3359/Dash and Dine

Dash and Dine
Date of Scene:	13 September 2020
Location:	Mel's Roadside Diner
Synopsis:	Rogue and Drake meetup at her place of bizness. She further tries to recruit him into a cult--- er, into the very reputable Xavier's School.
Cast of Characters:	Rogue, Drake Riley

---

Rogue has posed:
2:45pm on a Sunday: Westchester County

Mel's Diner is primarily the kind of place that truckers go to, there's even a lot for them off to the far side of the parking area to stow their huge semi-trucks before they saunter over to the diner, or the motel, or the auto-shop that all set close to one another.

Mel's Diner recently opened up a Summer Car Hop like you would've found in the good old days of the 1950s.

Rogue decided to get a summer job there, because it would let her earn money, tips, and be outside most of the time as she had a deep rooted dislike of being indoors during nice summer days.

This is where where the southern gal is, and this is where she'd told the kid from Hell's Kitchen that he could find her!

Dressed in a pink and white waitress uniform, styled like the 50s kind as well, Rogue is wearing a pair of white booted roller skates, with pink glittered wheels. Her dark hair is tied back in a ponytail and her white bangs have pink bows tied in them. White elbow-length gloves help keep her safe from bumping people with bare skin when she's handing off orders as well.

The young roller-waitress is holding a tray of food right now, and roller right along the pavement of the Diner's drive-in, headed to swerve around the front of an SUV filled with a mom and her kids...

Drake Riley has posed:
She's likely to smell him before she sees him, and that's unfortunate. Drake was in rough shape back at the convenience store. But now he's in a rough shape with the scent of a sewer clinging to him. Any nearby patrons can also detect it. It's an aggressive amount of unpleasant, and unfortunately one Drake has gone nose-blind to. He's self-aware enough to know his condition is bad, don't get him wrong. He just can't tell /how/ bad yet.

He had every intention of getting here sooner. Without the benefit of GPS, and with New Yorkers typically preferring to avoid people who both reek like the south side of a dead fish, and are clearly street urchins. It's an uncomfortable situation any way you put it. And navigating New York City by foot is a tremendous undertaking. But he's managed his pilgrimage to get where he's going, and he's laser focused on the establishment.

He's tired. He's very sweaty, having to make the hike in a puffy hoody. He knows he looks like Hell. But this is what he wants. This is his Promised Land - or so he hopes. It's where an actual superheroine told him to go, and gave him a name to ask for. The door is pushed open.

A couple seconds later, and he's shooed immediately right back out, nearly at a stumble from the negative reaction. Now standing a few feet from the door and multiple annoyed faces, Drake tries to puzzle out some new approach. His head turns aside, lips twisting in thought - when the eyes hidden behind sunglasses catch sight of the girl tending the SUV. He could maybe ask her. But before he even approaches a step, he's staring at her hair. Boy, if that's not familiar.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue does notice him, about mid way through her transaction with those in the SUV. She saw him through the SUV's interior and out the passenger's side window as he got shunned from the diner's side entrance. She'd thought he'd follow through with the meeting, she got that sense about him...

After smiling to the driver, and finishing up the exchange of food and cash, Rogue starts back around the vehicle. She rolls right toward him, only needing a couple motions of her legs side to side before she applies the brakes and skids softly to a stop in front of him. Noting the smell, Rogue's white gloved hands go to her hips and she smirks at him.

"Ya look like you've been through hell'n back, sugah." She quietly says in that husky hued voice of hers. A glance is given to the right and she motions to the outdoor dining area, with picnic tables that have blue and white umbrellas over them. "Have a seat over there?" She asks. "Lemme go tell'em I'm goin' on break."

Rogue skates around him then, her own smell being sweet like flowers. She skates over to the pick up window and puts her forearms on it as she speaks to the people on the other side of it...

Drake Riley has posed:
She's approaching. Is that her? Could it actually be? Drake is too nervous about spoiling a secret identity to just ask. For the most part, he remains silent - but her cheeky assessment of his condition deserves equal cheek. "Whaddaya mean?," he murmurs back to her, "sewers are like a poor man's Marriott." Not that he slept down there. God no.

