They Call the Wind Sofia... (sofia, open)

[Warren Worthington III]

(( OOC: picks up immediately post-riot, after everybody returns to the Institute. Open to all Institute, whether they were on the riot mission or not. ))

Rarely has Warren felt such profound relief upon reaching the Institute – the Times Square mission has left him more anxious and emotionally exhausted than he’s accustomed to.

Some of that is due to Ororo’s condition, of course, and a lot can be attributed to the Collins girl… she’s getting better at suppressing her abilities, and the Blackbird’s ventilation is impressive, but she still has a way of radiating nervousness. Still, most of it is because of the mission itself. Granted that a riot among Friends of Humanity sympathizers wasn’t the worst thing that could happen from a mutant PR perspective, the whole thing had still freaked him out pretty badly… too many unidentified players, too many of his own side he hadn’t been able to keep track of.

Well, at least we managed to pick up all the stragglers and stowaways, he reminds himself, chuckling slightly. At least, he hopes they did; they’d left with a team of four and returned with more than twice that number… including a complete stranger, and the reason he’s rushing into the kitchen with just a quick change into civilian clothing, rather than the long shower he actually wanted – no, make that needed – after that mission.

Still, the girl had seemed both relatively harmless and happy to make the acquaintance of a kitchen full of ready-to-eat student food while the rest of the “flight crew” made themselves a bit more presentable, so maybe it had all worked out for the best. "Sorry to abandon you like that," he grins in Sofia’s direction as he re-enters the kitchen, tucking his shirt-tails into his pants, "but we try to avoid eating in those flight-suits; they’re an incredible pain to dry-clean. Did you find something to tie you over until dinner?"

[Sofia Mantega]

The flight back to the Institute of Heroic Strangers (her name for this place sounded a lot friendlier than its real, official name, one she’d already forgotten anyway) had been a quiet one, though it had seemed that everyone’s nerves were on fire, save her own. She was too exhausted to react to the tensions abuzz in the foreign aircraft, which she had barely enough energy to be properly impressed by, before drifting off into a light doze, surrounded by her instinctive shield of shifting air (still air always felt so stale and oppressive).

Consciousness had returned just enough for Sofia to follow Josh and Warren inside, along with the other strangers, and get abandoned in the kitchen. The prospect of food did perk her up—she’d last eaten at breakfast that morning, stale bagels at one of the first bus stations she’d been stuck at on her way to New York, and her body was finally catching up with everything that was happening, leaving a sharp hunger in her stomach and an aching head.

So now she glances around the kitchen, feeling more than a little awkward being left alone there. She wonders, a little late, if maybe these strangers aren’t as heroic as they seem, and now she is about to fall right into their evil plan and eat their viciously poisoned food and…no, she doesn’t really believe that. Maybe she should, maybe she should have a little more suspicion and not be so blindly accepting, but her stomach vehemently disagrees so she grabs a sandwich, despite the awkward invading-a-stranger’s-kitchen feel to the whole thing.

Despite all the chaos and awkwardness and sense of being misplaced (or maybe she was more in place than ever, she couldn’t know yet), she lets out a content sigh and slumps down into the nearest chair, happy that something could finally be as simple as eating a sandwich. Mid-bite, however, Warren re-enters the room, and she widens her eyes, blurting out a sandwich-muffled greeting.

“Did you find something to tie you over until dinner?”

Once she swallows her food, she diverts her eyes to her lap momentarily, becoming too aware of the awkwardness of the situation yet again. “…Yes?” she replies quietly, tentatively, before looking up at him again. Somehow it seems even stranger now that Warren’s out of his superhero suit, because now she’s looking at just a normal guy that happens to have huge, brilliant wings protruding from his back. “Yes…and thank you! The sandwich definitely helped.” She’s glad to hear that she’s capable of a bit of coherency, but she takes another bite of her food in case it goes downhill from there. She gazes up at him expectantly, silently urging him to enlighten the situation, say something that makes any sort of sense.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Yes? Yes…and thank you! The sandwich definitely helped."

