Just like that everything Wanda had going collapsed. Rouge and Gambit were released, Rogue was given her full voice back, and Gambit regained his power. They raced together, but I wasn't watching them. I was there standing behind Wanda when she buckled. She collapsed into my arms, but from some miracle was still conscious.
"Wanda, oh God Wanda? Can you hear me?" I asked quietly. Her breathing was extremely shallow, she was cold to my touch and a cold sweat beaded across her skin which was paler than it ever should have been. Her eyes were closed but I could tell she was still awake. "Wanda?" I asked again in a panic.
"I'm fine, Toad," she told me in a soft, raspy whisper as she coughed. I knew it was a lie.
"I'm takin' you home," I told her but she shook her head. I knew what she wanted, but I also knew she was nowhere near healthy enough to be going after Magneto right then. "No, Wanda. Not right now. He'd kill you in one second, if even that. I'm takin' you home, 'n that's that." Her eyes opened then to look at me, but they were dulled and lacked any type of rage that usually was boiling somewhere in them. I guess that's what scared me the most.
"Now wait a sec," started Rogue, who was still being held by Gambit, but was glaring at us. "Wanda broke her promise. Ya think ah am 'bout ta let that go?" Uh oh. No way could I face down both Rogue and Gambit on my own, and Wanda was little more than dead weight at this point. Still, I held my ground and met Rogue's eyes evenly.
"Is Gambit hurt?" I asked Rogue.
"That's not what ah-" she started, but I cut her off.
"Is Gambit hurt?" I asked her again.
"Well, no, but-"
"Good. Are you hurt?" I asked, and again Rogue looked uncomfortable, but shook her head. She attempted o say something else, but I didn't let her. "Good. Both you 'n Gambit are fine. I don't see a problem here, so I'm gonna take her home before anything else can happen to her." With that I took a giant leap that propelled both Wanda and I far out of both of their ranges, and I kept going until we got back to the House.
"You can put me down now," Wanda told me softly. I didn't want to, but I knew it was more than a request. As we got to the front door I stopped and gently set her on her feet. She seemed to sway a bit, but stayed up. Still, I kept my eyes glued to her. She opened the front door and stepped through, but froze one step in. "Pietro?" she shouted angrily. Shit. Couldn't she get just one second of rest between all the craziness? I peeked around her just in time to see Pietro take off out the back door, leaving Blob and Lance standing in the living room. "What was he doing here?" she demanded of them as I closed the door behind us. Lance shrugged and turned away. I knew Wanda wanted to use her magic, but we both understood that that wasn't an option. "Lance! What was he saying?" He only shrugged and continued walking away.
"We're not allowed to tell you," Blob said with a shrug before sitting down on the couch. Wanda glowered at them and I could see a blue light start to light her finger tips. I was about to warn her not to when she swayed a bit, and stumbled backwards the few steps into me, and put a hand on my shoulder to steady herself.
"That's it, we'll figure everything else out later, yo. Not now. Right now, we take you upstairs." She closed her eyes and put her free hand to her forehead, but allowed me to slowly lead her up to her room and sit her on the bed. "Would you please sleep now?" I asked her. I meant it as rhetorical, since it was so obvious how much she needed to recuperate, but she was shaking her head. "Ya gotta be kiddin' me, yo. Are you serious?"
"I can't. I have things to do. I have to figure all of this out, I have to find Magneto, I have to-"
"Tomorrow," I said as I cut her off. "You can do all of that later, when you're not about to pass out. Please, would ya just lay down and rest?"
"No! Does Magneto 'rest'?" she yelled, and just like that everything clicked for me; the reason she had been so resistant to resting up, why she had been so defensive, and why she was on edge more than ever recently. She must have realized that her outburst had relayed more than she had meant, because she instantly looked away and clamped her jaw tightly.
"Is that what you think?" I asked her. "You think that Magneto's better 'n you?" She sighed, but remained fixated on the wall. "Wanda, you can't drive yourself to this extent 'n ignore your limitations. Everyone has 'em, even Magneto. You have to learns yours, 'n learn how to work within 'em, not ignore 'em."
"It's not enough," she told me.
"Well neither is you pushin' yourself half-to-death! You can't be scared to admit you're human." She flinched when I said the word scared, and another realization hit me. That's what she had been hiding before. I put my hand out on hers, which caused her to look down and scowl. "You're scared, aren't you?" I asked in a very soft voice. She froze, then slowly looked up into my eyes. In her face I could see the battle her thoughts were having. "You don't have to put on a brave face for me, Wanda. It's ok to be scared." With everything that had happened to her, and how exhausted she was, I could see her breaking right before my eyes. I could tell she wanted to yell and scream and get mad, which was her usual defense, but was just too tired to. She pulled her hand from mine and looked away, but when she spoke her voice shook.
