10/1 Instance: Scotch-Fueled Apologies

[Svartfreja]

Timelined for the morning after [Game]Into the Danger Zone.


<Carol> Being checked over by the two resident doctors was annoying enough but when the SHIELD medical technician showed up to run tests, Carol lost her temper. A hole in the wall later, Carol was sulking in her car with a bottle of scotch and glaring out of the windshield as the sun slowly rose. The heat generated by the energy she'd absorbed had fogged all the windows so she couldn't see all that much but she didn't care.

<Bobby> After his shower with Paigey and their happy reunion with a very happy ending, Bobby slept like a rock. That is, until Yoda started whining and nudging his hand where it hung off the side of the bed. With her bat ears, Paige woke up first, thinking Ripley needed her. When she realized it was the dog, she woke him up.

<Bobby> Bobby grumbled good-naturedly as he dragged on just enough clothing to not scare the students and took his dog out to pee. Of course, once he was outside, Yoda wanted to sniff instead.

<Carol> Eventually it dawned on her that, if the sun was coming up, it was probably late... early... whatever, and someone might be wondering where the hell she was. Now, if only she could get the door handle to work...

<Bobby> Yoda heard it before he did, taking off across the parking lot yapping his head off. "Hey, hey!" He tried to yell in his most quiet voice. "Dammit, dog, it's the asscrack of dawn! Stoppit! I don't care if you want to chase Jack's cousins!" Bobby trotted after the short-legged dog, then stopped when he saw Carol's car.

<Carol> Carol heard the yapping and paused in her attempts to open the car door to wipe some of the fog away from the glass and blink at the blurry creature. "Oh no..." where there was dog, there was other adult that she should probably not be a mess in front of. She slid down in the seat and hoped whichever one it was didn't see the movement.

<Bobby> The car was radiating heat in the cold morning, which was enough to make Bobby cock his head. The noise was coming from the car, too, and then he saw the flash of movement. ...he did not want to know what Carol and Cess were up to in there. "Yoda!" He hissed the dog's name and snapped his fingers, surprised when he gave a yip and trotted back to him.

<Bobby> "Yeah, yeah, Timmy isn't down the well." Well, to investigate or not to investigate? On the plus side, he could get a glimpse of something... really interesting. On the minus, since he was a happily nearly-engaged man again, he probably shouldn't.

<Bobby> As he pondered this, he realized the car had gone quiet. Maybe it wasn't lesbian sexcapades then? Remembering Carol's weird behavior last night, he sighed and knocked on the driver's side window.

<Carol> Crap. Her eyes were level with the door handle and, with some concentration, she managed to open the door a crack. She winced at the brightness and lifted her gaze to the gap at the top of the door. Oh... at least it wasn't the one that stole all her quarters. "Hey..." well she'd sounded worse... or maybe she just thought she had because the booze had fogged her brain enough.

<Bobby> "Phooof." Bobby had to take a step back from both the heat and the alcohol fumes that boiled from the open door. "How have you not spontaneously combusted in there, babe?"

<Carol> She frowned at him, trying to work out what he was asking of her before deciding she'd just go with the default response, "Because I'm awesome?"

<Bobby> "Guess so," he said, amused. Moving back in, he grabbed the edge of the door and pried it open to see inside. Nope, no silver. "So.... what'cha doin'?"

<Carol> Having been hanging onto the door, Carol almost fell out of the car when it moved but she managed to catch herself. After a moment's pause to glower at him for removing her prop, her nose wrinkled; "Hiding."

<Bobby> He moved to help her, but stopped when she recovered... although she was pretty unsteady. "Um, why?"

<Carol> "Three doctors is one too many for me to suffer through... and I'm expecting flailing from Cessily and I can't deal with that right now..." she eyed him warily, "You're not going to start flailing at me now, are you? Because I'm armed with a car."

<Bobby> "I try not to flail, generally." He gave her a winning grin. "I think, though, that there are probably better places to hide in this big-ass loony bin than in your car, y'know?"

<Carol> "I don't know about that, I've been in here for hours and no one found me. I call that a win... pretty sure most people forget I even have a car..." She leaned over and opened the passenger door, "You're ruining my camoflage though..."

<Bobby> After a moment of thought, he closed her door and went around, flopping into the passenger seat. Yoda followed and attempted to hop into his lap, failing miserably. He picked up the dog and put him on his lap, scratching behind his big floppy ears as he shut the door. "Okay, so, how long we hiding?"

<Carol> "I guess until I sober up... which shouldn't be long." She sighed and pushed a hand through her hair, straightening up a little in her seat. "I don't suppose you've seen the news at all? Kind of afraid to turn the radio on...."

<Bobby> He located the bottle and took a whiff of the dregs. "Bleargh." Yoda copied him and promptly sneezed. "Yeah, Paige had the news on when I got home. We failed at clandestine."

<Carol> "Do they know it was us or are we just some nameless faceless terrorists? Because if it's the second one, we're fine..."

<Bobby> "Yeah, we're fine. At least as far as the news is reporting... or at least what they were reporting a few hours ago. Some of us slept last night. In beds."

<Carol> "Good. Then we're safe," she offered a small smile, ignoring the comment about sleeping. "There won't be anything left for them to find any evidence on."

<Bobby> "Was that what that was all about then?" He leaned to look at her.

