there are times when i miss the light, but i'm not afraid of the dark (♫)
[ It's a strange thing being unmade. She'd never experienced anything quite like it before. Sure, Rogue had experienced a great many things, with the strange and unusual being the norm in her life Since her mutation had presented itself, But this... This was something different. No longer was she coming undone simply in her own mind, The stress Of dozens of psyches pulling at the strings of her own sanity. No, this was in body as well, the atoms of her very being splintering apart, vanishing and reappearing all in the same moment. She wanted to scream but she no longer had a voice, and there was no one to hear her regardless.
But then it stopped. Whether seconds had passed or hours, it didn't matter. She was whole, the ground solid beneath her feet, and she had lungs that could breathe again.
The screech of metal tearing and the echoes of explosions in the distance cut short any reverie, jarring her from her thoughts and sending her into defensive mode. The street she appeared in is full of screaming people running in every direction to escape... Well, probably to escape whatever was going on in the sky. Rogue stares up at it in fascination more than horror, the sight reminding her of Blink's portals but larger and more like shattered glass. She just stands there for a moment, watching as the world tries to fall to pieces around her—
And then she moves. Into the crowd, moving with the rushing river of people to hide until she can get her bearings. The sea of bodies helps distract from her strange outfit, and it's surprisingly easy to keep her hands tucked into the long sleeves so no one brushes against her bare skin. One block, two, three, away from whatever is causing the chaos and destruction and further into Hell's Kitchen. It goes against every instinct she has to help and protect, but for once in her life, self-preservation wins out.
She has no idea what's going on or how she'd gotten here. She was supposed to be... not here, not unless their attempt at making things better had just landed them in another bad situation instead. But she also wasn't supposed to remember anything from before, let alone be in the same physical state. Something had gone wrong, but until she finds the others, there's nothing she can do about it. All she can do is survive.
A scream pulls itself from her throat as an arm wraps around her waist, the sound lost among a dozen others as she's dragged to the side. A gloved hand clamps over her mouth as struggles, her hands coming up to grasp at the arm. It happens so quickly and she's not at full strength, so before she knows it she's pulled into an alley and set loose by the man who grabbed her. Two others appear, all of them filled with enough rage to cover their own fear, both of which are solidly directed at her.
As they hurl accusations and questions at her, demanding to know how she'd just appeared out of thin air like that, insisting she must have something to do with whatever's happening, Rogue can't help but feel like the universe is laughing at her. She'd gone through literal hell just to end up in this place where she's as persecuted as she ever was at home? ]
I swear, I didn't do this. This isn't my fault! [ Her southern drawl is smooth and thick as raises her voice, hoping that maybe someone might hear her out in the street illuminated by Christmas lights because these men look mad enough to turn to violence at any second. ]
Even living in NYC, where alien invasions and superpowered catastrophes have somehow become the norm, the sky shattering open is something entirely new: a rift opening above the skyscrapers and pulsing with a strange livid energy, like an infected wound. Frank had been on his way back from a bodega, sauntering down the street and in the middle of a satisfying bite of a bacon-egg-and-cheese when the chaos broke out. It was centered on... something happening out by the Statue of Liberty. Aliens and wizards and interstellar calamities are above his paygrade; he doesn't even know who he'd call to help deal with this kind of thing. Even the Defenders don't really operate on this level. What's Red gonna do, smack the sky rift with his baton?
So Frank is standing stock-still on the street, jaw craned upwards and staring at that purple light — temporarily, for this moment, rendered dumbstruck and just another civilian New Yorker agog at the unfolding disaster. Then, snapping out of it, he starts striding through the crowd, muscling his way through, intent on getting back home, because if aliens are gonna come pouring through those rifts then he's gonna need his arsenal.
But then he's halted again by shouts from a nearby alley, a woman's voice going louder in her distress. He hesitates, but not for long. Pivots quickly, barely misses a beat, and heads right for trouble.
No one ever said he was good at self-preservation, or anything.
Once he's standing in the mouth of the alley, the men shoot a glance behind them and can see that Frank Castle doesn't cut a particularly imposing picture: he's built solid, carries himself with a kind of boxer's bullishness, but he's not even six feet. He's surprisingly good at blending into a crowd, at looking wholly average. But when he talks, his voice is a gruff rasp: ]
Think you'd better leave the lady alone and keep on movin', fellas.
