Castaways
Title: Castaways
Ficathon: xmenfirstclass
Recipient: resolute
Request: Jean/Wanda. And or Scott, and or Pietro -- love triangle, wanting it all.
Characters: Jean/Wanda, Jean/Scott, Pietro, the Vanisher
Rating: G
Many thanks to lonelywalker for a timely beta.
"What are the odds that the Vanisher's power would backfire in just the right way to land us on a tropical island?" Scott wondered out loud, the sparkling sun making his visor flare red.
"It's more likely than you think!" Wanda and Jean chorused, then giggled in a really annoying way, just as Pietro skidded to a halt right in front of Scott, spraying him with sand.
"This island's deserted! No people! No planes! No phones! What did you do, sister?"
Wanda stepped forward to apologise, but Jean clapped a gloved hand over Wanda's mouth and snapped back, "She saved our lives, that's what she did! And if I hear another complaint about my girlfriend, I'm going to throw you back to New York!"
Pietro scowled, his white eyebrows joining to make one great angry caterpillar across his forehead, but he restrained himself from doing any more than kicking a little more sand in Scott's general direction.
"Hey! Leave me out of it!" Scott was almost as irritated as Pietro, but he needed to maintain his calm so that he could lead the rest of the team - not that it was really his team, apart from Jean - to safety. "The Professor will start scanning for us as soon as the fight is over and he can get back to Cerebro. All we have to do is stay calm and - where are you going, Jean?"
Jean had taken Wanda's hand and was leading her down the beach towards the gentle waves, though at least Wanda had turned her head and was trying to listen to what Scott was saying. Jean called back to Scott, "You're totally right, the Professor will find us. So we're going for a swim!"
"This island is much hotter than I'm used to," Wanda added, trying to placate him as she always did. It always made Scott unreasonably cross, though, suspecting that Wanda was trying to stay on his good side so that he wouldn't demand Jean back. Even if it had only been a week since Jean had dumped him, Scott wouldn't hold that against Wanda. Besides, Jean would kick his ass if he did.
"Ah, she's right." Pietro stripped off his costume and boots in a flurry of cloth and sand and sprinted into the water, clad in the most revealing underwear Scott had ever seen outside of the internet. Apparently, men could wear g-strings, too.
"Stop staring and come in for a swim!" Jean laughed, stripping down to her sports bra and tight boyshorts and running into the water after Pietro, as relaxed as if the mission was over and they were back home.
Wanda watched her go, and bit her lip. "Are you going to swim, Scott?"
Scott folded his arms and tried to look resolute. "There might be sharks."
"I think Jean and my brother are safe from sharks, yes? Do you think the Professor really can find us, so far away?"
"He's never had any problem finding mysterious tropical islands before, and it makes it easier when he knows who he's trying to find. Thanks for helping us take down the Vanisher, by the way." A trickle of sweat was running down the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades, tickling all the way down.
Wanda's accent was getting thicker the longer she talked to Scott. "It is no problem. We are trying to be crime fighters, maybe." Her arms were crossed, too, and Scott hoped that he didn't look as defensive as she did.
In the water, Pietro and Jean swam and splashed in the tiny waves and waist-deep water, looking like the best of friends, although Scott had never heard them address a single polite word to each other before today. Scott looked over at Wanda, who didn't seem in the least inclined to strip off and join them.
"We don't know how long we're going to be here. They might take a day or so to find us."
"You are right. We should find water." Wanda's cheeks were already flushed pink and her hair was sticking to her neck. She frowned, then unclipped her heavy cape and folded it over her arm. "It is very hot here. Jean and my brother will be sunburned."
Scott strode down the sand to the water's edge. "Jean! Wanda and I are going to find some water. Don't get sunburnt!"
Jean splashed water at Scott, but he was entirely ready for it, and scrambled backwards. She pulled her heavy, water-logged hair off her face and started wading back to the beach. "Okay, wait up, I'll come with you."
Pietro was suddenly by Scott's side, with an extravagant splash that threw water all over Scott's uniform. "Don't be stupid. I'll find it a hundred times faster than you could."
"Yeah? Then what are you going to carry it in? Your underpants?" Scott glared at the offending microscopic thong, but Pietro didn't seem embarrassed at all.
"Then I'll come back and take you to the water, and Jean can carry it. Maybe there'll be a gourd or something. Are they tropical? Back soon!"
Pietro dashed away - spraying sand on Scott so that it stuck to him where his uniform was already wet - and waved at his sister as he passed her.
Jean emerged from the water, looking cool and refreshed, the exact opposite of Scott, but he still didn't feel that it was right to remove his uniform. They were on a mission, after all.