<Carol> She shook her head, then gave a half shrug and a nod in quick succession, "Sorta... maybe... I don't know. Separate orders..."

<Bobby> "I thought this wasn't a SHIELD operation?"

<Carol> "Not officially... but you know Fury - he's always watching." She curled up in her seat, resting her shoulder against the back of it and leaning her head on the headrest, watching him. "He said, if I got the chance, to do some damage... so I did...."

<Bobby> "So Fury knew what we were up to then? Figures." He watched her in return. "You sure did, but I didn't peg you with having a deathwish."

<Carol> "If there was just one explosion it would have been better... but it just kept coming back on me..." She hid her face in her hands, "It was too much to absorb all at once so I had to keep letting it go... which just sort of fed it."

<Bobby> "Ahhh... you lost control. I wondered if that was intentional." He wondered if he should, since he didn't know her that well, but Bobby's sympathetic side won out and he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

<Carol> "Never intentional to get caught in that many explosions... There's a limit to how much I can absorb... I'm working on it but it's slow going and I slacked off lately because there's been too much to do around here." Stupid naked blue people.

<Bobby> "Yeah, I get that. I have to work on control... like all the time." He scratched Yoda with one hand and gave Carol a squeeze with the other.

<Carol> "I've had to have control since my powers manifested... having the ability to destroy anything you touch if you don't make sure you hold back as much as possible is dangerous... I broke a lot of stuff when I was starting out. I still do when I'm mad... just not people. Extra careful with people..."

<Bobby> Bobby leaned to try to catch her eyes. "You know my powers, yeah? Right there with you, babe. I understand."

<Carol> She nodded, "I know... I guess it's the scotch talking... Don't usually talk like this..." She sighed, glancing away out the windshield. With the door being open for a little while and the balancing out of her heat with Bobby's cold, the glass was clearing.

<Bobby> "Well, you blew up a bunch of shit, including yourself, so I think you get a pass." He gave her shoulder a final squeeze and a pat. "This time, anyways."

<Carol> She laughed, "I don't intend to make a habit of it, don't worry," she patted his hand absently. "I am sorry... for not telling any of you about it but... well, I figured plausible deniability would be nice...."

<Bobby> "Eh, yeah, I'll decide later if I'm annoyed about that or not." He shifted the wriggly dog, who took an interest in Carol now, stretching his neck to sniff at her. "You scared the shit out of me."

<Carol> She nodded, "Yeah... I'm sorry about that too..." she gave Yoda a scratch behind the ears, "Scared me for a bit, if I'm honest... if I hadn't managed to pull myself together when I did, I don't know where I'd be right now..."

<Bobby> "Can't say I was looking forward to making a call to leave you behind..."

<Carol> "But you would have, yeah?" she looked back up at him, "Because that would have been the right thing to do..."

<Bobby> "I didn't really have a choice. Somebody had to fly the jet out... but I'm sure the second I had to suggest that to Cess I would have been in for a fucking fight." He sighed and let his head fall against the headrest. "So... I don't know."

<Carol> "I know it sucks... but you've been through the training, you know what you're supposed to do and I'm military, it's not like I don't know the risks when I go and do these things..."

<Bobby> "Yeah, but X-Men don't leave people behind... and I was that first," he said softly. "Let's just say I'm glad I didn't have to make that call."

<Carol> "Yeah... me too," she offered him a smile, "I may hate it here sometimes but... it's home now."

<Bobby> He grinned. "Yeah, we grow on ya, don't we?"

<Carol> "You do... which sucks, by the way... I'm really going to miss being here when I have to move on." Uuuugh. She opened the door of the car and tossed the remainder of the bottle of scotch out into the snow.

<Bobby> "Litterer." He waited for her to look at him to ramp up the grin to blinding.

<Carol> She gave him a withering look as she pulled the door closed again, "I'll get it later...."

<Bobby> "Damn, you got my hopes up we were going inside what with the door opening and all."

<Carol> "Sorry... you wanna go inside? Coffee sounds like a good plan now... or at least a bribe for someone who's probably mad at me."

<Bobby> "Both sound like solid plans. Paige probably thinks I got lost, or fell down a well, or she imagined me coming home last night..." Now that he thought of it, he frowned. "Yeah."

<Carol> "Awesome... coffee it is... and I guess I can try to make breakfast... can't be that hard...." though she could imagine the look on her brother's face if he'd heard that sentence come out of her mouth. It made her smile.

<Bobby> "Make cereal," he said with a decisive nod.

<Carol> "Cereal is not a sufficiant apology breakfast... there should be pancakes or something... but if I try that I might burn the school down... Man, I wish I could cook...." she sighed, opening the door again and actually getting out this time.

<Bobby> "Mmmmm, toast. Try that. Oh, or French toast. It's not as hard as pancakes. Even I can do that. Then you can claim it's extra fancy, 'cause it's French."

<Carol> "Hmm..." she frowned, "Maybe... but I'm gonna need supervision - trust me, I can burn anything. I have epic failure skills in the kitchen."

<Bobby> "I'll take any excuse to boss you around." Bobby grinned and opened the door, getting out and putting his stumpy dog on the ground so he didn't break his neck.

<Carol> She laughed, locking up the car once the doors were both closed again and starting for the building, "Yeah, I'm willing to bet you're not the only one who'd say that."