InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Supa Star"

Rᴏʙᴇʀᴛ Mᴏɴᴛᴀɢᴜᴇ Rᴇɴғɪᴇʟᴅ (insects) wrote in valloic,
@ 2021-05-01 08:49:00

Entry tags:

!: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: hank mccoy, ₴ inactive: katherine pierce

WHO: Katherine & Hank
WHAT: Taking a break from work to have a srs conversation about a memory dump and immortality
WHERE: S.T.A.R. Labs
WHEN: Idk last week sometime
WARNINGS: Not really, just lots of canoodling (with fangs involved)
STATUS: Complete

Katherine’s presence at S.T.A.R. Labs was merely part-time, and it wasn’t a gig she ever thought to seek out for herself but she wasn’t going to deny that she enjoyed it. Contrary to popular belief she wasn’t all about designer footwear and ridiculously expensive mascara wands, thanks - there was an incredibly sharp brain hidden underneath that volume of shiny curl and she picked up things quickly. While she couldn’t ever aspire to be of genius-level intellect like the other scientists that worked diligently through the day, she could offer an administrative hand when it came to data collection and organization without irreversibly fucking things up beyond recognition.

Hank was also extremely particular about certain things. She knew those quirks in and out; it was easy for her to work with. Plus she gave Alex a hand too, same with her friend - it was a good gig. One day she might find something more her, but she was in no rush.

Besides, lab coats were required here and she rocked them.

“So,” came her voice, breaking through the background noise of beeps and bloops from machinery and tech around them. Katherine perched herself onto his desk, legs crossed with the sweetest little look she could muster - which somehow always had a hint of something devilish. “You’ve been working with the craziest look of intensity all morning and I’m afraid your brain’s about to pour out of your ears - fancy a break with your girlfriend?”

Could be a coffee break, a snack break. Could be that they find an empty room to have a hot makeout in too with some heavy petting. Katherine was flexible (in every sense of the word).

Hank’s glasses (he supposed he didn’t really need them - his vision was sharp as a knife blade, even catlike in the dark, but they added a certain comfort and aesthetic) were slipping down his nose; he glanced up with baby blue eyes, the breath of spring, giving those spectacles a nudge with his finger. And chuckled in appreciation, unable to stop from shifting all his attention to Katherine - it happened that way frequently. She could usually pull him out of the Science Zone™ rather effectively.

He’d been a busy bee studying the readings from Zeke’s spirit totem, comparing all of that to the data he’d managed to collect near a waypoint with a machine that read electromagnetic waves and bioresonance - because both the waypoint crystals and the spirit totem seemed to be sentient, in a sense, and it had been fascinating comparing the two. Back and forth, between his computer and the chalkboard to scrawl various formulas and equations (Gauss’ law for electric fields, the change in currents over time, displacement current and so forth, 2×10−7 newtons - amazing stuff, truly!), and his morning was consumed with that.

But he could stop and smell the roses for a minute. Or go for a quickie in an empty room - he wasn’t stupid. “Yes, alright - a break,” he agreed, gently tapping Katherine’s knee with the eraser of a pencil and then scooting back. “Where shall we go, darling?”

Oh, goody. He was open to a little distraction. That made Katherine happy. But where to go, hm - decisions, decisions.

“Somewhere I can have you all to myself,” she concluded, slipping off the desk and taking him by the wrist. Their days had been busy, between here and Hank teaching sciences and then the trials and tribulations of parenthood (such mayhem, much exhausting). If she wanted to sneak off and spend some quality time with him then she would.

Hard to deny that it wasn’t a little fun, too. There was a storage room Katherine had access to, nothing that housed anything volatile or dangerous - more like extra supplies that had an expensive dollar sign attached to it and the area was restricted to avoid chances of theft. Best part about it that it was private. No one had bothered them there before.

With a touch of vampire strength, Katherine pushed him in and shut the door behind her. “And - well, I wanted to check up on you,” she admitted with a shrug. “After your recent foray with dreams.”

