Over the river and through the woods, to Wanda's house we go. (RP with shadeof_grey)
[OOC: RP for shadeof_grey. Takes place after this conversation between Jean and Tony, and deviates from canon after Civil War 7.]
Steve Rogers is on a train to Transia. Steve Rogers should be in a prison cell on the SHIELD helicarrier. Or, at the very least, he should be in a considerably more spacious and well-furnished book-filled prison cell on Ryker’s ( Read more... )
Steve Rogers is on a train to Transia. Steve Rogers should be in a prison cell on the SHIELD helicarrier. Or, at the very least, he should be in a considerably more spacious and well-furnished book-filled prison cell on Ryker’s ( Read more... )
As a result, all through the flight from New York to Bucharest, she had felt stressed-out and been mostly silent. Besides screening the passengers' thoughts from herself, she had been subtly emitting a suggestion that would keep them from being recognized, although she thought maybe Tony was right, and it wasn't necessary. Steve Rogers was a handsome man, of course, and he didn't actually look like anyone else she knew. He just had one of those faces that looked instantly familiar. Comforting. There was something easy about being with him, and he didn't make her feel like she had to talk, for which she was grateful.
The train ride was proving more relaxing than the plane had been. This travel was more routine for most of the passengers. There was less nervous energy, generally speaking. On the downside, it gave Jean more free brainspace to think about things she didn't want to be considering.
Honestly, she is hardly paying attention to the boys when Steve looks at her and makes his apology. "It's all right," Jean says automatically. "I know about teenagers. You should have seen Nathan when he was --" But then she stops, because she hadn't really known Nathan as a teenager; she had known the other Nate a little, the one who was more-or-less Mike now, but they weren't the same person. Brothers at best. Like these two who were related to Wanda through -- well, because -- all right, Jean has no damned idea, as many times as Hank McCoy tried to explain it to her. Out loud, she says, "Families, you know?" Then she flushes as she looks at Steve, because she's not at all sure that he does. He was pretty young, and unmarried, at the time of the war. Everybody that he ever knew might have died while he was frozen in ice. Jean once saw a movie like that. . ."Sorry," she says out loud, then, in reference to nothing specific. "This whole situation is so stupid."
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And he is, honestly, confused. Tony's suggestion of Jean handling the Wanda situation made sense when he was simply looking for someone to fill a role. But once he decided to send Steve himself - someone who actually knew Wanda - why did Ms. Grey still have to be bothered? Surely the role of his babysitter could have been played by anyone. What attachment did Tony have to Jean all of a sudden? Tony had been harrassing her online, but Jean had been steadfastly refusing his advances with the sort of steely determination that Steve couldn't help but applaud. What had changed?
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Switching to telepathic communication -- even if no one else on the train knows English, Tommy and Billy might hear -- she says, Please don't misunderstand, Captain Rogers; whether or not I was asked to come -- By the time she got done talking with Tony, she hadn't been sure whose idea the plan was supposed to have been, or even whose it actually was. Wanda's fate -- her welfare, I mean -- is an important issue to the global mutant community. I'm the head of X-Corporation. I don't take orders from anyone else on this planet. And if I didn't think it was important for me to come, I wouldn't have. What I meant --
Now, she continues, out loud. "Just the whole situation is stupid. All the taking sides and forming factions and keeping secrets. I'm not even sure what's political and what's personal anymore. And Tony --" she begins, then glances at Rogers, seeing if he wants her to go on. Or maybe that's just an excuse, maybe she's chickening out, but she decided before the trip even started that she would have to tell him. "Tony's just Tony -- right?"
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He does, however, feel bad for his assumption about her comment. He's been trying to avoid thinking about the war itself, and all the politics thereof, instead keeping himself focused on Wanda and the task at hand. He should have realized that Jean, as the leader of a global organization, would be thinking on a broader scale.
"I'm sorry," he says, apologizing to her for the second time in three minutes. "I didn't mean to imply that you were being ordered around. Maybe I don't understand the difference between personal and political anymore, either. That's half the reason the war turned out how it did. But I know Tony, and his actions on this matter feel more like a personal thing than a political thing. I just wasn't sure where you factored into that. But I could be completely wrong. I didn't mean to offend you"
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Especially with what she's about to tell him.
She still isn't quite ready to spit out the truth, so she starts dancing around it. Telepathically, of course. Tony's really concerned about Wanda. That much is obvious, whatever his motives might be on. . . other matters, he genuinely wants the best resolution of this situation. I'm very sure of that. I don't really know what kind of history he has with Wanda but. . .I get the impression, he tends to mix the personal and professional a lot. In terms of, you know, relationships. Would that be an accurate assessment? It seems like, over the years you've been as close to him as, well, anybody.
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It's not inaccurate. Tony likes to pretend he's got different identities that he keeps separate - he didn't tell us he was Iron Man for years after he'd formed the Avengers. But he always slipped up just a little, too - enough for us to figure it out for ourselves, if we wanted to. So he'll pretend this is all business, but I know he really cares about Wanda as a person. He can't separate those feelings, no matter how hard he tries. And it works the other way, too. I can't tell you how many people he's asked to join his company just because he'd become friends with them in some private capacity. Or because he was sleeping with them."