"Poor you! You're covered in sand." She concentrated, and the sand shimmered and detached itself from Scott, falling away in a sheet. Jean glared up towards the treeline after Pietro. "I hope he doesn't hurry back."
"He hurries everywhere." Scott's gloom must have been more apparent than he thought, because Jean kissed him lightly on the cheek and took his hand, leading him back up the beach to where Wanda was sitting on her cloak, which she had laid out like a beach towel in the shade of a palm tree.
"Don't be a grouch - and take some clothes off, you must be boiling like a lobster in there." Jean tugged at his sleeve, but Scott shook his arm free.
"We're still on a mission, if you haven't forgotten." He increased his pace, though the sand dragged at his steps.
"Mission?" Jean scrambled ahead of him and turned to stand in his path, with her hands on her hips. "I'm not allowed to touch your arm because we're on a mission? This is nothing to do with a mission."
Scott sighed. "I don't really want to talk about this." He looked hopefully up towards the trees, but Pietro failed to save him by appearing on time. Typical Pietro. When he looked back, Jean was still standing there, glaring, her hair steaming as it dried in the tropical heat.
"You never want to talk about anything! I don't even know how we started going out! It's not like you'd ever tell me what you're feeling!"
"It's my fault that you wanted to date Wanda?"
Wanda had got to her feet, looking alarmed, but hadn't come any closer. A flock of brightly coloured birds erupted out of the trees behind her, and their raucous shrieks made both Jean and Wanda turn around. Scott seized the opportunity to walk past Jean and stride back up the beach. At least there was some shade, and, with any luck, Jean would be distracted enough to shake off the fight she'd been starting.
Wanda ran down the beach and grabbed Jean's hand. "Jean, I think -"
"Don't worry, it's just birds. Pietro must have disturbed them. Either that," she shouted at Scott's back, "Or they can sense that I'm really mad and they're getting out of my way."
"No, Jean, it's not -"
"I'm just going to settle this! Scott Summers, come back here!"
Scott reached the shade of the trees before he stopped walking, and had an awful urge to tell Jean, "You can't make me!" The knowledge that she could, in fact, make him, and might even be pissed enough to do it, was more than enough to stop him from saying it.
Jean stormed up to him, pulling Wanda along behind her. "Scott, you're an idiot! I told you that I wanted to start dating Wanda, not that I wanted to stop dating you!" She waited a moment for Scott's reaction. "There's no reason why not!"
Scott felt his mouth closing into a thin, straight line - what Bobby called his "Fearless Leader face" - which was not what he meant at all. "I knew what you meant. It just wasn't what I wanted."
Jean stared at him, her mouth open in surprise.
Scott bit the inside of his cheek, but it didn't stop his voice sounding cold and planned. "You toyed with me until you got bored. I'd rather date Warren than you - at least he wouldn't make promises and break them five minutes later. You're going to dump Wanda, too. I can see it. You're not even listening to what she's trying to say, and you've only been dating for a week."
Both of them turned to look at Wanda. She looked rather surprised to suddenly be the centre of attention and blushed slightly.
"Er - I was trying to say that we should go to look for my brother. He could have run all over the whole island twice by now."
"Right. Marvel Girl! Get your uniform on. Scarlet Witch, can you determine where he is?"
Wanda shook sand from her cloak and clipped in back in place. "No, I'm sorry. Maybe we should look where the birds flew out? He could have fallen and hurt himself."
"Maybe." Scott frowned. Jean was quickly pulling her uniform on without debate, for which Scott was rather grateful. "Or your hex might have brought more people to the island than you thought."
"You think so?" Jean pulled her boots on, then her mask. "Like who?"
"Have you ever seen the Vanisher teleport something without going along himself? I should have thought of it earlier."
Jean jumped up, fully dressed. "Oh, don't start second-guessing yourself. Pietro probably just ran into a tree somewhere."
"He doesn't run into trees!" Wanda snapped. Scott hadn't heard her say a cross word to Jean, before this.
"Okay. Marvel Girl, go to the top of that tree. You might be able to see where Pietro has run, or at least where he stopped."
Jean focused her power, and slowly floated straight up beside the tall palm tree. It was a very wobbly lift, but, as they had practised in training, she used the tree trunk to guide herself. She'd have something to grab onto if her concentration broke, although the palm tree didn't offer nearly as many handholds as a ladder in the Danger Room. Wanda and Scott watched Jean's progress closely - Wanda with concern, Scott with confidence. Jean always performed better in the field than in training.
"Will she be all right? It is a very tall tree."