Oh - yes, very well then! Hank was all too pleased to go where Katherine brought him - he was no slouch in the strength department himself, but she could also pick him up and throw him, so that was always a little trilling - and slipped into the depths of the supply closet easily. It was mostly quiet, save for the buzz of the fluorescents overhead - a change from the hustle and bustle of the lab, which was always moving and Hank felt like he was conducting great science orchestras whenever he was at work. Surely this was what he was born to do, but stopping to spend quality time with his life partner and their daughter was very important too.

“Check up on me?” he repeated, hands resting on Katherine’s waist - long fingers splayed there, and he held her close to him, nose buried at the top of her head in that mass of silky chocolate brown curls (which she always kept out of the way in the lab, following proper safety protocols). “I - I’m...processing, I suppose. Talking to Rogue revealed some interesting information about the Raven she knew that may or may not be true with mine, and - it still feels odd to miss her.”

He wasn’t in love with her, of course, not like how he apparently had been once upon a time (and she didn’t return the sentiment until those words died on her lips, when she perished too) but he thought he might want to at least meet her some day. If possible.

Yes, check up on him. There were other worker bees in the laboratory, it didn’t really vibe well for personal talks - the storage closet was good for that, and other things too (obviously). Katherine’s hands curved over his shoulders, thumbs circling against the muscles there. “It’s always odd to feel anything about someone you’ve never met,” she sympathized with a sigh.

Not like she was insecure about Raven or anything, no - she just understood the feeling, the complicated mess of emotions remembering all these different versions of yourself brought and the people they’ve known. “Mourning her in a way’s normal too, you know,” Katherine added, slipping her hands up to cradle that handsome face of his. “There’s always going to be people from these things that we find ourselves caring about whether we want to or not.”

They couldn’t rule out the possibility of Hank one day meeting some version of her here. Hopefully it’d be a good version, like the one he knew.

Honestly, Hank found it difficult to understand why Katherine was so loathed and feared - a version of her did whatever she had to do to survive, and she hurt a lot of people along the way, but the Katherine he knew and loved was a great mother and a supportive partner. His hands slipped up too, fingers encircling her wrists (and she was probably the only person who thought he was handsome - both in this form and the one that was much more blue).

“I care about all of them,” he admitted - the ones at the school, anyway. Charles (even though Hank had rejected him after Raven was killed, and he’d backed away from the Institute and the world, a broken man) and Kurt, Jean and Scott. Raven especially. They were an odd family, of sorts, interwoven and intertwined due to their shared experiences and all they had been through together. It was a life lived only through the lens of a dream, many dreams, but he knew it was him and he was connected to them regardless. “Seeing all of that - it makes me glad we’re here now, that nothing is hidden and Nadia gets exposed to all different types. Mutants or otherwise.”

There was also the issue of Raven’s death weighing heavily on him for other reasons - he’d lost her, and they would never get to know what would happen if they actually tried to be together. Maybe death in general was weighing heavily on his mind; eventually, he would have to face it too. While he aged slowly, the time (the end) would come - it always did.

Her thumbs continued to move, and this time they traced the line of his cheekbones soothingly as he spoke. Katherine was grateful for the same thing, that even though they were far away from where they were from it was better here - better for two people that weren’t really human that could raise a little girl in a place where that wasn’t an issue.

“It’ll definitely be less of a surprise when we break it to her that we’re differently,” she chuckled out tightly - there were some nerves tangled up in that. They had broached the subject back when they arrived and everything was fresh, and now they were able to see how well Nadia adjusted to everything and everyone. Hell, the kid had a feathery friend at school now. Non-humans were becoming her norm. “I don’t know if she’ll ever be ready to hear it but I think she’s close.”

Nadia’s reaction to what they were didn’t concern her so much now that she saw how well she was adjusting. No, what concerned her what would happen, knowing she had two parents that would most likely outlive her. The Nadia she remembered turn to vampirism in hopes of staying with her, and while this Nadia was clearly going to have a wildly different upbringing, what if she followed that same path?

It was probably a silly insecurity. But it wasn’t an impossible scenario.