He watches her skate away again, gaze dipping briefly to her legs, but not lingering. It feels weird, potentially checking out a superhero. Especially one who might be doing him a tremendous favor. He turns to quietly, discreetly, excuse himself to the indicated seating area. The table he claims is as far removed from others as possible, tucked away in the corner. But underneath the shadow of the umbrella, he briefly touches hand to baseball cap with the intention to remove it. But then he remembers his condition. No, best leave it right there. The cap is holding back untold amounts of messy uncoiffed hair. So instead, he nervously props his elbows upon the table and places his chin over his hands.

And with the same fidgety energy, he plucks the shades from his eyes to set before him. Nice to not wear those for a little while, too.

Rogue has posed:
It takes Rogue a few minutes before she's on her way to where he was. She'd taken her white apron off and handed it through the window to the person the other side, and starts to skate toward the seating area herself now. She's holding a red plastic tray too, with two drink cups on it, and some other baskets.

"Well now, you're not here t'rob the place, are ya?" The Mississippi Belle asks, with a smile as she takes the seat across from him and settles down on to it, not struggling in the least with her skates, almost like she's really good at them (or cheating somehow).

She slides the tray between them on the table and picks one of the drinks up before offering it over to him. "Gatorade, the blue kind." She says, giving him a wrapped up straw for it too. She then takes a basket of chicken strips and french fries and offers that over to him as well. "Figured you could use a bite."

Her own drink is set beside her, along with a basket of curly fries for herself. "I'm Rogue, Anna-Marie is my real name... the news is fond'a callin' me Mighty Girl. I'm a Mutant. I absorb people by skin contact with'em, I'll take their powers, their mind, and leave'em in a coma if I touch'em. I did this to Ms Marvel a while back in San Francisco-- ya might'a heard about it --I'm here in New York tryin' t'make a good name for myself, as a good person." She shows him a sassy little grin then.

"That's my story." She states, whilst having unwrapped the straw for her drink, and dipped it into her cup's lid. "What's yours?" She then takes a sip from the straw, green eyes on him though with her white bans, adorned with pink bows, sway in the warm breeze.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley perks as the girl returns, reflexively sitting up a bit straighter, a little more poised. The tray - or more specifically, the food and drink offered - are given some hard looks. She was absolutely right. He was starving and dehydrated. He lifts a hand, tentative at first, before finally nabbing the Gatorade and straw. That's first on the list. It keeps his hands quite busy while she talks, but his focus remains firmly on her.

So this is the real her. The actual person. Anna-Marie. He knows a superhero's secret identity now. It's a trip. But he can't get stuck on that.

When she asks his story, a straw is in his mouth and his gaze is focused on the tabletop. He stopped sucking on the straw a few seconds ago, but it's still there between his lips. He relinquishes it with a gentle sigh. It's a fair question to ask, and one he knew would be coming.

"Years ago, I got into some bad stuff. Nothing crazy, but bad. Vandalism, theft, some B'n'E, hotwiring cars..." His head lifts to look back at her, sullen. This isn't information he'd prefer to give her. He'd much rather she think well of him, that what she found him doing was the first ever crime he'd committed. "I don't know why I was doing it. I was with this group, and they were into it, so... so was I. Stupid, right? With my dad a cop and everything."

He self-consciously inches back in his seat. "We did fights and stuff, but not.. like.. mugging, or anything like that. No stupid knockout game crap. That wasn't us. But after a while, some of us got really bold. Or maybe extra stupid. Started tagging other gangs' territory. They weren't happy about that."

"I got separated. Bigger guy was coming at me. I panicked, and... lightning came out. And ever since, I've had to deal with the fact that I killed someone."

His hands fall to his lap, shoulders hunching. His frame seems to shrink overall as he reflects on that moment. "Hard to pretend to be normal after that. But I had to. To make sure I never did it again. So I dropped everything but school and focused totally on that power. Controlling it. Learning what different voltages and currents /feel/ like, so I knew. Researching how much someone can take, what risks there are, what could prevent someone from getting hurt."

