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Ten o'clock on a Friday night. The ideal time to go out on the town with friends or that special person, have a light dinner, drinks or catch a movie. Or you can be Rictor and be sitting alone at the bar. After proving his bonfides to the bouncer outside by knocking him off his feet, he wandered in and over to the bar where he ordered a triple scotch over a single ice cube. Stacks of nickels are piled in front of him to pay for it.
*
Storm has reconnected.
*
Danny has been recruiting. Things aren't right in Hell's Kitchen, and she's looking for people to help fix them. But while she was recruiting, someone asked her a question that stuck with her: Why there? As in, why not somewhere else? Why not everywhere? It made her think, and so rather than seeking out a bar in midtown, she's ventured out to M-Town instead.
What she didn't bank on was the bouncer asking for proof. "Wait, seriously?" she asks, glancing around herself. "I mean. You're just messing with me, right?"
*
She isn't exactly the kind of woman who blends in: she's too tall by a solid margin and that hair of hers stands out. Yet, she can try sometimes. There's a black cloth wrapping up most of her hair, save for a single lock of startling white that managed to escape. Ororo is otherwise dressed all in black, and black leather at that: jacket, pants. As it happens her head wrap isn't African despite the style of wrapping is, but is instead her favorite cape. Its dual-purpose attire.
Ororo approaches the bar, and upon noticing that the bouncer is giving the other lady some trouble, simply lifts a black-gloved hand and makes a graceful gesture of dismissal, "Leave off. There's never enough women here, anyways." There's a blink of her eyes for a moment, and only for that moment her eyes are pure white and glowing, and a gust of wind carries along the street.
But it fades in a moment, both the wind and Ororo's eyes, but she does turn and stare off in the far direction. At… nothing obvious at all.
*
Meanwhile, a couple people walked in but the last one, curious about what's going on, pauses in the doorway holding the door open to watch. Rictor idly glances over to see why there's suddenly a cool gust of air blowing in his direction and watches the little slice of drama that he can see.
*
"See? I'm with her," Danny flashes a grin at the bouncer, pointing a thumb in Ororo's direction when she shows off. At least, apparently she's with Ororo now. She doesn't wait for him to have a chance to object, slipping through the doorway and waiting until she's inside to offer a hand over to the other woman. "Thanks," she says lightly. "I'm Danny."
*
There is a moment of hesitation before Ororo takes the offered hand, but she does take it and squeeze it firmly: perhaps a little more firmly then is strictly needed. There's a slight sense of dubiousness to her at that moment, but she shakes her head slowly and smiles, "Ororo." Her accent is slightly british, really. She lifts a hand and tugs off the black cloth, setting free the long white curls of her hair to settle down over her back, even as she inclines her head gracefully and makes to move towards the bar. "Ororo Monroe. It is good to meet you." Her deep blue eyes scan the bar and regard Rictor a moment as she finds herself approaching him, somewhat.
*
Rictor looks the two women over as the come inside the bar. Both pretty normal looking, as is Ric. Which makes all three of them the clear minority in the place since almost all of the other patrons of the bar have some sort of physical mutation. Some are minor and can be covered up while with others, there's clearly no way of hiding it at all. And their ability to 'pass' is getting sour looks from more than one of them. Catching Ororo's gaze a moment, he nods an acknowledgement before turning back to take a drink then pulls out some more nickels to stack for his next drink.
*
"Nice to meet you too, Ororo," Danny nods, her own grip firm without trying to prove anything. There's a surprising amount of callus on her hands, though, for a harmless-looking little blonde. The looks, though? Roll off her like water off a duck's back. Danny's been getting those looks since she ran across the bridge to K'un Lun a newly-orphaned child. They didn't get better when she became the Iron Fist. Slipping up to the bar, she waits patiently for the bartender. "Let me buy you a drink to say thanks? I mean, not that I couldn't have gotten in, but it probably would've gotten weird."
