Finding You

[theycalledmeacurse]

I know forever don't exist
But after this life, I'll find you in the next
So when I say "forever," it's the goddamn truth
I'll keep finding you...

Aliens. Of all the things that could have gone wrong on her first solo business trip for the school, somehow aliens hadn't really made the list of possibilities. Breaking a shoe on the way to the donor's office, her car breaking down on the way into the city, getting food poisoning from bad sushi — the list went on and on, but aliens had never really occurred to her. Staring up at the giant armored worm thing flying above the street a few blocks down, she realizes that apparently it should have.

It takes time for her to fight the crowds fleeing the epicenter of the attack, each second feeling like an hour, and then she's faced with one of those creatures, its weapon pointing straight at her—

Reflexes honed by years of training sessions in the Danger Room have her dropping just in time, the car behind her taking the brunt of the impact with a metallic screech, and then she's back on her feet, a short metal stick in her hand expanding to a full-length staff. She wastes no time in swinging it at her enemy with practiced force, focused on damaging that armor enough to get hold of its weapon. Once she has it, she should be able to take them out much more efficiently.

It's a good thing everyone is more focused on the alien invasion than the woman with the weird hair trying to play ninja in a business suit.

Comments

[theycalledmeacurse]

"It's okay. I didn't really expect you either," she comments quietly, trying to commiserate on the only front that they seem to share - being completely, disastrously surprised by the other. "Especially not on a day like this."

A day when the world as they knew it had tried to end.

[on_ur_left]

That gets another huff of a laugh from him. He glances around - at the carnage and destruction, but also at the people helping each other. "I dunno," he murmurs. "Seems like this is a pretty good day for it. Hope... You always need hope, on a day like this."

He thinks back to when he met Bucky - when his father was still alive, and still knocking his ma around. And when he met Marie... "The day I met her," he says softly, as if imparting a great secret, "I was buying flowers for my mother. She was in the hospital. Dying. I don't think I could've done what I did, without Marie."

[theycalledmeacurse]

The other Marie, the one he'd lost. The one who had apparently changed his life for the better. The one he missed with his whole heart, who she looked like for some unknown reason. A feeling of dread curls into her stomach and she carefully pulls her hand back.

"I'm sorry that I'm not her." It's all she can think to say in the face of all this. What could she possibly offer him when this other woman did so much? She can't provide the same life-changing experiences, and once he knows more about her, she very much doubts that he'll even want her to try. She's a defective model and he'd finally struck out in the soulmate lottery.

[on_ur_left]

He glances over when she pulls her hand away, confused at first - but the look on her face says enough. He may not know what's going through her head, but her words and that look tell him enough. Taking a slow, deep breath to help get his thoughts in order, Steve shakes his head. "I don't want you to be her." He raises a hand slightly in a 'stop; wait' gesture. "Yeah, when I first saw you, I thought-- I don't know what I thought, or wanted."

Licking his lips, he shakes his head. "Trust me. I know all about not being what people want, being a disappointment." He finally looks straight in her eyes. "You're not. I could pull out the 'soulmate' card, saying you could never disappoint me. That's not it. I don't judge people based on anybody else. Do you remind me of her? Absolutely. But a lotta that's because I don't know you yet. An' I haven't known a single person I was disappointed with." He shrugs jerkily. "Met, yeah. I've met some real assholes and losers. Just from what I've seen today, I know you're not one of them. You were out there fighting, and helping people who were scared,and lost."

One more deep breath; this is the hardest thing he's ever said, because it's not said in anger, but with compassion. "If you wanna walk away, never see me again... I understand. Trust me, you wouldn't be the first who wouldn't wanna bet on me. But I'm glad I met you. No matter what happens."

[theycalledmeacurse]

Where he means those words to be encouraging, to soothe her worries and sweep aside her doubts, all it does it make that ache in her stomach worse. He doesn't know what he's talking about and for one terrifying moment, she's afraid she might start crying. She doesn't, thank goodness, but in another moment it's just as hard to keep from shouting at him. Her mood fluctuates back and forth behind a well-controlled expression, years of practice at hiding what she's feeling making it far easier than it should be.

"I appreciate you sayin' all that, I really do," she assures him, making sure her tone can't be interpreted as dismissive. "But I'm a mutant, sugar, your whole life will be a hell of a lot better without me in it. That's just a fact with the way the world is right now, and it's not getting better anytime soon."

[on_ur_left]

A mutant. He... has no idea what that means. And some of his confusion probably shows on his face; he works his jaw back and forth for a second, mulling over how to respond.

