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chromecutie · 5 years

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Not A Ghost - part 18

A/N - Multi-part fic. Colossus x OC where OC has come home after being wrongfully imprisoned in the Icebox. Warnings for whole fic - references and flashbacks to harsh prison environment, including various types of abuse. Takes place shortly after events in Deadpool 2. Whole thing will end up on my AO3 eventually.

Taglist: @emma-frxst @ra-ra-rasputiin @holamor @empressme-bitch @marvel-is-perfection @hazilyimagine @marvelhead17 @rovvboat @angstybadboytrash @whitewitchdown @master-sass-blast @mori-fandom @mooleche @dandyqueen . Wanna be added or removed? Holla at me.

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Piotr had made a massive platter of tacos for lunch. Piotr, Ellie, Yukio, and Rhonda sat around the table and had just started eating when Wade and Cable showed up.

Wade gasped in dramatic mock-offense, “What the fuck, Colossus? You made tacos and didn’t bother to invite me?” He pulled his phone from a pocket and after some taps and swipes, showed the table an Instagram post--Yukio’s smiling face in a low corner, holding a taco, while Ellie and Piotr were behind her, assembling more tacos. “I gotta hear about this shit from Yukio’s adorable Instagram! -- Hi, Yukio!” he waved cheerfully at her.

“Hi, Wade!” she beamed and waved back. “Happy to see you!” When she gestured toward the tacos, Wade snatched one up and started crunching away.

Piotr hesitated and almost turned them away, but he checked Rhonda’s face. She held her head tall, shoulders down in a posture that didn’t look nervous. Her eyes had the slightest squint in a reserved smile, but she didn’t look afraid like she had when she first met Cable.

Turning his attention back to his boisterous friend, Piotr said firmly, “A plate, Wade. Hello, Cable.”

Cable, quiet as ever, got plates for himself and Wade to join the table for lunch. He gave everyone his typical curt nod, but gave Rhonda an actual verbal greeting with his nod, “Rhonda.”

“Hey,” she returned politely between bites. It might be surprising for a Russian to be good at cooking Tex-Mex, but Piotr certainly made some fabulous tacos. The seasoning was flavorful and spicy, without being overbearingly hot.

“Oh, heyyy!” One of Wade’s cheeks bulged as he eyed Rhonda. “Look at you! Less Shawshank, more spank bank. I like it.”

Piotr’s eyes bulged and he nearly choked on his food. Rhonda almost spat the drink she’d just sipped. She checked her clothes, scoffing. “What about sweaty hair and old hoodie says spank bank?”

Wade shrugged, “Ask the Venom fans, I honestly don’t know.”

As she thumbed away the little spot of sour cream on her lip, Rhonda shot Ellie a look, hoping for an explanation for what the hell he was talking about. Ellie rolled her eyes and shook her head.

This visit was going much better than the last one. Cable usually matched Ellie for hard scowls and pretending nothing has ever been fun ever, but even both of them had some laughs. The group generally caught up and shared news.

“So wait,” Wade interrupted Piotr in the middle of some updates about the school. “Who did your wife try to stab last week?”

Yukio and Ellie hesitated, Piotr tried to shut down that line of questioning, but before he could, Rhonda thumped one hand on the table. “Okay, look,” she said, defensive and irritated, “Kurt did his bamf-out-of-nowhere thing, like he always has, because he thought it would be funny to startle me, like he always has.” She huffed. “It’s just that my...startle reflex is no longer jumping or shrieking--it got re-trained so I now go straight to stabbing a motherfucker. But I did not actually hit him.”

In truth, the fact that Rhonda had almost stabbed a close friend had scared her as much as Piotr. The look on Kurt’s face when he’d bamfed away to avoid the shiv, however, was priceless. Who’s startled now, bitch?

Rhonda grumbled into her taco, “It was nice to see him get scared for once, though.”

Wade’s face was lit up with pure joy as he slapped at Cable’s shoulder, “Oh my god. We gotta take her to a haunted house in the fall!”

A worst case scenario flashed in Piotr’s brain that involved several people missing their kidneys and his wife shaking in a corner. “Absolutely not,” he said.

“We’ll see!” Wade insisted.

Cable did his best to rein him in and shift the subject. “Rehab, though?” he asked, “The music helping you?”

Rhonda brightened. “Yeah! Well, sort of. It helps me focus.”

Yukio beamed, “Have you listened to Hozier yet?”

Ellie and Rhonda exchanged sly smiles before Rhonda answered, “Next on my list.”

