A/N: Ok so this is a sort of sequel to Muscle Memory. You don't have to read the first if you don't want to. In this one here there may be a short something with smut at the end. This takes place after Muscle Memory, maybe a month later, three months after the end of X-Men Apocalypse.

It's the mid-1980s. Platinum miniskirts are in style, as well as shoulder pads and Ray-Bans, lace, and Miami Vice. U2, Michael Jackson, and Eurythmics played on the radio, teens dancing to it on waxed skate floors and blasting it on their way to the beach in '86 AMG Hammer. Films such as Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters have already hit the theaters. But sadly, it is going to take a while for it to be bought for home on chunky, black VHS tapes just centimeters smaller than a dinner plate.

There is a video cassette rental store on the West side of town, the second most popular one in the county, in fact—second only because they didn't carry television shows on tape. A wide variety of films on video cassettes and video games were all that are available for rent seven days a week, from seven a.m. to three a.m.

The store is quite popular among adolescents too—mainly for the games and those trying to sneak the X-rated ones shelved in the back corner. There are eleven employees working total,the number working half of the day. One of them happen to be Pietro Maximoff, Peter for short, some motor-mouthed nerd from Winchester, New York, apparently. He's gotten the a word put in for him by Trevelyn, a past teacher of Peter's. The mutant had this job for a while and has recently risen to second assistant manager. But he isn't too fond of his boss, the man not being the most diligent and has a collection of unflattering nicknames coined by his employees, some Peter has contributed to generously.

Peter acquired this job after realizing that he couldn't travel the world forever, that finances were quite important in this factor, and to help a little to support Marya, his aunt and practical substitute mother. His plans were put on hold, however, after getting caught up in an end-of-the-world battle and having to wear a leg cast for 2.5 months as a result.

The television screen always reads "Please rewind the tape before removing from machine" behind blinking static after the rented film ends.

Whenever a new customer comes into the rental store, if the checkout guy, Nero, isn't flirting and cracking jokes, you bet Peter is. The two were in a constant competition of who could pick up the most women. Usually, it ends nowhere—there's giggling, jokes about how "pretty girls shouldn't be watching a film like this alone. If you need a shoulder to cry on..." and many other terrible pickup lines. Sometimes it leads to an eye roll, a scoff, an "as if!" Twice, Nero had scored a real, physical date. That was another task—of who can get the most dates or phone numbers—and currently it's a tie.

Things were going well for the little video store. There's a small rush of high school students that come in around two in the afternoon on weekdays. At least once every two weeks, someone has to stop an adolescent from trying to sneak an X-rated film, or a parent clueless about what to chose for their children. Sometimes the employees would all take one small bag of snack to munch on the job. And whoever had to close the store at the end of the night would lock up and head home, the whole thing resuming the next day.

It's been three months after En Sabah Nur was eradicated, and two months since Xavier's gifted school was reopened. With everything back to normal, there seems nothing could happen out of place.

It seems.

Sherry leans over the armrest and dusts her hand across the surface of the side table. It had been dusted no doubly hours before, her guests' arrival much anticipated three days ago. She takes a tissue from the Kleenex box on the coffee table and hands it to her sickly apartment-mate.

Beside her, Sherry's friend sniffs, wrinkles her nose. The other holds up a hand, telling that she didn't need the tissue. She sniffs again.

Sherry hisses a whisper: "you're face is turning red. Rainy, just take it!"

Still, Rainy is stubborn.

Sherry shoves the tissue in her friend's hands just as her face scrunches up for another sneeze. Rainy is reluctant to murmur "thank you" into the tissue and blows. There's sanitizer on the coffee table too that she uses.

"I told you," Sherry whispers in time as her mother exits from the kitchen carrying a dinner plate of fruit and Ritz crackers, and sets it on the simple wooden coffee table in front of the two. She asks if Rainy would like a cough drop, and Rainy refuses that as well.

"I'm fine. It's going away on its own," she hopes.

