Summary:Ice cream and storytime with the Rasputin siblings and their best/girlfriend. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Piotr Rasputin and Kitty fell off radar there for a few days. There was no calls to Illyana. No texts about the other to her. They'd gone completely radio silent. There hasn't even been news from the school on the two of them. Maybe they'd just given up? Noone seems to know for sure.
Currently in Westchester, Pitor is stepping away from an ice cream counter. In one hand is a sensible scoop of chocolate in a waffle cone. In the other? A mess of mint chocolate chip, whipped cream, and cherries in a waffle bowl, along with hot fudge sauce.
The hot fudge sauce is the key part. The whipped cream helps but is kept to just a little bit. Two cherries, one for the beginning and one for the end of the ice cream. Kitty had stood there directing the poor ice cream vendor to get the amounts just right. Some people might have felt hen-pecked by the direction, but the Latino behind the counter was so very nice and friendly to both of them, making it all a pleasant experience that left a smile on Kitty's face as they stepped away from the counter.
"I liked him. We'll have to come back again. What was his name? Ernesto?" Kitty tells Piotr, glancing back to confirm the name on the man's name tag. She gets them spoons and then joins Piotr at a booth where she can sit close beside him. "Thank you for taking me out. This was a great idea," she tells Piotr with a big smile.
Illyana Rasputina is pretty awful about keeping in touch in the usual Millenial or iGen fashion. The latter of which she technically is a part of. A large part of that is because technology hasn't been a part of her life for, well, most of it. The other being that time spent in Limbo tends to make technology take on a mind of its own. Literally. And then it tries to eat you. So when people don't call in a while… she honestly doesn't notice much. When she wants to see someone though?
A stepping disk flares open near the lovebirds and the leather-clad blonde steps out, looking around. The ice cream shop in Westchester is familiar and so orienting herself doesn't take much time at all. "Ohh, I have good timing." Illyana says smugly, stepping over to the pair and sliding into the other side of the booth. She spends a moment looking between the pair of them. "Aren't you two close." She drawls.
"I had thought you would be tired of ordering pizzas and staying in?" Piotr asks Kitty as he sets down the bowl - and shakes his head at the excesses that Kitty asked for. He has his simple little ice cream cone. He's happy with it. "I believe it was. I believe it was because I left a large tip?" he asks as he starts to settle down at one side of the booth - he wasn't expecting Kitty to join him at his side to snuggle against, but there's no complaint for the show of affection.
And that's when Illyana appears in the middle of the shop. At one of the tables, a toddler in a high chair starts crying - probably because he dropped his ice cream cone, not because Illyana arrived, really.
Piotr's cheeks immediately warm with heat, even if he were in steel form, they may have turned red. "Snezhinka!" he greets Illyana, but realizes he's the one against the window, Kitty is the closest to offer his sister a hug. He's trapped at the moment. Just at a booth, not in a closet.
Kitty is indeed slid over close enough that she's in contact with the big Russian beside her as she spoons her first bite of the ice cream. A little bit of each component including the starting cherry get gathered on the spoon and brought to her mouth to be savored.
Kitty tells Piotr, "I think that helped. But he just seems like a really nice man too." She keeps her attention on Piotr though while being complimentary of someone else, and her hand reaches over to brush over his arm for a moment.
Which is the moment that Illyana suddenly appears. "Yana!" Kitty says, hopping up to her feet and in doing so also clearing a path for Piotr should he wish to rise. Kitty gives the blond sorceress a big hug if allowed. "Hey, was going to give you a call. Though you're tough to get ahold of," Kitty says with a warm smile.
Illyana Rasputina isn't much of a hugger, but Piotr and Kitty are generally accepted exceptions. There's still a bit of awkwardness on the return, since the blonde doesn't do it much but she's not going to chase Kitty off or duck out of it.
Neither does the sorceress look guilty about being hard to reach. "You could take up spirit summoning." She offers helpfully. "Also, deamons seem to be heavily involved in message delivery these days. I don't really get it."
