un_gloved | (no subject)

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Rogue's room had the air of one that was unlived in. It had been almost half a year since she'd begun sleeping at other people's places. Mostly Spike's, a few times Wolverine's, but almost never in a room alone. She spent time her in her room, and kept things there, but it didn't feel the way it had when it had been constantly a mess and fully hers.

That kind of thing seemed to be going around. At least, her room wasn't the only thing that felt half-alien and unfamiliar.

After more than two hours of not moving, Rogue's eyelids twitched. Her lashes fluttered open and she took in the room with a calm, steady gaze. Not sedated- not any more- although a certain lethargy clung to her initial movements, turning her head and and shifting against the mattress, pushing herself up on her elbows and frowning a little as her head fell forward, heavy.

"Mnh."

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She dropped a hand from where she'd been running it over her face, and blinked at Tony just once, as though for a moment- only a brief one- she wasn't sure she was hearing things right.

"Tony?"

"The one and-" Tony began, before realized that finishing as expected would sort-of rhyme, and be awkward. So instead he awkwardly trailed off. "Yes. You're in the clinic."

There was a hint of a question in that.

"Am I," she said, finally taking in her surroundings. When she looked down at herself, her eyebrows lifted with mild surprised.

"...Right," she murmured, making a point not to linger on her own chest through her t-shirt, but gaze turning to her forearm, wrist, and hand. She examined her palm for a moment before looking back to Tony.

"On the... island," she ventured.

Tony stared at her for a moment before answering, because that was... a concern.

"...on the island," he confirmed. "You don't have a bandage on your head."

Which he felt should probably rule out head injury, except then what was with the sounding like she had a head injury?

"No," she replied in the well rounded accent of an educate person from the North East, flat standard American, frowning slightly, "I'm afraid the injury here isn't that superficial, if injury is the correct term."

She sat up fully and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, then rested her elbows just above her knees.

"I have to admit, this is perturbing."

"Perturbing," Tony said, and tried to remember if he had heard Rogue say the word 'perturbing' before.

Certainly not without the twang.

"Yes. Yes I would say it is... perturbing."

"I'm sorry, Tony," she said, looking up at him, "I'm not trying to be cryptic. It's- good God, man." Her eyes widened slightly, a shift in expression that would have been far subtler if they weren't large and green. If they were smaller and more adept at keeping emotions close to the vest, it would hardly have registered.

"You look terrible!"

"I look- I'm not the one in a hospital bed," he said, glancing down at himself, and then off to the side, frowning.

He probably did, at that. There was only so much you could do with what were, essentially, slightly more complicated health shakes.

"I'm afraid I'm not really the one in a hospital bed, either," she said. She stood, taking a moment once she was upright- and she was, ramrod straight, shoulders set and feet planted in an unconsciously powerful way- to make sure her body could handle it.

"I understand you're not exactly the Tony I know, that you're from a different version of our world, but you're aware of how Rogue's powers work, correct?"

"Unassisted human flight, super... punching," Tony said, slouching maybe a little more, the way he did when Rhodey was being a stick-in-the-mud and he was trying to get him to relax by proxy, "but that's not the one you mean. The brainsucking thing?"

She frowned a little more.

"I don't think that's the kindest way to phrase it, but yes, her ability to absorb the powers and psyches of those she comes into direct physical contact with." She crossed her arms over her chest, and looked as though standing almost at attention was comfortable.

"Those psyches remain imprinted. They fade with time, but some of us are stronger than others. Rogue and I first met years ago- she... absorbed me when she was still a teenager and running with a bad crowd. It was her first tussle with the Avengers."

Rogue held out her hand, the frame of her ar strong and her gaze steadily resting on Tony's.

"I'm Steve Rogers, but I led the Avengers as Captain America."

Tony stared at the girl in the jeans and the t-shirt with the skunk-stripe in her hair.

"Captain America," he repeated, as if he had misheard.

He had not misheard.

If her eyebrows ticked fractionally up toward her hairline, it would have been impossible to measure. She didn't drop her hand, merely waited, patiently.

"Yes, Iron Man."

If he looked a touch more cocky at being referred to as such, it wasn't entirely conscious.

"So, just, what's the nomenclature," he said, leaning on a bench. "Captain A? Cap'n? Mr Rogers? Well, Mrs Rogers, right now..."

Rogue regarded him with a quiet poise that would have bordered on steely, if it weren't so tempered with something careful and removed that almost seemed like melancholy. Whatever it was, Rogue wore it better than the reigned in surprise.

"Whatever you're comfortable with, Tony."

Tony did not, in fact, look entirely comfortable with being called Tony, even though everyone called him Tony.

"Right, then, Cap," Tony said, after considering and dismissing an ironic Steve, "You know about the... alternates thing. You're in her head, you have that. We've never met."

The corners of her mouth turned slightly upward.

"Hence the formal introductions. Even if I wasn't aware of the time line discrepancies of this place, you're clearly not the Tony Stark I've fought beside." She gently tapped her temple.

"Your eyes are a different color."

"So I'm told," Tony said. "Different eyes, older suit, less experience." He smiled tightly. "Anything else?"

Rogue shook her head slightly, relaxing back into her casual stance of back straight and arms crossed.

"I'm aware of what Rogue is aware of, but I haven't experienced any of it. You're more like the man I remember than anyone else here, and I was never anything but impressed by him."

"Captain America, the minority opinion," Tony said, the tight smile becoming something more wry, and something else, more indefinable. "Wouldn't have seen that one coming."

"Fighting for what's right doesn't always mean fighting for what's popular," she said, utterly serious.

"Are you implying that's not the general consensus of the other heroes on the island?" she asked, moving to lean against the bed, although even in this her posture was impeccable.

"That they are not impressed?" she clarified.

"Your Tony Stark doesn't seem very popular," Tony said, rather than mentioning what they possibly thought of him. It was irrelevant. He got bad press all the time. "I hear he caused some... problems. After your time. ...Rogue's time."

Rogue frowned a little.

"I've picked up on that. It's not exactly fair, to project another man's mistakes onto you, but given the uncanny resemblance and likelihood of similar projected paths, I can see how people would jump to doing so. Still, I'm sure each of us would appreciate the opportunity to see paths better left untaken before we stumble onto them ourselves."

"...yeah, okay," Tony said, having discarded any sort of deceptive smile in favor of just outright staring. "I mean, I can't project much on to you. The other you. You're a popsicle. Presumably."

She didn't so much as crack a smile at the popsicle quip, but nodded.

"Then all I can say is, I hope nothing is so different in your world that it would prevent us from being friends."