Hank had learned about what transpired with Nadia in another life - Katherine never got to know her as the happy-go-lucky, adorable six-year-old with the gap-toothed grin and a penchant for Pixar animated films. Instead she was desperately searching for her mother, just as broken by the loss of that connection as Katherine herself had been; it was true that otherworldly Nadia underwent a vampiric transition to have more time to track down the mother she’d lost, and while things were different now - mother and daughter together - he didn’t want Nadia to feel like she was short on time when it came to her parents. Like she needed to do something drastic to buy more time, once she learned that both of them either didn’t age or aged at a snail’s pace.

“I don’t expect us to have answers now,” he started carefully, hands traveling down Katherine’s back - a slow crawl, more a massage than anything else, each notch of her spine and following the shape of her and the way she was curved. Those hands came to a stop on her lower back, where he would appreciate this space for the time being. “But - perhaps there may be a way to keep Nadia with us longer. In a way that doesn’t necessarily mean eternity, but rather - something less severe.”

He didn’t know that part for sure, and even with his genius brain he couldn’t come up with an answer at the drop of the hat. All Hank was certain of was that most anything was possible. Especially here.

“If that is something she wants,” Katherine emphasized. “My hope’s that she wants to pursue some normal, boring life if that’s what makes her happy.” It probably wasn’t the most likely scenario - Nadia was likely going to get so accustomed to the strangeness that she may want to blend in a bit, join their ranks in whatever way possible.

Parenthood involved so much anxiety and the worst part was that vampirism meant her emotions were heightened, and this was the kind of anxiety that couldn’t be washed away by guzzling an entire bottle of tequila in less than thirty seconds. Katherine was also aware she had to make peace with the fact that them leaving her one day was inevitable, and while it would be years from now it was a fact that weighed heavily on her in spurts.

Hands traveling down, they caressed the back of his arms and squeezed. Hank had some lean muscle she liked to grab onto and appreciate; it was one of those moments. “I know I’ll have you for awhile and - I try not to think about how it’ll all pan out but it’s hard, in an extremely annoying sort of way.”

Yes, Katherine would most certainly have him for awhile - he’d discovered that he didn’t age as quickly as a ‘normal’ human being would, and that was due to the presence of the x-gene. Taking a sample of Raven’s blood, in this other life, had been the key to beginning to traverse that path - while she also aged slowly and he’d known that from the onset it turned out they all did too; his other self was born in the 1940s and in the year 1992 didn’t look a day over thirty. He hadn’t pulled the exact genetic sequence yet, calculating the average lifespan for someone possessing a mutation, so he was unable to draw firm conclusions in that regard - but being here, along with Peter and Erik from his otherworldly existence, he was hopeful that more answers would reveal themselves as more tests were conducted.

He wanted to know precisely how much time he would have with Katherine and Nadia, before old age finally began to set in. Surely it would be after Nadia began to feel the effects of her age, but he and Katherine would let her make decisions regarding that when she was older.

“I’ll always be with you,” he promised. “Perhaps it sounds far too philosophical for someone like me - but I think we keep the people we love with us. Besides - “ Gently, he nudged her up against the wall - well, maybe it wasn’t so gentle, but that was a bit of his own strength coming into play. “It’s difficult to forget a love that was forged after hunting down your life partner’s murderer.”

Hank’s morality tended to shift in times of grief and stress - that was apparent, especially after he saw the way he was eager to end Jean after her possession by the Phoenix Force. Perhaps that was logic and reason rearing its head too, because such a volatile and dangerous being could easily destroy the world, but - he’d just lost Raven and it was natural to want revenge. Unhealthy, but natural.

Up against the wall Katherine went, offering little resistance - the air in the room felt heavy, weighed by a topic that wasn’t even remotely close to sexy (except for that nostalgic comment about how their relationship starts, that was actually hot) but that wasn’t an issue. Her fingers found his belt loops, hooking into them so she could close the gap that wrongfully existed between their hips.

