fateandfortune | Just a kid from Brooklyn. [For Steve Rogers]

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Just a kid from Brooklyn. [For Steve Rogers]

Three months. That's all the longer Rogue had been in this world that wasn't hers, trying to scrape together a life out of nothing. She'd barely made a decent start of it when the world had tried to end on her with the Battle of New York. The city had been in chaos, was still trying to pick up the pieces two months later, and Rogue did all she could to help in her own way. In a small way.

Sure, there had been a few times she'd been tempted during the battle to run out into the thick of things and become her old self. Join the superheroes who had taken charge of the situation. But in the end she'd stayed back, because the reality was that without someone to borrow an active power from, she was just another normal person, and normal people just got others killed in fights like that.

In the weeks that followed the Battle, she'd taken to volunteering whenever she wasn't working. She'd joined an organization that worked with the elderly in various capacities, and they sent her where she was needed. Sometimes it was a nursing home to visit with the ones who didn't have families or who had simply been forgotten, sometimes to the retirement communities that put on events and could always use a few extra hands. Those were her big plans that Sunday - a party at a residential community, complete with cake, punch, music, and streamers. Lots of streamers. They'd really done the place up for the 4th of July holiday, which wasn't technically until Wednesday, with red, white, and blue all over the common room. It had taken hours for Rogue and a few others to get the decorations up and everything ready, but the smiles on the residents' faces as they were shepherded in by a fresh set of volunteers made every second worth it.

Laughing as goofy Mr. Samuels swept Mrs. Hawkins into something almost resembling a waltz, Rogue continued spooning out strawberries onto the whipped cream on top of the line of shortcakes. It felt strange to not be wearing gloves, even after months of having decent control over her mutation, but she'd still chosen a blue dress with long sleeves for the occasion. A simple dress, with sensible heels, so the sticker nametag reading "Marie" didn't look too terribly out of place.

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Steve was very good at being an obstacle for people, whether he meant to be or not. In this case, however, it was completely unintentional. He was willing to share everything with her. He had always been a fairly open guy, if anyone had cared enough to ask, but this felt like something more. Steve shied away from just what it did feel like, because he didn't believe in love at first sight. Love was built, even after you knew someone; it had to be maintained and tended, cared for, or it waned. He didn't know Rogue well enough to be in love with her yet. ...but he was definitely headed swiftly in that direction.

Straightening his shirt was such a maternal image to Steve, he couldn't help but smile as he watched her do it, even while he listened to her explanation on her various names. He'd never really thought about how much more difficult it was for a married woman to deal with paperwork and legal transactions, just because she'd had to change her name. It was something trivial, but he loved listening to her give brief explanations about it, little stories that all added up to the woman sitting beside him.

He watched a little more attentively as she considered and decided what she wanted him to call her. It was obvious what she wanted, and even having spent so little time with her, in the grand scheme of things, Steve could tell it weighed heavily on her that she was essentially forced to give up the name she considered to be her real one, just to stay anonymous and safe. It was one more way she was hiding who she really was. He thought about never being casually called Cap again; he remembered how disconcerting it was whenever he heard someone call his best friend 'James' instead of 'Bucky'.

The comment about gloves did puzzle Steve slightly, since he didn't know her exact mutation, but he just assumed that she didn't wear them here so she could more easily hide her true nature. He didn't consider the fact that they might have been a necessity before, since whatever her power was, they weren't a necessity to hide or control it anymore.

It was her true nature, though, wasn't it. She identified with those gloves, with her mutation. She identified more with being a mutant, and a superhero, than she did with being an every-day, ordinary person. He sympathized with that feeling, and it cemented his decision. He reached up and pulled one of her hands off his shirt, lacing his fingers together with hers. "Okay," he said softly, easily. "Rogue it is." He smiled gently, reaching up with his free hand to trace a finger over the white locks along the edges of her head. "It's not so unusual a name. You look like a Rogue."

