1/6/07 - Beckah, Cassy, Mira, Storm
---
Early afternoon, and the first rush of work after the shift change has finally died down. His desk is a cluttered, disordered thing, piled high with file folders too full to comfortably close. On the lined yellow pad that serves as the day's notes, Det. Rossi has scrawled the list of messages still to be addressed. The second to last one is the target of his pen's idle tapping; the number associated with it blinks on his phone, the handset pinned between shoulder and ear. "--just the bagel," he tells his partner, whose broad back forges through the group by the entrance. "And get me a coke!"
Beckah's phone rings.
It takes two rings before someone picks up. "Hello?" Beckah's voice asks. The rhaspiness of earlier in the day has faded considerably from where it was in the message that she had left. She is near the door to her apartment, a small pile of clothes, blankets, and pillows neatly sat on her coffee table. Provisions for her plan to spend some time away from her apartment.
"This is Detective Chris Rossi of the NYPD," the Brooklyn-rich baritone begins, professionally courteous. In person, the cop lolls back in his seat and tosses his pen, catching it idly on its downward spin. "I'm looking for Rebecca-- Reed?"
The sound of a relieved sigh comes back over the phone. "Hey Chris. It's me," she confirms. Over the phone, movement can be heard as she moves to a cupboard in her hallway and begins to rummage through it. Hollow styrofoam can be heard clacking against itself, as she plucks a cheap cooler out of it's hiding place.
The first question is a quizzical, "You okay?" The second is a wry, "You know how lucky you are the precinct phone system has a call log for incoming numbers? There gotta be a dozen Rebecca Reeds in the city. What's going on, kid?"
"Someone broke into my apartment last night," she begins. "It was really insane. It took me until I was talking to a friend last night to get it together enough to realize I could call you." Beckah doesn't sound entirely certain of herself.
"You can call me," Rossi says, the chair squeaking a little as he turns a bit to gain access to his notepad. Long legs cross on the nearby guest chair, one foot dragging the heavy metal seat closer. "I didn't get all the details from the phone call. Anyone get hurt?"
"Yeah, me, a little. She strangled me some." Beckah sounds almost embarassed to be admitting this. "The thing that worries me though is that I'm scared she is going to come back. I don't know how to keep her out. She came in while I had everything locked." The cooler is placed on a counter with a dull thunk, and Rossi can hear ice-cube trays being emptied through the phone.
"Strangled you some." The echo back has a sardonic cast to it, though it is shallow cynicism, at best. Rossi scrawls a quick note, his swift frown darkening the lower timbres of his voice. "You're still talking, at least. You get a doctor to look at that? She threaten to come back?"
"I don't know. She said a lot of stuff that didn't make any sense, honestly. I've been trying to figure it out all day, but it still doesn't add up." Beckah begins to settle bottles of water into the cooler, plucking them from her fridge. "She's a mutant. And figured out I'm one. We met in a bar a few days ago. Remember the almost-fight I mentioned the other night? It was her. She found out where I live, and my name and came after me."
Rossi's pen taps a staccato rhythm on the notepad, slouching into the seat's rickety frame. "Well, shit," he says. Green eyes narrow across the squad room. "That's not so good. Sounds like she's taking it personal. What kind of locks you got on the doors? You have someplace else you can stay for a while?"
"She got through a deadbolt and the normal door lock, without breaking them or even making a sound." Beckah frowns herself, "Walked in like they weren't even there. I stayed with a friend last night, and I'm going to crash in my car tonight."
The cop makes a sound and sits forward to scrub at his eyes. "You can't crash in your car," he says, flatly. "That's not safe. Worse than crashing in your apartment. About the only thing that's got going for it is mobility, and that's not even for sure if your stalker knows what your car looks like. Start calling your friends, Beckah. Find someone else you can shack up with for a few days."
"Does staying at my next door neighbor's place count as safe?" She asks softly, with a faint little uncomfortable laugh to it. "I would have called 911 last night, but it uh... I don't think you guys are going to be able to find her."
"Would've been the smart thing," Rossi says wryly, shading his eyes with the blade of his hand. "Next door's safer than where you are. Do that. Meanwhile, I'm heading out there to check out your apartment. You up to meeting me there? Maybe with a friend?"
"I'm uh, actually there right now. Getting some stuff so I'm not running around naked underneath my coat for the next couple of days. I don't figure she'll come back in broad daylight." She adds, more quietly, "I hope she won't, anyway." Beckah adds, "She was ranting a bunch of stuff about how she didn't want to hurt me, and how I should be proud of what I am, and shit like that. I don't think she wants to kill me or something, she could have last night when she had my knife." Little details she didn't fill in.
The pen pauses over a space on the notepad. The detective furrows his brow. "Tell me where you live," Rossi suggests, planting both elbows on the desk with a small thump. "I'll be by in a few minutes. How'd you know she was a mutant, anyway? Did she do something to you?"
"She uh... changed shape. She looks different normally, underneath the blonde look. Blue skin and scales. Yellow eyes, too. Who has yellow eyes?" Beckah shakes her head, "Oh, um. Greenwich Apartments. Number 340. Sorry, I had this weird thought going that police know those things automatically."
The snap of eyes opening is unseen; likewise, the swift change of expression that hardens Rossi's face. "Okay," he says after a long span of seconds. "Here's what I need you to do. Go next door to your friend's place. Stay there. I'll be there in a little bit. If he's not there, I need you to go to a local diner or a shop or somewhere, someplace public that you can see your apartment. We'll come with sirens going, so you'll know when to come back. Got it?"
Beckah is caught off-guard by the sudden change of tone to Rossi's response. "What? Weren't you just going to come look at the apartment?" She sounds confused. The girl has no idea that her visitor last night was one of the most wanted terrorists on the planet.
"We're coming to look at the apartment," Rossi assures mellowly, already standing to rip the sheet off the pad. His free arm extends, fingers snapping to snag another detective's attention. "I just want to be sure. If you got some crazy chick interested in you, it's better safe than sorry. She already strangled you once. Might as well make a point of the police being at your back."
"Okay," she accepts the assurance easily enough. "I'll be next door, if Andre's home. If not, I'll go hang out in the coffee shop across the street. I guess I'll see you when you get here then?" Beckah says, sounding a little more like herself.
"Gimme a number." The detective stoops over his pad again and scrawls a hasty message, rips it off, and hands it to his colleague. Eyebrows lift over the note; Tucci claims Beston's phone and picks it up to dial. "Tell me which side, and then hang tight until I get there."
Beckah asks, "Andre's? He's in 330, to the uh..." She has to stop and looks, "Left of my door." Beckah rubs a hand back through her dreadlocks.
The detective makes another scrawled notation, and nods across the conjoined desks to Tucci. The other man is already issuing swift instructions through the phone. "I'm leaving now," Rossi says, curt. "See you soon." And the line cuts off.
It is about ten minutes later that the first police car rolls up in front of Greenwich apartments, sirens blazing and lights whirling in an angry streak of color. It is a formal black-and-white, with uniformed officers inside who jog into the building in force. Five minutes after that, it is an unmarked vehicle that pulls up against the curb, the portable light blinking red on the dash. Det. Rossi emerges.
It is from across the street that Beckah comes over after seeing the black and white pull up with lights and sirens. She is dressed in her coat, as ever, and heads over toward the front of her building. She didn't see Rossi among the officers already heading inside, and so she lingers by the door. When he arrives, she steps down to meet him. "Hey Chris." There are marks visible at her throat, bruising that mimmicks the hand that had been around her throat the night before.
Rossi's stride diverts as another detective emerges from the car, a lean, dark-eyed man in his late twenties. "Beckah," he greets. His suit is dark black under the open leather overcoat, dark blue shirt interrupted by the pallor of a grey tie. The green eyes glance off the signs of bruising, professional interest lifting a hand to her chin. "You mind?" he asks, just short of touching.
"No, go ahead." Beckah lifts her chin slightly. She seems tense at being touched, but considering Rossi's professional status (and the fact that she genuinely likes the guy), allows her to let it happen.
The gloved fingers are gentle, and careful; they lift her chin to bare the mottled marks more clearly against the skin. Rossi stretches his other hand, not quite touching to measure their span. "Looks pretty painful," he observes, releasing her. "You been to a doc?"
Beckah shakes her head once her chin is released, "No, I haven't. It hurts, but it isn't going to kill me. It's just bruises," she downplays the fact that they were caused by someone's hand on her throat.. "Um, should we go upstairs, I guess?"
"C'mon, then," Rossi suggests, a glance looping in the uniforms. One of them opens the door; the other one, bending his head to a swift comment from the detective, heads back to his car. "Upstairs? Lead the way."
Beckah does just that, leading the way. She walks along quietly, leading the way up to the third floor and to her apartment. Once near it, she gestures toward Rossi, "There it is. I uh, I didn't think to leave stuff the way it was after she left or anything." She says this with guilt born of having watched Law and Order reruns.
The detective opens the door with a gloved hand, shoulders lifting in a quick shrug. The tumblers click and roll. Chunk chunk. "Don't worry about it," he says, distracted already by the crime scene. Beckah's apartment. His glance cuts to the deadbolt and the lock, testing both while the uniform pushes his hat back and makes way for the other detective's silent entrance and prowl. "We can try the locks on the outside. She might've touched them. --Tell you what. CSU's coming by in a few. Why don't you take a seat and tell me what happened. What she said to you."
The deadbolt and doorknob both are in perfect condition. Nothing was broken. The apartment is a studio, decorated fairly nicely, with a large cache of work-out equipment in one corner, another corner closed off by faux walls that go all the way to the ceiling. A kitchenette and a fold-out couch occupy the other corners. Beckah takes a seat on the couch. "Um, well... She told me I should be proud of what I am, about how I should be angry and outraged that I have to hide what I am from people to live a normal life." Her shoulders shrug under the leather of her coat. "Told me a bunch of shit about how I should fight, but I won't. About how she makes sacrifices I won't ever understand. A whole bunch of fucking double-talk that didn't add up."
"Typical trash talk," Rossi observes, claiming space on the seat for himself. A small notepad is fished out of his inner pocket, while the other detective checks the window outside. "She knew you were a mutant, then, right? --Don't worry about Twinker," he adds with a quick glance to the other cop. "He's MA. He's got access to the same records I do."
Beckah nods her head slowly after a glance at the other cop. "Yeah. She uh, figured it out at the bar the first time we met, when she started talking trash because I answered when she talked to me."
Rossi's mouth twists into a crooked little slash. "Friendly," he says. The two detectives exchange glances.
It is Twinker who speaks next. "What happened next?"
"Um, well, there was a point in there when she took the knife that I grabbed when she came in and held it up against me and threatened to uh, remove some parts of me." Beckah frowns and amends her statement, "She /offered/. She was adamant that she was offering. We argued back and forth, she showed me what she really looks like, then she told me a bunch of other nonsense. Eventually I yelled at her, because I was all upset and shit. And she grabbed me by the throat and shook me around. Then left."
"Weird," says Twinker.
"Typical," says Rossi.
The two detectives glance at each other again. "Here's the thing," Rossi tells Beckah, leaning forward to prop an elbow on the back of the sofa. "Your visitor sounds like it might have been Mystique."
