PI LOG: Posturing -- Scott, Warren and Remy
Returning home from work, Remy runs across a fledging confrontation between Scott Summers and Warren Worthington--and ends up trying to deflect more than he intended.
The Badlands -- Beacon Harbor
It's snowing. Not hard, but just hard enough to be a royal pain in the ass. Scott has yanked a baseball cap down as far as he can, but the brim still fails to keep the snow off his glasses. It's been dark for a few hours, thanks to the storm, and the streets are damn-near deserted. Scott pauses in a doorway to take a breather and light a cigarette, squinting at the street. He hates February.
Perched above the streets of the badlands, dressed in new jeans and a black Tee shirt with reinforced slits in the back for his wings, Warren Worthington looks out over his section of town. Most decent folks have gone indoors already, fleeing the snow and the dark for warmer, more cosy places. With his wings out and curled around him, Warren resembles more a gargoyle than the archangel of his codename. Staring down at the streets, he spies Scott as he ducks into a doorway. "Awfully cold and late to be wandering the badlands," he mutters softly to himself. Warren's eyes narrow with consideration, but he doesn't swoop down on his victim. Not yet.
Sometimes, a man doesn't have options concerning the cold and the time of night, and his preferences towards avoiding both. In the new uniform designed by Kess, Remy is mostly a splotch of darkness in the dark, only the intermittant spots of his eyes and the barely lighter flicker of his trenchcoat at all evident even despite the snow. Staff out, Remy is taking the 'quick' way home, by roofrunning and vaulting the distance between the buildings. It probably isn't really any quicker, but it's a lot more fun. He sees Scott long before he notices Warren, and pauses on a low roof to catch his breath and watch the younger man, leaning on the staff as if pondering going down to the street level.
Scott is completely unaware of all this attention, and would probably be dismayed if he knew just how much he's missing. He gets his cigarette lit on the third try and leans against the doorway, looking like the disreputable teenager he *was* only a few years ago. An irritated pass of one finger swipes snowflakes off his glasses, and he frowns at the near-empty street.
Warren catches the glint of the glasses as they reflect light from one of the few streetlamps in the city. Red? Warren frowns and looks closer, focusing on Scott with his bird-like vision. "Scott?" Warren mutters softly. He considers the youthful face, comparing it to his memories of the man he once called his best friend. "Scott ..." he decides. "Remy wasn't kidding about you being a lot younger," he mutters softly, then spreads his wings and jumps. He circles slowly, winging down towards Scott as silently as an owl on the hunt. "Can I bum a light?" he asks softly just before settling down a few feet from the young man.
Remy straightens a little from leaning on the staff, his general expression of careless ease tightening briefly. That's Warren, which means this is starting to shape up to a regular X-Reunion. The tightened expression turns to a flicker of a frown and the Cajun takes a step forward to judge the distance from the roof to the ground. It's just a story, and so with the flutter of cloth Gambit flings himself off of the building in an arcing flip, hitting the ground with his feet and rolling to waste momentum.
The voice is Scott's first clue, and he presses himself back against the door, truly alarmed. He does not quite reach for his gun, but there's a twitch of one hand upwards that an X-er would probably recognize as threatening. After a moment he says, "What are you supposed to be?" There's a guy with odd-toned skin standing in the snow. Weird. Then Remy drops to the ground and Scott jumps again, clearly on edge.
Warren's wings retract to almost nothing with a metallic *shnk* like a sword being resheathed in a hard scabbard. "Just a--" he pauses and glances over his shoulder, wondering what Scott's reacted to. Remy. "--guy who's looking for a light," he finishes, sounding a bit more distracted. Warren turns so he can address both Scott and Remy simultaneously. "Awful cold night to be out wandering the Badlands just for kicks, isn't it?"
The staff flashes in the dim light as Remy swings it to lay it across his shoulders, draping his wrists over it easily. There's a grin that he brandishes, briefly, towards Warren and Scott both before he's shrugging even with the staff in place. "Who said anyt'in' 'bout wandering 'round for kicks?" The Cajun asks almost placidly, before nods to Scott. "Summers. From de looks of t'ings, I guess dis your first run-in wit' Warren, here?"
Scott starts to say something sour in response to Warren, but then Remy comes in, being all calm and cool, and shuts him down. He flicks the almost-untouched cigarette away, then gives the winged man a stare. "Met a guy called Warren who had wings, before. This ain't the same one. So yeah."
"Rumour holds he was an upright prick who liked to shove his morals around," replies Warren, considering Scott a moment. Warren shrugs, slightly, and pulls a cigarette from his pocket. "So can I get that light, or are you just gonna stare at me like you've seen the boogie man?"
