In the midday of Chinatown, there's smoke from barbecues and smells of a thousand different types. The pathways are cramped and advertising is everywhere. Unfortunately Remy LeBeau can't read a lick of it.
After lifting Tony Stark's keycard, Mystique asked the Cajun to lay low. Unfortunately that seems to be the opposite of what's happening right now, as some Chinese cart owner seems to be yelling at Remy in his native language, while the latter does the same in a thick French creole. No one is making any sense and a half eaten eggroll is in LeBeau's left hand.
*
Some places a nice girl just doesn't belong: back alleys, dumpsters, boardrooms. Chinatown, unescorted. But unescorted she is, halted in front of a riotous variety of oil-paper umbrellas and fans, trinkets with a somewhat serviceable purpose and prices dirt low to match. She squeezes in to listen to a wizened woman extol the joys of an umbrella in broken English, the pattern of blue stamped ink like chinoiserie vase or a saucer. That girl stands out like a fox among the hens, if in part because her vixenish hair spills in a braid down her back and her fair skin hasn't a dot of Asian olive to it. With her saucer-sized sunglasses, at least a little anonymity features. She points to another umbrella, this one covered in bright red and green flowers, and the haggling takes a few minutes. Coins are exchanged and a pretty sunshade is all Rogue's.
The yelling, finally, can be addressed. She slants a look properly that way and the elderly vendor ignores the kerfuffle. Headed slowly towards the cart, her umbrella twirling on her shoulder, she listens before proceeding. At least there's one advantage; the Creole makes sense, for the most part. The Mandarin or Cantonese or whatever it is? Might as well be Martian.
*
Both men end the conversation by saying the equivalent of 'Bah!' with raising their hands in the air in an 'eff you' sort of way, but when it's done it's done, and as he turns, Remy LeBeau, clad in large sunglasses himself, is grinning at a job well done.
He takes one step forward and stops abruptly, seeing the young lady with an umbrella upon her shoulder. Remy sort of scrapes the bottom of his shoes along the pavement and raises an eyebrow. "An umbrella, cherie. Hidin' yo' face from le soleil itself. Either it be a shame or it be just. Did the ole sun do you any harm?"
*
She pauses then, the tall, fair young woman confronted by the end of a conflict dying down in the making. Her eyebrows creep lower behind the frames of those oversized sunglasses, blunting the direct impact of far too luminous green eyes. A tip of her head follows, a fraction off-kilter, to consider the two gentlemen going in opposite directions. Magenta bougainvilleas shock the thick auburn plait swaying down her back. Around her lies a delicate scent familiar to the south, but rarely encountered this far north except in nurseries and greenhouses. Remy did it with the eggroll in the conservatory, while Miss Scarlet looked the other way! It'll be in the underworld gossip columns in no time.
Tipping her umbrella back, Rogue smiles. "You ever seen what the sun does to a redhead?" She hasn't a single freckle, evidence of some malicious beauty routine. Maybe she sacrifices chickens or buys obscure Chinese herbal remedies that involve rare animals. "He has no mercy on me, cruel Mister Sun. What's a girl like me to do? I have to protect myself somehow."
*
"What's a girl to do?" Remy asks, raising his eyebrow further. He opens his jacket to reveal the inside of his coat. There, in three pockets, sit three large golden eggrolls. "Well, cherie, you're in Chinatown. So when in Peking, eat like the Chinese." Remy offers her two of the egg rolls in a bow while he simultaneously slips the remaining part of the original egg roll into his mouth.
Once he straightens, he holds his arm out to her, hoping she takes it, before he begins to stroll. "Tell me, cherie, what's a southern belle such as yourself doin' this far north? Lil long of a way to just get off yo' trail."
*
The moment the jacket opens, she hesitates, loitering on the curb above an unknown spill of questionable, fragrant liquid draining in the gutter. Rogue's teeth sink into the corner of her lower lip. Anticipation he might offer her a watch or something far worse ends up thoroughly turned upon its head at those crispy wrappers stuffed by chopped vegetables and who knows what else. "You keep these lined up like a cowboy keeps his guns, sugar?" The honeyed drawl creeps out around the cultivated words, the hint of education succumbing to the hospitality of the south. In the wrong light, the words sound English. But when he bows, she goes on reflex down into a curtsey, knee bent, foot slipping back. And so two eggrolls end up hand. God hopes he doesn't brush bare fingers on her palms, on those long digits not concealed by proper gloves.
Realization might flicker too late in widened green eyes. Then he might just mistake that for a shiver he causes, gentleman or magnificent bastard. The umbrella she maneuvers with a careless roll of her shoulder to nestle in the crook of her neck. His jacket and her long sleeve work to keep contact shrouded, at least. "You know how roads go. Got myself on one and next thing I knew, there were all these Yankees and li'l ol' me set up in Greenwich Village looking for that bright future everyone keeps talking about. Now you, I can't believe a man like you naturally comes wandering around here without some purpose."
