It was late enough that there were very few customers at the malt shoppe except for the two young women in one of the furthest corner booths — a blonde and a darker-haired woman. They were regular customers, though, and none of the wait staff were surprised to see them. It had been a longstanding tradition for Kate Bishop and Cassie Lang to meet up whenever they could get away to catch up with each other, and ice cream was their favorite excuse.
"Okay, but you clearly haven't updated me on all the stories," Cassie said with a grin as she looked across the table at Kate.
Kate just gave her friend a wry grin. "That's because we haven't had the chance to sit down and talk since... forever," she pointed out, though that was only have the story. The other half was that she had broken a date with Cassie already, several times, because for a while there, it had been hard trying to do the solo Hawkeye thing and the Hawkeyes teamup and still hang out at the X-Mansion all the time.
That was the thing about superhero dating, Kate reflected as she took a bite out of the chocolate chunks in her sundae. Sometimes, the scheduling thing was hard. Sometimes, your boyfriend went out with the X-Men while you fought Hydra with a stupid blonde archer. And sometimes there were long gaps when one fight ended long before the other ended — so... ice cream with Cassie was a great time-filler. Well, more than a time-filler. But still.
She couldn't help but grin over at Cassie, whose eyes were positively sparkling with excitement. "Come on, Kate. I saw you on the news. Since when are you an X-Man? You don't have any powers."
"I don't have an X-uniform; I just hang out with them," Kate said in the tired tone of someone who had explained it a hundred times over.
"Uh-huh." Cassie smirked over the top of her spoon. "I tried to look you up at your apartment, but someone else lives there now." She raised her eyebrows and just slowly stirred what was left in her bowl as she waited for the dirt.
"Well isn't that interesting," Kate said with a straight face as Cassie just shook her head.
"You're living at that mansion, aren't you?" Cassie blurted out, pointing her spoon at her. "I know you are — so start spilling!"
"Cassie, I send you selfies when we go out on adventures together, I call you all the time-"
"You are living at the mansion. You're totally an X-Man," Cassie said. She scooped out the last of the brownie at the bottom of her sundae and popped it in her mouth. "Doesn't matter if you have an X on your uniform. Don't lie to me," she said around the chocolate, not nearly as intimidating with a mouthful of brownie as she was probably trying to be.
"Look, they offered, but—"
"What?" Cassie looked mortally offended as she rushed to swallow her sweets with a hard gulp. "They offered and you turned them down?"
"I literally just went solo, like, a couple weeks before I met Kurt?" Kate pointed out. "I want to keep doing the solo-Hawkeye thing for a while."
Cassie raised an eyebrow. "I'd say a few months is plenty of solo time, Kate. Not that you've been solo that whole time."
"You promised you'd stop teasing," Kate said, shaking her head. "And making bad jokes."
"Never." Cassie said it with such relish that they both had to laugh. "He's cute, Kate. And I still haven't met him, and this is a crying shame."
"Your mom would have a freakout if you met any more superheroes than you already know," Kate pointed out.
"My mom has a freakout just because I eat ice cream with you," Cassie teased.
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Dating an X-Man is Hazardous to Your Health
FanficA fabulous continuation of the newly minted 714 Universe where we give our favorite characters the opportunity to be happy then sit back and see what they do with it! Volume 1 ("A Wolverine, An Elf, and a Hawkeye") is over on CanuckleheadCowgirl's p...