12369/Having it All

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Having it All
Date of Scene: 09 August 2022
Location: Emannuel's, rooftop section, Manhattan, NYC
Synopsis: Kitty and Warren catch up over lunch at Emmanuel's. Kitty goes bougie, Warren goes basic. They talk about the directions they are taking their lives.
Cast of Characters: Warren Worthington, Kitty Pryde




Warren Worthington has posed:
In most of New York, it is a scorching hot day. A cloudless sky gives no break from the August sunshine and the infamous humidity makes even the shortest walk outside a sticky affair. Not at Emmanuel's, though. The restaurant occupies the top floor and rooftop of the Sawatzki Building, and both the building and the restaurant are buried in some level or another of Warren's holdings.

Enormous amounts of money were spent to retrofit the building so the roof could be turned into a massive restaurant space. Forty-five storeys up, the entire roof of the building is covered in a transparent force-field that allows the restaurant to perfectly climate control the environment, right down to tuning how much of the breeze can pass through. When it rains, the forcefield becomes an ever-shifting dome of droplets. But today, it keeps the entire space pleasantly warm and sunny, but not blindingly so.

The restaurant is popular with New York's up and coming corporate types. Tables on the roof are set well apart. Carefully placed and maintained garden boxes set into the floor allowed the builders to create areas with varying levels of privacy and give structure to what would otherwise be an overwhelmingly featureless space.

But the view. 360 degrees of gorgeous cityscape. The smog is even light today, stretching the view out for miles.

Warren slows his decent while still looking at his phone, then drifts through the force field near the elevator in the centre of the rooftop. Emmanuel's is his favourite, and he long ago learned how slowly he needed to move to pass through the forcefield rather than be stopped. Something about inertia and speed and mass he did not care to understand. Go slow, get through. It made for dramatic entrances that worked for him being the public hero Angel, anyway.

Eliza, a longtime Emmanuel's server, smiles broadly when she sees Warren. A middle-aged Bronx native, she is tall and narrow. But instead of that statuesque American matriarch look, she has wrinkles from too much smiling and too many cares, and an infectiously disarming smile. She escorts Warren to his table near the edge of the rooftop with a view out towards the ocean. He asks about her children, snaps his fingers, and pulls a small envelope out of his pocket. Three tickets for the single mom and her two kids to check out the animatronic dinosaur exhibit across town. The two chat a little longer.

"Are you on your own today, Mr. Worthington?" Eliza asks.

"No, Kitty's coming, she'll be here soon," Warren answers. Eliza suppresses a smile but raises an eyebrow at Warren. He shakes his head. "It's just lunch, Eliza. We're not together."

"I like her better than the doctor," Eliza sniffs, then grins. Warren rolls his eyes in mock exasperation. He orders a lager from a tiny little craft brewery that opened recently near place and settles in.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
During her time with Warren, Kitty's wardrobe had improved by leaps and bounds. The young woman seemed as equally at home in shorts or jeans and a t-shirt as she did the more upscale attire that allowed her to seem more a fit in Warren's life.

For the lunch date in the city, she'd gone back to some of those clothes that didn't see as much use while living at the school full time. A dark pencil skirt and a white sleeves blouse, with her Star of David necklace worn atop the blouse. The Jewish symbol that was a Hanukah present from Warren shortly before they started going out, has within it the Tree of Life, set with amethysts.

Arriving by the more conventional elevator, Kitty steps out onto the rooftop eatery and finds Eliza waiting for her. "Hello Eliza," Kitty says breaking out a warm smile. "Kitty," she replies, "Warren's just ordered a drink," she says, walking Kitty over to the table.

The smile on Kitty's face grows and she leans down to brush a kiss to Warren's cheek before taking a seat at the table with him. "Beautiful day for this," she tells him.

Warren Worthington has posed:
"Isn't it?" Warren agrees with a grin. "You look fantastic. And still have your necklace.

Warren's black suit jacket hangs over the back of his chair, one of those little breaches of etiquette or dress code Warren often likes to pull just because he can. His wings brush the ground on either side of his chair.

"Thought it would be a nice change from the Mansion," he adds, as if an explanation was needed. You could order anything at Emmanuel's, that was their thing beyond the rooftop. People often tested that, within the bounds of decency and an understood reasonableness, and so far had always come up wanting in their challenge but not in their meal.

"It's been a bit, I've been so caught up I didn't realize," Warren says. He pulls at one cuff of his white dress shirt, the top three buttons of which have been left undone. "How are you? How is Lockheed?"

