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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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He'd heard about the commotion in the bathroom. Even if he hadn't been on the IPD, he made a point of keeping an eye on the few people these days he could consider his own, and with some knowledge of Rogue's particular condition, it would have been remiss of him not to check in on her, both as a friend and what passed for a professional when it came to mutant problems, both former and current.

"Morning," said Jamie as she started to stir, though in reality it was fast approaching evening. He was sitting on the edge of the opposite bed, a pillow clutched to his chest to busy his hands. It was evident that he'd been waiting for a while. His coat was folded up beside him, and the sleeves of his black shirt were rolled up to his elbows. He'd slipped off his shoes. It occurred to him only as she woke that that might have been a premature move on his part -- he had, after all, no idea who he was about to be dealing with, and a quick getaway might be called for -- but walking for a month straight was enough to change anyone's definition of discomfiture. Worse came to worse, he'd be just fine in his socks.

Nodding towards the glass he'd put on the nightstand some time ago, he added, "You want some water?"

She brought her hand up to drag the knuckle of her thumb across the space between her eyebrows.

"...Madrox," she murmured, dropping the hand and squinting over at him.

"You look comfortable."

"And you sleep like the dead," he said, and despite not getting an answer either way, he held the glass out for her to take, stretching himself forward across the space between the two beds instead of simply standing. "You're not, are you?"

It was a question worth asking.

Tony hadn't actually come into the clinic to see Rogue. He'd been hoping it was unoccupied, because he intended to stick a needle in his arm.

...to get a blood sample to check the palladium levels.

Once inside, though, he changed plans, because what was up with this?

"...flu? Sunstroke? Do mutants get the flu?"

"No more than you," she said, accepting the glass, and it was clear in the gesture and the lack of any accent that someone else was behind the wheel. She drank the whole glass before setting it aside, and watched him with a sort of sarcastic, ironical tilt to her eyes and mouth.

"At the moment."

Edited 2010-08-20 05:49 (UTC)

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.

"Ah," he said dryly, showing little evidence of his grim realization that Rogue wasn't, in fact, present at the moment. He settled back onto the bed, though he did do away with the pillow in his lap, pushing it to the foot of the bed so that he could clasp his hands in front of him instead, and press his elbows to his thighs. "To whom do I owe the pleasure?"

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!"

"Only your favorite person in the whole wide world," she replied, mimicking his posture but drawing her own feet up onto the bed even as she edged back so her shoulders were against the wall behind her.

"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?"

Yup. Should've kept my shoes on.

"We don't have favorites," he pointed out, eyebrows arched as he considered Rogue in front of him. In essence, she was like an imperfect mirror -- the body was all wrong, but every mannerism was there. "We. Heh. Almost makes us sound like the--"

"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?"

"-Borg," she finished for him, raising one eyebrow and looking unimpressed.

"Too bad everyone here is from the rebooted franchise."

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."

"You know, now that I think about it, Layla kinda looks like..." Jamie started, then quickly trailed off when he remembered where he was and whom he was keeping company. He straightened almost immediately, stopping short of actually getting up. The beauty about dealing with himself was that, theoretically, he knew no one better, but the disadvantage in that very fact was just as apparent -- in her present state, Rogue, too, would know no one better than him.

"Never mind. Are you aware of what's going on?"

"You mean the fact that I'm wearing an A-lister like a disturbingly well tailored suit?" she said, carding slender, tapered fingers back through her hair.

"Yeah, I picked up on that."

"Disturbing's a good word for it," he murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment before he let his hand drop back in to his lap.

Talking to myself is not as strange an experience as it could be. I mean, this sort of thing, well... It used to be the very definition of my normal. Sure, some the specifics have obviously changed, but after over a year of relative quiet, it's like stepping back into my comfort zone. I can only hope Rogue's okay in there. I'm not always the greatest of house guests, but God only knows who else is in there.

"How much control does she have?"

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