"Hey, you sneak up on de homme lookin' all blue and creepy, an' you expect him to have his lighter all at de ready? Yer jus' as pushy as de last one." The Cajun keeps grinning, however, as if to soften the point of his jibes. "Long story short an' made a l'il redundant by Bleu here, is de Worthingtons swapped out and we got a metalback instead of a silver spooner." Remy says this all to Scott very rapid-fire, as if Scott should know exactly what he's talking about. "S'pose I'm better off wit' dis one b'cause I can't accidently pull out no feat'ers."
Scott can't very well ask Remy what on earth he just said, considering he's in front of a stranger and doesn't want to lose face. He considers Warren, then pulls a lighter out of his pocket and shifts over to make room for the blue guy to lean into the doorway. He moves to light the cigarette for Warren, rather than handing his lighter over. "You can't tell what I'm staring at," he says, mildly.
"I know your mannerisms," Warren replies softly as he sticks the cigarette in his mouth, then lights it on Scott's lighter. He puffs in once, then breathes the smoke away from both the others. "But it's an unfair advantage, I suppose." He glances at Remy, sending him a dark scowl. "And just for the record, I'm just as much of a 'silver spooner' as the previous Warren, I'm sure. I've just had a few more tough lessons than he has, so I know better than to go telling everyone else what to do."
All this cigarette smoke is awakening the restless sleep of nicotine addiction in the Cajun, and Remy slips a hand free from his staff to rummage in a pocket and procure a cigarette himself. It's touched lit the instant he has enough of it in his mouth to inhale properly. Gambit meets the dark scowl cheekily, eyebrows raising for an almost smug look. "Well, okay, if you wanna insist dat you walk 'round wit' your nose straight up, I ain't gonna tell you you's wrong."
"Great," Scott mutters. He sticks his hands in his coat pockets and frowns at the snow. Nothing to add to the conversation, apparently.
Warren frowns at the Cajun, narrowing his icy blue eyes. "Watch it, LeBeau," he warns, then turns back to Scott. "What's so great, kid?" He sounds a lot less polite than he did only a moment or two ago. "We're all stuck in a crazy messed up world trying to live up to or overcome the reputations of our predecessors. Sounds more fucked up than great, to me."
Remy isn't feeling particularly intimidated by Warren, not between his uniform's protection and his inherent reflexes. "Oh, *I* don' know, some of us managin' to do jus' fine, Wings. Some of us ain't even transplanted." The Cajun angles his head subtly towards Scott, briefly, to indicate Summers. "An' you gonna have to decide which way you wan' it, mon ami. Eit'er you's a silver spooner or you ain't. I ain't got de energy to be guessin'' which day you're which." One hand seesaws in the air to indicate a waivering position.
Apparently, Scott objects to 'kid'. And that guy just threatened Remy for no solid reason. He stands up straighter and glares at Warren. "Sure the world you came from was so much better, freak," he snaps.
Warren starts to dip his shoulder just slightly, an easy 'tell' that he's about to snap a fist--or perhaps a wing--towards Remy. But at the last minute, and /without/ any signs, Warren snaps the other wing out. The *shnk* of metal being drawn resounds through the air, but the wing goes from a few inches to a few feet--with its point only a scant quarter of an inch from one of Scott's lenses--in a split second. "Call me a freak again, and I will remove these from you permanently. Do it twice, and I'll remove an eye." He stares at Scott, his blue face cold and tight. He doesn't sound like he's joking.
"Hey!" Remy was more than ready to tumble out of the range of Warren's jibe, but it all changes as the wrong wing snaps free. Instead, he's shifting the staff so he can put a hand to the inside of Archangel's shoulder and try to shove him backwards and away from Scott, meaning to move the wing out of 'danger'. "No need for nobody to get uppity or calling names on eit'er side, hien? Tout les amis, oui?" There's a subtle difference in the way he holds the staff now, down and to one side, but Warren will likely realize it means he's much more ready for a fight now.
Scott goes paper-white, and all expression fades from his face. He can hear his pulse pounding in his ears. Threaten *that*? Here, now? His fingers twitch. He stays silent, just watching Warren and Remy. Waiting to have space to leave.
Warren allows himself to be pushed, but only a step. His wing retracts almost immediately. Scott's reaction would be comical if Warren weren't already pissed off. "For the record, my world was only marginally better than this one. The one thing I don't need, though, is to be called a freak by someone who's just as 'freakish' as I am, One-eye." He frowns, briefly, then sucks on his cigarette. "And you can stand down from your posturing, Remy," he says, sending speews of smoke into the air around himself. "This is a discussion between the kid and I."