[ Rogue looks to the man who's entered the scene, taking in his stance, expression, and tone of voice in a split second before she turns her attention back to her attackers. He's here to help her but all it takes is a single moment for a fight to turn deadly. She can't help the fear that washes over her at the thought of a civilian getting hurt, and she's certain it shows in her expression.
"Think you'd better mind your own business," is spat out by one of the men, who produces a knife from beneath his jacket. Shit. He's almost within arm's reach of her, the knife pointed in her general direction, but his focus is on her would-be rescuer — so she moves. An angry brawl with people who are scared is one thing; she's not letting this new arrival take a knife for her.
Grabbing the wrist holding the knife, there's too much shock for her attacker to realize what's happening as she pushes the arm away from her, twisting the hand around until fingers loosen and she can grab the knife. She doesn't hesitate to fling it further down the alley, the weapon disappearing into the deep shadows.
It's over in seconds, her training so deeply ingrained even after years of confinement, but those seconds cost her. Her attacker is even angrier now, furious at being made to look a fool by a woman. His gloved hand grabs her throat as he pushes her back against the cold brick wall and pure instinct has her own hand coming up to his face, pressing fingers and palm against bare skin so she can feel her power spark and begin to drain the life out of him. ]
[ She moves quick enough that Frank is caught off-guard, too — before he can even lunge into action, the stranger's already disarmed her first attacker. Everyone stands stock-still for a moment, taking it in, before one man heads straight for Frank. The last man is about to join in, still assuming Frank's their biggest threat—
But that assessment changes a second later when her fingers touch the first man's face. He goes abruptly still, gasping, writhing under her touch like a fish gutted on a hook, veins standing out on his face. "What the fuck," the third man mutters, staring wide-eyed at her.
Behind them all, Frank fields a quick flurry of blows, slams his elbow into a neck, uses a nearby garbage can lid to block another hit, and then drops his attacker with brutal efficiency. It's clean, crisp, precise: military-trained where the woman was, well... something else. He hesitates for a second — violence comes so easily to his fingertips and all the old instincts are there to kill the man at his feet, stepping on a windpipe, snapping a neck, or just picking up that trashcan lid and slamming it into his face over and over and over — but he stops himself. He doesn't actually know these guys' deal. What they've done. If they deserve it, beyond menacing one poor woman.
One poor woman who's, actually, neatly dispatched her assailant. When the man falls back from her touch and slumps insensible to the ground, his friend yelps, "What the fuck even are you?" While he's still staring, caught between attacking her or just running away, Frank heaves the garbage lid. It dings the last man in the back of his head and he, too, collapses like a bag of bricks.
And then it's just Frank, looking at her and her fallen attacker. Squinting. (Is he dead?) ]
[ Every time is the same as the last. The rush of energy into her body... followed by a flood of thoughts, memories, and emotions. They pull at her mind, trying to drag her down into the darkness, struggling to drown her so the invading psyche can take over. It doesn't happen often, only with the strongest of minds, but she scrambles just the same to box him up, shoving the man's fear and pain into one of the many cells in the mental structure Xavier helped her set up so many years ago.
Distantly, she's aware of the fight going on in the seconds that slip by. Her rescuer takes out one of the attackers before she lets go, two bodies on the ground now while the third stares at her and asks the question she's heard so very many times. What are you? What because he sees her as a thing, a monster, a creature out of nightmares. She might look it too, with the dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes and the strange grey uniform. But she's not. She is not a thing, not a monster to be put down.
The way the last man goes down takes her by surprise. There's an efficiency in the way her rescuer moves, reminding her of a cross between Logan and the best-trained of the X-Men. But before she can go down that rabbit hole, he's watching her and she can't help feeling a little nervous about it. ]
I don't know that I could've gotten all three. [ Not before something happened. The honest words slip out in a soft southern drawl as she crouches down beside the man she's absorbed. Reaching out, she carefully adjusts his head so his neck isn't at such a harsh angle, being sure to not brush against the skin in the process. ]
Thank you for your help, sugar. [ She stands again, wobbling slightly but doing her damnedest to hide it by trying to make it seem like she's intentionally bracing herself with a hand against rough brick. ] And thanks for not hurting them too much. Not everyone deals with fear in healthy ways, y'know?
