2012-10-28 Old Friends, New Problems

It's been a week since Warren was back at the Institute and he's managed to sneak out from the MedBay to at least go outside. He's still moving carefully, holding onto a cane for extra balance and support as he rebuilds muscles that spent a month atrophying. It also means he tends to sit whenever he gets to his destination, but this time, he's at least outside.
It's cold and windy and a bit damp, but he seems quite content to be out in the mess. At least now he can see the sky.
Life's been... complicated, this past week or so.
A poor excuse for any tardiness in maintaining friendships and commitments - after all, when isn't the life of an X-Man complicated? - but Psylocke is back in the Xavier Institute, and for the first time in some while allowing herself an element of downtime. Time to change into old, comfortable clothing, and make amends with at least one of her neglected friends.
Where others consider their most decadently casual garb to be moth-eaten sweaters and stained trackpants, even in her statuesque bodyswapped form Betsy remains true to her roots as a former model. 'Old and comfortable' equates to a ruffled autumn-toned peasant blouse, stonewashed designer jeans that cling flatteringly to her shapely hips, and a pair of soft leather boots. The sleek length of her purple hair is pulled back into a loose, artfully messy chignon, with a few strands left framing sharp features on one side. She's neither accessorized, nor made-up, but the simplicity is favourable both to the woman herself, and the situation...
She's expecting bittersweetness in this reunion, wearing a careworn sensitivity in violet eyes as she approaches Warren from behind, slipping across the grass in light, cool steps. Carried in the nook of her right arm is a cheerful-looking bunch of wildflowers, a blend of cornflower blue, lustrous reds and bright yellows rather ill-at-ease amongst the unpleasant winter chill. Like Warren, Betsy remains unbothered by the cold-- and anything troubling in her countenance begins to melt away as she approaches, replaced at the last by a gentle smile.
A hand slips past those so-sensitive wings, uninvasively brushing the blonde man's shoulder as she steps into view in one last, long stride, turning to face him before bending forward to plant a kiss upon his cheek. There are not many she'd greet so.
"Warren," she says with uncharacteristic hesitance, remaining almost apologetically close. "How are you, my friend?"
Warren's not much of a 'sweatpants' type either -- although he's sort of forced to wear his pajama pants out and about right now. His hair probably need a cut and he's wearing a specially-tailored t-shirt and hoodie against the chill. It's not a look he would normally cultivate, but he didn't have the time to get dressed in more as he's not supposed to be out much.
Maybe it's the scent of the flowers or the light brush on his shoulder...but he's already turned some to greet the woman. "Betsy! I didn't know you were still around! I'm all right...although walking around like a shuffling old man still. I keep trying to convince them that flying would be easier, but then they bring up the whole 'landing' thing. How are you?"
It would be the opinion of many - and the envy of many more - that Warren Worthington has the ability to look good in just about anything. Though Betsy would never say it aloud without an accompanying tease, lest his ego be allowed to fly higher than... well, than he'd normally be able to. There's a bittersweet thought, indeed. Any such feeling is otherwise fluttering away when he immediately cheers, the energy in his manner surprising the violet-eyed telepath.
"Mmm," she hums through pursed lips, fixing the wealthy playboy with a playfully wry look, "Let's not let the 'landing' thing become the 'crashing' thing, shall we?" Her smile spreads wider, pleased warmth far overpowering any mockery or faux-scolding - she's just touched to see him well. She'd feared the worst... and it wouldn't be the first time he'd been rendered less than his usual self. "I'm--" As for her, she has to hesitate. A frown creases her brow for just long enough to communicate far too much, to a friend who knows her better than most.
"I'm okay," she says softly, restoring the smile lest it be lost. There's so much more she wants to say, but she settles for breathing a sigh equal parts wistful and glad, and moving to take a seat beside Warren. Laughing a little, she passes the bunch of flowers to him, looking down at the vibrant colours and back to the blue of his eyes. "A gift for the patient," she murmurs, "I half expected to find you still in bed. Should I be keeping an eye out for angry nurses?"
"I don't see how being stuck in the basement is going to help either," Warren points out with a grin which fades after a moment. "I know I shouldn't be up and about in case the students see me, but I can only stand being shut up down there for so long, you know?" As she doesn't really answer his question, he watches her carefully even as the flowers are handed over to him. "They're lovely, thank you. You might want to keep an eye out for them....I probably shouldn't be out, but it's still exercise and I didn't fall once."
It doesn't stop him from pressing, however, "So, how are you? Really?"
