thebarbican | Another day in New York City...

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Another day in New York City...

Rogue doesn't often go to the city - it isn't her sort of place most of the time - but there are parts of her memories that are very attached to it. When the natives get restless, she can placate a number of them with a day trip into the city. Visit a few specific places, eat a few specific (delicious) meals and head back home after the sun sets. So, she sitting at a cafe sipping at a cup of coffee much darker than she'd usually take it, watching the clouds go by.

Really, she's also watched a few heroes fly by. She hadn't quite realized when she'd sat down that she was so close to the Avengers mansion or the Baxter building. It seems that there are a number of tourists who come to this place specifically to do hero watching. She's certainly amused by that. After taking a bite of the croissant, she brushes the crumbs from her gloves and looks up.

Having control of her powers is something she wouldn't trade for the world. Having Carol Danvers out of her head entirely isn't bad, either.

That said, she does miss the flying.

And she'd sort of gotten used to being invulnerable.

Still, she overall, this is much better.

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The trouble with lunching this close to Avengers Mansion is that your delightful patio view of the sky might suddenly have people in it punching each other. And occasionally one of those people gets spiked into the pavement by another one of those people.

This time, it's the Grey Gargoyle hitting the asphalt hard, thanks to a well-placed haymaker from Captain Marvel. She quickly descends and plants a boot on the French fiend's head, as if daring him to try to move.

"Your fingers even twitch to give me your stone touch, you lose them, Garg-amel. Don't try me."

"Ah'd listen to her, m'sieur. She's good to her word."

Rogue doesn't get up, as she'd pretty sure that Carol's got this. If not, well, she can move pretty quickly to help.

Well, there's a... significantly familiar voice.

It takes her a moment to process that, but only a moment.

After fitting the dazed and surly Gargoyle with manacles that cover his stone-turning hands completely and force them behind his back, she continues to keep a foot firmly on his head.

Casually turning towards that voice.

"And she'd know better than anyone."

"It's true."

Rogue lifts her coffee toward the Captain with a somewhat reserved expression on her face. Her feelings about the blonde are anything but straightforward. Even today, with most of the pain a few years in the past, it causes a twisting feeling in her guts.

"Ah do know yah pretty well."

"Well enough that somehow I doubt that you being here is a coincidence."

There's an edge enough to it that one might think she was accusing her of being somehow in league with the stone-golem Mr. Duval here. But then she catches herself and dials it back.

"Thinking of trying out for the 'unity squad?'"

"I'd come down here because Banner likes the coffee here and Ah try tah keep him happy." Rogue gestures toward her head with two gloved fingers.

"There are a number of other places on the list. Ah... don't know about that squad."

"Banner?" she asks, curiously. "Did you become the Hulk's go-fer while I wasn't looking?"

"Nah. He's in mah head."

Rogue gives a small shrug.

"Some days are louder than others."

The Raft troops start filing in around the corner to come and collect the Grey Gargoyle, looking slightly nervous about approaching, but Carol casually waves them over, assuaging their doubts.

"I thought I heard something about you having control over those powers of yours, finally."

Control Carol was able to assert over them easily, whenever she got to take the lead when the two of them shared a mind.

"Ah do, though Ah still have the inhabitants. I can lock them all down but, Ah've gotten used tah the noise and some of them don't take to it too well."

Rogue takes another sip from the coffee mug.

"Other habits die hard and, well, some risks aren't worth the pain."

"Well, progress is progress," Carol returns with a shrug. Baby steps.

As the Gargoyle is hustled off into a waiting paddy wagon, Cap steps a bit closer and leans against the railing of the patio area.

"Speaking of old habits, are you still with Gambit?" Trying not to imply that that's a habit that should die as well. Instead, it's more curiosity about how she's handling being able to touch again.

"Not currently, no."

Rogue's lips twist as she obviously holds a comment back. This conversation without fighting thing is new and she doesn't know how far she can push it.

"Ah'm not seein' anyone at the moment."

Carol's never really been all that great at small talk in general, and it's more difficult with a situation like this.

The awkwardness of the pause is palpable.

So does what she usually does with an obstacle - try to knock it down quickly.

"There any of me still floating around in there?"

Rogue puts the coffee cup down and turns to look at Carol. There are a lot of things she could say but she's grown past the starting fights because she can stage of her life. Instead, she opts for the answer closest to the truth that she can vocalize.

"Not so as Ah'd notice. There might be but nothing like all the others up there."

Good. She doesn't want to entertain the idea that she might not be entirely whole after their shared experience.