Beckah arches a brow upward, "Who?"
"Mystique." Rossi hesitates. Twinker, his attention turned to the street below, glances across the room to the summons of the uniform and heads out, leaving the two of them alone. "You know about Magneto, right?"
Beckah nods her head slowly, "Yeah. The terrorist guy. The big fuckin' reason why everyone's so scared of mutants."
The detective's baritone is dry. "The one and only. He's got this blue shapeshifting--" Rossi hesitates, visibly picking his words, then concludes, "--woman. His girlfriend, and his pet assassin. Yellow eyes. Vicious sense of humor. Her name's Mystique."
The dreadlocked woman looks at Rossi for a minute, staring. She has no real idea of how to reply to this, and so she opens and closes her mouth a few times before she finally finds words. "That was Magneto's /girlfrend/?" Suddenly, there is a lot more to be afraid of than a crazy woman out to beat her up.
"They've gone after mutants before, but usually there's something more to it than just--" A hand gestures, sketching something more significant than Beckah's hapless self. His brows press low, casting shadow into the pale eyes. Rossi refocuses on the woman. "Somehow or another, you came to her attention. Damned if I know where it'll go from there. We'll put a detail on you for a while, just to make sure she doesn't come after you again."
"Wht would people like /that/ want with me, Chris?" She looks up at him, as if he should be able to provide her the answers. "I don't even like being a mutant. I pretend I hate them around most people so no one will think I am."
"Might want to back off on that bit," Rossi observes, stripping off a glove to run starfished fingers through his hair. "If you want to blend in, then don't have an opinion at all. Acting like you hate them gets the wrong attention, either way. The bigots think they have a buddy; the mutants think they have an enemy. Either way, you're fucked. Damned if I know what they /want/ with you." The frown crowds closer, pale eyes darkening in consideration. "The important thing is to keep you safe."
Beckah sighs and looks down at herself. "Yeah. I guess you've got a point about that," she mutters quietly. "I don't like any of this. I just want people to leave me alone and let me do my thing. I don't want those... monsters trying to fight for me. She told me all of this garbage about how I'm too weak and afraid to stand up for myself. Like she's decided she knows everything about me just because I hide my..." She trails off, nearly blurting something terrible in her outrage at Mystique's pontificating. "Because I hide."
Rossi looks sardonic. "Everybody hides," he drags out, a hint of humor lighting his eyes. "Even the people who're out of the closet keep some stuff in. Don't worry about it. You do what you need to do, and fuck the rest of it." He leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees with stooped shoulders, and loosely clasps his hands -- one gloved, one bare -- to quirk a brow up over their knot.
"So what I need to do now is ditch my apartment, or what?" She looks over to him, uncertainty fairly clear in her expression. Beckah's left with only a sigh as her recourse.
"Pretty serious step," Rossi says -- but he doesn't not say no. He straightens a bit, glancing back at the door and its locks. Noises from outside mark the arrival of CSU; he nods to the first body in, a sad-faced Hispanic man bearing a large kit. "Have to think about that one. In the meantime, why don't you head over to your friend's -- or maybe the coffee shop, with Twinker? Forensics needs to sweep the room."
Beckah gives a nod of her head, "I don't think my friend's home. So, uh, I guess the coffee shop it is." She shrugs her shoulders once more and stands awkwardly, careful not to bend too much in the middle. "Um, I guess I'll be seeing you then, Chris?" Her smile is meager, but it's there.
Rossi pulls himself up as well, the leather overcoat hissing around his calves. "I'll come get you when we're done," he promises, a swift smile lighting his face. The other detective shoves his hands in his pockets and presses against the door frame, offering Beckah passage past him. "Make him buy the coffee. He's got a budget."
Beckah heads out of her apartment, with a wave over her shoulders at Rossi. She looks to her assigned coffee partner with the same sort of small smile that is barely there. "So, uh, hey," she says, trying to strike up conversation as she heads down the hall.
Twinker looks down at Beckah and smiles slowly, proving himself to be a good-looking man in his own quiet way. Left behind in the apartment, Rossi looks around at the forensics team already at work on the door, his own smile fading away. A hand runs through his hair, agitating it to excited spikes again. "Mystique," he says, and blows out a breath. His notepad appears again, its pages flipped to a clean sheet. "Jesus Christ."
[Log ends]
Rossi goes out in answer to a call from Beckah about Mystique.
---
=NYC= Apt 115 |Rossi| - Concord Apartments - Apartments in the Sky
An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age.
In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor.
"Okay, they better turn up soon because otherwise these sweet onion tarts are going to be ruined!" Cassy complains loudly, springing around in the kitchen checking all manner of things. "Found any bottles of wine yet Mira? I know there is whiskey hidden away, but it hardly goes with fine dining."
"Roger on the wine," Mira says back, rising from a crouch in front of a low cabinet and twirling a dark glass bottle in her hands in a dangerously showy move. She looks odd in a red t-shirt and purple scarf, but at least the shirt is tucked in. This means she's 'dressed nice'. "And yes, I was already well aware of the whiskey." She secretly hopes Rossi isn't the type to mark the level of his bottles.
With Magnetos walking in through the window, how could he? The grate of the key in the door is a rattling, audible thing through the small apartment; the small thud of a foot kicking it open, likewise: expressive of impatience, if not necessarily of mood. Clad in the long leather overcoat with which he started his day, the black suit, dark blue shirt, and grey tie visible beneath it, Det. Rossi comes home.
And smells dinner. He pauses in the doorway, eyebrows twitching together in frank surprise. "What the hell?"
"We've prepared you dinner, if you'd like to take a seat?" Cassy requests politely - dressed up in a rather formal dress. With a giggle she adds "I took the liberty of doing some shopping and picking up essentials, I mean who on earth lives in a house without the ingredients to make shortcrust pastry?"
Mira offers the entering Rossi a pleasant hostess' smile and points with an open hand toward the arranged table, though plates and glasses have yet to be distributed to it. "You didn't have a white tablecloth, so it's a bedsheet I folded up. Looks nice though, doesn't it?"
"Dinner?" baffled Rossi demands, shrugging slowly out of his overcoat to hang it on the nearby hook. His suit, falling open, bares the badge and holstered gun at his hip. "I have instant ramen and pasta and-- I mean, it's just me. No point in cooking for one. I was going to order in...." He trails off, scrubbing a hand through his hair to rumple it into a black and silver tangle. Surprise, given its head, slowly gives way to a grudging appreciation. "That's nice of you two. You didn't have to go to all that trouble."
Cassy smiles cheerfully, in between inspecting the contents of every pan in Rossi's apartment. "Mira could you start setting the table? Oh and best put out the antipasto if you could?"
The imitation of a seasoned waitress continues, the darker haired teenager giving the plates a daring little spin as she doles them out so they spiral into place. Four places, to be exact. With four chairs and a great clattering of silverware for four people. "On it!" Mira chirps and hustles back to the kitchen counter.
Rossi, uncharacteristically docile given the situation, slides out of his suit coat. A finger tugs at the tie, loosening its knot; the straps of the holster pull the shirt tight across his back and shoulders. "They teach you this shit at that school?" he wonders aloud, tossing the suit onto the sofa before heading towards the kitchen. Crowded. He grimaces. "Can I grab a beer?"
The latch upon the closed window begins to rattle decisively, beneath a windy onslaught.
"I'll pass one out in a second, there are sliced meats and nibbles to begin with while I finish off the starters," Cassy informs, using telekinesis to open the fridge while she fuses over a pan. "I picked up cooking myself, but I've been learning some more fancy dishes of late, but I didn't do it all I mean Mira helped slice some of the vegetables!"
"Yeah, but I washed all the pieces that got blood on them an' I don't think I have any infectious diseases. So you'll be fine," Mira assures quickly, brushing past Rossi with smaller appetizer plates in hand. "'Scuuuuse me." Furthermore, there is more setting of plates. And by god, origami-folded napkins.
Rossi's mouth opens. Then closes, a little weakly. "You did what?" he asks at last, taking advantage of Mira's exit to dive for the refrigerator. Beer bottles share space with an entirely new assortment of groceries, a collection he eyes with some bewilderment before hastily retreating to the living room again. "You cooked the stuff you bled on, right? No offense, but sharing your body fluids wasn't in the deal."
Outside, cleverly aimed wind finds the correct angle to blast -- the hook flicks up, and the window slams obligingly open. Ororo rides in on a fresh gust, black chiffon skirt rippling fluidly about her knees as her high heels touch down upon the floor. Breaking and entering, what?
"Professor Monroe! What a pleasant surprise," Cassy declares from the kitchen. "We're just preparing to serve, if you could take a seat?" Bouncing around the teenage red head begins to plate up the first course - tarts with caramelized onions, nutmeg, eggs, & cream served with a small green salad. There appears to be more things cooking still, and behind the beer was something which looked remarkably like a dessert course.
"Duuuuude," Mira chides the grown New York detective in the same tone reserved for a schoolyard 'Duuuuuuh'. "Joke. Relax." She turns just in time to see the ever-distinctive Ororo Munroe making a very distinctive entrance, and greets her Social Studies teacher with a welcoming smile. "Right over here," she says and pulls back a chair politely.
There is a split moment's shock at the window's sudden gape; Rossi's gun is out and aimed before it has time to rebound. An automatic reaction. For one split second the cold green eye stares down the arm, before surprised recognition draws it up. It is a night for such things. "The fuck--?" he snaps, though it is more startled than angry. Even through perplexity, warmth spills swift and light for Storm's arrival. "Cadbury. Hey. Wasn't expecting to see you here. Checking up on them? Or me?"
Ororo stares at Rossi, her attention thoroughly caught and leveraged by the gun. "Weren't /expect/--" She cuts herself off and for a moment holds herself to still and perfect blankness, the only reliable gauge to her mood the whistle and whip of wind just past the open window. "You invited me," she accuses. She cants her head, taking in the girls with a sidelong glance. One of them is Mira; the other one is Cassy. Their existence in this context is a deeply baffling thing for a moment.
Cassy laughs impishly. "How droll!" she declares, waving her hand dismissively. Her eyes flick to the as yet untouched nibbles on the table, causing her to pout sullenly. The plate rattles a little, to draw peoples attention towards it - for she is oh so subtle! "Didn't the Professor tell you we're staying here until the school re-opens?"
Even when Rossi draws his gun, Mira's practiced smile doesn't drop. Not a bit. Having drawn a chair for Ororo, she crosses to the other side of the living room with an agenda. A pleasant string quartet begins to play, a custom playlist of gentle, inoffensive dinner music. All it takes is a computer, the internet, and a blank CD. "Have a seat. The food'll get cold!"
"They took the bedroom," Rossi explains, holstering the gun again with an almost sheepish grimace. "I'm crashing on the sofa. It's just for the weekend. I don't think I invi-- not that I object," he adds hastily, opening an arm to invite Storm in. A faint smile dawns behind the green eyes. "You're welcome anytime, Cadbury. Looks like it's someone else's party."