It was true that she identified with her mutation, that she lived her life based on it regardless of her level of control. Being a mutant had made her an outcast, but it had also given her a purpose, a home and a family like she'd never had growing up. It was why she hadn't been able to bring herself to take the so-called cure, even after traveling all the way to the distribution site. Nothing had ever tempted her more than the possibility of being able to be normal again, but when she'd gotten there and see all the others waiting in line, she just hadn't been able to go through with it. Who would she be without her mutation? Silly Marie D'Ancanto who had dreams of leaving Mississippi, traveling up to Canada just to find the opposite of the life she had in the South.

He was not making it easy for her not to fall in love with him right then and there, and it would have been so easy to both kiss him senseless and cry all over him, with how utterly sweet he was being. She gave his hand a little squeeze and chuckled quietly at his last comment.

"You mean my hair's kinda weird and makes me stand out," she clarified on his behalf, smirking at her own words. "I tried dying it once, a long time ago, but the color didn't take one bit. Now it's just part of me." She'd grown to like her strange hair, despite the situation that had led to the streak's creation.

Anyone who knew him would tell you that Steve Rogers never made anything easy, and a significantly large part of the time, he made things much, much more difficult. Never on purpose, but that was part of the frustration. He'd never been accused of being difficult not to love, though.

"I mean," he said clearly, "that it is perfectly you. It's charming, wild, but very sophisticated." Steve shrugged. "It's hard to describe. It's not out of this world, or anything, but it's... wholly unique. So, it's you."

He wondered, a little, at the fact that she couldn't dye it. Which implied that it wasn't dyed in the first place, which was what he'd originally, naturally assumed. Plenty of people dyed their hair, and living in Brooklyn, he saw plenty of younger folks with all sorts of strange colors in their hair. He picked up one of the shorter strands that had fallen out of her braid and gave it a playful tweak. "I wouldn't change a thing."

Steve was scoring all sorts of points with his sincere compliments, and not just with her. There was an assortment of her closest friends who always stayed at the forefront of her mind, including some very overprotective men, and even they were beginning to give their approval of her being with this man. Remy was approving, nudging her into following her instincts rather than overthinking things, for which she was so incredibly thankful.

That little tug at her hair left her wearing a 1000-watt grin, and she lifted their joined hands to press a kiss to the back of his. "What am I gonna do with you when you insist on being this sweet to me?" she questioned him with all the affection she could cram into a dozen words. "At this rate, if you keep it up, you'll never be able to get rid of me."

In a move he never would have even considered trying before now, Steve lifted their joined hands just enough to drop his arm around Rogue's shoulders, keeping their fingers twined together. For the first time, when he wasn't fighting for his life, Steve was starting to feel perfectly at ease in his body. He attributed the new feeling entirely to her.

He stretched out a little on the bench, slightly over-exaggerating his casual, arrogant pose, and said airily, "Well, then my diabolical plan is working. 'Cause I plan on keeping you forever." He kept his voice light, but he meant every word. She didn't need to know just how serious he was, though, so he kept up the teasing. "Yep. I've caught you now, nothing for it. Just gotta accept the inevitable; you're stuck with me."

"I suppose I can live with that," she teased right back, eying that pose for a moment before rolling her eyes in mock exasperation. If he was just going to sit there looking so inviting, then she couldn't very well pass up such a golden opportunity. Keeping hold of that hand so his arm didn't slip, she turned slightly toward Steve so she could lean into him and rest her cheek on his shoulder. Her free arm slid across his waist, and she sighed happily. It was the best cuddle she could manage on the bench, but it was still damn near perfect.

"Lordie, this feels good," she murmured quietly, tension easing out of her muscles as she relaxed against him. It had been a very long time since she'd been held by anyone like this; she'd missed it.

When she snuggled against him, Steve froze, for just a split second, before slowly relaxing. Yes, they'd been getting pretty physically affectionate, but it kept hitting him, at odd intervals, that here was a woman who wanted to be with him, and he couldn't figure out how to act. It was taking some getting used to. He hoped eventually it would stop surprising him so much - but he also remembered Dr. Erskine explaining why he'd chosen him, how a weak man understood the value of strength. Steve would also always understand being alone, wishing he had found the right partner; now he thought maybe he had, and he never wanted to take this kind of moment for granted.