*
"M'lady, I do reckon I have some purpose in this area. That is to say, for me and mine. But all that business is such a bore, and not meant for refined company such as yourself," Remy replies.
"Like a cowboy? You done said it, cherie. Where I come from dey call me de Egg Roll bandit. Amongst other tings." Remy walks along with her, arm and arm, making their way down the rue. "What should I call you, ma petite chou? Something aristocratic like Elizabette, or perhaps something more modern aged like Linda?"
Point taken. Her mouth quirks up at the corner, skewed ever so slightly. The peach lacquer on her lips shines in a bronzed way in the light. "I reckon I'm answering plenty of your questions, but it isn't so polite for a lady to talk only about herself," Rogue murmurs. "Perhaps so proper a gentleman as you might share a few stories about himself? Imagine your name might be a fine start. That much I'll exchange for you, Mr. Bandit. You can call me Ms. Scarlet." As in O'Hara? Could well be. Pimpernel, a little less so. It beats Rouge, okay? "Better than Rose or Poppy as so many are wont to do."
Her pace is easily matched by his, that position gracefully paired. Put her on a dance floor, she might actually spin rather well. Sights in vermillion and burnt orange assault the senses, and she keeps holding the eggrolls, not about to eat yet.
*
"Remy LeBeau, of course," says the young mutant with no hesitation. "Straight from N'awlins. I tell you anything you want to know, chere, so long as you be askin' the right questions."
Despite Rogue's insistence that he answers some more questions, there doesn't seem to be any dampening of Remy's inquisition. "Tell me, Ms. Scarlett, what does a fair girl such as yourself, all the way from the south, like to do in this biggole city?" He tilts his head. "Dancin? Bowlin? Drinkin' malts and milkshakes?"
*
"Dat eggroll gun get cold, chere."
*
"Monsieur LeBeau of New Orleans? Charmed." Rogue quirks another of those sunny smiles, moderated by the sunglasses. They always are. "I'll wager you a bougainvillea there isn't a proper beignet in twenty blocks. Or is there some secret cafe that only opens with a secret password, like 'du Monde?'" And that note sees her looking at the gift of the eggrolls, a glance upwards towards the blank windows and the spidery metal apparati crawling down the sides of the tenements where fire escapes end in precipitous drops over moldering crates and dumpsters falling in on themselves, a kingdom of rust. She examines him from behind those tinted frames, safe enough.
"Mm, whatever is a little country daisy like me to do in a field like this? Music, of course. Plenty of fine musicians who speak right to the soul, sugar, and make even the hardest heart loosen up. There's dancing, art, bit of reading and theatre of course." The sweet tone teases. "Why, I suppose you must think I curl up on a stool and sip chocolate malt through a straw, reading the odds for the Belmont Stakes, reading some society magazine about the next debutante ball? Instead of maybe sitting the back of one of those big thoroughbreds and unleashing that fine horse fast as he can go for the finish line?"
*
"Fraid dere be no beignets that meet my standards," Remy says forlornly. "What I wouldn't give for a little powdered sugar from de old cafe," he adds a bit wistfully. But deep down Remy knows it will most likely be a long time before he heads back to his hometown. Raven has seen to it that they should remain busy, and the mission is far better than sitting outside a safe.
As she talks about the horses, Remy feigns shock. "Mademoiselle, ole Remy would never suppose. He's just gettin' to know Miss Scarlett. Truth be told, chere, I don't have the foggiest on what Belmont or his Stakes even are. What I do know, howevah, is that I'd like to accompany you to some of this music you speak of. Sometime. Or theatre. Or reading. Or curlin' up on stools or what have you."
*
"Bit of sugar on dough, proper fry basket to get them just properly crisp. Like the way they have on Decatur Street." Her voice lilts over the memory, rendering French to its proper forms when called up. "That right, sweet puff tasting a little of cottonseed oil is a lavish treat. Not to suggest your offering here," Rogue wobbles the fried eggroll, "is any less delicious. But we ought to find a proper bench or perch for me to eat, because it would be right rude to stuff one in my mouth and take a bite."
Miss Manners probably frightened her as a little girl. "Belmont Stakes is a thoroughbred race, Monsieur LeBeau. Horses running around an oval track for mighty big wagers. Like Kentucky Derby, but New Yorkers go there when they want to think themselves all fancy-like. Put on their hats and tails, sometimes, and the ladies wear gloves and pearls, and you'd be absolutely shocked how blitzed they get in the sunshine, thinking they look fine as wine." A small shake of her head follows. "Music. Tell me what kind of music you do, and when you're not having a fine conversation here in Chinatown, what you end up doing."