Sherry side-eyes her friend, completely unconvinced—Rainy had been giving that same excuse for the past week.

Sherry's parents had come over for to visit for the short break. Unfortunately, it coincidentally fell on the week that Rainy came down with an bad cold. Sherry's mother, Mrs. Addams, had waved it off, telling that she hasn't been sick in years.

Mrs. Addams is such a cheery woman, and much more reposed than Rainy's own—and it is clear where Sherry inherits her active social skills and red hair, and is an opposite from her reticent husband—and Mrs. Addams would rather stuff you to the brim with cinnamon rolls and horderves if you're a guests. In fact, she had almost done so to Rainy once...

Rainy declines the serving plate but Mrs. Addams insists. Rainy sniffs; she insists that she's fine and hasn't had much of an appetite lately. Sherry looks off to a random corner in the ceiling—she isn't going to be much help convincing. Then, Rainy doesn't even fake a smile, caving in, and takes a handful of wrinkling green grapes, turning her nose—she prefers the red ones anyway. She forces out another "thank you" and was one to please the older woman.

Rainy finds it nauseating.

"So we were saying," Mrs. Addams start but then pauses. "Rainy, dear, are you sure you don't want some cold medicine? Or something? You look miserable."

The other is as stubborn as an ox at times. Most times. Rainy shakes her head no yet again, and shivers.

"Well, ok, dear..." Mrs. Addams doesn't look convinced. Her husband is out for the afternoon, Sherry having introduced him to a nice cigar bar. Mrs. Addams flops unto the single chair diagonally from her daughter's. The television plays a rerun of a game of Jeopardy. "So..." Mrs. Addams crosses her ankles. Her socks are white, slightly visible under her hugging bell-bottom denim jeans. Mrs. Addams is looking straight at her daughter now. "How's you and Henry? Continuing steady, I hope? He seemed like a nice guy, I liked him..."

And Sherry drops her plate on the side table she had been leaning over. She closes her eyes for a moment, pursing her lips. "Mom...please don't."

Mrs. Addams looks shocked. "What? Henry is a very nice gentleman. He's very well-mannered."

"God, Mom..."

"Attractive too."

"Mom!"

"What?"

"Can you...can we not talk about Henry? Or anyone I might have dated really, please, for a while?"

The contestant on screen solves the puzzle and the applause track plays. Rainy snorts, sneezes into the tissue. There's a bulging binder notebook open in her lap that she underlines throughout. It's been open for the last two weeks.

Sherry's mother looks sightly taken aback. "Oh," and she sighs. She's slightly disappointed, yes, given her only child is not married still, but she guess she understood. And Rainy isn't going to reveal that Henry has been Sherry's ex for almost two months now. Both ending under very...messy circumstances.

There isn't much talking in the living room following after. The ambience of the television fills the silence. Rainy goes to the bathroom once, and in there she wonders if makeup will hide her sickly symptoms—it won't—and her reddening nose. She remembers that jar of VaporRub in her top dresser drawer. Out in the living room, Sherry's mother asks in a whisper how long Sherry and Henry have been apart. Sherry mumbles, defeated, "a couple months." Her mother is surprised.

When Rainy returns, Mrs. Addams then begins telling about a social club she goes to, and the hissy fit a trio of well-to-do women pulled. She asks how life has been for the two women. Sherry shrugs. Rainy wishes to excuse herself to work on paperwork. Mrs. Addams gives the same excuse Sherry had days ago—"it's a school break! Why are you working?"

Rainy hadn't listened to Sherry either, giving a pitiful excuse about not slacking. At first, she thinks Mrs. Addams isn't going to allow her to leave. "You can do that later," Rainy knows she is going to say. "Stay out here with us. We're practically family. I've missed you." And the older woman would smile and slap her hand on Rainy's knee. Though this time, Sherry actually provided help against her mother.

Sherry interrupts and insists that the work is very important and due in a few days. It's a lie. And only after Rainy excuses herself to her bedroom, Sherry admits it. "It's busy work."

"Who gives themselves busy work?!"