Ororo attempts to rapidly shift mental gears. "I got a phone call," she says. "It sure sounded like you." But her stance has shifted from coiled tight as a spring to something approaching more ease. Unfastening her black peacoat with flicks of nimble fingers at its buttons, she takes a few obedient steps to the set table, rallying. "I must have missed the memo about you girls being here," she says, venturing a slight smile despite the wariness of her tone. She tips a glance back over her shoulder towards Chris. "I hope they've been decently behaved?"
Cassy gasps as if the implication she was ever anything else is /entirely/ unexpected. "Can I pass you out a beer?" she offers, holding one out, with her other hand reaching for a second. "And it'd only be fair if we get one each too, naturally."
Mira averts her eyes gently at the mention of a phone call from someone who sounded like Rossi. Pay no attention to the audiokinetic teenager behind the curtain. "Why yes, Miss Munroe," she says in her best 'dear mother' tone. "We've been on our best behavior." If this is their best, though...
Suspicion turns to both girls from Rossi's side of the room. "You don't get beer," he says flatly, a fine model of responsible maturity. An effect that is ruined a heartbeat later by the uncertain glance aside at Ororo. "Do they? --They've been fine. Haven't been any trouble. That I know about." The top of his own bottle popped off by a thumb, he sends the cap spinning towards the living room's small trash can before making his own wary approach to the table.
"No, they don't get beer," Ororo comes down quite firmly upon this point. "Sorry, Cassy. Perhaps if you had somehow engineered a host family in Europe. And no, thank you," she adds, for it is only polite not to drink when there are those denied the opportunity; or maybe keeping the mind as sharp as possible around these particular students is her true motivation. "How was your holiday?"
Cassy puts the beer bottles back, with a smile. "It was lots of fun," she says cheerfully. "It was really exciting leaving when we did, then we got Rollerblades and I invented this game based off jousting!" Scooping up two of the plates, she makes her way over to the table. "Mira could you get the drinks?"
As bidden, the other hostess sweeps past Cassy and into the kitchen for a small jug of ice water. "You're never allowed to hang out with my little sister again," Mira asides to Cassy as they pass in a somewhat deeper, more serious tone, then all is smiles and brightness again as she fills two clean glasses on the table.
"I got a feeling we're being played," Rossi wryly tells Ororo, his beer wobbling a little by a plate on the table. Hands freed, he moves around his -- their? -- guest, belatedly claiming the gentleman's role to Storm's coat. "Any bones get broke?"
Ororo smiles her thanks at Rossi as he aids her in the removal of coat, the knit cream sweater beneath snug against her skin. With a slight lift of her brow as she glances at him, she does not at all say that she is certain of it. "Jousting," she says instead, sitting down neatly at table. "Really. I wouldn't think that lances and rollerblades would go well together."
Cassy sets the plates down in front of Storm and Rossi. "Enjoy!" she declares, springing back towards the kitchen. "You need metal trash can lids to form shields, then ideally ski poles to make lances from. The trick is to put enough padding on everything before hand otherwise you get stabbed, but it totally hit my cast! So I was /fine/."
"*Lacking* ski poles," Mira responds to her roommate in a tone suggestive of a long-standing argument. "We had street hockey sticks." As subtly as she can manage, which sadly isn't very much, she sweeps around the table to collect the napkins and silverware set for the other two currently and apparently purposefully empty chairs.
Rossi looks briefly appalled on his way to the coat closet, but amusement is swift to chase the expression away. "Jesus," he says, with a twitch of the lips for Mira in passing. "I'm glad I'm not your mother. Don't suppose it occurred to either of you that you seriously could've poked your eyes out or taken a stick to the brain? --Whoa. Where're you going with that?"
"I did get hit in the head, didn't do a thing to me," Cassy replies with a shrug. "Anyway the main course is finished and all plated up, it's a pumpkin, spinach and Thai peanut curry served with sticky Thai rice. There is also some parfait, because /everyone/ loves parfait!"
"The staff, sir," Mira advises politely like an English butler, inclining her head a little at Rossi, "Do not dine with the guests." The girl scuttles back into the kitchen to the melodic sound of clinking plates over a cello solo.
The closet door closes. "What the hell," Rossi ejaculates, stalking after Mira to lean into the kitchen. Eyebrows hike high into the rumpled fringe of black hair; under it, green eyes narrow with sharp-toothed suspicion on the two girls. "What're you two pulling?"
Cassy pulls out two cinema tickets and smiles sweetly. "Well if you /really/ want to know.... We've planned you a romantic dinner for two," she informs innocently. "While we make ourselves scarce and see a film, we'll be back late to give you two plenty of alone time."
"C'mon, dude," Mira says with a shrug of her shoulders in Storm's direction, keeping her voice low. "The lady's waiting and the rice gets dry if you don't eat it soon." Then, perhaps to assuage any feelings of responsibility Mira thinks Rossi might feel, "It's cool. We got cellphones and pepper spray, remember?"
Rossi's eyes show a brief touch of white around the green. "You've got to be shitting me," he murmurs, low-voiced. "What the fuck are you two pulling? Is this for my benefit or for hers? You two trying to pull something?"
"I am shocked that you would ever imply such a thing!" Cassy says, fixing Rossi with a hurt look. "I spend all afternoon slaving over a hot stove, keeping Mira out from underfoot. You haven't even tried the pre-dinner nibbles, I went to the trouble of finding an Italian deli too!"
"It's true, she's a cruel slavedriver in an apron," Mira says flatly and finishes dusting her hands with a kitchen towel, looking up to meet green eyes with warm, self-assured, definitely mature enough to go to a movie tonight chocolate brown.
The detective is fantastically unimpressed. Cynicism sparks across the harsh face, the sardonic mouth twisting. "Not really sure it's a good idea to let you two out into the city alone. Especially at this hour. Why don't you just stay and have dinner?"
Cassy giggles impishly. "Because we've already had ours, I had to try out the menu before hand and it seemed like a waste not to just make it into our meal," she informs sagely. Then, in a whisper, she adds "Besides, this is my way of saying sorry to Professor Monroe for calling her a satanic murderer who does improper things to animals! Which was a total misunderstanding caused by some crazy rich women who I ended up on the phone with." Cassy shrugs as if this sort of thing is a common occurance for everyone.
Mira just nods, keeping her lips tightly shut and folding her arms behind her back like a posing angel. Explanations concerning Satanic animal sacrifice are simply accepted with more nodding.
A peculiar expression slides into Rossi's eyes. "Satanic what?" he says, bewildered. "Who does -- what? What animals? What the fuck is--?" His hand slides across his eyes, fingertips dragging as though to wipe away cobwebs. "Okay. Back up. Why the hell did you call her a-- whatever you called her? What does that have to do with dinner?" His glance skims to Mira, a mute entreaty for help.
It is at this point that Ororo abandons patience and courtesy to bear down upon all three of her hosts with deep curiosity as well as bafflement. "Everything all right?" she asks. "'Staff?'"
"I can explain everything!" Cassy declares earnestly. "Professor Monroe knocked me out with a cellphone, I called the last number dialed to try see who had done it. The person on the other end said she murdered children and diddled animals while in her body, naturally I assumed this was some kind of satanic cult. Because she sounded all rich and sinister." She glances at everyone to make sure people are following her logic. "So anyway I decided a nice three course meal would be a perfect apology for this totally reasonable misunderstanding. Thus the food tonight, which we think you would enjoy a lot more if we went out to watch a film!"
"We just wanted her to have a nice dinner after all the stuff that's gone on with the school, too," Mira adds helpfully. Then as Ororo's patience runs dry, she smiles sweetly but not too much to look fake. Not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
Ororo presses thumb and forefinger against her eyes, brow crinkling. She inhales deeply, preparing to speak -- and then the breath gusts loose on a sound that is the stuttered beginning of a suppressed groan. "--I never did apologize to you properly for the incident with the cell phone," she says slowly.
Rossi straightens against the doorway, body turning a bit to allow Ororo access to the already crowded kitchen. A hand opens, palm up in befuddlement. "Okay. I'm lost. You smacked her in the head with a cell phone? That's some hit, Cadbury. You learn that in your cult?"
"It was thrown off the roof," Cassy notes helpfully. "Later on when my concussion was gone I figured it was almost impossible to have actually aimed a throw like that. Plus that women sounded like an utter b- bad person."
Ororo turns a look on him that bespeaks black fury wholly inappropriate to the levity of the inquiry, her left hand curling into a fist while her right scratches through her hair. She shakes herself, loosening temper's grip on the breath of a shaky laugh, and presses both hands to her face. "No, Cassy, she isn't a very nice person," she says, muffled by her palms. "If we hadn't had an argument I don't imagine I would have thrown the phone off the roof."
The saturnine glint behind Rossi's face disappears on an instant, surprise tangled with quick attention. The lean body tightens, abrupt interest waking. "Something I should know about?" he wonders quietly, hands shoving deep into pants pockets to draw the fabric tight.
"And that's why we have to goto the cinema," Cassy adds in summary. "Your tart is going cold you know, which'll make the pastry less crisp."
Mira's eyes flick sideways to the clock in the kitchen, brushing past the dwindling amount of steam from the peanut curry. Juggling a little mental arithmetic about distances and walking speed, her mouth twitches with concern about the answer she comes up with.
Hesitation holds Ororo only a moment longer. She sighs. "Yes," she says, not quite looking at Rossi. "Perhaps it would be best if ... you two went and enjoyed your movie."
Rossi's eyebrows quirk upward, a crooked expression of inquiry -- but he makes no argument against it, pushing off from the doorway to wander back into the living room instead. "Take a bonded cab," he says over his shoulder. "Stay away from the gypsy transport. And afterwards, you get your asses right back here. Got it?"
"Yes sir!" Cassy says sweetly. "And if anyone makes any sudden movements I'll pepper spray them into next week." Skipping out the kitchen, she scoops up her coat and heads for the door. "Coming Mira?"
Mira grabs her coat as well, carefully prepared and concealed in the kitchen all along, snapping a salute at Rossi after she slings it on. "Cash, ID, and phone," she pats the inside pocket. Along with a plastic bottle of Coke from the grocery store, because theater prices are brutal. And they don't come equipped with three fingers of whiskey mixed in. "Enjoy!" she chirps and slides after Cassy.
Once the girls have gone, Ororo walks silently back out of the kitchen and crosses to the table on light, padding steps. She toes off her shoes when she reaches the chair, sits down, crossing her legs at the ankle, and demurely picks up a fork.
Rossi, likewise silent, checks the door after the two girls have left and wanders back to the table, claiming his own seat. The curry has chilled, but not enough to bring shame to the chef. He unravels his origami napkin, deposits it on his lap, and sits back to consider Ororo.
Storm arranges food on her plate in pretty patterns, using the fork's tines to help in this venture in amateur sculpting. She still has yet to speak.
Rossi has a beer. He toys with the bottle, rolling it down the slope of his fingers to hook into his thumb's joint. Black splices shadow across his gaze, concealing the intelligence that lives behind that stained glass transparency. Patience stretches fine and tight across the table.
Finally Ororo sets down her fork and lets fingers lace together in a roof over her plate, looking up at him solemn-eyed.
