Sabretooth and Birdy belong to Marvel, all others are of my own creation.

Reviews and constructive criticism welcome.

There was something far too intimate in what she was doing. Angry with his wife, Creed had called Birdy into the tub room to work through his knotted muscles. It's not like she hadn't seen her employer without his trousers on, but when he and Emma were fighting, it felt like a whole new level of being wrong to her.

The batteries were dying on her hand held massager and it was not having the effect they both needed. Birdy shook the little machine irritably but it hummed to stop and finally died.

Strangely, Creed hadn't noticed. He was too busy stewing in the bath and chewing on his thoughts.

"Birdy!" He barked suddenly, startling his assistant. "You n' Emma, yer close."

"As much as I would love to les up your wife, it's not going to happen." She untwisted the cap and shook out the batteries into her hand.

"What?" He turned in the bath water to stare at her.

"Nevermind. I'm out of batteries." Birdy raised her hand to change the subject. Creed waved her off and turned back around.

"Did she ever tell ya what her mutant powers were?" His claws tapped on the tile a moment before grabbing his beer and taking a long pull.

"Yeah, once I think." Trying to distance herself from him, she stood to look for batteries in the closet. "She explained it as 'surviving'."

He snorted in response. "What kinda power is that?"

"I didn't get it at the time, but I've lived with the two of you for about five years now, and I think I'm starting to get it." She mumbled more to herself as she found new batteries and added them to the massage device.

"Whaddya mean?"

"If you think of the strange things you've seen her do and try to connect them together, it won't make any sense, but if you consider that her powers are to keep her alive at all costs, it's not so far fetched." Birdy shrugged while shutting the closet door with her back.

He tried to think of an instance where her reasoning would fail and came up short. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

His assistant knelt down again behind him and started the little machine to work on his shoulders again, but was cut short when the buzzing irritated him and he grabbed it from her and threw it across the little room, making it shatter into hard plastic pieces.

Exacerbated, Birdy got up again and made her way to the door. "Hey!" Creed barked. "If her mutant power ain't a healin' factor…what's endin' her pregnancies?"

She wasn't used to such an emotional question from her murdering, sociopath of a boss, but this didn't stop her from responding sarcastically, "Maybe her powers are protecting the kid from you?"

oooo

"Prize jackass." Emma grumbled as she took an ice pack out of the freezer and applied it to Birdy's head where Creed's beer bottle landed, spilling the rest of his drink all over her as the glass shattered. The bleeding had stopped but she was going to have a nasty goose egg. "You should take a vacation soon, we have that apartment in New York, or you could take a trip home?"

"You don't get to decide when she gets time off." The kitchen door swung open and Victor strutted in holding a towel up around his waist. He stalked to the fridge and pulled out a new beer then left again, staring at them both angrily.

"You can go whenever you want, and for as long as you need." Emma reassured her friend.

"No she can't!" He shouted from somewhere on the staircase as he made his way back to the bedroom.

"It's fine." Birdy replied in a resigned voice. She sat back grouchily, holding the ice pack to her head. "So who's this guy you're seeing?"

"What makes you think I'm seeing a guy?" Emma looked up from the table where she was playing with the salt shaker.

"Mister Creed was pretty loud the other night."

"He's just some young, handsome, rich man whom I'm having a torrid love affair with and he's promised to take me away from here and fly me to Europe." Emma sighed dreamily, hoping Victor heard her and was irritated, but was undeniably joking.

"Does he have a brother?" Birdy replied with a half smile.

"We should go out to dinner."

"Not with this bump on my head."

"Come on, we'll get dressed up, shoot some guys down, eat some expensive food, go dancing." Emma pressed. "We'll put it all on his credit card."

The both smiled deviously at each other.

oooo

"Where'd you get that?" He meant the dress.

Emma was fitting a duster earring into her right ear in the mirror but turned to answer him. "I bought it for our anniversary two years ago. One of the ones you didn't show up for?"

Victor was pacing the bedroom, flipping through TV channels and keeping an eye on her.

"I don't want you goin' out tonight. Weather's shit."

To be fair, he had a point. The rain was coming down in sheets, but that only posed a problem for their hair and clothes, and where Emma had planned to take them had indoor parking.

"No. We're not having this argument." She secured a loose hair pin then adjusted her cleavage. Birdy met her at the top of the stairs in a short, dark blue dress and they both ignored Creed as he growled from his place next to the banister.

The blonde visibly relaxed as Emma eased the car out of the driveway and off the property into the heart of downtown.

"You're right, I needed this."

oooo

Victor was busy checking Emma's mobile phone history. He had lifted it from her purse while she had been in the shower. Nothing out of the ordinary appeared to him, there were all calls to the house, calls to Birdy, calls to him. He frowned when he realized he had been going backwards, and he came across a recently called number labeled 'Gavin'. He pressed TALK.

"Hello?" A male voice asked after the third ring. "Em? Is that you? Hello?"

The phone was promptly crushed in one clawed hand and an angry roar vibrated the house while the rain continued to fall outside.