Her own expressions are less broadly stated than they once were, but the telepath returns that grin with a crooked twist of her lips. They can neither of them stand to be restrained - though she's blessed with the fortune of 'wings' that transcend the physical form. "I know," she replies to the rhetorical query quietly, her own grin cooling as she brushes back a billowing purple strand, tucking it back behind her ear. Not once breaking eye contact until Warren directs her to do as she playfully suggested. Tapping a finger along one side of her nose, she sends a shifty glance across the windswept gardens.
When she looks back, it's like charging into an emergent brick wall as he presses the point. Shoulders hunching inward as that frown returns despite her wishes, Betsy strives for a moment to find a way out, and then subjects herself to the inevitable. She can't keep hiding it.
"I'm just..." Breaking off, she waves a hand helplessly in the air, a gesture more suited to the Betsy of old than the cool, mysterious kunoichi she has become. Reigning in the urge to be flippant, she draws and releases a breath before continuing. "I'm afraid of what I might be capable of. I've done some things I'm not proud of recently, Warren, and this-- this sentiment against us, I.D. cards and internment camps..." Her expression darkens further.
"I've been there, and it scares me to think of others being forced into that situation. You. Our friends. Those like us. The lengths I'll go to protect our 'kind'," she can't help but force hard, bitter sarcasm into that word, "It makes me wonder if I'm 'okay' at all. Or if I'm just as bad as the people I fight. I've been wondering that a lot, since--"
She sweeps a hand down the seated length of her torso.
"But I didn't come here to burden you with this, my friend. You've been through enough."
Warren waits, patiently, as Betsy tries to put things into words. "Everyone's capable of a lot of things, Betsy. It's all what we choose to do with what we have." It's a platitude and he shrugs as if he knows it's just words. 
There's a long pause before he offers, "I've been reading up on it...things have changed in a month, I guess. But Betsy, before this stuff happened, no one cared. I walked down the street, went to restaurants, clubs, coffee shops, shopping...I got stares and whispers, but that's it. Seriously. I thought...I kind of hoped that I'd get more attention, but seriously. No one cared. I don't see why people are caring now when a month ago, they couldn't have given a rat's ass."
He shakes his head and waves off the excuse, "I went to a museum opening and got caught between duelling magic-folk. Wrong place at the wrong time. That's all it was."
"The story of our lives," she offers with gentle mirth, touched by the very real concern lingering in violet eyes. "Wrong place, wrong time. That's all it takes, isn't it? I'm just glad you recovered; I was worried. It doesn't matter how beautiful you are," she glances up and back, at the cresting tips of those white wings. A hand lifts and just eases around their tips, not quite touching the feathers themselves. "You're more easily broken than you think."
There's a reflective distance in that. She knows it applies to more than he alone. But she's changed the subject, and drops back into the weight of her own worries with a slow exhalation, hands falling to her lap and clenching lightly between her thighs.
Platitudes exist for a reason. They too often ring true, offering the simple reassurance of a stated fact when the overwrought mind often needs it; though sometimes, perhaps often, it's not enough. The thought still counts. Slowly nodding her head as she ponders Warren's take on the whole, confusing situation, she lets it simmer for just a moment longer before continuing.
"And I suppose... people care because they're told to care? Because deep down, they're afraid of the unknown - of things they can't hope to fully understand. We don't entirely understand ourselves, Warren... if you were just an ordinary man, wouldn't you find some fear in the things we do?" There's a personal edge to that, though she doesn't come out and say it. As a telepath, she's among those likely to be most resented. Capable of reading minds and destroying memories. Ripping away that which people hold most sacred. "What if a month is long enough to change everything? We've fought so hard, for so long, to protect /everyone/, not just mutants."
She frowns, more deeply this time, looking down at her clasped hands. "What if they don't want that protection?"
"I know I'm easily broken, Betsy," Warren gives a sigh, "Believe me, I know. Thanks so much for bringing that up because I don't have enough of a complex about it." There's a grimace and he echoes her sigh before, "Looks...How I look, no one cared. Maybe when I was hiding but I felt so horrible about myself and was so uncomfortable, I didn't really care." He turns some so that he can make eye contact with Betsy, "I'm still dealing with that. It's better, but...it doesn't help that I don't even know if I'm welcome here." He still has that doubt.
"Why are we any different from people of a different race, gender, or sexuality? There are good and bad people everywhere...the only thing that we have different is...maybe we look differently. Maybe we can do different things. But seriously, Betsy. A month ago, no one cared. It was such...Not-News I was kind of insulted."
