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]

"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."

[on_ur_left]

Maybe it's because Steve has the same problem, even now, but he recognizes that self-deprecation, no matter how cheerfully it's said. He wishes he knew what to say - and how to say it - to get her to understand that's bullshit.

Finally, he just goes with honesty again. "So? Most of the people on the planet are a result of mutations. Not-- okay, not the the extent you're talking about, but I'm sure the first time some baby popped up with blue eyes, or a lighter skin tone, their parents, their community, were angry, terrified, or both. People have dimples and all colors of hair, and all of that's just another type of mutation. Who's to say in another hundred years, a kid being born without any sort of mutation won't be looked on with pity and horror, because having a mutation isn't the norm by then?"

...Shit. That's probably also not at all the right thing to say. He just can't help himself. People, as a group, can be assholes to those they see as 'different.' And it quite often pisses him off.

[theycalledmeacurse]

That's... not what she'd expected. The intent behind his little speech is clear, and she appreciates it more than she could ever say, but there's also a part of her that flinches at the mention of a child being looked on with pity or horror for any reason. Mutant or baseline, children should be loved, not hated or feared.

"Thank you." It's all she can manage to say, and even then the two simple words come out in a hushed tone, as if she's afraid of speaking any louder in case he might decide to take back the things he's said.

[on_ur_left]

Steve is in complete agreement with her on that, but he's resigned himself to the fact that as long as there is something different about someone, humans will always pity or hate the Other. It doesn't matter how young they are, or how innocent the child is of any of it.

Still, maybe he was a little harsh. Not toward her, but still. "Sorry." He rubs a thumb between his eyebrows, just above his nose. "I just think it's stupid when anybody looks down on anybody else, just because they're not the same. That's the whole point of being human, isn't it? That we're diverse. We're not homogeneous. I like that about us."

How did they go from getting-to-know-you light conversation, to philosophy about humankind? He has the worst skills at chatting to women.

[theycalledmeacurse]

"Do you think that's why we--"

The question pops out on its own, and it's only when she finally realized what she's saying that she manages to reel it back in. He'll be able to get the gist of it more than likely, though; he seems like a smart enough man for that. And he's the one with all the soulmate experience here.

[on_ur_left]

It takes him a minute to puzzle out what she started to ask - and so abruptly cut off, but when he does, Steve can't quite help a small, amused huff of laughter. "Much as I like the idea of that being our common ground, I don't think we're the only two people in the whole world who think like this."

Sure, he has some experience, but it's all personal, and every experience is different, whether you're talking soulmates or sky-diving. Add to that, his personal experience was by no means typical - his first soulmate he met as a young child, which was unusual in itself, and most people only ever got the one, so meeting a second was unusual again. And the fact that they were all soulmates of each other...

"I haven't really thought about it that much. I kinda just grew up with the surety that soulmates exist, because I already had mine. I think... Well, with me and Bucky, we grew up together, so we came from similar backgrounds. Marie was altogether different; grew up in the South, was sweet and a little shy, but cheerful. But could verbally kick your ass if you pissed her off." It didn't hurt quite as much, now, talking about either of them, remembering them. Oh, it still hurt a lot, but telling Rogue... felt right, somehow.

"I mean, I figure a soulmate's just God's way of letting you know 'hey, this person will complement you, will help you reach your highest potential, more than anybody else.' Definitively, no guessing. That's all it is. The rest is up to the people. You still gotta work at a relationship with your soulmate. But it... It kinda adds a nice little safety-net, because if anyone's going to understand you, if you can share a secret with anyone, it should be your soulmate. So it kinda gives the trust a little leg up."

...did that make any sense? He's never had to try to explain it before.

[theycalledmeacurse]

It hurts. Everything he says hurts and it isn't fair. The things he's telling her are beautiful: glimpses of his past and the people who have shaped him, theories of what this bond is and what it can mean for them. But despite how much she wants all of this to be true, she can't trust it. He doesn't know her; when he does, everything will be different.

"It sounds nice," she remarks, genuinely meaning it. Her fingers tighten around her phone and she closes her eyes, leaning her head back against the door. "...I should probably get back to work. I've got a stack of papers that won't grade themselves."

She's running again. It's what she does best.

[on_ur_left]

Steve... wilts. It's the only word for it, as his shoulders droop and he slumps a little in his chair, closing his eyes. He's said something wrong, or - maybe not, maybe he's said everything right, and it's still not enough. He doesn't know how to get through to her, and more, he knows that sometimes, pushing something only makes it worse, makes it harder for the other person.

Rogue's not ready to accept it, and he's not going to push it. Maybe it is a soulmate thing, or maybe it's just him being able to read people, but he knows now isn't the time to say anything. He'll just stay here, in whatever space she allows him to be in - even if it's just friendship, he's not even asking for anything more, would be perfectly happy if they could just be friends. He'll do or be whoever she needs, wants.

But by God, he's not giving up. Taking a deep, quiet breath, he makes sure his tone is light and friendly when he responds. "Oh, sure! Yeah, sorry, I kinda interrupted your day. Listen, if you wanna talk, just give me a ring. My days are wiiiiide open," he says, a tad sardonically. "It'd be nice to hear from someone. Someone I like," he amends, "who's last name isn't Stark. And who doesn't make me feel like a complete ignoramus for missing the last seventy-years worth of pop culture references.

"Anyway. I'll let you go. You've got my number, now. I'll... I'll talk to you later." He tries, without being too obvious, to let her know that the ball's now in her court; it's her decision how she wants to proceed. It's his turn to say 'I hope I hear from you again. But I won't be surprised when I don't.'

[theycalledmeacurse]

Perhaps it is the soulmate thing, but she knows that the tone he puts on is false. She knows that doesn't feel that way, that she's made things hard for him. It's so hard not to apologize.

Eyes still closed, she rubs a hand over her face before nodding to herself. "You should try drawing again," she tells him, pulling on the only thing she can to give him hope that he'll hear from her again. "I'd like to see your work sometime." She doesn't wait for him to respond before ending the call.

He won't hear from her for another two weeks.