"Of course I'm scared," she told me bitterly, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "He's better than I am, he has a team behind him, his powers are stronger than mine, and he has a plan thought out and in the works of how to dispose of me. I have no one to turn to for help, and at any second he, or one of the Acolytes or even one of the Brotherhood could come pounding through that door. Yes, Toad, I'm scared. But that won't help anything, now will it?"
"Look, I know it's not a lot of help or anythin', but you know you'll always have me on your side." She choked on a laugh as I said that, and it was only then that I realized that while she had been facing away from me, saying all of this, she had been crying. "Oh Wanda." Without thinking about it or allowing myself time to hesitate, I laid myself onto her bed and gently pulled her into my arms. At first she resisted, trying to push me away. Then, slowly, she eased into my hold and allowed her face to rest against my chest. This surprised me more than anything, but I didn't show it. We were both quiet for a long time, both lost in our thoughts, until she looked up at me.
"Toad," she said softly, her eyes were still red but dry now.
"Yeah?" There was another long silence, but I patiently waited for her to amass the courage to continue her thought. My patience was rewarded. "All this time, I mean…all those times you were always there for me….and I did nothing for you…I guess, I'm just asking; why?" My arms tightened around her for a second before I responded.
"You've always known why, Wanda. Everyone has. Because I love you." Again I saw her eyes start to water, but she blinked rapidly to keep them from overflowing. "I didn't mean to upset you, I'm sorry-" I stopped because she was shaking her head. She closed her eyes to gain some composure.
"I'm not upset. It's…I don't know. I don't know how to explain it."
"You don't have to," I told her, which made her open her eyes again. She didn't have to explain anything, I understood just fine. For someone like her, who had never seen any selfless acts, or ever felt any kind of love from anyone, it was too much to take. She wasn't sure how to cope with it, how to understand it. All she knew in her life was hate, so the opposite emotion was too foreign for her to accept right away. I had known this all along, I used to be the same way. "Why do you think I never gave up?" I asked her with a smile. "I knew you'd come to it in your own time, in your own way. I just had to wait." There was something in her eyes, in her face, that I didn't understand. It was something I hadn't seen there before. I was about to ask her what was wrong when she pushed her lips to mine.
Everything else in the world stopped on a dime, and for that moment time didn't exist. My heart seemed to be trying to choke me by blocking the air from my lungs, and my stomach seemed to be spinning so fast I couldn't tell which way was up. Every single nerve in my body became super active, craving to get a touch, a scent, a portion of Wanda. The spicy-sweet aroma that was hers seemed to fill every pore, every aspect of me. My senses became overloaded with everything that was Wanda, and that suited me just fine. I began to kiss her back, and I felt one of her hands flow up and rest behind my head, at the base of my neck. Everywhere she touched me was like an icy fire that I cherished deeply. I had imagined this moment over and over again, but it had never been like this. This was REAL. I could feel her soft skin brushing mine, I could hear her heart beating just as fast as my own, and I never wanted it to end. Eventually she did pull away from me, but she was smiling as she did so. I was still trying to catch my breath and find my thoughts when her lips brushed my cheek.
"Don't look so surprised. I thought you had everything figured out," she told my playfully as she released me to lay on her back on the bed, pulling me down beside her.
"I don't think I could ever figure you out, no matter how much I tried," I admitted. She smiled again at that and mover in closer to me, pulling one of my arms over her and resting her head on my chest.
"Good. I don't like know-it-alls." She closed her eyes and let out a yawn, which reminded me of how tired she must be.
"Will you please sleep now?" I asked her.
"Only if you promise to still be here when I wake up." Her request surprised me, but I was more than willing to oblige.
"I'll always be here, as long as you want me." Her eyes opened again for a moment, catching mine and holding them. She reached up and once more allowed her lips to brush mine, throwing my heart into overdrive, before settling back down.
"Don't go saying things like that," she told me as she closed her eyes and pulled a blanket over us. "A girl might go and do something crazy, like believe it." Within seconds she was out cold as sleep reclaimed her. I stayed awake a bit longer, making sure she was safe and protected, but eventually sleep of the better of me as well, and I joined her.