**Disclaimer: Adult chapter. Skip ahead if you're squeamish about these things.
"Toad, we're idiots." Wanda's voice was once again the thing that woke me up, only this time it was more amused than reserved.
"Hm?" I mumbled brilliantly as I blinked myself into consciousness. "Whahum? Whaddya mean?" Slowly I brought myself fully around with a yawn and a stretch before taking in my surroundings. We were still in the cave, but it was dusk and the snow had stopped. Wanda was standing at the mouth of the cave looking out, then turned to face me.
"Come look," she told me. Groggily I stood and made my way over to her to looked out. At first I didn't see it, but when I did I smacked myself in the head.
"Really, yo?" I asked rhetorically. Wanda had a smile of some kind on her face as she stepped out of our cave and landed the exact three feet and four inches it took to get to the ground. "Wow, I feel dumb," I said as I followed her out into the setting sunlight.
"I wonder if it's still the same day, or if we slept through 'til the next one," she mused as she watched the sunset.
"Well, either way I'm starving." She nodded her agreement with me and started looking around. Five yards from us was a stream that cut through the ravine that we had fallen down, which was good news for us. Luckily we had been x-men just long enough for Wolverine to teach us how to feed ourselves in an environment like this. We parted ways to use our knowledge, but always stayed within sight. It wasn't long before we had what we were after. "Remind me to thank Logan when we get back," I told Wanda as I brought back all the edible plants I could find.
"Right after I get done thanking him," she told me as she held up two fish.
"You're such a badass," I told her with a grin. "You think they're lookin' for us?" I asked as we finished our Logan-taught meal. Wanda looked up again at the distance we had fallen and the edge of the cliff that marked where the others had been the last time we had seen them.
"Dunno," she said with a shrug. Just then a violent shiver shook through her and her eyes pulled up towards the sky that was out passed the end of the canyon. "You feel that?" she asked with an excitement that I had never seen in her before.
"Feel what?" I asked as I looked up towards the sky line that was barely lit.
"A storm's coming," she told me. There was something in her voice that made me tilt my head at her. It was like telling a kid there was a candy shop just at the end of the canyon, only I didn't see anything special about a storm.
"Like a storm, or like a Storm-storm," I asked, wondering if the African woman was up to something. Wanda took my hand and started dragging me out to where the forest started, leaving the safety of our shelter behind.
"I don't know. I don't care. I just love storms." There was a new light in her eyes, a light of pure joy, and she seemed to have gained new energy.
"Why?" I asked her. We had come to a stop in the middle of the forest just as the first clouds began to frost themselves over the last of the pink and orange beams in the sky.
"I don't know. I always have. There's just something about a good storm…it's beautiful. They way it can wreak such destruction on those it chooses to, but gives so much that's necessary to live at the same time." She seemed breathless just talking about it.
"Huh," I said in a tone like I had figured something out. She turned to look at me, her face asking what I was thinking. "Well, your magic is chaos-based, right?" I asked and she tilted her head.
"Well, yes, but I don't see what that has to do with anything," she admitted.
"Well, what bigger form of chaos is there, than a storm? I mean it's like you said, yo. It causes destruction and at the same time brings life. No one can stop it or even really predict when it will hit or where. They're totally out of control of anyone but themselves. No one tells a storm what to do, where to go, anything like that….ok, well of course there's Storm, but I mean aside from her. People think twice 'bout 'em; people respect 'n even fear 'em. No one can manipulate a storm. It's this giant force of energy, neither good or bad, even though it does both, that doesn't take shit from anyone. Not even Magneto could take on a lightning bolt." Wanda watched me for a long time, long enough to make me feel like I had said something wrong. "What?" I asked her.
"You know, you can be pretty smart," she told me. I grinned at her.
"Yeah, but don't go tellin' anyone else that. They'll think you hit your head a little too hard with that fall." Wanda laughed, and with it came the first clap of thunder. Once more her eyes were pulled to the sky which was now almost totally black, and not from the sun setting. Thunder clouds had rolled in and already rain droplets the size of marbles were pelting down around us. "You sure you wanna stay out here, yo?" I asked apprehensively.
"Of course I do!" she replied blissfully. She tilted her face up and closed her eyes, letting the water fall freely onto her. The next bolt of lightning seemed to tear the sky apart, because that's when the downpour started streaming from the heavens. Not even seconds later we were both soaked from head to foot, but this didn't bother Wanda one bit. In fact, it was like she had transformed into a different person entirely. The thunder was so loud it shook my rib cage, and each time it sounded she seemed to lose a part of herself until she looked to be something I thought I'd never see her become; free.
