Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/6543943. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: F/M Fandom: X-Men_(Movies), X-Men_(Movieverse), Hugh_Jackman_-_Fandom Relationship: Sabertooth/OFC, Toad_(X-Men)/Original_Female_Character(s), Victor_Creed/ Original_Female_Character, Toad/OFC Character: Toad_(X-Men), Sabertooth, Victor_Creed, Mortimer_Tonybee, Eric_Lensher, Magneto, Raven_|_Mystique, Wolverine, Kurt_Wagner, Nightcrawler Additional Tags: Past_Child_Abuse, Blood, Guns, Sex, Violence, triggered_flashbacks, Fights, Romance, comedic_value, it's_fucking_awesome, Sassy_teens, Teenage_Mutants, Comfort_Sex, sexy_sex, They_are_Seventeen, Smut, Fluff and_Smut, Action_&_Romance, Sassy, sass_and_slapstick, its_not_all_dark and_gloom, Kiss_me_frogboy Stats: Published: 2016-04-13 Chapters: 14/14 Words: 19222 ****** Terror Twins ****** by Glytchy Summary Written with a good friend on another site. He doesn't have Ao3.   All of my work is unbeta'd. I am only a native English speaker as if my co-author. We write and post what we come up with on the fly. This isn't for everyone and I do so hope no one is harmed by what we post. ***** Bendy Bars ***** "Hey Waverly?" "Yeah?" "Are those bars supposed to bend?" "Obviously no, Willow; they would be pretty shitty cell bars if they did." "Oh. Waverly?" "What?" "They put us in a pretty shitty cell." Criick! Willow squeals as she falls back onto her prison cot, her hands coming up to block the pieces of cement that go flying as the prison cell door rips from its very foundations. Her gray eyes watch, wide in surprise, as the bars levitate above the ground before landing with a crash to the side. "Waverly? You're seeing this, right?" Instead of answering, Willow's sister drops down from the top bunk and lands silently on the ground, and she edges to the gaping hole, cautiously peeking into the cement-dust cloud. She drops to the ground in a crouch only a second before a disk of metal cuts through the air, exactly where her head used to be. "Well, it seems your skills were not exaggerated." The voice came from the same direction as the metal disk, and through the dust the girls can see a figure moving towards them. "I'm glad to see this little excursion isn't a waste of my time." Finally he is no long obscured by the dust: he is tall, dressed in dark clothes with a metal chest piece and a metal helmet that covers most of his face. Willow scrambles off her bunk to stand beside her sister, dropping into a defensive stance to partner her sister's offensive crouch. "Who the fuck are you?" Waverly demands, her hands clenching into fists. Hate for the Warden floods her veins: if it wasn't for his damn shackles blocking her mutation, this man would be twitching on the ground by now. "I, my dear, am your way out of this human filth." He spreads his arms to indicate the cement prison walls, the metal bunks, and the toilet in the corner. "Who says we want to leave? Took us a lot of effort to get here." Willow snaps, not liking his superior attitude. "I say, and I think you will agree when you hear the job I have for you." Both sisters straighten then, their interest piqued at the word 'job'. "What kind of job?" Waverly demands. The man smirks, "A dangerous one." The sisters look at each other, matching grins spreading across their faces; Waverly turns back to the man, "Okay, we're in." The man, introduced as Magneto as they left the utterly destroyed prison, had a jet waiting for them in the prison yard; excitement buzzes down Willow's spine as she jumps on board, turning to help her sister up. Waverly is more contained, her expression carefully blank as she looks around. The jet is occupied, a woman in the pilot seat waiting for them; a blue, naked woman. Waverly pulls her sister to the seats in the back before Willow can start to stare. "We're off." The woman calls and the jet smoothly leaves the ground, soaring to incredible heights in only seconds. "Very good, Mystique." The man praises, and then he turns to look back at the sisters. "Waverly Monet" he nods to one girl, "and Willow Monet" he nods to the other, "espionage and mercenary experts." He pulls off his helmet, revealing an older man with silver hair. "Glad to have you on our side." "Actually, I'm Willow." Willow says, raising her hand slightly. "I'm the shorter twin." The man nods apologetically, "I am Magneto, and she is Mystique." He motions to the blue woman expertly navigating the skies. "I am the leader of the Brotherhood." "Oh! I've heard of you before. You're fighting for Mutant Superiority, right?" Willow asks. "Correct, but we are not unopposed. Charles Xavier, a former colleague, has a little group called the X-Men; they are our main obstacle. And it is because of them I have enlisted your help." Waverly smirks, her fingers tapping out the Fifth Symphony against her leg, "Sounds like fun." "Sparring room in the basement, library to the back, kitchen on this floor, and rooms upstairs." Mystique lists off as they enter the large manor. "Well, this will do, I guess. Not as much fun as a prison cell, but we can manage." Willow nods her agreement to her sister's words with a mischievous grin. "Glad you approve." Sarcasm drips from Mystique's mouth and without another word she leaves the sisters at the front door and stalks upstairs. When the blue lady has disappeared, the twins turn to each other with matching excitement: Willow's more obvious in her grin, but Waverly's just as much in her amber eyes. "You take the left, I'll take the right?" Waverly prompts, mischief turning her normally stoic expression to an attractive smile. "Meet here in an hour?" Willow adds. With nods, they head off. ***** Sass and Claws ***** Waverly doesn't waste anytime; she's been itching for a fight ever since Magneto first appeared. She heads straight for the basement: specifically the sparring room. Maybe someone worth her effort would be there. After some brief trouble with a dead end hallway, she finds the sparring room, and her sparring partner. He is tall, a beast of a man with coils of muscle down each arm: Waverly watches as he claws easily through the target dummies with one hand. There was a lot of strength wrapped up in this package. Not one to be intimidated, Waverly pushes open the glass doors and lets their bang announce her arrival. With a growl, the man spins around, teeth barred in a snarl at the unwanted intrusion. The sight that greets him brings him up short though: what the fuck was this little twig of a girl doing down here? He growls again, not liking her presence or the way the sweet honey scent that was coming off of her made his head fuzzy. Waverly sizes up the man before her, enjoying the thrill that runs down her spine. Every instinct in her body screams 'Dangerous. Threat. Strong.' And she loves it. "What are you doing, girly?" His voice, more of a growl than question, just makes Waverly step further into the sparring room. His dark eyes track her every move like a predator watching his prey. "Looking for a good fight." She lets the words hang for a second, "You up to the challenge, big boy?" His growl deep in his chest is all the answer he gives before he is upon her. It is only long bred instinct that saves Waverly, because she had severely underestimated his speed. Determined not to do so again, she retreats to the middle of the gym mat and grins cheekily, "That all you got, buddy?" He flexes his claws and runs at this insolent girl, slashing at her throat; she backs away, always only a hairsbreadth away from being torn open. Waverly watches closely as he moves, and she sees her opening a second before he can correct himself. She grabs his wrist as he over balances and she spins with his momentum, pulling him even further off center. He can't stop; his body slams into the wall with a crunch. Grinning, Waverly backs off again. The man pushes away from the wall and turns sharply, enraged now; he wipes away the dribble of blood running from his nose. One step forward, another, another; the girl doesn't move, bolstered by her brief attack, and when she finally realizes the danger, it is too late. Waverly gasps as she spins away, her shoulder taking the claws aimed for her throat and pain spreads as deep gouges result from her escape. When she is a safe distance away from the man, she stops and they glare at each other from across the room. Blood drips from her hand, trailing from her shoulder. Smirking, the man licks her blood off his hand, and his eyes darken. He growls. Waverly bares her teeth in return. With a calculated step, she stalks forward; he matches her step for step until they are only a few feet apart. They circle slowly. "My name's Waverly; you can call me Vixen." She winks. They circle again. "Well? What's your name?" He ignores her, just continues to measure her up. "Come on, I need something to scream... in pain." She grins as his eyes grow darker, her words hanging with hidden meaning between them. "Sabretooth." He grunts. "Sabretooth," Waverly purrs, letting it roll of her tongue deliciously. With a roar, Sabretooth attacks and again they are off. Waverly dodges and he claws, he attacks and she moves just in time for him to ricochet off the wall. Sweat runs down her back as she dodges another swipe and then flips to evade a kick; her foot catches him under the chin and he bites through his tongue with a grunt. Blood flows into his mouth and down his chin; Waverly licks her lips as her eyes follow the blood path. Distracted, she moves too slow and Sabretooth's arms trap her in a steel grip. His arms pin hers to her sides, and his claws pierce her sides, blood welling up and staining her blouse. It pools up over his claws and runs down his wrists. When Waverly tries to escape, his claws tug at her skin; more blood runs down her sides. "Gotcha girly." He breathes down her neck, a growl echoing from him into her. Waverly turns her head, her face only centimeters from his, and she winks, "Is that right?" He crumbles, every muscle, nerve, and sense shutting down simultaneously. When she has her breath caught, Waverly steps away and retracts enough of her influence to give Sabretooth back his vision and hearing. The pure rage in his eyes makes a nice shiver run down her spine. "Don't worry, love, it only lasts a little while. Come find me if you want something-" she pauses, licks a drop of her own blood off her finger, "-a little less violent." She leaves him there with a grin and a satisfied sigh; now that she had gotten that out of her system, she could go explore more. First stop, find a library. ***** Smoke and Slime ***** Willow wasn't as lucky as her twin; she was utterly and undeniably lost in this house that didn't seem so big at first. When she turned right, she saw hallways; when she turned left, she saw hallways. Why were there so many hallways?! Finally: about time!: it's not a hallway that appears, but a door. A big, metal door that absolutely should never ever be opened without permission. Of course, that just makes Willow want to open it more. A second or two later, and she easily pushes open the previously locked door. Really, why have such a big door if you're just gonna put a standard lock on it? That's just asking to be picked. The door opens to what is obviously a loft, full of shiny metal machinery. It has a sterile feeling, but also a frequently used feel. Willow walks in silently, looking at everything curiously, but she freezes when a loud BANG erupts from the bottom level under the loft, followed by loud cursing. Even more curious now, she leans over the railing that edges the loft. Below is a deeper room full of more shiny machinery. And within this machinery is a man with brown hair and skin tinged green, cursing enough to make a sailor blush. Quietly, Willow slides down until she is sitting, her legs hanging over the loft edge and her arms on the rail. This isn't the library, but it was proving just as interesting. Toad cursed again, buried to his hips inside the new sentry robot the boss had asked for last week: something inside wasn't operating right and it was causing a lot of potential problems. Finding a wire that he is positive should be connected to something, Toad takes a wild guess and hooks it up to Motherboard C. And something deep inside the sentry explodes. Cursing more, Toad pulls out and picks up the nearby extinguisher, dousing the growing flames. Grumbling: this is gonna take hours to fix: Toad sets the can down with a huff. He needs a cigarette. Toad pauses, confused; quiet laughter comes from above. Looking, Toad is more than a little confused to see a girl with a curly mess of brown hair sitting on his loft. When she sees she has been spotted, she waves. "What the hell are you doing in here" He yells up, tossing his tools on his worktable. "The door was open." Willow lies with an easy smile. "Bullshit." He calls back just as easy. Willow shrugs, confessing without a word or guilt. "My name is Willow, but most call me Viper." "Mortimer, but I prefer Toad." "What are ya workin' on, Toad?" "Robot. Why are you in here?" "Bored, saw the door, thought something or someone in here might entertain me." Willow pauses, but Toad doesn't say anything, distracted by a misplaced tool. "Well?" Willow calls down expectantly. "Well what?" Toad replies annoyed. What did this girl want? He had work to do! "Are you going to entertain me or not?" Toad stares up at her, one eyebrow raised. "Why the hell would I do that?" "Cause I'm cute?" She tries. Blank look. "How about cause you're a nice guy?" Blanker. Willow sighs, "Maybe cause I can poison you