"You can see she's fine." Scott's leader-mode just wasn't switching off today. Maybe that was for the best - to keep his distance and let Jean sort out whatever she was trying to do.
"And you? Are you fine?" Wanda put one gloved hand on Scott's arm, which would have been startling if she hadn't done it so gently.
"I'm, uh. I don't blame you. For Jean dating you, I mean."
"I think perhaps you know Jean better than that. She has a very powerful spirit."
"No kidding." Scott managed to almost smile, or at least felt his clenched jaw relax a little. Above them, Jean carefully manoeuvred herself around the bunches of green coconuts and the broad leaves of the palm tree. "You weren't bothered by what she said before, that she wants to date both of us?"
Wanda shrugged. "I am used to dividing my time. My brother is not so angry when I am dating a woman, but I don't want to leave him alone all day, every day. She smiled up at Scott. "Maybe you should date him?"
Scott choked for a second, then realised that Wanda's little smile meant that she was joking. "When he gets a personality transplant, maybe."
"He is a good man, my brother. Just, he is a little over-protective. I suppose I am used to being around people who talk over me. But Jean, once she stops talking, she listens."
Scott thought about sitting on the grass underneath a tree, the mild spring sun making bright patches on Jean's legs, his hand in her hair. "Yeah. Everything she does, it's got her whole attention."
"If she wants everything, is it so bad to give it to her?"
Before Scott could answer, Jean called down to them from the top of the tree. "Hey! I can see the whole island from here! There's too many trees to see anyone, though. Oh, wait, wait, I can see a gap, and a whole lot of broken palm leaves. That's a place to start. Okay! Coming down!" The descent was rather faster than it should have been, but the soft white sand at the bottom cushioned Jean's fall, and she even managed a neat roll when she hit the ground. "It looks like someone fell through the trees right at the centre of the island. It's not far."
"Did you see anything of my brother?" Wanda had removed her hand from Scott's arm and was twisting the edge of her cloak anxiously, "If I brought him here and then he is hurt…"
Jean took her hand. "We'll find him." She marched into the trees, leading the others forward.
Once they were under the thick canopy of tropical growth, it was very easy to see where Pietro had been - leaf litter and fallen fruit was thick on the ground, undisturbed except where Pietro had zoomed through it, leaving a narrow trail of chaos behind him, as clear as footprints on the beach. He had indeed run towards the centre of the island, so Scott motioned the rest of the team to stay close, and they moved quietly through the trees. The earth was damp beneath their feet, making little sound, but the thick foliage that shielded them from sight also meant that they could not see more than a few feet ahead of themselves, even following Pietro's winding path.
"Can you cut through this?" Jean whispered to Scott.
"There's a risk of hitting Quicksilver. Can you feel his mind anywhere?"
"There's too many living things here. It's confusing my telepathy. Maybe when we're closer."
The clear trail suddenly split, where Pietro had crossed his own path in his two island runs. Scott turned to look at Wanda, and she muttered to herself for a moment, a gleam of pale purple light shining between her cupped hands. A moment later, a small rat-like creature scampered down one of the paths towards them, then suddenly became aware of them and fled into the vine-filled undergrowth.
"That way." Wanda pointed to the path that the rodent had walked. "It ran from other people."
"People? Plural?" Scott asked, but Wanda just shrugged.
"Maybe. I think so."
"Marvel Girl, see if you can get a better impression now."
Jean nodded, gnawing on her lip in concentration, and they crept forward down the path.
Without warning, a man's voice rang out. "Stop! Stop right there! I've got your friend!" Jean stepped forward, but Scott stopped her with a gesture, looking around for the source of the shout.
"Don't hurt him!" Wanda's voice was shrill with fear.
The Vanisher appeared in front of them with an abrupt popping noise, a small, balding man with a magnificent purple cloak, his head looking like a tiny egg against the backdrop of his huge curved collar. His purple velvet tunic was soaked with dark patches, and Wanda screamed.
Scott caught her arm. "It's okay, that's not blood. It's just sweat."
"Shut up!" the Vanisher shrieked. "Shut up! How the hell did you get me here? Send me back and I'll tell you where your friend is!"
Scott risked a quick look over at Jean, to check that she was doing what they had planned for hostage situations. Her expression was bland, but he could see that she was biting on the inside of her lip again, focussed. Wanda, on the other hand, was crying, and it looked less like fear than panic. Scott put his arm around her, pulling her in close, both comforting her and making them immobile, a less threatening target for the very jittery Vanisher. With any luck, he wouldn't remember that Scott didn't need to be able to move to take him down. Just as soon as Jean located Pietro…
"What's she doing! Stop it!"
