8/22/08 - Storm
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=NYC= Apt 115 |Rossi| - Brooklyn - 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.
Silence is precious on a field trip full of students, with day trips to a differently noisy control center, long phone calls, and the deliberate busy of a woman preventing herself from thinking too hard about what must not be thought on. But after a few stolen seconds this evening, spent studying sunset's sinking glow over the calm blue of the ocean beyond her window, Ororo kneels on the bed and shatters it herself, with the song of a cellular phone being dialed with a familiar number. She exhales as she listens to it ring, and frowns.
He is hip-deep in downtime for a change, stripped down to the bare essentials necessary for comfort in the privacy of his apartment. A long day. The signs and soils of it are visible in the tie flung haphazardly over the arm of his sofa, squashed under the crossed, bare feet propped on its padding. The rest of him is stretched long and lean over the cushions: one arm behind his head, banked against the silver-streaked hair; modesty accommodated by an ancient blue T-shirt and thin grey flannel pants.
The Olympics are on. The ring of the phone barely rouses him, though one arm stretches to retrieve it from the coffee table, gaze still fixed on the raw, regulated athleticism on the screen. "Yo," he answers. Caller ID? What? "Rossi."
Ororo sits back and extends her legs while the phone rings, and contemplates her toenails in the breath of a pause before replying when he answers. They are silvery-blue, but beginning already to show signs of chipping and fading due to excessive exposure. She says, "Hi," a single syllable dropped lightly in a smiling tone, her mouth's curve showing but half the smile. "It's me."
/That/ wakes him, if only to shift the phone into the crook between the other shoulder and ear so the freed hand can fumble with the remote. A short second later the background noise ("So you just missed your chance to win a medal. What emotions are going through your--") cuts off, making way for a far warmer, "Cadbury." Fabric rustles. Chris swings himself up in his seat, resettling himself with elbows on knees, shoulders and spine bowed almost possessively over the phone. "Saw you on TV. I was wondering when you'd call. How're you? How're the poodles?" And, "What'd they do with the hand?"
"I'm all right. Getting arrested gets easier all the time." Ororo's tone is a little edged through her humor, her much-vaunted tolerance having limits; still, with the puff of an exhalation, she reveals a shadow of laughter. "I honestly have no idea what happened to the hand. When Summers returns from his mission I believe he will be stapling Logan to something. As for myself I've been keeping busy. -- And you? Doing all right?" Grinning a little inappropriately widely, she appends, "How's the weather up there?"
"Sucking ass," Chris says, craning his neck to glance towards the half-open window. The breeze that trips in from the street outside is dusty, humid with late summer moisture; he holds a hand up to it, fingers spread as though to catch the nibbling draft, then unwinds slowly to mold his back to the sofa and stretch his arm along its cushions. "Typical New York summer. Typical apocalyptic New York summer," he amends, and cautiously props his feet up on the edge of his coffee table. Toes curl down as he reconsiders. "Typical apocalyptic, Cadbury-not-in-town summer. Poodle Prince must be /pissed/." His own sentiments are harder to pin down.
"We all have a lot on our mind, lately." Ororo's reply is not exactly a demurral, despite the suggestion of her tone. She runs two fingertips over the slant of her cheekbone up to her temple, and tips her head with the twist of a partial grimace. "We don't exactly pay him for public relations. I wish I'd thought faster when he told me he just needed one shot. In retrospect, what else could that possibly mean?"
The grin slides through the phone line with the immediacy of a sneeze, unthinking and beyond immediate control. "Hate to think. Can't say it didn't make for good television. Newscasters were wetting themselves on TV. /You/ looked hot," Chris articulates, sinking his head back. Brooklyn's accent fades away at the stretch of his throat, the vowels and harsh consonants redressing themselves in less extreme contours. "I know that was pretty high on your list of priorities. Thought I'd mention it, just in case you were worried. They really arrested you? For stopping that nutcase?"
