driftfleet | gotta get down for a mingle

As opposed ta the pre-modern world?

[She took a sip of her drink. C'mon, Jim. You know being a hero is always hard.]

We called it good manners.

[A quick, sharp grin.]

Leadin' a revolution?

[ Mirroring her expression, ]

Doing the right thing.

[Oh, just that easy, huh?

Shaking her head.] No wonder your generation despairs of mine. We barely know what that is anymore. An' y'all just called it good manners.

[ He laughs. ]

Don't you go doin' that. My Ma raised me right. The world we've got now, it's messy, darlin', it ain't always clear who the bullies are or what we have to do. It used to be. My War was the last.

[She leans forward a little, resting her elbows loosely on her knees as she gives him an alert, direct look.]

Was it? [Because, yes, Nazis are evil with a capital E, but there is much she can think of when it comes to World War II which is not... as clear cut. Hard choices for the sake of freedom, that was how she thought of it still. She doesn't want to take any comfort away from him, but there's something about that which rings so strongly of... of... clinging to an ideal past that she just... she can't help address it.] Do ya really think it was clear?

Yes.

[ It was him or the other guy. That clarity hasn't changed. ]

War's a messy business, don't get me wrong. We'd have a hell lot more talk about mine if there were cameras and journalists the way there were in Vietnam, or Iraq... but sometimes there's folks who make it that way — easy to choose your side. That's what I'm sayin'.

[Rogue has found that to be true.]

I get that.

[She paused for a moment, wondering if she wanted to let it go, or...] An' ya really think yours was the last time it was?

[ He lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug. ]

I didn't live through the others to compare.

[Her eyebrows rose slightly.]

True enough, but... wasn't that what started this whole thing ta begin with? You comparin'?

[She straightened and raised both hands in mock surrender.] I ain't invested here. I am just sayin'. Literally just sayin'.

[ A helpless snort. ]

Yeah. Often feels like mine was the last. Why, how clear is yours?

[Rogue raised an eyebrow, lowering her hands.]

Mine, mine? As in on my world? Or as in Luceti? 'cause those are two very different stories.

[ A pause, then, ]

Your world. Let's do that.

Well... [She held up a gloved hand.] I do have a... kinda unique ability ta see both sides. Can't say that makes things any clearer...

[She sighed quietly and settled further back in her chair.] Ya know, one of the main people I've had ta fight against in my world is from your time too. He was a kid during World War II. A Jewish kid. He was rescued from a concentration camp. Even after he escaped, an' after he grew up, started a family... people ended up comin' after him an' his family 'cause they were mutants. His family was destroyed.

[This was hard - she never really talked about other people's pasts. But it was a serious question and it deserved her best answer. Magneto was her best answer.]

So he promised to himself that he wouldn't let mutants suffer like his people suffered before. But his way of fixin' that? It was to do ta normal humans what was done ta him. He wants ta prove mutant superiority, to... [a sigh, a roll of her eyes] establish a superior race.

So on the one hand [a flip and a raise of one hand] simple. An' on the other [a flip and a raise of the other] complicated.

[She balanced her hands up and down, mimicking a scale.] It comes down ta choices, in the end. Doin' the best ya can by the light you've got. That's all I've got.

Edited 2015-12-10 04:40 (UTC)

I was in one a'those camps.

[ He says it quietly, after she's finished. ]

Only for a month and — nothin' like the ones they found towards the end of the war, the ones for Jews and Romani and everybody else who didn't fit. Can't imagine goin' through it as a kid.

[ A pause. ]

Not sayin' he's right: blood doesn't pay for blood. Just sayin' I understand. There's... an index. SHIELD tracks people with powers. No idea how they get 'em... experiments, I s'pose, accidents... a few'd be born with 'em. The dangerous ones sometimes need to be [ he sets his jaw, thinking handled or taken care of, but he finds he doesn't want to dress it up for her ] killed. What makes 'em dangerous, that depends. Humans will be always be afraid of what's different. Especially when they can't crush you by tellin' you you're nothin'.

[Rogue comes to coiled attention at that quiet confession, not so much an external shift in her posture but a certain measure of deep focus.

She knows those camps. She's had Erik's nightmares about them for years. But she knows there is a difference between dreams and reality, one that she's clung to for the sake of her own sanity: Dreams end.

It was perhaps good that he moved on so quickly. What could be said in acknowledgement of that kind of travesty? There were no words to make it better, I'm sorry came up laughingly short, and he wouldn't want her sympathy anyway.

And then he continues, to an index, to the murder of people just like her because of their powers -- dangerous? Dangerous because they lived or because of what they did, and did SHIELD bother to draw the line? She stiffens at that knowledge, feels the familiar anger and determination that somehow never faded, even after all these years of being away from Earth.

Regardless of whether or not he wanted to hear it, or whether or not she had the right words, something had to be said about his confession first.]

No one should have to experience anythin' like those camps. [Whether because they were different or because they were enemies, it was the one tenet of Rogue's life that all life had to matter, or there was no point to her continued existence. Not when she could hurt so many people just by living.]

