Chapter Text
Todd laid on his thin, beaten up old mattress, listening to Pietro’s music filter up from the living room. His threadbare sheets had been pulled from the bed weeks ago, first used as blankets because the speedster had stolen his comforter (and subsequently burned it because it smelled bad), then balled up and thrown in the corner after he’d gotten sick on them at some point. He stared at the cracked paint on the ceiling, wondering when Pietro would get tired of the sad music he was listening to.
As much as Todd wanted to turn on his side, to curl up into a ball and wrap his arms around himself to stay warm, he couldn’t. Rather, he could, but he didn’t want to deal with the pain it would bring. He’d fallen from the roof again. Luckily his body was rather malleable – muscles and squishy flesh protected his bones, and he’d fallen in such a way that nothing especially squishy was damaged. Last time his fall had been broken by a bush, and while it wasn’t pleasant, it was certainly softer than the ground he’d landed on this time.
When he heard the familiar rapping of knuckles on the doorframe, he forced himself to sit up, forced a smile onto his face.
“Heya, baby-cakes,” he said, brandishing off-color teeth with what he thought was a brilliant smile. Never mind the fact that his eyes were even more heavily lidded than usual.
“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” Wanda asked, letting herself into his room.
“Sweetie-pie?” Todd tried instead.
“No.”
“Honey-bunch?”
“Todd, do you want me to share my weed or not?” Wanda growled, leveling a glare at the shorter mutant.
“I’d really appreciate that,” Todd said. He kicked a dirty shirt off the end of the bed, offering Wanda a seat.
“I bet, considering your dumb ass fell off the roof again,” she said with a shake of her head. She checked the spot he cleared for anything suspicious before flopping down. As she rolled a joint, a piece of creased paper resting in the dip between her legs made by one crossing over the other, she watched Todd watch her out of the corner of her eye. “You can quit staring at me, you know. You look high already.”
“Well, you know what they say about pretty ladies,” Todd said, swiping his hair out of his face.
Wanda raised a brow. “Whatever your pick-up line is, save it. I’d rather talk philosophy,” she said, letting the thin, wrinkled strip hang from between her lips while she put what had fallen into the paper back in a sandwich bag. She put that in her coat pocket then stood and shucked her coat.
“I can talk philosophy, baby girl,” Todd said with a little chuckle as his eyes wandered up Wanda’s form, eventually settling on watching the shadows play over her features while she lit the paper.
“You can’t talk about much of shit sober,” she said, attempting to hold in the smoke of a long pull. She passed the joint to Todd, holding it by the tip so he’d have no excuse to touch her fingers, as he liked to do.
“I’m pretty sure I say the same shit no matter what amount of influence I’m undeh,” he started and put the paper to his lips, “you just think it’s all deep and philosophical-like because you’re high as fuck and every word makes you ponder the meaning of life.”
Wanda snorted in response, moving one hand up by her head, making a gesture indicative of an explosion. “Mind blown,” she said teasingly, impatiently waiting for Todd to finish. She leaned back on one arm and held the other out expectantly. “Maybe there is a spark of reason in that stupid little head of yours after all,” she teased, and Todd grinned broadly.
They passed the joint until it was impossible to put the thing to their lips without burning their fingers. Wanda handed it to Todd with instructions to stub it out in his bedside stand. The thing was a wreck already, she reasoned. He did, leaving the roach there. One of them would pick it up later.
After a minute, after the haze creeped in, Todd reached out slowly for Wanda’s bare arm. She watched as he did so, laughing at the way his careful fingers brushed the almost invisible hairs on her arm, tickling her. He took her elbow, wrapping his fingers around it. He pulled her close and she stopped him with a hand on his shirt.
“When was the last time you took a shower?” she asked.
Todd stopped to think for a moment, his thumb rubbing the sensitive bend of her arm as his eyes rolled up and to the right, trying to count backward to his last shower.
“Two days ago,” he answered sheepishly.