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty had rarely given the chefs much of a challenge, often happy to order from the menu unless she had a particular yen for something. "The company is always a welcome change," she tells Warren with a smile. "And not just because you're not 14, or going through 'awkward changes' that need a guidance counselor's advice," she adds with a quiet chuckle.

Kitty sets her purse down at her feet and a hand goes to her necklace. "Yep, rarely without it," she tells him. Which is as true now as it was when they were seeing each other. "I'm good. Able to legally drink. Again," she says. It was always a source of frustration for her that England had treated her as an adult while her own country did not. Her 21st birthday was a white water rafting trip in Oregon to the Rogue River. When she saw the name, she had to pick it.

"Lockheed is great. He's living his best life, getting showered with cheesy poofs and other treats by the students. I don't know how he keeps his shape. Though with that fire-breathing and metabolism he manages to burn it off somehow," she says. He did manage to eat an entire nest of alien eggs in the passages to the Blackbird hangar. The little dragon can pack the food away.

"What about you, what's new and exciting in your life?" she asks as she picks up a menu to select something to drink.

Warren Worthington has posed:
Warren chuckles at the thought of both the piles of awkward 14 year olds and Lockheed being spoiled. Eliza moves beside Kitty and bends over slightly to discretely offer a couple of suggestions, managing to do so without even interrupting the flow of conversation. Her memory must be astounding or she has tricks, because two would quite obviously pair well with dishes Kitty has ordered at Emmanuel's before, and two are just the kind of thing that might pique Kitty's curiousity based on past preferences.

"I don't know how you do it, Kit," Warren admits. He shakes his head, looking amused. "I could not handle a constant stream of teenagers asking me what they should do with their lives. They're lucky they have someone like you around."

Eliza quietly offering or pointing out things of interest is so normal as to be unnoticeable until Warren realizes Kitty is ordering an actual drink. He smiles a little lopsidedly. Time passes, things change.

"I'm good, I'm good, really busy," Warren says. "I'm trying to catch up on six years of things I should have been learning about running things by now. It's a ton of work, a lot like adulting. I'm not sure about it."

"Mr. Worthington has been coming here to hide from Ms. Johnson," Eliza confides to Kitty in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

"I finally got myself a real assistant," Warren explains. "She's fantastic, Brit, no nonsense, MBA from Oxford. I pulled her away from running a biotech startup. She might as well be co-CEO. And she's about as much fun as a physics lecture."

"She makes him work. A lot. It's been very difficult for him," Eliza explains in mock seriousness. Warren makes a face at her.

"You'd like her, but you'd conspire against me somehow for something so you're not allowed to meet her," Warren jokes to Kitty.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty selects one of the red wines that Eliza suggested that she hasn't tried before. "Thank you," she tells Eliza warmly before turning to listen to what is new in Warren's life. At the end, Kitty breaks out in soft chuckles. "Oh, you can bet two Oxford grads would end up thick as thieves, yes," she tells him after Warren mentions the woman's educational history. "I'm guessing we probably didn't quite overlap, but there would still be plenty to talk about. And you, especially," she says with a warm laugh.

The glass if wine is brought and Kitty takes a sip. "Ah, that is delicious," she comments before relaxing back in her chair and taking a moment to appreciate the gorgeous view of the city. "Was hoping you'd be able to get away to come rafting with us. Was a good time. Hit a country-western dance spot one night, camped out. The river was great, some nice placid stretches to float and drink, and then a bit of excitement through the rapids," she tells Warren.

Her eyes go back to the city, and drift over towards Stark Tower. "I really need to stop procrastinating and find a posting there to apply for," she comments, giving a nod of her head towards the building. "Decided to go with them instead of Wayne Enterprises."

Warren Worthington has posed:
"I wish I could have, too," Warren says. He smiles his thanks to Eliza before she moves off.

"It was this cyborg thing, something came up and we had to jump on it. Your party sounded way more fun, not to mention it would have come with better views," he jokes with a grin.

Warren looks off in the direction Kitty is looking and then back to her. "It's a good choice, they're top notch, you'd be a great fit," Warren says. He tilts his head curiously, becoming a little more present in the way he does when he puts the Warren show on pause for a moment. A rare enough event for a young man raised in enormous privilege, but something Kit has seen him do with her and sometimes new mutants to the school he takes under his wings. "Kit. You've been thinking about applying for weeks, or longer, right? What's holding you back?"

Kitty Pryde has posed:
"That's a good question," the young woman replies. She picks up her wine glass and takes a sip from it, looking thoughtful. Eliza returns and Kitty orders a chicken dish with a caprino goat cheese that she particularly loves, and sun-dried tomatoes, with a fettucine.