It's possible ta do the wrong thing for the right reasons. [It's quiet, meditative.] An' it's possible ta do the right thing for the wrong reasons. If there is a God, I ain't him, an' it's not for me ta judge other people's motives. [She glances down at her gloved hands, remembering a confrontation in an alleyway, remembering heartwrenching anger on a dark night, reaching out her hands almost with the intention to help... and murdering instead. She'd done wrong that night. The reasons didn't matter. She was nobody's judge.

But they were talking about war, somehow, war and whether or not it was ever simple or clear.] But I can measure my own actions by what I believe is right, an' I can measure who I'll stop an' who I'll support by what they do ta people who are innocent. Seems like that's the one measure that makes things real clear, real fast.

[And how many of those people with powers, in your world, were innocent when they were killed? She almost wants to ask if he'd been charged with doing it. She isn't sure she wants to know. Truth was always better than lies, and often it was better than wondering...

One step at a time, she tells herself. One step at a time.]

[ C'est la guerre is almost the first thing out of his mouth. The world is cruel, it's full of pain and misery, and war is a messy business. They all go in prepared to suffer and die, it's part of the risk. Steve would be angry with him, he thinks, and so would Natasha, his Nat. Making it seem like what happened didn't matter, or didn't hurt as bad as it did. ]

Yeah, you're right.

[ Count all the ways he's not surprised by that, and feels the familiar pang of sorrow that she's been through so much. ]

A lot a'the time, we gotta make compromises. Maybe the less you make the easier it is, but I wouldn't know. Or maybe the fast you take a stand the better it is.

[...compromises. She was more familiar with them from the Luceti side of things. Back home... there was still enough that was crystal clear.

But the way he said that... ]

I never said war was simple. [In fact, she'd been pretty much arguing the opposite.] Or that any of these kinda choices were easy.

[They were still talking about war, after all. Not compromises of the peace-keeping kind, or compromises about innocents.

...okay, yeah. She was gonna have to ask. Rogue glances away for a moment and then back to him.]

You talkin' 'bout that index?

[ He looks her in the eye. He owes her that. ]

Yes. Maybe.

[Okay. Okay. This is... not going to go well.

But after yelling just yesterday at Steve Rogers for jumping to conclusions, she tries very hard not to do the same.]

So... how was threat level determined for what was actionable? [Oh yeah, she knows those words. They sound wrong coming out of her mouth, even to her. She leans forward, gloved hands clenching the edge of her chair as if they were what was keeping her in place.] Action, intention, or existence?

[Oh, okay. No keeping that old anger out of her voice, then.]

[ They don't sound wrong. They sound like an old pain, a kept anger. He knows there's no forgiveness here, and doesn't expect any. ]

The ones I knew about, action. The rest... didn't need to know. Didn't ask.

[ Everything else sounds like an excuse. He stays quiet. ]

Edited (icon) 2015-12-14 03:16 (UTC)

[...so, that was a yes. She didn't need to ask him, didn't need to hear it, she saw it on his face.

And it hurt. It hurt to know that in another world, he could be coming right after her, just at the word of a superior. It infuriated her, the way her people were treated across the board. There was never any universe where they were cut a break -- she'd thought Tony's world was lucky, thought there weren't any mutants there, but now, no, it's just people with powers.

The leather of her gloves creaked with the pressure of her grip on her chair. She wanted to reach over and throttle him, but it wouldn't make a difference, it was too late now. And the words I hope you ask next time were right on the tip of her tongue, searing and contemptuous, and not enough, wanting to hurt him as much as she hurt: Or do ya need ta practice on me?]

Goddamnit, Jim.

[She looked away.

Because she couldn't say it. She wasn't blind. She saw his face.

She wasn't an idiot - she remembered his room, she remembered his heart, she knew him.

He must have believed he was doing the right thing. But it meant nothing, intentions, as she'd said, meant nothing. All she could judge was actions. And this was a lot to weigh in the balance.]

If you want to leave, no one will stop you.

[ His hands never shake when they pull the trigger, and so his voice is calm and even. What a fool, for thinking anything about this could be easy. The only thing that ever had been was knowing the target, and ending it. That was all. The rest — it got messy. In the end he's no better off than the Winter Soldier — SHIELD and HYDRA aren't that different. Or never were, depending on how far back the infiltration went. ]

I don't expect you to forgive me.

[ Sorry feels so out of place. It means little. She deserves better. This is what he has. ]

One, [She said very quietly, because he still didn't see her, he still didn't know what was sitting across from him, gripping onto the chair for dear life.] if I wanted ta leave, no one could stop me.

Two, [And then she turned to look at him, glaring.] I ain't the one who needs ta forgive you.

[She took a shaky breath. Her next line was clear in her mind - one, two, three. But then she saw him. Saw him. And she couldn't sit still anymore.

It was a fluid movement, an uncoiling of a spring, standing, coming directly before him, and using whatever strength was needed to -- no, she couldn't quite do it, couldn't quite pull him into an embrace. Instead she held onto his shoulders and held his gaze and refused to look away from all that she saw there, and her heart broke. She wasn't God. She was nobody's judge. She was so angry that she wanted to be, but he wasn't the only one who deserved to fall under that hammer, and it wouldn't be right for him to take the whole of the blow. Her voice was quiet, just above a whisper.]

Ya did the wrong thing for the right reason.

[Truth was a scalpel. She hoped she made the right cut.]

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how did this get so mean, I blame you

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