Posturing. It's only the dim light that makes the subtle way Remy narrows his eyes at all noticable; in the daytime he would have caught the expression long before the average human eye could notice the difference. "I ain't gonna stand here an' let you t'row dose t'ings 'round 'gainst a friend of mine. You been called worse. Hell, I been called worse, an' I still don't figure slurs hold water 'gainst big-ass metal wings." Gambit is pretty sure *he* has called Warren worse, in his time. He glances back over his shoulder to Scott, but if there's any softening in his expression it isn't obvious. "Ain't nobody gonna 'zakt' or 'shnk' or 'wachoom' nobody." Each imitation of noise comes with a glance to the owner of the powers in question, including a flicker of eyes to his own pockets.
Silence from the kid. Scott stands where he is, expression closed-off, and watches Warren. He does glance at Remy when that man speaks, though it's invisible behind those glasses, and prompts no change in posture or expression. There isn't room to leave the doorway without passing within arm's reach of Warren. He'll just wait and see.
"Cat got your tongue?" Warren taunts Scott. "Or are you just going to hide behind Remy and let him do all your speaking for you?" Warren doesn't respond to Remy's attempts at diplomacy. Instead, he keeps his gaze trained on Scott. "Do you ever stand up for yourself, really, or do you just let your 'friends' do all the fighting for you? Reminds me a lot of the Scott I knew back home, but he at least knew how to open his mouth now and then to defend himself."
"You gonna blame dis 'asshole' on de blue skin, too, or you gonna realize dat no matter how much you pick on dis Scott it ain't gonna make up for all de times de ot'er one one-upped you?" Remy asks, his voice gone low as his attempts to dissuade Warren from the confrontation sputter and die. "You's actin' like a big five year old. Here I was hopin' I coul' 'xpect a l'il more maturity from you. Guess I was wrong."
Scott just looks at Warren. He doesn't negotiate with bullies. If this new Warren wants to hurt him, he will - there's nothing he can do to match the speed of those razor-sharp wings. So he just waits, to see what happens.
Warren tenses slightly, readying to lash out at Remy. Still, the truth in the Cajun's first sentence hits him like a load of bricks. There's no visible change in Warren's attitude, but he's worrying, now, about how he's reacting. Forcing a slight smirk, the blue-skinned man jibes, "I was just trying to see if the kid's got any backbone." Taking a pull of his cigarette, Warren breathes the smoke aside. "Looks like not. I can see why you decided to make friends with him," he says, looking to Remy with an amused grin. "He needs a big brother like you to take care of him."
"What, checking for it by making him shit de t'ing out by scaring him half to deat'? Sacre *bleu*, Warren. Firs' t'ing you got to learn is most people ain't gonna be like you 'xpect dem to be. And wavin' giant razors around in deir face ain't gonna mold dem to what you want dem to be." Maybe Remy can see through Warren's faux grin, and maybe he can't, but he isn't commenting on it in either case. His grip on his staff relaxes and he reaches up to to flicker away a cigarette that burned away unused. The butt explodes into harmless sparks a few feet away.
The mention of being scared earns Remy a turn of Scott's head. "Fuck you," he says, but the tone is fairly mild. He'd probably have said that to almost anyone at this point. Back to Warren, and he says quietly, but as if he's really interested in the answer, "Are you finished?"
"I'm never finished, Scott," Warren says, his grin leaning a lot more towards real, now. Either he's over his anger, or he's pleased that Scott finally spoke up. "Watch your step out here, kid," he warns Scott. "There's a lot meaner bullies than me in the badlands." Stepping back, Warren spreads his wings just wide enough for flight. "Catch ya around, Cajun," he calls to Remy, then gives a massive--and wholly unnecessary--flap of the metal wings on his back, sending a flurry of snow up towards the others, and propelling himself into the air. He grins at his own childishness, then turns and accellerates, shooting himself back up towards the skyline.
"Only if we don' tell Rogue," Remy says offhandedly to Scott, under the level of the conversation, and he's just opening his mouth, turning his head to say something to Warren when Archangel lifts off. It's a mouthful of gritty snow he gets for his efforts, and for a second Gambit just stands there, eyes closed, spitting the dirty water out of his mouth. Bleh.
Scott brushes snow off himself, maintaining the calm. He can't afford to get as angry as he wants to get, right now. Once he trusts himself to speak again, he looks to Remy. "If you talk to him again, tell him to stay away from me. I see him again I'm gonna kill him." It's not a tough-guy, look-at-me threat. In fact, the young man looks almost sick at the prospect.
