Back out in the hall
Waya gave Pen one last shove as she closed the door behind them. "That is enough." She hissed through gritted teeth. "It's hard enough trying to get shit done with you whining and second guessing everyone, but do you have any idea how hard it is with that... THING in there?" She pointed back towards the door. Penelope knew. In a moment of weakness Waya had confessed to her last night that George was the cause of sleepless nights, the anxiety that wouldn't let her eat. "For once forget about your hair frizzing up and think about someone else for a change. You didn't even give a shit that Junior, your
brother is half alive back there. You might not give a shit about me trying to keep it together or Liz burning her hand, but for fuck sake at least give a shit about him."
"Hey! I care about Junior! He was fine."
Penelope argued. Apparently she hadn't realized the extent of his energy release. "Ugh! Just... I'm sorry, okay?! I just think we should look topside before trying to examine a damn computer. I don't have patience with that shit. They could be upstairs and we're dicking around down here!"
"We're trying to be safe."
Waya told her. "We've gone in head first too many times to end up with our asses in our hands. We know what we're doing, Penelope. YOU don't. You spent the last year flaunting your shit on some stage for Mojo while we were becoming X-Men. Gah..." She pinched the bridge of her nose and her anger deflated a little. "You know, I'm glad you didn't get a chance to know who Will was. If he knew this was how his daughter behaved on her first mission, he'd be sick. Will was solid. Will was a rock. Will saved lives every time he put THAT-" She pointed at Penelope's uniform. The one she'd augmented so it would fit her and not a man. "uniform on... What have you done in it but complain?"
That hurt and it was evident in her body movements. Her shoulders fell a little and she looked down and away from Waya. It was a submissive posture. She wanted to come back with something, but had a loss for words.
Waya knew it would hurt, that's why she'd said it. Not in order to hurt Penelope, but to make her see how she was behaving. "Make this mission something he can be proud of." She said. "He might not even be here, in this dimension. But if he is, if we do find him, you don't want it to be with us all arguing and acting like children because we can't get along. We're a team, Pen. Show him that. You don't always have to fight everyone all the time..." (god mod moment, feel free to remove if you don't like it. I imagine Pen knows shes in her head) She saw it in Penelope's mind without meaning to. A magenta skinned little girl with white hair, sitting on her knees, arm up to block the mud clods being thrown at her. Her cute little dress was filthy, the white tights she had on were stained brown with mud. She wasn't crying. She wanted to, but she seemed to refuse. The kids were singing one of those little anti mutant nursery type rhymes kids like to come up with. Little Penelope's powers began to manifest.
"Knock it off... can we just go back now?"
Penelope asked, not liking how Waya was dragging this out.
"Sorry..." Waya said, disconnecting from Pen's mind. "I didn't mean to do that..."
Before she disconnected completely, she saw a flash of little Penelope with her powers and how she... would use them to pick on the other kids. She got her revenge and from that moment, decided if she couldn't be friends with anyone, she would make them be scared of her instead. The anger turned into snobbery through age and an ego the size of the state of New York. Head still down partially,
Penelope headed back down the hallway.
Waya didn't like any of what she saw, least of all the last part. At least Waya had had the opertunity to grow up where people understood, where they cared more about who you were than what you could do to them. Hoping their mission would go better now, she followed Penelope back.
Stumble!