with my breath?" Now he looks interested. "Just your breath?" "Yep." "Get down here." Toad motions to the staircase as he turns to his worktable, looking for something. Excited now, Willow scrambles to comply, charging down the stairs. Clumsy as ever, she trips on the last step and just barely manages to catch herself before a full tumble. She scowls as Toad grins at her embarrassment, but soon she is too absorbed in looking at all of the half- finished projects to care. "Hey, uhh, Willow, get over here." Taking her sweet time, running a hand over everything, she finally makes it to him. "Breathe in this." He orders, holding up what looks like a hi-tech Breathalyzer. "Why?" She asks warily. "I wanna see if your poison matches up to mine." Curious, about Toad not herself, she grabs the device. Just before she complies though, Willow is struck by a need to tease. She glances at Toad from the corner of her eye and sees he is watching carefully; grinning to herself, she decides to go for it. Slowly, Willow wraps her lips around the tube, a soft moan escaping as she breathes into it. She watches as Toad's eyes widen and he swallows loudly. The machine beeps then, breaking his attention and giving him a new thing to focus on. He takes the device back and reads the information carefully. "Interesting..." Toad turns away and hooks the device up to a computer. "What? What's interesting? What did you find? What-" "Quiet!" Toad holds up his hand. "God, you're worse than flame boy... Your breath has a few of the same chemicals, but it focuses more on Hemotoxins than anything else." "That means it destroys red blood cells, stops clotting, and damages organs and tissue, right?" Willow asks curiously. Toad looks at Willow, slightly shocked and more than a little impressed, "Uhh, yeah, actually that's right." Willow smirks at his surprised look. "I didn't go to college, but I'm not stupid." Toad turns to fully face her now, curious himself about this new recruit. "Who are you?" Willow squints at him, "Uh, we already covered this. Me, Willow, you, Mortimer, remember?" Toad scowls at her before elaborating, "Why did Magneto spring you and your twin from that German prison?" "Beats me." Willow shrugs, picking up a screwdriver and twirling it, "Probably cause we are gorgeous twin babes and he's a pervy old man." Toad looks at her for a second, eyebrow raised, and when she doesn't even crack a smile, he crumbles into laughter. Willow lets herself grin now, glad to have finally broken though Toad's hard shell. When finally he gathers himself back together, Toad shakes his head in lingering amusement and disbelief, "Don't let boss or Mystique hear you call him that." "Mystique? Oh, you mean the blue nudist lady?" Toad chuckles and Willow smiles. "Now," she continues, "there are a lot of shiny gadgets in here, and I wanna see them all." She heads off deeper into the room before Toad can stop her. "No! Don't touch those!" ***** Too Much Trouble? ***** Waverly smiles as she finally pulls the right book from the top shelf, perched perilously on the highest rung of a ladder. Of Mice and Men one of her favorites. Spinning haphazardly, she sits on the rung and flips open the cover. A second later, she flips off the ladder and lands in a crouch feet away as the ladder splinters. Waverly looks from the destroyed ladder to the ladder destroyer. "Couldn't stay away, pussy cat?" She grins, which infuriates Sabretooth even more. He growls and steps forward; Waverly responds by winking: his other leg takes a step back against his control. "Careful, big boy; you're strong, but I don't think you're all that flexible." He roars his defiance and struggles another step closer; she grins and jerks her head to the left. Before the first pained grunt can pass his lips, Waverly is out the door. Seconds later, Sabretooth chases after her, a predatory glint in his eyes and a dangerous smirk on his lips. The crashes are within seconds of each other and from opposite wings of the manor. The first, from the right, is the crash of expensive vases and doors being slammed closed and then crashed through; primal roars mix in with the commotion. The second, from the left, is accompanied by thick black smoke billowing through the ventilation system to the entire house, and a mixture of curses and laughter. Mystique glares at the floor before getting up and opening the large window in Erik's office. "I think," Erik begins with a thoughtful tone, "We have gotten more than we anticipated." "Will they still be useful?" She asks, sitting beside him on the lounge in the corner. Another crash, more growling. "Oh, I do believe so; more than expected." Erik smirks. Another crash, more smoke. ***** Entertain Me ***** crack... ... … Crack!... ... ... ... CRACK! Slam! The desk shakes from the force of the tool hitting its surface. "If you pop your gum one more time, you insufferable woman," Toad spins around his chair, fixing a glare on the girl who had, over the course of a week, taken over his work room. "I will glue your mouth shut." Willow smiles innocently, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, "Sure you can't think of a more... entertaining punishment?" She bites her lip and looks up at him from under her lashes. Smothering the blush her words threaten to cause, Toad shakes his head and turns back to his work desk, searching for the recently discarded tool. He finds it and works in blessed silence for long, precious minutes. And then- CRACK. "Okay," He turns back around, forcing himself to remain calm and not attack the annoying pest invading his peace. "What do you want? Why do you come in here everyday? The door is locked for a reason." "First time I came in here, you said you would entertain me; I'm still waiting." Willow shrugs, a smirk ruining her innocent facade. Toad shakes his head, correcting, "Never said that, darlin." Willow pouts prettily, her wide eyes pleading with him to change his mind. Pretty Please? Toad smirks and crosses his arms, not budging one inch, and he raises an eyebrow challengingly. Narrowing her eyes, Willow switches tracks. Slowly, she rises and slinks towards him, confident and tempting; she stops in front of him and lays her hands on his shoulder, her thumbs tracing small circles against his collarbone. She bends over until her lips are only a scant inch away from his, the air between their lips hot. Giving a half smile, she breathes, "Please?" Words stuck in his throat, Toad manages to shake his head 'no'. Giggling softly at his continued, useless resistance, Willow easily slides onto his lap, his hands falling naturally to her hips to hold her there. He swallows, his eyes flickering between her own and the place where his hands fit so perfectly. A finger dips under her shirt tail and his breath catches as he feels the petal soft and oh so warm skin. "Pretty please, Toad?" She whispers, her lips just barely brushing against his in a tempting offer. Head in a warm haze, Toad sighs and murmurs, "Okay," and then he leans forwards, ready to claim his prize. "Yay!" Willow jerks away and bounds up the stairs to the loft. Pausing, she looks back at Toad, still sitting in his chair, his hands reaching out and his mind trying to catch up with the present. "Come on, Toad! I wanna go outside! We can do a picnic!" She spins and runs out the door, a mischievous grin hidden from view. Toad blinks and lowers his hands. He rubs a hand down his face and groans, "That girl will kill me." Food is easy to grab: couple of sandwiches, chips, cans of soda: the blanket comes from the many piled on her bed, but the perfect spot for their picnic is harder. Willow stands on the wrap around porch for a long while, her arms slowly starting to ache from her heavy bundle, when finally Toad appears from the house. "Here, take this and follow me." She shoves the blanket and basket of food into his arms, ignores the shock and indignation on his face, and sets out with a purposeful stride. Ten minutes and four complete circuits around the house later, Toad has had enough. "Okay, what are you doing?" He demands and stops, refusing to take another step. "Trying to find the perfect spot!" Willow replies, eyes scanning over a patch of grass a few feet ahead, but the grass is too high and there is too much sun right there. Toad sighs before snapping, "Follow me." They walk away from the house and into the hundred and fifty acres of forest on the west side of the property. Less than a hundred yards in, they come to a clearing. The main point of the clearing is a lake: large, crystal clear and absolutely gorgeous, it is bordered on three sides by wild flowers and the last side with a collection of large, flat boulders. Willow grins excitedly and jogs to the largest rock, the one that hangs a foot over the lake and is speckled with warm afternoon sunshine. She scrambles to the top, her flipflops less than ideal for scaling rock sides but she manages to get up there with only one mishap. Willow looks over her shoulder, down to Toad. He quirks an eyebrow at her, but he just shakes his head and follows her up in one graceful jump. Willow makes a conscious effort to keep her jaw from dropping: "How the hell did you do that?!" He spares her a quick glance as he sets out the blanket and food, asking glibly, "Why do you think they call me Toad?" "Cause you're just so cuddly?" Toad jumps as Willow wraps her arms around his waist, she rubs her cheek against his back. "Maybe. But probably the fifteen foot long tongue." He says, too awkward to successfully pull off sarcasm. "Ohh, the uses for that..." She hums, squeezing him closer for a second and pushing him away. "I'm hungry." Toad stumbles but catches himself quickly; he turns to glare at the insufferable girl, but instead he freezes and then crumbles into laughter. Willow is sitting on the blanket, the basket on her lap, and her head completely submerged inside the basket. She emerges from it with a questioning look that melts into an amused smile. Willow waits, and when he has slowed to chuckles, she pats the blanket next to her. "Turkey or ham?" It is when the food is almost gone and the drinks dwindling that Willow finally asks the question she's been wondering for a while, "So why did Magneto pick us up from that jail?" Toad leans back against the rock face and watches as the sun filters down through the leaves and shrugs. "Don't really know: Boss doesn't share a lot of his plans. But it would be something big if he actually cared enough to break into the prison himself." "Well, I hope he gets on with it soon; it took me and Waverly forever to get in that prison." Willow runs her hand through her hair and adds absently, "We robbed the National Bank twice to get in." Toad rolls onto his side and looks at Willow with a curious stare, "Why would you try to get sent to prison?" "I'm not really sure; it's fun, I guess, except when they put those stupid power-suppressors on us. We never go out of our way to hurt people, just rob a bank or explode an embassy or something; so there's no guilt or anything over it. And then we get free food and board for as long as we care to stay." Willow shrugs, she had never really given much thought to why they did it, they just did. "You are not right in the head, girl." She smiles. "I know, but it's not my fault I'm all fuzzed up in the head." "Bet it's your crazy sister's fault..." Toad mumbles, wiping his hand down his face. Something solid knocks the breath out of him and his head slams into the rock, white stars exploding in his vision. When finally the pain dulls to a steady ache and the stars clear, Toad realizes his attacker is Willow. She sits on his hips, effectively pinning him to the rock, his hands trapped by his head. She is yelling at him, a steady stream of curses and threats that blur together. "Don't you ever fucking say a damn thing about Waverly! I will fucking poison you and you will beg for death! Waverly took care of me, she's all I have! So don't you say a fucking thing about her!" When she takes a second to gulp for air, Toad seizes his chance. Using his unnatural flexibility he flips the pin on her; the speed of it knocks the breath from her this time and while she coughs and sputters, Toad growls down at her, "Don't threaten me, girl; I have methods of torture even Magneto refuses to use, so don't you dare think you have an advantage on me." Completely thrown by this aggressive, even slightly intimidating side, Willow falls silent, staring up at him in shock. Seeing she has nothing to say, Toad continues, calmer, "I didn't mean any offense, okay? I've just never seen anyone willingly pick so many fights with Fuzz-ball." His grip on her wrists eases a little. Willow flips them again, but now a small grin appears. "She likes him." "Likes Victor?!" The shocked look on his face makes Willow giggle. "I just thought she got off from the pain." "Well," Willow tilts her head and grins wider, "she does, but she likes him, too. Probably as much as Waverly can like anyone." Toad raises an eyebrow, catching that weird added phrase, "Whatcha mean by that, doll?" Instead of answering, Willow ducks her head closer and nuzzles under his chin, letting go of the pin in favor of relaxing on top of him. "You know, I thought you would be slimy." She says offhandedly, one finger tracing a line up and down his bare arm. Forcing the lump in his throat down, Toad manages a normal tone, "Nah, just after I get out of the water." He squirms as her traveling finger dips under his shirt sleeve and draws a circle against the sensitive skin there. Her breath tickles the extremely