His gaze is already there, waiting for hers to meet it. "If you don't want to tell me," Rossi says, "I won't push." The beer rocks back upright, like he does; the lean body slopes forward, elbows settling on the table so hands can tangle somewhere above the plate. He studies her over them.
"I /don't/ want to tell you," Ororo says immediately. She frowns at him across the table, something sharpening in her expression; her eyes narrow.
"You just think I should know." It's not quite a question.
"I think that there are parts of my life that are not comfortable," Ororo replies, looking at him steadily, "or safe, or easy, or even ... sane. Believable."
"More insane than mine," Rossi says, and though it is not quite visible behind the barrier of his hands, the swift smile warms his baritone and crinkles the eyes. One hand drops to the cloth-covered table. "Two years ago I wouldn't have believed my life. Nobody's life is safe, Cadbury. Not ours," he amends.
"It is a question of how invested you want to be," Ororo says slowly. Her hand balls into a fist, and then she relaxes it, very deliberately, and holds it out, palm up, over the ... er, tablecloth. "How much do you /want/ to know? You don't push. I don't want to ..." She laughs suddenly. "I don't want to /tangle/ you, Chris. You don't want to push, I don't want to /pull/."
His hand finds hers, invited or no, the red and gold of the Academy ring gleaming dully on the scarred fingers. It squeezes. His skin is warm. Callused. "Consider me invested," he says wryly, the smile fading from his mouth, if not the rich, deep voice. "I didn't say I didn't want to push. I'm just trying like hell not to. Pull if you want. I'll listen."
Ororo squeezes his hand and bows her head in defeat, dark lashes lowering over her eyes as she takes in a deep breath. "Last summer," she says. "I briefly went missing. When I came back, to all appearances I was closeted in my room with some illness or other. I think Jean told everyone it was West Nile."
Eyes flare a little at the mention of the disease, memory darting quicksilver behind the saturnine face. "I remember that," Rossi says, lowering both their hands to the table. His thumb slides across the back of her hand in a brief caress, tanned skin pale against natural dark. "Jean called to report you missing. I visited you while you were down."
Ororo withdraws her hand, drawing in on herself with anenome protection. "No, you didn't."
"Came by the school," Rossi says quizzically, his hand opening palm-up and bereft before retreating to his own side of the table. The cooling curry receives a brief glance and he takes up his fork with a desultory poke at rice. "Lost a medal--" He trails off, brow knitting.
"It wasn't me." Ororo still seems to be having considerable trouble telling this story; with eye contact, with the brace of posture in the chair.
"Looked like you," Rossi says, his mouth thinning a little. Something -- an inkling -- bides its time behind his eyes, couched deep and forced away from realization.
"Yes." Ororo finally lifts her gaze back to his face again. "I was abducted, as was ... another mutant. My consciousness and hers were somehow trans ... planted. Into each other's bodies."
Rossi pauses, his fork poised over the cooling plate. His face flickers. After a few moments, he puts the utensil down. It chimes against the porcelain. "Okay," he says at last. "You were -- right. Right. Who took you?"
Storm cuts a hand through the air, irritable. "There is no record of the facility where we were transferred," she says. She glares at her plate, inoffensive though it is. "There is no trail to follow."
The detective knits her fingers together, chin dropping to the support of joined thumbs. The lower half of his face disappears behind the mask of hands. "You were transplanted," he says, the last word slightly muffled. "Into another body. So when I visited you, I visited -- someone pretending to be you?"
Ororo answers with only one word, and quietly spoken. "Yes."
Eyes flash up, hard and bright. "Who?" The answer is already visible behind them.
Her eyes close in a wince. There is a moment's pause, silence stark. Flinching from the truth, Ororo can't help but speak it anyway. "Emma Frost."
Fingernails turn white, blood drained by a sharp, fierce pressure. "Frost," Rossi breathes. Lashes sweep black across sight, concealing intelligence; the harsh face closes, hiding emotion.
Ororo shoves the chair back from the table and rises, to pace like a caged animal. The single "Yes" she clips off is worn raw.
Time was, it would have been Rossi prowling the confines of his apartment, measuring off the limitations of the room and making them smaller by repetition. He does not move; the cage is hers. "So when I talked to her--" His exhalation is uneven. "She pretended to be you. Did anyone know?"
"Jean. Charles." Ororo opens the window wide, but she makes no move to leap: her shoulders hunch as she leans on the sill, sucking in first one deep breath past her teeth, and then another, after the first hisses out. The apartment is not small. The world is full of space, just past the window. Ororo draws in another breath.
He watches her from under heavy eyelids, splinters of color restless where the body, wound tight, is not. "And if she pretended to you, that means -- you pretended to be her. That where you met Shaw?"
Ororo bows her head into the wind, her eyes closed. It pulls at her hair, lets it fly loose in illusory freedom. "That is what blew my cover."
The glimmer of something not quite amusement (satisfaction? curiosity?) clicks behind Rossi's face. "Did you fry his ass?"
Ororo turns back to face him, her palms still pressed to sill behind her as she raises her head, and her eyes as she opens them are lit with fierce pride. Her hair whips around in a wild silver halo around her face. "It is no man's /right/," she tells him, with the faintest twitch of her mouth towards what is almost a smile, "to strike /me/."
"Son of a bitch," Rossi says, but it is not surprise that flattens his brows. His hand drops, a white-edged fist scraping knuckles against the tablecloth as he straightenes. "I always figured that shithead for the type to hit women. Jesus Christ."
"I do not think he remembers me fondly," Ororo says, her smile broadening as she inclines her head. Then she glances back out of the window again, drawing a breath for another sigh. "It took a great deal of effort to put us right again. More telepaths in a single room than I have ever seen. If it hadn't worked, we could have both been forever lost to the aether, bodies without minds."
"You and Emma Frost." The detective pushes back at last, rising to stand and cross to that slim, proud figure. Something eases in his face; something else tightens. A hand reaches for that dark, smooth cheek. "You must have been--" His baritone twangs, jangling to understatement. "That would've sucked."
"It did." Ororo holds her breath a moment, a tremor of sudden laughter quaking her still body. She turns in towards him, to Chris rather than to the window, and lifts bright eyes to his face. "It sucked. A lot."
The backs of fingers caress her face, stroking from temple to throat before cupping her cheek in a palm. "And you're you," he says questioningly, his other arm sliding around her waist to splay a hand's warmth at her back. "Just you, now?"
"Ororo." The name, once a talisman, now given freely with a rush of breath through her smile. She turns her head into the caress, to brush lips against his palm in a light kiss. "Just Ororo."
He coaxes her face up to his, warm breath, warm lips lowering to hers in a testing, careful kiss. Just Ororo. Just Chris. Heat is slow in coming, hesitant in the face of old demons (EmmaFrostEmmaFrostEmmaFrost) but familiarity reassures, by the end. "Just Ororo," he whispers against her mouth, eyes bare splinters of color. A twitch of a smile lightens them. "You were right about the weird."
Too lightly, Ororo says: "Sorry you asked?" Her arms wound around him tighten, the press of her body against his one of firm heat and strength; in her solid reality she is demanding.
"No," Chris says. His mouth quirks. "Yes. Maybe. No." His other arm slides around her, closing around her back to draw her even tighter against him. "I'll get used to the idea. I don't know. It's hard to-- Emma Frost." He squeezes briefly. "Are you okay?"
Ororo answers with a hollow laugh and leans her head into him, her eyes closing again. "I'm fine," she says. She inhales again, breath catching in her throat in another laugh. "I'm fine," she says again, insisting. "I pull through. It's what I do."
"You sound like me," Rossi says, stroking the smooth silk of hair. His voice is deeper through the bell of his chest: resonant; rich. "We're always fine. We keep saying it until we don't even know what it means." He exhales across her head, lips brushing against the white crown. "You know what I want, Ororo?"
Ororo doesn't say anything for a moment. She just leans into him, holds him, breathes him in in silence. Then she asks, "What?"
He leans a little in the window's breeze, both arms twining behind her back. "I don't want to see you hurting," he says into her hair, eyes closing over a glimmer of a smile. "And when I say I don't want to see it, I don't mean I want you to pretend you're not doing it when you are. I'm paraphrasing. Someone else I know said it a lot better."
"Yes, well." Ororo laughs through the close of her lips, breath snorting through her nose as she clamps the hold of her arms just a little tighter. "I think you may have been somewhat inebriated when you heard it."
"Drunk out of my mind," Chris suggests, blunter in his own criticism. His grin curls around the Brooklyn accent, smoothing its rougher edges. "I remember that bit, though."
"Mmmhmm." Ororo shifts in his arms, tipping her head up to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. She murmurs, "Thank you, Chris."
Chris lowers his to murmur a kiss across her eyelids. "For what?" he smiles, distracted by her scent, her proximity, and her body's heat. "Damn. I wonder how long that movie is?"
Ororo hums a vague sound in her throat, indicating her total indifference to that question and moving in for another kiss, which she breaks off suddenly, widening her eyes. "We had better eat before they get back," she says, shifting slithery in his grasp to pull back towards the table and the by now quite cold repast.
"At least a couple of hours," Chris points out, drawing her in close again for another swift, fierce kiss before reluctantly releasing her. His glance to the clock cues a grimace, and his own limping return to their dinner. "I suppose we should eat since they went to so much trouble. Three course meal." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Those are some kids."
Kiss returned with admitted enthusiasm, she wriggles away immediately after, a woman with a mission. "Offending them is not a good idea," Ororo says very firmly, dropping back into her seat and picking up her fork with a certain vehemence.
Chris bows to Ororo's superior knowledge, obediently taking up his own fork to take a few bites. "She's not a bad cook," he realizes on the safe end of a swallow. "Anyway, who's safe to offend at your school?" Eyes grin.
"..." Not coming up with an answer immediately, Ororo shakes her head and sets to rice and curry despite their relative temperature. "--I don't know. But throw one cell phone off a roof, and suddenly all the kids think you're a satanist."
It is almost worthy of a laugh. Amusement tremors through the man's baritone reply. "I've heard of actions having consequences, but that's one I wouldn't've figured. I ever tell you about the time I got clobbered by a food processer while on the job?"
Scooping up her drink, Ororo leans forward over her plate with an upwards sweep of her eyebrows. "No," she says. "A food processor. Really?"
"Rookies," Chris says with resignation. "Good intentions, but damn. Never get between an angry married couple throwing kitchen appliances. My hat didn't fit over the bandages for weeks--" Conversation unreels, the Brooklyn swagger of baritone moving lightly down anecdotes more flattering to his ability to survive than to his dignity.
Dinner is good.
So is dessert.
Good girls.
[Log ends]
Rossi comes home to a home-cooked dinner (weird) and discovers that he's been set up on a date (weirder) at which he finds out that his girlfriend wasn't always his ... well, girlfriend. Definitely weirdest.
Early afternoon, and the first rush of work after the shift change has finally died down. His desk is a cluttered, disordered thing, piled high with file folders too full to comfortably close. On the lined yellow pad that serves as the day's notes, Det. Rossi has scrawled the list of messages still to be addressed. The second to last one is the target of his pen's idle tapping; the number associated with it blinks on his phone, the handset pinned between shoulder and ear. "--just the bagel," he tells his partner, whose broad back forges through the group by the entrance. "And get me a coke!"