[ And now they face the question of what comes next. He's seen her use her powers — how do people in this timeline handle that? Will he see her as a thing too? Will he take her out like the others or report her to the police? Or is there something worst here for powered people, like where she just came from... ]
[ Not everyone deals with fear in healthy ways, she says, and Frank just outright barks a laugh at how accurate that statement is, and how surreal it is. He's practically a poster child for dealing with his emotions in deeply unhealthy ways. It's been a while since his face was plastered all over the news and he's no longer a wanted fugitive, so he doesn't particularly fear her having recognised him as the Punisher— but that would mean it's a spark of coincidence. An accidentally apropos choice of words, on her part. ]
Don't I know it.
[ There's something thoughtful and assessing in his gaze now, trying to measure how much of a threat she might be to him, and taking it all in: the gentle, almost tender way she made sure the guy the took out wasn't in too much discomfort. The uniform she's wearing, which reminds him of Red's armoured themed suit. Frank's still trying to make sense of it all, so he goes ahead and asks the first theory on his mind, even as the irony is thick on his tongue in asking this particular question: ]
[ The way he looks at her, it's like he's trying to see some part of her soul. But it doesn't bother her the way it might with others. There's no feeling of invasion, no demand for all of her secrets. She has the feeling that he's only trying to get a sense of the shape of the puzzle, not trying to solve it completely in one go. Honestly, it's a little refreshing. Usually, people either want to dissect her, both physically and mentally, or they want nothing to do with her at all. This middle ground is seeming like an awfully nice place to live.
His question catches her completely off guard, confusion more than evident in her expression as she just stares at him for a moment. A vigilante? Why in heaven's name would he think that? But maybe that's a thing here, wherever here is. Maybe in this version of things, people are more out in the open when they go around saving others. (Whether that's changed how people see them is another question altogether.) The X-Men never had flashy costumes or anything but others had, so that would make sense. But she's not wearing—
Oh. Glancing down at herself, it's impossible to hold back the grimace at the sight of the uniform she's wearing, the same type of uniform she's worn for so many years now. Maybe someone who doesn't know any better would see it as some sort of costume, something utilitarian and functional for combat, with some purpose for all the zippers and detachable pieces that she can't even begin to fathom. All she sees when she looks at the grey material are the invisible scars beneath from countless days imprisoned in the lab that had once been her home. The first chance she gets, she'll be setting this thing on fire.
Forcing a polite smile that doesn't reach your eyes, she shakes her head, cordial as ever despite the chaos roaring around them. ] In another lifetime, maybe. But I don't want any trouble, sugar, despite how this may look. I'm just trying to get home.
Aren't we all. [ That slow drawl and the southern diminutive catches him off-guard for a second, unaccustomed to hearing what sounds like such an affectionate pet name from a total stranger. Frank hesitates, then shifts so he's back in the mouth of the alley and peering around the corner and down the street — keeping an eye on their surroundings, and making it clear that he's not blocking her from the exit. And those gears are still turning and turning in the back of his head. They're not being actively accosted anymore, but that the sky is still alight with a vivid searing purple like a bruise, and... god, is that a battle playing out by the Statue of Liberty?
He frowns. Then glances back at her. ]
Where's home? [ he asks, assuming the answer is, y'know, a neighbourhood or borough. Chelsea. Brooklyn. Staten Island, at worst. ] Maybe we can head out together, make it across the city safely. Things are looking a goddamn mess out here today, ma'am, I'd feel better if you weren't alone.
New York's kind of bizarre lately. I'm sure you're aware.
Isn't it always? [ She offers him a slight smile with humor she doesn't quite feel but that hopefully conveys how used she is to this particular brand of bizarre. No panicked damsel here, at least not now that she isn't about to suck the life out of some terrified idiot and his friends. They might have just met, but she has the distinct impression that her rescuer isn't the sort to grab a woman for no good reason. ]
I appreciate it but home's upstate and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting out of the city tonight even when all this eventually calms down.