Warren wants to laugh at her tentative response (and her attempt to not stare at his wings), but settles for an encouraging grin. "Glad to hear it." He perches himself on the back of a chair, straddling the edge of the seat with bare feet.

"So, I’m guessing under the well-raised polite-houseguest habits there’s about a million questions you’re aching to ask… maybe I can help with that. This is the Xavier Institute for Gifted Students. You’ve probably figured out already that “gifted” in our case means a little more than having high I.Q.s or neurotic parents with lots of money."

He ruffles his wings a bit for emphasis and adds "Basically all our students are like you and me… we have some mutant ability we’re figuring out how to control and live with. That’s not exactly public knowledge, though it’s not the world’s best-kept secret, either. A lot of our students and faculty are public mutants… my picture's probably on every third article about mutants published anywhere in the country... but a lot aren’t, so we try to keep a low profile." He grins a little sheepishly. "Yes, I know, flying a privately owned fighter-jet through Times Square isn’t exactly low-profile, but that’s… well, that’s the other side of the family business, you might say. We try to keep the two separate… sometimes we even manage it."

"Anyway, don’t worry… we’d rather you not post about all this to your blog, but we’re not going to lock you in the basement or wipe your memories or anything else out of whatever scary fake documentary you may have seen on CNN. You’re free to leave at any time; I’ll drop you off wherever you want." He grins a little wickedly and adds "I’ll even take the car, if you prefer."

[Sofia Mantega]

Well, Warren is making sense, but the problem is that it’s a whole lot of sense all at once, and all Sofia can do is focus on her sandwich, the sandwich that is slowly falling apart as her fingers worry at it, dropping bread crumbs all over her lap. I could use a shower, she thinks rather randomly, trying to absorb Warren’s words and keep a hold on reality at the same time. Perhaps she needs to adjust to a new reality.

As much as her brain protests this flood of information all at once, given a little time it starts to process it all as she listens quietly, not even a tiny change in facial expression in response. I wonder if this is a speech he makes often, and it does have sort of a rehearsed feel to it; he is saying he’s a ‘public mutant’ which sounds so strange, as all of this does—just when she starts feeling comforted, he uses such a jarring phrase like that. And suddenly, inexplicably, she misses home.

But home has been over for a long time, she reminds herself, as always, clenching her jaw slightly as she pushes the image of her mother out of her mind, rerouting that nostalgia to anger at those who shipped her off to the States, then rerouting that anger to familiar resignation—there’s nothing she can do. It’s a tired train of thought, and sometimes she actually succeeds in leading it to some sort of optimism—instead of focusing on what she can’t change, she’ll have to try and better what she’s got.

“You’re free to leave at any time; I’ll drop you off wherever you want."

A jolt of panic hits her at that. “No!” She’s finally tuned in to the conversation, jerking her head back up to stare imploringly at Warren, and maybe her expression is a little desperate, a little pathetic, but she cannot lose this. “I don’t want to leave! I…”—she searches for something to say, something convincing—“I helped at that…riot to-day, didn’t I? My wind?” And it seems she can’t avoid bringing up her own personal sob story, again: “I don’t really have anywhere else to go…”

[Warren Worthington III]

> " No! I don’t want to leave! I… I helped at that…riot to-day, didn’t I? My wind? I don’t really have anywhere else to go… "

Warren blinks, surprised, but recovers almost immediately. "Oh! I’m sorry, Sofia – do you prefer ‘Sofia’ or ‘Sofie’? – I’d just assumed… well, I hadn’t realized you were… I mean, of course, you can stay as long as you want. " He makes that as convincing as he can, remembering how awkward and nervous he’d been when he first arrived.

