it, well surely they would be won over.
That wasn’t the truth -- but it wasn’t a total lie. He did miss Tim Horton’s, the way he missed the healthcare and the people using words properly.
“Well since this is a school, I can tell you there won’t be any drinking during the sci fi club.” Sure, that wasn’t what she had said at all, but Madison was trying to just keep the conversation going. Yes. He missed talking with Lil.
He had to go and mention Tim Hortons. Lil actually groaned at that. “Been here a couple of months, and I miss that place like no other.” She lamented. She set down the metal piece she’d been playing with in her hands on the desk beside her. “It’s miserable, and a Tim Hortons would make me feel better.” She used to go there a lot. Even though there’d only been one store in the entirety of Yellowknife. “Some idiot thought I was Alaskan and asked me if I voted for Sarah Palin.” She said with a roll of her eyes and certain amount of disgust in her voice.
“I would hope not.” She said, knowing that they’d never let them drink. “Drinking during your formative years leads to well... me.” She said. Of course Lillian had been kind of a wild teenager. Not in the promiscuous way, but in a lets drink a ton of beer and vandalise this sort of way.
“Can you too see Russia from your house?” He knew Palin hadn’t said that, but it had made him laugh when he had seen it on SNL. “Mistaken for an American -- sucks. People kept asking me what part of the US I was from when I was in Australia.” That had been disturbing .. so Madison had taken to wearing clothes with maple leafs on them, or his Vancouver Olympics baseball cap.
He gave a snort of his own. “They’re teenagers -- they find a way to drink. Or at least that’s how it was when I was a student here back in the dark ages.” He was sure the students drank now, and if he ever caught them at it, well Madison would turn a blind eye. Kids were kids, they drank. “And the more you tell ‘em not to do something, the more they seem to want to do it ...” Kids these days! In other words.
Lil did give out a snort when he asked her that. “No, but I bet American high school students think I can.” She mused out loud. No one taught geography anymore it seemed. “Sometimes I’d rather be mistaken for American. Remember that Molsen’s commercial where the guy’s in the office and his co-worker finds out he’s from Canada and just goes on and on and on...?” She asked knowing damn well he did. Everyone did. “I actually met that jackass.” She said. and she didn’t mean the actor. Luckily, it’d been in the gym, so she’d been able to punch him hard during a sparring match later.
“That’s how it is for them all.” She said. She knew that. “I guess as long as no one’s giving them a fifth of jack and sending them on their way with bags of spray paint.”
“And then the guy gets into a fight and pulls the other guys shirt over his head, like it’s a hockey game?” Madison broke out into a grin thinking about that commercial -- a grin that faded a second later. “Did you do that?” Because this was Lil -- he thought she might do that. And sure the asshole would deserve it, but doing shit like that got you in trouble.
He snapped his fingers; “Well shit. I didn’t realize we were supposed to not confiscate the spray paint from them.”
Lil picked up another piece of scrap metal to play with as she laughed at his face. “No. I didn’t.” She said with a roll of her eyes. “Well, not exactly.” She admitted not even two seconds later. “He was in need of a sparring partner right after. So out of the niceness of my Canadian heart I just had to volunteer.” She said leaving it there. She hadn’t hurt him too badly. She couldn’t feel pain and didn’t get hurt that alone tended to have her hit things harder than most people. She knew when to hold back.
“What the hell were you doing as a teenager?” She said with a laugh. “We were spray painting everything we could with random crap.” So she liked where she grew up. After all, after growing up in Yellowknife no where else was cold, but it was secluded with a lack of things to do.
“Right. Niceness of your heart.” He honestly didn’t mean that to be as sarcastic as it came out -- and he realized after he said it that maybe he shouldn’t have. So he picked up the piece of metal that Lil had first been playing with, and started to reshape it into a metal Tim Hortons cup between his hands. When Madison got nervous he liked to play with metal. It helped calm him down most of the time.
As for what he had been doing as a teenager ....
“Well I was going to school here. Not being a delinquent.” Although he had been sneaking beers, and smoking joints then. And again he realized after he had spoken that he was possibly sounding snarkier then he meant.
He was use to be snarky and grumpy with Lil. But that was when they had been more sure where they stood with each other.
“Hey, I’m always perfectly nice.” She defended. And she thought she was, at least to people who weren’t jackasses and didn’t deserve it. Most people, however, were jackasses who deserved it. She’d noticed the snarky tone, but ignored it.
At least until the second statement was even more sarcastic and dry than the first. She could hardly get mad at him calling her a delinquent. It was just as true as the fact that Madison misplaced things. Those were just aspects of themselves that could not be denied. Her eyes narrowed a bit though. “Why do you have to be like that? We were having a perfectly pleasant conversation.” She pointed out. She wasn’t yelling or anything. Madison had been too smart to get caught in his own delinquency.