"By the way, rubber boots don't do jack for you," he adds flatly.

With a shake of his head, he continues, "I kept it secret from everyone. Just, for years, strengthened my control, learned how to work with it, how to do things with it, and how to be safe."

Rogue has posed:
As he speaks, Rogue samples one of the curly fries with a nibble, after removing her right hand glove and draping it over her lap. She sips from her cup of tea, but otherwise keeps her attention on him.

"I see." She quietly says at his rundown of life events up to this point. "I can sympathize." She notes, glancing down at the fries in the basket in front of her. "When my power activated, it did it while I was kissin' a boy, back home." She looks back up at him then. "The boy dropped inta a coma, right there, in fronta my face. I thought he had a heart attack or somethin', I didn't know if I did it, or it was just completely random." She smirks then. "Turns out it was me."

Her hand comes up to swipe her hair out of her face and she looks toward the sun for a second, letting it was over her before she looks back at him with a smile. "His family wanted me dead for that, came at my aunt's place with guns'n shit. The cops didn't know what t'do about it, whether t'leave me be, or throw me in jail. So I ran. Fell in with bad folks myself, till I wised up, after that Ms Marvel thing happened, I saw the 'error'a my ways'."

Another smirk is shown as she glances down again. "Now I'm out here, found some people who helped straighten me out, put me on the righteous path. Got me a job, got me a plan, and I'm doin' my best t'fly high." She grins faintly, briefly, then tips her chin up at him.

"You could do the same, I bet, with power like that. If ya wanted... Electro Man..." The Belle grins more openly after saying that last nickname for him.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley nods a little. "It has to be rough, being a mutant. Not knowing until it happens. Best you can do is hope it isn't something catastrophic like-" Well, like kissing someone to death. He blinks and steals a glance at Marie before returning his gaze to the table. "A-anyway," he awkwardly continues, forcing himself to refocus. "On my end, the only people who found out was my dad. I finally trusted someone with what happened, with what I can do, and he freaked out on me. Didn't try to kill me, but..."

There's a pauses as he tries to come up with the words.

"It... wasn't family. It hadn't been for a while. But now I was officially out. A nuisance. Unwelcome." His hands slip into the central pouch of his hoodie, appetite on hold. "I'm sure there're a lot of people who've had it like me, or worse. Just..." The knowledge doesn't make anything easier, does it? "...you know?"

Leaning forward again, Drake finally settles his vibrant green gaze onto her own verdant pools. "I was serious when I told you why I was doing that. I ditched California to come here - the epicenter of everything weird. To find people like me. Or-.. people like /you/." He glances meaningfully to the food, then back up to her. "People who're different like me. But good. Doing something with what they have. I can't say using this power for good will make what happened okay. But it'll feel less like a curse. And maybe make it not completely in vain."

"So.. yeah. That's me. That's my deal. So if you vouche for whoever you found, I'm down." Finally, the beginning traces of a smile edge the corner of his lips. "You're good people. I couldn't believe you let me go earlier. That was... well, I won't make you regret trusting me. Just, ah.. easy on the Electro Man. Don't put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby. I've already been kind'a using a name."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue reacts to his words with small facial expressions, amusement and a playfulness to some of what he says. Especially that last part, which draws a little laugh from the southern girl. "Yeah, well, tell that t'the media, callin' me Mighty Woman. Like I'm related t'that Mouse from the fifties." She holds a grin for him across the table from her.

After a second, and another sip from her drink, she sets the cup down with her left white gloved hand. "I fell in with some people who are... here t'help Mutants in need. They're tryin' t'band t'gether to protect our kind, by training hard with our powers and usin' them to protect each other. For whatever reason, we were given these abilities... and if we don't put in the time-- like you said you have --to understand'em, then well... we're doin' ourselves a big disservice."

