1964-02-22 - The Thunderer and Lady Bloodmane
Summary: A bohemian encounters a familiar face, and discovers the depths of friendship are muddied yet.
Related: N/A
Theme Song: N/A
thor rogue 


Donald Blake isn't taking well to sitting around in Amora's apartment. For one— the small army of swollen, suited servants are the wrong kind of eye candy for his taste, and Amora seems to love being worshipped almost constantly— when she's not doting on /him/.

Second, Don finds himself… just wholly unable to sit still for long. Exercising out of habit, eating with a monstrous appetite, he managed to last two days in Amora's lap of luxury before striking out to find /something/ to do. Wearing a leather jacket, denim, and heavy hiking boots, the strapping blonde fellow stops on the corner of 12th and Federal and stares at the map in his hands, trying to make heads or tails of it and clearly struggling with the words.

"Why can't I /read/ this he mutters?" He squints at street signs, carefully trying to memorize the shape of the words, and cross-reference it to the streets on the map. "Let's see… Mercy General Hospital… so I must be… no, that's not right," he mutters, adjusting the duffel bag on his shoulder.

*

Bohemian dreams manifest in the lithe redhead emerging from a bagel shop, holding one of those precious acquisitions to slice through morning hunger. Appetite built through a morning session of yoga and studying, the lot of a Columbia student, gives her a fierce need to find nourishment among the dense baked products. Hers lacks the typical New York cream cheese, adorned instead by dill and cucumbers, something alarmingly English for a city proud of its multicultural and very American heritage. She stands out, as ever she does, in her brilliant green minidress and leather boots better suited for kicking over spiders in the forests of Vanaheim than the street.

She pauses, her bag with rolled up mat slung over her shoulder, a sight that won't be common in this neck of the woods for another thirty years. Taking a bite of her purloined picnic sandwich, she shields her eyes against the early winter sun glaring off a glassy canyon, and with that, takes in all that surrounds her. Someone else standing looking about in a similar manner is enough to warrant a hitch to her copper brows, and the widening of those auroral green eyes is met with a sunny smile. As the unofficial welcoming committee to everything from aliens to machines to newcomers from the Midwest, she has a bit of a radar for confusion. "Good morning! Are you looking for somewhere in particular?"

*

Donald looks up at the peculiar person hailing him. His experience with New York to date had been… less than pleasant. But Rogue's sunny disposition provokes a smile with a eerie familarity, though it seems out of place on the stranger.

"Good morning," he greets her in return. "Yes, I'm a bit lost. I'm trying to navigate to Mercy Medical," he explains, tapping the map. "I… got hit in the head a few days ago and I can't quite read the map," he lies. "Am I going the right way if I head north?"

*

The singular has a way of impressing itself upon a person's memory; the mind's eye craves the odd, standing out against a background of normalcy. It's the man in a bright orange coat or the horse with rainbow plumage bound to attract it out of the blue, rather than a humble daisy or a familiar, average face over a dark business suit. The bread torus perches upon her tripoded fingertips, and she brushes back her cloth bag, the easier to walk without knocking into someone. "You wouldn't be the first. The size of this city, it's a wonder even the cab drivers know where everything is."

A curve of a smile still in place, she glances towards the offered map. "We are on Twelfth, over here by the waterfront." She points to the great avenue spanning the curve of northwestern Manhattan's shoreline. "Mercy General is over on Seventh Avenue at West Thirty-first. So you need to go several blocks down West 29th and then hop up a block or two. You're about a mile away, going southeast. A bit of a far way for someone nursing a sore head." Her expression glimmers with watercolour emotions, worry awash across its sharp, balanced lines.

"Would you feel more comfortable if I hailed a tax for you?"

*

"A … taxi?" Donald looks at the yellow cabs all over the street, and it jogs in his memory. "Ah! Uh, no, thanks," he says, shaking his head. "I'm a bit short on cash. And it's only a mile, you say? That's not far to walk at all," he remarks. "I can do that in just a few minutes, I expect. I appreciate the help," he tells Rogue, flashing a smile at her. "I'm new to this city, so I am having some trouble finding my way around. I don't expect I'll faint on the way there, though," he chuckles. "How about you, you seem pretty comfortable here?"

*

"Twenty to thirty minutes. Blocks in Manhattan do tend to be rather long." Someone nursing a concussion walking a mile may sit rather uncomfortably with Scarlett, and she pushes back a slender braid studded by snowdrops, a chain of fragile white blooms on a flaming banner. "The path can be rather busy, given you're crossing half of Chelsea. The neighbourhood we are in right now. On the other hand, the street signs are all very good. Take a look at every corner as you go, and you can watch the numbers counting down." Slim fingers indicate the crossroads in stamped metal on high, 12th Avenue the parallel and West 28th slicing neatly inland, or at least, in island.