Sherry rolls her eyes. "That remark you said earlier about breakups, Mom? Well..." Sherry breaths in. "Rainy's the one who's dealing with something like that."

And her mother's mouth falls open. "I...had no idea..." She's turns fully toward her daughter, already eager to hear all the details, just like Sherry would.

And her daughter can tell this all too late. "Maybe I shouldn't have told you..." She eyes her mother.

"No, no," she waves her hand in dismissal and smiles. "Tell me, tell me! Who is he? Is he cute? Is he handsome too? I know you have good taste so I'm sure it rubbed off on Rainy. Does he beat Henry?"

Sherry grimaces at the accusation of her having good taste in men—she can never tell her mother about some of her past one night stands. She doesn't want to tell her mother anything of this subject. This wasn't exactly her place to say also, and she doesn't want to open a can of worms. And knowing how...critical her mother can be over suitors, doesn't want to give Rainy something else to worry about. But...

Sherry is just as bad a gossip as her mother, albeit less.

"Look, Mom, don't make this a big deal. I'm not sure I should be telling you any of this anyway..." She takes an extensive breath. "They knew each other back in high school, and they were close. And they didn't leave on the best terms and on mixed communication. We ran into him a few months back and it—-"

"Close, or like, close?" her mother asks, such a circulator.

"Close."

"Or close, like, together?"

Sherry purses her lips.

"Poor girl..." Mrs. Addams muses.

"Yeah."

On the television Jeopardy approaches the end of the final round.

"Well he wasn't a bad guy, just..." Sherry muses, her mother speaking that was good. "He was nice, just...interesting."

They watch the second contestant rise from third place to second on the game show, the first place contestant dropping behind. Inside her bedroom, Rainy spreads out papers and case files and bites the end of her pencil at she reaches out for a paper packet and then gives an ugly sneeze. She has a slight headache and a thermometer in her mouth.

Back in the living room, Sherry waits until the Final Jeopardy jingle to turn and speak. "Hey, mom? Say, theoretically of course, how would you help someone get over an ex? If you're not sure how to get them back together?"

"Well I would get a few socks and bottles of wine, and lock them inside a room to talk it—-"

"Mom we're not locking anyone in a room!"

It's just became three months that Rainy vowed to never return to the mall with the theatre there and to take walks near a park. She had been going about just fine before, and now...

Routinely, she and Sherry would work, come back to their small two-bedroom apartment, and on free weekends they would probably go to that fitness class where Sherry would drool over the yoga instructor. Sometimes they went out. Sometimes Sherry brought a guy home, someone from a nightly outing or a new beau. She seems to have wracked up a number of those. And it's a constant joke thrown back and forth.

But Rainy has been talking to someone at her job, and he seems nice, tall, dark, and has a nice smile...

But that was before vowing to never return to the mall; that was before running into someone she never expected to see again, no matter how many times she had wished in the past.

But that had been when she was younger...but still

Rainy ran into Peter at the mall three months ago. He had been surrounded by others who were probably four or five years younger. He had been in a leg cast. And it hadn't gone smoothly—he had looked quite terrified, and in a brown leather coat, she remembers. She had felt her veins ice over and her stomach twist in a way that hasn't happened in years. And she had made a mistake—a deadly mistake, she feared—yeah, she most definitely remembers that too.

She had probably, most definitely made a mistake.

And she hasn't spoken about it since. Obviously, Sherry knows. In fact, she had even encouraged and planned a rekindling along with Wanda but...

Rainy had laughed bitterly and stated that life wouldn't be that generous. And before she knew it, work had started again and her schedule filled up and he disappeared again. Rainy continued to be in denial, always saying that those feelings had died when she had been forced to move away by her disappointed parents, when she would curl her arms around her pillow and wish it had been him just like all those nights ago.

To your face, Rainy would deny her feelings like she always does and puts up a poise, impassive exterior. That's why it had taken a burst of courage for Calvin Morris to ask her out for coffee one afternoon towards the end of his lunch break. And also, luck would have it for her to get sick on the one day she could finally have time to finish paperwork.