delicate skin on his neck. "Oh, must make shower sex kinda slippery." And she nuzzles closer. Toad chokes on what should have been a sarcastic come back, and instead a strangled "Wha?" escapes. Willow looks up at him from under her lashes, and innocent mask on, "Are you okay, Toad? You look...pained." She just barely manages to stop the smile as Toad's face flushes red. Miraculously, Toad's brain decides to work this time, and in the hopes of maybe embarrassing her off of him and regaining some personal space, he replies, "Well, you are kind of heavy..." Instead of the response he was hoping for, Willow grins at him and asks, "Does this help?" She shifts her hips, and Toad bites his tongue to hold back any noise. "Oops, guess it didn't, huh?" She laughs, and when he glares at her and goes to snap something, she rolls her hips again. "Ah-!" Cutting the moan off, Toad takes a deep, concentrated breath and he very calmly growls, "You'd better stop playing with me, girl." ***** Bit of History ***** Laughing harder, Willow finally rolls off of him and stretches out on the blanket beside him. Toad sits up and jumps down to the ground; worried she may have actually went too far, Willow sits up and asks, panicked, "Where are you going?" He raises a hand without turning, "Calm down. I'm going for a swim." Placated, Willow settles on her stomach to watch him, disgust and curiosity battling in her. Toad stops at the edge of the crystal clear lake and in one easy movement, his shirt is off and he dives gracefully into the water, barely making a ripple on the surface. Curiosity wins out over her disgust at swimming and she watches closely, entranced with his easy movements. Toad cuts through the water effortlessly, reaching the other far side of the lake in seconds. Without coming up for air, he flips and cuts back to the rocks. More impressed than she'll ever admit, Willow mentally cheers him on as he repeats this multiple times. Finally, almost an hour later, he stops and just floats close to the edge of the lake, right below the rock Willow is stretched out on. She looks down at him, noting the shine his skin has taken on now and the peaceful smile on his face. At the same time, she happily gazes at the site hidden until now: Toad is not ripped, there was no six pack on this frog, but he wasn't wimpy either. Lithe, swimmer muscles roped around his arms and his stomach was tight and flat. Carrying heavy machinery daily had added the finishing touches of slight bulk. "So," Willow starts, giving over to her interest of the man below her, "what's your story, Toad? What brought Mortimer to this place?" Toad glances up, his expression cautious but not sealed off. "What do you wanna know?" Willow sat up and scooted over till her legs hung off the rock side, "Umm, what's your last name?" "Toynbee." "Where did you grow up?" "An orphanage in England till I was seven and then I left and traveled. Boss came for me at nineteen, been with him since then." "How old are you?" "Twenty-nine." "Why were you in an orphanage?" Now Toad freezes, sinking an inch or two before he catches himself and treads water. "I wasn't one of the lucky ones, girl; I was born like this." "So you don't know your parents?" Glaring up at the annoying twit, Toad growls, "No, I don't; and that's fine with me." Nodding, Willow opens her mouth to continue her line of invasive questions but Toad cuts her off. "What about you, girl?" "What about me? I'm an open book." She smiles. "What's your last name?" "Monet. And I grew up in the southern part of France and a little bit everywhere in the nation." She winks down at him. "How old are you?" The serious tone Toad tries to hide by doing a quick dive makes Willow smirk and when he reemerges, she purrs, "Seventeen, but I've been told I'm... mature for my age." She leans over to emphasize exactly what was mature. Except the sexiness she was trying to achieve is ruined as Toad erupts into laughter. "You are a lot of things, doll, but not mature. Ditzy, hazardous, sneaky; not mature." Willow crosses her arms with a humph. "Yeah well, you're the pervert that was getting all hot and bothered by this immature girl." "You don't have to be mature to be a slut." But his grin eases any offense Willow could have felt. And then Toad turned serious again, "Did you know your parents?" Willow shrugs, her teasing, lighthearted expression quickly melting to a twist of her lips. "Yes." "They raise you?" "Waverly raised me, but they were around for most of my childhood." Toad treads over to the edge of the lake and walks out, flopping onto his back on the soft grass. He looks up to Willow, "Doesn't sound like you have a lot of love for them." Willow crosses her arms again and glares at a tree across the clearing, refusing to say anymore. This wasn't entertaining! She wanted to watch him squirm, not the other way around. "Come on, doll face: one horrid past for another." "My dad was an abuser, okay?" She snaps, glaring harder at the tree and ignoring the slightly green tinted breath coming from her nose, "He confused his family with a punching bag sometimes and when we were nine Mom couldn't handle it anymore and took the coward's way out. A year later, Waverly killed our dear father when he tried to rape me. We've been traveling since then; just Waverly and me." Quiet reigns for a while; Willow spends it trying to burn the tree with her glare and she jumps when a hand gently grips her shoulder. She turns to see that Toad had joined her on the rock again, and he meets her eyes, apologetic and awkward and way out of his comfort zone. "I didn't mean to drag the pain back out. We had shitty childhoods: let's leave them in the dark where they belong. Okay?" With a deep, cleansing breath, Willow smiles and nods. A flicker of something passes through her eyes before Toad can read it and with no warning, Willow takes advantage of his close proximity. She leans forward and kisses him, her lips hot and soft against his own cold, chapped ones. When her tongue swipes across his bottom lip, he doesn't hesitate to open his mouth. Willow gladly lets Toad control the kiss then, she is content wrapping her arms around his neck and playing with his hair. A few seconds later, though, Toad pulls away and gasps out, "No! Not doing this: not being just a play thing." Confused, Willow pants, "You think I'm using you as a play thing?" She laughs then, "Toad, do you think I would tell just anyone about my parents? My father? That I would hang out in that stuffy, boring lab every day all day, watching you break more things than you build, if I didn't like you?" When he just stares at her blankly, Willow sighs and spells it out for him, "I. Like. You. Ya big slime ball. Enough to see you all covered in slime and swimming, and still want to get all close and personal with you." Slowly, a small smile crosses Toad's lips, and when Willow sees it she leans closer and wraps an arm around his neck. She pulls him closer and whispers, her lips barely grazing his, "Now kiss me, frog boy." And he does. Thoroughly. While their lips crash together, Toad pushes her back onto the blanket and pins her wrists above her head with one of his. He slips the other under her shirt, his slightly slick hand resting on her stomach, the moisture cool on her heated skin; Willow moans into the kiss as his thumb rubs a half circle from her belly button to the top of her jeans. When oxygen becomes necessary, Toad pulls away and trails kisses across her jaw to her ear; he nips it, sending a sliver of heat down Willow's spine and she arches up into him, returning the torment with a hazy, feral grin. "Come on, Mortimer, you can do better than this." She goads, biting her tongue as he gives her neck a sharp nip. The pain mixes perfectly with the pleasure in her veins. His hand trails up her body until his fingertips brush the underside of her bra, and Willow gasps, a silent plea to just get on with it. But he ignores it and runs his hand back down her side, his blunt nails not causing much damage as they scrape down. Growling, Willow wrestles her hands free of his pin and she grabs his shirt bottom and rips it up over his head; he has no choice but to let her remove it or have it tear. She happily drags both hands down from his shoulders to his hips and with another forceful movement, she pulls his hips to meet her own; their moans are muffled as Toad meets her lips again in a messy, passionate kiss. Now, he pulls her shirt off and she snaps open the clasp before he can. Toad palms her breast, groaning at the warmth and softness of her body. His thumb traces a circle around the hard nipple and Willow gasps, arching into the pleasure that suddenly multiplies as he repeats the motion on the other breast at the same time. "Oh yeah, that's it, Toad." She breathes, her hand carding through his hair and pulling his head closer to her for another kiss. "I'm sorry to interrupt your fun, but we have a bank to break into." Willow chokes on a scream, her arms flailing as shock runs through her veins, and her flailing pushes Toad off of her. She falls over the side of the rock and a second later, a splash announces her landing in the lake. Toad blinks at her sudden disappearance, but with a small smile and a shake of his head, he dismisses her for now and turns to the intruder. Magneto stands at the clearing edge, leaning against a tree with an amused smirk. Toad gives a two fingered salute and calls, "Be at the house in five, Boss." Magneto nods and floats off. Toad stands and walks to the edge of the rock, looking over it to see Willow half in half out of the water, stretched out and gasping for air on the grass. He pushes away the laughter that would surely cause an explosion from the girl and he hops down beside of her. Willow flops onto her back to meet his eyes, unabashed about her naked chest; she pushes her soaking wet hair out of her face with a grimace, and then she tells Toad very seriously, "I told you he was a perverted old man." Toad grins and drops her clothes on her face. "Come on, your job is finally here." ***** Crash Into Me ***** Breathe in. Around the corner, two steps forward. Breathe out. Knife in security camera, security guard's nerves zapped. Breathe in. Passed the limp body, down the hall, door at the end. Breathe out: pause. ... Waverly stops, one hand poised over the security pad, a strange signature coming back to her through her mind. Head tilted to one side, she stretches out her senses, pushing her energy through the steel door and into the room on the other si- What is that? Curious, she finally enters the security code she had persuaded out of a guard earlier, and the door opens on silent hinges; the inner room is flooded with digital light from numerous computer monitors and modems. And in the middle of the room, frantically shifting through papers on a desk, is a tall man with dark hair and a very solid build; he is yelling into a communication device, agitated. This man, Waverly finally decides, must be the source of the very strange signature she had felt. She steps into the room with carefully planned moves, never making more than a whisper of a sound; the man notices nothing, too occupied with his papers and device, searching for something in the papers: Waverly realizes he is probably looking for the same thing she had been sent for. And that is all the reason she needs to completely disregard Magneto's one order, 'Get in, get out'. Waverly wraps her arm around the man's neck and pulls him backwards, catching him completely off guard. Waverly twists her hips, turning them around so the man hits the ground as they tumble forward, his body taking the brunt of the impact. Growling, the man bucks, instantly fighting back and flipping the pin. Waverly bares her teeth in a mockery of a smile, and with a well aimed knee, she cuts off all nerve signals to his limbs; the dead weight on top of her is shifted until the man falls to his side on the ground to her right. She pushes herself up to a sitting position, brushing her hair out of her eyes as it escapes her braid. Her eyes glance at the man with a cold look: she hadn't expected such fight, and it irked her that he surprised her. He lays there, the normal twitches that always accompanies someone trying to fight her control, trying to use muscles that are no longer obeying; when he notices her watching, he growls, "What the fuck did you do to me!?" His voice sends a vaguely familiar shiver down her back; which doesn't make sense, because she knows she's never met him before: Waverly doesn't forget a face, and she certainly never forgets a fight. While she ponders this question, she answers the man, "I stopped your brain from sending signals to your muscles." Waverly reaches down to her ankle where a small dagger rests in its sheath. "Unfortunately," She grins, pulling the dagger out and balancing it on its tip on her finger, "that doesn't mean signals aren't going to your brain; so, you're gonna feel this. Ohh, you're gonna feel this a lot." She flips around and straddles his hips, looking down at him like a painter to a canvas; she meets his dark, angry eyes and she licks her lips, the cat who caught the canary. "Try not to move too much, okay buttercup?" She pats his cheek roughly, pulling away just in time to avoid being bit. With a dark glint in her eye, Waverly carefully places the tip of the blade under the collar of the man's strange one-piece uniform, and with one tug she slices it from neck to naval. A thin line of blood wells up. Waverly drags the flat of the blade over the cut, gathering the crimson onto it and bringing it to her face; she watches, entranced as it drips off the tip and onto the floor. "That, is lovely." She sighs happily, before her eyes lock onto the man's again. With a sadistic smile, she sets to work, enjoying every bead of blood and wince that she draws out of the man. It doesn't take long, however, for Waverly to notice that something is terribly wrong; all of her hard work, all of her careful details, they were disappearing only seconds after she had made them. Looking up, she watches the man's face as she embeds the dagger in his stomach. He jerks forward with a loud snarl, his teeth snapping inches from her face as his body instinctively tries to curl around the injury; he groans as she pulls the dagger down, gouging his abdomen open to his pelvis. Watching the opening carefully, Waverly pulls the dagger out, absently swirling a finger in the blood that covers the shining metal as she observes the skin and tissue reconnecting and closing up the wound. "Now, that is interesting. A healing ability...?" Eyes widening, Waverly looks down on the man again, her eyes tracing over his features much more careful this time; she reaches out mentally, feeling every nerve in his mind and body only to notice that same familiarity as she had earlier. Leaning down, Waverly crosses her arms over his collarbones and looks at the man curiously, asking, "You don't have a brother, by any chance, do you?" Waverly never hears his answer, because at that moment, a very large force strikes her in the side and sends her spiraling across the room; she lands in a crashing heap of broken monitors and technology. Hissing, she pushes herself up onto her elbows and reaches around to her back, where she pulls a shard of glass out of her skin. Anger bubbling in her veins now, Waverly sits up slowly and searches the room for her attacker. Really though, she knows before she sees him; a hundred miles away from the mansion, where he is supposed to be, and Sabertooth still manages to attack her. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Sabertooth?" She asks very quietly, her eyes piercing into his own. "Nobody messes with the Wolverine 'cept me, girl." The beast of a man growls, his hands clenching by his sides. Waverly doesn't appreciate being challenged in the smallest of things, and she certainly won't stand to be challenged on this. "Don't see your name on him, Pussy Cat. Can you prove he's yours?" She smiles and crosses her legs, primly sitting in the debris of her crash as blood slowly spreads from her wound and stains her top in a crimson bloom. "He's mine; don't touch." She wonders vaguely if his mind can comprehend anything beyond simple base facts and thoughts. Probably not. Waverly shrugs a shoulder delicately. "Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Kitten, and he was underneath me before you so rudely interrupted. I think that makes him mine." Teeth are bared in a challenging grin, answered by Sabertooth with a deep throat growl. Shockingly, the man: Wolverine: speaks up, "I'm not a possession.". Waverly glances at him fleetingly, more important things than a protesting toy for her to worry about, but she watches interested as his fingers twitch, followed by his left arm flopping on the ground. Narrowing her eyes, she fakes a patronizing tone and baits, "Hush, pup; the important people are talking." As planned, the man snarls, enraged by her words, and to Waverly's utter astonishment, he pushes himself to his feet: albeit shakily, but still, Waverly has never met someone who could overcome her control before. Wolverine takes a wobbly step forward and slings his arms sloppily to the side, three blades extending from his knuckles; Waverly raises an eyebrow and leans back against a cracked monitor. She predicts Sabertooth's blood thirst will make him intervene before Wolverine can make it half way to her, and she isn't disappointed: Wolverine makes it exactly two-fifths of the way to her when Sabertooth tackles him with a roar. Wanting to see a fair fight, Waverly withdraws all of her influence from Wolverine, and surprisingly he starts attacking with amazing agility and strength. Not to be outdone, Sabertooth increases his already very high ferocity level and brutally gouges out chunks of flesh from the Wolverine's body. Waverly watches, interested, and compares the two men: both have fast healing abilities, though the Wolverine's seems more advanced, and both are obviously animal based mutations, with Sabertooth exhibiting more of those characteristics in his fighting. His claws can't reach as far as Wolverine's blades, but he seems to have learned this a long time ago, and combats it by attacking from behind. To Waverly's amusement, Sabertooth jumps on Wolverine and bites into his shoulder, his animal fangs sinking a couple of inches into the flesh; as they wrestle in a heap, Sabertooth plunges his claws repeated into the Wolverine's stomach. She knows that a normal human would have died a long time ago. So engrossed in the fight, Waverly reacts too slow when Sabertooth suddenly picks up Wolverine and tosses him like a child's toy. Straight at Waverly. She only has enough time to curse before the very solid body lands on top of her, sending them both crashing into the monitors behind her. Luckily the Wolverine's momentum carries him over the mess of broken plastic and glass and to the floor on the other side, leaving Waverly to push herself up and out of the heap; she topples to the ground, gritting her teeth as another piece of glass makes itself known underneath her arm, slotted right against her ribs. With a long exhale, she pulls the glass out; the blood coats her hand before she can pull it away. Any other time, and she may have enjoyed the rush of endorphins; right now, she was just pissed. "Aim a little better next time, huh, Pussy cat?" She growls, lifting herself off the ground with a little help from the desk. "My aim was perfect." The growl comes from behind her, and she glares over her shoulder at the smirking man. Reaching a hand out, she points a finger at the bastard: she focuses around the pain in her back and gathers her energy, gritting out, "So is mine." Before she can actually manage to push out her energy, Sabertooth lunges forward and wraps a meaty hand around her waist, his claws digging into some wounds and creating new ones as he throws her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. His laughter vibrates through her as he turns to the door, "Magneto says to leave." Absolutely mortified by this treatment, Waverly kicks and beats against his back, yelling, "Put me down! You son of a bitch! Pig fucker! Cock sucker! Put me down this instance, you bastard!" He barks out laughter, goading, "Make me, princess." Glancing down at the ground, which is admittedly much farther away than she is used to, Waverly decides she really doesn't want to chance meeting the floor face first, or god forbid, be suffocated underneath the massive lump that is the thing carrying her. Sighing, she leans her head on her arms, mumbling, "At least grab the papers..." Surprisingly, he does, and then they walk out of the room, leaving an unconscious Wolverine on the floor. In the hallways, Waverly looks around momentarily. When she had come through those halls, there had been pristine, white carpets and cream walls with the occasional body, with no blood. Now, it looked like a crimson hurricane had come through and exploded. Waverly looked around until her neck started to cramp from the awkward position so she relaxed again, letting Sabertooth carry her through the building and to the transport car outside. As they stop by the car, Sabertooth jerks forward and Waverly gasps, expecting to tumble to the ground, but instead an arm wraps around her waist, stopping her just before her toes touch the ground. Waverly braces her hands on Sabertooth's arm and looks up at him with a wary glance; he ignores her and stares over the top of the car as he lets her softly drop the last inch to the ground. He switches his grip to her elbow, holding her up easily until she has scooted into the car and rests against the seat back. He grabs the door edge and steps back, preparing to close it, when Waverly softly says, "I'm still pissed at you for interrupting... but thanks." He slams the door with a quiet growl. ***** Willow Plays Doctor ***** By the time they reach the mansion, a little over an hour later, Waverly has successfully cut off the nerves in her various injuries and stopped the pain. A bandage has stemmed the blood for the time being, and Waverly figures she can get Willow to sew her up; in fact, Waverly decides as her vision swims, that will be her first stop. The car parks in the cavernous garage underneath the mansion. As soon as it has fully stopped, Waverly opens her door and jumps out, her motions deceptively pain free. The ground swoops up and down as she walks but Waverly is stubborn enough to keep going until finally she reaches the metal door that hides Toad's work room. Nine times out of ten, this is where Willow has spent her days. "Willow!" She calls out as she bangs against the metal one handed, her other is occupied with prodding the bloody bandages around her shoulder, every prod refreshing the rapidly diminishing numbing there. The door flies open and Waverly jumps back a little to keep from hitting Willow in the face. "Waverly?" Willow gasps, looking over her sister. There's enough blood in her twin's clothes to actually make her worry. "What the hell happened?" "Found out computers don't make good cushions." Waverly smiles and waves away her twin's concern, pushing her dizziness down where it can't make Willow worry. "You wanna play doctor?" Willow's eyes widen and she quickly steps back and waves Waverly into the room, yelling over her shoulder, "Toad! Get the first aid kit! And put down that stupid hook, you're just gonna make another hole in the ceiling!" The sound of a pressurized cannon makes Waverly jump and Willow sighs, ignoring the plaster that falls from the ceiling. "Damn woman! You made me miss!" Cursing drifts up to the loft as the twins make their way over to stairs. "Oh yeah, Froggy, I made you miss; has nothing to do with the fact you're a lousy shot with that thing." Willow calls as they walk down the stairs; she reaches the bottom and pauses, glancing over her shoulder up to Waverly, who is stopped half-way with her head in her hands, fighting down another wave of dizziness. "Waverly?" "I'm okay, Willow. Just get the kit." She orders, forcing herself to move down the last few steps. When she gets there, she is surprised to see Toad waiting with an office chair. He glares, daring her to say anything. "Thanks, frog- boy." He stomps away with muttered curses about twins and stupid women.   "Okay Waverly, let me see." Willow brandishes her needle with a grin, the thread twirling underneath. Waverly pulls her shredded top over her head, revealing the mess of bloody bandages that twine around her torso; Willow cuts away the sections that actually cover the wounds, and with the air of someone who has done this many times before, she sinks the needle into Waverly's skin. "Woah woah woah! Shouldn't you numb her first?" Toad barks, glancing up briefly from a mess of wires until a stray tip shocks him; he growls and shakes his hand, distracted. "Nah," Willow tells him, though she knows he's already lost interest, "Waverly can numb it herself." "Uh huh..." Toad hums without hearing what she had actually said, and Willow sniggers. She looks up to see Waverly looking down at her with a strange look; Willow shares the joke, "He isn't paying attention right now, but at two in the morning, he'll wake up thinking about how you could possibly numb yourself." Waverly smiles, careful not to move. It only takes a few minutes, and then Willow tapes some gauze over the stitches and tosses a shirt at her. Waverly slides it on, mindful of her new stitches, and the soft black cloth swamps her small form. She stands up and stretches carefully, testing her mobility and finding that she really couldn't move her left arm, but as long as she didn't try to do back-flips, she should be fine. "Thanks for doing this, Willow; glass is a bitch to get out yourself." "No problem," Willow tells her as she turns away, moving over to an extremely messy desk and sliding the kit into a drawer. She bumps it closed with her hip and then leans against the desk top and crosses her arms, fixing a stare on her sister. "Now go rest." She orders firmly. Waverly stops the smile that wants to cross her lips, and instead she meets Willow's stare with her own, harder one: older sister to younger sister in a battle of wills. Willow wavers, her teeth chewing on her bottom lip as her mind instinctively tries to bow under her older sister's gaze; she's never really butted heads with Waverly before, because Waverly has always known the right next move. But now, Willow knows she's right and Waverly is too stubborn to admit she needs to go rest and regain her strength. Finally, Waverly smiles and nods, and Willow relaxes with a relieved sigh. "Okay, I'll go to the library for a few hours." Waverly relents. It's not exactly what Willow wants, but it's better than going to the sparring room, so she grins and nods. "I have to go give Magneto some papers first, then I'll go finish Slaughterhouse-Five." "Good book, bit repetitive in prose," Toad calls out as Waverly passes him on her way to the stairs. Startled, she stumbles over the first step but rights herself with a growl. Toad looks up, his attention drawn by the loud