With a snorted laugh, Ororo shakes her head slightly. "Thank you for that," she says, shifting; she turns around, kicking her legs behind her and settling back into a light lounge against the squashy hotel pillow. "I don't remember what I was wearing. Pants, probably. I didn't sleep the night before the launch, so I suppose we are all lucky the worst that happened was an arrest and release. Really I think they just wanted to keep an eye on us. We were there with only visitor's credentials, and one of us did just partly dismember someone."
In Logan's defense, Chris repeats a mild, "Partly." Outrage is noticeably absent, though approval may still stand a few inches beyond reach. He closes his eyes and lets his feet slide down to hook themselves on the support of his toes. "All things considered, it could've gone a hell of a lot worse. By comparison, I mean. Magneto could've--" Speaking of. Right. He cracks a squint up at the ceiling, though she cannot see it. "Did you know about that?"
Ororo toys with a few loose strands of silver-white hair, the silence extending into a considered pause. "Yes," she says finally. "Yes, Chris, I did. Homeland Security brought him to our doorstep a couple of weeks ago and we trained together for a few weeks in preparation for Pegasus."
The silence moves to the other end of the line. It is not, all things considered, a disapproving silence. Simply ... silence. He is thinking.
Ororo leaves it lie for heartbeats, and then for breaths. There are a dozen things she almost says, but does not. Curling a hand into a fist, she studies it for a moment, and catches her lower lip in her teeth to suck on. Then she draws one more deep breath and says, "Well."
Well. Chris breaks out of thought to say, pragmatically, "Suppose it's better than springing it on you as a surprise. That would've made for over-the-top TV. Turning into a tradition, anyway," he continues on a more resigned note, letting his eyes close again for the intimacy of darkness and sound. "Someone goes to the trouble of catching him, then the Feds lose him. One way or another. Outer space is new, at least."
"If they fail, it does not really matter whether he is in prison or not." Ororo looks at the window, and the sky above. Another clear night, flecked with awakening stars to pierce the dusky veil. "If they succeed..." Ororo trails off. Whatever happens if they succeed, she does not verbalize it, but leaves the thought adrift. "I was almost with them, you know."
"I was wondering," Chris says, and teases a hand through the rumpled mess of his hair, raking it away from the high and unfurrowed brow. "I figured, though. Weather, space -- not a lot of scope for what you do. No atmosphere."
"No air," Ororo agrees lowly. Her frown lingers in her tone and expression both, her gaze set on the sky through the clear pane of the window. "We need him, to save the world. Our strengths, Stark's technology ... we ran simulations. Insufficient, each time. I can't /trust/ him, though."
Chris says, as she did earlier, "Well." It is almost unnecessary to follow that up with commentary, though he does: singular, and self-explanatory. "Magneto." He lapses into silence, listening to the echoes of that name, flat-voiced in its delivery. As though to apologize for it, he adds, "And -- Jesus. Grey, and McMillan ... I guess the combination makes sense, if you don't think about all the ways it could go wrong. He won't fuck up. Planet's covered with his baby mutants. He keeps shit here."
"I don't know, Chris." Ororo rubs at one of her eyes with the press of a thumb. "He is an old, bitter murderer who has been caged, and now enlisted to help his jailers. And I think he is tired. His own death may appeal to him as much as everyone else's."
A breath sighs into the phone; there is assent in that, a muted acknowledgment of the possibility. "Yeah. Theatrical way to go." Not a deterrent for the Master of Magnetism, admittedly. The small chuff of sound into the receiver testifies to his awareness of it. "You guys had a choice?"
"I'm sure we could have chosen not to try." Ororo's laughter is hollow, and brief.
"Whose idea was it?"
"Easier asked than answered." Ororo rolls onto her side, propping herself up against the pillow, and stares more intently at the window. "I don't remember which of us determined first that it was impossible without him. It may have been the Professor. Scott. Me. Jean. It could have been any of us."