Piotr beamed proudly, gesturing to his wife, “She had wonderful breakthrough yesterday! Lit a bulb so bright, it shattered.” He said more quietly, “Though, perhaps don’t hold it so close to your face next time, sladkaya.”

Steri-strips still criss-crossed her face over the nicks as she gave a halfhearted eye roll. She only kept the strips on so Piotr didn’t force something more drastic like a cone of shame.

Scooping up little taco remnants onto her fork, Rhonda admitted, “It’s not like when your abilities are new and you’re just trying to do better than running on raw emotion.” She tapped one of the steri-strips, “This caught me by surprise while I was venting about something, but otherwise...I know exactly how I used to control it, I just...it’s like I can’t reach it.”

That just-out-of-reach feeling itself was frustrating, but what made it even worse was not knowing how to make her friends understand. Why would they, if they’d never experienced something like this themselves? She gestured, struggling for words, “Like if you...took a ton of piano lessons as a kid, didn’t keep up with it, and tried years later to play piano.”

Yukio nodded sipping her water, “You might remember a few of the easy songs, but nothing fancy?”

Rhonda nodded and shrugged, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s close enough.”

“So what I’m hearing,” Piotr teased with a gentle smile, “Is that perhaps we don’t have to worry about you frying all the wiring in the house?” At his wife’s sigh and snicker, Piotr clarified for the rest, “When we were young, this one would blow the circuits in half the house every time she got nervous.”

Glancing around the kitchen, Rhonda added, “I did get pretty good at fixing the wiring.”

Lunch was wrapping up and Ellie, Yukio, and Cable moved dishes to the kitchen. Wade playfully poked Rhonda’s arm, shoulder, and face. “Well, come on, show us what you got!”

Rhonda glanced at her husband, then back to Wade, swatting his hand away, "I dunno, um...there’s really not much to see yet." She shifted in her seat, folding her arms and pulling her hoodie tighter.

"Last time we saw you,” Wade gestured wildly, “you could do the human sparkler thing." He waited, and when she was still narrowing her eyes at him, he added, “PLEASE, what the fuck, COME ON, I just wanna do the Uncle Fester thing!”

“Who?” Ellie asked in disgust.

Rhonda leveled a disbelieving sneer on Wade. “You want me to light a bulb in your mouth?”

Cable’s face fell. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” he murmured to himself.

Pointing at the steri-strips on her face, Rhonda said, “You realize that’s dangerous, right?”

Wade just laughed. And laughed and laughed.

Rhonda turned to her husband and shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the stupidest thing I’ve done.”

Piotr wasn’t happy about it, but they all went into the backyard to see if Rhonda could actually light a bulb held in Wade’s mouth.

Yukio was earnestly excited. With some electrical abilities herself, she liked finding new party tricks, even if this one seemed risky for her taste. Ellie started recording a video, not because she doubted Rhonda’s control, but anything involving Wade had potential to go hilariously wrong.

Cable and Piotr wore matching exasperated frowns, both crossing their arms as they watched their respective partners. Leaning his head just a bit toward the Russian, Cable asked, “Any advice for how to rein him in when he’s a jackass like this?”

With a halfhearted shrug, Piotr said, “With her, sometimes I just have to wait until she falls asleep.”

“And?”

Piotr blinked and shook his head, “And then she is asleep. Wade is like that too, in my experience.”

Rhonda carefully considered between two light bulbs which she would use for Wade. The lower watt one was more likely to shatter if she accidentally hit it with too much power, but the higher watt bulb might be tougher to sustain a light.

“I want the big one!” Wade pointed, eyes and smile wide with glee.

Hoping it was the right choice, Rhonda handed the smaller bulb to Yukio. Wade looked directly into the camera on Ellie’s phone and made his best Christopher Lloyd impression, “My name is Fester! It means...to rot!” He was practically bouncing with excitement as he beckoned Rhonda, “Okay, okay, put it in me!”

“Wow,” she said simply as she set the fitting in his mouth. She backed away a few feet to get clear of Ellie’s shot, and focused.

Rhonda could feel the electricity that was in the air and pulsed through everyone’s bodies. It pulsed and flowed through her, stronger than through other people. Carefully targeting the bulb in Wade’s mouth and nothing else, she sent a pulse. At first it flickered. For about ten seconds, flicker was all it did.

“All right, Wade,” Cable grumbled, “You had your fun--”

Wade indignantly waved him off. Rhonda was about to give up when she decided to push just a little harder. To her surprise, and everyone else’s, the light suddenly grew stable and bright.