Remy's eyes open to allow the Cajun to consider Scott, and then he nods, looking back up to where Warren vanished. "Him and me, we ain't exactly de best of friends, but if we bump heads 'gain, I tell him to keep backed off. 'Course, I ain't promisin' he'll listen to me for a minute." There's a heartbeat, and then seemingly out of nowhere Remy says; "Sorry."
"What're you sorry for?" Scott takes his baseball cap off and scrubs a hand through his hair. He's deeply unhappy and trying not to show it. "He wasn't kidding. That threat he made, he meant it."
"Mostly for my big mout', I guess. Je ne sais pas." Remy shrugs, stretching his arms out to lean on the staff as he was while standing on the roof. "Warren's got issues wit' self-control dat ain't all his own fault, really. Not dat I'm sayin' dat excuses him wavin' his wings 'round and t'reatenin' you, b'cause it don't." Losing track of his train of thought, Gambit finishes off by shrugging carelessly.
"I have to kill him." He could do it, probably, from a distance. Scott hasn't met anything yet that could stand up to his eyebeams. He'd just need the range to avoid those wings. "Fuck," he adds, miserably.
Gambit's spine straightens, suddenly, and he looks sharply to the side at Scott. "Non, don't t'ink it's bad as all dat. Mebbe jus' keep 'way from him, is all?" Remy seems, even despite his general nonchalance, a little astonished at the prospect.
"He came to *me*. You hear what he said? He thinks I'm some kid he can push around, make fun of. He threatened to - " Scott breaks off, because he's about to get really upset, and reaches up a fingertip instead to touch it to the frame of his glasses. "I won't give him the chance."
"He t'inks ev'rybody's some kid he can push around," Remy says, his voice a little more gentle now. "He--least, de 'he' on my world--played second fiddle to de 'you' from my world for a long time, an' I suspect he got more dan a l'il resentment. If you're gonna take him literally on de t'reat, dough, take him literally on de terms, too. He ain't gonna try to put your eye out if you don't call him 'freak' 'gain--he's a l'il touchy 'bout dat. I can talk to him 'bout de 'kid' t'ing. I figure he ain't gonna tangle wit' you if he don't gotta; he knows damn well how much power you can put out."
"I don't want you to *talk* to the fuckin' guy for me," Scott says, exasperated rather than angry with Remy. "I'm not a goddamn kid. Yeah, I'm gonna take him literally. I can't let people threaten that, I won't hear it. I won't live with thinking about it."
Sighing, Remy looks to the side and nods. "Den I don' talk to him, I guess. Like I said, I ain't got no guarantee dat he'll listen t'me, an' I t'ink tryin' to off him after dis misunderstandin' is jus' a bad idea. I jus' hope I ain't 'round when de two of you come t'get'er 'gain." Because Beacon Harbor seems like such a small city, some days.
"It's a misunderstanding?" Scott's tone is sharp, and now he *is* angry. "I thought all the words he used were pretty simple. He's a bully. If he knows me, if - if that other me is *anything* the same as I am, he knows what these mean to me," a tap of his fingertip on his glasses again, "so don't tell me he didn't know what he was doing. He's an asshole."
"Je sais." Remy says, frowning now and looking back to Scott, "But it ain't all natural. Might be he come back to hisself a l'il later and realize what he was sayin' an' doin'. Tryin' real hard not to take sides b'cause in t'eory, somehow, I known him as long as I known you, but I can't cotton to you plannin' on killin' him. But I ain't gonna say I'm gonna stop you, eit'er." Now, Gambit is mostly frowning to himself. This is a fine place he's been wedged into. "Warren's more complicated dan 'bully', je pense. An' I t'ink when he makes t'reats, he only means dem for de space in time he's makin' de t'reat."
"So he's a lunatic too? That's *great*." Scott steps out of the doorway and starts off up the snowy street. He's been badly frightened, and utterly furious, and now he's trying to maintain the adrenaline rush until he can get somewhere safe. "He's a bully," he calls over his shoulder. "I know about guys like him."
Remy puts his hand over his face, briefly, before he nods again, glancing back over his shoulder to locate the nearest roof-access fire escape. "Like I said, hope I ain't anywhere nearby when de two of you go at it. An' keep in mind, if dis is anyt'in' like de Warren I known b'fore, he's got flechettes in his wings. Dey fire neurotoxins." Gambit mimics the motion Warren uses to fire off the poison with one hand. "Since he's gonna have a whole lot of tactics up on you. Be careful, mon ami."