Scott turned on his Fearless Leader voice, voluntarily, this time. "Stay calm, Vanisher. Marvel Girl isn't going to hurt you - she's just trying to find us a way home. Coming here was an accident. We can't get home yet."
The Vanisher seemed to be listening. "I didn't want to hurt anyone."
Wanda suddenly spoke, indignant, despite Scott tightening his arm around her in warning. "You teleported Cyclops off a roof and let go!"
"The winged guy would have caught him! All I wanted was money!"
"I found Pietro - he's on the ground, 2 o'clock," Jean whispered, so quietly that only Scott could hear her. Without hesitation, he fired a force beam straight at the Vanisher. Somehow, the Vanisher teleported away just as the blast would have hit him, only to reappear a few steps away from Scott and Wanda, right in front of Jean. She was still slightly out of it after her telepathic search, and the Vanisher only needed a moment to punch her hard in the stomach, knocking her to the ground. Scott fired again, making sure not to hit Jean, but the Vanisher was appearing and disappearing too rapidly for him to hit, especially as he couldn't open the visor too far for fear of killing the man.
"Jean!" Wanda knelt down beside her girlfriend and, instead of checking her for injuries, frantically kissed her lips, then her forehead, and lips again. "Jean! Wake up!"
Scott was about to shout at Wanda to follow procedure, but remembered that Wanda didn't know procedure - she wasn't an X-Man. If Wanda was going to be coming along on missions with Jean, even unofficially, she was going to have to come to training. Scott sighed. This had been so much easier when Wanda had briefly dated Warren - he kept his superhero life and his glamorous sportscar-driving life as separate as possible.
The Vanisher appeared again, not far from where Jean and Wanda were on the ground, and Scott fired over their heads, but only caught the man's cloak. The Vanished stumbled, but disappeared from the path of Scott's follow-up shot.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," Jean muttered, trying to sit up, though she sounded winded. "Scott, get closer to us. The Vanisher is too scared to 'port into a force beam."
Scott took the few steps closer to stand over them, scanning the area. Wanda kissed Jean again and jumped to her feet, the sweep of her long red cloak sending leaves flying everywhere.
"Vanisher!" she shouted, rage in her voice. "I want my brother back right now!"
His voice came from somewhere in the trees above them. "You know my terms! And you're the ones who started the fight!"
Scott shot a force beam in that direction, but the man was already gone.
"We started it?" Wanda roared, purple sparks flying off her hands and hair. "Then we will end it, too!"
Scott suddenly felt a scrawny arm tighten around his throat. He staggered, and bent forward to throw the Vanisher over his head, but the man clung on tightly and Scott couldn't catch a breath. He straightened up again, hoping to squash the Vanisher against into a tree, but the moment he did, there was a peculiar thudding noise and the Vanisher slid to the ground in a purple velvet heap. Scott turned around, and the unconscious Vanisher was lying on the ground next to a big green-husked coconut.
Wanda ran over and gave the defeated man a good hard kick in the ribs. "And you will not punch my girlfriend ever again!"
Scott grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off. "He's down! You can stop now."
"I know. I was wanting some revenge."
"Just - we don't - go look after Jean." Scott checked that the Vanisher was unconscious, not dead. The massive coconut must have just struck a glancing blow, though, because he was still breathing and didn't seem to be bleeding from his ears. Scott rolled him into recovery position and tied his hands and feet with vines. He might teleport away, but he'd still be tied up when he got there.
Wanda had helped Jean to her feet, though Jean was still holding her stomach and sounded winded. "There's a big, rotten log about forty feet this way. Quicksilver's under that."
Scott hurried over, and found it without any problems - it was a very big, very damp log, and when Scott pulled Pietro out, he was thoroughly covered with slimy mould and had shiny black beetles climbing over his butt. Scott did try not to smirk, but then all the beetles slid of the shiny blue costume, and Scott couldn't stop himself grinning.
Jean and Wanda came up behind him, and while Wanda crouched down by her brother, Jean's grin matched Scott's. "Hey, Pietro, are you okay? Nothing bugging you?"
Managing to stop himself from overthinking before he acted, Scott reached over and gave Jean a very gentle hug, wrapping his arms around her.
"Hey, that's nice." Jean smiled. "I thought you were going to stay mad at me."
"No, I'm good. And anyway, I can't stay mad at someone when I've just put a nice big clump of leaf mould in their hair."
Scott laughed and jumped back as Jean shrieked and grabbed at her hair. Wanda giggled, Pietro made a very cranky noise, and Scott couldn't help feeling that it was all going to work out just fine.