"--and now they're rioting on the streets, forcing people they used to look beyond to flee, or be hospitalized." It comes out harsh, her doubts getting the better of her, gaze flinty and mouth a grim line as she reaches the conclusion of that sentence. Forced to close her eyes to regain control, she swallows tightly and shakes her head, dislodging the dark purple bang previously tucked away. She leaves it to fall across one eye, disregarded.
"We're not any different. Everything I fear about myself, everything that makes me question who I am, I also identify as completely /human/. That's what so frustrates me. We're all a part of the same race, and all unique in our different ways... yet here I am again, facing the prospect of being segregated for something I didn't choose. For something I couldn't even control, once." Suddenly her expression softens as she glances, askance, back to Warren.
"Listen to me," she says in a near-whisper, a hand raising from her lap and inching across the bench in search of Warren's own. "This is what I'm afraid of. That I so lose myself in anger, and pain, that I forget what really matters. Of course you're welcome here. Don't you /ever/ believe otherwise. Even if nobody out there cared," a smile touches her lips, setting a faint smoulder, too, to those violet eyes. "There are people here who'll always care for you, in all the right ways. Why do you keep doubting that?"
"So what changed in that month, Betsy?" Warren seems to really want to know the answer to that question. "Who told people, in this month, to start doing this to us? I swear to whatever deity you want, people would barely blink at me before." He points a finger at that, "You find that out and take care of the one who has been inciting this and it might go back to people not caring." 
When Betsy takes his hand, he looks at it for a long moment -- he's kept himself distant from people for so long lest they figure out what he was hiding, that such contact is still pretty new for him from people other than his immediate family. "I know that's what they're calling for, but...I can't believe that people would choose to do that for others. Point out that it's like Concentration Camps. Point out that if you get us all together, we're going to plot to take over the world. There has to be a way to convince people not to do the extreme things they're talking about on the news. There's a reason why I won't let them take my blood. I made my dad call the hospital and get all of the blood samples they took."
Warren's single-minded pursuit of that point is starting to border on troubling in itself. This distance, too, not unfamiliar - she's been that way herself, still is to many if not most - and it all conspires to bring that frown back to olivine skin. At the last, convicted statement she nods, disengaging Warren's hand and sitting upright, propping an arm to either side upon the faintly damp wood of the bench. "Keep fighting," she murmurs with distant approval, looking off into the distance a moment to collate her thoughts before she continues more loudly, firmly.
"Logan and I, we've obtained a lot of information on Castrovenes and Sometimes. One's as certifiable as he seems, the other... well, Castrovenes doesn't seem the type to be involved in something like this. A humanitarian in the truest sense a politician can be. Either he's a secret mastermind or an innocent wrapped up in somebody else's puppet strings. Sometimes is too /obvious/ a target; a part of me wouldn't regret killing him in a *second*, but it's too easy. Too convenient. He's just another, ready-made puppet. A walking, talking decoy."
"Which..." She heaves a sigh, violet eyes lidding against the cool breeze. "It brings us back to square one, Warren. There are a thousand and one links to government bodies, and tendrils running into every nook of the underworld from there. I've been tracing shipments of what I can only assume are 'human weapons' from China through to Gotham, but nothing to bring it all together. If there's a purpose to putting mutants in camps, beyond bigotry, it's lost on me."
Pausing, she seems to consider something carefully, teeth sinking into her lower lip.
When she looks back to Warren, it's with a secret on her lips. Voice low and cautious.
"I've joined with an underground pro-mutant group. I'm hoping by being at the forefront of this..." She wants to say 'war'. But she leaves it to hang. It's not quite that, not yet. "The second something emerges-- a name, a place, an answer, I'll be there to take it. I told you I'm scared of what I'll do, because I mean to be there to /do it/. I... don't want to share this with the others. This is something I'm taking on myself. Do I have your trust?"
Warren's lightness and smile are gone as he looks out at the sky for a long moment. "He could be a puppet. He could be controlled...by someone else who can do what you or Jean can do. There are a lot of explanations for someone acting differently. Maybe he's afraid."
Looking back at Betsy, he just watches for a moment, "But you're talking like the only people who support us are other mutants. I know that's not true." When the mentions the underground group, he frowns again, "Pro-Mutant how? Like a terrorist group? Or something like Greenpeace?"
"I don't know yet know," Betsy admits with a single shake of her head, "I followed rumours of a gathering, and met a man who-- talked a lot of sense, perhaps more than I'm comfortable admitting. He also seemed too ready to whip the crowd into a baying mob. I don't entirely trust his motives, but neither can I deny that his feeling, his passion, is akin to my own..."
Disturbing words, and she well knows it, clearly rattled as her haunted gaze finds her winged friend's. She doesn't repeat her question; she'll trust him regardless, because she has to trust somebody with this. It's been devouring her from within.