Beckah's phone rings.
It takes two rings before someone picks up. "Hello?" Beckah's voice asks. The rhaspiness of earlier in the day has faded considerably from where it was in the message that she had left. She is near the door to her apartment, a small pile of clothes, blankets, and pillows neatly sat on her coffee table. Provisions for her plan to spend some time away from her apartment.
"This is Detective Chris Rossi of the NYPD," the Brooklyn-rich baritone begins, professionally courteous. In person, the cop lolls back in his seat and tosses his pen, catching it idly on its downward spin. "I'm looking for Rebecca-- Reed?"
The sound of a relieved sigh comes back over the phone. "Hey Chris. It's me," she confirms. Over the phone, movement can be heard as she moves to a cupboard in her hallway and begins to rummage through it. Hollow styrofoam can be heard clacking against itself, as she plucks a cheap cooler out of it's hiding place.
The first question is a quizzical, "You okay?" The second is a wry, "You know how lucky you are the precinct phone system has a call log for incoming numbers? There gotta be a dozen Rebecca Reeds in the city. What's going on, kid?"
"Someone broke into my apartment last night," she begins. "It was really insane. It took me until I was talking to a friend last night to get it together enough to realize I could call you." Beckah doesn't sound entirely certain of herself.
"You can call me," Rossi says, the chair squeaking a little as he turns a bit to gain access to his notepad. Long legs cross on the nearby guest chair, one foot dragging the heavy metal seat closer. "I didn't get all the details from the phone call. Anyone get hurt?"
"Yeah, me, a little. She strangled me some." Beckah sounds almost embarassed to be admitting this. "The thing that worries me though is that I'm scared she is going to come back. I don't know how to keep her out. She came in while I had everything locked." The cooler is placed on a counter with a dull thunk, and Rossi can hear ice-cube trays being emptied through the phone.
"Strangled you some." The echo back has a sardonic cast to it, though it is shallow cynicism, at best. Rossi scrawls a quick note, his swift frown darkening the lower timbres of his voice. "You're still talking, at least. You get a doctor to look at that? She threaten to come back?"
"I don't know. She said a lot of stuff that didn't make any sense, honestly. I've been trying to figure it out all day, but it still doesn't add up." Beckah begins to settle bottles of water into the cooler, plucking them from her fridge. "She's a mutant. And figured out I'm one. We met in a bar a few days ago. Remember the almost-fight I mentioned the other night? It was her. She found out where I live, and my name and came after me."
Rossi's pen taps a staccato rhythm on the notepad, slouching into the seat's rickety frame. "Well, shit," he says. Green eyes narrow across the squad room. "That's not so good. Sounds like she's taking it personal. What kind of locks you got on the doors? You have someplace else you can stay for a while?"
"She got through a deadbolt and the normal door lock, without breaking them or even making a sound." Beckah frowns herself, "Walked in like they weren't even there. I stayed with a friend last night, and I'm going to crash in my car tonight."
The cop makes a sound and sits forward to scrub at his eyes. "You can't crash in your car," he says, flatly. "That's not safe. Worse than crashing in your apartment. About the only thing that's got going for it is mobility, and that's not even for sure if your stalker knows what your car looks like. Start calling your friends, Beckah. Find someone else you can shack up with for a few days."
"Does staying at my next door neighbor's place count as safe?" She asks softly, with a faint little uncomfortable laugh to it. "I would have called 911 last night, but it uh... I don't think you guys are going to be able to find her."
"Would've been the smart thing," Rossi says wryly, shading his eyes with the blade of his hand. "Next door's safer than where you are. Do that. Meanwhile, I'm heading out there to check out your apartment. You up to meeting me there? Maybe with a friend?"
"I'm uh, actually there right now. Getting some stuff so I'm not running around naked underneath my coat for the next couple of days. I don't figure she'll come back in broad daylight." She adds, more quietly, "I hope she won't, anyway." Beckah adds, "She was ranting a bunch of stuff about how she didn't want to hurt me, and how I should be proud of what I am, and shit like that. I don't think she wants to kill me or something, she could have last night when she had my knife." Little details she didn't fill in.
The pen pauses over a space on the notepad. The detective furrows his brow. "Tell me where you live," Rossi suggests, planting both elbows on the desk with a small thump. "I'll be by in a few minutes. How'd you know she was a mutant, anyway? Did she do something to you?"
"She uh... changed shape. She looks different normally, underneath the blonde look. Blue skin and scales. Yellow eyes, too. Who has yellow eyes?" Beckah shakes her head, "Oh, um. Greenwich Apartments. Number 340. Sorry, I had this weird thought going that police know those things automatically."
The snap of eyes opening is unseen; likewise, the swift change of expression that hardens Rossi's face. "Okay," he says after a long span of seconds. "Here's what I need you to do. Go next door to your friend's place. Stay there. I'll be there in a little bit. If he's not there, I need you to go to a local diner or a shop or somewhere, someplace public that you can see your apartment. We'll come with sirens going, so you'll know when to come back. Got it?"
Beckah is caught off-guard by the sudden change of tone to Rossi's response. "What? Weren't you just going to come look at the apartment?" She sounds confused. The girl has no idea that her visitor last night was one of the most wanted terrorists on the planet.
"We're coming to look at the apartment," Rossi assures mellowly, already standing to rip the sheet off the pad. His free arm extends, fingers snapping to snag another detective's attention. "I just want to be sure. If you got some crazy chick interested in you, it's better safe than sorry. She already strangled you once. Might as well make a point of the police being at your back."
"Okay," she accepts the assurance easily enough. "I'll be next door, if Andre's home. If not, I'll go hang out in the coffee shop across the street. I guess I'll see you when you get here then?" Beckah says, sounding a little more like herself.
"Gimme a number." The detective stoops over his pad again and scrawls a hasty message, rips it off, and hands it to his colleague. Eyebrows lift over the note; Tucci claims Beston's phone and picks it up to dial. "Tell me which side, and then hang tight until I get there."
Beckah asks, "Andre's? He's in 330, to the uh..." She has to stop and looks, "Left of my door." Beckah rubs a hand back through her dreadlocks.
The detective makes another scrawled notation, and nods across the conjoined desks to Tucci. The other man is already issuing swift instructions through the phone. "I'm leaving now," Rossi says, curt. "See you soon." And the line cuts off.
It is about ten minutes later that the first police car rolls up in front of Greenwich apartments, sirens blazing and lights whirling in an angry streak of color. It is a formal black-and-white, with uniformed officers inside who jog into the building in force. Five minutes after that, it is an unmarked vehicle that pulls up against the curb, the portable light blinking red on the dash. Det. Rossi emerges.
It is from across the street that Beckah comes over after seeing the black and white pull up with lights and sirens. She is dressed in her coat, as ever, and heads over toward the front of her building. She didn't see Rossi among the officers already heading inside, and so she lingers by the door. When he arrives, she steps down to meet him. "Hey Chris." There are marks visible at her throat, bruising that mimmicks the hand that had been around her throat the night before.
Rossi's stride diverts as another detective emerges from the car, a lean, dark-eyed man in his late twenties. "Beckah," he greets. His suit is dark black under the open leather overcoat, dark blue shirt interrupted by the pallor of a grey tie. The green eyes glance off the signs of bruising, professional interest lifting a hand to her chin. "You mind?" he asks, just short of touching.
"No, go ahead." Beckah lifts her chin slightly. She seems tense at being touched, but considering Rossi's professional status (and the fact that she genuinely likes the guy), allows her to let it happen.
The gloved fingers are gentle, and careful; they lift her chin to bare the mottled marks more clearly against the skin. Rossi stretches his other hand, not quite touching to measure their span. "Looks pretty painful," he observes, releasing her. "You been to a doc?"
Beckah shakes her head once her chin is released, "No, I haven't. It hurts, but it isn't going to kill me. It's just bruises," she downplays the fact that they were caused by someone's hand on her throat.. "Um, should we go upstairs, I guess?"
"C'mon, then," Rossi suggests, a glance looping in the uniforms. One of them opens the door; the other one, bending his head to a swift comment from the detective, heads back to his car. "Upstairs? Lead the way."
Beckah does just that, leading the way. She walks along quietly, leading the way up to the third floor and to her apartment. Once near it, she gestures toward Rossi, "There it is. I uh, I didn't think to leave stuff the way it was after she left or anything." She says this with guilt born of having watched Law and Order reruns.
The detective opens the door with a gloved hand, shoulders lifting in a quick shrug. The tumblers click and roll. Chunk chunk. "Don't worry about it," he says, distracted already by the crime scene. Beckah's apartment. His glance cuts to the deadbolt and the lock, testing both while the uniform pushes his hat back and makes way for the other detective's silent entrance and prowl. "We can try the locks on the outside. She might've touched them. --Tell you what. CSU's coming by in a few. Why don't you take a seat and tell me what happened. What she said to you."
The deadbolt and doorknob both are in perfect condition. Nothing was broken. The apartment is a studio, decorated fairly nicely, with a large cache of work-out equipment in one corner, another corner closed off by faux walls that go all the way to the ceiling. A kitchenette and a fold-out couch occupy the other corners. Beckah takes a seat on the couch. "Um, well... She told me I should be proud of what I am, about how I should be angry and outraged that I have to hide what I am from people to live a normal life." Her shoulders shrug under the leather of her coat. "Told me a bunch of shit about how I should fight, but I won't. About how she makes sacrifices I won't ever understand. A whole bunch of fucking double-talk that didn't add up."
"Typical trash talk," Rossi observes, claiming space on the seat for himself. A small notepad is fished out of his inner pocket, while the other detective checks the window outside. "She knew you were a mutant, then, right? --Don't worry about Twinker," he adds with a quick glance to the other cop. "He's MA. He's got access to the same records I do."
Beckah nods her head slowly after a glance at the other cop. "Yeah. She uh, figured it out at the bar the first time we met, when she started talking trash because I answered when she talked to me."
Rossi's mouth twists into a crooked little slash. "Friendly," he says. The two detectives exchange glances.
It is Twinker who speaks next. "What happened next?"
"Um, well, there was a point in there when she took the knife that I grabbed when she came in and held it up against me and threatened to uh, remove some parts of me." Beckah frowns and amends her statement, "She /offered/. She was adamant that she was offering. We argued back and forth, she showed me what she really looks like, then she told me a bunch of other nonsense. Eventually I yelled at her, because I was all upset and shit. And she grabbed me by the throat and shook me around. Then left."
"Weird," says Twinker.
"Typical," says Rossi.
The two detectives glance at each other again. "Here's the thing," Rossi tells Beckah, leaning forward to prop an elbow on the back of the sofa. "Your visitor sounds like it might have been Mystique."
Beckah arches a brow upward, "Who?"
"Mystique." Rossi hesitates. Twinker, his attention turned to the street below, glances across the room to the summons of the uniform and heads out, leaving the two of them alone. "You know about Magneto, right?"
Beckah nods her head slowly, "Yeah. The terrorist guy. The big fuckin' reason why everyone's so scared of mutants."