“I’m not being like anything! I’m being like me.” She had made the comment near the start of the conversation about him misplacing things. and yes, that was true and he hadn’t got bent out of shape about it. Of course, even Madison could admit that he had been getting kind of grumpy, and sarcastic with her there. “And you asked what I was doing as a teenager and I answered you.” And now he was nitpicking.
Sometimes Madison was a bit of a jerk.
Lil’s eyes narrowed, deciding it was best to head this off right away. If she didn’t, there was going to be yelling. She tossed up a dismissive hand. “You had a tone.” She muttered, tossing the bit of metal she’d had in her hands back into the scrap pile. So of course, even if she thought it was best and didn’t want to start a fight, her mouth wouldn’t allow for a rational thing like that to happen. “You know you did, you didn’t have to answer with attitude!” She said looking at him pointedly as if daring him to say he hadn’t.
Sometimes she felt a little crazy with how fast her temper could rise and fall. “I really don’t want to argue.” She followed up sounding a bit more kind. After all, as grumpy and as argumentative as they could be, normally they spent their time bitching about everything else. That was fun. She missed those conversations.
Madison came very close to accepting that dare. Instead he played whit his own piece of scrap metal for a few moments, looking like a sulky kid who had just been called on their attitude. “Yes. I did have a tone.” Because Madison didn’t really want to fight with her -- and really didn’t want to fight in the school. Or the work room that had all his stuff in it.
“Sorry.” He sighed and put down the metal he was playing with. “For the tone. that wasn’t very nice of me.” A small smirk. “I might have been living among Americans too long.” Yeah, right. Madison had never been an overly polite or friendly Canadian.
She chuckled, shaking her head slightly. “I’ll admit... if you were any other way, I’d be concerned.” Seriously, nice or not. She liked that Madison was grumpy. It made he feel a lot less bad about being grumpy herself. After all, if he wasn’t, their marriage would have felt like she was always teasing a sad puppy or something. Besides the fact that he argued back was something she enjoyed.
“Australia could have softened you up, after all.” She joked without adding that bit about him running off there without telling her. She hadn’t even really meant to bring it up either. “That would just be weird.”
Madison was a bit wary, because they where talking after all about moving to America, and going to Australia. And those had been touchy subjects last time they talked -- but so far so good in this conversation. Well minus the tone thing, although that wasn’t related to Australia or America.
“Yeah, I could have traded my ‘eh’ for ‘g’day mate.’ Would have been terrible.”
“Very terrible.” She said sounding fairly serious at the assessment. “I know I’d definitely have an urge to punch you in the face if that happened.” She pointed out, looking over at him out of the corner of her eye for a reaction. It would have just been, so unlike him. And she had liked him. Stupid flames fan and all. “Besides... Australian sports are shit anyway.”
“Well. I won’t ask you to ‘put some shrimp on the barbie.’” And having said that, Madison had pretty much used up all his Australian cliches. Well he could have gone into Crocodile Dundee territory he supposed. “Because then you’d probably have to punch me twice in the face.”
He absentmindedly began reshaping the metal that he had been playing with. “Oh. Terribly shitty. They don’t have ice for one, so no real hockey.” The metal that he was playing with was starting to shift into an Oliers logo made of metal. Hey, Madison wasn’t so good with words, he was better with making things.
“I wouldn’t punch you twice.” The way it was said was truthful sounding as if such a concept was unconscionable. She looked at him a sort of mischievous look on her face. “After all, ‘shrimp on the barbie’ deserves a sharp kick to the shins not a punch to the face.” Alright, so Lil irrationally had a think about Australian cliches. She couldn’t even watch Crocodile Dundee.
“Silly water sports.” She said as if it was water in a liquid state unless coming out of a tap was a foreign concept to her. She glanced down at his hands, knowing whenever he got nervous or bored or anything really he’d just mindlessly play with whatever he could. This seemed to have a little bit of a purpose though. “Thinking of changing teams there? Smart thing to do.”
“Well remind me to make shin pads before ... well before I try to say anything else Australian like.” He thought that there was something to do with wrestling Crocodile’s, or Kangaroos .... or something.
“Freaking water sports. Polo’s insane enough as it is ... but water polo? Please.” He glanced down at the metal in his hands and frowned for a second. Then he looked back up and over at Lil. “Well I was thinking about it . . . but naw. I mean its still early in the season, and could be worse. Could be a Leafs fan.” Then randomly he shoved the little metal ornament at her. “Here.”
So conversation sort of stopped on Lil’s side of the conversation for a second when Madison thrust the thing into her hands. She rolled it over a couple of times in her hand, before looking at him and then it and then back to him. Alright, she didn’t like this feeling of wondering what this meant. He’d made all sorts of little nicknacks when they were dating, and then he’d do it if there was ever an argument an actual apology was needed for. She swallowed. “Oilers logo. You recently get hit in the head.” She said attempting a joke. She’d been surprised he hadn’t broken out in hives while making it.
“Thanks.” She said sort of awkwardly stuffing it in her pocket, when she was done her hand fell next to her on the table near his. She sort of gave him a soft sort of appraising look as if she wanted to know what he was trying to do. “Thank you.” Yes, Lil you already said that. Jeez.