“I wouldn’t ask you to take that immortality plunge with me,” she confessed, offering the rare sight of a sad smile. “I don’t think we’re supposed to live forever - and seeing what becomes of people that don’t seem to naturally expire tells me it’s not worth it.” Having to admit that was strange considering her entire existence as Katerina Petrova revolved around escaping death in any way possible. To come to the conclusion that this Katherine did not, in fact, want to live forever betrayed the actions of her other self.

But she’d chalk that up to being a good thing. There was too much loss in forever.

Katherine captured his lips into a kiss, slow and sweet with a dash of heat. “I’m happy living a long life with you, however long I have you for. Then I’ll just stalk you in the afterlife when I figure out how to get there,” she smirked at him. “No big deal.”

The idea of Katherine stalking him in the afterlife brought a laugh out of Hank - though it was more of a rumble of a growl, actually, a door on rusty hinges. He was a bit distracted with the kissing - and he’d take kisses from her, all the time, returning them with as much fervor as he was given.

“I know you wouldn’t ask something like that,” he assured, hands cupping her face - his thumbs stroked her cheekbones and he held her there to kiss her again. Fell into those kisses too, a clear lake that he swam into and was able to forget everything else - like how while he’d live awhile, he wouldn’t live forever. “It’s also - a complicated situation. One that I don’t have the answer for, or know how it will exactly turn out. I know that I love you, however. For now, I think - that’s all I need.”

He nibbled a bit on her neck, with another of those undertone growls. “Well, that and you looking incredibly sexy in a lab coat, Ms. Pierce.”

A request like that was selfish, and she’d spent most of her life being selfish - spent an entire past life the same way too. Katherine was trying to be better. To love better, unlike all the failed whirlwind romances that burned up in flames before this. But Hank was right; their situation had some complexities to it that couldn’t be solved by just one conversation. Time was at least on their side.

It was always going to be a daunting subject to broach but for now, loving him was satisfying enough.

“I’m very aware of how well I rock this lab coat,” she purred, bunching up his shirt and ruining how neatly it had been tucked into his trousers. The mouth on her neck was - mmf, but she was needy for kisses and coaxed his face up for some. This next kiss was deeper, fangs popping out to gently scrape his lips. If she bit, blood would be drawn. It was a tempting taste. “Love you too, blue eyes. Have I ever told you what a DILF you are now, by the way?”

It was a compliment of the highest calibre if you asked Katherine.

“A...DILF?” Hank repeated, blinking those acid blues, because it took him a second to make the connection. But then the correct synapses fired - it was simply that Katherine’s fangs had served to be the sole focus of his attention; he was always quite attracted to those more predatory aspects of her - the fangs, the spindly black veins beneath her eyes whenever the hunger took over. Her speed and her strength. “Oh! Oh, no - I don’t think you’ve mentioned that lately. But I’m flattered you think so.”

He wheezed out something like a chuckle, not even bothering to stop her and that potential wrinkling of his clothing - because he’d just tuck his shirt back in, and for the meantime, it could stay right where it was (read: disheveled). “Why, does it make you want to take a bite out of me?” he wanted to know, flashing his own fangs before he went for a kiss that was mostly teeth; when he wasn’t in beast form his fangs weren’t like hers, they were elongated canines, really, but still. Taking a bite out of him? Terrifying!

That was a lie. He was always into whenever Katherine wanted to take a bite out of him.

Ahh, Katherine loved those moments where it took him a bit to catch up. Brought her back to their early flirting days where she’d throw several euphemisms for boners his way - how he had a hard time coming to terms that yes, she was intentionally flirting. With him. Her smile was wide, charming in a way - void of the cocktail mix of seduction and mischief.

And she even giggled into that next kiss too, hands gliding underneath his shirt and caressing that canvas of bare skin she delightfully re-discovered. “I’m always going to want to take a bite out of you,” she promised Hank, eyes half-lidded and oh so sultry. “It might just make me bite you a little harder, though.”

That was a claim she sealed with another kiss and her retractable fangs did pop out, this time all the way. Katherine planned on putting those to good use.