The detective's baritone is dry. "The one and only. He's got this blue shapeshifting--" Rossi hesitates, visibly picking his words, then concludes, "--woman. His girlfriend, and his pet assassin. Yellow eyes. Vicious sense of humor. Her name's Mystique."
The dreadlocked woman looks at Rossi for a minute, staring. She has no real idea of how to reply to this, and so she opens and closes her mouth a few times before she finally finds words. "That was Magneto's /girlfrend/?" Suddenly, there is a lot more to be afraid of than a crazy woman out to beat her up.
"They've gone after mutants before, but usually there's something more to it than just--" A hand gestures, sketching something more significant than Beckah's hapless self. His brows press low, casting shadow into the pale eyes. Rossi refocuses on the woman. "Somehow or another, you came to her attention. Damned if I know where it'll go from there. We'll put a detail on you for a while, just to make sure she doesn't come after you again."
"Wht would people like /that/ want with me, Chris?" She looks up at him, as if he should be able to provide her the answers. "I don't even like being a mutant. I pretend I hate them around most people so no one will think I am."
"Might want to back off on that bit," Rossi observes, stripping off a glove to run starfished fingers through his hair. "If you want to blend in, then don't have an opinion at all. Acting like you hate them gets the wrong attention, either way. The bigots think they have a buddy; the mutants think they have an enemy. Either way, you're fucked. Damned if I know what they /want/ with you." The frown crowds closer, pale eyes darkening in consideration. "The important thing is to keep you safe."
Beckah sighs and looks down at herself. "Yeah. I guess you've got a point about that," she mutters quietly. "I don't like any of this. I just want people to leave me alone and let me do my thing. I don't want those... monsters trying to fight for me. She told me all of this garbage about how I'm too weak and afraid to stand up for myself. Like she's decided she knows everything about me just because I hide my..." She trails off, nearly blurting something terrible in her outrage at Mystique's pontificating. "Because I hide."
Rossi looks sardonic. "Everybody hides," he drags out, a hint of humor lighting his eyes. "Even the people who're out of the closet keep some stuff in. Don't worry about it. You do what you need to do, and fuck the rest of it." He leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees with stooped shoulders, and loosely clasps his hands -- one gloved, one bare -- to quirk a brow up over their knot.
"So what I need to do now is ditch my apartment, or what?" She looks over to him, uncertainty fairly clear in her expression. Beckah's left with only a sigh as her recourse.
"Pretty serious step," Rossi says -- but he doesn't not say no. He straightens a bit, glancing back at the door and its locks. Noises from outside mark the arrival of CSU; he nods to the first body in, a sad-faced Hispanic man bearing a large kit. "Have to think about that one. In the meantime, why don't you head over to your friend's -- or maybe the coffee shop, with Twinker? Forensics needs to sweep the room."
Beckah gives a nod of her head, "I don't think my friend's home. So, uh, I guess the coffee shop it is." She shrugs her shoulders once more and stands awkwardly, careful not to bend too much in the middle. "Um, I guess I'll be seeing you then, Chris?" Her smile is meager, but it's there.
Rossi pulls himself up as well, the leather overcoat hissing around his calves. "I'll come get you when we're done," he promises, a swift smile lighting his face. The other detective shoves his hands in his pockets and presses against the door frame, offering Beckah passage past him. "Make him buy the coffee. He's got a budget."
Beckah heads out of her apartment, with a wave over her shoulders at Rossi. She looks to her assigned coffee partner with the same sort of small smile that is barely there. "So, uh, hey," she says, trying to strike up conversation as she heads down the hall.
Twinker looks down at Beckah and smiles slowly, proving himself to be a good-looking man in his own quiet way. Left behind in the apartment, Rossi looks around at the forensics team already at work on the door, his own smile fading away. A hand runs through his hair, agitating it to excited spikes again. "Mystique," he says, and blows out a breath. His notepad appears again, its pages flipped to a clean sheet. "Jesus Christ."
[Log ends]
Rossi goes out in answer to a call from Beckah about Mystique.
---
=NYC= Apt 115 |Rossi| - Concord Apartments - Apartments in the Sky
An ancient, faded elegance sketches the boundaries of this apartment, hinted at in crown molding and worn, faded floors. High walls span to high ceilings, pale yellow with the barest of white trim; at one end, three high windows gape to let in day's light or night's dark with equal indifference. A small kitchen pocks a hollow in one wall, a doorless entry that offers glimpses of an metal-framed refrigerator and a cabinet-hung microwave. On the other side of the small living room, a short hallway offers entrances to bathroom and bedroom, both doors battered with the wear and tear of age.
In the living room are the basic accoutrements of comfort: sofas, chairs, table, television. Spartan accessories, betraying little of the owner; that task is left for the walls, hung with pictures of family and friends. Through them all runs the thread of blue, NYPD's uniform tailored to pride and vigor.
"Okay, they better turn up soon because otherwise these sweet onion tarts are going to be ruined!" Cassy complains loudly, springing around in the kitchen checking all manner of things. "Found any bottles of wine yet Mira? I know there is whiskey hidden away, but it hardly goes with fine dining."
"Roger on the wine," Mira says back, rising from a crouch in front of a low cabinet and twirling a dark glass bottle in her hands in a dangerously showy move. She looks odd in a red t-shirt and purple scarf, but at least the shirt is tucked in. This means she's 'dressed nice'. "And yes, I was already well aware of the whiskey." She secretly hopes Rossi isn't the type to mark the level of his bottles.
With Magnetos walking in through the window, how could he? The grate of the key in the door is a rattling, audible thing through the small apartment; the small thud of a foot kicking it open, likewise: expressive of impatience, if not necessarily of mood. Clad in the long leather overcoat with which he started his day, the black suit, dark blue shirt, and grey tie visible beneath it, Det. Rossi comes home.
And smells dinner. He pauses in the doorway, eyebrows twitching together in frank surprise. "What the hell?"
"We've prepared you dinner, if you'd like to take a seat?" Cassy requests politely - dressed up in a rather formal dress. With a giggle she adds "I took the liberty of doing some shopping and picking up essentials, I mean who on earth lives in a house without the ingredients to make shortcrust pastry?"
Mira offers the entering Rossi a pleasant hostess' smile and points with an open hand toward the arranged table, though plates and glasses have yet to be distributed to it. "You didn't have a white tablecloth, so it's a bedsheet I folded up. Looks nice though, doesn't it?"
"Dinner?" baffled Rossi demands, shrugging slowly out of his overcoat to hang it on the nearby hook. His suit, falling open, bares the badge and holstered gun at his hip. "I have instant ramen and pasta and-- I mean, it's just me. No point in cooking for one. I was going to order in...." He trails off, scrubbing a hand through his hair to rumple it into a black and silver tangle. Surprise, given its head, slowly gives way to a grudging appreciation. "That's nice of you two. You didn't have to go to all that trouble."
Cassy smiles cheerfully, in between inspecting the contents of every pan in Rossi's apartment. "Mira could you start setting the table? Oh and best put out the antipasto if you could?"
The imitation of a seasoned waitress continues, the darker haired teenager giving the plates a daring little spin as she doles them out so they spiral into place. Four places, to be exact. With four chairs and a great clattering of silverware for four people. "On it!" Mira chirps and hustles back to the kitchen counter.
Rossi, uncharacteristically docile given the situation, slides out of his suit coat. A finger tugs at the tie, loosening its knot; the straps of the holster pull the shirt tight across his back and shoulders. "They teach you this shit at that school?" he wonders aloud, tossing the suit onto the sofa before heading towards the kitchen. Crowded. He grimaces. "Can I grab a beer?"
The latch upon the closed window begins to rattle decisively, beneath a windy onslaught.
"I'll pass one out in a second, there are sliced meats and nibbles to begin with while I finish off the starters," Cassy informs, using telekinesis to open the fridge while she fuses over a pan. "I picked up cooking myself, but I've been learning some more fancy dishes of late, but I didn't do it all I mean Mira helped slice some of the vegetables!"
"Yeah, but I washed all the pieces that got blood on them an' I don't think I have any infectious diseases. So you'll be fine," Mira assures quickly, brushing past Rossi with smaller appetizer plates in hand. "'Scuuuuse me." Furthermore, there is more setting of plates. And by god, origami-folded napkins.
Rossi's mouth opens. Then closes, a little weakly. "You did what?" he asks at last, taking advantage of Mira's exit to dive for the refrigerator. Beer bottles share space with an entirely new assortment of groceries, a collection he eyes with some bewilderment before hastily retreating to the living room again. "You cooked the stuff you bled on, right? No offense, but sharing your body fluids wasn't in the deal."
Outside, cleverly aimed wind finds the correct angle to blast -- the hook flicks up, and the window slams obligingly open. Ororo rides in on a fresh gust, black chiffon skirt rippling fluidly about her knees as her high heels touch down upon the floor. Breaking and entering, what?
"Professor Monroe! What a pleasant surprise," Cassy declares from the kitchen. "We're just preparing to serve, if you could take a seat?" Bouncing around the teenage red head begins to plate up the first course - tarts with caramelized onions, nutmeg, eggs, & cream served with a small green salad. There appears to be more things cooking still, and behind the beer was something which looked remarkably like a dessert course.
"Duuuuude," Mira chides the grown New York detective in the same tone reserved for a schoolyard 'Duuuuuuh'. "Joke. Relax." She turns just in time to see the ever-distinctive Ororo Munroe making a very distinctive entrance, and greets her Social Studies teacher with a welcoming smile. "Right over here," she says and pulls back a chair politely.
There is a split moment's shock at the window's sudden gape; Rossi's gun is out and aimed before it has time to rebound. An automatic reaction. For one split second the cold green eye stares down the arm, before surprised recognition draws it up. It is a night for such things. "The fuck--?" he snaps, though it is more startled than angry. Even through perplexity, warmth spills swift and light for Storm's arrival. "Cadbury. Hey. Wasn't expecting to see you here. Checking up on them? Or me?"
Ororo stares at Rossi, her attention thoroughly caught and leveraged by the gun. "Weren't /expect/--" She cuts herself off and for a moment holds herself to still and perfect blankness, the only reliable gauge to her mood the whistle and whip of wind just past the open window. "You invited me," she accuses. She cants her head, taking in the girls with a sidelong glance. One of them is Mira; the other one is Cassy. Their existence in this context is a deeply baffling thing for a moment.
Cassy laughs impishly. "How droll!" she declares, waving her hand dismissively. Her eyes flick to the as yet untouched nibbles on the table, causing her to pout sullenly. The plate rattles a little, to draw peoples attention towards it - for she is oh so subtle! "Didn't the Professor tell you we're staying here until the school re-opens?"
Even when Rossi draws his gun, Mira's practiced smile doesn't drop. Not a bit. Having drawn a chair for Ororo, she crosses to the other side of the living room with an agenda. A pleasant string quartet begins to play, a custom playlist of gentle, inoffensive dinner music. All it takes is a computer, the internet, and a blank CD. "Have a seat. The food'll get cold!"