“Well this is a school for teenage mutants.” Madison allowed after she said that he had gotten hit in the head. “Crazy powers, things flying around, people flying around-- it should probably be a requirement to wear a helmet to avoid getting struck in the head . . .” Yes, he was just talking, he wasn’t sure why he had made the Oilers logo for her.
And speaking of teenagers -- well Madison felt as kind of awkward as one as he reached over to cover Lil’s hand with his own. He shouldn’t feel awkward this was his wife after all. But there had been a lot of water under the bridge, and hell Madison had thought he might have burned that bridge. And then salted the earth for good measure.
So this had probably been the most quite Lil had been with another person in the room in a long while. “Well, it’s not like you can do that much more damage to that brain of yours.” She teased quietly, trying to make it sound like earlier. Teasing and sarcasm and mutual bitching she could handle perfectly, but that familiar feeling of his hand covering hers made her feel a bit good, like before all the drama.
Which shouldn’t happen. If anything, she shouldn’t be sitting right here. She shouldn’t have even been having a civil conversation with him. His ‘Oh, shucks, I’m a nice guy; let me make you something.’ routine shouldn’t be working on her. Then again it wasn’t a game. It was how he was. So instead of walking out like she probably should have - or would have if her brain was working properly - she gave his hand a squeeze. And she might have moved herself an indiscernible half an inch closer. She’d mentally berate herself for it later. A lot.
An Oh shucks I’m a nice guy -- until I decide conflict is over rated, and avoid. Sometimes by moving continents. Now Madison wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, just that he had missed Lil (and maybe even missed the epic fights, since that had been part of what their life had been like) and here she was.
He returned the hand squeeze with one of his own.
“Missed you Lil.” There he had said it.
Now, there was still so much left, big things left between them that it seemed weird to just be back here like this, this close and this comfortable. She’d only meant to give him his watch. This rational still angry part of her was saying she really should have just dropped it in the mail, and it was laughing that he missed her, because he should. The admission that he missed her seemed to cut through the rest of the resolve that wasn’t just in the back of her head.
She didn’t think many people missed her. At least she wasn’t having a crazy emotional outburst when he said it. Lil was a little bold though. “I missed you too.” She said quietly. She’d missed the crap just laying around. She missed that eyes narrowed annoyed (secretly wants to laugh) look he’d get when she’d make jokes about whatever he was watching on TV. So she decided to make a move. No, she didn’t kiss him. He was going to have to meet her on that, but she might have made the move in motion for one.
He had left because he didn’t like conflict, and because he didn’t want the Dept in his life, and Lil was all tied up with that. And she still was. And there was the fact that he had left, and hadn’t even thought about telling her about Australia and ... well it was going to take a lot more then an Oliers ornament, and a “missed you” to fix what was broken. If it was even possible to fix.
(Madison could “fix” some things. But he’d refused to fix that pipe out of spite. And he didn’t know if he could fix what had gone on between himself and Lil).
Now it might have been a while, but he thought he could still read Lil. So he was moving in to kiss her when --
The door to the art room flew open with a bang. And there stood a very sheepish looking Vance. He had not meant to hit the door with that much TK, he was just so excited for the first meeting of the sci fi club tonight and.
“Ahhh.” Vance turned a brilliant shade of red. The art teacher was in the room, and he had company. “Sorry. I thought. I was going to get some -- I was -- “ Vance held up a roll of cardboard he had in one hand. “Paint. I wanted to paint this to look like a lightsaber.”
Madison pulled away from Lil because hey - - there was a student here.
“Right. Paints over there Vance. Fill your boots.” He wasn’t scowling too much when he said that.
The minute the door flew open, Lil flew away from Madison like he’d been on fire. “Oh my God.” She said softly, hopping from the desk she was on. She wasn’t going to voice any of the thoughts rushing into her head. There was a teenager around, and they’d probably sound crazily bipolar. Part of her pissed and disappointed, while the other was happy, because this was a mistake.
Though she’d meant it when she said she’d missed him. She had. She chewed her lip for a second before, finally making a decision. “I think I should probably go anyway.” She said. “Bye, Madison.” She said quickly exiting stage left.
Obviously, Madison thought to himself the thing to do was move. Maybe convince Xavier that even though the team in Australia had folded that he needed an X-team representative in Mexico. Or Russia. Madison thought he might like Russia, they’d have good hockey at least ....
Shoving thoughts of running away (again) away Madison sighed and looked over at the kid. Of course it would be the hyper over active Star Wars kid.
“Sorry, I just -- the paint -- for the club and --”
“Kid. Breathe. Paints right here.” Madison moved over to the cabinet that held the paint and looked over. “So what colour are you looking for? Red?”
Vance gave his teacher a disproving look; “Green. I need green.”
“Right. Green. Of course.” Madison paused to glance down at his watch. Then turned back to getting Vance his paint.