Ficathon: xmenfirstclass
Recipient: resolute
Request: Jean/Wanda. And or Scott, and or Pietro -- love triangle, wanting it all.
Characters: Jean/Wanda, Jean/Scott, Pietro, the Vanisher
Rating: G
Many thanks to lonelywalker for a timely beta.
"What are the odds that the Vanisher's power would backfire in just the right way to land us on a tropical island?" Scott wondered out loud, the sparkling sun making his visor flare red.
"It's more likely than you think!" Wanda and Jean chorused, then giggled in a really annoying way, just as Pietro skidded to a halt right in front of Scott, spraying him with sand.
"This island's deserted! No people! No planes! No phones! What did you do, sister?"
Wanda stepped forward to apologise, but Jean clapped a gloved hand over Wanda's mouth and snapped back, "She saved our lives, that's what she did! And if I hear another complaint about my girlfriend, I'm going to throw you back to New York!"
Pietro scowled, his white eyebrows joining to make one great angry caterpillar across his forehead, but he restrained himself from doing any more than kicking a little more sand in Scott's general direction.
"Hey! Leave me out of it!" Scott was almost as irritated as Pietro, but he needed to maintain his calm so that he could lead the rest of the team - not that it was really his team, apart from Jean - to safety. "The Professor will start scanning for us as soon as the fight is over and he can get back to Cerebro. All we have to do is stay calm and - where are you going, Jean?"
Jean had taken Wanda's hand and was leading her down the beach towards the gentle waves, though at least Wanda had turned her head and was trying to listen to what Scott was saying. Jean called back to Scott, "You're totally right, the Professor will find us. So we're going for a swim!"
"This island is much hotter than I'm used to," Wanda added, trying to placate him as she always did. It always made Scott unreasonably cross, though, suspecting that Wanda was trying to stay on his good side so that he wouldn't demand Jean back. Even if it had only been a week since Jean had dumped him, Scott wouldn't hold that against Wanda. Besides, Jean would kick his ass if he did.
"Ah, she's right." Pietro stripped off his costume and boots in a flurry of cloth and sand and sprinted into the water, clad in the most revealing underwear Scott had ever seen outside of the internet. Apparently, men could wear g-strings, too.
"Stop staring and come in for a swim!" Jean laughed, stripping down to her sports bra and tight boyshorts and running into the water after Pietro, as relaxed as if the mission was over and they were back home.
Wanda watched her go, and bit her lip. "Are you going to swim, Scott?"
Scott folded his arms and tried to look resolute. "There might be sharks."
"I think Jean and my brother are safe from sharks, yes? Do you think the Professor really can find us, so far away?"
"He's never had any problem finding mysterious tropical islands before, and it makes it easier when he knows who he's trying to find. Thanks for helping us take down the Vanisher, by the way." A trickle of sweat was running down the back of his neck and between his shoulder blades, tickling all the way down.
Wanda's accent was getting thicker the longer she talked to Scott. "It is no problem. We are trying to be crime fighters, maybe." Her arms were crossed, too, and Scott hoped that he didn't look as defensive as she did.
In the water, Pietro and Jean swam and splashed in the tiny waves and waist-deep water, looking like the best of friends, although Scott had never heard them address a single polite word to each other before today. Scott looked over at Wanda, who didn't seem in the least inclined to strip off and join them.
"We don't know how long we're going to be here. They might take a day or so to find us."
"You are right. We should find water." Wanda's cheeks were already flushed pink and her hair was sticking to her neck. She frowned, then unclipped her heavy cape and folded it over her arm. "It is very hot here. Jean and my brother will be sunburned."
Scott strode down the sand to the water's edge. "Jean! Wanda and I are going to find some water. Don't get sunburnt!"
Jean splashed water at Scott, but he was entirely ready for it, and scrambled backwards. She pulled her heavy, water-logged hair off her face and started wading back to the beach. "Okay, wait up, I'll come with you."
Pietro was suddenly by Scott's side, with an extravagant splash that threw water all over Scott's uniform. "Don't be stupid. I'll find it a hundred times faster than you could."
"Yeah? Then what are you going to carry it in? Your underpants?" Scott glared at the offending microscopic thong, but Pietro didn't seem embarrassed at all.
"Then I'll come back and take you to the water, and Jean can carry it. Maybe there'll be a gourd or something. Are they tropical? Back soon!"
Pietro dashed away - spraying sand on Scott so that it stuck to him where his uniform was already wet - and waved at his sister as he passed her.
Jean emerged from the water, looking cool and refreshed, the exact opposite of Scott, but he still didn't feel that it was right to remove his uniform. They were on a mission, after all.
