driftfleet | Tourist, May I?

[She appreciates this. She also doesn't even mind that he's not so keen on the idea because it's a hard one for her too.]

Part of me wants to have kids probably because...family, you know? [She lost hers and she's always trying to build up a new one.] And part of me is terrified by the thought. Because what kind of life can I give anyone? I've failed everyone who has ever counted on me.

[It's not true. Not really. She's saved plenty of lives, but when she says this she's thinking first of her parents. It was never her job to protect them and she was young and untrained and against overwhelming odds. It was a miracle she got away. There was no way she could have saved them. Not without running away the moment she learned what she was and even then that doesn't mean they would have survived the culling. Then she thinks of her students. They all knew the mission was beyond dangerous. They could have all died, and she desperately wanted to go back for them, but she had Illyana—the objective—a person she did save. Colossus convinced her to protect his sister and complete the mission and he'd go back. She trusted him to do that. He didn't. And then there's MarinaNova, the prison. She was trying to save them all by getting them home. Instead, she abandoned them even if it wasn't her choice. Now she's here with a sweet boyfriend and they're...they're still stuck. It's not a track record she's proud of and she beats herself up for it.]

[ he entwines their fingers, giving her hand a little squeeze. it's not that he's set against ever having a family, but he didn't exactly have the best role models to emulate here, and it's scary. he's been so thoroughly let down by his parents, he can't take the thought of putting his own kids through anything even remotely like that.

no one can mess you up more than your parents, and he doesn't want to mess anyone up. ]

I count on you, and you haven't failed me.

[ he waits until she looks him in the eye to continue. ]

Kitty for most of my life I've been afraid that I might be crazy and not know it yet. Thanks to you, for the first time ever, I'm convinced that right now? I'm not.

[She returns the squeeze and leans in to kiss him softly. She doesn't want to throw them off track from talking back to the relatively easy and always fun world of being physically affectionate, but she can't help herself.] I hope I never do. [Because it would mean losing him.]

And I think you have one of the most beautiful minds I know, Winn Schott. I really do.

[ he returns the kiss, and strokes the side of her hand with his thumb. ]

I'm sure you never will. [ if anyone is like to screw up in this relationship - it's him, not her. ]

Just never look at the CT scans, it's not very photogenic.

Did you have scans taken? [Sure, it could just be a joke, but if he's this concerned maybe he did try to get it checked out.]

Also, if there was a really weird coincidence in all this would you want to know?

-- I took a few blows to the head as a kid.

[ trying to shrug it off, before tilting his head. ]

What really weird coincidence? [ that's a yes. ]

Um... Reid's mom was a paranoid schizophrenic. She wasn't dangerous or anything. People get that wrong a lot of the time. She just couldn't care for herself. But it's hereditary and he was always afraid he couldn't trust his mind too. That it would turn on him someday. [Weirdly specific type?]

I don't think it means anything. It just comes to mind sometimes when you mention it and then if I don't say it I feel like I'm hiding something and it doesn't need to be hidden, but I feel weird now because it sounds like I'm making a big deal out of it, doesn't it?

[ ok -- trying to wrap his mind around this new information. it's not that big of a coincidence, right, mental health problems are fairly common, and it's a completely different condition they're dealing with - one is a paranoid schizophrenic, the other is a dangerous murderer who completely lost sight of the difference between right and wrong.

then why is he suddenly uneasy? maybe because it feels a little bit like he's falling into a 'reid 2.0' slot instead of 'beta winn'. on the one hand - it's hard not to feel like the shadow of her ex isn't joining that of his father to haunt him in the list of people he's uncomfortably similar to. on the other - hey, he dodged further cat scan questions? ]

That is...some coincidence. Is he a computer genius too? Do we need the goosebumps theme?

Um...no. He doesn't really like tech. He's kind of an analog guy. [She pauses and there's a big "but" in the air.]

He is a genius though. [And he's just fine with computers when he needs to be.]

And he wears a lot of cardigans. And that's it. Just those things. Everything else is different. [As far as she knows so far.]

And maybe the lack of confidence with relationships.

[ his cardigan is one of the only things he has from home, and still he finds himself considering burning it or at the very least - shoving it to the back of his closet and never wearing it again.

he tries to be cool when she mentions reid - the man was a huge part of her life, and recently, and she needs to be able to talk about him. but right now, he's just feeling like a very uncomfortable poor man's reid replacement.

just those things. just his biggest fear, his smarts, the way he dresses, and the way he approaches relationships. oh, is that all? is there anything else left, he wonders bitterly. is that why she's with him?

everything he says, everything he does, now whether it's the right thing is not his only concern. would reid say that? would reid do that? when she smiles and kisses him and says she loves him - is it memories of reid spurring her on? ]

So, not a punner.

No. [Okay, now she's really worried about what he might be holding back. It was stupid to tell him any of that, wasn't it.] It probably sounds like a lot, but it isn't. You're very different.

[ but are their differences good things, or the parts she's settling on? in a way, everything would make so much more sense if she is just settling on him - he could never properly wrap his head around someone like kitty loving him.

it feels like his heart dropped to his toes. he tries to force himself to listen to her words, not a subtext that may well be the figment of his imagination, but it's so hard not to go there.

they're very different. he's a genius at something that's unavailable to him to prove. he makes lame jokes, and gets stupidly excited about things that make most people roll their eyes and look at him like he's crazy. if he loses his mind, he won't be harmless. he doesn't need to meet the guy to know where he stands on the scoreboard. ]

Yeah -- yeah, he doesn't like tech, and if it was legally possible, I'd marry it.

