Work Text:
"I think I'd like to better my relationship with you."
The look you give Ororo when the foreign words that bled from her lips wants to make her smile, but she knows it would fall to uncertainty once the muscles worked themselves.
“What?”
She hums, brows raising in curiosity as she turns her head back to the cloudless sky, focusing her attention back on piloting the Black Bird. When you don’t let up, Ororo tilts her head and allows her lips to thin. “I’m sorry?”
“What did you say?” Your voice was as though you were trying to console a wounded animal; but wasn’t exempt from the probing of your words. You lean out of your pilot’s seat to catch a better look at her face, eyes squinted as you try to look for any meager signs of translation.
Her eyes flit from you to the control panel at her stomach. “.. It’s a saying,” she excuses herself, the tip of her tongue raw from her nibbling. Her palms were beginning to sweat as though she’d been found out. “back in Egypt. I suppose I just picked it up.”
Ororo’s gaze trembles as she tries her best to not to crash the jet into the nearest valley. She knows she could carry it back home with a simple thought— a gust of wind would sweep below the belly and guide them into the mansion’s hangar without issue.
Well, maybe. If she could get her racing heart under control.
Her hair feels like it’s rising. Is it rising? She looks fine, right? Nothing out of place? She’s still the calm, cool, collected Ororo Munroe, right? The mysterious transfer student from Egypt with no known (or alive) relatives who gets strange when in closed spaces, right?
“What’s it mean?”
“You can’t translate it into English.”
She catches the way your emotions deflate, eyebrows stitching together in disappointment.
“It’s just— weird? It’s saved for people you consider close; like a family member or best friend.” Ororo tries to save it with a lie, fists firm on the wheel. She takes a deep breath and tries to play it off as though she were trying to figure out a better way to describe it. “I like you a lot, you know? The only people I was close to there were the kids, but it lacked.. substance..?”
“I thought you said they thought of you like a big sister?”
“I got them food, clothing, and a place to sleep. If they didn’t I’d..” Her words trail off. She can’t bring herself to threaten the children she’d grown so fond of.
You don’t need to hear the rest, able to get what she meant from what little she provided you with. Instead, you take notice of how chilly the cockpit had become over the conversation.
Hovering your finger over the button that allowed the pilots to switch, you jerk your head over your shoulder. “If you’re tired, I can take over for however long.” Your offer was firm. Ororo would have taken it for a demand if not for the way your brows stitched together in concern. “Do you need to rest?”
“I’m fine.” She responds, pushing your hand away gingerly. “Just didn’t expect to get quizzed, that’s all.”
Ororo catches the way you smile at her teasing. It makes her body burn with an emotion she can’t place. “I’m sure you’re tired of looking at nothing. Why don’t you take that break instead?”
“Please, and leave you up here alone?” You respond, reaching over to pull her hand closest to you off the wheel and into your lap. You ignore how sweltering her skin is in comparison to the room, choosing to bring it up to your lips and press the back of it against them. “I know the sky’s your domain, but even the things that belong to you can get a little boring.”
Ororo rolls her eyes but can’t help the stupid, lovesick grin that dances onto her features as you move her hand to your cheek, interlocking your fingers together. “Sometimes, I suppose.” She confirms with a thoughtful hum.