"Poor you! You're covered in sand." She concentrated, and the sand shimmered and detached itself from Scott, falling away in a sheet. Jean glared up towards the treeline after Pietro. "I hope he doesn't hurry back."
"He hurries everywhere." Scott's gloom must have been more apparent than he thought, because Jean kissed him lightly on the cheek and took his hand, leading him back up the beach to where Wanda was sitting on her cloak, which she had laid out like a beach towel in the shade of a palm tree.
"Don't be a grouch - and take some clothes off, you must be boiling like a lobster in there." Jean tugged at his sleeve, but Scott shook his arm free.
"We're still on a mission, if you haven't forgotten." He increased his pace, though the sand dragged at his steps.
"Mission?" Jean scrambled ahead of him and turned to stand in his path, with her hands on her hips. "I'm not allowed to touch your arm because we're on a mission? This is nothing to do with a mission."
Scott sighed. "I don't really want to talk about this." He looked hopefully up towards the trees, but Pietro failed to save him by appearing on time. Typical Pietro. When he looked back, Jean was still standing there, glaring, her hair steaming as it dried in the tropical heat.
"You never want to talk about anything! I don't even know how we started going out! It's not like you'd ever tell me what you're feeling!"
"It's my fault that you wanted to date Wanda?"
Wanda had got to her feet, looking alarmed, but hadn't come any closer. A flock of brightly coloured birds erupted out of the trees behind her, and their raucous shrieks made both Jean and Wanda turn around. Scott seized the opportunity to walk past Jean and stride back up the beach. At least there was some shade, and, with any luck, Jean would be distracted enough to shake off the fight she'd been starting.
Wanda ran down the beach and grabbed Jean's hand. "Jean, I think -"
"Don't worry, it's just birds. Pietro must have disturbed them. Either that," she shouted at Scott's back, "Or they can sense that I'm really mad and they're getting out of my way."
"No, Jean, it's not -"
"I'm just going to settle this! Scott Summers, come back here!"
Scott reached the shade of the trees before he stopped walking, and had an awful urge to tell Jean, "You can't make me!" The knowledge that she could, in fact, make him, and might even be pissed enough to do it, was more than enough to stop him from saying it.
Jean stormed up to him, pulling Wanda along behind her. "Scott, you're an idiot! I told you that I wanted to start dating Wanda, not that I wanted to stop dating you!" She waited a moment for Scott's reaction. "There's no reason why not!"
Scott felt his mouth closing into a thin, straight line - what Bobby called his "Fearless Leader face" - which was not what he meant at all. "I knew what you meant. It just wasn't what I wanted."
Jean stared at him, her mouth open in surprise.
Scott bit the inside of his cheek, but it didn't stop his voice sounding cold and planned. "You toyed with me until you got bored. I'd rather date Warren than you - at least he wouldn't make promises and break them five minutes later. You're going to dump Wanda, too. I can see it. You're not even listening to what she's trying to say, and you've only been dating for a week."
Both of them turned to look at Wanda. She looked rather surprised to suddenly be the centre of attention and blushed slightly.
"Er - I was trying to say that we should go to look for my brother. He could have run all over the whole island twice by now."
"Right. Marvel Girl! Get your uniform on. Scarlet Witch, can you determine where he is?"
Wanda shook sand from her cloak and clipped in back in place. "No, I'm sorry. Maybe we should look where the birds flew out? He could have fallen and hurt himself."
"Maybe." Scott frowned. Jean was quickly pulling her uniform on without debate, for which Scott was rather grateful. "Or your hex might have brought more people to the island than you thought."
"You think so?" Jean pulled her boots on, then her mask. "Like who?"
"Have you ever seen the Vanisher teleport something without going along himself? I should have thought of it earlier."
Jean jumped up, fully dressed. "Oh, don't start second-guessing yourself. Pietro probably just ran into a tree somewhere."
"He doesn't run into trees!" Wanda snapped. Scott hadn't heard her say a cross word to Jean, before this.
"Okay. Marvel Girl, go to the top of that tree. You might be able to see where Pietro has run, or at least where he stopped."
Jean focused her power, and slowly floated straight up beside the tall palm tree. It was a very wobbly lift, but, as they had practised in training, she used the tree trunk to guide herself. She'd have something to grab onto if her concentration broke, although the palm tree didn't offer nearly as many handholds as a ladder in the Danger Room. Wanda and Scott watched Jean's progress closely - Wanda with concern, Scott with confidence. Jean always performed better in the field than in training.
"Will she be all right? It is a very tall tree."
