It started innocently enough.

Cookies! For Cafas and Verdy at the forge! But Cafas wasn't there. Okay. More cookies for Verdy. And an almost real smile stayed in place on Maya's face when the green woman made an offhand comment about how much he'd been gone, out, or away lately.

Okay... so that didn't really mean too much. They were busy at the Mansion recruiting X-lings and split thin between active rotations. And training! Cafas did a lot more training than Maya did.

She didn't want to seem clingy or nosy. So she didn't always ask. And he didn't always say. Maya had just assumed...

Rowan said he wanted to check the Danger Room because he missed Cafas. Normally that was an automatic no, but it couldn't hurt... just to check the reservation schedule? And then in person? And the god room? And the administrative hall?

There was no need to panic. None at all. She would just go to the grocery store and pick up some things, get a nice romantic dinner going and ambush him into spending a little more time with her. Clingy or not, he would show up for food. So she texted him with instructions not to make dinner plans and headed out.

It wasn't her fault that there were tabloids. And that he sometimes made a headline or byline. And that someone had sold a story about Calley and Cafas reuniting found spanning page 3 and 4, fighting crime together on some clandestined bridge with romantic looking mist and debris and unspoken feelings.

Maya was the interloper here. She could hardly blame him once she tried to be rational and think about it.

She bought the damn magazine. And brought it back to Cafas' apartment, the one she'd almost started to think of as home.

She'd promised him dinner. Well, the first step was cleaning. And if she wanted to shut down the unanswered questions in her head, she had to keep busy. That meant a deep clean. And adding courses to dinner. A salad meant extra chopping. Dessert meant active stirring. Then there were dishes to clean and places to set.

>>Ghosty brought cookies. Seemed surprised you weren't here. Where you been anyway?

Cafas frowned at his phone. It took him a while to figure out it was Verdy's number. He was seriously running through phones at an alarming rate, he'd lost so many contacts. Luckily he kept his number. So Maya had taken cookies to the forge? That felt like something he should be worried about, but he couldn't pin down why.

>>Don't make any dinner plans

Not making dinner plans was a plan Cafas could get behind. Though it did mean he had one less thing to think about as he sized up one of their latest trusted recruits for armour. The helmet was going to be interesting. How did one even make a helmet for someone with a mantis head? The set of mantis arms were going to be trouble too. Two sets of arms, seriously, how did you even start to deal with that. He was just glad they didn't have wings.

"Should be all I nee... Munin!" Cafas sighed and shooed the big boss dragon's son out of the forge. How in the hell was he supposed to work while Panu was there? The kid had no depth perception, and Cafas had lots of hot metal and heavy hammers. That wasn't even to mention the power tools. Honestly, the kid was a menace.

His father would literally kill me...

The rest of the day was spent sketching designs ideas for the few bits of armour he was yet to build. It felt wrong, especially after the bridges. He shouldn't still be working for them, even if it was just a cover. It was a cover that was helping their cause... No, the X-men needed the intel, and he couldn't leave Isabel to fight them herself.

One security scan to make sure he wasn't taking out any sensitive information, and Cafas was on his way home, peeling out of the Jaager WW underground parking in the relative anonymity provided by his helmet and leathers. A few dud turns and a sudden trip down an Alley to throw off any pursuit, and Cafas was off home. Dinner sounded nice.

Gotta start eating down there, I'm killing my gains. This plateau has been far too long.

The X-men's very own spy parked up outside his apartment block, pulled off his helmet, and headed up the elevator with many an impatient bounce. Dinner and Maya was such a great combination. He was kind of excited to see what she pulled out. Regardless, not having to cook would be a bonus, and it gave him a free cheat day. He couldn't go disappointing Maya when she'd gone through the effort of cooking.

His first recollection of Verdy's text earlier that day came as he swung the door open. The place was offputtingly clean. He kept tidy enough, he'd lived with Calley long enough to clean habitually, but this was like, properly clean. If he was nervous, it didn't show in his voice. "Honey, I'm hoooome."

Clichés were fun.

Cue the laugh track. That what should have happened once the hero got home. He'd trip on something, but catch himself. Everybody would laugh and a sexy aproned significant other would pop out to give him a kiss.

Maya left the water running and scrubbed hard enough against the pan until her hand dissipated around the sponge. She wasn't mad at him. She was...

Okay. Maybe a little mad.

The elemental took a moment to breathe and retrieve her hands back from the kitchen sink. "In the kitchen." She had to call out over the running water because you had to have hands to turn off the water. Or. Actually, she slammed a little focused wind and cheated it off.