*
The sour looks are either beneath Ororo's notice, her dignity, or she's simply used to being stared at. By mutant standards in this place she might pass, but only barely: a black woman with white hair and blue eyes is enough to get her looks most places, at least on this continent. Still, she smiles and inclines her head to Danny, and when she reaches the bar she reclines against it, "Certainly, though I wouldn't quite know what to order. Nothing here is quite right: your beer is not the tusker I'm used to, your … whiskey is not chaang'aa, and I despair that I will never have another offering of mnazi." A pause, "The wine of cocoanut palms." She doesn't think to correct what the heck she meant by 'offering', but hey. Since they're at the bar, she turns her eyes to scan along the other occupants, and looks directly to Rictor after a moment with a small smile, "Hello."
*
Storm has partially disconnected.
*
Storm has reconnected.
*
"You sure won't find those things here." Whatever they are. "You won't even find a good scotch or vodka." Ric says, glancing over. He's got a heavy Spanish accent. "Cheap though." Which must explain why he's here. Though he kinda looks both Storm and Danny up and down and starts wondering why they're here.
*
"You should try to find decent tea in this city," Danny sighs in sympathy with Ororo's complaint. "If you can find any, it's made for Brits. Still not the same thing." She tips her chin to Rictor when he chimes in, smile flickering. "I could settle for some bad gin. Truth be told, I'm not all that picky about my alcohol," she admits with a shrug, leaning her elbows onto the bar. "Beer wouldn't be bad. It's alcohol, that means it's all sterile, right?"
*
Tea. The mention brings a frown to Ororo's face, and mention of the Brits causes her jaw to tighten noticibly. "I am not a fond of tea, the imperials …" She shakes her head slightly, "I have never tried gin, I will try this. What Americans consider 'beer' I find moderately offensive." Despite this prejudice, she shares a smile with the pair of them. "I am not looking for… what would normally be called quality, I think?" she replies to Rictor, "The mnazi, my beloved mnazi, was fermented in villages so poor that they carried water, they did not pump it. I do not think I have a refined palette, only an… unsophisticated one." But not an unsophisticated vocabulary, at least. She adds to the hispanic man, "I am Ororo." And gestures to Danny, "And my friend is Danny."
*
"Call me Ric. And if you're looking for a lack of quality, you've come to the right place." he tells them. And while the bartender certainly hears, it's just a fact so he takes no insult. The quality IS shit. But it's their shit. "Did the bars in the village closeor something?" Translation: you're looking out of place, even more than he is.
*
"I don't think anyone actually likes Brits," Danny grins at Ororo. "Happens when you get all imperial at people for a few centuries. But the accent can be cute." Once the bartender looks over, she gestures for a pair of gins for her and Ororo before she looks back to Ric, eyes crinkling with amusement. "Not exactly. More like trying some new things. Been meeting a lot of people lately, some of them brought up that there's more than one neighborhood in New York with trouble."
*
"They did not have bars, not as… places as these. The villagers fermented their wines, and they shared them, and they traded certainly, but there was no establishment like this. Well. Not in the villages closest to where I lived. In others, farther? Closer to the imperial cities…" Ororo shrugs one shoulder as she replies to Ric, that simple motion one of casual grace, and then shakes her head, "They are still there." A pause, and a whisper of uncertainty, "I hope. I am late come to this America, the country of my parents, recently. I am still not used to the skyline." She shakes her head, frowning slightly at that. She shares a grin with Danny, "Well, at least its not only me then, alone in my dislike. The accent." She wrinlkes her nose, "I am trying to lose it and gain an American accent. It is not working, thus far."
*
Rictor eyes Danny a moment. "You a social worker or something? Most people try to stay away from trouble, not run toward it." He knocks back his glass, draining the rest of the scotch in it then slides it toward the bartender along with the stacks of nickels. Digging into his pocket, he pulls out two more and a dime to add to them. "So you're from England then?" he asks Ororo.
*
"Not exactly," Danny smirks back at Rictor. "Probably do more good that way, really. But that would involve a lot of school, which is also not my best skill. I try to make a difference, though. And I wouldn't worry too much about the accent," she adds to Ororo, looking up at the other woman. "It suits you. A little bit different, but not in a bad way."
*
Ororo is clearly not entirely pleased that the accent is said to suit her, but not in a way that she seems to be really taking offense to it. She says something in another language, and this is fluid and clearly fluent, but it has absolutely no resemblance to english at all. "My Arabic is what I would say suits me better, but— the man who raised me was british-educated, as were most in Africa who had anything resembling an education." She shakes her head then, looking to Rictor, "Egypt. Wakanda. Kenya. A lifetime in each, and a different life lived for it." She then looks back to Danny and inclines her head, "I, too, seek to help. Sometimes it is as simple as volunteering at a soup kitchen. Sometimes it is serving justice when a man raises a hand against a woman as if by right. Sometimes it is walking with an elder across a street full of impatient drivers. What is our lives, if not making… difference?"