"You know, I was in pretty much the same boat, not two years ago… I’d just run off from my family – or, well, flown off – and left one heck of a mess behind, didn’t have anywhere to go. Ororo told me exactly what I’m telling you now: the Institute is here to help mutants, whatever you need, whether you helped at the riot or not – though I’m really glad you did; you probably saved a lot of lives back there."

He looks thoughtfully off into the distance for a moment, then nods. "So, all right then. I didn’t see any luggage or anything when we picked you up; is there a locker somewhere we should transfer, or should we schedule a shopping trip?" Figuring she doesn’t have much, if any, money to buy food with, let alone clothes, he fishes his wallet out of his pocket and pulls out a small stack of $20s, which he drops on the table. "That should get you started. We’ll find you a room tonight – hope you don’t mind sharing?"

[Laurie Collins]

[[actually jumping in after like the fourth time I told sofia I would. whooo procrastination!]]

After a shower and a little time alone in her room Laurie’s mostly managed to soothe her jangled nerves. She’d jumped off the jet almost the second it hit the ground after spending most of the ride tucked into a corner and left alone as she’d softly insisted that she needed some calm to get her pheromones under control and made a dash for her room. She’d wanted to call her mom but had decided against it- last time she’d told her something dangerous had happened at school (the invasion) her mother had driven down and then upon arrival stormed up to Mr. Shepard’s office like the wrath of God manifested into a human, and besides what if she let something slip about maybe seeing her father? So she’d just burrowed into bed and very carefully not thought about Matthew or the riot or the fact that the teachers may or may not currently be thinking that she’d caused it.

This had been working beautifully until hunger set in and now she’s driven down to the kitchen, guided by the audible rumblings of her stomach. She pauses outside the door for a moment- she still hasn’t attended a group meal but she’s beginning to think that’s a worthless effort, scary things have tended to happen in the kitchen so far. Her stomach rumbles again and she realizes she has no choice, pushes open the door and winces as voices reach her and she realizes the kitchen is occupied. Mr. Worthington and the other girl from the jet…what did they say her name was? she thinks, edging into the room as quietly as she can and catching the last few snatches of their conversation, just enough to deduce that Sofia must be some sort of new arrival instead of a student she just hadn’t met. Okay, well, I guess it’s rude to just stand here and stare at them…

“Um, hi, sorry to interrupt I was just getting-“ her stomach gives another audible rumble and she flushes, “Uh, hungry.” she finishes and almost throws herself out of sight behind the refrigerator door as she opens it.

[Sofia Mantega]

Embarrassment settles in as she realizes that perhaps her near-begging hadn’t been necessary; she looks down, reverting back to listening in silence to Warren’s continuing speech. “It’s Sofia,” she says, dismissing the clichéd thought of a new name for a new start as melodramatic and silly. It would always be Sofia.

"You know, I was in pretty much the same boat, not two years ago… I’d just run off from my family – or, well, flown off – and left one heck of a mess behind, didn’t have anywhere to go.”

She nods, still looking down, though a slight smile forms on her face. “Me too…except I didn’t really leave anything behind. Nothing that matters.” The words are cold, and maybe a little childish, but they’re true: her father is likely happy to be rid of her, and she is happy to be rid of him, especially here, it seems.

“Ororo told me exactly what I’m telling you now: the Institute is here to help mutants, whatever you need, whether you helped at the riot or not – though I’m really glad you did; you probably saved a lot of lives back there."

“Thank you for giving me the chance,” she says quietly, and looks back up, her smile widening. She’s still slightly uneasy with everything, the whole crazy situation and this barrage of information, but she’s becoming more comfortable in this conversation, and that’s a good first step. She’s certainly not going to let any slight discomfort take over and keep her from getting as much out of this opportunity as possible.

"So, all right then. I didn’t see any luggage or anything when we picked you up; is there a locker somewhere we should transfer, or should we schedule a shopping trip? That should get you started.”