Reaching up with his free hand, he covered the arm she'd wrapped around his middle, and turned his head slightly to rest his lips against her forehead. "Yeah. Not bad," he murmured against her skin. He wasn't trying to provoke her, like he had before their second (or first, depending on how you looked at it) kiss; he just tended to understate things, that was all.

After a moment, he pulled back a little to speak. "Okay, serious questions. First of all..." he paused only briefly, not wanting her to become unduly worried. "What's your favorite color?"

Rogue knew he wasn't trying to provoke her with his comment; truthfully, she just assumed that he was like most men she'd known over the years, tending to understate and run short on words when it came to things like this. It had only been the ladies men like Remy who had waxed poetic about how wonderful something like a hug could be, especially from a belle femme like herself. The fact that he continued hold on to her was enough for her to know that he didn't mind her being like this with him.

She frowned slightly at his mention of serious questions and was about to pull back to look at him when the question itself took her by complete surprise. A bubble of laughter burst out of her and she snuggled even closer to him. "Green," she answered without hesitation. "It's my favorite to wear, and it reminds me of when I used to spend the odd week in the Canadian wilderness with my friend Logan." The words came easily, just tumbling out as she continued talking about colors and what they meant to her. "I also like grey and yellow, which you'll see in the way I've decorated my apartment - grey for my best friend Erik who controlled magnetic fields and manipulated metal, and yellow for Jubilee, who wore this hideous yellow jacket everyday and looked like she'd just stepped out of the 80's, but it suited her."

Stroking his thumb absentmindedly over her arm, he listened to her talk about color, closing his eyes and smiling, imagining it. He loved hearing her stories, which for obvious reasons he knew she couldn't share with him previously, even if she had figured out his own secret identity.

"I don't know anything about 80's fashion," he commented, "but I take it it's not a good thing." He had so much he had to catch up on, and fashion had never really been his thing. So long as it was functional and it fit, he hadn't cared.

He decided to share one of his own stories with her, since she'd been so open with him about what were obviously cherished memories of her friends. "Before - before the serum - I was color blind. My best friend wouldn't let me dress myself, because I kept making horrible fashion choices, he said. He finally told me to just wear khaki pants and blue shirts - which was one of the few colors I could see tell apart accurately - because it made my eyes stand out." It was still something he tended to do, even now that he could finally see all the colors he'd heard people talking about.

It hurt, remembering those early days with Bucky; their lives hadn't been easy, but they'd been carefree compared to when America joined the War. But it was also nice, being able to talk about him with someone who could understand the hurt, and appreciate the bittersweetness of remembering.

He wasn't wrong about 80's fashion, it was pretty horrific and entirely memorable for that fact. Rogue made a mental note to share some of the better 80's movies with Steve, the ones that were often mentioned in pop culture references, so he'd be able to understand just what people were talking about when they referenced big hair and the like.

There were so many things that she wanted to share with him. Things that she enjoyed that also existed in this universe, things that he'd need to learn about to muddle through conversations with the average person, things that were just fun or important. It was part of the need she felt to take care of him, to care about him and his well-being. She was a helper, she had been since she was little, and she wanted to help him navigate through this new strange world they'd both been dropped into.

"I can't imagine being colorblind," she admitted quietly, tightening her arm around him briefly in a gentle squeeze. "I can see how it could cause that problem, though. Your friend sounds like he was a good man, and I'm glad he took care of you the way friends should." There was amusement in that sentiment, because friends were always the ones to care about your fashion choices - she'd gotten more than her fair share of that from Jubilee over that years, that was for sure.

Leaning back a little so she could look at Steve, she gave him a soft smile as she studied his face. "He was right about the blue," she finally decided. "I love the color of your eyes."

Your friend sounds like he was a good man. Steve pressed his lips to her forehead again, staring over her head into the distance, but not seeing the park anymore. He was a good man, he thought, and I got him killed. He took a deep, steadying breath, and by the time she pulled back to look at him, he'd put the thought back in its box; to be drawn out only when he was alone. Bucky woulda come back from the grave just to murder Steve himself if he heard Steve was bein' melancholy over him while he had his arms full of a gorgeous doll.

