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Homecoming

Joe hit the rooftop and rolled immediately to spread out the impact, glad that his reinforced boots absorbed the shock better than his old ones. He came up from the roll and kept running, his black trenchcoat moving behind him like a cape. The scents and sounds of New York were so familiar, so inviting that the cold night didn't seem foreboding at all. In fact, it was so inviting that he'd almost wished he'd come home sooner.

Soon, he'd have to stop by the mansion and see some of his other friends. Sammy brought him home but there were others who needed to know he was back. Now that he knew Bruce was running the Avengers, he had to pay his respects and find out where things stood between them. They'd last spoken a few years ago and the conversation hadn't ended well. Since then, it seemed that the Captain had taken a shine to Bruce and really liked him. Secretly, Joe had always wondered if his father wished he was more like his friend rather than a drifter, but Joe never brought it up because he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

A scream split the night air and Joe immediately adjusted his position due west, in the direction of the sound. One block over in a dark alley, three thugs had cornered a young woman and were making lewd gestures at her in concert with verbal description of what they'd like to do to her. Joe didn't like guys who harassed women and so he leaped down into the alley, coming up behind the group.

"Look guys, I'm gonna make this real simple. Let the nice lady go and I'll only break a hand, jaw or leg before you go to jail." Joe said, pointing at each man respectively as he indicated which limb they'd get broken.

"Make this a fight and all of you will spend six months in the hospital and THEN go to jail. Your choice." he said, turning slightly so that he wasn't facing any of them directly.

Two of the thugs chose to try circling him so that he couldn't get away while the third guy grabbed the woman and held a knife to her.

"And which super-chump are you supposed to be?" the thug asked.

Joe sighed and waited for them to attack.

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"Thank you. I'm not really ready to discuss it. I left out a lot of things just now and I'll tell them to you later, when I can." he said.

He started to reach for her as she walked away but quickly withdrew when she sat down across from him. He thought she might not tell him what happened, but he listened silently as she recounted what happened to her. Yes, Joe knew that Roxie enjoyed the company of me but that was no reason for anyone, Earthly or otherwise, to judge her. That was no reason for anyone to try to use her for breeding or any other purpose that she didn't consent to.

And the Kree had tried to use her that way. It made Joe angry enough to punch out the next Kree he saw here on Earth.

"Hey, you stop that right now. You did nothing wrong, Roxanne. Those idiots from Hala, or wherever, are the ones in the wrong. You live your life the way you want to live it and you don't let anyone tell you different." Joe said, laying a hand over hers. He looked straight into her eyes.

"Change because /you/ want to, not because someone thinks poorly of your life. I hope I see that girl I used to know. She was pretty amazing and she's one of the best people I ever met." Joe said.

"We're a real pair, aren't we?"

Roxie squeezed Joe's hand warmly. As a little girl, when she'd imagined all kinds of silly futures with him - a secret she would never share with anyone - the thought that they would both grow up to be slightly damaged adults had never crossed her mind.

"Always so warm and open and accepting," Roxie replied. "There aren't quite enough men in the world who are like you, Joe Rogers," she said. "A part of me knows that they didn't choose me because of how I lived my life," she admitted. "A small part, one which Bruce and Jay tried to coax out. But it's difficult believing it some days," she added. "I'll get through it. We Danvers women are nothing if not strong, persistant, and able to take anything that life tosses at us." It was all too true for her mother, who'd had everything from her powers to her memory to her own rights and mental facilities snatched away from her, but Carol Danvers had risen above it all.

Roxie would too, one day. She missed the girl she used to be.

"If you ever feel like talking about the rest of it...I promise not to judge, or to offer any unwanted advice," she said. "I know what it's like to feel as though you're alone and a failure - and for the record, you're not the first, and I can't believe you're the latter." She squeezed his hand again. "Whatever's gone on, you'll get through it."

"I'll remember that, Roxie. Someday, I'll tell you." Joe said, accepting the squeeze of his hand and returning it with one of his own. Her words encouraged Joe and made him feel somewhat better, even though he knew deep down that he couldn't have known what would happen back then. He'd done the best he could with the information he had and gone from there.

