#xbrats

Her search is fruitless.

But when her powers start to show their head, between desperate studying binges as she tries to hold on to any of the information she’s gotten unfairly, she has a thought. Nothing she can back up with hard science, but no one wants to waste time and money on studies on mutants, so that doesn’t mean anything.There’s a moment, when she sees Noriko run, that she thinks she might have been right. But she still has over a year left on her clock, and Noriko won’t talk about soulmates at all, and anyway her gauntlet covers her countdown.

They dance around each other for six months, find a home in each other for a little while.

Then M Day happens.

And just like that, everything falls apart.

Davina finds some comfort in watching the timer still skip, because at least both of them didn’t have to go through this, this sudden loss of identity, this empty space where something important used to be. Davina watches the bus she’s supposed to be on be blown to smithereens, buries her friends, watches her roommate tear herself apart. 

She’s glad she still has time on her countdown. She doesn’t want her soulmate to meet her like this.

And of course, just when things seem to be settling down, they’re sent straight to hell, and Davina gets to watch as her own heart is ripped from her chest.Things get a little hazy after that.

∞

Somewhere else, Toni starts and looks down at her wrist, where her clock has stalled. She stops midstride, somewhere between New York and Los Angeles, and taps at her timer. Like it’s a watch, like it just needs to be jolted back into time.

After about ten minutes, it starts moving again. Toni feels sick, pushes herself harder than she necessarily should, leaves the fact that her soulmate had died for a quarter of an hour in some Midwestern suburbs. If she runs fast enough, she doesn’t have to deal with it. That’s the rule she makes for herself, and she at least likes to pretend it worked.

For weeks afterwards, she catches herself checking her timer. It’s like a nervous tick, and it’s too fast for anyone else to notice, but every time she finds her chest loosening, because it’s still moving.

Toni leaves New York and a broken team and an offer of a family behind, because she’s still moving, too.

∞

The thing about working at a call centre with her timer so close to zero is that Davina can’t help but worry that she’s going to meet her soulmate on the other side of a phone call. There have been studies on this, she knows because she checked. It’s entirely possible that her soulmate is going to be one of these people, calling about ninjas and disembodied voices and a man made of bees. At this point, she just hopes she can get through their first conversation without wanting to sigh in frustration.

She was an X-Man, after all. X-Men don’t get happy endings, just another day to keep living, if they’re lucky.

There’s been precious little luck, lately.

But when she hears that her company hired a speedster, she thinks maybe she might be about to have some.

∞

Toni isn’t even paying attention when it happens. She notices one of the girls who takes calls is gorgeous, and she’s never been one for subtlety, and she’s so busy talking that she doesn’t notice the fond smile on the girl’s face, too fond for just having met her, and yet…

Toni stops mid-sentence and pushes up her sleeve.

Her timer has stopped.

“Oh,” she says, feeling her cheeks heat, because asking some cute coworker to noodles was fine, but asking her soulmate out is a little more like something important.

“I’m Davina,” she says, and her voice is low and raspy and beautiful, and Toni refuses to admit she’s feeling a little winded just listening to this girl talk, but her slightly breathless response gives her away anyway.

“Toni,” she says. “Toni Shepherd.”

“You were a Young Avenger, right?”

Toni’s flinches are usually too fast for people to follow, but Davina’s deep brown eyes don’t look like they miss anything.

“Yeah, I was.”

“It’s okay.” Her voice takes on a solemn tone. “I was an X-Man once, too.”

Toni thinks of those ten minutes spent panicking, somewhere south of Minnesota, and nods.

Davina stands, offers her hand to shake, shy but sure.

“I thought you might be a speedster,” she admits, as Toni takes her hand in what’s supposed to be a handshake but ends up being both of them staring at each other, hand in hand, taking each other in. “Your time liked to skip.”

Of course it did. “Want to see what that feels like in person?”