"Sooooo." She drags out, gesturing between the pair of them with a downward pointing finger. "I'm going to guess this has moved into the 'official' status? Isn't there a ring or a jacket involved now?"
"Or I could just set out a bottle of vodka and a bowl of mother's Solyanka." Piotr responds as he shakes his head, amusement tugging on his features for a moment. He doesn't rise to hug Illyana - Kitty has it handled for him. But when she takes a seat and they all get settled, the question comes up.
"Da." A one-word answer. But there's the large man's face tells no lies. Official may be too soft a word for it, as he busies himself with tucking into his ice cream. This is not a conversation he is comfortable with.
Kitty gives a quick shake of her head. "I will leave the magic stuff to you," she answers of spirits and demons. "Though a handy way to get a message to you wouldn't be a horrible idea, at that," Kitty muses though learning magic herself not fitting into her thoughts on the matter at all.
Kitty glances over to Piotr at the mention of them as a couple, officially. She gets a soft, shy smile, looking down, but manages to not blush about it. "I think you could say official," Kitty agrees, her smile growing away from 'shy' and passing on towards 'happy'.
Kitty takes a seat in the booth again, motioning to the other side for Illyana to join them. "Oh, or if you want ice cream first, the guy behind the counter is top notch," Kitty says. She glances back over to Piotr then. "Pete was really sweet. Brought me roses. And we… worked things out."
Illyana Rasputina slides into the other side of the booth, sprawling to take up that whole side. Instead of going over to the counter to get ice cream, Illyana just leans over and reaches out to snag Kitty's spoon so she can take a bite of the other woman's ice cream. That's an old habit of hers, helping herself to other people's plates.
"You're going to school down in the City, right? And you're staying up at the Institute to teach?" The blonde asks, looking between the pair. It's not a huge amount of distance, but at the moment they're not letting a lot of space gather between them. Illyana chuckles at Kitty's observation that Piotr is sweet. "That's never been in debate by, well, anyone I think. *I'm* the ornery Rasputin sibling."
There's a swat of Piotr's spoon on Illyana's hand. She might be /technically/ older, but he's the big brother, dammit. "Poproshayka." he scolds her, then explains to Kitty - pointing the spoon at Illyana. "Moocher." there's a smirk at that, as he considers what the woman is saying and then he shrugs his shoulders. "Kitty is at the school, da. And I will be staying here to teach. You are the only family I have left, with our brother serving on the ISS." he points out to her.
"Though I hope it is not the only reason to stay." After all, Kitty had mentioned that her visit would only be to finish school, and then she would be gone again. "Have you had anything interesting happen as of late, Illyana?"
Kitty Pryde chuckles softly at the mooching and exchange. She doesn't seem to mind Illyana eating off of her ice cream. "Yes, I'll be starting up at NYU. Which is still aways off though I might start the summer session," Kitty confirms. She glances over to Piotr, expression softening a bit. "I'll be here for a couple of years, at least. An no plans to go anywhere else after, specifically," she tells him.
She turns her attention back to her ice cream again, getting some of the frozen heaven on her spoon to savor. "Yes, anything interesting?" Kitty repeats Piotr's question. Eyes down on her ice cream, she adds, "How are you and Doug doing?" before her eyes pop up to look at Illyana with just a bit of a mischievous twinkle in them.
When Piotr swats her hand, there's a brief predatory flash of teeth from Illyana at her brother. It's gone in a moment, both the response and her own guilty reaction shoved off to a more placid expression. The low growl and too-long incisors could easily go unnoticed.
"The school's a pretty small place. You two are definitely going to be a gossip ticket." Illyana says, as though nothing happened. As to interesting things happening? "Trying to connect the dots between Plokta and Sifror and the kids getting napped." She observes. As for Doug? She just arches a brow at Kitty's impish look. "Well. He came out half lion one day, but other than that he's been his pretty normal self. I've had him helping me with the research, since he can read the stuff in my library."
"Da. I was told of the kidnapped children. Deadpool had me take one in because he could no longer assist." Piotr responds with a frown. "I am not sure what is going on there. But if it involves magic - I believe you have it far better than I, Illyana." If he saw the teeth, there's no response from the large Russian - at least not in front of Kitty - but that flash of concern might have been briefly noticable. Then there's confusion.