As Ororo rolls, Chris slides -- down, cradling his weight on the base of his spine and propping it against the knitted tension of his legs. "If you guys thought about it." His eyes flick open, check the television, then turn up again to study the blank canvas of the ceiling. Self-deprecation cuts around his wry, "Of course you thought about it. Sorry. I got used to the idea after a while. People were pretty pissed at first. Think the whole bombing attempt distracted them."
"It was not an easy decision." Ororo curls her fingers into the meat of her pillow and exhales in the long breath of a sigh. "In the end, we could not choose public opinion over reason. Of course, that does not make public opinion irrelevant, a lesson which some of us would do well to learn better." She closes her eyes as she smiles slightly. "But I will take all the flak in the world if it means first destroying the threat."
"My window's still open." Laughter, incomplete, husks through the implied invitation, and smoky green eyes veil their smile behind spiky lashes. "If they kick you out of -- what is it, Florida? -- just tell me when you start flying back in and I'll make sure it's unlocked for you. You do what you gotta do. If you poodles save the earth, it won't keep people from complaining, but that's how it goes."
"Something to look forward to." Ororo's voice warmed by humor, her eyes still closed, she shifts to let her head sink further into the squashy pillow. "New York is a little far to ride the wind from here. But when I'm home I'll gladly take a cool wind to your window."
Chris notes conversationally, "Some people's girlfriends take taxis. Your way's probably safer. Only thing you could run into is pigeons, and as far as collateral damage goes, I got no problem with losing a few of those." He curls his arm, tucking it behind his head to raise it slightly from the sofa's lower support. "How long you planning on being in Florida?"
Ororo makes a vague, disgruntled grumbling noise, and lifts a hand to rub fingertips against her brows. "I'm not entirely certain," she says. Tone gloomy, as though she is mentioning a funeral or alternately something nightmarish, she notes, "I keep hearing these Disney rumors."
"Disneyworld?" The mature, experience-weathered cop, regrettably, brightens. One might almost say he grows perky, if the word were capable of coming within arm's reach of a man like Chris. "Field trip?"
Warily, Ororo confirms, "I think that may be the general idea."
A wistful note slides into Chris's voice. "I hear they got Pixar rides."
Ororo does not laugh. She does not. Instead, she asks, "Did you want to come down and help chaperone?"
Chaperone. That makes him pause. "Chaperone what?" Chris asks after a suspicious moment's thought. "The military? --Holy crap. You didn't bring the kids with you, did you?"
Now Ororo starts to laugh.
Chris endures in patience. Or rather, not. "Well, the fuck," he says defensively. "Top secret mission, terrorist mastermind, NASA, military, impeding destruction of life on earth. How does it follow that you took a pack of /teenagers/ with you?"
Ororo laughs even harder, muffling what threatens to become giggling by pulling one of her pillows over her face. Still thus muffled, she manages a half-strangled, "Oh gods, Chris, how does it!"
"That's what I'm saying," Chris says, and there's the patience, ladled heavy over the words though not without the leavening touch of an audible grin. "Christ. What's so funny? I just figured, you know, the feds would take you to Disneyworld to show their appreciation or ... something." He trails off lamely, perhaps registering the ludicrousness of the idea. There is a short pause. And then he says, thoughtfully, "That made more sense in my head."
Ororo wheezes a little, pulling her pillow off her face to rest her palm against her forehead instead. "Maybe we can ask the feds to take us to Disneyworld to show their appreciation." Her voice trembles a little. "I think I would like to see their expressions."
Toes flex. Chris peers down through heavy eyelashes to watch them stretch and relax against the wood. "Least they could do. Buy you a decent lunch, take you to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates are cool." Envy flutters through the lazy baritone, a quaintly boyish note in what is definitively a man's voice. "They got a Finding Nemo aquarium at the resort. With, you know. Fish."
"You can still come help chaperone if you want." Lazy warmth flung over Ororo's tone like a blanket, she closes her eyes again over a slow smile. Hahah.