[ Which it will. It always does. Something completely insane happens and the world finds a way to move on and go about daily life. Trains run (unless they're derailed), people report to work (unless buildings were demolished), and life goes on. Surely, that still has to hold true in this timeline. ]
Really, it's okay, I'm not your burden to worry about. You just get home safely, yourself, alright? [ Because he doesn't need to be pulled any further into her mess. But even as she says it, another crash sounds, this one ringing louder than the rest and leaving her flinching at the screech of metal. ]
[ Frank's earth-brown gaze snaps to the sound of that crash in the distance, his heavy brow furrowed and thoughtful, assessing the potential level of danger. There's the familiar sounds of masonry crumbling. The smell of dust in the air. The wail of sirens. And so his brain is already cataloguing the peril of the day: this sounds like Avengers-level bullshit. This isn't his wheelhouse. This is a hunker down and lock the doors and hope it all blows over kind of day. ]
Upstate? Yeah, no, you're shit out of luck. They usually cancel all the trains when things like this go down. [ It was ridiculous that this had become commonplace enough that he could mention it as a travel disruption, but so it went. And NYC was home, no matter how insane it had become in the years since the attempted Chitauri invasion, so Frank couldn't bring himself to move away. Even when he'd left on a soul-searching roadtrip after everything with Billy, he'd still drifted back eventually. ]
[ Aside from that flinch at the sudden sound, there's no panic in Rogue, just a sort of calm acceptance with a hint of nerves around the edges. Somehow, popping up into this new timeline in the middle of chaos feels more normal than popping up into actual normalcy would have. She's lived through war, survived countless battles that were far more chaotic than this, and she's faced the world as a terrified teenager all on her own. But she's not that scared little girl anymore and she can do this.
(Of course, if a Sentinel suddenly comes stomping around the corner, all bets are off. Panicked terror won't begin to describe the emotions that will overtake her in that circumstance.) ]
I'll be fine.
[ Which is polite southern speak for no, she doesn't have money or even a damn clue what she's going to do to make it through the night, but she's not looking for charity, either. She'll figure it out. Somehow. ]
[ It's obvious from that light, sardonic tone that he's skeptical. And probably the smart play here is to simply leave her alone and let her go on her way — the woman's got powers, she can probably take care of herself even better than he can — but, well, nobody ever accused Frank Castle of doing the smart play. That old-fashioned chivalrous streak keeps coming out in annoying ways and inopportune moments, particularly when there's a woman in need.
She might not be his burden to carry, but he's bad at discarding burdens.
After a moment, he instinctively holds out his hand and offers an actual introduction (even if it's a lie, because his life is full of lies): ]
I'm Pete. Pete Castiglione.
[ Then, remembering what her hands are capable of, he lets his sink back down by his side. ]
C'mon. Literally any other day, I'd buy that, but there's glowing purple portals appearing all over the goddamn city. This is the kind of day people gotta look out for each other.
[ She's grateful he pulls his hand back, even if it stings just as much as it always has. He's seen what she can do, so of course, he's rightfully wary of her touch. The fact that he's still willing to help her says a lot about him, though she expects he'll change his mind when he learns the specifics of her gift. Even back at the mansion, most people had been nervous around her; she can't expect anything different now.
It would be smarter to turn down his offer again, force her way past him and disappear into the crowd. But... She's tired, she's so tired, and she really does need help from someone. So after a long conflicted moment, she finally nods, crossing her arms and feeling like that lost girl again. ]
Okay. [ She nods again, a bit more nervously this time. ] Thank you, Mr. Castiglione.
You're welcome, miss...? [ He lets the question dangle with a pointed look, waiting to find out the woman's name. As soon as she introduces herself, though, then they're on the move. Back out onto the street and striding through the now-sparse crowd, trying to make their way across the avenues and towards safety. The first subway station he tries to take them to, the status display tells them that all the lines are suspended. The first taxi which passes them, its light shows it's not taking passengers.
Then the second taxi passes. Then the third. They haven't seen a bus in a while, either. ]
Looks like we're hoofing it, [ Frank sighs. But he's a New Yorker; he's used to walking, it's fine. ] There's a diner near my place, open twenty-four hours, they ought to still be open now. You wanna camp out there and see if the trains get up and running again? You can keep track of it on your phone.
[ He's not offering up his apartment. Not just yet and not straight off the bat. That road goes both ways; the smart move is to stay in public spaces, no sane woman's gonna go home with a complete stranger in a situation like this, and he never lets anyone into his home besides. It's a security risk. (And for one, it'd be hard to explain all the guns and the stacks of ammo.) ]
[ The name feels foreign on her tongue when she gives it to him, like it belongs to someone else. And maybe it does — she's certainly not that naive little girl anymore. But it's safer to wear a mask, pretend to be someone who isn't just barely holding themself together, so she wraps it around herself like a suit of armor as they move through the streets and face one transportation disappointment after another. ]
Yeah, that— That sounds like a good plan.