"Lion? Is he having a new mutation?" he asks curiously.
Kitty's spoon pauses its motion at the talk of the gossip that will happen. But then she shrugs and says fatalistically, "Well, it'll happen then." The glance she gives towards Piotr is a bit fierce. As if now that Piotr is hers, nothing is going to take him away, including gossip. The rest of the world can deal.
Kitty takes another bite of her ice cream, then uses the spoon to wave and emphasize her words as she says, "The kid that we have stashed? Maybe you could look at his tattoos, Illyana? See if you can understand their purpose and effects. And then help the kid get rid of them? I'm also concerned whether they can be used to track him somehow."
"I'm working with someone over at WAND, and let them know I'm willing to look at the kid's tattoos. And one of Plokta's former cultists mentioned that they were used to lowjack folks, yeah." Illyana gives a soft sigh. "My worry is that while I'm sure I could break the spell in the tattoos? It might have adverse effects on the kids themselves. This is sticky, messy stuff."
The blonde shakes her head at Piotr. "No, some crazy scientist kidnapped him and injected him with science-based transformation spell to make him into a lion-man. Not sure *what* the purpose of that was… Happened down in South America I think. Lions aren't even native to that area, are they?" She looks between the other two, who she figures would know better than she. Like this is as important as Doug getting turned into an oversized kittycat.
Piotr nods his head with Illyana, a glance to Kitty.. with her distraction, he never really did get to the reason he had came over to visit her that night. "The children are tracked by their tattoos, da." he says in agreement, a frown towards Illyana. "If you were to have them in Limbo, would they be out of reach of Plokt… nevermind, that is terrible idea." he realizes, just from /his/ last visit to Limbo.
He glances at his ice cream cone, and offers it to Illyana. Fine. He feels a little guilty for swatting her hand. "Testing a new mutagen? Perhaps he wanted animal people? Have you asked Douglas about it?"
"Lions would be Africa mostly, some in Asia too," says the brunette for whom learning new things sometimes nears the level of compulsion. "I do not think there are any in South America, no," Kitty adds. Though her thoughts seem to be more on the kids and the tattoos then as she frowns whilst getting another bite of ice cream.
Kitty punctuates her words with her empty spoon again. "If they cannot be safely removed, is there a way to block them from being used to locate the kids? Or at least Brian, for now?" she asks. "Right now we're having to have someone there actively guarding them the whole time." And Kitty has been one of those people, working in shifts with others.
Illyana Rasputina huffs her amusement at Piotr's suggestion. "Limbo. Where the cure is worse than the disease." She drawls before shaking her head about Doug. "Sounded like they got the guy and Doug got the cure, so everything was taken care of.
The blonde frowns over at Piotr, "I thought you were gonna turn the kid over to WAND since they're set up for stuff like that." That's followed by a nod over to Kitty. "Oh yeah, you just need to put up Wards. I have them around Doug's apartment so I don't have people magically spying on me or teleporting in without me knowing." Kitty is probably great when you want physical security. Illyana does the same thing, just with magic.
"He has been given to WAND." Piotr confirms. "We did not have a safe place to put him." There's a sigh as he reaches up to rub the back of his neck. "This all sounds.. very complicated." Instead, he busies himself with eating Kitty's ice-cream, and taking that second cherry and popping it in his mouth.
Kitty Pryde perks up at the mention of the Freemans having been moved. "Oh, I hadn't heard that," she says. "Well, good. Because it wasn't a secure enough location if he could be tracked," she agrees. Why she'd brought it up. Kitty takes another bite of her ice cream, nudging the bowl towards Illyana to help herself with another bite.
As Kitty savors the mint chocolate chip, and the hot fudge sauce, she tells Illyana, "Looked like a nice setup Doug had going over there. I said I'd help teach some… well, not classes I guess, but I'd help out with some sessions there if he likes," she says. Kitty glances over to Piotr. "I don't know if they are doing any drawing or painting there or not?" One of her hands moves over to rest lightly on Piotr's arm as they talk, fingers just resting there idly, but not a touch that Kitty would have ever done with him in the past.