Finally he just glances over at her, feeling a little helpless, and says, "I don't know what that means. I'm kinda behind the times still."

[theycalledmeacurse]

...what.

How can he not know. The idea can't even process properly in her mind, it's so incomprehensible that someone could not know about them. But he's not lying, she can see that clearly.

Opening her mouth to respond, she jumps instead as her pocket buzzes suddenly. The phone she extracts from the inside jacket pocket has a cracked screen thanks to one punch or another, but the display is still readable, a line of text that she reads quickly before tapping it away.

"I have to go," she explains, an air of apology in the words. "My team will be here soon."

Reaching back into the pocket, she pulls out a business card with a bent corner and holds it out to him. "Do some research. If, after that, you still wanna talk - this is how to reach me." Her name is written there on one side, Rogue with a phone number below it, and on the other side a stylized X. "But I won't blame you if you don't."

[on_ur_left]

Team. She's got a team?

...shit, his team! They're probably still waiting for him in the Tower. Steve takes the card, eyes a little wide as he internally panics a little, wondering just how long he's been sitting here wallowing in his own problems, ignoring his teammates. Tony's probably throwing a bitch-fit by now.

Looking at the card, his eyes soften a little, his thumb brushing lightly over the word Rogue. His gaze flicks back to her face, her hair. She may be Marie - different life experiences, different person, but essentially Marie all over again - but Rogue fits her perfectly.

There are a hundred, a thousand things he wants to say to her. None of them seem right, so he just gives a nod of his head, and settles on, "Thank you."

[theycalledmeacurse]

"See ya around, sugar."

She gives him a smile, perhaps the first since they've met (certainly the first real one), then hauls herself up off the ground. Her wounded leg is favored with practice and she doesn't give him the chance to even think about offering her help before she's upright and heading off down the street.

Halfway down the block her phone is out again as she gives a damage report and suggestions of where to begin helping with search and rescue operations. Hopefully the police don't fight them this time; they just want to help.

[on_ur_left]

Three weeks later, Steve sits in his apartment, staring out the window with his cell phone in his hand, a business card on the table beside his laptop.

He took Marie-- Rogue's advice, and did some homework on mutants, and her team in particular; it didn't take much research to realize the 'X' on the card stood for X-Men, and Steve's not considered a tactical genius for nothing.

It's a lot to take in, mutants, not even counting how people feel about them. He's been thinking about it a lot; mutants, and his first meeting with Rogue. (He's gotten used to calling her that in his head; even if it's just a call sign, it's a tangible way for him to distance her from his Marie, to think of her as her own person.) He's not surprised at the dislike and distrust he's read online, not even very surprised at the ferocity of it. Disappointed, yeah, but not surprised; people always fear and mistrust things and people they don't understand. He thinks even if he didn't have a connection to mutants through Rogue, he'd still feel for them, still be on their side.

Between learning about mutants, and helping restoration efforts for the city, he hasn't had a chance to call her. He really has been busy, but part of him still feels like a coward; like he's been putting it off and avoiding her. He hopes she doesn't think that. Her parting words make him think she was ready for him to never contact her again - but that doesn't mean some part of her hasn't been disappointed every day she doesn't hear from him. He knows a little something about that kind of disappointment.

So, Steve selects 'Rogue' under contacts (he doesn't even have to scroll through a menu, he's got so few contacts in his phone, yet), presses 'Call,' holds the phone to his ear... and waits.

[theycalledmeacurse]

He doesn't have to wait long. Two rings in, she picks up the call, sliding to a stop in the middle of a hallway and giving the phone her full attention. There's no way she expects it to be him, she's honestly stopped hoping to hear from him by this point, but an unknown number on this line usually means X-Men business. And despite everyone in the world dealing with the incredible revelation that aliens are real and tried to destroy New York City, it's still business as usual at Xavier's School.

"This is Rogue," she answers clearly and automatically, southern drawl so much lighter than it had been during their first meeting; now that her life isn't being upended, she's got a much better hold on her accent.

[on_ur_left]

There's a brief pause, that one moment where Steve actually finds himself surprised that this is happening. Then he decides to jump right in. "I think I missed an opportunity a few weeks ago. I should've bet against you thinking you'd never hear from me again."

Clearing his throat, he turns the subject slightly more serious. "Sorry I didn't call before now. I've been helping with clearing and rebuilding efforts, and... I had some research to do."