A little splat of water landed on the apron that was his but that she happened to be wearing.

There was a lemon custard cooling on the bench. Spiced carrot soup almost bubbling on the range that would go with the salads in the fridge. Falafel, sliced cukes, red onion, tomato, herbs, tzatziki sauce, and hummus. Just in case. Who didn't like hummus? There was some pita. That was optional because sometimes carbs were the enemy. Sometimes Cafas ate them as much as Maya liked to. It was just hard to say which Cafas would show up today.

"Uh. Greek okay?" She probably should have cooked some lamb or something. As much as she'd taken Cafas' dietary oddities into consideration, she sort of forgot that meat was protein and protein was king.

Maya went to pull the apron strings and was not at all having trouble focusing enough to reform her hands. Not. One. Bit.

"In the kitchen."

There was far less teasing air currents and hugs than Cafas was used to. This did not combine well with the cleaning. It was Maya. Since when did Maya clean like that? Since when did Maya sound just slightly too sweet? Or was it not sweet enough? He couldn't tell. Something was certainly wrong though. Everything was just a little wrong. It was making him worried. Maybe he should be worried? What if Maya had been replaced by a doppelganger?

That is literally the dumbest first guess ever.

Cafas tugged the laces loose on his boots and slipped them off. Socks too. His feet went straight into a fresh pair of socks he left as a treat for himself by the door. Luckily they had not been cleaned away. His helmet and jacket were hung up in the foyer cupboard. He walked nervously to the kitchen through the too clean house, noting the table settings which were quite a bit more formal than they usually bothered with.

We usually eat at the mansion, genius.

"Uh. Greek okay?"

Maya was having more trouble with her apron than was usual too. Had he done something? Or was her power playing up and stressing her out? "Sounds, smells, and looks great." Cafas crossed the room and gave Maya's apron strings a tug loose. That dealt with, his arms slid around her waist, directly under the wet patch of the apron. It didn't really bother him. "Everything alright? You seem stressed." He swayed in the hug, tryign to coax a smile, and maybe even a dance, out of Maya.

Even though he said all the right words, Maya was apron-string focused. And he just came over. And did it for her.

"I could have—" Except clearly she couldn't. He left his arms there, like he'd done fifteen hundred times before, only this time she tensed up. "I—"

> "Everything alright? You seem stressed."

She was trying to tell him. Maya was caught with indecision about shoving him away or giving in, but eventually she molded herself against Cafas' front and wrapped her still hand-less arms around him. Even if he was leaving her, they were friends. And she needed a friend right now.

"You smell like forge." She managed to fidget as she spoke into his tee shirt. "I dropped by today to say hi, but you weren't there." It was gentle as far as accusations went, but an accusation all the same.

The swaying petered off as Maya spoke. Was everyone on the planet in possession of a better sense of smell than he was? Well, of course Maya was. She was an air elemental, how could she not be? It's why he tried very hard to pick nice smelling flowers for her. (with the assistance of the florist, because why have experts present if you didn't use them?) The Metal manipulator screwed up his eye and tried to think.

... Nope that's not helping.

He let out the breath he hadn't realised had caught. Maya he kept holding, because he wasn't entirely sure how long he'd have the pleasure for once he spoke. He wanted desperately to lie. To tell her some made up story and to have her believe it. Neither his wit, which was insisting on being slow, nor his conscience, which was well aware of how much respect he had for Maya, would allow the childish instinct to prevail.

"Uh, No. No I wasn't. And yeah, I would. Um... Okay this might be one of those sit down talks." Right? That was what people did, they sat down. Why was knowledge he actually had failing him in that moment.

Oh god she's going to think I'm like Sebastian...

Oh yeah, that was why. Cafas let go of Maya, gently prying her arms from around him using what solid parts he could find. He stepped back, but kept holding her arms, because seriously, he needed to make the most of the physical contact given what he had to tell her. "Or maybe incorporeal?" He wanted her as comfortable as she could get.

He wasn't answering. He wasn't breathing, nor was he swaying with his dumb, confident swagger. It felt like her heart dropped and compressed with every passing hesitation. Cafas spoke up again about the time it had reached her belly. He breathed in. It was enough to give that little heart a momentary rise.

Except that he said this was a "sit down" kind of talk.

Oh.

Her heart bottomed out into the soles of her feet.