Sometimes, she begins to wonder if she should take up Calvin's invite for a second coffee date. But his chatter is dry and she thinks she picks up a hint of tobacco because her nose always scrunches near him. He provides a good pastime, a good distraction, and so she kept him around, taking a chance.

Rainy leans her forehead against the car window, the cool glass comforting. Inside, the radio is playing Madonna.

Sherry glances from the road ahead. "What are you thinking about?" She used to ask this often three months ago.

Rainy gives a small shrug. The car drives over a speed bump and she winces, forehead bouncing on the glass. "Just...whether I should take Calvin up on that second coffee date."

Sherry's nose turns up, much to Rainy's amusement. "I still hate that name. Sounds so douchebag-y." She steals another glance at her friend. Rainy is in a pair of comfy pants and a t-shirt that has the Mountain Dew soda logo. "I didn't know there's a second date!" Sherry sounds excited at first. "Are you sure you want to go do that...?"

"If it has to come down to it." Rainy's answer is ready a beat later. "Why?"

"No reason."

Sherry's parents are staying for the next three days, so, a family night was proposed. Mrs. Addams and her husband are off buying dinner and seeing a movie together, so Sherry dragged her friend along to make an ice-cream run. They had three hours, maybe two and a half if they made it home in time. Rainy's sickness has begun to lessen, so she has little excuse to not finally get out the house—and Sherry's persistence on "who gives themselves meaningless busy work? Rainy stop being crazy, please!" and that the other needs to relax and calm down. And Rainy had already called into work, so she really had little reason.

Well, the mission during their maybe-two and a half window is to drive up to that grocery store that sold the ice-cream they both liked. As they pulled into the parking lot, Sherry obviously energized, catches sight of a video rental store nearby and forms an added agenda. Of course, Rainy is directed there instead of following into the grocery store. Sherry reiterates how, if even 0.2 seconds is wasted they wouldn't have enough time to finish the movie, and that she knows Rainy's ice-cream choice on her own.

Rainy sneezes. Sherry rushes instead. Rainy doesn't like it, but she wraps her arms around herself before stepping inside the video store anyway, and doesn't know if it's a good thing or not that she still isn't able to smell much from her nose. Inside, the carpet is an 80s style dark gray-purple mix, and there are shelves and shelves of videocassettes. She shivers in a chill once more, not exactly sure to start, and wishes she had brought a sweater. To her relief, an employee, a cute brunette woman, approaches and offers help.

She thinks that a suspense/thriller is a best option. The woman states that is her favorite genre too.

Rainy squeezes her arms tighter around herself and forces a smile. It falls almost immediately though, because another employee emerges from the maze of shelves, looking down at a video case in his hand and thumps it with the back of his hand. Peter is going off about it and not finding it's place-hold in the back, and when he looks up—

When he looks up, it's as if everything just stops.

Inside, the air conditioning is already too high for Rainy's liking, and now it feels as if she is surrounded in ice.

Peter blinks, and then his eyes grow wide. He stops mid-sentence, with one foot a quarter in the air.

The brunette employee looks between the two once. Rainy finally moves, inhaling slowly. No, not again, she worries. There'd already been one inconvenience, and this is supposed to be the city of New York where there's no chance for it to happen again! And she starts considering if she should move more inward the city. But, then again...

"Um..."

She worries too much and jumps to conclusion.

Peter clears his throat, head dipping just the slightest. Rainy avoids his direction, her chin high, and doesn't see his double glances as he approach and hands the video case to his fellow employee. Rainy hears that his tone drops as he talks, opposed to mere moments ago.

The brunette employee doesn't seem to suspect anything, replies and is ordered to pull three possible video games from the shelf. Peter leaves. She directs Rainy to follow without another blink. Rainy is shown two bookcases of films categorized under suspense and thriller. The other woman is rambling off about new releases and her favorite choices. Rainy anxiously glances over her shoulder. She pulls on the collar of her large t-shirt. Eventually, she asks for the other's opinion for a choice instead, explaining that she's in a rush. She's handed a recommended film from the row over, and when the woman walks away Rainy finally is able to think clearly, squats down, and her hand hovers over one with a picture of an alien with an elongated neck on the cover.