Cap doesn't comment on the "you've been as close to him as anybody" part. That statement's current lack of truth still hurts too much to consider.
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Maybe he'll understand, maybe she'll have to spell it out.
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It all depends, really. When he's sleeping with one of those women whose pictures are plastered on the supermarket tabloids, it's not very personal. But Tony is just as capable of falling for someone completely. I've seen him in love. It's just hard, in the beginning stages, to tell the difference. From an outside perspective, at least.
He pauses, then decides to voice his confusion; if Jean is reading his thoughts, the odds are good that she's noticed it anyway. I don't mean to sound prudish, but is there a reason we're discussing this?
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There, she just said it.
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Steve doesn't know quite how to react to that. His mind is immediately filled with a million different conflicting emotions - confusion, anger, disgust, surprise, and, to some extent, jealousy - none of which he wants to examine more intensively. He's pretty sure he's accidentally transmitting most of them to Jean, though, as he grapples with something coherent to say. His mind wonders, for a second, if Tony forced himself on her in some way, but he immediately wipes the thought from his mind - Jean is incredibly powerful, both emotionally and physically, and there's no way he could have gotten away with that. So it must have been consensual. And it's not that Steve doesn't understand why people would want to sleep with Tony, but Jean had seemed so against the idea...
Why? he finally sends. If you'll pardon me asking. It's the first thing he's actually sent to her since "oh," but he hasn't been putting up psy-shields, and it's conceivable to believe that she's caught his entire thought process.
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When he finally sends her a question:
Why? she responds, and there's something with it, the mental equivalent of a laugh. It's not the question he expected -- it's incredibly nosy, really -- and then he qualifies it with yet another apology.
It's so unexpected that Jean replies with more honesty than she actually intended. Because he pissed me off. Does that make sense to you? It doesn't make much sense to Jean. But maybe Cap has known him long enough to understand what she's thinking.
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But then Jean answers, and Steve has to take a minute to ponder the question. He's never actually slept with anyone because of anger or frustration, but, if he's honest with himself, he knows there have been moments when he's wanted to. It wasn't a rational impulse, and Steve Rogers has always prided himself on his ability to repress irrational impulses. But for someone less inhibited, he can understand how it would comed to pass. And this is Tony they're talking about.
I suppose it does, he says, finally. In a way.
Are you... is this a relationship? he asks. He's not sure which possible answer to that question would bother him more.
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She certainly hasn't intended taking advantage of Rogers' greater knowledge of Tony in order to help her figure out her own personal life. But, there was something he had said --
See, for him? It's just like what you mentioned. About the girls on the magazine covers. The way he was chasing me publicly like that, because I'm supposedly famous super hero chick, or whatever. It's not personal. He doesn't take it seriously. That doesn't mean he doesn't take me seriously, you see? It's just that Jean Grey, head of X-Corp, is a totally separate person to him from the person who he's. . . She doesn't finish the thought, for all their sakes. It's not like I don't have some experience with the dual identity thing, myself. And obviously, he does. You see how it works?
She keeps the next thought to herself, which is that it almost makes the idea of her and Tony make sense. Because that's stupid because they don't make sense. Obviously.
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The intensity of his initial emotions have drained out of him, for the most part. Jean and Tony in a relationship makes about as much sense as anything else that's been happening in his life lately. And while he's glad he knows, for the sake of better understanding what's going on with this mission, the mission itself is still of primary importance. His mind begins to wander to other things - from the trivial (he should flag down a food trolley and get the boys some dinner) to the serious (what is he going to say to Wanda, when he sees her?).
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She is relieved that he seems to be sending his thoughts elsewhere, and she's not prying, but Cap doesn't exactly have this telepathy thing down, and so she catches -- in a vague way -- the essence of his feelings about Wanda.
You and Wanda were close? she asks. She hasn't really been able to figure out why Tony thought Cap, of all people, was vital to this mission. The best hint she has gotten is his comment about how Steve and Wanda might be in love. She had taken it as a flip remark, but now she wonders. It's none of my business, of course, she quickly amends and then, almost the same thought, I'm sorry I can't be more worthy of your respect, Captain Rogers. I can just go if you want some privacy.
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He pauses, however, before answering her question. His first instinct is to brush it off - Sam and Tony are the only two people who even know the story at all, and even they only know bits and pieces of it. But Jean has been so honest with him that he'd feel like a hypocrite to hide this.
Wanda and I were teammates for a very long time. I was the leader of the Avengers when she joined the team, and with only four of us there - Wanda, her brother, Hawkeye, and myself - we formed a sort of bond. And then, more recently... He can't help pausing a bit. There was something. Between us. We didn't - it wasn't - it was just one night, and she slept on the couch. And maybe it wasn't real at all. She was so far gone already, but most of us hadn't noticed. I was going crazy myself, a little - his mind fills with images of frigid ice and bursting gunshots, felt all over again so many years after they'd occurred - and maybe I just made it all up. She didn't remember it, at least. But... well, I know there was something there, something that had been building even before that particular night did or didn't happen. And then she broke down completely, and then she was gone. Until now, he finishes.
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