That... was what she'd been afraid of. And, like her little heart had tried to lift for a moment, she'd been trying to maintain a little hope since she'd visited the forge. Or maybe before, from the convention. It would have been difficult to close her eyes to the situation and to maintain their little domestic situation, whatever it had been, but Maya was sure she could have done it. She'd fostered her hope for Sebastian for years too.

Except that also left her heart on the floor in the end.

"Okay." She addressed his shirt collar. At least he was going to explain it to her. Properly. Hopefully Calley had gotten the same when this was happening the other way around.

> "Or maybe incorporeal?"

"No, I want to-" See his face? Not without running the risk of suffocating him. "sit." She finished lamely. It was a shame that hollow place in her chest was leaving her just as hollow with her words.

Sit. Yes, sit. Okay. Why was his breath so short? Why did he feel ill? Had he actually done something wrong? Well, yes. He'd secretly joined a terrorist organisation as a spy, on the request of arguably one of the worst human being on the planet, and he'd killed a man to keep it quiet. That was all wrong. Keeping it from Maya was just the guilty icing on the deep cover cake.

"Okay. Um, dining table I guess." Cafas' heart, in contrast to Maya's, was in his throat. He had to tell her. Because he loved her, and because he respected her. There was no two ways about it, no matter how hard his brain tried to crank out a viable excuse. It was going to break her heart, though. In a way, cheating would be the easier thing to explain. He figured that was probably er suspicion. It would be his.

Okay, sit. Yup that's the one with the bending knees and the butt on the chair.

Cafas sat at the nicely set table, keeping his eyes on Maya despite their inclination to wander away. He should have to see what he'd done. That was only fair. If he was going to hurt her, he should bear witness to his consequences like an adult.

"Okay. So..." Yup, such a good start. He'd already stalled. The pink haired behemoth of an X-man brought low and rendered useless by relationship problems. Story of his life. He took a deep breath and started again. "So, a few months ago I ran into Isabel at the Mansion..." What a start, sure to help the cheating suspicions. Or give Maya a complex about her figure... "She'd come looking for help, which was pretty scary in itself. She was talking about this doomsday cult, Ragnarok. This was back before they'd gained as much notoriety." Funny how quickly that had happened.

This utopia thing is all too perfect. Was Odessa them too?

"Anyway, she'd infiltrated them, but with the Order on the decline, she was looking for outside help. see, they're run out of Jaager World Wide, and their cure is a lot further along than they're letting on. Weaponised, in fact. Anyway, um, I kinda agreed to help her." Which had been his first mistake. Who on earth helps Isabel Duskmoor? Except help her into a jail cell. Or Out of her clothes, in Simon's case.

"So uh, yeah, I managed to get myself invited in, by Jaager's son of all people. I figured the X-men could use someone on the inside, so I agreed. I've been making armour for them for the last few months... That'd be why I wasn't at my forge, but still smell like one. I have one in their HQ."

There, that was... That was pretty much the synopsis. All spilled out at slightly too fast a pace, nervous green eyes fixed on Maya. How on earth was she going to react to a second terrorist partner? God he'd screwed the best relationship he'd ever had. Every millisecond was an eternity as he waited for a reaction, will to live slowly ebbing away

A distant part of Maya noticed that Cafas looked nervous. It was the same distant and small voice that noted that she could, with the aid of her mutation, flip the dining table and watch all the carefully arranged dining pieces go flying. At him.

She sat instead.

His story didn't start like she thought it would. Isabel didn't go to the Mansion. She certainly didn't go the Mansion for help. At least he'd helped her, the dear. She was all alone trying to fight injustice? She really had turned a new leaf. She really was the good person Maya believed her to be.

Aaaaand it definitely didn't end the way she thought it should.

"What?" She was standing. She'd totally forgotten about the tabloid and Calley by now. In fact, she didn't remember standing, but it was a little late to sit demurely anymore. "You joined a cult-They have a cure?" The thoughts had come so quickly one after the other that they sort of fell in with one another.

A cure? A CULT!? A cure might help her. But how could he supply them with weapons? Or, had he said armor? What did they need armor for? Searching for a cure was why she'd spent her entire pregnancy locked in a hospital.

The words 'I have one in their HQ' bounced around in her head. "You. You take me there." The right now was only slightly implied.

Cafas didn't find himself often afraid for his physical well being. After all, nobody really messed with him, and those that did never made the mistake twice. A couple of notable exceptions, but they'd been full of liquid courage for the most part.