noise, and he watches with a thoughtful look as Waverly marches up the stairs and out of view. The sound of the door closing draws him from his thoughts, and he turns to look at Willow, who is shuffling around papers. Confused, Toad asks, "Was that my shirt?" ***** Heal Me, Thrill Me ***** Waverly shuts the door behind her and stands in the hallway for a second, thinking. She was tired, from the fighting, the blood-loss, and the constant use of her power; but she did really need to get those papers from Sabertooth and give them to Magneto. The last thing she wants is that old guy coming to her room and intruding on her space. With a groan, Waverly turns to her right and starts walking to the room from which growling and crashes can almost always be heard. The room is at the very end of the mansion, as isolated as possible. Waverly pauses a yard or two away, looking over the tears in the wallpaper and carpet that begin at her feet and continue down the hall to the door, which is in worse shape than the floor and walls. She smirks, one hand tapping out a slow beat on her thigh; he certainly was a bad ol' puddy tat. Confidently, Waverly steps down the hall, silently walking to the door; she leans her head against the scarred wood, listening for sounds of someone in there. After a moment, quiet breathing reaches her ears. Hoping that he is asleep, she leans back and then knocks three times, very loud and insistent. Waverly steps back, and a second later the door swings open and Sabertooth roars, his claws slashing through the air she had just vacated. Waverly notes absently he doesn't have a shirt on. "Down, pussy cat. I'm here for the papers." She snips, crossing her arms over her chest. She bares her teeth in what may pass as a smile. Sabertooth growls deep in his chest, his dark eyes glaring down at her as he decides: put out the effort to kill her, or just maim her and let her die. Before he can make a move though, Waverly ducks under his arm and into the dark room that is his den. Surprisingly, it's actually not that dark. The light overhead was mangled, but dozens of candles were spread throughout the room, giving off just enough light to illuminate the space; Waverly sees that his room consists of a very large bed piled high with blankets, a work station, and a wall full of weapons from every era. She dodges to the side as Sabertooth tries to grab her, his claws just barely missing the edge of her shirt; Waverly prepares to move again, but instead of attacking, Sabertooth pauses and scents the air with a frown. He sniffs again and then a growl erupts, deeper than any other before. "Why do you smell like the Toad?" Waverly blinks, confused for a second. She had been prepping for another fight, and here he was, asking her why she smelt like Toad?... Why did she smell like Toad? She thinks for a second before realization dawns on her: this shirt was much too big to be her sister's. Grinning, Waverly pulls the collar up to her nose and sniffs it, quickly picking up on the wet earth and metal smell that must be Toad's scent. Looking back up at Sabertooth, she teases quietly, "Aww, is the big, bad pussy cat jealous that the little toad's scent is all over me?" Sabertooth sneers, his teeth glinting in the flickering candlelight, and as Waverly bites the edge of the collar and looks up at him from under her lashes, he snarls and dives forward. This time, his claws snag the shirttail and rips the side seam apart, leaving the shirt to hang on Waverly's figure by the shoulder and one side; she gasps and twirls away, dodging around behind the bed to put space between them. Her stitches twinge, and Waverly touches the exposed row, forcing what little energy she had regained into the wound to numb it again. She watches Sabertooth carefully and waits for the little tells that he's about to attack; it doesn't take long. He shifts his weight to pounce over the bed, and a second before he can, Waverly moves around the bed corner and Sabertooth lands in empty air. He spins around, his dark eyes glinting with dark intentions, and this time he crashes around the edge of the bed, trying to box Waverly into the corner of the room. Seeing his plan, Waverly grins and jumps backwards, pushing her foot against the wall and flipping forward, over his head. She lands in a crouch beside his work station, and for a horrifying moment, everything tips dangerously to the side. Waverly gasps, her hands flailing for a handhold, for anything to ground herself as she falls against the table leg. Confused, she ignores the steady advance of Sabertooth; she reaches a hand to her side and feels the blood that is slowly trickling from her ripped stitches. She growls as she looks at her blood covered hand; how was she going to explain this to Willow? Waverly jumps as her wrist is grabbed. Sabertooth towers over her as he pulls her hand closer to him; Waverly tries to pull her hand back, but the movement jars her injuries and suddenly she can feel every scratch and gouge and bruise on her body. With a gasp, she flinches as something swipes over her palm. ***** Here With You ***** Sabertooth bares his teeth in an imitation of a grin, and licks her palm again, the blood collecting on his tongue in a gruesome crimson display. No doubt disoriented by her sudden blood-loss, Waverly doesn't resist as he cleans her hand, and she doesn't resist as he pulls her up and then pushes her onto the bed on her stomach. A single claw rips the remains of the shirt away, exposing her neat rows of stitches which have been torn open and are now bleeding freely. Waverly grabs a handful of the nearest blanket and pulls herself farther up the bed, but she pauses when a hand covers her lower back, just laying there but full of warning. Sabertooth leans forward and laps up the trail of blood from her side, his tongue rough like a cat's. Waverly squirms, not trying to get away but unable to stay still in this submissive position. She gasps as a brief stab of pain erupts from her shoulder; Sabertooth licks over the torn stitches there again, making Waverly gasp again. He continues this, and Waverly notices that every touch hurts less until finally, with a long burn, Sabertooth pulls the stitches out to reveal a long pale scar. He ignores the small scratches and cuts, instead turning Waverly onto her side and begins lapping at the other row of torn stitches there. Waverly can just barely see the area, and she watches fascinated as the wound visibly closes, the skin drawing together and sealing up. She watches as the stitches are pulled out, leaving only small dots on either side of a new scar. "Gosh damn, Saber, didn't know you could do that..." She whispers, her energy slowly replenishing now that her body isn't fighting off the pain anymore. He smirks up at her and licks a drop of blood off his lip. Waverly pushes herself up onto her elbow and stops only an inch away Sabertooth, her eyes never leaving his. She leans just a little closer and darts out her tongue, catching a missed drop of blood on the corner of his mouth. He growls low in his chest, almost a purr if Waverly thought such a beast could do something so cute. Without warning, Sabertooth lunges forward, crashing his mouth against Waverly's, more of a fight than a kiss as their tongues twist together, trying to dominate the other. Waverly manages to bite down on his bottom lip and draws a flood of copper into the kiss; the taste swaps between their mouths, intoxicating and drawing them further in. When they break apart, gasping for breath, Sabertooth attacks her throat, biting and licking up the small beads of blood that escape before the bite heals. She gasps as a shiver rushes down her spine, turning to heat and pooling in her stomach. She lets him trail down her throat and across her collarbone, she moans as he drags his teeth across her skin there, and she helps him pull off her bra, sighing when a hand covers her breast. The callused skin of his palm scuffs across her nipple, drawing a quiet groan from her, and with a wicked bare of teeth, Sabertooth bends his head down to nip at the hard nub. He pulls it into his mouth and bites down; Waverly gives a gasp that melts into a moan as his tongue soothes the small pain. A large hand drifts from her waist up over her chest and stops on her shoulder; extremely gentle for the beast, Sabertooth pushes Waverly backwards to lay down on the bed. Waverly freezes, her power snapping out with the little energy she had regained, freezing Sabertooth's muscles. He growls his displeasure, but can only watch as Waverly crawls backwards far enough to get out from underneath Sabertooth. She stops when her back hits his wall, crosses her arms, and pins a glare on the beast. Forcing away the panic that was building in her chest, Waverly tells him very seriously, "I don't do bottom." Pulling against her influence as hard as he can, Sabertooth manages to pull his lips back in a snarl, breathing out, "Fucking tease." Her attempt at an innocent face is ruined by her smirk. "Not exactly; I just don't do bottom." With a little flare of her swiftly diminishing energy, Waverly forces Sabertooth to fall to the side onto his back. She swings herself around and straddles his hips, her hands drawing light circles over his chest. Leaning down until her lips are barely an inch away from his, she whispers, "Stay down, or I'll numb you, have my way, and then leave you here." Then she kisses him, and the next second he is free to react; his claws dives into her hair, tugging her closer as their tongues twist together. He doesn't attempt to flip their positions. "Good boy," She purrs, dipping down to nip at his throat. Waverly slides down, dragging her nails down his chest and leaving red welts that disappear a second later. She reaches his hips and stops, daring to glance up through her lashes at Sabertooth, who is watching her with dark eyes. She nips at the skin on one hipbone, grinning when he growls at her. Not wanting to waste any time on teasing either, Waverly slips her fingers under his waistband and pulls them off in a few short tugs. "Ohh, kitty's not so little, is he?" Waverly coos, knowing she is being mentally killed a million times over in a trillion different ways. She reaches forward and wraps her fingers around his cock, smirking when he rumbles that low growl, and she experiments with little pulls and rubs, her body heating up with every groan and growl. Sabertooth thrusts into her hand, snarling when she pulls away. "Ah ah ah, big boy." She scolds, shaking her finger at him with amusement in her eyes. Baring his teeth in displeasure, he lays back on the bed, stilling his body. In reward, Waverly leans forward and licks the top of his cock, sucking the head into her mouth and swirling her tongue against the sensitive flesh. One hand wraps around the shaft, massaging what wasn't in her mouth; her tongue rubs over the slit, swallowing the salty cum with a moan. She pulls back slowly, hollowing her cheeks and sucking: it falls out of her mouth with an obscene pop. Sabertooth watches as Waverly pulls off her own pants and underwear. She straddles him again, not touching but Sabertooth can feel her wet folds just above him. His hands fall to her hips, his claws digging into her skin impatiently; but he waits, letting her decide. Waverly leans down and places a chaste kiss on his cheek, before guiding him inside of her. Sabertooth roars, throwing his head back as he's surrounded by burning heat; Waverly moans, sinking down. She braces herself against his chest and lifts up, groaning as his cock pulls out, leaving her feeling empty until she falls back down, the large shaft stretching her in wonderful ways. With a growl, Sabertooth leans forward, capturing a nipple in his mouth and biting down, drawing a flood of blood into his mouth; Waverly cries out and pushes him back down, her eyes clenched closed and her teeth gritted. "Stay the fuck down, Saber." She warns, glaring at him even as she continues to ride him. She can't worry about him when there's this delicious heat building, but if he doesn't just stay down then she'll make him. She can do that now; she doesn't have to worry about herself freezing, because she can just make him freeze and then she can get away, get out, take Willow and leave their father to di-. Sabertooth thrusts up, jerking Waverly back to the present. "Damn, Saber, fuck..." She gasps, grinding down. Sabertooth's hands pull her closer, and together they find a rhythm that sends Waverly into mumbled curses. Waverly leans back, shifting so that his thrusts angle deeper and right there, fucking right there. Waverly whimpers as he pulls her down, brutally thrusting up and she knows that she's gonna be bruised after this but she can't find enough fucks to give because just a little more and she'll be there… Sabertooth's hand trails down to where they join, and his fingertip rubs circles over her clit, drawing a choked scream from Waverly as she hits that cliff and is thrown violently over the edge. Sabertooth's hands return to her hips and he moves her as he thrusts, reaching towards his own release, and a moment later, surrounded by her clenching walls that are fucking milking him, he roars his pleasure. Waverly groans, positive she can feel him twitching inside her, followed by a blossoming of warmth. She falls forward bonelessly, burying her head in his neck and just trying to collect herself; Sabertooth's claws trail through her hair in a surprising show of affection. Affection which is ruined by his teeth sinking into her flesh, right where her neck and