[ She doesn't explain that she doesn't have a phone. He's already aware she has no money, adding no one on top of that might have him asking more questions she can't answer. No, there are bound to be other stranded souls passing time in the diner while waiting for the trains to start up again, so she'll just have to keep an ear out. And if they don't before they part ways...
Well, there are lots of shelters in a city this size. Or she could hole up in a public bathroom with a door that locks. Neither would be the worst place she's ended up in her life. After the lab, nothing else seems quite as bad.
She tries her best to keep up with him as they walk, though her stamina isn't what it used to be and she flags within the first few blocks. Pushing herself is the only option, though, so she keeps moving, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and staying upright. ]
[ They're marching along in awkward, not-quite-companionable silence; he's only good at casual conversation when he specifically chooses to be. But Frank notices, after a while, that Marie's fallen quiet as she has to focus on keeping up with him, starting to work on catching her breath along those long avenues. Frank isn't that tall, but he has a quick, bullish kind of stride. So he slows down and eases up his pace.
Odd, for a woman who'd been so quick in a fight; he'd expected her to be in better shape. ]
You alright? That purple light didn't do anything to you?
[ Shit. She can't exactly explain about being out of shape due to having been imprisoned for years, nor is it really the time to get into the fighting training that had been brought back up to the surface because of the people she'd absorbed in the last 24 hours. So she just shakes her head, making the effort to even out her breathing a bit more, which is easier to do now that he's slowed down a little. ]
Just the adrenaline starting to wear off, y'know? I'll be okay.
[ She hates how easy it still is to lie, but it's the only way for her to survive. ]
[ Frank is innately paranoid and skeptical, but he doesn't have any reason to doubt her, so he tells himself to just swallow it for now. ]
You got any theories? About what it might be. [ His hands burrowed into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders squared in his jacket, he tilts his chin towards the sky: where it's still lit up in strange and eerie ways, mostly clustered around the south end of the island. He's glad they're not in the Financial District. Doesn't like whatever the hell is going on by the Statue of Liberty. ]
[ Internally, she flinches at the question, part of her wondering if he'd asked because he too assumes she had something to do with all of this. But the rational part of her mind reasons that there's no accusation in his tone and he wouldn't be nearly so pleasant if he did think this was somehow her fault. ]
Could be a lot of things. [ She's no scientist but she's seen more than enough in her time to hazard some potentially outlandish guesses, depending on what all this timeline has had to deal with. ] Aliens. Dimensional rifts... Giant robots?
[ The last comes out as more of a question than she'd like, but she's suddenly desperate to know. Are there sentinels here? Or anything like them? ]
What, like giant Transformers or something? Shit, that’ll be the day.
[ Frank huffs a gravelly laugh — she’s joking, surely — but a moment later, he seems to realise that that dangling question mark sounds far more tentative than he’d expected. And so he shoots her a glance askance, his brow furrowing as he considers it. ]
I mean, I guess it’s technically possible. We’ve had aliens. So who the fuck even knows anymore. Not lookin’ forward to seeing Godzilla and a robot duking it out in the Hudson one of these days, though. Seeing that kinda thing in-person just doesn't hit the same as it did in the cartoons when I was a kid.
[ Relief floods through her when he confirms that giant robots are, in fact, not a thing in this timeline. Not yet, anyway. Of all the things that could go wrong for her in this place, at least this one small thing went right. Maybe the universe isn't completely out to get her after all. ]
No, it really doesn't. [ She agrees with a quiet laugh of her own, only partially forced through her exhaustion. There's been a whole lot of stuff in her life that's been weirder than anything in the crazy Saturday morning cartoons that played while she was growing up, so she absolutely understands where he's coming from.
Now that they're having something resembling a conversation, Rogue shifts the topic over to her rescuer, saying the first thing that comes to mind. ]
You handled yourself pretty well back there, sugar. Were you in the service?
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the lost ones —
no subject
Even living in NYC, where alien invasions and superpowered catastrophes have somehow become the norm, the sky shattering open is something entirely new: a rift opening above the skyscrapers and pulsing with a strange livid energy, like an infected wound. Frank had been on his way back from a bodega, sauntering down the street and in the middle of a satisfying bite of a bacon-egg-and-cheese when the chaos broke out. It was centered on... something happening out by the Statue of Liberty. Aliens and wizards and interstellar calamities are above his paygrade; he doesn't even know who he'd call to help deal with this kind of thing. Even the Defenders don't really operate on this level. What's Red gonna do, smack the sky rift with his baton?