However Maya rose from her seat in a flurry of movement that gave him pause. The reaction was rather like what he'd assumed. Incredulity, angry movement, body language that suggested he was about to be suffocated like the last cultist that had crossed Maya. Except, he wasn't a cultist, right? He was a spy. He'd been drip feeding the X-men information at the fastest rate he felt safe, throwing in some misdirection to make it look like he was actually throwing them off. Being a spy was hard. Even he couldn't be certain whose side he was on.

Cafas scootched his chair back a little. While he may well have deserved the reaction he was getting, it didn't mean he had to like it, or sit there and act like he wasn't momentarily afraid Maya was just going to throw him out a window.

>>"You. You take me there."

"No." The word had left his mouth before his brain had time to catch up. His tone was matter of fact. It wasn't going to happen. He'd be a dead man before he took someone so important to him into that viper's den. A high profile X-man, not even one accompanied by Panu, but by another X-man they didn't fully trust, they'd never make it past security.

Then I'd just be a cure test case.

Cafas swallowed the lump of fear. He was still sitting. There was no point in running, he'd never make it far enough in time. He wasn't going to fight her, either. No, he'd sit there and try to continue. Honestly, it was Maya. She wasn't going to hurt him. He didn't even doubt it. She'd just startled him.

"You'd never make it in. I know what you're thinking Maya, and I thought it too. Believe me I did. It's unstable, unpredictable, and not consistently permanent. No telling if it will kill you, cure you, or send your power haywire." Honestly, they needed to lock that data up better. He'd made a few of the lab boys some new toys to show all their mates, and they'd given him a peek at their work, more than happy to have someone to speak to about their research.

His no was a wet blanket on whatever she'd been trying to build in that empty space. No? Her eyebrows raised incrementally. His wet blanket caught fire. NO!? She wanted to go in there and tornado the place apart. If they wanted to see the end of the world, they were about to get it served to them care of a pissed off elemental. They weren't airtight. They couldn't keep her out.

But he had logic to back up his no. Maya huffed and went to brush a loose strand of hair away from her face with a wisp of a hand. She bumped the chair back as she turned to walk around, to walk anywhere.

She had resolved try to understand back when she thought this was something entirely different.

Maya huffed.

She should try to understand now.

One semi-circle around the over-sized couch and Maya huffed again, this time with power behind it.

Okay. So. Her boyfriend joined a cult. The company that had invited the world's mutants to Utopia was that cult. She'd just learned that there was a cure, but it wasn't a good one.

"You don't actually..." Believe? In the end of the world and that, that dumb? No. He didn't, did he? She pressed her power against his face. No. No, of course not. She changed tack and made sure to back off in case he had breathing needs. "Do you have to keep going back?" To protect Isabel? To do the lying thing? The staying away from each other thing? To better equip people they should be tearing down?

Huffing was better than yelling. Huffing was much better than the implied threats. Cafas had never thought he'd be on the receiving end of threats from Maya. Somewhere, deep down, a hairline crack appeared in the porcelain idol he kept in his heart. Whether it would fracture off and make the statue closer to reality, or start a catastrophic cascade that shattered both idol and vessel, remained to be seen.

His eyes tracked the big bad wolf that was Maya around the room, still firmly green. This was not how he'd pictured dinner going. Actually, in all honesty, he hadn't pictured dinner much, just Maya in the apron. That wasn't quite as envisioned either. The no seemed to have gone over like a lead balloon. He wanted to make everything better, but... How?

"You don't actually..."

Maya was looking at him. Searching his face. The inability to breathe tipped him off. Not that he was worried, but it did go on long enough for his lungs to start burning. She'd caught him exhaling. Cafas waited it out, eyes still following her around, his apology written all over his face.

>>"Do you have to keep going back?"

"If I don't want to arouse suspicion, probably..." It wasn't an easy answer to give, but he was in. He wasn't sure he even could leave. He wanted to. The bridge thing had really shaken him, and now with Maya upset it was all a bit too much. Plus he'd kind of been stepping up a bit within the X-men. He was recruiting people. That was, like, proper team leader stuff, not just Cafas who is content to save the day and grit his teeth and bare all the decisions being made.

This is why Sam drinks... At least partly.

"If I thought I had an option, I'd stop. I think I might be in too deep now though." Cafas slumped in his seat, shrugging bodily. "I don't know what to do. It seemed simple when I started, I'm an actor, how hard could spying be? Now I'm arming terrorists for the sake of information, running around behind the back of my team, and worse, you. I meant to tell you. Ages ago. It just... When's a good time to tell someone you're playing double agent, and you've been sabotaging your own side at best marginally less than the enemy?"