[ conceal, don't feel. ]

[She brings a hand up to his cheek. She feels all twisted up inside, not knowing what he's thinking but it doesn't seem good. And, okay, not telling her more of what he's thinking actually is kind of a Reid thing to do but she's not thinking that right now and if she was she would definitely not be saying it. Maybe there were enough similarities that it made her uncomfortable sometimes, and she just thought it would be better out in the open, but right now she doesn't feel better. Right now she feels like she could be losing him. It's a little too early for that. Too panicked, but when you've lost as many people as she has and you have a fair amount of PTSD tied to it then these things happen.]

He broke my heart, Winn. I stopped myself from kissing you once when I came to visit that first time, because you were wearing a cardigan and it reminded me of him for a second. I'm not with you because there are similarities. I'm with you despite them.

I love you.

I love the man who made me a slinky just to see me smile. I love the man who works so hard for his friends that he has no time to himself. I love the man who gets excited about my powers and not scared of them. I love so many things about you that are nothing like him and a few that are. And please say something. [Because she's very afraid there is going to be silence at the end of all this.]

[ he turns his head a little to press a kiss to her hand. he really isn't heading anywhere good, and there's this knot of tension in his gut that refuses to be unraveled - but he wants more than anything to believe what she's saying. he wants it to be true. he wants to be loved, for once in his life, even if it's with despite ofs. there were always going to be despite ofs, that they're about someone else is as good as he can hope for, isn't it? ]

Gotta work on that lack of confidence with relationships. Cross one similarity off.

[ he's got a feeling he'll give kara her powers back, grow a pizza plant, and get everyone home before he fixes that, but a guy can dream, right? ]

[Very little of her tension dissipates with that action or those words.] Are you angry? [It feels like such a strange thing to ask a man who is showing her no signs of anger. She wishes she was a telepath right now.]

A little. [ he admits, because he promised her he would. ] But not at you. I'm not...really sure at who. But I'm just gonna go with him, cuz, happy as I am to get to be with you, he broke your heart and that entitles me to blame everything ever on him.

[ screw rationality, it has no place in feelings. right now, he'd rather be mad at reid for their similarities than at himself. oh, he'll beat himself up for it too, that'll come. but not just yet. he'll feel that anger every time he tries to decide what to wear, or say something clever, talk about his dad...he feels it every time he wants to tell kitty how much he loves her, how he will do everything in his power to take her home with him, and can't.

can't he ever be free of his anger? ]

[She presses in wrapping her arms around him, and burying her face against his chest.] I shouldn't have said anything. I'm not actually very good at the relationship thing. [She is the common denominator in all of them.] I just want you to be you. Please don't stop being you. [And don't leave me?]

[ he holds her tightly, stroking her hair because he knows how she likes it. ]

I'm pretty sure 'honesty' and 'communication' are on the top 5 list of every how-to-good-relationship advice column in the multiverse. [ he smiles a little, kissing whichever part of her head he can reach. ]

You can tell me anything, I want you to. And come on, if I could stop being me, you really think I'd still be it?

[ he's not an awkward nerd consumed by bitterness and anger by choice. ]

No, [He wouldn't, would he? That's sad. Even knowing how damaged she is, she wouldn't change herself. Erase herself apparently, but not change herself. Not with anything but growth and effort. No magical rearranging or trying to be someone else. Just being the best her.] but you should.

[ that was taken way more seriously than he expected it to. she knows him too well, doesn't she? in a way, it's a relief, to know that he can't get away with bottling his feelings. she's a safety mechanism, almost. ]

Definitely gonna ease up on the cardigan, though, if it'll make kissing me easier.

[ ok, so it's a work in progress. feelings are hard. ]

It was just that one time. I don't know. It's the same kind of clothing, but you wear it differently somehow. Also, you wear a lot of blue. I like blue. [Not that Reid didn't wear blue, but he wore purple a lot because it was his favorite color. She wants Winn to just keep being himself, but she should have known he'd take it this way. Of course he would.]

...I really didn't mean to make you self conscious. [MORE self conscious.]

Blue's a good color.

[ he was partial to it long before he knew it was her favorite. now, well, he just likes it even a little more. ]

You don't get the credit for that.

[ he's always been self conscious. he's short, excitable, loves science and cosplay...even if he didn't have his family for a family, he wouldn't lack aspects for people to mock. ]

[She lifts herself up to look at him. Her face is about as close as it can be for that kind of thing.]

You know I love you, right? For you? For all the Winning?

The Winning's easy, it's the Losing that's a challenge.

[ he can't take that look in her eyes. god, he feels like a schmuck. why does he have feelings? why can't he just -- be more of a stereotypical male?

he strokes her cheek. ]

I know. [ sometimes, he has a hard time figuring out the why, but when she looks at him like this - so desperate to keep him - mirroring a look he knows he's given kara and her so very often - it's impossible to refute. and he never wants to try. if this turns out to be a house of cards that'll fall apart in his hands - he doesn't want to poke at it. he just wants to be happy, for as long as he gets to. ] I'm the luckiest man in the multiverse.

[ are you ready for a smitten look, kitty, cuz one is coming your way either way. ]

[The smitten look does manage to start soothing her fears. Some of that concern melts away and she leans in to kiss him very tenderly and lightly.] No losing.

[She likes that he has feelings. Everyone has feelings. She just worries when she doesn't know what they are.]

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