She brushers at her brow-line to chase some of her pale white bangs out of her face, then before continuing. "There's a school near here, a private school. Ya might be able t'meet with some'a the faculty, and find your way in. It's a boardin' school too, so you'd have a place t'live too." Her own green gaze looks over his clothing, and the shoddy state they're in. "Could get ya some nicer stuff t'wear too, not that ya don't look amazin', but you might benefit from some clean fresh stuff, yeah?" She glances back up at him and holds a grin then for him.

"It's up t'you what you wanna do with this gift you've been given. Ain't none'a the people I hang out with will try'n get ya t'do anything you don't wanna do. We're just try'n t'look out for each other, and get some positive stuff done in this whacky world, yeah?"

Drake Riley has posed:
As she laughs, the tension in Drake's smile relaxes. "I will do a full-fledged PR campaign before I let that happen. Electro Man. Yeesh..." Not that the name he'd been using is much better. It's simpler, to be sure.

The smile fades a little as she continues, and Drake occupies himself with the food she's generously provided. Superhero indeed. "I don't know if I'm a mutant, though," he notes. "They test for that, right? And they can be trusted?" The idea of meeting a lot of others like himself is incredibly appealing on its own. And the fact that most would be approximately his age is even better. He wouldn't feel so frustratingly isolated. But there may be a little hitch in the pitch. "I already graduated, though," he reminds. "Unless they plan on setting me back a grade, I might get turned into a weirdo live-in janitor." The smile has completely turned into a frown. He does /not/ want that.

"Rogue-.. Marie?," he tries her other name out. It's a pretty name. It sounds French to him. "What I want to do is what you do. To make a difference. If this is where to start, let's do it. I know I don't exactly have a lot of choices, and if you decided to toss me to the cops, you obviously could- ohmygod."

His eyes suddenly widen.

"You're okay, right? I didn't hurt you earlier, did I?"

Rogue has posed:
There's another little laugh from the southern gal across from him, at his nickname option of course, beause its just so relateable to what she's going through with the media. "You'll be fine, just make sure the first time you get media attention that you talk to'em before ya jet." She holds a grin then.

"I'll setup the meetin' for at the school. You'll likely be meetin' with a lady named Ororo. She's the sweetest woman in the world, the most trustworthy too, and super gorgeous too. You'll love her, I imagine." Rogue pauses then and lets another grin show after a sip from her tea. "She's also capable'a zappin' people like you, though... it works a bit different. Ya might see it in action some day, if ya stick around with us. I'd take ya there now, but they're a bit more receptive t'planned appointments, less there's an emergency."

She pauses then, and seems a bit bothered by something. "You don't got a place t'go though, huh? LIke, in the now." After a moment of thinking, she pulls her phone out of the pocket on the front of her waitress uniform. "How would ya feel about meetin' up with some friends'a mine? They run a store in the town near here, a music store. They got some apartments over the store that they let friends stay in now and then. I bet I could vouch for ya, t'let ya have a place to crash, if sounds appealin'?"

Drake Riley has posed:
"If they need me to talk to a camera and make sure my name's right, I will /so/ do it." And then his heart jumps into his throat. Talk to a camera? In a superheroic context? What's happening? From an outside perspective, things may not seem to be changing very quickly. But for Drake, who is currently in the situation, all of this is new and processing at the rate of a fully automatic submachine gun.

He swallows his heart back down.

"Ororo. She might be pretty, but I met a superhero. Hard to compete with that." The question of whether or not she's capable of 'zapping' him gets a faint headtilt. He's not sure how she means. Is she electrical as well? He can't say that he's ever been struck by electricity, so he has no idea how it works; just that he doesn't hurt himself.

"Ah, well... no. I don't. The sewer might be the safest place for someone like me to hide out, but come on. Friggin' /gross/. I don't have a lot to lose anymore, but the line has to be drawn somewhere, right?" Despite his words, however, he lowers his gaze and folds his hands over each other atop the table modestly. "I wouldn't wanna impose or be a hassle. You're already doing so much for me, and I have no idea how I'm gonna repay it..."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue smiles at the last part that he says, her cup being sat down again. "Repay it by being the best person ya can be. You were given that ability to do that electric thing for a reason, and I'm of the mind that the reason is to do good, help folks, pay it forward'n'such. Whatever corny sayin' ya wanna attach to it."