*
Make a difference? Ric sort of shrugs at what Danny says. To each their own. "Well, you'll find lots to work with here." And there goes Ororo doing the same thing. "Trying to stay alive? Lots of people don't have time for much else. They're too busy just going from day to day." Probably most everyone in here being a good example of that.
*
Danny tilts her head at the arabic, smile flickering. "Your Arabic suits you because you're not thinking about how you sound," she says as the bartender arrives with their drinks, taking her own in a small salute. "Try the same with the English. You should've heard my early attempts at Cantonese. Or rather, you shouldn't." She takes a sip, looking speculatively at Rictor over the rim of her glass. "Nothing wrong with spending all your time trying to stay alive. If you don't have to, though, there's something wrong with not doing something more with your free time."
*
"Stay alive?" Ororo turns a slow blink towards Ric and she shakes her head, "I have no concern for my life. No one would dare." She has such confidence. "We…" She lifts a graceful hand and gestures around the bar, with its so many ever so obvious mutants, "… are a power, and if we do not come together to make that power a reality, then that is upon us, and yes, then, some of us may struggle to live from day to day. That is a waste: together, we are stronger. Together, we are more. Together, we should be more." She tenses a moment at the end there, then turns her attention to Danny, "My arabic sounds the same no matter how I speak it, as my english does: I am poor at immitating accents in any language. No matter what I say, when I speak, the imperials is in my voice, because I was too small a child when my parents died to know more then a few broken words, and my teacher spoke with a British tongue. So I do. What I learned, I am." She reaches out finally then to grasp her glass, and lift it for a small taste, "What I learned, I am, in all things. What I learned first was survival, and then I learned to thrive, and then I learned— more. It is the same answer to both of your words: what I learned, I am. I do not begrudge those who merely survive, but I say they can be more, I know this for it is what I learned. Even the weakest, the smallest child, the dirty little girl on the streets of Cairo, when she is made a part of a den, when that den sets to do its dirty work, they all survive. More, they thrive. That orphan child who by all rights should die, does not. The weakest becomes the strongest because she is part of something. Belonging is a power the likes of which the world can not counter with ease." A deeper drink of her glass, then, "So for me, survival is not enough. I learned survival when I was five. If others need to learn to be more? I will gladly teach them what I learned, because then we will both be stronger."
*
Rictor grunts a soft acknowledgement. "No, s'pose not." And then he just blinks at Ororo, staring at her a moment as if she's not all there. No one would dare. O-kay. He'll just sit over here. Not that he moves. "Umm, yeah. Sure."
*
Danny watches Ororo as she explains, nodding slowly. There's no pity there, though. You do what you have to do. That's just the way it is. "Part of something's good," she agrees. "Though being a part of something can't be everything. You have to be something yourself, too. Balance in all things," she concludes with another raise of her glass.
*
"Balance in all things." agrees Ororo with a lift of her glass in turn, "I know balanace. I can…" She hesitates, uncertain, "… feel imbalance. A man in Florida, he fell ill, because the water in his community became tainted. The balance was… not." An odd set of statements, but Ororo shrugs a bit and drinks again from her glass.
*
"Balance is a luxury." Ric says. "The guy who got sick didn't have a say in it, he just got sick from the water. When a sinkhole opens under a house, the owners aren't worrying about balance. They're dealing with losing their house. The ants are scrambling to get to stability so they can rebuild. You just react to what happens when it happens and hope that in between, there's time to get a little bit ahead of the game."
*
"Balance isn't never hitting those extremes," Danny smiles ruefully back at Rictor. "Balance is moving between them without giving in to them completely. Which also sounds like bullshit, I know," she laughs, raising her hands. "Most of the taoist stuff does. But it's not wrong." She drains the last of her drink, setting the glass down before digging out enough to cover her drink, Ororo's, and another round for Rictor. "But speaking of balance, I should be getting back to some responsibilities."