Her arms we flung out to either side of her as she whirled this way and that, reveling in the throes of the storm, even laughing outright. It was then that I realized that for right now, right here in this moment, in this forest hidden from view of all, in a storm that blotted out reality, she was what she so yearned to be. For this one moment, she was every bit the free woman she longed for. I was content to watch her from under the bough of the nearest tree, not that it did me any good in keeping dry, but I didn't care. Seeing this new side to Wanda astounded me.
About then is when she turned to face me, and something ignited in the two of us just as easily as if lightning had struck us both. The rain poured over her, but her eyes were a light all by their own. There was something between us then, a pulling, clawing urge that couldn't be fought, even if I had wanted to. Her eyes met mine, and lightning struck somewhere behind her which lit us both up for an instant. She held her hand out to me, but I was already moving towards her. Her beauty and the tempest overthrew me, setting fire to the passions that already burned deep within. My lips crashed against hers, and all at once my senses were drowning in her. I could feel the cold fire that was her touch as she took my face in her hands and I wrapped my arms around her. I could smell that familiar, tantalizing spicy-sweet scent as it swarmed through me, bombarding my senses, threatening to overtake me. Breathing seemed impossible with my lungs engulfed in flames as they were, but things like that didn't matter anymore. Mortal necessities such as air seemed inconsequential, as if we were above them. Our hearts raced in unison, seeming to pound louder than the thunder that was no longer above us, but around is; in us.
So lost in her that I was, I didn't even notice that she had dragged not only my shirt off but hers as well. Something was bothering in the back of my head, something was buzzing there unpleasantly, but it was something from a reality which we were no longer a part of. For one moment, and one moment only, I pulled away from our met desperation to look into her eyes. The rain poured down around us, dripping off of my arm that I was using to push one of her wrists up against a tree with and onto her neck. I met her eyes and what I saw there made even the annoyance of the buzzing disappear entirely.
"Todd," she breathed. There was a craving unlike any I had ever seen, and I was directed solely at me. It wasn't just because I was here, with her in this sacred moment, but it was me that she wanted. That was more than enough for me.
"Wanda," I answered back. Once more I let my mouth find hers, and I surrendered everything.
It was unimaginable. Her powers were linked to what she was feeling, which meant they ran rampantly and neither of us cared. Part of my mind found it curious that when her nails gouged deep wounds in my back somehow her magic healed them, but that part of my mind logged it for later because it knew I wasn't listening. Once when I had her pinned against a tree, it obliterated into pieces. When my mouth lefts hers for but a moment in exchange for her neck, she bit so deeply into my shoulder it drew blood, yet I didn't feel the pain; it was a different feeling that was entirely alien to me. Hex magic danced all around us, and my shoulder looked like it had never been touched by the time I looked at it. Every so often I would feel her power sift not only over me, but through me, bringing with it all of Wanda's feelings and emotions. Just as entirely as I was all hers, she was all mine. It was more than just our bodies that melted together, something else between us was bonded, forged with each strike of lightning and solidified with every boom of thunder.
When we were at last returned to the world, the storm had eased down into a trickle that fell lightly through the leaves of the forest around us. The thunder still rumbled, but it was far off in the distance and rolling farther away every second. The grass beneath us felt like a water bed, so flooded it had become from the torrential cloudburst. She lay flat on her back while I was on my side leaning over her. Remnants of a different world, our different reality of freedom, still echoed around us. She smiled up at me and put a hand to my face. Gently I leaned down to brush her lips in a soft shadow of the previous frenzy. No words were exchanged; none were needed. I trailed my finger tips up and down her velvet soft skin, but my eyes never left hers. We could have stayed like that for an eternity if we had been allowed to.
"You really are something else, Todd Tolansky," Wanda told me with a smirk. It wasn't the play on her earlier statement that got me. It was my name. She had used my real name. Not Toad, or anything else. My real, full name. For some reason, that hit home with me. Before I could reply or do anything else, we were interrupted.
"I'd say," came an amused accent that was far too familiar for me not to place. Just like that, everything magical and personal we had between us shattered as we came plummeting back into the real world. Wanda shot up, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around her chest in an effort to conceal at least a bit of herself to this new intruder.
"Gambit!" she yelled in loathing.