Doesn't matter. It can't matter. Scott raises a hand without looking back. He doesn't want to fight with Remy, any more than they already do.
The Badlands -- Beacon Harbor
It's snowing. Not hard, but just hard enough to be a royal pain in the ass. Scott has yanked a baseball cap down as far as he can, but the brim still fails to keep the snow off his glasses. It's been dark for a few hours, thanks to the storm, and the streets are damn-near deserted. Scott pauses in a doorway to take a breather and light a cigarette, squinting at the street. He hates February.
Perched above the streets of the badlands, dressed in new jeans and a black Tee shirt with reinforced slits in the back for his wings, Warren Worthington looks out over his section of town. Most decent folks have gone indoors already, fleeing the snow and the dark for warmer, more cosy places. With his wings out and curled around him, Warren resembles more a gargoyle than the archangel of his codename. Staring down at the streets, he spies Scott as he ducks into a doorway. "Awfully cold and late to be wandering the badlands," he mutters softly to himself. Warren's eyes narrow with consideration, but he doesn't swoop down on his victim. Not yet.
Sometimes, a man doesn't have options concerning the cold and the time of night, and his preferences towards avoiding both. In the new uniform designed by Kess, Remy is mostly a splotch of darkness in the dark, only the intermittant spots of his eyes and the barely lighter flicker of his trenchcoat at all evident even despite the snow. Staff out, Remy is taking the 'quick' way home, by roofrunning and vaulting the distance between the buildings. It probably isn't really any quicker, but it's a lot more fun. He sees Scott long before he notices Warren, and pauses on a low roof to catch his breath and watch the younger man, leaning on the staff as if pondering going down to the street level.
Scott is completely unaware of all this attention, and would probably be dismayed if he knew just how much he's missing. He gets his cigarette lit on the third try and leans against the doorway, looking like the disreputable teenager he *was* only a few years ago. An irritated pass of one finger swipes snowflakes off his glasses, and he frowns at the near-empty street.
Warren catches the glint of the glasses as they reflect light from one of the few streetlamps in the city. Red? Warren frowns and looks closer, focusing on Scott with his bird-like vision. "Scott?" Warren mutters softly. He considers the youthful face, comparing it to his memories of the man he once called his best friend. "Scott ..." he decides. "Remy wasn't kidding about you being a lot younger," he mutters softly, then spreads his wings and jumps. He circles slowly, winging down towards Scott as silently as an owl on the hunt. "Can I bum a light?" he asks softly just before settling down a few feet from the young man.
Remy straightens a little from leaning on the staff, his general expression of careless ease tightening briefly. That's Warren, which means this is starting to shape up to a regular X-Reunion. The tightened expression turns to a flicker of a frown and the Cajun takes a step forward to judge the distance from the roof to the ground. It's just a story, and so with the flutter of cloth Gambit flings himself off of the building in an arcing flip, hitting the ground with his feet and rolling to waste momentum.
The voice is Scott's first clue, and he presses himself back against the door, truly alarmed. He does not quite reach for his gun, but there's a twitch of one hand upwards that an X-er would probably recognize as threatening. After a moment he says, "What are you supposed to be?" There's a guy with odd-toned skin standing in the snow. Weird. Then Remy drops to the ground and Scott jumps again, clearly on edge.
Warren's wings retract to almost nothing with a metallic *shnk* like a sword being resheathed in a hard scabbard. "Just a--" he pauses and glances over his shoulder, wondering what Scott's reacted to. Remy. "--guy who's looking for a light," he finishes, sounding a bit more distracted. Warren turns so he can address both Scott and Remy simultaneously. "Awful cold night to be out wandering the Badlands just for kicks, isn't it?"
The staff flashes in the dim light as Remy swings it to lay it across his shoulders, draping his wrists over it easily. There's a grin that he brandishes, briefly, towards Warren and Scott both before he's shrugging even with the staff in place. "Who said anyt'in' 'bout wandering 'round for kicks?" The Cajun asks almost placidly, before nods to Scott. "Summers. From de looks of t'ings, I guess dis your first run-in wit' Warren, here?"
Scott starts to say something sour in response to Warren, but then Remy comes in, being all calm and cool, and shuts him down. He flicks the almost-untouched cigarette away, then gives the winged man a stare. "Met a guy called Warren who had wings, before. This ain't the same one. So yeah."
"Rumour holds he was an upright prick who liked to shove his morals around," replies Warren, considering Scott a moment. Warren shrugs, slightly, and pulls a cigarette from his pocket. "So can I get that light, or are you just gonna stare at me like you've seen the boogie man?"