So Frank is standing stock-still on the street, jaw craned upwards and staring at that purple light — temporarily, for this moment, rendered dumbstruck and just another civilian New Yorker agog at the unfolding disaster. Then, snapping out of it, he starts striding through the crowd, muscling his way through, intent on getting back home, because if aliens are gonna come pouring through those rifts then he's gonna need his arsenal.
But then he's halted again by shouts from a nearby alley, a woman's voice going louder in her distress. He hesitates, but not for long. Pivots quickly, barely misses a beat, and heads right for trouble.
No one ever said he was good at self-preservation, or anything.
Once he's standing in the mouth of the alley, the men shoot a glance behind them and can see that Frank Castle doesn't cut a particularly imposing picture: he's built solid, carries himself with a kind of boxer's bullishness, but he's not even six feet. He's surprisingly good at blending into a crowd, at looking wholly average. But when he talks, his voice is a gruff rasp: ]
Think you'd better leave the lady alone and keep on movin', fellas.
have i mentioned i'm bad at action scenes
"Think you'd better mind your own business," is spat out by one of the men, who produces a knife from beneath his jacket. Shit. He's almost within arm's reach of her, the knife pointed in her general direction, but his focus is on her would-be rescuer — so she moves. An angry brawl with people who are scared is one thing; she's not letting this new arrival take a knife for her.
Grabbing the wrist holding the knife, there's too much shock for her attacker to realize what's happening as she pushes the arm away from her, twisting the hand around until fingers loosen and she can grab the knife. She doesn't hesitate to fling it further down the alley, the weapon disappearing into the deep shadows.
It's over in seconds, her training so deeply ingrained even after years of confinement, but those seconds cost her. Her attacker is even angrier now, furious at being made to look a fool by a woman. His gloved hand grabs her throat as he pushes her back against the cold brick wall and pure instinct has her own hand coming up to his face, pressing fingers and palm against bare skin so she can feel her power spark and begin to drain the life out of him. ]
and yet i torment u with them constantly
But that assessment changes a second later when her fingers touch the first man's face. He goes abruptly still, gasping, writhing under her touch like a fish gutted on a hook, veins standing out on his face. "What the fuck," the third man mutters, staring wide-eyed at her.
Behind them all, Frank fields a quick flurry of blows, slams his elbow into a neck, uses a nearby garbage can lid to block another hit, and then drops his attacker with brutal efficiency. It's clean, crisp, precise: military-trained where the woman was, well... something else. He hesitates for a second — violence comes so easily to his fingertips and all the old instincts are there to kill the man at his feet, stepping on a windpipe, snapping a neck, or just picking up that trashcan lid and slamming it into his face over and over and over — but he stops himself. He doesn't actually know these guys' deal. What they've done. If they deserve it, beyond menacing one poor woman.
One poor woman who's, actually, neatly dispatched her assailant. When the man falls back from her touch and slumps insensible to the ground, his friend yelps, "What the fuck even are you?" While he's still staring, caught between attacking her or just running away, Frank heaves the garbage lid. It dings the last man in the back of his head and he, too, collapses like a bag of bricks.
And then it's just Frank, looking at her and her fallen attacker. Squinting. (Is he dead?) ]
Huh. Maybe you didn't need bailing out.
and somehow i adore you for it
Distantly, she's aware of the fight going on in the seconds that slip by. Her rescuer takes out one of the attackers before she lets go, two bodies on the ground now while the third stares at her and asks the question she's heard so very many times. What are you? What because he sees her as a thing, a monster, a creature out of nightmares. She might look it too, with the dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes and the strange grey uniform. But she's not. She is not a thing, not a monster to be put down.
The way the last man goes down takes her by surprise. There's an efficiency in the way her rescuer moves, reminding her of a cross between Logan and the best-trained of the X-Men. But before she can go down that rabbit hole, he's watching her and she can't help feeling a little nervous about it. ]
I don't know that I could've gotten all three. [ Not before something happened. The honest words slip out in a soft southern drawl as she crouches down beside the man she's absorbed. Reaching out, she carefully adjusts his head so his neck isn't at such a harsh angle, being sure to not brush against the skin in the process. ]
Thank you for your help, sugar. [ She stands again, wobbling slightly but doing her damnedest to hide it by trying to make it seem like she's intentionally bracing herself with a hand against rough brick. ] And thanks for not hurting them too much. Not everyone deals with fear in healthy ways, y'know?