Steve smiled back, but finally had to say, "I have no idea how to respond to that. Thank you?" He laughed. "Sorry. Not used to getting compliments about my looks. I have been wolf-whistled at a few times, but that's different."

Rogue knew all about getting good people killed, and even as she continued to beat herself up about it, she would argue with Steve that it wasn't his fault. Given the chance, she would hold him while he missed his friend, and do whatever she could to help him through his grief. Even the strongest of them needed that much when a loved one was lost.

"Well, you'd better get used to it with me," she informed him with a playful smirk. "I think you're absolutely gorgeous, sugar, inside and out, and I'm gonna take every opportunity to mention it."

If things continued escalating between them on a similar track, she'd soon get the opportunity to witness his grief, and comfort him. But Steve refused to let his darker emotions take hold in the light of day, and he had a ready, perfect excuse to ignore them, right in his arms.

"I'm beginning to get the sense I should just shut up and smile when you say things like that," he said drily, unable to help the smile tugging his mouth up. "You, Ms. LeBeau, are Trouble. I've been warned about girls like you." He gave her a mock-severe look.

He was bound to see her own displays of grief, which she wasn't yet as skilled at controlling. It didn't help that her negative emotions were often exacerbated by those of the people she'd absorbed. Part of her dreaded the day that Steve would inevitably see her lose control of her mental hold on things, the 'bad days' that left her practically incapacitated as she rebuilt her mental shields and tried to find her way back to being whole again.

Rogue laughed at his dry comments, especially when a few particular men decided to chime in that the guy had a pretty good idea there. "Well, I'm certainly not the sort of girl that guys take home to their mothers," she tossed back at him, though it was a darker joke than she'd intended, ringing just a little too true to her own ears.

Edited (late edit for typos) 2016-05-27 21:26 (UTC)

Everybody had bad days, Steve understood that, and most of them hadn't gone through the kind of trauma and ordeal that Rogue had. Steve certainly wouldn't be looking forward to seeing one of her bad days, but when he did, he would do everything in his power to help her through them, whatever she needed.

Steve pursed his lips in though, giving her a considering look. "Maybe they didn't want their mothers to be jealous of the great gal they'd found," he finally said. "My ma - Sarah - I think she would've liked you. She was sweet as apple pie, but God, could she be vicious if she was provoked. Not in a hellcat kinda way, but she had a razor-sharp tongue. And the best disappointed and disapproving faces ever. One look from her and you'd be apologizing for things you hadn't even thought about doing yet."

It was easier to talk about his mother than it was Bucky; he'd come to terms with her death, and was able to look back on his life with her without regret. Sorrow that she'd died too soon, but it had been a slow decline, and he'd been able to grieve for her properly.

Rogue listened to Steve describe his mother and wished she could have known the woman who'd raised such a wonderful son. He didn't have to say it for her to know that he'd loved his mother dearly, that he was proud to call her family. She envied that.

"She sounds like my kind of woman," she told him with a smile and half a laugh. "I'm sure she'd be proud of the man you've become, and I don't just mean the whole saving the world bit." He was such a good man, she really didn't deserve him.

Rubbing her cheek on his shoulder like a cat scenting its human, she quietly asked, "You had a good life with her, didn't you?"

Taking a long, slow breath, Steve nodded slowly. "I certainly hope she is." Steve firmly believed in heaven, and if anyone had deserved a halo and a set of wings, it was his mother, who shoulda been sainted just for being able to deal with two rowdy boys who'd had way more bravado than common sense.

It had been a while since Steve had pulled his early memories out and thought about them; he had so many other, more pressing things to do, it was nice now to just relax and remember, and share things with her. "I did," he agreed. "It wasn't an easy life, and I sure as hell didn't help that. But she made sure I was happy, made sure..." he thought about telling her about some of the less pleasant aspects of his young years, but he never liked thinking about those events. This was one secret he was perfectly fine ignoring, and keeping to himself - for now, at least.