Turning back to Warren, Kitty muses another few minutes. "I don't know. I guess it has a feel of... permanence somehow? When I was working contracts with JVD Fashion, and Fisk Enterprises, they may have been renewed and ran awhile, but there was always the sense I could move on whenever I wanted. Like it was dabbling my toes in the work force, and only as much as I wanted, right?" she tells him.

Kitty's finger traces the top of her wineglass. "But this feels more like, career. And it may be more difficult to be as involved at the school as it's likely to be full-time. I could probably pull strings via Janet van Dyne to get something that isn't. I'm just... I'm not sure I want to do that, you know?"

Warren Worthington has posed:
Warren listens curiously, occasionally drinking from his beer. Eliza brings him a second when she takes their orders. Perhaps it's the summer weather and deliberately lower-bro choice of drink but Warren orders a taco salad. Eliza smirks at him, amused.

"Fine, they can make it a /fancy/ one," Warren relents and then grins. The forty-something year old woman shakes her head, and her pony-tail swishes back and forth as in emphasis.

Warren's left wing twitches just slightly when Kitty brings up struggling with the feeling of permanence.

"Yeah, yeah I do. You're talking real changes if you do it right. And believe me, it just feels like playing or a joke if you don't," Warren adds with a sigh. The boyishness fades and the 26-year old looks older, more serious. "But if you do it right, you lose a lot of freedom. It's a commitment."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty gives a tiny wave of her hand that seems to signify agreement. "Exactly. Just doing the contract work before felt like a bit of a life change. But this seems so much more. Those, I was committing to a few months and agreeing to extend it a couple of times. This? Well I don't want to be someone who hires on for a career and then jumps around continually. I don't know, maybe I should try to go the contract route again," Kitty tells Warren as she works through it in her head even as she speaks.

She sighs and takes another sip of the delicious wine. "So that's one thing that's been holding me back. I kind of don't want to do contract again, because, well, because I know it's not really committing myself. Yet at the same time, I'm leery of doing so."

Kitty chuckles softly and then smiles across the table at Warren. "Is it too late to go back to just sailing around the Med with you on that yacht?" she teases. To be fair, while she loved it, she was always the one who was careful about not immersing herself too deeply into the lifestyle that Warren's money provided.

Warren Worthington has posed:
Warren laughs. "Might be, actually! Honestly, I haven't been on the yacht.." Warren stops to think. "Yeah. Since last time we were on it."

That thought seems to catch Warren by surprise. "I haven't been back to Belize or Ibiza either," he adds with a wry smirk. He reaches up and tucks some stray strands of long blond hair behind his left ear.

"I don't know, Kit. I just... Stuff happened and some things Dr. X said a while back caught up with me," Warren says and shrugs unknowingly, having a hard time finding the right words. Insight or expressing how he felt was never his greatest strength.

"I can cruise on and live my life, which is amazing I'll have you know," Warren adds with a grin. "But Dr. X called me out. I can't hide from really owning my life just because I'm.... Yeah."

"Thought a lot the last six months. If I don't commit? With the X-Men, my dad's companies, this new X-Corp with James, and other stuff? Don't know what the people I respect would think of me... Well, I kind of know, and it's..." Warren shrugs and leaves it unsaid. He has never been unaware of his reputation.

"I'm really just saying," Warren says, finally getting to the point in that rambling way so many young men do. "Do whatever you want. Just... Don't not do something cause it scares you or hold yourself back. You're too talented. The things you've done and seen... You can handle anything," Warren says, and the certainty in his voice is absolute.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
A grateful smile is given across the table. "I know, as much as a beautiful, easy life is appealing... well we wouldn't have done the things that we have if we were going to settle for that kind of life, would we?" asks the girl who was saving the world at fourteen, of the man who was doing the same a half-dozen years earlier at fifteen.

The food arrives and Kitty smiles at them as she leans forward to inhale the delicious scent. "Ah... that's just amazing," she says. "Please pass along my gratitude to the chef," Kitty tells Eliza.

She looks back to Warren. "Well, I'll give it more thought. But that's part of what's held me up. It isn't so much afraid of doing it as, not really knowing if diving in that deep is what I want to do. I do like being at the school too. I mean, I want both. Have my cake and eat it too, right?"

She gives Warren a warm grin. "And I think a lot of you. You've got my respect and always have you know."

Warren Worthington has posed:
Warren thanks Eliza and smiles lopsidedly at Kitty. "I know, I always liked that."

He digs into his lunch. The boyish grin returns.

"That is good... Anyway, if anyone can figure out how to have her cake and eat, too, it's you," the slightly older mutant says. "Unless Lockheed eats it first."