He thinks about it. He is thinking about it. The cogs turning are almost audible in the short pause, the weight that warps the silence. "Will the kids and the military be around?"
Catching her lower lip in her teeth, Ororo grins. "I'm sure we could steal an hour or two," she says. "... Now and again."
Temptation battles with prudence. Chris slouches further still in his sofa, his chin coming to rest on his chest, and accuses into the phone a furry, wry, "You're laughing at me. Half the PD are on standby, though, and MA's hammered. I probably can't." /But/, says his tone of voice. /But but but/.
"You are adorable," Ororo accuses him lightly, curling in on herself in her squirm against the support of pillows. "You are welcome if you can make it. If you can't, I will take photographs and buy you a hat."
"I'll wear it," Chris promises rashly, belated caution hastily nudging his wits to tack on, "--as long as it doesn't have Mickey Mouse ears. I might have a problem with Mickey Mouse ears." He peels a frown out of nowhere to emphasize his dignity, a wasted effort given the phone medium, and rolls onto his side to prop his head on his fist. Eyes half-lid again, warmth uncurling in a smoky, comfortable haze across his Brooklyn-spiced tongue. "'Adorable' is how you describe baby animals and babies, Cadbury. Not cops."
"Oh," Ororo laughs again, quietly. "My mistake."
"Just for future reference." Fabric rustles; Chris sets his bare foot against the other arm of the sofa and pushes himself up, settling his hip more comfortably in the crack between cushions. Amusement wings from New York to Florida. "I'll let it pass this time, seeing as how you're long-distance. And can kick my ass."
"I can think of a few things I'd /rather/ do--" Ororo stretches, arms arcing above her head. The phone falls into the crook of her neck and shoulder, where she must rescue it on the end of a chuckle. "It is good to hear your voice," she tells him a trifle more solemnly, the breath of a sigh buried in the words.
"Not to mention saving the world." It is a pensive afterthought, chained onto the links of the last two items with a touch more sobriety than they warranted. It is a heartbeat's switch though, from one thought to the next. Chris follows where Ororo leads willingly enough, distracted by inference and lively, thwarted masculinity. "It's good to hear your voice, too. Christ, I miss you." It is an admission touched with surprise.
"Yes," Ororo tells him, her voice quiet and her tone touched with an odd, musing quality, "I miss you, too." She reaches over and turns out the bedside lamp, dimming the lights in her hotel room. "A week more, give or take some time. One way or the other."
The familiar, rough-timbred baritone settles as well, tuning itself to quiet. "One way or another. Are you--" Chris breaks off, knitting his brow and rubbing gently at the furrowed skin with a fingertip, "--all you guys planning on staying down there until you know?"
"I'll stay here til they land," Ororo answers, her half-shrug against the pillows behind her invisible over the phone. "No point staying past that, I don't think."
"My window'll be open," Chris says again, and sighs his crooked smile into the phone. "If it doesn't work out, all hell will break loose in the city. Tell me I don't know how to coax a woman home."
"That's charm for you," Ororo agrees blithely. "In the meantime, though, I've a long day tomorrow, and I suspect you do, too."
Chris makes a rude sound. /That/ for the people who sign his paychecks. "Double shift," he admits then, stretching slowly to test the flexion of muscles that have gone unused and idle for much of the night. "I should go to bed. Fell asleep watching the Olympics last night. Your call's a better nightcap."
"When I get back there I'll give you an even better one," Ororo answers with a low laugh buried in her voice. She closes her eyes again, hand pressed against the warm phone cocked to her ear. "For now, though. Good night."
"Night." The word, short as it is, is a caress, throat-caught and rich. He is smiling as he hangs up, sleepy, satisfied even from a distance. Bed be damned. He turns his head to glance at the television, then closes his eyes under the flicker of electric hysteria.
[Log ends]
Cadbury calls Chris from Florida and makes his evening. Magneto, what? Hand-chopping? It's a weird, weird life his girlfriend lives. "So you're saving the world. What'll you do next?"