Still, it was nice to know that someone didn't immediately see him as the bad guy.

"Are you seeing anyone? I just realized that it was presumptive of me to ask you to show me around sometime without making sure I don't step on someone's toes. I don't want to start any trouble or even give the appearance of starting trouble." Joe told her as he tried to sound less awkward than he knew he was sounding right now.

"We're friends and I want to respect that by not assuming that you're just free to hang out because I am." Joe said.

"Please tell me this isn't sounding like a come-on because the level of awkward is ratcheting up faster than tensions during a Galactus invasion."

"I look forward to that day," Roxie said, managing a small smile.

To be perfectly honest, Roxie wouldn't have minded if it was a come on. But she wasn't sure where Joe stood on that, and so she just laughed it off lightly and said, "No...I was. Up until the Kreenapping." She paused, realizing that there was a very good chance that Joe didn't know him. "Victor Amorason. He's on the Avengers with me," she added. "He's also...Victor von Doom's son. From a different reality than ours." There was also the fact that he was Amora's son, but one shocker at a time. "I broke up with him after the whole...well. You know." She paused again and asked, "What about you? Was there anyone special in your life or...?"

"Wow, as in Doctor Doom's son?" Joe asked. He couldn't keep the shock out of his expression when Roxie laid it on him. Doom was a tough customer in /this/ dimension, so he couldn't imagine what his kids would be like, let alone ones from another dimension.

"I'm sorry to hear that. It's not awkward for you, is it? Being on the same team I mean?" he asked her. He didn't know what it was like to work with someone you dated or used to date, for that matter. He didn't know how he would do it if it came down to it.

When she asked if he was seeing anyone, that sad, somewhat far-away look returned and he looked away.

"There was. Her life was the one I ruined. She died not long after." Joe said, finding a spot on the wall to focus on. There was no other way to put it.

"Look, I've taken up enough of your time and dumped enough of my garbage on you. I should probably go. Tell Bruce that I'm staying at my dad's loft if he wants to stop by." Joe said, standing up from his chair.

"It was great seeing you again, Roxanne. A better surprise that I can tell you." he said.

He would turn to go unless she stopped him.

"We met at a nightclub, and we...were really only sleeping around for awhile," she explained. "Then there was a kerfluffle with an other-dimensional evil clone and...well. Things got messy. And then wonderful. And then messy again." It was really the easiest way to explain it.

"Joe, wait," she said, standing up. God, that story he just told her killed her. "Look, if things are tense at home - and I get the feeling that they might be - there's a room for you here. Or...and I realize this might make things more awkward, but my own place...it's uptown, but there's a few spare rooms, if you don't mind walls decorated with lots of ancient Greek weaponry. There's also a pretty nice private rooftop garden."

Edited 2012-11-11 04:07 (UTC)

Joe stopped when Roxie asked him to and turned around. Things /weren't/ tense at home, but they would get that way in a hurry if his parents pressed him for information too quickly. Dad was doing his best not to pry but Mom was asking questions that probed just a bit deeper each day. It was only a matter of time before they tried the team-up to get him to talk.

Besides, living at home with his parents, while he was grateful to do so, made him feel weird, especially at his age.

And staying at Avengers' Mansion when he wasn't truly part of the team didn't feel right, either. He didn't want to freeload.

"Look, I don't want to impose on you, Roxie. Staying here at the Mansion when I'm not on the team would be like freeloading...and I'm not sure how well my style mixes with the Avengers.

But my parents are going to drive me nuts sooner rather than later. I don't want to be ungrateful to them, but I don't want my work getting in their way, either." he said.

He paused for a moment.

"You've got a rooftop garden, huh? What's your rent like? I'm paying you /something/ if I take you up on this. And you won't even know I'm there. I won't disturb your schedule with my...night work." he said, knowing she'd get the message.

She got the message loud and clear. Had it been anyone else, Roxie would have thought that work was different, but with Joe...