shoulder meet. Too weak from before, Waverly manages only a small show of resistance, pounding on his chest until he releases her, his tongue licking away the blood. "What... the fuck... Saber?" He sucks on the rapidly closing wound, rumbling in answer, "Mine." Waverly blinks and pushes herself up on shaky arms, looking down at the beast with a furrowed brow. "Yours?" She asks, not denying just really confused. He bares his bloodstained teeth, wraps his arms around her waist, repeating in what is definitely a purr, "Mine." And then he shifts, and Waverly gasps because she can feel him hardening inside of her again. Staring down into his dark eyes, Waverly lets a soft smile cross her face, and she agrees, "Yours." When Sabertooth rolls them over a little while later, Waverly lets him, her bad memories firmly trapped behind a door labeled "Saber's". With a jerk, Toad springs up in the bed, his eyes wide and unseeing in the dark bedroom. His mouth tries to form words, but no sound comes out; his hands wave in front of him, sketching out a picture only he can see as his mind whirls in confusion. Beside him, jostled awake by his sudden movement, Willow peeks open one eye and her attention is instantly drawn to the alarm clock on her bedside table: as she watches, the glowing red numbers tick off another minute – 2:00AM. Rubbing her eye with one fist, she smiles and gives a small stretch, telling the empty air, "Called it.” ***** Never Subtle ***** Chapter Notes See the end of the chapter for notes Bang! She couldn't see Willow; Waverly's not positive just when her sister had left her view, but Waverly notices the absence when she drives twin sabers through the chest cavity of one of the dozens of soldiers and she looks up to mouth, 'Point for me', and Willow isn't by the machine, where she is supposed to be. The machine stands alone in an untouched circle in the middle of the chaos of the battle, bordered in a perfect circle by the bodies of unnumbered soldiers. Whoosh - - BoOM! The next foolish soldier who thinks Waverly will make an easy target meets an instant death when his brain simultaneously fires off every synapse in his head; he jerks to an unbalanced stop, and there is a single moment of clarity and pain etched into his eyes before he tumbles forward, dead before he hits the ground. Every soldier in a ten foot radius of Waverly drops in the next second, joining the faceless mass of casualties. Cra- snick! The fighting, hired-guns against soldiers, continues around Waverly, but nothing living makes it within five feet of her as she carefully surveys the Science Research& Development Complex that has become their battleground. The apartment buildings on either side of the complex are crumbling or in the process of total deterioration, while the complex itself has long since been reduced to a pile of rubble over which the combatants scramble. She knows that six or seven levels down in the depths of the complex, Magneto and Mystique search for the machine that Magneto claims will end the feud between Mutants and humans – or will enslave the humans, or explode their spleens or something: Waverly honestly hadn't been paying attention to the details. She didn't care why, she was just there because it was a job. KA – Bam! Waverly growls: her sister isn't anywhere to be seen in the roiling mess of fighters, smoke, and blood. Reaching out with her power, Waverly searches the mental-signals of the masses around her, feeling for the very familiar, distinctly unique signature of her sister, a signal she could find half-way around the world. With a snarl, she feels it, and another, unknown one. Waverly sets off in that direction, sabers taking care of anything her mind doesn't. Willow isn't sure what went wrong. She hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings, sure that anything dangerous would be swiftly dealt with by her guardian frog. She had just finished activating the base of the machine and was about to tell Toad they were good to go as soon as Magneto came back with the data core, when there was a suction of air and the unpleasant feeling of a vacuum hose sucking out all of her internal organs through her back, violently. And now, she is on top of one of the crumbling apartments on either side of the leveled complex, looking down at the mayhem below, dazed. It's only when her stomach stops trying to make an appearance that Willow realizes someone is holding her arms behind her back, and something – rope? living, moving rope? - is holding her legs together: effectively pinning her in place. She has enough freedom of movement to glance down, but the sight doesn't answer any questions. Blue living moving rope?! "What the freak am I looking at...?" She asks the battle-filled air, not expecting any response, and so she is more than a little startled when her captor responds, "I do not appreciate that word," the words are heavy, accented... an accent she knows... what is it, what is it, what is it... Half of her still focused on the accent, Willow replies, "Hey, no offense meant, dude; I'm dating a frog, so don't think I have anything against physical mutations." And Toad would probably hit her upside the head if he ever found out she called him that – he is very adamant that his mutation is Toad-bas- "German!" Willow suddenly shouts, grinning in triumph. The loud exclamation startles her captor and he jerks back in reflex, giving Willow just the opening she needed. She jerks her legs in the loosened hold, dropping herself down into a complete split; the grip on her arms tightens, but she relaxes her shoulders, and with a sickening pop her shoulders slip out of their sockets and through the man's hold. Willow throws herself to the side, rolling out of the man's reach, and then she halts, kneeling on her knees and panting. Taking a second, Willow looks at her arms which dangling by her side, limp and unresponsive, and then she twists her torso and: snick: her shoulders jump back into socket and she flexes her fingers; her fingertips tingle. Grinning, pleased that it had actually worked, she pushes herself to her feet and faces off with her ex-captor. "Holy shit, you're blue!" The man doesn't look very amused with her observation, amber eyes glowing in the surrounding flames of the burning building and face blank. "Ja, I know." And then Willow sees the tail, and she can't help blurting out her second obvious statement, "And you have a tail!" The man: the tail-possessing, blue man: straightens up from his defensive crouch, a puzzled expression finally breaking through his blank mask; and he repeats, slower, "Ja... I know." "That, mein blauen freund, is wunderschön," she tells him honestly, watching with wide eyes as the limb sweeps lazily over the crumbling apartment roof. Confused, the man replies, "Danke." Twisting her lips in a small touch of regret, Willow remarks to him, "It's a shame..." "Was is a shame?" He questions. "That it won't still move when I hang it on my wall." Chapter End Notes So I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please drop any comments or suggestions in a review: I love hearing from my readers. German Translation Mein blauen freund – my blue friend Wunderschön – gorgeous Danke – Thank you Was - What ***** Vicious Twins - Snappy Comebacks ***** He manages to dodge her first dagger on instinct, twisting himself in an inhuman way that informs Willow she is dealing with someone just as flexible as herself. She charges at him, gracefully moving across the unstable roof until she is only a few steps away, but before she can attack, the man strikes out, his tail lashing through the air where Willow's head was only a second before. Not giving her a chance to right herself from her duck, he aims a kick to her head, clipping her jaw as she dodges and throwing her off balance- Willow tumbles across the roof with a groan, her head aching. She lays there, perfectly still and listening, and when the man has approached enough, she pushes herself off the ground, swinging her legs around and hooking her knees into his ankles; the man crashes to his side with a German curse, and Willow jumps towards him, a dagger poised to fall into his heart. Instead, Willow lands in the middle of a sulfurous cloud. She glances around her, simultaneously looking for her opponent and for her allies; she wasn't supposed to be fighting: gosh damn it that wasn't her job this time: so where the fuck was Toad? Waverly was gonna kill her for disappearing like thi- Willow relaxes her body, moving with the force in her side instead of struggling, so she only loses her breath when they slam into the roof wall instead of breaking her ribs. The man doesn't give her a chance to recover, instead wrapping his tail around her throat and tossing her over his shoulder in a shocking display of strength: who knew a tail could be so powerful? Willow twists in midair and lands in a crouch, skidding back a few feet before halting. She shifts into an offensive stance, and her next set of daggers slip down into her hands from their sheaths; meeting the man's glowing gaze, Willow bares her teeth in a very good imitation of her sister's trademark snarl, and then she is at him. He doesn't expect her striking speed, caught off guard as her arms blur in their motions, the blade tips repeatedly catching in his clothes and shredding them, and occasionally the edges slice through an unguarded section of skin, drawing steady trickles of blood. The man manages to snap his tail against Willow's wrist, her hand letting go of her dagger in reflex; she gasps, looking down at her hand, where a large gash stretches from her thumb down across her wrist. Angry now, Willow plants her feet and glowers at the man from under her lashes; she drops her other dagger. She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with smoke-filled air, and when she breathes out, it's tinted dark green. The man steps back, cautious and wary as Willow steps forward, the green air surrounding her and drifting around her feet. Grinning, Willow breathes in, and the man dodges back as she blows towards him, the miasma flowing towards him; he curses, jerking back farther as it keeps coming. Willow stalks forward, intent on keeping him on the defensive, and she strikes through the cloud, hitting the man in the abdomen and making him stumble backwards; she pushes away the billowing cloud of poison, clearing her view of her opponent. He glares up at her, fangs bared even as he carefully gulps in the clear air around him. "Look, sweetheart, I'm not being paid to kill anyone – that would be my sister's job – but you've managed to piss me off enough that I'm gonna do it for free. Now, hold still, and I'll make it as quick as possible, okay?" Willow hisses, miasma leeching through her clenched teeth, and she dives forward, ready to suffocate the man with her poison. He disappears again, leaving Willow to stumble through the cloud of smoke, emerging with a defiant glare as she looks for her opponent once again. The edge of his tail catches her cheek as he appears above her, mid-twist, and then his foot slams into Willow's temple, sending her crashing to the ground. He appears on top of her back, the dagger-sharp point of his tail poised over her thundering pulse, his knees crushing her wrists into the concrete roof, and his weight keeping her pinned. Willow draws in a large gulp of air, but before she can surround them in poison, the man clamps his hand over her nose and mouth, stopping her airflow. Panic floods Willow's mind, her lungs screaming for oxygen. She struggles underneath the man, but she freezes when that tail point digs into her throat, threatening. Willow forces her panic away; it won't help, she needs to think, needs to figure out how to get out of this, how to escape... Except, there is no way out. She can't move, not without taking the very large chance of her artery being flayed open. Willow flinches away, clenching her eyes closed as a very close explosion vibrates through their apartment, the tail-tip grazing her skin and drawing a single crimson bead of blood. Oh, shitshitshitshit, Waverly! The next explosion is much closer. Very much closer. Like, Willow opens her eyes hopefully, like right under them, actually. . The form that appears through the smoke and dust isn't her sister's, but Willow is just as relieved to see him as she would be Waverly. Toad pauses, only a few meters away, and he stares down at her and her captor with a slightly tilted head and a small smirk. Willow looks up at him, simultaneously giving off a please help me and quit just staring, asshole vibe. Finally, when the man on top of her shifts his attention from Willow to him, Toad pulls the cigarette from his mouth and sighs through the smoke, "Gonna have to ask you to get off the girl, 'Crawler." Confusion swims through Willow's mind for a brief second, and then she pushes it away for another, less stressful/more oxygenated moment to wonder over. "Toad, I should have known you would be helping Magneto; scum to scum, ja?" Willow bristles under his hold, offended for her frog-boy's sake. He isn't scum, Willow knows scum, she lived with scum before Waverly saved her, and Toad is very very far from that. "Something like that, 'Crawler," Toad drops his half-finished light to the ground, smothers it with a very precise step, "Now, get off the girl." The look in Toad's eyes is colder than Willow has ever seen. It promises pain, the cold kiss of a blade, and a dark, deep hole that smells of wet earth. Willow finds herself equal parts amazed and intimidated by this look: this is