"Well, made sure I could take care of myself, knew right from wrong. Knew to respect women. She was a suffragette, so I come by my feminism honestly," he joked. One thing he didn't like about the future, was how everyone seemed to think that 'feminism' equated to women hating men and thinking they deserved more than men did. He'd met women like that even in his time, but the gap had been so wide back then it never would've been possible. He'd been pleased, proud even, of all the progress women had achieved - but feminism was a hot-button issue these days, and he'd been dismayed when he'd first heard people's opinions of it. Like so many other things from his time, while he'd slept it seemed to have morphed into something almost unrecognizable to him.

Rogue didn't know what she believed about what happened to a person after they died. She'd been raised in a Southern Baptist household, but none of it had ever really set right with her, not after the life she'd led. Spiritual was how she would describe herself rather than religious, but she didn't fault anyone for their beliefs.

A quiet giggle followed his joke and she leaned in to kiss the curve of his jaw. It was good that he was a feminist and had been raised by a strong woman - this thing between them wouldn't possibly work if he didn't have the sense to let Rogue be her own person. She hadn't always been strong-willed and minded, but her years at the mansion had changed her deeply. She had grown into the type of person who would sooner kick ass than kiss it, and that was who she'd always wanted to be, in a way.

"I'm glad you have that to look back on," she told him with sincerity. "And I'm glad you had other people that you cared about, and who cared about you. I know it's hard to have to go on without them, but you'll always have those memories to take with you."

It hadn't been her intention for the tone of the conversation to change to something so... heavy. It was something she couldn't avoid though, not when she was remembering her own less than perfect assortment of family and friends.

Steve had always been drawn to strong, independent-minded women, even back when women like that were looked down on and scoffed at. He was sure it was his mother's influence, and meeting Peggy sure hadn't helped. Rogue was just the perfect mix of gentle and feisty for him; caring and understanding, but didn't seem afraid to speak her mind about things.

"Yeah," Steve murmured, "I did. And now I've got you." With memories still swirling in his head, he couldn't help smirking a little and telling her "Bucky would definitely say I've upgraded my class of friends. He always said I deserved better than a jerk who always talked me into trouble. And he'd definitely say you're better eye-candy," he said, rolling his eyes.

Rogue had been drawn to the men who accepted her, who weren't afraid to be close to someone who others would label as being dangerous. She'd looked for someone thrilling to change her life in ways she couldn't do on her own, and she'd found all of that in Remy. But she was a different woman now, altered by the war. Now what she drawn to Steve's strength of character and his good heart that she didn't doubt for one second. She needed support and kindness more than wild adventures, and she just hoped that wasn't asking for too much.

"Well, that's flattering," she said with a hint of sarcasm. "But something tells me you probably talked him into just as much as trouble as he did you. Not the really bad kind of trouble, of course, but enough to get one of those looks you mentioned from your mama."

If it was one thing Steve wasn't known for, it was having wild adventures. Well, not on purpose, anyway - they seemed to keep happening to him, but he certainly never went looking for them.

"Well, you've kinda got a mouth on you," Steve responded drily, "he'd certainly appreciate that." He wasn't sure how to explain it to her, but her having Bucky's approval would've meant just as much as getting his mother's. He and Buck had gotten in plenty of fights with each other, they were both too stubborn not to butt heads regularly; but when push came to shove, he knew Bucky was just trying to look out for him. "And it's like you know me, or somethin'." He gave a lopsided, devilish smile. "I was the one who convinced him that rum-running would be the best way to earn some dough. Actually, I had to convince him of that, and then convince him that I could handle being the spotter, and distraction from the G-men if they came sniffin' around."

Steve hadn't yet realized that thinking back to those days and recounting them for her, his accent had thickened, and he'd started using slang he was most familiar with. He'd been raised to be polite and speak properly, but around Bucky and the other boys, he'd been able to shoot the breeze in the common shorthand and code words of the lower class.