"You can see she's fine." Scott's leader-mode just wasn't switching off today. Maybe that was for the best - to keep his distance and let Jean sort out whatever she was trying to do.
"And you? Are you fine?" Wanda put one gloved hand on Scott's arm, which would have been startling if she hadn't done it so gently.
"I'm, uh. I don't blame you. For Jean dating you, I mean."
"I think perhaps you know Jean better than that. She has a very powerful spirit."
"No kidding." Scott managed to almost smile, or at least felt his clenched jaw relax a little. Above them, Jean carefully manoeuvred herself around the bunches of green coconuts and the broad leaves of the palm tree. "You weren't bothered by what she said before, that she wants to date both of us?"
Wanda shrugged. "I am used to dividing my time. My brother is not so angry when I am dating a woman, but I don't want to leave him alone all day, every day. She smiled up at Scott. "Maybe you should date him?"
Scott choked for a second, then realised that Wanda's little smile meant that she was joking. "When he gets a personality transplant, maybe."
"He is a good man, my brother. Just, he is a little over-protective. I suppose I am used to being around people who talk over me. But Jean, once she stops talking, she listens."
Scott thought about sitting on the grass underneath a tree, the mild spring sun making bright patches on Jean's legs, his hand in her hair. "Yeah. Everything she does, it's got her whole attention."
"If she wants everything, is it so bad to give it to her?"
Before Scott could answer, Jean called down to them from the top of the tree. "Hey! I can see the whole island from here! There's too many trees to see anyone, though. Oh, wait, wait, I can see a gap, and a whole lot of broken palm leaves. That's a place to start. Okay! Coming down!" The descent was rather faster than it should have been, but the soft white sand at the bottom cushioned Jean's fall, and she even managed a neat roll when she hit the ground. "It looks like someone fell through the trees right at the centre of the island. It's not far."
"Did you see anything of my brother?" Wanda had removed her hand from Scott's arm and was twisting the edge of her cloak anxiously, "If I brought him here and then he is hurt…"
Jean took her hand. "We'll find him." She marched into the trees, leading the others forward.
Once they were under the thick canopy of tropical growth, it was very easy to see where Pietro had been - leaf litter and fallen fruit was thick on the ground, undisturbed except where Pietro had zoomed through it, leaving a narrow trail of chaos behind him, as clear as footprints on the beach. He had indeed run towards the centre of the island, so Scott motioned the rest of the team to stay close, and they moved quietly through the trees. The earth was damp beneath their feet, making little sound, but the thick foliage that shielded them from sight also meant that they could not see more than a few feet ahead of themselves, even following Pietro's winding path.
"Can you cut through this?" Jean whispered to Scott.
"There's a risk of hitting Quicksilver. Can you feel his mind anywhere?"
"There's too many living things here. It's confusing my telepathy. Maybe when we're closer."
The clear trail suddenly split, where Pietro had crossed his own path in his two island runs. Scott turned to look at Wanda, and she muttered to herself for a moment, a gleam of pale purple light shining between her cupped hands. A moment later, a small rat-like creature scampered down one of the paths towards them, then suddenly became aware of them and fled into the vine-filled undergrowth.
"That way." Wanda pointed to the path that the rodent had walked. "It ran from other people."
"People? Plural?" Scott asked, but Wanda just shrugged.
"Maybe. I think so."
"Marvel Girl, see if you can get a better impression now."
Jean nodded, gnawing on her lip in concentration, and they crept forward down the path.
Without warning, a man's voice rang out. "Stop! Stop right there! I've got your friend!" Jean stepped forward, but Scott stopped her with a gesture, looking around for the source of the shout.
"Don't hurt him!" Wanda's voice was shrill with fear.
The Vanisher appeared in front of them with an abrupt popping noise, a small, balding man with a magnificent purple cloak, his head looking like a tiny egg against the backdrop of his huge curved collar. His purple velvet tunic was soaked with dark patches, and Wanda screamed.
Scott caught her arm. "It's okay, that's not blood. It's just sweat."
"Shut up!" the Vanisher shrieked. "Shut up! How the hell did you get me here? Send me back and I'll tell you where your friend is!"
Scott risked a quick look over at Jean, to check that she was doing what they had planned for hostage situations. Her expression was bland, but he could see that she was biting on the inside of her lip again, focussed. Wanda, on the other hand, was crying, and it looked less like fear than panic. Scott put his arm around her, pulling her in close, both comforting her and making them immobile, a less threatening target for the very jittery Vanisher. With any luck, he wouldn't remember that Scott didn't need to be able to move to take him down. Just as soon as Jean located Pietro…
"What's she doing! Stop it!"