"Hey, you sneak up on de homme lookin' all blue and creepy, an' you expect him to have his lighter all at de ready? Yer jus' as pushy as de last one." The Cajun keeps grinning, however, as if to soften the point of his jibes. "Long story short an' made a l'il redundant by Bleu here, is de Worthingtons swapped out and we got a metalback instead of a silver spooner." Remy says this all to Scott very rapid-fire, as if Scott should know exactly what he's talking about. "S'pose I'm better off wit' dis one b'cause I can't accidently pull out no feat'ers."
Scott can't very well ask Remy what on earth he just said, considering he's in front of a stranger and doesn't want to lose face. He considers Warren, then pulls a lighter out of his pocket and shifts over to make room for the blue guy to lean into the doorway. He moves to light the cigarette for Warren, rather than handing his lighter over. "You can't tell what I'm staring at," he says, mildly.
"I know your mannerisms," Warren replies softly as he sticks the cigarette in his mouth, then lights it on Scott's lighter. He puffs in once, then breathes the smoke away from both the others. "But it's an unfair advantage, I suppose." He glances at Remy, sending him a dark scowl. "And just for the record, I'm just as much of a 'silver spooner' as the previous Warren, I'm sure. I've just had a few more tough lessons than he has, so I know better than to go telling everyone else what to do."
All this cigarette smoke is awakening the restless sleep of nicotine addiction in the Cajun, and Remy slips a hand free from his staff to rummage in a pocket and procure a cigarette himself. It's touched lit the instant he has enough of it in his mouth to inhale properly. Gambit meets the dark scowl cheekily, eyebrows raising for an almost smug look. "Well, okay, if you wanna insist dat you walk 'round wit' your nose straight up, I ain't gonna tell you you's wrong."
"Great," Scott mutters. He sticks his hands in his coat pockets and frowns at the snow. Nothing to add to the conversation, apparently.
Warren frowns at the Cajun, narrowing his icy blue eyes. "Watch it, LeBeau," he warns, then turns back to Scott. "What's so great, kid?" He sounds a lot less polite than he did only a moment or two ago. "We're all stuck in a crazy messed up world trying to live up to or overcome the reputations of our predecessors. Sounds more fucked up than great, to me."
Remy isn't feeling particularly intimidated by Warren, not between his uniform's protection and his inherent reflexes. "Oh, *I* don' know, some of us managin' to do jus' fine, Wings. Some of us ain't even transplanted." The Cajun angles his head subtly towards Scott, briefly, to indicate Summers. "An' you gonna have to decide which way you wan' it, mon ami. Eit'er you's a silver spooner or you ain't. I ain't got de energy to be guessin'' which day you're which." One hand seesaws in the air to indicate a waivering position.
Apparently, Scott objects to 'kid'. And that guy just threatened Remy for no solid reason. He stands up straighter and glares at Warren. "Sure the world you came from was so much better, freak," he snaps.
Warren starts to dip his shoulder just slightly, an easy 'tell' that he's about to snap a fist--or perhaps a wing--towards Remy. But at the last minute, and /without/ any signs, Warren snaps the other wing out. The *shnk* of metal being drawn resounds through the air, but the wing goes from a few inches to a few feet--with its point only a scant quarter of an inch from one of Scott's lenses--in a split second. "Call me a freak again, and I will remove these from you permanently. Do it twice, and I'll remove an eye." He stares at Scott, his blue face cold and tight. He doesn't sound like he's joking.
"Hey!" Remy was more than ready to tumble out of the range of Warren's jibe, but it all changes as the wrong wing snaps free. Instead, he's shifting the staff so he can put a hand to the inside of Archangel's shoulder and try to shove him backwards and away from Scott, meaning to move the wing out of 'danger'. "No need for nobody to get uppity or calling names on eit'er side, hien? Tout les amis, oui?" There's a subtle difference in the way he holds the staff now, down and to one side, but Warren will likely realize it means he's much more ready for a fight now.
Scott goes paper-white, and all expression fades from his face. He can hear his pulse pounding in his ears. Threaten *that*? Here, now? His fingers twitch. He stays silent, just watching Warren and Remy. Waiting to have space to leave.
Warren allows himself to be pushed, but only a step. His wing retracts almost immediately. Scott's reaction would be comical if Warren weren't already pissed off. "For the record, my world was only marginally better than this one. The one thing I don't need, though, is to be called a freak by someone who's just as 'freakish' as I am, One-eye." He frowns, briefly, then sucks on his cigarette. "And you can stand down from your posturing, Remy," he says, sending speews of smoke into the air around himself. "This is a discussion between the kid and I."