Illyana Rasputina accepts Piotr's cone happily, and if the couple doesn't manage to polish off Kitty's ice cream there is a very real danger that Illyana will eat that as well. Ice cream is rarely safe around the not-so-youngest Rasputin.
"You know, if you needed somehwere to live in town, he's got the whole building. You could probably get an apartment there." The blonde notes over to Kitty. "I'd offer to room with you again but I really don't need to see my brother wearing anything less than some of the costumes he's been dolled up in." Illyana gives Piotr a smirk. "Because I'm sure he'd be by. Visiting."
"I told the Professor I would teach art the Institute. I will not change my mind on this." Piotr responds, though his free hand moves to cover Kitty's own, as he considers the conversation. "If you wanted to move in with them.." he pauses. He is slightly conflicted on this one, to be honest.
While he may tease Illyana about things, he trusts her when she says that she and Doug are not romantic. However, he also heard rumor of the rumors of Douglas' crush on Kitty, and he glances towards the two women to gather his thoughts.
Kitty Pryde's cheeks take on just the smallest blush at the suggestion that what is going on between Piotr and Kitty, might be going on between Piotr and Kitty. "Well, I will like somewhere closer to campus. It's a long way to commute every day," Kitty says before looking back to Piotr. "Though I plan to be up here a lot, too."
Kitty gets another bite of ice cream. "If it was my own apartment, that might work well," she says, glancing over towards Piotr as if to confirm he thinks so too. And then spotting the Russian's thoughtful hesitance. "And you wouldn't have to give up your job at the Institute. Just come in and do a session on weekends with some of the community," Kitty suggests to Piotr. "It would be something else we could do together," she tells him, letting it be a subtle affirmation of who it is she wants to spend her time with.
"When I'm around I can always help with the commuting, but I'm not… reliable when it comes to schedules." Illyana admits. It's not even that she's just unmindful of it. Her sense of time itself is skewed because of living most of her life in Limbo where time is more silly string than straight line.
The blonde is silent for a bit as she chases ice cream drips with her tongue, looking much more like the seven year old that Piotr remembers from, what, five or six years ago? Than the twenty-something woman she looks like. Wiping at her mouth with the back of one hand she adds as an afterthought: "I ran into Gambit the other day. Guess he's back at the Institute too." She does *not* share the awful, awful images that she'd pay a telepath to get out of her head for her that Remy suggested.
"And did you let him hit on you before you told him who you were?" Because really, it sounds like something that Illyana would do - is get Remy worked up and 'surprise I'm only 16 really'. "No, I do not think we are at a stage of living together yet?" he asks Kitty with an amused little smile as he takes another bite from Kitty's ice cream.
"If you want to live closer to the city, I will not complain. I do not want things to be harder for you."
"I will be back up here to see you frequently if… if I have to walk it," Kitty tells Piotr in a determined tone. And then looks over to remember his sister is there, and she blushes again just faintly. "So… um… Remy? Oh good, how he is doing?" Kitty asks, glad for the change of topics.
Kitty looks to Piotr and says, "You know we haven't really talked about Illyana's age and how you two are handling it. Are you both adjusting to it by now?" Kitty asks, looking between the pair as she gets a good mess of hot fudge on her spoon.
Ernesto comes around the corner, bringing over a little baseball helmet with ice cream in it which he gives to Illyana. "A treat on the house," he tells her. It's a Cubs helmet too, which gets a bit thumbs up from Kitty.
Illyana Rasputina chuckles at Piotr's suggestion. "I *would* have," She agrees, "But he recognized me." She doesn't look too terribly different. Just definitely older. And let's get it right, she's technically 12 if you go by her birth certificate. "He seems alright. He was getting back from dealing with some stuff back in Nola."
Cool, pale eyes move between the couple as Illyana crunches down the cone of formerly-Piotr's ice cream. "I think she was more suggesting you have some sleepovers, more than moving straight to the shacking up."
