Disclaimer: Characters belong to Marvel. Christy belongs to Warren. Story belongs to me. Hearye, hearye: A/P 'shippers shalt not flame me. Alternate future type stuff.

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Betsy dropped to her knees, snaking her hands under the bed to find that final pair of socks. She drew her nose up as she placed them in the moving box. He was not so fastidious with his clothing as he had once been.

"Bets! Bets! There you are." Warren stumbled in from the hall, a stack of papers and a few odds and ends in his arms. He added them to the other leftovers in the box.

They looked at each other. Twenty-six years of marriage crumbling to dust in a matter of weeks. The papers were signed, the lawyers were paid and family and friends had been informed. It seemed so easy to walk away from it all.

Wanting to be sociable about the whole ordeal, he reached out his hand to shake hers. She threw up a telekinetic shield, as if she expected a blow.

His eyes narrowed at the rebuff. "That's just like you. Aloof and distant to the end, my dear?"

She shot back brightly, "Airheaded and scatterbrained to the finish, my love?"

The tension in the room skyrocketed. The rugs bristled, the walls shivered, and the air grew tight, as if the house were anticipating yet another epic battle.

Running his hand through ash blond hair, he conceded, "I think we've had this fight already."

"Is this the one about who's fault this all is? Alright then, let's skip it." She managed a wry smile to accompany her matter-of-fact words.

But the tension remained and with good reason. "We need to talk about the house." Warren didn't even look at her as he dropped the bomb she had hoped to avoid at all costs.

It exploded all over her face as she glowed red and glowered at him. She forced the heat out of her voice. Life had taught her not to seem too eager, especially when something was important to her. "It's not like you're ever here anyway. I don't see why you would even want the house. I mean, don't you and Cheryl have a flat already?" Betsy spoke briskly and packed even faster. She wanted his things out of her house as soon as mutantly possible.

"First of all, her name is Christy. Second of all, this is not about her at all." Warren ticked off the points on his fingers even though he knew that ticked her off. He had had his fill of her cool, composed demeanor. "Third, I don't want to live here--"

"Oh, there's a newsflash. Call John, it's another revelation." She slammed the closet door with her hip as she threw his pair of last shoes in the direction of the cardboard box on her bed.

"--I want to sell it." He crossed his arms over his rounding chest and watched her bristle. "And stop acting all wounded about Christy. You practically gave permission after I caught you with Raymond or Ramon or whatever his name was." He could feel the blood rushing to his face, part unresolved embarrassment, part unquenched anger.

"Sell it!" Brian and Meghan were ensconced in Braddock Manor. She had no other home to go to. This was the home they had made together; an English Tudor with touch of American extravagance. It was their house. It suited them. She wasn't going to lose it too. "What about the children? Where will they go on summer break if I sell the house?"

Warren sighed and stalked over to the bed. Hefting the last box of his belongings, he didn't mention that Christy was three months pregnant or that he considered the house to be too great a temptation to regress into their past. "The divorce papers call for the dissolution of all shared assets, Bets. Your signature is right next to mine." He absorbed her glare and started to work his way out of the door.

Elizabeth Braddock-Worthington, due to be simply Braddock on the 15th of the month, stared at his back as he maneuvered himself out of her bedroom. "You don't care what happens to our children, is that what you're telling me?" Even as she spat the words, she knew it wasn't true. It was quite undignified for her to go on this way, but she was tired of keeping it all trapped beneath a glass facade.

He stopped short and faced her. "You don't get it do you? It's over Bets. No more need to play happy family. The kids are in college and the dogs are at the kennel. We can go back to leading our own separate lives, just like we always have." That wasn't true. There had been a time when he gave up part of his soul for her, literally. She had been his life. Somewhere along the way they had lost that bond and it was easier to act as if it had never been than to wonder why it was no longer.

She didn't respond to him. Her head sunk to her chest and her hand rubbed her forehead, right where the purple was giving way to gray. He waited several beats, watching the haggard lines life with him had put on her face smooth out as she let her face go blank. He was used to that, her shutting down, shutting him out. "I'm not going to fight with you about this, Bets. If you don't call a Realtor by Tuesday, I'll call one myself." The house would sell instantaneously. She wouldn't have much time to find another place.

Warren walked away, down the back stairs and into the dining room. In a farewell gesture, he wandered through the rooms, remembering. As soon as there was a knew family living here, he would be able to forget how much it had meant to him to come home to a wife and kids and seven course diners and brandy in front of the fire. This had been his aviary, his sanctuary. He was about to fly the coop for the last time when he sensed her eyes on his back. His wings twitched as he looked her way.

"I'll pay you half the value if you promise not to call the Realtor." Her jaw was set, stubborn pride glistening in her violet eyes. She couldn't leave. There was no place she would rather be.

He was going to say no. He wanted to. Christy wanted him to. They had shared so little of themselves, for so long. Perhaps there could be one compromise that wasn't hard fought and hard won. "Fine. We'll contact the lawyers on Monday."

Warren left, with his box of trifles beside him, and went back to his apartment and his girlfriend and a quiet Sunday dinner in front of the TV.

Betsy stayed, with a fistful of feathers beside her, at the oak dining table that sat 12 and spent another Sunday night at home.

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