[theycalledmeacurse]

Oh. It's... him. Even when he finishes speaking, she can hardly believe that she's actually hearing his voice after all these weeks, a voice she's tried and failed to forget. That familiar cadence makes her chest tighten with traitorous hope that she attempts to squash before it gets too out of hand.

"...hang on a sec." Hitting the mute button, she hurries down the rest of the hallway to her classroom, shutting and locking the door behind her before leaning against it and resuming the call. "Sorry, had to get somewhere quiet. You said you've been doing research - how exactly is it that you'd never heard of mutants before?"

She slides down the door to settle onto the floor, appreciating both the new angle in observing her classroom and the quiet. No students here to try to listen over, and likewise none to be overheard by Steve, whose 'research' could have uncovered any number of things. The X-Men are a known quantity among most internet groups tracking the surge in 'superheroes', but the school itself is only known to select groups in even more selective intelligence circles. If he's pulled the right strings, he might know about them, but if not...

As much as she wants to believe that she can trust him right away and without question, the safety of these children is more important to her than he could ever be. She would give her life to protect them from harm, so she sure as hell isn't going to risk telling that huge secret to someone she barely knows.

[on_ur_left]

He hasn't learned about the school, because he didn't ask anyone he knows about mutants. For one thing, he didn't want people asking why he wanted to know, but... mostly, he just didn't want to share this. He wanted to find out for himself what was going on, and while the internet was by far not unbiased or unopinionated, at least it had multiple sources, which made it more well-rounded than the handful of opinions he'd get from his teammates or Fury. (Plus at this point, he trusted any 'facts' he received from the Director about as far as he could throw them - before the serum.)

Unlike Rogue, Steve has no compunction about sharing information that hasn't been made public: namely, his identity. Although he thinks it'll get out eventually, so far the news is still reporting on the devastation of the city, and while 'superheroes' are still being hotly debated and talked about, the fact that a man seventy years' dead/lost to war hasn't cropped up yet. (He's sure it's just a matter of time; he knows how gossip works.)

"Remember I was dressed up like Captain America during the Battle?" he asks dryly. "I wasn't wearing the costume just for fun. Trust me, it's never been a fun costume to wear. I told you I was in a war. I was in World War II. I'm the... well, the 'original' Captain America, I guess. God, I hope there haven't been any others..." He mutters the last to himself, frowning at the table.

[theycalledmeacurse]

"Oh." Well, it's not exactly the answer she'd been expecting, but on a scale of all the weird stuff she's experienced in her life, this really doesn't rank anywhere near the top. Meeting a man who far older than he looks is kind of par for the course in her line of work, though she has a feeling that it's more complicated for Steve. Someone who did what he does, you don't just walk away from that for a couple decades. Something had happened, and yet here he is despite it.

"I can't say if there have been, I'm not really well-versed in that part of history. But that probably means there haven't been." She feels a little guilty admitting that she knows so little about his life before when he had been a prominent figure in history, but she feels justified in being a little distracted. At least she recognizes him from her history classes in high school; that counts for something, right?

[on_ur_left]

He chuckles a little at her response. He doesn't expect anyone to remember things from his time. It's always a trip when he stumbles across something from back then that was so historical that it's entered the national Zeitgeist and is taken for granted, as just another fact of life. "Don't worry about it. Just a passing thought. I..."

Sighing, Steve tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling for a second, before closing his eyes. "The plane I was on went down. I was frozen, presumed dead, for seventy years. Until just a few months ago when they found me. Thawed me out. Like a Thanksgiving turkey, with about as much careful handling." His tone makes it clear that he means: none whatsoever. "And before I was 'Captain America,'" air-quotes obvious in his voice, "I was a scrawny little shrimp nobody, whose mouth was constantly getting him into fights. The one nobody would ever bet on. And here I am, outliving everybody." His bitterness comes through on that last part a little too clearly, and he clears his throat.

"Anyway. So how've you been?" he asks with forced casual cheeriness.

[theycalledmeacurse]

She absorbs all of that information to process later, with extra attention paid to the details like his tone of voice. In the face of all that, he seems to be handling things remarkably well, at least from her vantage point. Which, granted, is a little skewed.

Taking a deep breath, she lets it out in a sigh and rubs a gloved hand over her face. "Busy," is the short answer, but it doesn't really seem fair to leave it at that when he's given her so much more. "I've just started a new summer job and it's been a bit overwhelming at times."

[on_ur_left]

"Jobs are always overwhelming," he responds, his shoulders relaxing slightly at the ease with which she went with his subject change. "That's why they're jobs, and not fun hobbies. What do you do? If, you don't mind me asking.