"They took the bedroom," Rossi explains, holstering the gun again with an almost sheepish grimace. "I'm crashing on the sofa. It's just for the weekend. I don't think I invi-- not that I object," he adds hastily, opening an arm to invite Storm in. A faint smile dawns behind the green eyes. "You're welcome anytime, Cadbury. Looks like it's someone else's party."
Ororo attempts to rapidly shift mental gears. "I got a phone call," she says. "It sure sounded like you." But her stance has shifted from coiled tight as a spring to something approaching more ease. Unfastening her black peacoat with flicks of nimble fingers at its buttons, she takes a few obedient steps to the set table, rallying. "I must have missed the memo about you girls being here," she says, venturing a slight smile despite the wariness of her tone. She tips a glance back over her shoulder towards Chris. "I hope they've been decently behaved?"
Cassy gasps as if the implication she was ever anything else is /entirely/ unexpected. "Can I pass you out a beer?" she offers, holding one out, with her other hand reaching for a second. "And it'd only be fair if we get one each too, naturally."
Mira averts her eyes gently at the mention of a phone call from someone who sounded like Rossi. Pay no attention to the audiokinetic teenager behind the curtain. "Why yes, Miss Munroe," she says in her best 'dear mother' tone. "We've been on our best behavior." If this is their best, though...
Suspicion turns to both girls from Rossi's side of the room. "You don't get beer," he says flatly, a fine model of responsible maturity. An effect that is ruined a heartbeat later by the uncertain glance aside at Ororo. "Do they? --They've been fine. Haven't been any trouble. That I know about." The top of his own bottle popped off by a thumb, he sends the cap spinning towards the living room's small trash can before making his own wary approach to the table.
"No, they don't get beer," Ororo comes down quite firmly upon this point. "Sorry, Cassy. Perhaps if you had somehow engineered a host family in Europe. And no, thank you," she adds, for it is only polite not to drink when there are those denied the opportunity; or maybe keeping the mind as sharp as possible around these particular students is her true motivation. "How was your holiday?"
Cassy puts the beer bottles back, with a smile. "It was lots of fun," she says cheerfully. "It was really exciting leaving when we did, then we got Rollerblades and I invented this game based off jousting!" Scooping up two of the plates, she makes her way over to the table. "Mira could you get the drinks?"
As bidden, the other hostess sweeps past Cassy and into the kitchen for a small jug of ice water. "You're never allowed to hang out with my little sister again," Mira asides to Cassy as they pass in a somewhat deeper, more serious tone, then all is smiles and brightness again as she fills two clean glasses on the table.
"I got a feeling we're being played," Rossi wryly tells Ororo, his beer wobbling a little by a plate on the table. Hands freed, he moves around his -- their? -- guest, belatedly claiming the gentleman's role to Storm's coat. "Any bones get broke?"
Ororo smiles her thanks at Rossi as he aids her in the removal of coat, the knit cream sweater beneath snug against her skin. With a slight lift of her brow as she glances at him, she does not at all say that she is certain of it. "Jousting," she says instead, sitting down neatly at table. "Really. I wouldn't think that lances and rollerblades would go well together."
Cassy sets the plates down in front of Storm and Rossi. "Enjoy!" she declares, springing back towards the kitchen. "You need metal trash can lids to form shields, then ideally ski poles to make lances from. The trick is to put enough padding on everything before hand otherwise you get stabbed, but it totally hit my cast! So I was /fine/."
"*Lacking* ski poles," Mira responds to her roommate in a tone suggestive of a long-standing argument. "We had street hockey sticks." As subtly as she can manage, which sadly isn't very much, she sweeps around the table to collect the napkins and silverware set for the other two currently and apparently purposefully empty chairs.
Rossi looks briefly appalled on his way to the coat closet, but amusement is swift to chase the expression away. "Jesus," he says, with a twitch of the lips for Mira in passing. "I'm glad I'm not your mother. Don't suppose it occurred to either of you that you seriously could've poked your eyes out or taken a stick to the brain? --Whoa. Where're you going with that?"
"I did get hit in the head, didn't do a thing to me," Cassy replies with a shrug. "Anyway the main course is finished and all plated up, it's a pumpkin, spinach and Thai peanut curry served with sticky Thai rice. There is also some parfait, because /everyone/ loves parfait!"
"The staff, sir," Mira advises politely like an English butler, inclining her head a little at Rossi, "Do not dine with the guests." The girl scuttles back into the kitchen to the melodic sound of clinking plates over a cello solo.
The closet door closes. "What the hell," Rossi ejaculates, stalking after Mira to lean into the kitchen. Eyebrows hike high into the rumpled fringe of black hair; under it, green eyes narrow with sharp-toothed suspicion on the two girls. "What're you two pulling?"
Cassy pulls out two cinema tickets and smiles sweetly. "Well if you /really/ want to know.... We've planned you a romantic dinner for two," she informs innocently. "While we make ourselves scarce and see a film, we'll be back late to give you two plenty of alone time."
"C'mon, dude," Mira says with a shrug of her shoulders in Storm's direction, keeping her voice low. "The lady's waiting and the rice gets dry if you don't eat it soon." Then, perhaps to assuage any feelings of responsibility Mira thinks Rossi might feel, "It's cool. We got cellphones and pepper spray, remember?"
Rossi's eyes show a brief touch of white around the green. "You've got to be shitting me," he murmurs, low-voiced. "What the fuck are you two pulling? Is this for my benefit or for hers? You two trying to pull something?"
"I am shocked that you would ever imply such a thing!" Cassy says, fixing Rossi with a hurt look. "I spend all afternoon slaving over a hot stove, keeping Mira out from underfoot. You haven't even tried the pre-dinner nibbles, I went to the trouble of finding an Italian deli too!"
"It's true, she's a cruel slavedriver in an apron," Mira says flatly and finishes dusting her hands with a kitchen towel, looking up to meet green eyes with warm, self-assured, definitely mature enough to go to a movie tonight chocolate brown.
The detective is fantastically unimpressed. Cynicism sparks across the harsh face, the sardonic mouth twisting. "Not really sure it's a good idea to let you two out into the city alone. Especially at this hour. Why don't you just stay and have dinner?"
Cassy giggles impishly. "Because we've already had ours, I had to try out the menu before hand and it seemed like a waste not to just make it into our meal," she informs sagely. Then, in a whisper, she adds "Besides, this is my way of saying sorry to Professor Monroe for calling her a satanic murderer who does improper things to animals! Which was a total misunderstanding caused by some crazy rich women who I ended up on the phone with." Cassy shrugs as if this sort of thing is a common occurance for everyone.
Mira just nods, keeping her lips tightly shut and folding her arms behind her back like a posing angel. Explanations concerning Satanic animal sacrifice are simply accepted with more nodding.
A peculiar expression slides into Rossi's eyes. "Satanic what?" he says, bewildered. "Who does -- what? What animals? What the fuck is--?" His hand slides across his eyes, fingertips dragging as though to wipe away cobwebs. "Okay. Back up. Why the hell did you call her a-- whatever you called her? What does that have to do with dinner?" His glance skims to Mira, a mute entreaty for help.
It is at this point that Ororo abandons patience and courtesy to bear down upon all three of her hosts with deep curiosity as well as bafflement. "Everything all right?" she asks. "'Staff?'"
"I can explain everything!" Cassy declares earnestly. "Professor Monroe knocked me out with a cellphone, I called the last number dialed to try see who had done it. The person on the other end said she murdered children and diddled animals while in her body, naturally I assumed this was some kind of satanic cult. Because she sounded all rich and sinister." She glances at everyone to make sure people are following her logic. "So anyway I decided a nice three course meal would be a perfect apology for this totally reasonable misunderstanding. Thus the food tonight, which we think you would enjoy a lot more if we went out to watch a film!"
"We just wanted her to have a nice dinner after all the stuff that's gone on with the school, too," Mira adds helpfully. Then as Ororo's patience runs dry, she smiles sweetly but not too much to look fake. Not touching this one with a ten foot pole.
Ororo presses thumb and forefinger against her eyes, brow crinkling. She inhales deeply, preparing to speak -- and then the breath gusts loose on a sound that is the stuttered beginning of a suppressed groan. "--I never did apologize to you properly for the incident with the cell phone," she says slowly.
Rossi straightens against the doorway, body turning a bit to allow Ororo access to the already crowded kitchen. A hand opens, palm up in befuddlement. "Okay. I'm lost. You smacked her in the head with a cell phone? That's some hit, Cadbury. You learn that in your cult?"
"It was thrown off the roof," Cassy notes helpfully. "Later on when my concussion was gone I figured it was almost impossible to have actually aimed a throw like that. Plus that women sounded like an utter b- bad person."
Ororo turns a look on him that bespeaks black fury wholly inappropriate to the levity of the inquiry, her left hand curling into a fist while her right scratches through her hair. She shakes herself, loosening temper's grip on the breath of a shaky laugh, and presses both hands to her face. "No, Cassy, she isn't a very nice person," she says, muffled by her palms. "If we hadn't had an argument I don't imagine I would have thrown the phone off the roof."
The saturnine glint behind Rossi's face disappears on an instant, surprise tangled with quick attention. The lean body tightens, abrupt interest waking. "Something I should know about?" he wonders quietly, hands shoving deep into pants pockets to draw the fabric tight.
"And that's why we have to goto the cinema," Cassy adds in summary. "Your tart is going cold you know, which'll make the pastry less crisp."
Mira's eyes flick sideways to the clock in the kitchen, brushing past the dwindling amount of steam from the peanut curry. Juggling a little mental arithmetic about distances and walking speed, her mouth twitches with concern about the answer she comes up with.
Hesitation holds Ororo only a moment longer. She sighs. "Yes," she says, not quite looking at Rossi. "Perhaps it would be best if ... you two went and enjoyed your movie."
Rossi's eyebrows quirk upward, a crooked expression of inquiry -- but he makes no argument against it, pushing off from the doorway to wander back into the living room instead. "Take a bonded cab," he says over his shoulder. "Stay away from the gypsy transport. And afterwards, you get your asses right back here. Got it?"
"Yes sir!" Cassy says sweetly. "And if anyone makes any sudden movements I'll pepper spray them into next week." Skipping out the kitchen, she scoops up her coat and heads for the door. "Coming Mira?"
Mira grabs her coat as well, carefully prepared and concealed in the kitchen all along, snapping a salute at Rossi after she slings it on. "Cash, ID, and phone," she pats the inside pocket. Along with a plastic bottle of Coke from the grocery store, because theater prices are brutal. And they don't come equipped with three fingers of whiskey mixed in. "Enjoy!" she chirps and slides after Cassy.
Once the girls have gone, Ororo walks silently back out of the kitchen and crosses to the table on light, padding steps. She toes off her shoes when she reaches the chair, sits down, crossing her legs at the ankle, and demurely picks up a fork.
Rossi, likewise silent, checks the door after the two girls have left and wanders back to the table, claiming his own seat. The curry has chilled, but not enough to bring shame to the chef. He unravels his origami napkin, deposits it on his lap, and sits back to consider Ororo.
Storm arranges food on her plate in pretty patterns, using the fork's tines to help in this venture in amateur sculpting. She still has yet to speak.