her Toad, and he is suddenly capable of much more than she ever knew. ***** Tail & Tongue - Bada BOOM ***** He moves without Waverly seeing it. She is only meters away from being able to reach her sister, and suddenly there is a form blocking her way and the soft snick of six blade echoing in her ears. Waverly manages to flip backwards out of his reach just as he lashes out. She lands sloppily, but there is no time to correct it as the Wolverine barrels after her, so instead she throws herself to the side, out of his path, and she rolls roughly across concrete debris and fallen bodies. When he comes for her the second time, she is ready. An easy dodge to the right, a gentle graze against the warm leather of his uniform, and his left arm hangs uselessly by his side, the muscles unresponsive. The Wolverine erupts in snarls, hatred blazing across his features as he still charges forward, attacking with his right claws; Waverly ducks under the attempt and lands a solid kick to his lower ribs, a transfer of power smothering out his nerves from the waist down. He stumbles backwards a step, but then strains forward two, and Waverly can actually feel him fighting her control. She pushes again, straining across the small space between them to wrap his body under her power, but for every nerve or muscle she shuts down, he heals the connection and regains two more. Growling, Waverly raises her hands above her head and slams them down, slapping loudly against her thighs; the air around her twists as her energy sweeps through it, disturbing the smoke and dust as it envelopes the Wolverine, visibly settling on him, a blanket that numbs every signal being sent from his brain to his limbs. He is fully paralyzed. His fingers move. She glares at them, daring the digits to even so much as twitch, and then they do, and Waverly growls, her dark eyes darting to meet the Wolverine's brazenly. Another disturbance, this time contained only around Waverly and the man, and then suddenly gone: Waverly stares unseeingly ahead. The Wolverine, too, falls still, his eyes glaring out defiantly. Immersed in her mutation, Waverly lowers her mental walls and delves into his nerves, searching for that vital part of his mind; she slinks through the space of unconsciousness, aware of the world inside of the man's head and absent to the real one. Careful to stay away from the man's emotions and thoughts: it's so easy to be overwhelmed by them when she's dropped her mental walls, leaving her so open to other's minds: she finds what she's looking for, the lightening synapse, the dull, inaudible thu-thump of the man's heartbeat, and she snuffs it out. She feels the flood of panic push against her as the body recognizes the blood- flow has stopped. And then she feels the man himself rebel against her control, his very mutation fighting against her, and his heart thumps once, twice, pushing away her iron grip on it. Snarling: she will not back down: Waverly reaches for it again, refuses to back out of the man's mind even as he tries to force her out, delving further into his mind. They fight, a mental war in the midst of the physical battle. Waverly surges forward, her mind blanking of everything except: the Wolverine must die. Outside of their mental war, though, the physical one continues to rage on, and every time the Wolverine's heart beats, he struggles forward another step, unnoticed by Waverly, who is buried deep within her power. He is only inches from striking her, from driving his claws deep in her chest cavity, when Sabertooth rams into him, sending them both careening into the nearest apartment building. Waverly pants shallow breaths, her body screaming for oxygen she had unknowingly deprived it of; as she gasps in air, she looks for her target. She sees him under Saber, the brothers exchanging blow for blow and absorbed in their blood bath; baring her teeth in a poor mockery of a smile, Waverly moves to join her mate in his kill, her mind still screaming to feel the Wolverine's nerves die under her power. Only a step closer, though, and the world swims before Waverly's eyes, dropping sickeningly to the left as a very familiar mental signal barrels into Waverly's open mind from the right. Her mind, left gapingly open by her attack on the Wolverine, is flooded by foreign emotions. Panic, and the sharp tang of fear, infused throughout by the very essence that makes up Willow. Waverly steadies herself against a piece of random concrete, her knees threatening to give as her twin's emotions overflow into her own body: Waverly has not felt an emotion that deeply in years, and she is shaken to the core, on the verge of being overwhelmed by it. Except, that Willow is still up there, afraid, in danger, panicking, and Waverly can't leave her there. Not Willow, never Willow, no matter what Waverly has to face to get to her. Bracing herself, Waverly stumbles a step forward, lashing out wildly when any unrecognized mental signature brushes against her aching mind, but she only makes it a few feet before her legs give out, her powers abandoning her as another wave of panic, hinted by pain, swarms her mind. She kneels there, refusing to give up even as her own body rebels against her control; Waverly flinches as a cool hand wraps around her upper arm. Prepared for an attack, she is surprised when the hand guides her to lean against a cool metal surface, and she finally gains the control to open her eyes enough to see who is helping her. Toad looks down at her, a mild touch of concern coloring his eyes, and it takes Waverly a second to realize he is talking to her, "Come on, Vixen, talk to me! Viper's gone, she just disappeared, and boss comm'ed in an emergency down below: the X-men brought in reinforcements! Boss's calling for a full assault, but no one else is answering, and I can't fucking find Willow!" Waverly grunts the words from between clenched teeth, ignoring the throbbing pain each breath causes, "Roof top. In danger." She dives forward, wraps her hand weakly in the collar of his shirt, and she manages a full glare into Toad's eyes, and she grounds out, "Get my sister to safety." He pulls her hand away roughly, moves to leave for the roof top but pauses, glancing back to her, "Push the big yellow button, grab Creed, and get back to the house. I'll get Willow." Waverly watches him hop away, an odd sense of relief calming the emotional storm inside her mind and bringing the cool numbness back to Waverly's body. As Waverly's mental walls re-establish, strength flows back into Waverly's body, clearing away the dredges of Willow's panic and fear. Toad would get Willow: she knew it. So that just left Waverly with Toad's orders. The button isn't hard to find. It's comically large: something Waverly knows is Willow's doing: and in the very center of the machine. When she presses it, it stays down, and the screen in front of Waverly lights up with standard LED lights: 10... 9... 8... Waverly lets loose a long string of curses as she sprints away, back towards Saber and the Wolverine, her body fueled by a rush of adrenaline. She grabs Saber's arm just as he is pulling his blood soaked claws from the Wolverine's mid-section, leaving a gaping hole that is already slowly threading back together. The beast of a man glares down at her, tensed for a fight, but she shakes her head, telling him quickly, "Gotta go, Saber; Magneto fucked up, and I'm not about to take the fall for a job this lousy." He looks down at his still-unconscious brother, and Waverly has a brief moment of worry: will he leave the Wolverine to come with her?: but then he nods and sweeps her into his arms, roughly pressing her against his chest as he barrels through the mass of fighting soldiers and misguided mutants. Two or three meet their end under a heavy boot-step. The explosion behind them lights up the sky, and sends the underground complex caving in. Waverly looks back, worried for her sister and, unbelievably, Toad. Willow only manages to catch a brief glance at Toad and her captor's fight. It stuns her though, because even though she knows that lithe body is capable of a lot of strength, she has rarely seen Toad in actual fighting action. He twists unnaturally, easily following the blue man's disappearing/reappearing fighting style in what Willow recognizes as long-held experience: this is not the first time these two have fought, not by a long shot: and his tongue is a formidable counter to the man's tail. Incredibly, it seems the two are evenly matched, each move perfectly anticipated and blocked; Willow worries this may turn into a battle of will more than strength, a battle at who can remain standing the longest. If it goes on for very long, they run the risk of the man's teammates coming as backup. But Toad doesn't seem worried, he moves with easy grace and patience, and then, for no reason Willow can think of, he suddenly throws himself on top of her, covering her body with his own. And then the world trembles. When the explosion is over, Willow grimaces, her ears ringing. Toad pushes himself off of her, and he tries to say something, but Willow just shakes her head and motions to her ears, "I can't hear anything!' She smothers a smile when he flinches at her overly loud voice. Shaking his head, Toad grabs her wrist and leads her away from the crumbled pile of rubble that the apartment has been reduced to; instead of heading for the giant caved-in hole the underground complex has turned into, Toad leads her away, moving quickly through the slowly recovering mass of soldiers and fellow mutants: the ones still alive after that explosion, at least: and towards the spot they had left their transportation. "What about the machine?" She asks loudly. Toad glances at her over his shoulder, but he doesn't stop, just flexes his free hand in the air; Willow realizes he is miming an explosion and she grins at his back, "See! I knew the self-destruct option was a good idea!" Toad hides his amused, relieved smile from her. ***** Best Laid Plans/All That Jazz ***** Toad has plans. He has plans about everything, really, but this time, he really has plans; plans and back up plans and plans in case the backup plan to the backup plans fail. See, he'd been planning this for months, ever since they arrived at the private island Magneto had been so kind to "give" to them: it was hard to refute their claim from a prison cell made of plastic, two miles underground. The island hadn't been used in years, and as a result the main house had fallen into disrepair and was in dire need of serious work. Lucky for them, the guest house was mostly habitable: the lights didn't really work between the hours of noon and midnight, but Toad kind of secretly liked the candles he'd dug up from the basement. Not that he'd ever tell anyone. Ever. (Except maybe Willow, cause she understood those things, you know?) Still though, the small bedroom: more of a supply closet: he and Willow were sharing was not part of his plans – which is why he was secretly rebuilding the main house any chance he had. There was this room, one of the bedrooms, and Toad hadn't thought it was the one for his plans at first, but then one night, he made a secret trip to the house to work on the support structure of the main staircase and he happened to glance into this one, previously ignored room. The line of glass windows on the opposite wall perfectly framed the full moon, bathing the dirty floor in liquid silver, an almost holy sight, and there were candle-holders on the walls, dirty and covered in grime but a little polish and they would glow, and Toad knew that was the room. The perfect room for the first time he'd make love to Willow. It's hard to believe they'd been together so long: six months? Seven? Toad couldn't remember, but was sure it was no longer than ten: and never taken that last step, especially considering how much of a touchy drunk Willow is, but Toad is glad now for it. Willow never said much about it, not after that day on the rocks, but Toad was as proficient at reading that girl now as he was at making plans, and he knew that, underneath her bright teasing smile and heated touches, there was a rotten and ruined foundation. Something that always came to mind when they started to become intimate, something that turned her hands to ice and caused her to tremble like a leaf. He hated the fear that smothered her, suffocating out the passion and love in her eyes until Toad knew she was no longer there with him, but somewhere far away, somewhere dark and scarring. So Toad planned. He planned to romance this girl who seemed to have stolen his mind. Make her so happy and blissed out from euphoria that those dark thoughts don't have a chance to taint what Toad plans to be a night all about her. Willow makes plans, too. She knows that they've waited too long. She knows that sex is something guys expect in a relationship, and honestly, it's something she actually wants with Toad. But, unfortunately, Toad won't let her give it to him. Every time she has tried: and oh has she tried: he makes her stop, makes her back off and calm down – makes her acknowledge that she might not be in the right mindset for sex. Why can't he be like the others? They didn't make her stop when she started to shake. They didn't tell her to calm down when the air became too thick to breathe. They didn't care when it wasn't their face she saw. No, Toad has to be sweet and considerate and a total asshole for not letting her just get on with it. So Willow planned. She planned to get Toad alone, maybe on the beach, or in the tropical forest that covered half