driftfleet | Windrose, where the wind blows

[her scowl deepens. Rogue dislikes the feeling that she is being probed, catagorized, assessed. There had been a certain amount of willingness to clear the air. Now, however, she mostly just felt defensive. As violated and cracked open as the Atroma had made her to be. She knew well what you called a person with voices in their head.]

If you're going ta ask questions that are none of your business, at least do me the courtesy ta ask.

[she waits. It's up to Natasha to decide what kind of digging exposition she's on, if it's espianage or the sort that will respond to an invitation to honesty, however sourly worded.]

[She does not point out that Rogue was the one who started the Calibrations conversation. She also doesn't look at Rogue like she's a crazy person, or like she's afraid. She does, however, look faintly irritated.]

How about I tell you instead, and you stop me when I'm wrong? I know you have abilities most people don't. I'm pretty sure it's mostly involuntary and based on touch, and I'm definitely positive it comes with consequences. I'm also gonna go out on a limb here and say most people back where you're from don't exactly appreciate any of that. How am I doing so far?

[Rogue doesn't shift, but her features progressively tighten, locking down hard at each assumption. She is rigorously scrupulous when it comes to guarding the privacy of those she has touched, of their lives and secrets. It is no surprise, then, that she is similarly guarded in her own life. While what Natasha was saying were not secrets, they were not things that she talked about, not things that she was comfortable with.

She detested the feeling of being analyzed, compartmentalized, as if she could be known.

That was pride. And she was trying, really trying to grow more at peace with her powers, with their consequences. So she took a breath. It was her powers that she didn't like (hated, still, deep in her bones though she was trying), but she would never, ever be ashamed of being a mutant.

She simply lifted her chin.]

I'm a mutant. An' so far you're not wrong. You wanna keep goin'?

[Natasha understands privacy. Understands what it is to carefully guard secrets, and to reveal as little as possible. To have strangers wandering inside her head, to have part of herself willing and able to give away everything she'd worked to protect? It had been terrifying. It still was. Terrifying, and infuriating. No one had the right, not anymore.

Maybe that's why she gets it, at least a little. She doesn't understand Rogue's abilities, but this much--pride, and privacy--that she understands. So she just looks back, shrugs one shoulder, calm again. Serious.]

That's about all I've got. I didn't poke around. Bad manners.

[It wouldn't have stopped her, with most people. But there's at least a seed of respect there for Rogue, and enough sense to not fuck with unknown abilities.]

Right.

[...argh. This is not what she wanted.

Rogue exhales a controlled breath and runs a gloved hand through her hair, an obvious gesture of frustration, an attempt to regroup. But she can't really see her way out of where she's standing.

She looks over at Natasha.]

...sorry. I do remember that. You not pokin' around. An' there's nothing wrong with the questions you're askin', or the things you've put together. Back home, what I am ain't no secret. Heck, my face was blasted across the TV shows as a 'most wanted' for a while, there's no hidin' who I am or what I do. It's just - out here, it ain't like that. An' unpleasant things tend ta get even more private, after a time of not havin' ta talk about them.

[She gives a little, wry smile.] My powers ain' very pleasant.

[Controlled responses seems to have been the way to go. Rogue seems to pull her automatic responses in, get a handle on the frustration that seemed about to come flying directly at Natasha, but she still gets the sense they aren't in the clear. Honesty, then; as much as she can.]

I don't know anything about you, or where you come from. I'll admit, I'm curious. But I'm also the first to admit that especially out here, privacy's not something you wanna give up fast. And some things don't get easier to talk about.

[She shrugs. It's hard to resist the urge to poke around the edges, to lead the conversation. Hard to not use her tricks to get the information she wants. But not everyone can be used that way, and she's smart enough to know both when it's a bad idea and when it's not really necessary. When there's other ways that might get her the same thing, and maybe something better.]

Power always has a cost. I have a friend back home who'd agree with you.

[Right, three guesses as to who that was and the first two don't count. She'd had a giant chunk of Bruce and Hulk in her head for a long, long time, poor guy.

At Natasha's reminder of the importance of privacy in this scenario, Rogue was suddenly reminded that - yes, smile, they were on candid camera. Well. Screw that.

Still, her lips twist wryly.] Yeah, I'm sure our audience is lovin' this.

[She shakes her head.] Screw 'em. Ya wanna know 'bout the world I'm from, bit more 'bout who I am? I don't mind tellin' ya. Your ship have any coffee?

[Let's shift ground, make this less like whatever this was, and more like a talk over coffee.]

[Whatever this was was whatever it always seemed to be. Both of them were fighters, if not literally then metaphorically. Both of them were private people who fiercely defended their boundaries. Both of them had spent at least some time in combat, recently. It wasn't a surprise that they'd occasionally clash. Be more of a surprise if this hadn't come up, if it hadn't been a problem. It wasn't easy for either of them to talk about, Natasha thinks, returning Rogue's smile with a ghost of her own.]