Yukio clapped, Piotr beamed with pride, but Wade made an alarmed sound and dropped the bulb into his hands. Rhonda immediately dropped the pulse and reached for him to see if he was okay.

“My mouth started buzzing!” Wade yelled. “Fuck! That was--that was like doing a BUNCH of cocaine, and then eating pop rocks! Or sucking off a Tazer.”

Rhonda took back the bulb and chided, “We said it was a dumb idea.”

Wade’s voice came out smooth and sultry, “I didn’t say I wasn’t into it.”

Unsure what to say to that, Rhonda turned to head into the house. Behind her, she could hear Ellie’s quip, “Yeah, I’ll get some good memes out of this one.” Piotr caught up to Rhonda, with Yukio and Ellie behind him and Cable and Wade bringing up the rear.

A trio of teenage boys were getting snacks in the kitchen when Rhonda and the rest came back in from the yard. A particularly chunky boy narrowed his eyes at Rhonda before pleasantly smiling in recognition. “Hey! Guestbook! I didn’t know you live here!”

Rhonda’s blood went cold and she froze. Piotr stopped short to avoid bumping into her. She recognized this kid as the one who had tried to pick fights and assert dominance over the same thugs she avoided at all costs.

“Russell!” Wade yelled excitedly from behind Ellie.

Russell, for his part, wasn’t particularly good at reading people, but he knew he’d said something wrong when the strange woman’s smile turned to a murderous glare. She crossed the room, not too fast, but certainly full of intent. She stopped slightly outside of arm’s reach.

“Sladkaya?” Piotr asked behind her.

She ignored her husband and looked Russell directly in the eye. In a low growl too quiet for anyone else to hear, she said, “My name. Is Rhonda Rasputin. And you do not call me by any other name.” Her dark eyes were hard like onyx as Russell swallowed, trying to look less afraid than he was.

Before he could answer, or apologize, Rhonda spun and headed for the hall, calling over her shoulder, “Yukio, I heard you wanted to play with some hair dye? Let’s go.”

Elated, Yukio practically skipped after her, tugging Ellie behind her.

Piotr watched his wife stalk off, deciding he would have to see Wade and Cable out as soon as he could before he could ask her what that was all about.

#piotr rasputin x oc #colossus x oc #fluff #angst #so glad i managed to finish this chapter tonight omfg #it's been all over the place oops #not a ghost

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chromecutie · 5 years

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Not a Ghost - part 10

Taglist: @emma-frxst @ra-ra-rasputiin @holamor @empressme-bitch @marvel-is-perfection @hazilyimagine @marvel-forever-17 @rovvboat (also @angstybadboytrash @whitewitchdown and @master-sass-blast had expressed interest on my original pitch post). Wanna be added or removed? Holla at me.

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He tucked the blanket around her and then simply sat with her on the bed. He had made her a sandwich, but it sat untouched on a plate, resting on her nightstand. “Sladkaya,” Piotr prompted softly, “you should eat, and then take the sedative Hank brought for you.”

When he couldn’t get Rhonda to say what had happened in the Danger Room, he had hurried to their room and called Dr. McCoy to come check her over. When they couldn’t find any physical injury, Hank reminded her (mostly to tell Piotr) not to push too hard in regaining her ability, and to talk to someone about her experience in the Icebox. Rhonda had given monosyllabic responses and wouldn’t make eye contact.

On his way out, Hank had said quietly to Piotr, “Don’t hesitate to call me if you need anything. See if you can get her to talk about whatever happened.”

After Hank left, they sat in silence for a while. Rhonda was curled in the blankets several minutes before she finally said, “I’m not going back in the Danger Room.”

Piotr spread his hand over her shoulder and rubbed her back. “No one said you have to, my love.”

She stirred, “The next time I’m in a cold, echo-ey room will be when I’m on a mortician’s slab.” Rhonda pulled the bedding tighter under her chin and tried to disappear into the pillow.

He thought for a moment as he continued rubbing her back and arm, then made a decision. He patted her and stood. “I’m going to ask Professor Xavier to come see--”

Rhonda’s hand shot out from under the covers and grabbed her husband’s hand, “No, don’t! Please…”

His gaze followed the black and blue Xs that filled her arm and saw she had even sat up to grab him. There was dread in her wide, sunken eyes. “Rhonda, why?” he asked. “Why won’t you talk to him? Is it because,” he took a breath, “Is it because he couldn’t find you?”