"Yes, there's support from many sides. But... can we depend on those who aren't directly endangered by this? They've got no reason to risk anything more than words, Warren. Some of them can't even risk that. 'Free speech' is well and good, but not everyone truly has it. It's not so much that I doubt their willingness, or don't trust them," she clearly doesn't like using the word 'them', the syllable falling like an awkwardly-placed paving slab in mid-sentence, "But I wouldn't expect them to throw their lives away." She frowns, "Not like I would."
If there's one thing she doesn't doubt, it's her conviction to do whatever it takes.
This is a lot to wake up to. The world seems to have changed in such a short time...almost like it's becoming close to that world of his nightmares. Not saying anything just yet, Warren just looks at Betsy, as if trying to figure out if she was brainwashed somehow by this underground group. He finally asks, "They didn't make you drink any kool-aid, did they?"
He doesn't really wait for an answer. Instead, he asks another question: "Would you protect and put your life in danger for someone who wasn't a mutant?"
It's a sign that Psylocke - Betsy - is still in there, that she begins to laugh before the second question is launched, with all its challenging gravitas. Rather than become offended, to bristle at the nature of it, the violet-eyed telepath accepts it in simple terms. Her response comes immediately and without hesitation, her posture straightening with a latent pride.
"Yes. Of course. I have-- and I do. It's not the outer nature of a man that matters; it's the way he presents himself, the actions he takes. I don't judge based on creed, colour, or some arbitrary genetic standard... where do you draw the line, when you do?" That question hangs for a beat as her eyes narrow faintly, lips pursing before she adds, more quietly. "But I judge all men equally too. Sometimes, you have to do the wrong thing to do what's right. I'll put myself on the line for that value without question... and if I were wrong, the tables turned..."
Canting her head, she glances at the windswept clouds on the horizon, then back to Warren.
"I'd forgive the person that stopped me with my dying heartbeat."
Warren was kind of serious about the kool-aid, but he's glad to see her laugh about it. He even smiles in return. It's her answer that causes the smile to grow, actually. "So...you'll protect people who aren't mutants because you don't judge based on any sort of prejudice. Yet you don't give them that chance to protect you? This right here is the problem, if you ask me. Not seeing people as equals because they can't do what we can. We're better than they are because we can do things they can't, right?"
He's not trying to ignore her statements, not in the least. Warren is really sort of testing things out on Betsy -- he couldn't talk like this before, with how he and the others were hiding.
They're relevant questions, all, and difficult ones. The telepath is not lacking in intellect nor understanding of the concepts involved, but the challenges of recent times - and the internal struggle over her decision to work away from her mantle as an X-Man - force a greater need for thought in these matters than she ever thought possible, before.
Sometimes, what seems simple really isn't.
"It's not that we're better," she insists with quiet concern, brow knitted, "But the gifts we have - the gift /I/ have - imparts a sense of responsibility I can't evade. Being /able/ to do more means that we should do more, doesn't it? Most of all when we're the ones at risk. I don't intend to stop the actions of others, but neither can I wait to see if they'll act first. I know that I can, so I do. And this feels like something I need to do, Warren, not just because of that; not because I have any sort of power, not because I'm a mutant or a human being..."
A downward glance takes in a tiny, faint scar running along the edge of one hand. It's so small a mark that she'd have to deliberately point it out for anybody to notice - a ghostly reminder of a happening long ago. Slowly she tightens that hand into a fist.
"Because it feels personal. Last time I did wait, and I was saved. I can't depend on that again."
"But we should do more how? Should we control people who don't have powers? Should we rule over them?" Warren's wings flex some as if they want to lift him into the sky and just fly away from all of this mess. He turns his blue eyes to look at her when she looks at her hand. "I guess I have more faith in people. Now, maybe that will change if I were to talk down the street tomorrow, but...maybe it won't."
"I suppose I'm suspicious by nature."
The admission comes with the quirk of Betsy's lips, a fairly mirthless smile because she knows there's a very real grain of truth to it. A former spy and mercenary, and the victim - though she'd never deign to use the word herself - of another brutal regime that began as something equally unlikely, she finds it hard to be forthcoming with most people. Her reputation for mystery is well-deserved, no matter how relatively open she might be here, with Warren.
"But you don't think I'd ever want that? To /control/ perfectly innocent people... no..." Though even as she says it, she realizes he's struck another hard truth. "But to use my power to do what's necessary. To make things right? Yes." That's a whisper, the rise and fall of her breath almost drowning it out until she repeats it, with firmer conviction. "Yes, I would. If it would fix the world, I'd take the life of Governor Sometimes; if there was no other way. I don't want to rule, but I won't ever sit by and allow things to be worse than I can make them."