This is why I drink...

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Couldn't spy properly, couldn't boyfriend properly, probably doing an awful job with the father thing that was starting to emerge, too. Why couldn't Ragnarok all be a dream like the apocalypse?

Buy me a few more coffees if it was.

"I was sort of expecting for things to go wrong. And it was going to be okay on some levels if it was for Calley. I would give up my happiness if it meant you getting yours and him getting his." He'd enjoy it longer, at least. "But this..." This was working for the bad guys! She was all pro-seeing things from the other guy's side, but this was too far.

"It's not just me. It's potentially all of the X-men, mutant-kind, and humanity." He knew that already, clearly, since he'd said almost as much himself. But she was on a roll now and it was her right as someone who loved him to reiterate these things clearly in front of his face so that he could flinch and squirm and know that now she knew these things too. "—Not to mention your safety. And Isabel. How does her cover play into it? Would she be at risk if you stayed away?"

It really would be better if they demolished that place. Deep down she knew that what they had to defeat was the idea and not the building, but the building was the easier foe to tackle.

And then it dawned on Maya that whatever they had, this boyfriend and girlfriend thing, it wasn't over. They were both alive. They could both work for a better tomorrow. Together. Assuming he still wanted that.

It only took her three steps to get back over there and one extra for momentum. Maya flung herself into a Cafas hug. If she went a little incorporeal around the edges, well, that was business as usual these days. "I'm gonna feel real stupid if this is you breaking up with me." But she could get at least one more hug, right? That was allowed.

See, he knew cheating would have been better than being a spy. At leas that would have involved some sex. Honestly, the spy gig was far more tinker tailor, much less James Bond. Where was his Aston Martin, tux, tech, and all the ladies? He'd been lied to by movies! This time it wasn't even like the lie netted him some money.

Oh, and there was the guilt trip. Cafas did indeed squirm uncomfortably, but he forced himself to make eye contact. Actually, he was kind of looking at he nose. It was a cute nose. No, that was just a distraction from the guilt. Guilt he really should feel, in all likelihood. He'd been trying to help. It had seemed like it was necessary at the time. IT was pretty much the most dangerous mission he'd ever taken, he certainly never would have let anyone else take it.

Oh.

That was the problem, wasn't it? Maya wouldn't have let him take it, either.

Yeah, he could see why she might be mad. The sudden emotional wave that would have followed her giving him the news he'd just given her would have made him a bit mad too.

"Isabel would be fine. Pretty sure no-one's linked us. She won't even accept armour." Because she didn't need it, apparently. Yeah right, everyone needed an extra layer of protection. As many layers as you could get before your movement was impeded.

He'd phased out for a moment. It proved to be a key moment, some kind of turning point in Maya's attitude, because he found her very suddenly in his lap. If she'd weighed more, it may well have hurt. She thrust herself into his chest with considerable vigor.

"Why... Why would I be breaking up with you?" Cafas took a moment to look baffled. He felt he deserved it, given the sudden angle the train of conversation had gone off at. "Oh, you thought... With Calley?" His arms found their way around his fuzzy at the edges girlfriend. He'd regained quite some confidence since she'd nearly tackled him out of the chair, so he even allowed a hand to slip daringly low. "No, that ship has sailed, hit an iceberg, and sunk. I love him ,but that relationship was at best abusive..."

"Yeah. I definitely thought... " And for half of a half of a second, she'd even thought he'd run off with Isabel. Somehow Maya managed to still feel stupid. Maybe it was the finality in his voice about the whole Calley thing. "I mean, I certainly don't think doomsday cult ever crossed my mind as an option." Nor were those words she'd ever thought to be saying.

Maya made sure her cheek was settled just so, in that perfect cradle between shoulder and pectoral. "Or spying."

Actually this spot wasn't perfect. Perfect was putting her forehead against the base of his neck so that she could pick her feet up and fit her whole person on top of Cafas without being scrunched.

"I don't want you to spy." She inhaled and took pieces of Cafas with her to incorporeality. There. Now she could hold onto his shirt properly. "Or to hang out with Calley on clandestine bridges." She breathed her power down from her hands and his, from all the places they touched.

"Didn't I tell you before?" Yeah forehead on neck? That wasn't perfect either. She made sure to change him all. "I wanna be selfish when it comes to you."

Dinner?

Eh. Maybe later...