It was like being back there and living through it herself, listening to him tell the story and slip back into that old way of speaking. She could just picture a little scrawny Steve with that same devilish smile talking his best friend into crazy harebrained schemes to earn money. The handful the two of them must have been for Steve's mother - because that's how it worked with best friends, at least one of them was usually adopted into the other's family.

A slow smile spread across her face as she listened to that accent thicken and picked up on the bits of slang, and she sat up a little to prepare for what she was about to do. "I'm gonna bet no one's ever told you that it's incredibly hot when you go all kid from Brooklyn and talk like that," she said in her smooth southern drawl, voice pitched low and with a hint of sultry thrown in. "And that smile - sorry, sugar, I just can't help myself." She moved in to kiss him again, not quite as intensely as before, but enough so to prove her point.

Sarah Rogers had had a hard enough time taking care of one son, but she'd definitely adopted Bucky along the way; he'd been born a middle child to a Catholic family, so he was always being shuffled around and forgotten in the chaos of his own siblings. He'd been happy to go stay over at the Rogers' place, away from the bustle, Steve had always enjoyed it, and his mother had always been welcoming, treating him like a second son. He wasn't so sure his ma would've been so welcoming if she knew exactly what the two of them got up to sometimes, but he knew she was happy to see he had a close friend, who would always stick up for him.

Oh, Lord, was Steve's first thought, when she pointed out how he'd been speaking; he tried to not do that, not wanting to stick out any more than his lack of knowledge on current and past events already made him. Rogue was probably the first person he'd ever spoken like that around, so no, they'd never told him it was 'hot.'

But if the result was to get kissed like that again, he was certainly gonna remember it. He tightened his arm around her shoulder, and ran the hand on her arm up until he was enveloping her, never able to get enough.

When they separated, his voice was husky and deeper than usual as he said "Sweetheart, you haven't heard nothin' yet."

Rogue hadn't had friendships like that growing up. Shuffling from one foster home to the next didn't lend well to forming lasting bonds with other children, and when she finally did settle in with the D'Ancantos, there just hadn't been anyone she was really close to. Oh, she'd had friends of course, girls at school she'd sit and chat with at lunch, but it hadn't been until her adult life that she'd known the close bond Steve seemed to have had with Bucky. And, as the icing on the cake, her very best friend was the psyche of an old man who'd tried to kill her. Talk about complicated.

Good god, if she'd thought he was hot before, hearing that husky deep voice was just... Why did they have to be in public? Why did they have to be in such an early stage of their relationship that it was probably not a good idea to be all over him like white on rice? Because lord she wanted him so badly at that moment.

A shiver ran through her despite the summer heat and her breathing was slightly ragged as she tried and failed to keep that need for him out of her eyes. "You keep talking like that and I'm really not gonna be able to help myself," she warned him, letting him know that he was effecting her now just as much as she'd effected him before.

Steve knew just how incredibly lucky he'd been to have a best friend, really a brother, like Bucky. There were times he probably would have died if he hadn't had the people in his life to make him want to fight. "God's surely got an angel lookin' out for ya," his ma would say in her pretty Irish lilt. Bucky would snort and respond with "pretty sure the devil's there as back-up, too." Because he was a jerk, like that. Now, Steve imagined them as the cartoon angel and devil on his shoulders, whispering in his ear what to do. He was pretty sure they were both encouraging him with Rogue, although Bucky's would be a much earthier kind of encouragement.

When he realized just what she was talking about, Steve's eyes widened rather comically. He coughed, then cleared his throat. "Okay, okay," he said, "bank's closed, for now." He forced himself to ease up his hold on her, but didn't move his arm from around her shoulders. She fit too perfectly there to bring himself to release her. "So, anything else I should know about you? Or have we already officially run out of things to talk about?" He knew that wasn't true, but he was trying to stay light-hearted; he didn't want to discuss things that would make either of them cry, again. There had been plenty of tears today already. He'd just never been good at idle chit-chat, and he'd never known how to talk to a woman. Rogue was one of the easiest to talk to that he'd met, but that didn't really mean much.

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