Well, there was only one kind of work that it could possibly be.

"I paid for the whole place with Olympian gold," Roxie explained. "I bought it through Hestia, the Greek goddess of hearth and home?" Evidently, having dominion over that made it so that, in the modern day, Hestia could be a real estate agent. "I couldn't take money from you. Just pitch in with the groceries, and we're good to go, I think." She smiled warmly at him. "And don't worry about disturbing my schedule. Given my genetics, I don't really tend to need all that much sleep," Roxie explained. "Besides, it'll be nice to not be all alone in my home all the time." The only visitor she'd really had was Jay, and that had been awhile ago.

"I get not needing much sleep. Sleep and I had a falling out years ago." He said.

Roxie wasn't going to let him pay rent but he'd figure out a way to pay her back. She was being kinder than he deserved and he wanted to honor that. But there was a question at the back of his mind.

"You and Vincent...have you two talked about things? I don't want to interrupt you two working things out or give a wrong impression." he said.

She also had the nightmares from being Kreenapped to contend with.

"We've been broken up for quite a few months now," Roxie nodded her head. "I left him and his sister, Audhild, my old apartment." She paused, considering Vincent for a long moment. "I don't think that there's anything left to work out there. Not on my end, at least." She's moved on, in other words. Whatever was there...it was gone. And it wasn't as though she was quite the same woman she had been. There could be no picking up where they left off.

Joe nodded in understanding. He just didn't want his friend to close a door that might still be opened before she was ready to do so. He felt bad that Roxie was in such pain. Whatever else the Kree had done, it had left her deeply scarred.

An irrational part of Joe wanted to find those sons of bitches and hurt them for what they'd done to her. But he realized that wasn't a wholly rational thought and pushed it aside.

"All right. I accept the offer and I'll help with groceries. And if you happen to need someone to talk to in the middle of the night, I'm sure I can help with that, too.

I'll probably be awake, one way or the other." he smiled.

"When do you want me to head over?"

As far as Roxie was concerned, that door was long-closed. Possibly forever, and she honestly felt that it was better that way.

"Same here," Roxie said. "About the middle of the night thing," she nodded. "You can come over anytime," she added, holding up her forefinger. She walked over to the dining table behind them and snagged her oversized purse from a chair. She brought it over and rummaged through it before pulling out her wallet. Roxie deftly pulled out a card that had her name, number, and address on it and handed it over to Joe.

"I don't generally carry my keys on me because I usually just fly in through the roof window, but if you give this card to the doorman and tell him I sent you, he'll let you right in." She paused. "His name's Declan. You'll find the keys in the first drawer in the island of my kitchen, though. So, you know, you have access." She reached over and gave Joe a quick hug. "I'm so glad you accepted, by the way. I want you to make yourself entirely at home. No formalities." Because Roxie was possibly one of the last people to ever stand on formality.

"I'll try to remember the no formalities part. I've been livin' alone for awhile, but I'll make sure to have a sign up if I'm less than decent before you walk in." Joe said half-jokingly.

This would be Joe's second time living with a woman that wasn't his mother and he felt nervous about it. He and Roxie were friends, right? No awkwardness or anything, right?

"All right, then I'll be there in the morning to move my stuff in. Won't take long. I've just got my duffel bags." he said, taking the card.

"Thank you again, Roxie. I really appreciate this."

Awkward? Not on Roxie's end. Of course, Roxie wasn't the sort of person to make things awkward anymore. Sometime ago, that would have been a very different case.

She managed a small laugh, though. "Just leave a sock on the rooftop garden," she said. "I'll get the message." As for Roxie...well. Coitus was no longer a thing she took part in, so Joe really didn't have to worry about that.

"Don't be silly," she said, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek. "I wasn't going to take no for an answer."

Joe smiled as she kissed him on the cheek. "That was one of the things I always liked about you, Roxie. You never give up. It's an admirable trait." he told her.

"I'm gonna head out but let Bruce know I was here. Let him know that I went to go get settled in and that I'll come back tomorrow to talk about everything." he said.

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Homecoming

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