=NYC= Apt 115 |Rossi| - Brooklyn - 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.
Silence is precious on a field trip full of students, with day trips to a differently noisy control center, long phone calls, and the deliberate busy of a woman preventing herself from thinking too hard about what must not be thought on. But after a few stolen seconds this evening, spent studying sunset's sinking glow over the calm blue of the ocean beyond her window, Ororo kneels on the bed and shatters it herself, with the song of a cellular phone being dialed with a familiar number. She exhales as she listens to it ring, and frowns.
He is hip-deep in downtime for a change, stripped down to the bare essentials necessary for comfort in the privacy of his apartment. A long day. The signs and soils of it are visible in the tie flung haphazardly over the arm of his sofa, squashed under the crossed, bare feet propped on its padding. The rest of him is stretched long and lean over the cushions: one arm behind his head, banked against the silver-streaked hair; modesty accommodated by an ancient blue T-shirt and thin grey flannel pants.
The Olympics are on. The ring of the phone barely rouses him, though one arm stretches to retrieve it from the coffee table, gaze still fixed on the raw, regulated athleticism on the screen. "Yo," he answers. Caller ID? What? "Rossi."
Ororo sits back and extends her legs while the phone rings, and contemplates her toenails in the breath of a pause before replying when he answers. They are silvery-blue, but beginning already to show signs of chipping and fading due to excessive exposure. She says, "Hi," a single syllable dropped lightly in a smiling tone, her mouth's curve showing but half the smile. "It's me."
/That/ wakes him, if only to shift the phone into the crook between the other shoulder and ear so the freed hand can fumble with the remote. A short second later the background noise ("So you just missed your chance to win a medal. What emotions are going through your--") cuts off, making way for a far warmer, "Cadbury." Fabric rustles. Chris swings himself up in his seat, resettling himself with elbows on knees, shoulders and spine bowed almost possessively over the phone. "Saw you on TV. I was wondering when you'd call. How're you? How're the poodles?" And, "What'd they do with the hand?"
"I'm all right. Getting arrested gets easier all the time." Ororo's tone is a little edged through her humor, her much-vaunted tolerance having limits; still, with the puff of an exhalation, she reveals a shadow of laughter. "I honestly have no idea what happened to the hand. When Summers returns from his mission I believe he will be stapling Logan to something. As for myself I've been keeping busy. -- And you? Doing all right?" Grinning a little inappropriately widely, she appends, "How's the weather up there?"
"Sucking ass," Chris says, craning his neck to glance towards the half-open window. The breeze that trips in from the street outside is dusty, humid with late summer moisture; he holds a hand up to it, fingers spread as though to catch the nibbling draft, then unwinds slowly to mold his back to the sofa and stretch his arm along its cushions. "Typical New York summer. Typical apocalyptic New York summer," he amends, and cautiously props his feet up on the edge of his coffee table. Toes curl down as he reconsiders. "Typical apocalyptic, Cadbury-not-in-town summer. Poodle Prince must be /pissed/." His own sentiments are harder to pin down.
"We all have a lot on our mind, lately." Ororo's reply is not exactly a demurral, despite the suggestion of her tone. She runs two fingertips over the slant of her cheekbone up to her temple, and tips her head with the twist of a partial grimace. "We don't exactly pay him for public relations. I wish I'd thought faster when he told me he just needed one shot. In retrospect, what else could that possibly mean?"
The grin slides through the phone line with the immediacy of a sneeze, unthinking and beyond immediate control. "Hate to think. Can't say it didn't make for good television. Newscasters were wetting themselves on TV. /You/ looked hot," Chris articulates, sinking his head back. Brooklyn's accent fades away at the stretch of his throat, the vowels and harsh consonants redressing themselves in less extreme contours. "I know that was pretty high on your list of priorities. Thought I'd mention it, just in case you were worried. They really arrested you? For stopping that nutcase?"