She shakes her head then and samples another curly fry. "And no, ya didn't hurt me none with that power. I felt a bit'a numbness, cause I think it sorta locked my muscles up a bit, but that's about it." She snickers. "I put a big show on for the cops though, so they just figured you were some punk kid, and that ya maybe had some kinda tech grenade. Flash bang or somethin', whatever they call'em."

She draws in a light breath, takes a moment to think about it all and then just pulls up her phone and sets it on the table. There's a map on it within seconds and she turns it to show it to him. "This is us here, at Mel's." Her finger traces down the highway to an off shoot road not far away. This is Greymalkin Lane. At the end'a it here, is the boardin' school. Xavier's. This is where you'll want t'go t'meet up with the faculty. They'll... they're good people, nicer than me even, if ya can believe that." She says, smiling at him again. "I don't think they'll make ya a janitor, though ya might have t'do some yard work or somethin', I dunno. Your main goal will be t'work on your abilities, and yeah, they'll test ya, see if you're a mutant or if it's something else."

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley is at least relieved to hear that he didn't hurt her. The power yield of the electricity he shot into her was on the extremely low end of his full potential spectrum, hovering right around 'taser'. But it's never not a risk to hit someone with electricity, especially not knowing their medical history. He may have gained a healthy level of respectful fear for his own power through study and research.

He's nibbling on chicken when she pulls her phone out, and something dawns on him. He remains quiet as she explains, but once she's finished, he pipes up: "I might have to take you up on that offer. I have no way for you to contact me to lemme know when to go in and see those people."

Rogue has posed:
His bringing up of the contact options makes Marie consider for a moment a solution. "Good point." She states before she just puts her fingers on her phone and pushes it toward him. "Just stay outta the picture gallery, ya dierty pepper." She tells him with a grin. "You can give it back once you've come t'check the place out. I'll make sure t'be there too."

Offering her own phone for him, she then sits up a little straighter on her side of the table. "I only got a few more minutes for my break, so I should probably get ready t'get back t'the grind. If you want, you can make your way down to Salem Center, it's just down the road the other direction a bit. On main street is a place called Music Center, that's where my friends are with the apartments. Eric, is the tubby redhead, and Jason is his brother... blonde dude, big beard and long hair. Tell'em Marie sent ya, and they'll be good friends t'ya. I promise." She smiles at him then and pushes her curly fries toward him as she starts to stand up.

"Keep the phone on ya, if anyone calls lookin' for me, just tell'em to contact me online. If it's Stilts, tell'im I'm not doin' any'a his shady shit right now." She states with a grin, now standing on her skates again.

Drake Riley has posed:
Drake Riley's eyes widen as the phone is nudged to him. Oh. Oh, that's another huge demonstration of trust. He could totally hawk her phone and get money. But that would be theft, and he promised he wouldn't do that. Plus, disrespectful. And in addition to that, wrong on so many other levels. "If you're sure...," he says quietly as he takes it, sliding it closer.

The food, he doesn't have such trepidations over. He eagerly adds curly fries to the pile. God, food is such a luxury lately.

"Marie," he says finally. "Thank you. Really." As she's now standing, he's having to look up at her. But it's with a warm smile.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is slipping her other glove back on to her hand, wiggling her fingers to get them down into the sleeve and thusly into the glove itself. She grins down at him over the table. "Don't fret it none. A little southern hospitality, even up in the north east, is somethin' everyone could use from time t'time." With her glove on, she puts that hand on her hip then and rolls a little forward and back on her skates as she flexes her feet inside the white bedazzled boots.

"Sides. I got friends who know tech stuff really damn well, they can deactivate, or destroy, that phone remotely with very little effort." She grins at him then. "Eat up, then go rest up, if ya wanna. We'll be seein' ya soon, Mistah." She raises her hand up off of her hip and waggles her fingers teasingly-waving at him. "Back t'the coal mines for me. Bye now, sugh." The Belle says as she turns to her left and starts to roll back toward the diner to resume her shift.