Posturing. It's only the dim light that makes the subtle way Remy narrows his eyes at all noticable; in the daytime he would have caught the expression long before the average human eye could notice the difference. "I ain't gonna stand here an' let you t'row dose t'ings 'round 'gainst a friend of mine. You been called worse. Hell, I been called worse, an' I still don't figure slurs hold water 'gainst big-ass metal wings." Gambit is pretty sure *he* has called Warren worse, in his time. He glances back over his shoulder to Scott, but if there's any softening in his expression it isn't obvious. "Ain't nobody gonna 'zakt' or 'shnk' or 'wachoom' nobody." Each imitation of noise comes with a glance to the owner of the powers in question, including a flicker of eyes to his own pockets.
Silence from the kid. Scott stands where he is, expression closed-off, and watches Warren. He does glance at Remy when that man speaks, though it's invisible behind those glasses, and prompts no change in posture or expression. There isn't room to leave the doorway without passing within arm's reach of Warren. He'll just wait and see.
"Cat got your tongue?" Warren taunts Scott. "Or are you just going to hide behind Remy and let him do all your speaking for you?" Warren doesn't respond to Remy's attempts at diplomacy. Instead, he keeps his gaze trained on Scott. "Do you ever stand up for yourself, really, or do you just let your 'friends' do all the fighting for you? Reminds me a lot of the Scott I knew back home, but he at least knew how to open his mouth now and then to defend himself."
"You gonna blame dis 'asshole' on de blue skin, too, or you gonna realize dat no matter how much you pick on dis Scott it ain't gonna make up for all de times de ot'er one one-upped you?" Remy asks, his voice gone low as his attempts to dissuade Warren from the confrontation sputter and die. "You's actin' like a big five year old. Here I was hopin' I coul' 'xpect a l'il more maturity from you. Guess I was wrong."
Scott just looks at Warren. He doesn't negotiate with bullies. If this new Warren wants to hurt him, he will - there's nothing he can do to match the speed of those razor-sharp wings. So he just waits, to see what happens.
Warren tenses slightly, readying to lash out at Remy. Still, the truth in the Cajun's first sentence hits him like a load of bricks. There's no visible change in Warren's attitude, but he's worrying, now, about how he's reacting. Forcing a slight smirk, the blue-skinned man jibes, "I was just trying to see if the kid's got any backbone." Taking a pull of his cigarette, Warren breathes the smoke aside. "Looks like not. I can see why you decided to make friends with him," he says, looking to Remy with an amused grin. "He needs a big brother like you to take care of him."
"What, checking for it by making him shit de t'ing out by scaring him half to deat'? Sacre *bleu*, Warren. Firs' t'ing you got to learn is most people ain't gonna be like you 'xpect dem to be. And wavin' giant razors around in deir face ain't gonna mold dem to what you want dem to be." Maybe Remy can see through Warren's faux grin, and maybe he can't, but he isn't commenting on it in either case. His grip on his staff relaxes and he reaches up to to flicker away a cigarette that burned away unused. The butt explodes into harmless sparks a few feet away.
The mention of being scared earns Remy a turn of Scott's head. "Fuck you," he says, but the tone is fairly mild. He'd probably have said that to almost anyone at this point. Back to Warren, and he says quietly, but as if he's really interested in the answer, "Are you finished?"
"I'm never finished, Scott," Warren says, his grin leaning a lot more towards real, now. Either he's over his anger, or he's pleased that Scott finally spoke up. "Watch your step out here, kid," he warns Scott. "There's a lot meaner bullies than me in the badlands." Stepping back, Warren spreads his wings just wide enough for flight. "Catch ya around, Cajun," he calls to Remy, then gives a massive--and wholly unnecessary--flap of the metal wings on his back, sending a flurry of snow up towards the others, and propelling himself into the air. He grins at his own childishness, then turns and accellerates, shooting himself back up towards the skyline.
"Only if we don' tell Rogue," Remy says offhandedly to Scott, under the level of the conversation, and he's just opening his mouth, turning his head to say something to Warren when Archangel lifts off. It's a mouthful of gritty snow he gets for his efforts, and for a second Gambit just stands there, eyes closed, spitting the dirty water out of his mouth. Bleh.
Scott brushes snow off himself, maintaining the calm. He can't afford to get as angry as he wants to get, right now. Once he trusts himself to speak again, he looks to Remy. "If you talk to him again, tell him to stay away from me. I see him again I'm gonna kill him." It's not a tough-guy, look-at-me threat. In fact, the young man looks almost sick at the prospect.