Don't have coffee, but we've got decent fake tea and something that pretends it's scotch.

[It's something. She'd rather change keys, too. There was bound to be enough fighting in their near future, if the general pattern held.]

[Bleck to both those options, honestly.] That's a shame. Guess it'll do, if ya don't mind takin' a break.

[Fair. The Windrose crew hasn't exactly spent much time or effort on the culinary wonders available in space. For the first crew, it was privacy that mattered more. Now, with the Vision expanding his little hydroponics corner, maybe she'll consider better meals a slightly higher priority. For morale, you know.]

[Just as long as no one expects her to cook.]

[Motioning with her head, she moves off of the wall, leading the way deeper into the ship towards their small galley.]

I don't mind. Been up since before sunrise, I should probably stop and take a break, anyway. Got plenty of time to finish checking her out before we leave, if the pattern holds true. Not that I trust Atroma to keep any sort of schedule.

[Rogue follows along. There wasn't much that was needed to respond there, and as part of her mind was doing its best to organize the information she was preparing to impart, only asked absently:] What do ya count as sunrise up here?

[Or had she been on the planet?]

[It's a short walk to the galley, and it's clear the crew hasn't done too much to what originally came with the ship; there's a single glowfish hanging out in a bowl on a counter, a small selection of bottles, and a few mismatched stools. That's about the extent of it.]

Been using the planet's clock, while we're here. Not that it matters too much. Seems like every planet we visit to seems to sync up pretty closely to ship time.

[She waves at the stools, letting Rogue choose her ground as she heads for the drink dispensers.]

Want anything?

Mmm.

[Does she want anything? She wants to reorganize your kitchen, that's what she wants. She looks around and her fingers fairly twitch.]

Y'all don't have a cook, do ya. [She glances at the drink dispenser and resigns herself.] I'll take some fake tea, thanks.

That obvious?

[And here's the first hint of something other than seriousness in Natasha's voice, something a little warmer and wry as she fixes them both a cup of passable artificial tea. She's not exactly a whiz in the kitchen. In fact, the word 'disaster' may have been used once or twice before.]

Privacy was more important for most of us, the first time around. Guess we haven't spent much time thinking about the galley.

Mmm. [Doing her best to not twitch, really. Had they all been subsiding on the straight gels and pastes? Really? They might need an intervention.

Rogue reaches over to take the fake tea and sips it, managing not to make a face.]

So. Where were we? Did I start off with mutants?

[That would be a yes, Rogue. Most of the time, anyway, at least until she'd decided that the stuff on the planets and waystations was probably at least as likely to kill her as the nutrient pastes and opted to try it anyway. Anyway, she's eaten worse. She's cooked worse.

Taking a seat across from Rogue, she sips at her own drink. At least it's hot?]

You mentioned the words, yeah. Though I'm assuming there's a textbook definition that goes with. Genetic anomalies?

[Fortunately, Rogue doesn't really like tea anyway, so bad tea is not an offense as much as it just is 'oh, something hot that is neither coffee nor chocolate.'

She used to have a Way of explaining this. She is all out of pace. And honestly, the Way probably wouldn't work with Natasha anyway - the woman already knows her well enough to make up her own mind, she (hopefully) shouldn't have to convince Natasha of her humanity.

Because that is how she used to begin: The most important thing to remember about mutants is that we are people, just like anyone else.]

They call it the X-Gene. I'm not anywhere close ta a scientist, an' I don't understand it. [Simple and blunt.] Some folks call it 'the next phase in human evolution' some folks call it the work of the devil, but it comes out in all kinda quirks.

[This required more talking. She reached up and tugged on a strand of white hair.] Some of it's physical. Some of its more'n just the way ya look.

Catchy name. [Flippant words, but it makes sense. Short and succinct, for a question science hasn't really been able to answer yet. Human, but a little more, a little different. She can only imagine what that means for a mutant. Hell, if people panic so much now about people of different faiths and skin colors, she can only imagine what they'd do for people with enhanced abilities. Control of elements, control of minds. She's read enough of SHIELD's files to have a vague idea of some of the possibilities. But in the end, just like those other people of different skin colors, different religious persuasions, one quirk of genetic structure doesn't make someone not human.]

So, for some mutants it shows. Like your blue friend. [She'd seen their argument on the network, after all, when Kurt had first shown up.] For others, it's not so obvious. I'm guessing you're one of the latter?

Kurt. [Of the blue friend.] An' Remy, if ya saw him at the Christmas party. [Natasha had been in and out, Rogue wasn't sure if she and Remy had been 'in' at the same time.] Hard ta miss his eyes.