With a snorted laugh, Ororo shakes her head slightly. "Thank you for that," she says, shifting; she turns around, kicking her legs behind her and settling back into a light lounge against the squashy hotel pillow. "I don't remember what I was wearing. Pants, probably. I didn't sleep the night before the launch, so I suppose we are all lucky the worst that happened was an arrest and release. Really I think they just wanted to keep an eye on us. We were there with only visitor's credentials, and one of us did just partly dismember someone."
In Logan's defense, Chris repeats a mild, "Partly." Outrage is noticeably absent, though approval may still stand a few inches beyond reach. He closes his eyes and lets his feet slide down to hook themselves on the support of his toes. "All things considered, it could've gone a hell of a lot worse. By comparison, I mean. Magneto could've--" Speaking of. Right. He cracks a squint up at the ceiling, though she cannot see it. "Did you know about that?"
Ororo toys with a few loose strands of silver-white hair, the silence extending into a considered pause. "Yes," she says finally. "Yes, Chris, I did. Homeland Security brought him to our doorstep a couple of weeks ago and we trained together for a few weeks in preparation for Pegasus."
The silence moves to the other end of the line. It is not, all things considered, a disapproving silence. Simply ... silence. He is thinking.
Ororo leaves it lie for heartbeats, and then for breaths. There are a dozen things she almost says, but does not. Curling a hand into a fist, she studies it for a moment, and catches her lower lip in her teeth to suck on. Then she draws one more deep breath and says, "Well."
Well. Chris breaks out of thought to say, pragmatically, "Suppose it's better than springing it on you as a surprise. That would've made for over-the-top TV. Turning into a tradition, anyway," he continues on a more resigned note, letting his eyes close again for the intimacy of darkness and sound. "Someone goes to the trouble of catching him, then the Feds lose him. One way or another. Outer space is new, at least."
"If they fail, it does not really matter whether he is in prison or not." Ororo looks at the window, and the sky above. Another clear night, flecked with awakening stars to pierce the dusky veil. "If they succeed..." Ororo trails off. Whatever happens if they succeed, she does not verbalize it, but leaves the thought adrift. "I was almost with them, you know."
"I was wondering," Chris says, and teases a hand through the rumpled mess of his hair, raking it away from the high and unfurrowed brow. "I figured, though. Weather, space -- not a lot of scope for what you do. No atmosphere."
"No air," Ororo agrees lowly. Her frown lingers in her tone and expression both, her gaze set on the sky through the clear pane of the window. "We need him, to save the world. Our strengths, Stark's technology ... we ran simulations. Insufficient, each time. I can't /trust/ him, though."
Chris says, as she did earlier, "Well." It is almost unnecessary to follow that up with commentary, though he does: singular, and self-explanatory. "Magneto." He lapses into silence, listening to the echoes of that name, flat-voiced in its delivery. As though to apologize for it, he adds, "And -- Jesus. Grey, and McMillan ... I guess the combination makes sense, if you don't think about all the ways it could go wrong. He won't fuck up. Planet's covered with his baby mutants. He keeps shit here."
"I don't know, Chris." Ororo rubs at one of her eyes with the press of a thumb. "He is an old, bitter murderer who has been caged, and now enlisted to help his jailers. And I think he is tired. His own death may appeal to him as much as everyone else's."
A breath sighs into the phone; there is assent in that, a muted acknowledgment of the possibility. "Yeah. Theatrical way to go." Not a deterrent for the Master of Magnetism, admittedly. The small chuff of sound into the receiver testifies to his awareness of it. "You guys had a choice?"
"I'm sure we could have chosen not to try." Ororo's laughter is hollow, and brief.
"Whose idea was it?"
"Easier asked than answered." Ororo rolls onto her side, propping herself up against the pillow, and stares more intently at the window. "I don't remember which of us determined first that it was impossible without him. It may have been the Professor. Scott. Me. Jean. It could have been any of us."