The special delivery gets a look of mild surprise from the blonde, and then Ernersto gets one of those very small, but real smiles along with a nod. That's all most people get by way of 'thank you' from the girl raised by demons.
"Ah. Da." Piotr says, as he glances down. There's a momentary thought as he considers. "Perhaps." he finally allows, though it seems he doesn't have much to add as the women start talking about things that well.. he's out of place about.
Kitty Pryde motions with a thumb towards the Baskins-Robbins clerk. "I like this guy. We need to come back here again," she tells Piotr. The brunette spots his dour demeanor and she reaches over to rest her hand along his back. She gives gentle little rubs there. "Important thing is that you're ok," Kitty says towards Illyana. "I mean, it's not hard to take what happened in other directions that could have ended up far worse. Sorry you went through it without us though," she offers softly.
Kitty glances back to Piotr and gives him a little side bump. "That's what I meant, yes. You ok with… you know, if you wanted to stay over, sometimes?" she asks him. "If you're around or just… maybe come down to the city for a date?"
"Something I brought up to Doug, when he was saying he felt ordinary next to some of the people he knows, is that we're all sort of our own definition of 'ordinary'. Because we live with the things we can and can't do every day." Illyana notes. "So I don't really notice that I'm 'older' than Piotr. I always *think* of him as older. I just… remember missing him for big chunks of my life." The blonde reaches over with one of her hands that are decorated with silver rings and bracelets that feature skull and pentagram motifs to place over Piotr's. "I think for me, the oddest thing will be when *he* starts to actually get a few years on him." She gives a wan smile. He's been in his late teens to early twenties for like, nearly 20 years from my side of things. Pretty much everything I can remember."
That wan smile fades though, at the reminder of her time in Limbo. Time without them or their support. "I don't blame you for not being there. Either of you." Illyana assures them. But she doesn't even try to pretend her time there wasn't, well, hell.
When Illyana explains her sisteruation (yes, totally made up that word), Piotr frowns. "I regret." he finally rumbles. "That at the times when she was in the most danger. At the times when she should have been able to rely on me.. I was not there. That I allowed her to be taken. That I did not move Limbo itself to find her." he says, blue eyes fading as he looks down at his sister's hand. "The things I could not from keep from happening to you. The things I could not prevent. It will not happen again."
And this may be the birth of Piotr's self-sacrifical tendencies.
Kitty Pryde slides her hand gently up and down Piotr's back as they get to the root of the issue for the big Russian brother. "Some things there just isn't anything we could have done, Pete. You didn't know what was happening, it didn't even happen in the same timescale we were in. So there was no way to know," she tells him in a reassuring voice.
Kitty looks over to Illyana. "I know Illyana knows we'd have done anything to be there for her." Kitty's brown eyes shine warmly over to her friend. "You've always been the sister I never had. Now you can just be my slightly older sister instead of my younger one," Kitty says.
Illyana Rasputina's hand on Piotr's sqeezes the much larger one in a measure of reassurance. She keeps some of her words locked behind her teeth. The thought that Piotr is too good, too noble, to have survived Limbo. To have done the awful things that would have been required to save her. That maybe, by surviving, she's failed to live up to the paragon of virtue she sees her brother as. Instead, she nods and just says "Well I'm going to do my part on that front. Limbo is mine now, and Belasco's a non-issue." And she does, and will do, whatever it takes to keep it. Things she doesn't need to volunteer up to her brother and best friend.
"Izvinite menya." Pitor rises, and waits for Kitty to stand before he slips out of the booth. He needs air. This is how he deals with his sister being the Queen of Limbo. By trying his best to not ackowledge it - and his failures in it - in the process. He gives a sad glance to the table, before the large Russian moves to stand outside for a few to catch his air.
Kitty rises to let Piotr out. But one thing the two women are not likely to do, is let him wander off to mope on his own. Instead he finds one on each arm to walk him outside. A last wave is given to Ernesto as Kitty departs with the Russian brother and sister.
Ernesto, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.