"I have lived her a couple of years," she answers his question. "I'm Scarlett. I attend Columbia University, which is maybe a mile or two. These might be considered the extent of my usual stomping grounds. Are you sure you will be well? A knock to the head could be a serious thing."

*

"Ah. I am Donald Blake," the fellow says. His accent is a bit 'off', though hard to place. Not quite American, but the tonals aren't British or Canadian. He seems to have little trouble communicating with her, though, and Donald nods along with her explanation as he tries to reprocess reading the street signs around him.

He offers her a handshake. "I am quite sure, yes. Merely some trouble focusing," he assures her. "I feel it best to be on my feet and moving, rather than laying in bed. A headache or two is worth the feeling of being out of bed," he chuckles.

*

The redhead's dulcet intonation favours Europe, English overspilled by a gilded brush to the vowels that might hint to Kent, just as easily the rarefied upper crust of Savannah. "I can mark it on your map if you like. I have a pen." Likely everything up to the kitchen sink in that cotton bag. Her smile brightens considerably upon receiving his name, although the faint lines radiating over her unmarred brow speak to the unease otherwise well-concealed.

The turmoil in her psyche refuses to leave alone the obvious patterns, the possibilities, cracking and reformed. Every passing glance over the blond man stings, sparkling glass with jagged edges that slowly reopen barely healed mental wounds. What can be found from deja vu, and the tremor running up and down her spine?

"How long have you been in New York? If you don't mind my asking, of course." She slips the bagel to her other hand and dusts off the crumbs, then extends her hand a touch shyly. Danger in the void rising to the surface of her skin, she drags that tendency back the best she can. "Laying in bed grows terribly tedious, especially if you came to the bright lights seeking excitement."

*

ROLL: Rogue +rolls 1d100 for a result of: 50

*

"Not long. I used to live… upstate," he says. Technically true. Weirdly, instead of shaking Rogue's hand, he grips her forearm. He seems to not realize there's a 'proper' way to do it, and Don's forearm and wrist are locked like steel cables.

A static frisson trickles across his skin and he blinks, releasing Rogue's grip and absently rubbing his wrist against his trouser seam. "I came here looking for work," he explains, wryly. "I'm hoping there is a nursing position open at Mercy, actually. A nurse's position, or the like."

*

The clasp to her forearm is something she can adjust to in a heartbeat, his fingers sliding past hers and taking the fine-boned, narrow line in kind. In a heartbeat her hand flips, palm pressed to the underside of Donald's arm and the slim fingers, long though they are, still have a difficult time forming a living vambrace to his clasp. Her bones may grind and groan in the process, but she has weathered worse, and one fact betrays itself in the sensation of touch. Even with control, the ghostly tease of minute exchanges between the soul-thief and the god leave a very faint, nigh imperceptible pleasurable sensation. More significantly, she isn't weak. Not by a long shot, for even casually restraining herself, her strength cannot be overlooked. That grip rendered puts an Asgardian man's to shame.

Provided the man's last name isn't 'Odinson'. Or his official title does not include 'Warriors Three.'

She lets go after a moment and the rattle of surprise brings out the golden tide of her laugh, honey to the ears. "Good for you! The hospitals always need talented people, and caring for others is the highest calling there might be. I'm afraid I have little opportunity to get into Mercy, though I am far more familiar with Presbyterian and Columbia's medical center. Should you ever want directions or have an interest, I can supply you with a few names who might be able to help you." If one of those happens to be the most famous neurosurgeon in the city, even in retirement, that has to help. "Truly, that's very cool. Tell you what, I have to head towards East Village anyways to inquire how a friend is doing. Would you like company? I can point out some of the sights along the way. Like Penn Station, which is a fantastic way to get around, if you enjoy subways. "

*

"Well… certainly, of course," Don says, after thinking about it. "If it won't take you out of your way," he adds, hastily. "I should welcome the company. And it will insure me against getting lost again!" He says, with an easy chuckle.

He gestures the direction Scarlett had pointed him. "Shall we, then?" he invites, before the two of them set off towards the hospital in question. There is something decidedly familiar about him, to Scarlett's sensitive eye— but then again, it's only familiar. It's not recognizeable. And that subtle touch to his skin shows none of the tremendous power one might have expected of a Son of Odin. A powerful man, almost certainly a metahuman… but not the Thunderer.

Not Thor, returned.

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