[ And now they face the question of what comes next. He's seen her use her powers — how do people in this timeline handle that? Will he see her as a thing too? Will he take her out like the others or report her to the police? Or is there something worst here for powered people, like where she just came from... ]
no subject
Don't I know it.
[ There's something thoughtful and assessing in his gaze now, trying to measure how much of a threat she might be to him, and taking it all in: the gentle, almost tender way she made sure the guy the took out wasn't in too much discomfort. The uniform she's wearing, which reminds him of Red's armoured themed suit. Frank's still trying to make sense of it all, so he goes ahead and asks the first theory on his mind, even as the irony is thick on his tongue in asking this particular question: ]
You a vigilante or something?
[ Pot, kettle, black. ]
no subject
His question catches her completely off guard, confusion more than evident in her expression as she just stares at him for a moment. A vigilante? Why in heaven's name would he think that? But maybe that's a thing here, wherever here is. Maybe in this version of things, people are more out in the open when they go around saving others. (Whether that's changed how people see them is another question altogether.) The X-Men never had flashy costumes or anything but others had, so that would make sense. But she's not wearing—
Oh. Glancing down at herself, it's impossible to hold back the grimace at the sight of the uniform she's wearing, the same type of uniform she's worn for so many years now. Maybe someone who doesn't know any better would see it as some sort of costume, something utilitarian and functional for combat, with some purpose for all the zippers and detachable pieces that she can't even begin to fathom. All she sees when she looks at the grey material are the invisible scars beneath from countless days imprisoned in the lab that had once been her home. The first chance she gets, she'll be setting this thing on fire.
Forcing a polite smile that doesn't reach your eyes, she shakes her head, cordial as ever despite the chaos roaring around them. ] In another lifetime, maybe. But I don't want any trouble, sugar, despite how this may look. I'm just trying to get home.
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He frowns. Then glances back at her. ]
Where's home? [ he asks, assuming the answer is, y'know, a neighbourhood or borough. Chelsea. Brooklyn. Staten Island, at worst. ] Maybe we can head out together, make it across the city safely. Things are looking a goddamn mess out here today, ma'am, I'd feel better if you weren't alone.
New York's kind of bizarre lately. I'm sure you're aware.
[ Little does he know! ]
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I appreciate it but home's upstate and I'm pretty sure I'm not getting out of the city tonight even when all this eventually calms down.
[ Which it will. It always does. Something completely insane happens and the world finds a way to move on and go about daily life. Trains run (unless they're derailed), people report to work (unless buildings were demolished), and life goes on. Surely, that still has to hold true in this timeline. ]
Really, it's okay, I'm not your burden to worry about. You just get home safely, yourself, alright? [ Because he doesn't need to be pulled any further into her mess. But even as she says it, another crash sounds, this one ringing louder than the rest and leaving her flinching at the screech of metal. ]
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Upstate? Yeah, no, you're shit out of luck. They usually cancel all the trains when things like this go down. [ It was ridiculous that this had become commonplace enough that he could mention it as a travel disruption, but so it went. And NYC was home, no matter how insane it had become in the years since the attempted Chitauri invasion, so Frank couldn't bring himself to move away. Even when he'd left on a soul-searching roadtrip after everything with Billy, he'd still drifted back eventually. ]
You got money for a hostel or something?
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(Of course, if a Sentinel suddenly comes stomping around the corner, all bets are off. Panicked terror won't begin to describe the emotions that will overtake her in that circumstance.) ]
I'll be fine.
[ Which is polite southern speak for no, she doesn't have money or even a damn clue what she's going to do to make it through the night, but she's not looking for charity, either. She'll figure it out. Somehow. ]
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[ It's obvious from that light, sardonic tone that he's skeptical. And probably the smart play here is to simply leave her alone and let her go on her way — the woman's got powers, she can probably take care of herself even better than he can — but, well, nobody ever accused Frank Castle of doing the smart play. That old-fashioned chivalrous streak keeps coming out in annoying ways and inopportune moments, particularly when there's a woman in need.
She might not be his burden to carry, but he's bad at discarding burdens.
After a moment, he instinctively holds out his hand and offers an actual introduction (even if it's a lie, because his life is full of lies): ]
I'm Pete. Pete Castiglione.