Remy's eyes open to allow the Cajun to consider Scott, and then he nods, looking back up to where Warren vanished. "Him and me, we ain't exactly de best of friends, but if we bump heads 'gain, I tell him to keep backed off. 'Course, I ain't promisin' he'll listen to me for a minute." There's a heartbeat, and then seemingly out of nowhere Remy says; "Sorry."
"What're you sorry for?" Scott takes his baseball cap off and scrubs a hand through his hair. He's deeply unhappy and trying not to show it. "He wasn't kidding. That threat he made, he meant it."
"Mostly for my big mout', I guess. Je ne sais pas." Remy shrugs, stretching his arms out to lean on the staff as he was while standing on the roof. "Warren's got issues wit' self-control dat ain't all his own fault, really. Not dat I'm sayin' dat excuses him wavin' his wings 'round and t'reatenin' you, b'cause it don't." Losing track of his train of thought, Gambit finishes off by shrugging carelessly.
"I have to kill him." He could do it, probably, from a distance. Scott hasn't met anything yet that could stand up to his eyebeams. He'd just need the range to avoid those wings. "Fuck," he adds, miserably.
Gambit's spine straightens, suddenly, and he looks sharply to the side at Scott. "Non, don't t'ink it's bad as all dat. Mebbe jus' keep 'way from him, is all?" Remy seems, even despite his general nonchalance, a little astonished at the prospect.
"He came to *me*. You hear what he said? He thinks I'm some kid he can push around, make fun of. He threatened to - " Scott breaks off, because he's about to get really upset, and reaches up a fingertip instead to touch it to the frame of his glasses. "I won't give him the chance."
"He t'inks ev'rybody's some kid he can push around," Remy says, his voice a little more gentle now. "He--least, de 'he' on my world--played second fiddle to de 'you' from my world for a long time, an' I suspect he got more dan a l'il resentment. If you're gonna take him literally on de t'reat, dough, take him literally on de terms, too. He ain't gonna try to put your eye out if you don't call him 'freak' 'gain--he's a l'il touchy 'bout dat. I can talk to him 'bout de 'kid' t'ing. I figure he ain't gonna tangle wit' you if he don't gotta; he knows damn well how much power you can put out."
"I don't want you to *talk* to the fuckin' guy for me," Scott says, exasperated rather than angry with Remy. "I'm not a goddamn kid. Yeah, I'm gonna take him literally. I can't let people threaten that, I won't hear it. I won't live with thinking about it."
Sighing, Remy looks to the side and nods. "Den I don' talk to him, I guess. Like I said, I ain't got no guarantee dat he'll listen t'me, an' I t'ink tryin' to off him after dis misunderstandin' is jus' a bad idea. I jus' hope I ain't 'round when de two of you come t'get'er 'gain." Because Beacon Harbor seems like such a small city, some days.
"It's a misunderstanding?" Scott's tone is sharp, and now he *is* angry. "I thought all the words he used were pretty simple. He's a bully. If he knows me, if - if that other me is *anything* the same as I am, he knows what these mean to me," a tap of his fingertip on his glasses again, "so don't tell me he didn't know what he was doing. He's an asshole."
"Je sais." Remy says, frowning now and looking back to Scott, "But it ain't all natural. Might be he come back to hisself a l'il later and realize what he was sayin' an' doin'. Tryin' real hard not to take sides b'cause in t'eory, somehow, I known him as long as I known you, but I can't cotton to you plannin' on killin' him. But I ain't gonna say I'm gonna stop you, eit'er." Now, Gambit is mostly frowning to himself. This is a fine place he's been wedged into. "Warren's more complicated dan 'bully', je pense. An' I t'ink when he makes t'reats, he only means dem for de space in time he's makin' de t'reat."
"So he's a lunatic too? That's *great*." Scott steps out of the doorway and starts off up the snowy street. He's been badly frightened, and utterly furious, and now he's trying to maintain the adrenaline rush until he can get somewhere safe. "He's a bully," he calls over his shoulder. "I know about guys like him."
Remy puts his hand over his face, briefly, before he nods again, glancing back over his shoulder to locate the nearest roof-access fire escape. "Like I said, hope I ain't anywhere nearby when de two of you go at it. An' keep in mind, if dis is anyt'in' like de Warren I known b'fore, he's got flechettes in his wings. Dey fire neurotoxins." Gambit mimics the motion Warren uses to fire off the poison with one hand. "Since he's gonna have a whole lot of tactics up on you. Be careful, mon ami."
Doesn't matter. It can't matter. Scott raises a hand without looking back. He doesn't want to fight with Remy, any more than they already do.