This time she doesn't close her eyes, unflinching as she meets Warren's gaze.
"What does that make me, to you?"
"What about that group that you've fallen in with? Do they want to control and rule?" It's a simple question and perhaps the one that he was building up to ask. Warren understands the need for secrets, at least as well, if not better than many, but he also seems to have a lot of faith un humanity. Maybe it's due to his own experiences of walking around with the wings or just part of the reason why his namesake is 'Angel'.
He looks up to meet Betsy's eyes when she looks at him, "I think you're scared and angry."
And there's the question she cannot answer. A handful of emotions flicker across her features; a hint of defiance at first, though short-lived before a wave of troubled doubt and a disarming worry that's almost childlike. Odd, on those sharp and generally collected features.
"I don't know," she admits with another shake of her head, reaching up to rub at her left temple. "That man, he spoke like he was born to lead. Charismatic. Compelling. I've rarely felt so allured to a person-- it took every fibre of my being to remain cynical. To challenge." She's no shrinking violet, so it counts for a lot that she admits that. Her will has been unbreakable on many an occasion. "I'm certain I can do it again. I've even warned him, that if I see a line crossed we'll be as enemies as swiftly as we've become allies..."
Tailing off, she heaves a deep, heartfelt sigh. "Scared, yes. Angry, more than I've ever been. I'm trying to keep my head, and be the best person I can be, but I can feel it bubbling like a wellspring in the pit of my soul. The need to act. The urge to break every code I hold dear just to stop what I can see unfolding. It might be wrong, Warren, but I have to do /something/."
"They say that Hitler was incredibly charismatic, as was Charles Manson," Warren points out quietly. There's a long pause to let that sink in. "I know that it gets emotional, but..." there's a heavy sigh given, "Don't give them a reason to think like they do. Don't give them a reason to be afraid of us and to want us in internment camps and labs. Don't make them look at us and think that."
A hand lifts to flick some hair out of his eyes, "Is there something that you can do that...isn't related to something that's like a cult or a terrorist cell?"
The telepath just quietly spares a nod at those infamous names; she's been around the houses with enough men styling themselves in those images, to know that this elderly survivor of a Nazi camp fits the very template he should be arrayed against by very grace of his background. But what is it they say about men who fight monsters? It's a risk, she knows.
"I'm doing everything I can. If this man turns out to be the worst thing imaginable, or merely as wrong as others who've tried and failed to accomplish those goals... then I have to trust that I'm capable of seeing that." It's stated with a more matter-of-fact note, that, a sense of certainty overpowering the lingering self-doubt. Why would she not be? It's been her role before, and it's her questionable gift to read the minds of men. "But I hope you can trust me, too. I've lost enough faith already. I don't want to lose my friends..."
With that fragile admission, she moves to stand, motioning toward the nearby building.
"I should go, Warren. I need to speak to the Professor about a man I think should be here. Even if I'm going to cross lines that scare me, that make my friends doubt me, I can still find those that need our help. Who deserve the chance I was given. Can I walk you back to your room, or...?"
Warren pushes himself to his feet when Betsy stands...he's still a little shaky, but that's what the cane is for. He does still have the flowers as well. "I trust you, Betsy, and I trust that you'll be able to see past the fear and anger. Believe me, I don't want to lose any more friends either." It's another blow to his self-confidence that he's trying to fix.
At the mention of walking him back to the Medbay, he grins, "All right. It's much better for my pride and image to have you on my arm than leaning on this stupid cane. I won't feel so old and broken."
The import of their conversation weighs upon Betsy, but at a glimpse of Warren's ready grin she can feel herself relaxing. She returns the gesture with a smile of her own, touched with the same grateful warmth that overcame her on first approaching. There's a reason she returns to the Institute even when she's not called; that she'll always return, so long as she's welcome.
"I'll have you feeling five years younger by the time we're there," she declares, violet eyes flashing as she places herself at his side, looping a hand through the crook of his arm. But allowing him the luxury of placing his weight on her-- as much as he needs, in fact, the assumed posture making it look to any casual onlooker as if the position were reversed. It's not too much to ask; after all, she works out. "And thank you," she adds with more weight as they start to walk. "I... needed to be honest with somebody, and even more; I needed to hear what you forced me to listen to. You don't know how much this has helped me."
The future's still wreathed in shadow, and uncertainty, but it does feel a little easier to face.
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Category:RPLogs