“Oh, um…shopping trip,” she mutters, feeling more embarrassment; running away without bringing anything was pretty stupid. Perhaps she should start thinking things through. She eyes the money on the table warily, debating rejecting it, but she knows that would be useless—she does need it and he offered… She takes it with a quiet thank you, wishing she didn’t have to, and is quite glad when the other girl interrupts.


“Um, hi, sorry to interrupt I was just getting- Uh, hungry. “

“…The sandwiches are good!” she declares, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, but she’s grateful for the distraction from the rather heavy and awkward conversation she had been having. She waves her half-eaten sandwich as proof and smiles warmly, automatically switching from awkward and uneasy to friendly and welcoming, even though she herself was the new girl here...Laurie looked like she might need it more.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren slowly relaxes as the smile on Sofia’s face grows. Unlike some of the new students they’ve picked up in his time at the Institute – and, frankly, some of the ones who have been around for a while – he’s pretty sure she’ll settle in just fine.

> " I didn’t really leave anything behind. Nothing that matters."

He nods carefully, not so much at the words as the tone. She isn’t the first runaway mutant Warren has dealt with since coming to the Institute, and he’s gotten relatively good at rapid categorization: she’s angry, obviously, but doesn’t seem actively fearful or overtly hostile, which means that whatever she ran from it’s probably not an urgent or lifethreatening situation. Which is good, because the Institute is constantly skirting on the border of legality with respect to harboring runaways – well, that, and twelve other misdemeanors – and Warren prefers to take on their students aboveboard where possible.

"Is there anyone we should contact, to let them know you’re OK?" He holds a hand up to forestall any further anxiety and adds "Please don’t be afraid… we won’t tell them where you are or anything else unless you want us to. You’re safe here. But I’m sure there’s someone you left behind who would appreciate knowing you’re alive and well and among friends, don’t you think? It doesn’t have to be your parents, if you’re not ready for that… maybe another relative? Or a teacher, a friend, a neighbor? "

He decides not to push that subject further when Laurie comes into the kitchen, and nods approvingly at Sofia’s instinctive show of support for the other girl. This one’s a keeper. "Care to join our newest student for a snack, Miss Collins? "

[Laurie Collins]

“…The sandwiches are good!”

Laurie comes back into view, having procured some food of her own, and smiles tentatively in response to Sofia’s enthusiastic greeting.

“Oh...that’s…good?” she responds lamely, shooting Mr. Worthington a side-long, anxious look. She’s still not sure if anyone besides Matthew had noticed the similarity of the powers of whoever had started the riot to her own and she finds herself half expecting to be accused. Still, the other girl at least seems genuinely friendly and she responds automatically, losing a little bit of her hunched, defensive posture in an attempt to return the friendly demeanor being directed at her.

"Care to join our newest student for a snack, Miss Collins? "

“Uhm, okay.” Laurie says, edging over and pulling up a chair, still obviously uneasy but not wanting to be rude and a little curious despite herself. She knows there are other new students around but she hasn’t met many besides Tobias when she’d first arrived and begun a series of intimidating kitchen excursions and that meeting hadn’t exactly encouraged her to seek out any of the others. “So, um, did you just decide to come here during the riot?” she asks cocking her head slightly to the side, a bit confused as to how the X-men had managed to run recruitment in the middle of all that.

[Sofia Mantega]

"Is there anyone we should contact, to let them know you’re OK?"

Her immediate response would be a rather adamant ‘no;’ she hadn’t even known he existed (well, of course she knew biologically) for most of her life, certainly hadn’t known where he was, so why should she tell him where she is now? She doesn’t owe her father anything. She’s positive that he’s glad she’s gone and will have forgotten her before long; a call from a mutant organization would just be pesky reminder to him.

But then, if she leaves everything as it is now, she’ll still wonder: does he think about her? Does he spare even a few moments to wonder where she is? Is he truly glad she’s gone? Wondering all these is dangerous, distracting, burdening, and she doesn’t want to deal with it. Maybe she should let them tell him she’s out of his life, he can forget the responsibility, she’s in someone else’s hands now. His reaction will undoubtedly affirm her predictions and she’ll be able to forget the coldhearted bastard.