of their island; she didn't really care where. She just needed enough privacy to ambush her boyfriend, get him on board with the "let's have sex!" idea, and then get down to it fast enough to prove she can do it, hopefully before she sinks into the flashbacks. She liked to mentally call her plan – Operation F.B.F, Fuck Before Flash. Unfortunately, that great force which controls all things had plans too: and its plans completely screwed up both of theirs. Their cot isn't really made for two people, but Toad and Willow have somehow made it work for them. They lay in the beginning of the night with Toad holding one arm around Willow's waist, her back to him but as close as possible because her knees will hang off otherwise; usually, they wake up with Willow curled into a ball and her head on his stomach, completely hidden by the blanket, and one of his hands locked in both of hers with his other buried in her hair. And so maybe it is a little crowded, a little uncomfortable and occasionally Toad wakes up with a new bruise to his ribs, but it works. They make it work. But tonight, only a week before Toad's plans would commence and the night before Willow's, the normal peace of the night is disturbed. . Willow cries out, tears pooling on the pillow under her cheek; she struggles against the blanket and the arm around her waist. One hand frees itself, continues to search for something to struggle against, but the enemy is in her dreams. Toad knows you are not supposed to wake a person having a nightmare, but logic holds no ground when facing the terror of seeing someone you care for in trouble. Heart pounding: he can fight the X-men off any day but how is he supposed to fight something that isn't physical?: he gently touches Willow's shoulder, shaking her. She jerks awake with a cut off scream, her mind taking a second to realize it was only a dream. But it wasn't only a dream not just a dream he was real -hewasreal- he really did those things and she couldn't stop it -stopitstopitstopit- and he touched her touched her and marked her and she could still feel his touch! She doesn't register Toad's attempts at soothing her. She can't calm down, not when she can feel her skin crawling from the phantom touch she can still feel, after all these years; not when her mind can so easily imagine what would have happened had Waverly not saved her from their father. When Toad grabs her wrist, trying to stop her before she hurts herself, she reaches for him, a different frenzy overtaking her at the realization that Toad makes the phantom touch go away. Toad replaces the fear in her stomach, the panic in her veins, and there is nothing that she wants more than for Toad to touch her everywhere and get rid of the phantom touch. "Toad," she gasps, her blurry eyes meeting his in the near pitch darkness of their room, "touch me, please please touch me..." He jerks back, stunned by both her words and the sudden appearance of more tears. One he can handle, the other freaks him out because he doesn't know how to deal with them. Tentatively he cups her face in his hands, brushing away the tears only to watch as more flood to replace them; he shushes her quietly, "I'm right here, Willow. Deep breaths, girl, you're okay..." Willow hiccups, falling limply against Toad, and between tears she whispers, "I'm not okay, Toad... I'm broken... tainted..." And god help him, what was Toad supposed to do about that? He pushes her away gently, just enough that she has to meet his eyes, and he tells her seriously, "You are not tainted, Willow." "Then touch me," she pleads, "Make his touch go away...please." So Toad does, because he cant think of anything else he can do, and he can't let his girl's anguish continue. . He tries to start slow, chastely kissing her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and just holding her; but then Willow buries her hands in his hair and deepens the kiss, drawing him down on top of her as she lays back against the cot. Supporting himself over her, he cups her cheek again, tilting her head back and nipping her bottom lip, sucking on it. Willow whimpers, breaking the kiss and panting in air, leaving Toad free to lick down her neck, pausing to nibble at the spot behind her jaw that makes her melt; her hands scramble across his shoulders. He hits her collar line and eases her shirt off, cradling her still shaking body in his arms like the fragile thing he knows she really is, and then he sits back on his calves to stare down at her. There is no window in their room, only a single bulb that casts a dim, hazy light when it chooses to work and the candle they left burning in a jar. Still, Toad can make out enough to see that she hasn't stopped crying, though her eyes are clenched shut. Quietly, he dips forward, placing open mouth kisses on her stomach, trailing up to her breasts. Willow gasps as he sucks on her nipple, her panic settling as the warmth spreads through her cold body, her nerves lighting up with every caress; she grabs the back of his head, holding him close as she moans. Toad moves to the other, bringing his hand up to play with the wet one, never neglecting her pleasure. He traces down her sides, teasing the sensitive skin of her collar bone with his teeth, worrying a red spot by her neck. Willow covers her eyes with her hands, burying her fingers in her hair and groaning, "Please Toad... I need you..." because every touch, every swipe of his skin against hers replaces the disgust and pain in her with warmth and safety and preciousness. Toad rubbed a firm hand down Willow's stomach, feeling as she arches up into his touch, and when he reaches her panty line he dips inside, cupping his hand up against her even as she moves, pushing down into his touch with a whimper. Toad kisses Willow, delving into her mouth and drawing her tongue into a sensual play. She gasps into his mouth as he kneads circles around her clit, dipping down to thrust a finger inside of her; he curls it, pushing against her hot walls. Willow has to break the kiss to moan and pant, her legs spreading in an attempt to move into Toad's motion; Toad thrusts his finger into her again and adds another, stretching her open for him, drawing her body into hot flushes of pleasure as he fucks her with his fingers. He can feel her tensing, her body jerking with pleasure as he overwhelms her senses, and he sits up back enough to see her face, to watch as her hands fall away to grip the pillow beside her head. She can feel the tension in her belly, can tell even through her haze of pleasure that she is going to come soon, and she reaches for Toad with one hand, pants again, "I need you, Toad..." She opens her eyes, catching his amber gaze with a happy, pleased smile. He smiles back at her, whispers into her ear, "You'll have me, darling; but this is all about you. Just lay back and let me take care of you." He nudges a third finger inside of her, stretching her walls and Willow whines and moves into the touch, unable to pay any attention to anything other than the feel of Toad's fingers inside of her. The pressure is exciting, the friction enough to curl her toes. He twists his hand until his thumb lays over her clit, and he thrusts his fingers into her as he rubs against her clit; gasping his name, Willow arches as she comes, her hips jerking and riding his hand. Toad doesn't stop moving until he is sure she's felt the last wave of pleasure that he can draw from her, and he gently slips his fingers out of her; in post-climax bliss, Willow welcomes his soft kisses. Toad leaves her on the cot for a second, looking over her mostly nude form with a fond smile as he pushes his sleep pants to the floor; she smiles back, holding out her hand to pull him back over to her. . "You're doing so good, so good." Toad praises against her lips, drawing her bottom lip into his mouth and sucking. His hands come up to rest on her hipbones, massaging firm circles over the sensitive skin before slowly pulling down her panties; Toad leans over her to steal another lazy kiss and his cock brushes against her stomach, warm and heavy. He dips a hand back down and presses a finger into her again, and in shock, Willow realizes he is trying to arouse her again. She's never tried to have sex so soon after an orgasm, and she tries to tell him, "Toad, I-I don't think I can-" "Shh, Willow..." He smiles at her, dipping down and kissing her chastely, "Let me do this for you." And what could she do but lay back and let him sink between her thighs, his strong hands supporting her legs as he easily slips inside of her, his cock finally filling her where she still surprisingly needs him. Her hands scramble to find a place to rest as he rocks his hips into her, reaching deeper than Willow can remember ever being filled -deeperthanhedid fartherthanhegot reachinginside- Toad kisses her, noticing the beginning of the glaze in her eyes that he hates, that he wants to erase, and she gasps, meeting his gaze and smiling at him, arching into his thrusts and reaching for him. Toad buries his hands in her hair, laying his forehead against hers and smiling back at her. This was it. This was what he wanted to do. They move together, rocking to meet in bliss and gasping and groaning as the heat builds. Willow pants, wrapping her legs around his waist and drawing him even deeper into her, grabbing his shoulders and holding on as her body feels like it is going to break and fly apart. She doesn't believe it, but with a muffled scream into Toad's neck, she comes again, her body pulling him inside of her deeper and holding him there as she shakes. Toad growls, clenching his eyes closed as she trembles around him, and with a last shallow thrust he fills her, groaning deep in his chest as he comes. When he can breathe again, Toad pushes himself up off of Willow, glancing down at the girl with a fond smile; her eyes have slipped closed, and if Toad couldn't hear the quiet murmur of pleasure words she was whispering he would have believed she was asleep. Careful not to jostle her from her blissful haze, Toad slinks down until he is kneeling between her legs and he moves her legs until they are bent around him, laying open in the relaxed way only a satisfied person can. Looking back up at his girl, he smiles and kisses down her thighs, mouthing at the silky skin and blowing cool air on the wet spots; Willow sighs happily, her body sensitive from her two orgasms, but she jumps when Toad flicks his tongue against her clit, pushing herself up to look down at him between her legs. "Toad?" She questions confused – was he not satisfied? . He grins, doing it again and watching pleased as she shudders, hypersensitive. She doesn't ask him to stop, though, just stares at him in drowsy curiosity and more than a little heat. He bends down, sucking her clit and letting her arch into his mouth, her hips grinding against him; she grabs the cot and holds on, staring up at the dark ceiling in delight and drunken pleasure. Toad worships her with his mouth, giving small laps to her clit before delving down and licking into her, his tongue reaching farther than a normal human's ever could. When she has started a steady stream of curses: his name mentioned once or twice: Toad pushes two fingers in her without warning, grinning as she squeals and pushes down against them, and he sucks her clit hard, thrusting fast into her. Willow tosses her head back and cries out as she comes for a third time that night. . Crawling back up and stretching out beside of her, Toad wraps his arm around her waist and leisurely kisses her neck, letting her come down slowly from the high. Once her breathing has steadied out and Toad is sure she's too close to sleep to remember, he tells her quietly, "You're my girl, Willow; and I'll always be here to take care of you." To his surprise, she turns around and nuzzles up under his chin, her hand splaying out over his chest, "You're mine too, frog-boy. Don't think just cause you blew my mind this gets you out of trouble." She huffs a laugh, "I had to wait eight months to learn how talented your tongue is." Toad buries a hand in her hair, pinning her in her spot so she can't see the small smile on his lips. "You haven't seen anything yet, girl. Since you aren't passed out, guess I'll just have to show you one or two more things." He slips his other hand down her back, tracing her spine down to grab her ass and pull her close enough to grind his erection against her thigh. She laughs, sloppily pushing back and only managing to potentially bruise Toad's hipbone; she laughs harder as he curses under his breath, pulling back in reflex, and falling off the side of the cot. Confused: where did her pillow go?: Willow crawls over to the side of the cot and glances down to the floor, grinning when she sees Toad glaring up at her. "You knocked me out of the bed after I just made you come three times?" He demands, trying hard not to look so amused at the confused frown on her face. "Sorry," She tells him as she yawns, stretching the word beyond recognition. "Now get your ass back up here; I like to cuddle after mind-blowing sex." Toad grumbles, but does exactly as she says, even letting her rearrange them so that she can listen to his heart as she falls asleep. Because, plan or no plan, Toad had managed to get one thing right tonight. He had kept her here, with him and out of the darkness; and Toad was confident he could do it again (over and over if she'd let him). So, tonight, he let her revel in it. Tonight was, after all, all about his girl.   THE END Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!