As Ororo rolls, Chris slides -- down, cradling his weight on the base of his spine and propping it against the knitted tension of his legs. "If you guys thought about it." His eyes flick open, check the television, then turn up again to study the blank canvas of the ceiling. Self-deprecation cuts around his wry, "Of course you thought about it. Sorry. I got used to the idea after a while. People were pretty pissed at first. Think the whole bombing attempt distracted them."
"It was not an easy decision." Ororo curls her fingers into the meat of her pillow and exhales in the long breath of a sigh. "In the end, we could not choose public opinion over reason. Of course, that does not make public opinion irrelevant, a lesson which some of us would do well to learn better." She closes her eyes as she smiles slightly. "But I will take all the flak in the world if it means first destroying the threat."
"My window's still open." Laughter, incomplete, husks through the implied invitation, and smoky green eyes veil their smile behind spiky lashes. "If they kick you out of -- what is it, Florida? -- just tell me when you start flying back in and I'll make sure it's unlocked for you. You do what you gotta do. If you poodles save the earth, it won't keep people from complaining, but that's how it goes."
"Something to look forward to." Ororo's voice warmed by humor, her eyes still closed, she shifts to let her head sink further into the squashy pillow. "New York is a little far to ride the wind from here. But when I'm home I'll gladly take a cool wind to your window."
Chris notes conversationally, "Some people's girlfriends take taxis. Your way's probably safer. Only thing you could run into is pigeons, and as far as collateral damage goes, I got no problem with losing a few of those." He curls his arm, tucking it behind his head to raise it slightly from the sofa's lower support. "How long you planning on being in Florida?"
Ororo makes a vague, disgruntled grumbling noise, and lifts a hand to rub fingertips against her brows. "I'm not entirely certain," she says. Tone gloomy, as though she is mentioning a funeral or alternately something nightmarish, she notes, "I keep hearing these Disney rumors."
"Disneyworld?" The mature, experience-weathered cop, regrettably, brightens. One might almost say he grows perky, if the word were capable of coming within arm's reach of a man like Chris. "Field trip?"
Warily, Ororo confirms, "I think that may be the general idea."
A wistful note slides into Chris's voice. "I hear they got Pixar rides."
Ororo does not laugh. She does not. Instead, she asks, "Did you want to come down and help chaperone?"
Chaperone. That makes him pause. "Chaperone what?" Chris asks after a suspicious moment's thought. "The military? --Holy crap. You didn't bring the kids with you, did you?"
Now Ororo starts to laugh.
Chris endures in patience. Or rather, not. "Well, the fuck," he says defensively. "Top secret mission, terrorist mastermind, NASA, military, impeding destruction of life on earth. How does it follow that you took a pack of /teenagers/ with you?"
Ororo laughs even harder, muffling what threatens to become giggling by pulling one of her pillows over her face. Still thus muffled, she manages a half-strangled, "Oh gods, Chris, how does it!"
"That's what I'm saying," Chris says, and there's the patience, ladled heavy over the words though not without the leavening touch of an audible grin. "Christ. What's so funny? I just figured, you know, the feds would take you to Disneyworld to show their appreciation or ... something." He trails off lamely, perhaps registering the ludicrousness of the idea. There is a short pause. And then he says, thoughtfully, "That made more sense in my head."
Ororo wheezes a little, pulling her pillow off her face to rest her palm against her forehead instead. "Maybe we can ask the feds to take us to Disneyworld to show their appreciation." Her voice trembles a little. "I think I would like to see their expressions."
Toes flex. Chris peers down through heavy eyelashes to watch them stretch and relax against the wood. "Least they could do. Buy you a decent lunch, take you to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates are cool." Envy flutters through the lazy baritone, a quaintly boyish note in what is definitively a man's voice. "They got a Finding Nemo aquarium at the resort. With, you know. Fish."
"You can still come help chaperone if you want." Lazy warmth flung over Ororo's tone like a blanket, she closes her eyes again over a slow smile. Hahah.