“Good enough,” she said, letting herself be pulled into his side. She weakly swatted at his hand when he started playing with the short hairs at the back of her neck. He relented for a moment, then started doing it again. Once more she swatted, adding a snort for good measure. When he went for the downy fuzz a third time, she grabbed his hand and pulled it over her shoulder. “Cut it out,” she groused.
“Sorry, sugar,” Todd said. He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “I just don’t get to have you this close very often.”
“Yeah, because you usually smell bad and you’re really handsy,” she said, laughing into his shirt. Her eyes focused in on a stain on the fabric and she wrinkled her nose. “What is this and how old is it?”
“Mayonnaise,” Todd answered, laughing at Wanda’s snort of disbelief. “Naw, I swear it is. Sandwiches with Freddy,” he said, rubbing the pads of his fingers over knuckles as she played with the webbing between his first and second finger. A minute of silence passed before a thought dawned on Todd. “You call me handsy and you can’t keep yer cute little fingers offa my webbing when you’re stoned.”
“You like it,” she said, turning a half-hearted glare up at the shorter mutant.
“Of course I do, honey-buns. If you like somethin’ about me, I’m damn well gonna enjoy that. Jus’ pointin’ it out.” Instead of huffing out that she didn’t like anything about the other mutant like Todd expected, she started laughing, turning her face to avoid the crusty so-called mayonnaise.
“Your accent sounds so fucking weird when you’re talking all slow,” she said and pushed her face into Todd’s armpit. Her eyebrows shot up and she rolled away. Todd spooned in behind her and put his arm around her middle. She allowed it, propping her head up on her own hand and making herself comfortable. “If I bought you deodorant, would you wear it?” she asked, once more playing with the webbing between his fingers.
“For you, baby,” he said, rubbing his nose into those soft little hairs that he’d become temporarily obsessed with, “anything.” He neglected to mention how the substance would cake in the folds of his skin and pinch and pull and cause him to break out if he used it too many days in a row, but he was happy to do anything, brave any pain that would earn him more contact with Wanda.
“Tomorrow,” she said, hooking one finger around and pulling on the greenish pleat.
“Hunh?” Todd asked.
“I’m going to go buy you deodorant,” she clarified, “tomorrow.”
“Alright,” he said, silently mourning the pain he would feel, the loss of one healthy, undamaged part of himself. He laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Wanda squirmed at the feeling of his breath on the back of her neck and was soon laughing herself, though she laughed at the sensation of breath and lips at the nape of her neck rather than Todd’s satirical existence.
“Mm,” Wanda sighed happily once her laughter petered out, “so, what are we doing with our lives?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Like, what are we even doing?” she asked, pushing her head back against Todd’s face until he backed off.
“Clearly we’re taking over the world,” Todd answered, “making a better world for mutants.”
“You and me?” she asked with a snort.
“Yeah,” Todd said with a little nod, taking a deep breath of the scent of her shampoo. “You and me and the rest’a the Brotherhood and Magneto and all them. We’re gonna rule the world, and everyone’s gonna be happy if they’re nice and, like, die if they’re not and I’m gonna be popular and people’ll think I’m attractive because I’m a mutant.” Todd continued to ramble into her hair, pressing his hand into her belly to pull her closer to him. “It’s gonna be great.”
“You think people’s ideas of what’s attractive is going to change when the, uh, ruling power changes?” she asked with a snort.
“Don’t it alwa-“ Toad started, but was interrupted by a loud, whiny voice calling out for him.
“Hey, Todd, I need you to go out and get me a-“ Pietro’s voice stopped in the doorway as he took in the two on the bed. His lip raised in a disgusted snarl. “Never-fucking-mind,” he groused, turning on his heel to speed away.
Wanda burst into a giggle fit, and Todd chuckled into her hair. His chuckles eventually became a complete and utter guffaw as he replayed the shocked, confused and angry expressions that flit across the speedster’s face.
Todd’s last coherent thought before he started to drift aimlessly through cloud-like ponderings was ‘he deserves to be thrown off every once in a while.’