*
"Well, chere, there's a park bench not far from here. And it may do us a bit of good to rest a while, given the sun," Remy says with a bit of a chuckle. It is not particularly warm and he, of all people, has not done anything all that particularly labor intensive. "I find it a touch hard to believe you'd do anything rude. Least, not somethin' I'd see as rude."
"Runnin' in circles and watched by the fancy people. Seem to ole Remy you might be talkin' bout horse racin, and you might be talkin' bout life." He tilts his head as they come upon a small park in the neighborhood just off Chinatown's main drag. "Well, I ne'er did learn to play an instrument, despite my desire to pluck the fiddle. But I do enjoy a bit of jazz."
*
That umbrella casts fickle shade, but suitable enough for the oiled paper stretched in painted abandon between the tines. It rolls between shoulder and neck, pinched in place by the odd lift of the belle's arm. "I trust you can lead the way to that bench. It sounds awfully lovely, a place to bask away." The weather isn't prone to causing her any discomfort, though the breezy sunset-orange minidress she wears certainly serves in its own stead to suggest the summer will have to do a whole lot more to make her uncomfortable.
"You're a philosopher king to boot? What a gem in the rough. Suppose it makes life awfully interesting to have such an outlook," she muses. The busier section of the street behind them, it brings a certain easing of discomfort, a hint of letting go of a little of her posture. "Devil went down to Georgia, not Louisiana. You might have to convince him to make a second trip to learn that skill. As it happens, though, I know an infernally good jazz club in the Village. I probably spend a little too much time there. Imagine that might strike your tastes."
*
"Not so much a philosopher, as much as someone who just tells it like it is, love. Ain't no gem in dat; dat's just watchin' the world go round." Remy gives himself a small chuckle, and behind the lenses of his sunglasses, he looks away. "Devil done visit all ovah."
"Jazz club in the Village sounds right up my alley. How many weeks in advance do I need to book a night with Ms. Scarlett? Sure dere be many suitors lookin' to spend an evenin' listenin to jazz."
*
She heads for that bench, one step at a time. The light flex of her toned arm sends the umbrella rolling down to the hinge of the elbow, left to twirl like some French ballerina midair until the bamboo handle carves out a groove on the soil. The carefree bohemian might not be that much different, tapping her toe to the ground as though she might do the same. "Suppose you say please real nice, Monsieur LeBeau, I let you have that visit you keep asking me about. You name me a place, you name me a time, maybe you can practice your smooth lines on all those suitors."
For an instant, her luminous emerald eyes ascend over the round rims of those gloriously dramatic sunglasses sliding down her nose. The eggroll is summarily popped into her mouth, bitten with a crunch.
*
Remy's eyes still stay hidden behind his sunglasses as he leans down closer to her face and gives her a lopsided smile. "Suppose I say Saturday night? Suppose I say say Seven and suppose I say I meet you right here? Please. Pretty please. With beignet syrup on top."
"I'll bring my lines, and my boxing gloves if it needs to come to that. Not sure which suitors be followin' but guarantee dey aint like me, chere."
Math might be done. Equations, distance, speed. A mercurial smile lilts into her brightening eyes. "Supposing you do. You stand me up, and you'll be at the back of that line permanently, Monsieur LeBeau. Don't be selling me false hopes." A light waggle of Rogue's finger balances the eggroll, trying to determine the fulcrum point. Licking her lips lightly of the crumbs, she eyes the second.
"Otherwise, I recommend the Village. Good place to be, not so fancy as some corners of the city, you know?"
*
Bon!
Remy's smile widens. "You ain't need no worries, Belle, ole Remy won't be standin' you up. Village be fine. Soho be fine. Harlem be fine. We'll find you a good spot and a good jazz place, fit for ears such as yours. Till then, I'm late."
LeBeau reaches for Scarlett's hand to kiss, as is his normal custom, of course.
*
Her French, when it comes, comes easily enough. Not the sort a girl practices for a weekend in Paris, not the sort they get from charm school reading proper little books about proper feelings and proper behaviour. "Then I will accept. A promise of all five points of the compass, and a view of twilight descending over the city from the best heights, Mr. LeBeau."
Rogue stills considerably when he leans over to kiss her hand. Beside the sunglasses, her pupils shrink to pinpoints in a sea of verdant green. A tingle surely runs along the lips, the electricity between two charged souls dazzling on a summer day. Just a brush and no more, unless the Cajun lingers too long. The sunglasses are a blessing in the face of a curse, flawed facets in a lustrous, imperfectly cut stone. She draws it in and suppresses that reflex, but not before the first teasing prickle hints at a thunderstorm, the initial soft notes of a riotous symphony of promise, of doom. "Until then, Remy."
*