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A Café in New York
Characters: Robert LeBeau and Jeffery Strange

Robert tapped a clean fingernail against the table, the cloth was stapled on in a pattern that he thought was something trying to make the place feel like it transported one back into the 1940s. Cheaply done, he noted critically. He had figured he’d offer to take Jeff out for lunch since they were in the Big Apple and the trip had been paid for by the Stark family, why not splurge on lunch?

He hadn’t been back at the X-Mansion in years but he knew that the young man had stepped up to try to hold things together, Robert had been slammed for leaving and not coming back and not keeping in touch with the people there. He also was slammed for being “ashamed” of being a mutant but that was a rumor, he wasn’t ashamed, he just choose to wear contacts that made his eyes appear a very normal brown. It’s my choice. he felt that today just as strongly as he had felt it at seventeen when he left for college. “How have things been?” He figured that was an easy question to start with. Robert worked with people from all over the world, he took classes in communication, he was aware of the gestures and the little things about people --- he studied it! Of course, Robert wanted to dive headlong into the things that had been brought up by Petre Stark at the “meeting” they had been at but he didn’t want to come off as being pushy and, really, he had vanished from a lot of people’s lives at the mansion… Jeffery being one of them. The son of the X-Men Gambit looked a bit like his dad but he was always so clean cut and tidy, always dressed professionally. He didn’t have the flare that his dad had… really he seemed so conservative and responsible, as if he was far older than he actually was.

“Hank, retire?” Robert felt that sounded unthinkable. “With his mutation, it’s possible he may be old to you and I but physically and mentally might be as spry as a twenty year old athlete.” But the truth was he hadn’t seen Hank in years, perhaps the famous blue X-Men had started to slow down. “Well…” The older man exhaled slowly, he started to open up packs of sugar for his coffee and poured two in with a crème. His fingers debated a second crème while his mind stayed on Jeffery. “This has been a long time coming, Jeff.” Those words, ones laced with reality were not easy for Robert to say. “I think its absolutely important the school continues on but the X-Men might became a thing of its past. Its hard to change and-” He stopped, god, listen to yourself Bob… why don’t you take a spoonful of your own medicine? The man asked himself mentally. This kid is struggling, what good is your crap when you’re sitting on the sidelines? “Look, I… what do you need from me? Let me help.” He said slowly.

“I’m not much of a role model to X-Men standards,” Robert exhaled. “My father never forgave me for leaving and people are right, I have a power that is met to help and I’d be a perfect part of any team but I’m not all that comfortable with physical violence,” He rubbed his hands in a nervous way. “I’m not an adrenaline junkie, I’m not confrontational, I enjoy good conversation with varying opinions but only when its non-aggressive and communicate is flowing. I don’t want to risk my life. I don’t want to cut short whatever time I have on this earth by taking risks, even if those risks are for the greater good,” He shook his head. “I got a lot of traits from my father but taking one for the team is not one of them.” The man leaned back, pressing hard against the chair. He liked the feeling of it pressing against his spine, proving he was real and here. “Are you going to accept Stark’s offer? If she really would pay me as much as I earn working all year for one day on the team, I’m tempted to quit my job and join. Maybe I can be an Avenger desk jockey.”

“Using your power is still causing you headaches?” Robert asked. He remembered seeing the young man make himself physically ill causing such painful headaches. “I guess no one is sure, still, about how your powers move through your body? It’s not like popping an aspirin before going out is going to protect you,” He paused and chuckled. “You sure have that mutant mentality, that’s for sure. Someone is always out to get you. God had blessed me to be far away from that nonsense, it’s enough to drive even the most centered man into the closet.” His brown tensed, nothing is easy for Jeff. I forgot. I forgot how much us mutants do suffer, how easy its been for me to escape it with a pair of contacts. Not everyone is so lucky. He pushed up his sleeves as the waitress finally brought their food.

“I don’t know that much about the Stark family, not personally anyway,” Robert tried not to judge them right away. “Sure was a tiny looking girl though, doesn’t it seem to you that she’s trying to look too much like her father? I bet she’d be really pretty if she let her hair grow out and put on some clothing that was more flattering."

Robert watched the younger man with narrowed eyes, not critically, but worried. “Because of Stark…” He echoed. “Father or child, or both? I know that the distrust in them is not unjustified with the hero registration act but...” He trailed, in the end he didn’t really know. He didn’t even feel he had an opinion yet. “Trouble is always coming to people like us and I hate to say us, I hate to say a lot of things about the X-Men but trouble is always after us. We aren’t Avengers, the Avengers have never been chased down the street with pitchforks and torches, the Avengers don’t seem to have to face the problems we have, a social problem. People have always hated the X-Men because we’re a team of mutants and that’s what they see, the Avengers is a team of superheros somehow just giving it two different names is enough to make the difference. Neither of us really knows how the Avengers work, the only one that does that’s around is Hank… he was an Avenger,” Robert sighed, he wasn’t eating very fast. “You still seem to have a temper, Jeff.” The man added, his voice dropping down into a slow and cautious sound, he didn’t want to make the other man feel like he was attacking him but what he observed did worry him.

Robert leaned his elbows onto the table, one on each side of his plate. “Kid, Tony Stark has so many companies and so much money you would have had to destroy a multi-million dollar compound for it to cross his desk,” He pointed out. “I don’t think we’re going to be dealing with Mr. Stark directly all that often, it seems Petre is the head of this little quilt of random people,” He paused. “If we’re speculating here, I think she’s going to offer Veck Rodgers the leadership position and take a second-in-command, or a director of, position herself. She’ll be signing our checks and probably getting us gear. If the son of Captain America proves to be even half the leader of his father, we’ll be in a good place. I don’t know though…” He looked at Jeffery. “I’m afraid for you. That you’re not going to be able to adjust to this, Jeff, but God always tests us and asks of us what we don’t think we can give, what we don’t want to give but that moment when you’re standing on the threshold and do the right thing you feel it all through you. You feel God,” He stopped. “Well,” The man took a bite of his salad finally. “I do, anyway.”

((Well, there is only so much to chat about lol, so that’s not any fault of yours))

Robert nodded. “I know you probably hear the same old thing from people like me but… you might mellow out as you get older,” He crunched his salad. “Looking back it always seems like I was more sensitive and the older I get the less things bother me but you’ll have to be conscious of your weaknesses, you stick a bunch of people together and tell them to let go of the past and look to the future and everything will be okay… that doesn’t work. Perhaps, for the Stark family, a family of self-proclaimed futurists that works but for the rest of us, for me, I believe the past is incredibly important and never something you dump. Maybe I’m old. I know I’ve always been slow to change any of my habits… unfortunately most humans are slow to change. We don’t like change, we like our traditions.” He checked his watch, “I have to meet my little sister soon, I eat slow when I talk.” The man hesitated again. “Are you going to be okay, Jeff?” He asked, there was just something a bit distraught about his lunch partner that worried him. It creased his forehead.

Suddenly his phone rang. He checked the number and his eyebrows rose, "Oh, terribly sorry. I absolutely have to take this call, excuse me." He answered it. "Hello. Yes, speaking." And tossed down a twenty dollar bill, making some odd hand gestures to try to tell Jeffery that he would see him later. "Yes, New York, that's correct. Yes, about two days. Of course it is..." He walked off.