Warren Worthington III

Okay, mutations really are a roulette wheel, some worse than others and some stranger than others, especially with Warren and his wings. You had figured he would have quirks, but this? You found it sweet. The circumstances weren’t entirely normal.

Warren was in the corner by the window, with his back to you and his wings spread at that particular angle you recognized as the one he used when he was doing something that required concentration, and it took you a second to process what exactly he was doing. He was arranging things. Meticulously. Among his feathers, with a delicacy his huge hands didn’t suggest they were capable of, small objects you had seen around the apartment without connecting them to each other: a twig you didn’t know the origin of, something soft that might have been cotton, the piece of blue cloth you had been looking for three weeks ago.

A nest. Warren Worthington III, heir to a considerable fortune, an angel quite literally, an X-Man, was building a nest among his own wings with the seriousness of someone performing a completely reasonable task. You didn’t say anything for a moment, taking in the scene with that specific feeling of watching something that wasn’t meant to have an audience.

Warren turned his head and saw you, and what crossed his face was the adult, millionaire version of being caught doing something you didn’t know how to explain.

“It’s not what it looks like,” he said.

“And what does it look like?” you said, genuinely curious, because what it looked like was exactly what it was and you didn’t see the problem.

“It’s instinct,” he said, with that discomfort of his that came up whenever something made him feel more mutant than he wanted to feel at any given moment. “Involuntary. I can’t entirely help it.”

You looked at him. Looked at the nest in progress between his wings. Looked at him again.

“Is my blue cloth in there?” you said.

A pause. “Technically, yes.”

“Since when?”

“Three weeks,”