[ Then, remembering what her hands are capable of, he lets his sink back down by his side. ]
C'mon. Literally any other day, I'd buy that, but there's glowing purple portals appearing all over the goddamn city. This is the kind of day people gotta look out for each other.
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It would be smarter to turn down his offer again, force her way past him and disappear into the crowd. But... She's tired, she's so tired, and she really does need help from someone. So after a long conflicted moment, she finally nods, crossing her arms and feeling like that lost girl again. ]
Okay. [ She nods again, a bit more nervously this time. ] Thank you, Mr. Castiglione.
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Then the second taxi passes. Then the third. They haven't seen a bus in a while, either. ]
Looks like we're hoofing it, [ Frank sighs. But he's a New Yorker; he's used to walking, it's fine. ] There's a diner near my place, open twenty-four hours, they ought to still be open now. You wanna camp out there and see if the trains get up and running again? You can keep track of it on your phone.
[ He's not offering up his apartment. Not just yet and not straight off the bat. That road goes both ways; the smart move is to stay in public spaces, no sane woman's gonna go home with a complete stranger in a situation like this, and he never lets anyone into his home besides. It's a security risk. (And for one, it'd be hard to explain all the guns and the stacks of ammo.) ]
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[ The name feels foreign on her tongue when she gives it to him, like it belongs to someone else. And maybe it does — she's certainly not that naive little girl anymore. But it's safer to wear a mask, pretend to be someone who isn't just barely holding themself together, so she wraps it around herself like a suit of armor as they move through the streets and face one transportation disappointment after another. ]
Yeah, that— That sounds like a good plan.
[ She doesn't explain that she doesn't have a phone. He's already aware she has no money, adding no one on top of that might have him asking more questions she can't answer. No, there are bound to be other stranded souls passing time in the diner while waiting for the trains to start up again, so she'll just have to keep an ear out. And if they don't before they part ways...
Well, there are lots of shelters in a city this size. Or she could hole up in a public bathroom with a door that locks. Neither would be the worst place she's ended up in her life. After the lab, nothing else seems quite as bad.
She tries her best to keep up with him as they walk, though her stamina isn't what it used to be and she flags within the first few blocks. Pushing herself is the only option, though, so she keeps moving, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and staying upright. ]
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Odd, for a woman who'd been so quick in a fight; he'd expected her to be in better shape. ]
You alright? That purple light didn't do anything to you?
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Just the adrenaline starting to wear off, y'know? I'll be okay.
[ She hates how easy it still is to lie, but it's the only way for her to survive. ]
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[ Frank is innately paranoid and skeptical, but he doesn't have any reason to doubt her, so he tells himself to just swallow it for now. ]
You got any theories? About what it might be. [ His hands burrowed into the pockets of his jacket, shoulders squared in his jacket, he tilts his chin towards the sky: where it's still lit up in strange and eerie ways, mostly clustered around the south end of the island. He's glad they're not in the Financial District. Doesn't like whatever the hell is going on by the Statue of Liberty. ]
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Could be a lot of things. [ She's no scientist but she's seen more than enough in her time to hazard some potentially outlandish guesses, depending on what all this timeline has had to deal with. ] Aliens. Dimensional rifts... Giant robots?
[ The last comes out as more of a question than she'd like, but she's suddenly desperate to know. Are there sentinels here? Or anything like them? ]
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[ Frank huffs a gravelly laugh — she’s joking, surely — but a moment later, he seems to realise that that dangling question mark sounds far more tentative than he’d expected. And so he shoots her a glance askance, his brow furrowing as he considers it. ]
I mean, I guess it’s technically possible. We’ve had aliens. So who the fuck even knows anymore. Not lookin’ forward to seeing Godzilla and a robot duking it out in the Hudson one of these days, though. Seeing that kinda thing in-person just doesn't hit the same as it did in the cartoons when I was a kid.
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No, it really doesn't. [ She agrees with a quiet laugh of her own, only partially forced through her exhaustion. There's been a whole lot of stuff in her life that's been weirder than anything in the crazy Saturday morning cartoons that played while she was growing up, so she absolutely understands where he's coming from.
Now that they're having something resembling a conversation, Rogue shifts the topic over to her rescuer, saying the first thing that comes to mind. ]
You handled yourself pretty well back there, sugar. Were you in the service?