She eventually decides on the film that the woman recommended before.

Sherry is going to be pacing on the sidewalk outside any minute now, Rainy thinks. She weighs the video case in her hands.

This video rental shop has been receiving quite a steady amount of business since it's opening three years ago. Some would call it the most popular rental store in the county. Rainy knew that most teens and children would go toward the other number one store because of the video game cartridges and candy there. She's only come maybe five times before, most in the dead of night and sometime in the early hours of the morning because she either needed something to accompany her sub sandwich bought next door, or something to put her to sleep and drown out the noises of Sherry's frequent coupling. It is a nice store too—convenient, the rental fee isn't too high, and the maze of shelves aren't too confusing. But this is the first time she's wanted to sprint out the doors and stay away from a place so much while simultaneously wanting to remain for eternity.

Rainy's grip on the video case tightens and then loosens as she gives a heavy, mournful sigh. Synonyms of useless and lost of time and an overwhelming feeling of doubt fill her mind. She gives one last look around before navigating—and failing once because she's rushing—her way back to the front of the store, but finds it vacant. There's a bell that is labeled "RING ONCE" and she begins questioning their service here; a large clock hangs on the wall above and she wouldn't doubt that Sherry is out by her car now.

It takes two rings until Rainy hears someone hurrying over from the back of the store. She happens to be fumbling through her small pocket book for money, so when she looks up her stomach drops to her feet seeing Peter approaching and his steps falter as well. An "oh fuck" response almost slips from both of them. Neither can make direct eye contact.

OF COURSE

Of course it would be him to run over and answer the bell.

Rainy pushes hair behind her ear. She finds the loose string in the lining of her pant's pocket very interesting. He shuffles to the computer behind the counter, punches a few buttons. The receipt machine sounds and he rips out the unneeded end and tosses it in a bin beneath the counter. She doesn't see him observe the hair-clip holding down a stray curl, the ball of her palm rubbing against her high cheekbone, her eyes still cast at the carpet. The locked video case is under her other arm.

His head is still bowed and his fingers dance in the air about the computer's keys. "Um." His light brows draw together. His chest puffs. "What's it you wanna rent?"

Rainy attention snaps forward, her eyes meeting his and then avoiding a millisecond after before silently extending the video case forward. She doesn't miss the slight wrinkle of his nose as he reads the cover—and did he just chuckle?!

Rainy frowns, eyeing him. She sees him wave the case in the air absentmindedly as he types. He bites his lip; she takes in a wary breath.

"I thought you had gone back to Sherbrooke."

When he looks up in response, she adverts her gaze almost sheepishly. He mumbles out his reply with a shrug. "I did. Visited. I'm kinda...kinda in between places right now, you know?"

"Oh. Yeah." Silence. Then, "how's your leg? ...Because it obviously was a fracture bad enough to warrant a cast..." Her tone is still low, neither looking at each other directly. And she catches glances of the assistant manager vest he's wearing, the hint of stubble beginning to grow.

"It healed. Pretty quickly, of course."

"Well that's good..." She tries to smile. It doesn't happen and looks away.

He steals another glance from over the counter when she grins. Peter presses the red cancellation button and restarts the entire process. "Um..."

And she watches, her chin rising in curiosity to see. After what feels like minutes—but is actually a handful of seconds—she continues: "trouble?"

He scoffs, tells that he "got this," and presses the cancellation button again, not revealing that he actually forgot the password twice. "I do this all the time," he grins, trying to appear confident.

"That color suits you," she comments about his vest.

"I think it makes me look fat."

Rainy's chuckle is minimal and hesitant. "I think that's quite impossible."