The tension in Carol's body seems to lessen a bit after that. If she's honest, her response to Rogue in general is weird. She's put the trauma behind her, she's processed it, and she hasn't touched the booze in years.

Which is why she's able to unclench enough to genuinely ask...

"So, how are you?"

Rogue presses her lips together in thought at that question. "It hasn't been harder than it usually is but people like you and Ah don't really have easy days."

"No, we don't," Carol sighs, before catching sight of a little girl about thirty yards away just staring at her. Carol waves and smiles at her, snd the girl smiles back super huge and then runs away.

"But if we're lucky, we get reminders of why we do what we do."

There is a faint echoing smile on Rogue's face but, well, the X-men don't really have fanclubs as much as they have underground groups organizing for them. Y'know, rallies and newsletters and the like. Sometimes she wonders what it would take to change that - if it can be changed at all.

"If we're lucky."

"Sometimes, you have to try to make your own luck."

She looks back to Rogue, tilting her head slightly.

"So, what don't you know about the 'unity squad,'?"

"Ah tried that for awhile."

This is ending up being much more melancholy than she was expecting today to be. It isn't exactly what she'd come here for but it helps keep everyone quiet in its own way.

"Am Ah supposed to?"

"Just saying it seems it's about damn time we got the Avengers and X-Men working together, front and center. Especially after Scott, the figurehead, went so far off the rails. Couldn't hurt to try and get some distance from him."

Rogue still isn't sure how she feels about Scott right now. They haven't always seen eye to eye but he has put a lot of faith in her in the past. Now, though, now.... Everything is a mess right now. She looks down at the small table she was sitting at, her fingers splaying across the table lightly.

After a moment she looks up toward Carol, her emotions visible on her face for a few moments - the uncertainty and confusion. "Ah've always respected Captain America."

She pauses again before she says softly, "D'ya think they've forgiven me?" After all, she did almost kill all of them too.

Carol takes a deep breath. Time to see how awkward this whole thing still is.

"Just because we didn't agree with you doesn't mean we didn't completely understand and sympathize with your position. We've all done things we never thought we were capable of when facing extinction."

Her head tilts slightly. "Ask Wanda and Pietro about the Avengers' capacity for forgiveness."

Then her lips tighten. "Unless you haven't forgiven Wanda yet."

Has she forgiven Wanda? Until Carol brought it up, she'd have said she had but with forced reflection, she's still upset about it. Not so much that she couldn't work with her, though. Maybe that's a difference between X-men and Avengers? Sometimes you have to trust people who you're furious with, with your life.

"That's not an easy thing tah be certain of," Rogue says, "Ah could work with her."

She keeps going back to that first time she fought the Avengers. Some part of her is still proud of the fact that she won that fight. It wouldn't be the same now. She couldn't surprise them. Of course, there weren't so many of them then, either.

"I'm sure that's all she'd hope for," Carol responds, quietly.

The question of guilt still hangs heavy in the air.

"We've all done some horrible, misguided things when we were not quite ourselves... but enough ourselves to hate ourselves for them."

One of her painful rehab realizations.

A soft but bitter laugh from Rogue about that, "Not quite myself." Pressing her lips together she shakes her head, thinking that Logan would understand. Of course, Carol and Logan are excellent friends as well. That thought causes her to look up at Carol, putting something together that she hadn't put together before.

"You wanna go get a beer? Maybe play some cards?"

That gets a crooked grin out of Carol.

"I'll have to pass on the beer," she sighs, even if it sounds really good. Damn alcoholism really nips fun in the bud sometimes - can't count the number of times she's felt green with envy watching She-Hulk get her party on.

"But if you're prepared to lose your money, I'm down with cards. There some kind of X-Poker club you're going to, or should I try and get some of the A-team together?"

"Oh, Ah'm gonna lose mah money am Ah?"

Rogue chuckles softly. Between Logan and Remy, learning how to play poker was a survival skill. Storm was a bit of a card shark too and Henry could do the probabilities in his head. "Ah don't have anything arranged. If yah'd have me, Ah'd be up for playin' with some of ya'll."

"Well, then, give me your number and let's see what I can put together. See if you're able to sneak a bluff past me yet... and see if you like it at the big table."

"Will do," Rogue says offering her number to the other woman. "Ah'm not too bad with bluffs but we'll see how it goes."

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Another day in New York City...

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I forgot what we're counting as canon. Feel free to retcon whatever.

No problem! I'm making it up too.

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