Bewildered, she shook her head. The reality of not being found was hard to deal with, but blaming her chosen family had never occurred to her. “No, it’s…” Rhonda backed up against the headboard, and without realizing she was doing it, evaluated the ways she could exit this room. What obstacles were between her and the door, how quickly could she open the window and what was under the balcony if she jumped off? She looked at Piotr’s face, then at her fingers as they knotted at her knees.

Michelle’s warning looped in her head: she was a danger. Her voice was small, but absolutely certain, “If I tell anyone about my time in prison, I won’t be allowed to stay here.”

Piotr was stunned. He eased back onto the bed and rested his palm against his wife’s cheek. “That’s - sladkaya, no, no. I saw your scars yesterday, I know they did things to you, but none of it is your fault.”

“It’s not just what was done to me, it’s - it’s what I did too.” She could feel her blood turning cold, but she had to make him understand. “I can’t say it or I’ll lose everything I barely managed to come home to.”

Piotr’s heart ached, knowing she really believed her family would throw her out for any reason. “You will lose nothing,” he promised her. “If anyone tries to say you have to leave, they will have to go through me.” He watched her face, waiting for that to sink in, until she took a breath and her expression softened - slightly. With a patient, neutral tone, he asked, “What are you afraid to say? Does it have to do with killing?”

Rhonda huffed, still reluctant, “It was a max security prison. Nothing good happens there. Why do you want to know specifics?”

He clasped his hands around her shins, still pulled up so her knees were almost under her chin. “My love, I can tell you are hurting. Talking will help you feel better.”

She passed a hand over her face and fidgeted. “That place…” she began after a deep breath, “If you had one of those collars on, you wouldn’t be eight feet tall and armored up anymore, but you’d still be six-foot-nine and stronger than most people in there.” She finally met his eyes and the haunted shadow in them frightened Piotr. “When I had the collar, I was nothing. Everyone could overpower me, I -- I met a fourteen year old kid who could’ve beat my ass if he wanted to -- anyone in there could pin me down and do whatever they wanted.”

From the way she broke her gaze and looked away, it was clear the other inmates of the Icebox had done exactly that. She slid her palm all the way up her right arm, as if she could wipe off the Xs that marked it. Anger swelled in Piotr’s heart. He watched his wife, the woman who used to show him animal rescue videos even though they made her cry, the woman who didn’t teach any classes but filled her hours with tutoring Xavier students who needed extra help, and helped organize a variety show once a year. His teeth made an audible grinding sound when he imagined her getting pinned down for anything.

“So it wasn’t enough to kill in self defense,” Rhonda continued. “I had to make them think I’m crazy enough that they better think twice before attacking me--” her breathing had quickened. “I made a spectacle. I made it as loud and dramatic as possible. It worked...sort of.”

The puddle of blood spread wide over the floor. It was nearly impossible to get through the room without stepping in it. There were squishy bits in it that were better left unidentified. Her arms were covered in blood up to the elbows. The dying man burbled his last breath, cursing her.

By now, Piotr had moved so he was sitting at the headboard too. He watched his wife’s eyes well up with tears, but they didn’t fall yet. After a long pause, he realized she wouldn’t say more about what she meant by “dramatic” when it came to killing. Her breathing had slowed again, to his relief. His warm steel hands gently took her right hand and he examined the marks. “And these?” he tried to keep that patient, neutral tone but his throat was tight; he was fighting tears too. “Were they to count the time there?”

“No,” she returned in a hoarse whisper.

“They’re all over. How many Xs do you have?”

“I’ve never counted.”

“Who did--”

“Please,” she cut him off impatiently. She pulled her arm away and tucked it tight against her body as if it was broken. “Please…” The tears finally started falling.

Piotr pulled her into his arms, tucking her head into his chest. “My love,” his voice was frayed, “I’m sorry I pushed you.” Her shoulders shook against his torso. He let her cry until she was half asleep against him, rubbing her arms and smoothing his hand over her hair, kissing her head.

Eventually, he tucked the covers around her again. Rhonda stayed tightly curled, and Piotr pressed one more kiss to her head. “I’ll be back soon.”

When he returned, she was asleep, curled in the covers, but the sandwich on her nightstand had been half eaten, and the sedative pills were gone. He slipped into bed with her, tucking her close against him. After a few minutes, she uncurled. Piotr felt her rigid muscles relax, and wondered if he was doing the right thing to keep prodding her to talk.

#colossus #deadpool 2 #colossus x oc #angst #longfic #piotr rasputin x oc #piotr rasputin #xmen

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