Rossi has a beer. He toys with the bottle, rolling it down the slope of his fingers to hook into his thumb's joint. Black splices shadow across his gaze, concealing the intelligence that lives behind that stained glass transparency. Patience stretches fine and tight across the table.
Finally Ororo sets down her fork and lets fingers lace together in a roof over her plate, looking up at him solemn-eyed.
His gaze is already there, waiting for hers to meet it. "If you don't want to tell me," Rossi says, "I won't push." The beer rocks back upright, like he does; the lean body slopes forward, elbows settling on the table so hands can tangle somewhere above the plate. He studies her over them.
"I /don't/ want to tell you," Ororo says immediately. She frowns at him across the table, something sharpening in her expression; her eyes narrow.
"You just think I should know." It's not quite a question.
"I think that there are parts of my life that are not comfortable," Ororo replies, looking at him steadily, "or safe, or easy, or even ... sane. Believable."
"More insane than mine," Rossi says, and though it is not quite visible behind the barrier of his hands, the swift smile warms his baritone and crinkles the eyes. One hand drops to the cloth-covered table. "Two years ago I wouldn't have believed my life. Nobody's life is safe, Cadbury. Not ours," he amends.
"It is a question of how invested you want to be," Ororo says slowly. Her hand balls into a fist, and then she relaxes it, very deliberately, and holds it out, palm up, over the ... er, tablecloth. "How much do you /want/ to know? You don't push. I don't want to ..." She laughs suddenly. "I don't want to /tangle/ you, Chris. You don't want to push, I don't want to /pull/."
His hand finds hers, invited or no, the red and gold of the Academy ring gleaming dully on the scarred fingers. It squeezes. His skin is warm. Callused. "Consider me invested," he says wryly, the smile fading from his mouth, if not the rich, deep voice. "I didn't say I didn't want to push. I'm just trying like hell not to. Pull if you want. I'll listen."
Ororo squeezes his hand and bows her head in defeat, dark lashes lowering over her eyes as she takes in a deep breath. "Last summer," she says. "I briefly went missing. When I came back, to all appearances I was closeted in my room with some illness or other. I think Jean told everyone it was West Nile."
Eyes flare a little at the mention of the disease, memory darting quicksilver behind the saturnine face. "I remember that," Rossi says, lowering both their hands to the table. His thumb slides across the back of her hand in a brief caress, tanned skin pale against natural dark. "Jean called to report you missing. I visited you while you were down."
Ororo withdraws her hand, drawing in on herself with anenome protection. "No, you didn't."
"Came by the school," Rossi says quizzically, his hand opening palm-up and bereft before retreating to his own side of the table. The cooling curry receives a brief glance and he takes up his fork with a desultory poke at rice. "Lost a medal--" He trails off, brow knitting.
"It wasn't me." Ororo still seems to be having considerable trouble telling this story; with eye contact, with the brace of posture in the chair.
"Looked like you," Rossi says, his mouth thinning a little. Something -- an inkling -- bides its time behind his eyes, couched deep and forced away from realization.
"Yes." Ororo finally lifts her gaze back to his face again. "I was abducted, as was ... another mutant. My consciousness and hers were somehow trans ... planted. Into each other's bodies."
Rossi pauses, his fork poised over the cooling plate. His face flickers. After a few moments, he puts the utensil down. It chimes against the porcelain. "Okay," he says at last. "You were -- right. Right. Who took you?"
Storm cuts a hand through the air, irritable. "There is no record of the facility where we were transferred," she says. She glares at her plate, inoffensive though it is. "There is no trail to follow."
The detective knits her fingers together, chin dropping to the support of joined thumbs. The lower half of his face disappears behind the mask of hands. "You were transplanted," he says, the last word slightly muffled. "Into another body. So when I visited you, I visited -- someone pretending to be you?"
Ororo answers with only one word, and quietly spoken. "Yes."
Eyes flash up, hard and bright. "Who?" The answer is already visible behind them.
Her eyes close in a wince. There is a moment's pause, silence stark. Flinching from the truth, Ororo can't help but speak it anyway. "Emma Frost."
Fingernails turn white, blood drained by a sharp, fierce pressure. "Frost," Rossi breathes. Lashes sweep black across sight, concealing intelligence; the harsh face closes, hiding emotion.
Ororo shoves the chair back from the table and rises, to pace like a caged animal. The single "Yes" she clips off is worn raw.
Time was, it would have been Rossi prowling the confines of his apartment, measuring off the limitations of the room and making them smaller by repetition. He does not move; the cage is hers. "So when I talked to her--" His exhalation is uneven. "She pretended to be you. Did anyone know?"
"Jean. Charles." Ororo opens the window wide, but she makes no move to leap: her shoulders hunch as she leans on the sill, sucking in first one deep breath past her teeth, and then another, after the first hisses out. The apartment is not small. The world is full of space, just past the window. Ororo draws in another breath.
He watches her from under heavy eyelids, splinters of color restless where the body, wound tight, is not. "And if she pretended to you, that means -- you pretended to be her. That where you met Shaw?"
Ororo bows her head into the wind, her eyes closed. It pulls at her hair, lets it fly loose in illusory freedom. "That is what blew my cover."
The glimmer of something not quite amusement (satisfaction? curiosity?) clicks behind Rossi's face. "Did you fry his ass?"
Ororo turns back to face him, her palms still pressed to sill behind her as she raises her head, and her eyes as she opens them are lit with fierce pride. Her hair whips around in a wild silver halo around her face. "It is no man's /right/," she tells him, with the faintest twitch of her mouth towards what is almost a smile, "to strike /me/."
"Son of a bitch," Rossi says, but it is not surprise that flattens his brows. His hand drops, a white-edged fist scraping knuckles against the tablecloth as he straightenes. "I always figured that shithead for the type to hit women. Jesus Christ."
"I do not think he remembers me fondly," Ororo says, her smile broadening as she inclines her head. Then she glances back out of the window again, drawing a breath for another sigh. "It took a great deal of effort to put us right again. More telepaths in a single room than I have ever seen. If it hadn't worked, we could have both been forever lost to the aether, bodies without minds."
"You and Emma Frost." The detective pushes back at last, rising to stand and cross to that slim, proud figure. Something eases in his face; something else tightens. A hand reaches for that dark, smooth cheek. "You must have been--" His baritone twangs, jangling to understatement. "That would've sucked."
"It did." Ororo holds her breath a moment, a tremor of sudden laughter quaking her still body. She turns in towards him, to Chris rather than to the window, and lifts bright eyes to his face. "It sucked. A lot."
The backs of fingers caress her face, stroking from temple to throat before cupping her cheek in a palm. "And you're you," he says questioningly, his other arm sliding around her waist to splay a hand's warmth at her back. "Just you, now?"
"Ororo." The name, once a talisman, now given freely with a rush of breath through her smile. She turns her head into the caress, to brush lips against his palm in a light kiss. "Just Ororo."
He coaxes her face up to his, warm breath, warm lips lowering to hers in a testing, careful kiss. Just Ororo. Just Chris. Heat is slow in coming, hesitant in the face of old demons (EmmaFrostEmmaFrostEmmaFrost) but familiarity reassures, by the end. "Just Ororo," he whispers against her mouth, eyes bare splinters of color. A twitch of a smile lightens them. "You were right about the weird."
Too lightly, Ororo says: "Sorry you asked?" Her arms wound around him tighten, the press of her body against his one of firm heat and strength; in her solid reality she is demanding.
"No," Chris says. His mouth quirks. "Yes. Maybe. No." His other arm slides around her, closing around her back to draw her even tighter against him. "I'll get used to the idea. I don't know. It's hard to-- Emma Frost." He squeezes briefly. "Are you okay?"
Ororo answers with a hollow laugh and leans her head into him, her eyes closing again. "I'm fine," she says. She inhales again, breath catching in her throat in another laugh. "I'm fine," she says again, insisting. "I pull through. It's what I do."
"You sound like me," Rossi says, stroking the smooth silk of hair. His voice is deeper through the bell of his chest: resonant; rich. "We're always fine. We keep saying it until we don't even know what it means." He exhales across her head, lips brushing against the white crown. "You know what I want, Ororo?"
Ororo doesn't say anything for a moment. She just leans into him, holds him, breathes him in in silence. Then she asks, "What?"
He leans a little in the window's breeze, both arms twining behind her back. "I don't want to see you hurting," he says into her hair, eyes closing over a glimmer of a smile. "And when I say I don't want to see it, I don't mean I want you to pretend you're not doing it when you are. I'm paraphrasing. Someone else I know said it a lot better."
"Yes, well." Ororo laughs through the close of her lips, breath snorting through her nose as she clamps the hold of her arms just a little tighter. "I think you may have been somewhat inebriated when you heard it."
"Drunk out of my mind," Chris suggests, blunter in his own criticism. His grin curls around the Brooklyn accent, smoothing its rougher edges. "I remember that bit, though."
"Mmmhmm." Ororo shifts in his arms, tipping her head up to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. She murmurs, "Thank you, Chris."
Chris lowers his to murmur a kiss across her eyelids. "For what?" he smiles, distracted by her scent, her proximity, and her body's heat. "Damn. I wonder how long that movie is?"
Ororo hums a vague sound in her throat, indicating her total indifference to that question and moving in for another kiss, which she breaks off suddenly, widening her eyes. "We had better eat before they get back," she says, shifting slithery in his grasp to pull back towards the table and the by now quite cold repast.
"At least a couple of hours," Chris points out, drawing her in close again for another swift, fierce kiss before reluctantly releasing her. His glance to the clock cues a grimace, and his own limping return to their dinner. "I suppose we should eat since they went to so much trouble. Three course meal." The corner of his mouth quirks up. "Those are some kids."
Kiss returned with admitted enthusiasm, she wriggles away immediately after, a woman with a mission. "Offending them is not a good idea," Ororo says very firmly, dropping back into her seat and picking up her fork with a certain vehemence.
Chris bows to Ororo's superior knowledge, obediently taking up his own fork to take a few bites. "She's not a bad cook," he realizes on the safe end of a swallow. "Anyway, who's safe to offend at your school?" Eyes grin.
"..." Not coming up with an answer immediately, Ororo shakes her head and sets to rice and curry despite their relative temperature. "--I don't know. But throw one cell phone off a roof, and suddenly all the kids think you're a satanist."
It is almost worthy of a laugh. Amusement tremors through the man's baritone reply. "I've heard of actions having consequences, but that's one I wouldn't've figured. I ever tell you about the time I got clobbered by a food processer while on the job?"
Scooping up her drink, Ororo leans forward over her plate with an upwards sweep of her eyebrows. "No," she says. "A food processor. Really?"
"Rookies," Chris says with resignation. "Good intentions, but damn. Never get between an angry married couple throwing kitchen appliances. My hat didn't fit over the bandages for weeks--" Conversation unreels, the Brooklyn swagger of baritone moving lightly down anecdotes more flattering to his ability to survive than to his dignity.
Dinner is good.
So is dessert.
Good girls.
[Log ends]
Rossi comes home to a home-cooked dinner (weird) and discovers that he's been set up on a date (weirder) at which he finds out that his girlfriend wasn't always his ... well, girlfriend. Definitely weirdest.