“…Sure, you can call my dad. You shouldn’t expect much of a response though. He’ll either hang up on you or thank you profusely for taking me out of his life.” She offers a wry smile. “…Maybe a letter would be best.”

“So, um, did you just decide to come here during the riot?”

Again she’s quite thankful to divert her attention to the other girl, her smile turning sincere. “Well, a decision would have involved coherent thought about the whole thing…I really just ended up here. I got lucky.” And that’s really what it was—immense amounts of luck. She could have easily missed the riot, gotten lost in New York City, gotten mugged in Central Park, turned to a life on the streets…infinite amounts of terrible what-ifs. Despite all that, she doesn’t regret her impulsive and underplanned decision to run away, because here she is—none of the rest of it matters. This is the ultimate fresh start, and it is such a relief.

[Warren Worthington III]

> " Sure, you can call my dad. You shouldn’t expect much of a response though. He’ll either hang up on you or thank you profusely for taking me out of his life… Maybe a letter would be best."

Warren nods, secretly pleased. The law and common sense agree on this one: if her legal guardian knows where she is and doesn’t object, and she wants to stay, the Institute is well within its rights to keep her.

Not that he’d have turned her over if she wanted to stay, no matter what, but it’s best to avoid fights they don’t have to fight. He makes a mental note to get the man’s address from her, later… and to have someone charming pay him a personal visit and get his agreement in writing. He gets the impression, from the things Sofia isn’t saying, that crossing his palm with some bills should be all it takes.

For now, though, he lets the subject drop.

> "I really just ended up here. I got lucky."

"Well, we were all fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, is all. Sofia helped us out a lot during the riot… whatever it was that was driving everybody out of their minds, she and Storm managed to disperse it before it did too much damage." He’s careful not to look pointedly at Laurie when he mentions it, or to avoid looking at her – certainly the similarity to her own powers is something they’ll need to explore, but right now he doesn’t want her getting the impression he thinks she’s responsible.

[Laurie Collins]

" Sure, you can call my dad. You shouldn’t expect much of a response though. He’ll either hang up on you or thank you profusely for taking me out of his life… Maybe a letter would be best."

Laurie fidgets a little in her seat, feeling like she’s eavesdropping though Sofia obviously knows she’s there. It must be terrible, going through all this and not even having your family. She’s still surprised, even after months at the institute hearing the other students talk about their pasts, when it turns out some other mutant’s family has disowned or ceased to care about them because of their mutation. In her world parents just don’t abandon their children, after all her mother has all the reasons anyone could have needed and she’s always been there. The reminder of how lucky she is in a lot of ways makes her a bit ashamed of all the self-pity over her pheromones and the complications in her friendship/ whatever it is with Matthew that she’s been sunk into when she isn’t remembering just how scary the riot was. She looks up from where she’d focused her gaze on the countertop and gives Sofia a genuinely sympathetic look, though she still avoids the other girl’s eyes.

"I really just ended up here. I got lucky."

"Well, we were all fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, is all. Sofia helped us out a lot during the riot… whatever it was that was driving everybody out of their minds, she and Storm managed to disperse it before it did too much damage."

Laurie’s skin pales a shade and she very carefully avoids looking at Mr. Worthington, he hasn’t been anything like accusatory or curious yet but the reminder of the incident, of who the provocateur might have been, is still enough to make her nervous.

“Uhm.” she clears her throat quickly and looks over at Sofia, impressed even through her nervousness that the other girl had managed to just show up and be helpful in such a crazy situation when she herself has been at the institute since November and still struggles with mere control, and making no attempt to hide the slight admiration in her expression. “What’s your mutation? ...if you don’t mind my asking that is.” she can’t help but be curious after all- either it’s something that helps lessen the effect of pheromones or it’s something that will make it obvious pheromones weren’t the cause of the riot- either one would be good news.