"You can always tell me to mind my own beeswax." Don't push, he keeps having to remind himself. Considering how they first met, he's lucky she's still talking to him at all, and he keeps reminding himself of that, too.

[theycalledmeacurse]

Well, he's not wrong there. "It's okay. I'm a teacher," she answers without hesitation, deciding to stick with the truth as much as possible. "French language and literature mostly." Along with some self-defense courses and one-on-one mutation training, but those aren't able to be divulged just yet.

"What about you, sugar? What are you aspirations once things calm down in the city? Will you stick with full-time superhero, or keep that for a side gig?"

[on_ur_left]

A teacher. He can see it, although he's not sure if it's from the glimpses he got of Rogue when they met, or if he's thinking of Marie. Still. "I bet you're great at it. No matter how overwhelming it might get.

"I dunno. I've never been--" he gestures at his body, even though she can't see him, "--like this, strong and healthy, and not fighting. I was literally built to fight. I'm told I have a pretty good nest egg - they never took me off the army payroll, I guess." He has serious doubts about that, but he wasn't going to question Fury about it when it meant he was able to pay to take care of himself while he's still finding his way.

It chafes though, not having something to do. Not just physically, either; he was raised in a generation of hard workers. "I'm still learning a lot about... everything, really. Once I don't feel like such an idiot just trying to hold a ten-minute conversation with someone... Maybe I'll try taking up drawing again."

[theycalledmeacurse]

She soaks up all the information he provides, trying to piece it together with everything else she knows about Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. There isn't much to work with; she hadn't let herself look him up after they'd met, in case she never heard from him again. But now here they are, and in some ways she wished she wasn't so out of her depth with all of this.

"You were an artist before?" she asks, choosing what seems like the best point of his statement to keep the conversation easy. Before the ice, before his whole world had changed again.

feel free to have Steve screw up the French in any hilarious way

[on_ur_left]

Steve hesitates for a brief moment, but goes with his default of brutal honesty. "No, not really. I had aspirations. I didn't even get my foot in the door before war broke out, and then... well, everything, for everybody, kinda took a back-burner to that.

"What about you? Did you always want to be a teacher? Ah," he glances up, squinting at the ceiling as he switches to French (which he's fluent in, but started out learning dirty words from Dernier and Gabe, so it takes a second to remember the more polite form), "You seem a very well-rounded teacher."

[theycalledmeacurse]

It's hard for her to imagine the American side of the war, to be honest. Over the years, she's absorbed a few people who were alive then, but Erik's memories of what happened in Poland are so much starker in her mind that they eclipse all else.

The sudden French takes her by surprise, so much so that a few moments pass before she lets out a burst of laughter. "I'm sorry," she says after a few seconds of giggles, "I'm not used to hearing it spoken so-- properly." He sounds like an old textbook, which kind of makes sense with all things considered.

"No, I didn't really know what I wanted to be growing up. The school I work at is for gifted students; I spent some time here as a student myself, and in the end I just stayed on as a teacher."

[on_ur_left]

Steve freezes at her laugh, only relaxing again when Rogue explains that he didn't monumentally screw up the language, but just that he sounded so formal. "Yeah, I learned from a Frenchman, and an American who took it in college. I figure of the 2 of them, Gabe knew the more proper way of speaking, so I tried to learn from him." Although they were both fairly young men, and it had been war-time; meaning both of them were still pretty dirty a lot of the time.

God, he misses them. Not the piercing sharpness of missing Bucky or Marie, which was like losing a limb; the others was more like losing a tooth. You didn't notice it all the time, but every now and then something would remind you, and you'd start prodding the area where it used to be, feeling the edges of the hole that used to be filled.

"Beauty, brains, and fighting skills," he teases, before catching himself. He doesn't want to put her on the spot, and he's not flirting with her - not on purpose, anyway. It's just the truth.

At least he hadn't finished his thought. Which would've been to say, no wonder I'm attracted to you.

[theycalledmeacurse]

Lucky for Steve, flirting comes to Rogue as easily as breathing, and nine times out of ten when she's on the receiving end of such, she doesn't really take it seriously. Mostly it's just how she communicates with others; very few people in her life have ever shown real interest in a romantic relationship with her, and it's never ended well.

In short: he's off the hook with this one.

"I know, what a combination, right?" she tosses back, wishing she couldn't feel that self-deprecation rising up from the depths of where she's been trying hard to hide it away. "Too bad it all comes wrapped in a mutant package."