[For a time, she'd been quite taken with them.] I guess a white streak ain't much in comparison ta blue fur or black eyes.

[Though it had set her apart plenty in Caldecott County, Mississippi.]

I did. He and I actually spoke back on the Marsiva. Charming guy, but he knows that already. [He'd mentioned knowing Rogue then. And now the eyes make much more sense.]

Could have been an aesthetic choice. White hair's a pretty popular choice in the alt-fashion world right now. I try not to assume anything these days.

Is your hair color tied to your talents?

Mmm. [Rogue shook her head.] Nah, it's just a secondary physical mutation. Doesn't even do anythin' useful.

[But okay, let's stay on point here:] But I'd say there are more than... two thirds of us who don't show any physical mutations at all. An' the thing is, powers usually don't hit until puberty. So - imagine you're one of the lucky ones, an' your power doesn't hurt anyone the first time it comes out. Maybe ya just walk through walls, or maybe ya start runnin' fast as lightning or maybe it's voices - ya start hearin' other people's thoughts. [Now was normally when she would say 'what do you do' except she knew two things about Natasha Romanoff 1) you did not get to be a superspy without a finely honed ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes, she did not need to try to lead her in empathy for her situation 2) Natasha's own teenage years had been a nightmare of epic proportions; she would have no idea what it truly meant to be normal one day and be terrified of yourself the next, there was no point of reference, she wasn't going to try to make one.] It's a mess. An' ya think you're the only one in the world goin' through somethin' like what's happenin' ta you.

But the thing is - ya ain't. [A pause as she shakes her head.] An' if you're real lucky, ya don't have ta find that out the hard way.

[She can....well, she can't imagine. It wasn't like that for her, just waking up one day with her own specific talents, not knowing the scope or limit of them. She'd known, maybe not from the beginning, but by the time she'd started the more specialized training, what she would be doing, what she'd be capable of doing. The Red Room may have made her, but she's the one who's chosen to stay that person, in the ways that count. Rogue would be right. There's no frame of reference, but she can understand, intellectually, what that would do to a normal person.]

I take it there isn't much of a support network for new mutants, back home, then.

[In fact, she's pretty sure it's something along the lines of government labs and human experimentation, and that's just the start.]

[A support network. Rogue almost laughs. She can picture the after school specials now: And remember, kids, if this happens to you just call 1-800-XPERMENTONME.]

Not so much. But this has been goin' on long enough now that there are groups of older mutants who've survived long enough ta build a... quiet kind of underground power base. Those groups are mostly split up into two camps. There's the sort who've had so much exposure ta the nastier sides of human nature that they're convinced the only way mutants will ever live in peace is if humans are shown, firmly, that their place is under us. [She had some empathy for Erik Lehnsherr. It was hard not to, she'd touched the man after all, she knew what he'd been through. She also knew he was completely batshit, had tried to mind whammy her, and exposed mutants to the world when they'd been doing Just Fine at keeping that secret in order to spur on his war, thank you so much, Buckethead.] An' then there's the sort who are so stupidly hopeful that even though they know humanity's got difficulty dealin' with different skin colors, that there might be a way through the utter mess of fear an' pride ta find a way to just... live in peace.

[So, not that different from most groups of individuals in her time and world. The one camp who want righteous vengeance, for their group to be superior, taking revenge for years of oppression and maltreatment at the hands of a declared enemy. The camp who wants peace, love and joy, and believe that diplomacy and the better parts of human nature will triumph over all. And she's gonna bet there's a third group in there, a silent minority who just want to live their lives without fear of a lynch mob, who regardless of whether they have yellow eyes or a talent for breathing underwater are just normal people doing normal things, wanting a normal life.]

Did you fall in with either camp?

[She won't assume. This is Rogue's story. Natasha is here to listen, not to tell it for her.]

[Rogue's eyebrows arch slightly at the question, but it wasn't a bad sort of surprise. It was better to be asked, she supposed.]

Both. 'Fall in' is kinda a... funny way ta put it. [Rogue glances away for a moment and runs a gloved hand through her hair.] When ya don't understand what's happenin' to ya, an' ya think folk are out ta kill ya, it's easy ta take the first hand that offers to help.

[There was no driving ideology about her initially joining in with either group. Rogue just wanted to survive. She looks back at Natasha.] Turns out though, that that particular group was run by liars who also didn't really care who lived or died, as long as they got what they wanted. When I joined the X-Men, I'd burned my bridges behind me, didn't have any other place ta go. But they were good people, they looked out for each other... An' if I had ta be on the side of someone's vision for the world, I'd rather it be the kind that lifts people up rather'n puts them down.

[They were small words to indicate just how deeply Rogue now did believe in Xavier's dream, but she knew it for what it was: a dream. What of it? The world was shaped by dreams.]

Windrose, where the wind blows

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