He thinks about it. He is thinking about it. The cogs turning are almost audible in the short pause, the weight that warps the silence. "Will the kids and the military be around?"
Catching her lower lip in her teeth, Ororo grins. "I'm sure we could steal an hour or two," she says. "... Now and again."
Temptation battles with prudence. Chris slouches further still in his sofa, his chin coming to rest on his chest, and accuses into the phone a furry, wry, "You're laughing at me. Half the PD are on standby, though, and MA's hammered. I probably can't." /But/, says his tone of voice. /But but but/.
"You are adorable," Ororo accuses him lightly, curling in on herself in her squirm against the support of pillows. "You are welcome if you can make it. If you can't, I will take photographs and buy you a hat."
"I'll wear it," Chris promises rashly, belated caution hastily nudging his wits to tack on, "--as long as it doesn't have Mickey Mouse ears. I might have a problem with Mickey Mouse ears." He peels a frown out of nowhere to emphasize his dignity, a wasted effort given the phone medium, and rolls onto his side to prop his head on his fist. Eyes half-lid again, warmth uncurling in a smoky, comfortable haze across his Brooklyn-spiced tongue. "'Adorable' is how you describe baby animals and babies, Cadbury. Not cops."
"Oh," Ororo laughs again, quietly. "My mistake."
"Just for future reference." Fabric rustles; Chris sets his bare foot against the other arm of the sofa and pushes himself up, settling his hip more comfortably in the crack between cushions. Amusement wings from New York to Florida. "I'll let it pass this time, seeing as how you're long-distance. And can kick my ass."
"I can think of a few things I'd /rather/ do--" Ororo stretches, arms arcing above her head. The phone falls into the crook of her neck and shoulder, where she must rescue it on the end of a chuckle. "It is good to hear your voice," she tells him a trifle more solemnly, the breath of a sigh buried in the words.
"Not to mention saving the world." It is a pensive afterthought, chained onto the links of the last two items with a touch more sobriety than they warranted. It is a heartbeat's switch though, from one thought to the next. Chris follows where Ororo leads willingly enough, distracted by inference and lively, thwarted masculinity. "It's good to hear your voice, too. Christ, I miss you." It is an admission touched with surprise.
"Yes," Ororo tells him, her voice quiet and her tone touched with an odd, musing quality, "I miss you, too." She reaches over and turns out the bedside lamp, dimming the lights in her hotel room. "A week more, give or take some time. One way or the other."
The familiar, rough-timbred baritone settles as well, tuning itself to quiet. "One way or another. Are you--" Chris breaks off, knitting his brow and rubbing gently at the furrowed skin with a fingertip, "--all you guys planning on staying down there until you know?"
"I'll stay here til they land," Ororo answers, her half-shrug against the pillows behind her invisible over the phone. "No point staying past that, I don't think."
"My window'll be open," Chris says again, and sighs his crooked smile into the phone. "If it doesn't work out, all hell will break loose in the city. Tell me I don't know how to coax a woman home."
"That's charm for you," Ororo agrees blithely. "In the meantime, though, I've a long day tomorrow, and I suspect you do, too."
Chris makes a rude sound. /That/ for the people who sign his paychecks. "Double shift," he admits then, stretching slowly to test the flexion of muscles that have gone unused and idle for much of the night. "I should go to bed. Fell asleep watching the Olympics last night. Your call's a better nightcap."
"When I get back there I'll give you an even better one," Ororo answers with a low laugh buried in her voice. She closes her eyes again, hand pressed against the warm phone cocked to her ear. "For now, though. Good night."
"Night." The word, short as it is, is a caress, throat-caught and rich. He is smiling as he hangs up, sleepy, satisfied even from a distance. Bed be damned. He turns his head to glance at the television, then closes his eyes under the flicker of electric hysteria.
[Log ends]
Cadbury calls Chris from Florida and makes his evening. Magneto, what? Hand-chopping? It's a weird, weird life his girlfriend lives. "So you're saving the world. What'll you do next?"