the book was better

    “ so much talking, billiam.                          blah, blah, blah. ”

“Oh my god, you asked.”

Why is he like this? Billy has a lot of stuff going on that sometimes can’t be summed up in a few succinct words, but Tommy can’t handle more than two or three at a time, clearly. 

Maybe he can get his mom to prescribe them both something. He needs Xanax and Tommy needs Adderall. 

       Wanda gives Billy a sort of sly smile at that.  “ He did, didn’t he?   Personally, I think that makes calling him even more fun.  You really haven’t succeeded until he insists on talking so fast you can’t understand it. ”  Wanda loves her brother, and she loves tormenting him almost as much.  Pietro’s kind of asking for it, anyway.  She can call thirty times in an hour, and he’ll still pick up every time.  It’s a weakness she only abuses when she’s feeling especially big sister-y.  

He loves his soul family, he really does. The insults and complaints all come from the heart. 

“The school? Yeah, maybe I’ll visit before the next time they try to kill us.” 

Billy’s not trying to make Wanda feel bad, and he admires her ability to overlook some of the X-Men’s serious shortcomings, but he’s never going to think of that place without immediately being reminded of Wolverine trying to take them both out in one fell swoop. The best relationships he’s had with any of them have been with the ones who left, honestly. 

He’s of the mind that mutants aren’t only valid when they follow a strict code of conduct and never screw up ever, which makes him a jerk, apparently. Whatever. 

Wanda was a member of something literally called the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and she turned out better than any of them. Point made. 

    “ — no, i’m afraid i don’t have any advice on that.  you could try…asking your uncle? ”   honestly, that advice might be worse than no advice at all.  she says uncle on reflex, really.   it slips her mind ( like so many things, it feels like ) that billy might not even consider pietro such.

Really, Wanda, you should be ashamed of yourself--not having an encyclopedic knowledge of Transian landscaping techniques? You might as well just give up.

“I really doubt he cares, which is sad. He seemed pretty pissed the last fifty times we called him.”

Maybe they don’t need to make the front yard look pretty, but it looks barren and weird and empty front yards are rooted in capitalist allegory. So. 

What the hell, it’s not like he has anything better to do. If he sits around too much, he’ll fall back into the same depressive slump that robbed him part of his life a few years ago--and no thanks. 

And the key word here is Wanda.

Pietro says as he appears in the seat  across from Billy, expression less apologetic and more blank.

                “I was held up by your aunt.                                      Young lady, I’d like a coke and a-“

He remembers who is sitting in front of him, and reconsiders ordering a hot dog.

      “Some chicken wings, please.                                        Yes, Billy, sorry, order.                                                      Again, my apologies.”

"I'll have the same thing, I guess," he hasn't looked at the menu but he likes chicken wings, so whatever, "And don't worry about it. Which aunt would you be talking about, if you don't mind me asking?"

[ Polaris is the first person that comes to mind, but he's also forgotten he's sort of related to a few people now, and she might be dead for all he knows. If temporarily. 

"Manhattan hasn't turned into a fiery inferno of death yet," so this is probably a good thing, "which means somebody revived you instead of snagging you from the timestream. I think."

[ Coming back to life was all the rage, these days. Though Billy thinks it was pretty gauche of her not to come back with a redesigned costume, at least. ]

This is so much more Teddy's arena. Billy is the socially challenged miniature pinscher to Teddy's golden retriever, for sure. ]

  [ teddy adores days like this.  he totally gets that this whole thing is stressful   and taxing for billy, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t whole-heartedly   appreciate the good days when they come.  and the smooches.  those are   always a plus. ]

[ The weird thing is that Billy one hundred percent believes Teddy would get some kind of sentimental hard-on from Billy not even being actually pregnant but gaining weight anyway. ]

"Listen, okay--"