Scott turned on his Fearless Leader voice, voluntarily, this time. "Stay calm, Vanisher. Marvel Girl isn't going to hurt you - she's just trying to find us a way home. Coming here was an accident. We can't get home yet."
The Vanisher seemed to be listening. "I didn't want to hurt anyone."
Wanda suddenly spoke, indignant, despite Scott tightening his arm around her in warning. "You teleported Cyclops off a roof and let go!"
"The winged guy would have caught him! All I wanted was money!"
"I found Pietro - he's on the ground, 2 o'clock," Jean whispered, so quietly that only Scott could hear her. Without hesitation, he fired a force beam straight at the Vanisher. Somehow, the Vanisher teleported away just as the blast would have hit him, only to reappear a few steps away from Scott and Wanda, right in front of Jean. She was still slightly out of it after her telepathic search, and the Vanisher only needed a moment to punch her hard in the stomach, knocking her to the ground. Scott fired again, making sure not to hit Jean, but the Vanisher was appearing and disappearing too rapidly for him to hit, especially as he couldn't open the visor too far for fear of killing the man.
"Jean!" Wanda knelt down beside her girlfriend and, instead of checking her for injuries, frantically kissed her lips, then her forehead, and lips again. "Jean! Wake up!"
Scott was about to shout at Wanda to follow procedure, but remembered that Wanda didn't know procedure - she wasn't an X-Man. If Wanda was going to be coming along on missions with Jean, even unofficially, she was going to have to come to training. Scott sighed. This had been so much easier when Wanda had briefly dated Warren - he kept his superhero life and his glamorous sportscar-driving life as separate as possible.
The Vanisher appeared again, not far from where Jean and Wanda were on the ground, and Scott fired over their heads, but only caught the man's cloak. The Vanished stumbled, but disappeared from the path of Scott's follow-up shot.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," Jean muttered, trying to sit up, though she sounded winded. "Scott, get closer to us. The Vanisher is too scared to 'port into a force beam."
Scott took the few steps closer to stand over them, scanning the area. Wanda kissed Jean again and jumped to her feet, the sweep of her long red cloak sending leaves flying everywhere.
"Vanisher!" she shouted, rage in her voice. "I want my brother back right now!"
His voice came from somewhere in the trees above them. "You know my terms! And you're the ones who started the fight!"
Scott shot a force beam in that direction, but the man was already gone.
"We started it?" Wanda roared, purple sparks flying off her hands and hair. "Then we will end it, too!"
Scott suddenly felt a scrawny arm tighten around his throat. He staggered, and bent forward to throw the Vanisher over his head, but the man clung on tightly and Scott couldn't catch a breath. He straightened up again, hoping to squash the Vanisher against into a tree, but the moment he did, there was a peculiar thudding noise and the Vanisher slid to the ground in a purple velvet heap. Scott turned around, and the unconscious Vanisher was lying on the ground next to a big green-husked coconut.
Wanda ran over and gave the defeated man a good hard kick in the ribs. "And you will not punch my girlfriend ever again!"
Scott grabbed her around the waist and pulled her off. "He's down! You can stop now."
"I know. I was wanting some revenge."
"Just - we don't - go look after Jean." Scott checked that the Vanisher was unconscious, not dead. The massive coconut must have just struck a glancing blow, though, because he was still breathing and didn't seem to be bleeding from his ears. Scott rolled him into recovery position and tied his hands and feet with vines. He might teleport away, but he'd still be tied up when he got there.
Wanda had helped Jean to her feet, though Jean was still holding her stomach and sounded winded. "There's a big, rotten log about forty feet this way. Quicksilver's under that."
Scott hurried over, and found it without any problems - it was a very big, very damp log, and when Scott pulled Pietro out, he was thoroughly covered with slimy mould and had shiny black beetles climbing over his butt. Scott did try not to smirk, but then all the beetles slid of the shiny blue costume, and Scott couldn't stop himself grinning.
Jean and Wanda came up behind him, and while Wanda crouched down by her brother, Jean's grin matched Scott's. "Hey, Pietro, are you okay? Nothing bugging you?"
Managing to stop himself from overthinking before he acted, Scott reached over and gave Jean a very gentle hug, wrapping his arms around her.
"Hey, that's nice." Jean smiled. "I thought you were going to stay mad at me."
"No, I'm good. And anyway, I can't stay mad at someone when I've just put a nice big clump of leaf mould in their hair."
Scott laughed and jumped back as Jean shrieked and grabbed at her hair. Wanda giggled, Pietro made a very cranky noise, and Scott couldn't help feeling that it was all going to work out just fine.