...on a more somber note, condolences to D Strider, who recently announced that he'll be adopting his nephew due to an undisclosed accident leading to his brother's death. In a recent interview, the acclaimed director and activist said that he'd be co-parenting with an also undisclosed mutant; when asked if this was due to romantic reasons, Strider reacted with the kind of red-faced stammering that's usually reserved for stereotypical romcom protagonists. Even if there was no official confirmation, it seems fairly obvious that one of Hollywood's most elusive bachelors has finally been bagged by a very lucky lady—
"Reaux, give me that—"
Your sister lets you snatch the magazine out of her hands, but you're pretty sure that that's only because she's struggling too hard to contain her laughter to actually do anything about it. Over at the counter, Wade isn't even trying to not lose his shit; your best guess puts him about three seconds from tipping the stool he's sitting on over (and possibly taking out the eggs he's supposedly scrambling on the way down, which is either gonna delight or enrage the crow watching him from her perch on the fan. You kind of wonder what Neet's going to do when someone eventually turns that on without checking where she is.)
You're going to murder whoever wrote this. Wait, no, you know something a lot more immediately satisfying and less illegal.
Or maybe not. Magazines are harder to rip in half than they look. While you're still trying, Reaux leans across the table and snags it out of your hands again, riffling through the pages to get to the offending article. "'We've been left totally devastated'...'plans are underway to archive and preserve his work'...brother dearest, please tell me you're not serious."
"I'm like ninety percent sure Hal and Dirk hacked into his servers and trashed everything he ever uploaded, so no, I'm not serious, but what was I supposed to say?"
"That Deadpool got in a lover's quarrel and shishkebabed your bro, maybe?" Wade pokes at the pan experimentally. You're not really sure whose idea it was to let him cook. "Ooh, we can say I was breaking up with him and we had an argument over who got to keep Dave!"
"Please. No." Why do so many of your mornings go off the rails? "Reaux, give me that—"
She dodges. Wade keeps talking. "Wait, I've got it. I left him so I could hook up with you, right? And the deal is he can either let me have Dave or I go to the tabloids about...hmmmm...his puppet porn addiction! Instead of agreeing to my very reasonable terms, he stabs me, I stab him in self defense, there's a mysterious explosion and Dave and I ride off into the sunset in a dubiously-acquired van."
"Still no. How about you never talk to the press? Ever?"
"D, darling, there's a full transcript of your interview."
"So?" Ah, shit. Judging by the saccharine look Reaux's giving you, you're about to get a dramatic reading of your own stupidity. "If you read that out loud, you're gonna be wearing a caramel macchiato in less time than it takes to spell it."
"Spoilsport. Did you know that you said you loved him at least eight times?"
"...fuck."
"Of course he loves me; we're in a deadly menage á trois, remember?"
"Wade, number one she didn't mean you and number two I'm like ninety percent sure you're not saying that right." You're also one hundred percent sure that you're going to take the biggest knife in the kitchen to that goddamn magazine as soon as possible. Maybe you'll even go to the hall closet and use your functional replica of Inigo Montoya's blade on the fucker... "Look, at least nobody's on Dave's ass, right? They got some fuckin' respect for a grieving kid; might not have that for a kid who saw the guy who beat the shit out of him get shanked."
Wade points a fork at you. "Okay, 'shanked' implies the weapon I used was either homemade or small. This was neither."
"He's right, though." Reaux frowns slightly, laying the magazine down (you immediately retrieve it again) and flipping back dyed-violet hair, eyes going a little vague as she considers your take on the current situation. "I mean. The other children can probably take care of Dave, when it comes to the media, but keeping the abuse out of the spotlight might help him move past it."
"Maybe." And here comes the self-doubt. "Or give 'em ammo to say I'm a horrible fuckin' guardian, when this shit comes out."
"Nope!"
"Dude, you gotta admit that I missed all this shit when it was actually happening. I should've—"
Wade rolls his eyes and picks up a spoonful of egg. You don't realize what he's planning until that spoonful hits your chest dead center. Goddamnit, you liked this shirt.
"Hey!"
"Well, somebody had to stop you before you said something stupid. That's my job here, you can't have it."
"But—" He raises the spoon in a way that you can only classify as threatening. "Okay, okay, I yield."
"You're doing perfectly well with the children, D." Reaux leans across again, picking the chunk of egg off your shirt and popping it directly into her mouth. "Mm—and Wade, you're doing amazingly on the breakfast? I'd like mine with toast, please, sweetheart."
"Coming right up—butter?"
"Oh, not with how much you put in the eggs."
(Somehow, you find yourself even more baffled by your life's tendency to just kind of...snap itself back on the rails after every trainwreck. You're still trying to figure out if this is something that happens to everyone.)
(You're like ninety percent sure that it's not, but you guess you don't really have that much of a problem with it.)