Another silence. His eyes dart up once more, seeing her twirl a curl around a finger, still looking off to the side. "I'm, uh, gonna need your license. A-and your membership card." He watches her hurriedly retrieve both and they only look at each other when she extends her hand. "Thanks."

She watches him punch a button and scan her membership card before handing both back.

"Will that be all ma'am?" he sighs, leaning with his palms on the counter. When Rainy is about to reply, he continues, unintentionally interrupting. "Are you sick? Your nose is red...you know there's a store right next door where you can get medicine?"

She barely glances up as she responds with a hasty, false, "I'm fine!"

Peter frowns, seeing right through her lie and noticing her tired eyes. "You don't look fine. ...I mean you do but that's not what I meant!" He doesn't save himself in time and Rainy gives him a look that he can't entirely interpret.

She licks her lips instead of responding. She's in a large t-shirt and without makeup or taming her hair...

He waves the movie in the air, reading the title slowly and grins. "So, National Lampoon's European Vacation, huh?"He looks down at her. "I thought you were the action and thriller type?"

"I still am. You should have known that, Maximoff, or I guess you must have really forgotten that detail?"

He smirks. "No, not really forgotten—-" He realizes his words too late, and clamps his lips shuts.

Rainy's eyes widen. She sniffs. "It's for a friend by the way. It's movie night." She runs a fingernail down the spine of the case. "Sherry—you remember?"

He nods, says that he does. Peter asks if she would like a bag—which she accepts—and slips the video and the receipt inside. He watches her peek inside, jiggling the small plastic bag. Before she leaves for the door, she swears that there had been a small gust of air but shrugs it off to being an a/c vent she must have walked under, and seeing that Peter is hunched over the counter still.

Sherry is indeed pacing impatiently by her small car when Rainy arrives. The strawberry blonde throws her arms up in the air criticizing Rainy for her poor time management. Sherry too is dressed in lazy clothes.

It isn't until they women are waiting for the beginning credits of the film to end that Sherry remembers to hand a piece of paper from inside the bag to Rainy. She has to put down her small tub of ice-cream as she reads over the handwriting again, and again, and three times. It's a short note scrubbed on the back of an unused folded receipt. Sherry asks if it had been hers, and Rainy can only shake her head. She doesn't know quite what to say—and she realizes that it had definitely not been a gust of air from a vent earlier.

"Then what is it?" Sherry asks.

Rainy doesn't give an answer.

They don't get to finish their movie that night.

Two days later, Sherry's parents are readying to leave. And the four watched the film every night since, loss fifteen matches total of Checkers, and Rainy's sickness steadily worsened. Mrs. Addams is anxious over Rainy and her husband is determined to keep the top score in their Checkers competition—two games which he lost because of beer breaks.

And when Sherry returns to the video rental store two nights later, she too falters her steps as she catches Peter and a brunette playing rock-paper-scissors behind the checkout/rental counter. And of course, she gives that telltale grin of hers, and a "long time no see, silver lining."

He isn't as hesitant with Sherry's return, but he does ask how long she is staying in town, whether it is for the next few days or hours. He seems antsy.

"Oh, no, I live here. I have an apartment with Rainy. You know, Rainy from the mall where you nearly combusted?"

He rolls his eyes.

On the Addams; final day, Mrs. Addams offers to cook dinner—which Sherry turns down because time—or at do least lunch which Sherry help with. Rainy has been bedridden for two days. In the middle of making a hearty lunch, Mrs. Addams goes to answer a knock at the door. Sherry calls over her shoulder asking who it is.

Mrs. Addams returns, puzzled. "No one. But there was this can of soup on the mat...?"

Sherry is confused. The label reads Campbell's Meatball Alphabet Soup. She's pretty sure that it is Rainy's favorite soup but isn't sure because the last time it has been mentioned is a few years before. It rolls off over Sherry's shoulder until it happens again for three days straight, always around eight at night. By this time, she's pieced it together, remembering the only person who could know the soup from years ago is who she unintentionally blabbered to at the video store that Rainy is sick and where they live.