nextgenerationmarvel | Loose Lips Gossip

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Loose Lips Gossip - April 2, 2012

04.02.12 - 9:07 AM

Kisses for the Fools
A Few Pecks Before You Go

Here's some real gossip for you today, darlings. As opposed to what you all made blow up over social media yesterday and then had egg on your face because it was April Fools Day. I don't know why so many of you thought Tony Stark marrying me was the fabulous truth, but a girl can dream, can't she?

First in our salacious bag, we have socialite Roxanne Danvers getting back up on her horse. Or two of them at once, my pets. As I broke the news to you precious readers not long ago, our favorite socialite Danvers has Cadet America living with her. Though after a particularly dour dry spell, she seems to be back on the prowl. While her cut blond cutie is there, she also has a dark and mysterious man visiting often. It doesn't matter what time, day or night, girl's getting back on top.

Also seen about town is one Alistaire Shaw. While that's not particularly of note, what is is that he seems to have the same woman on his arm wherever he goes. It seems a Miss Alisa LeBeau has thrown her lot in with the one of the least mentionable Shaws. Sometimes, we forget he's even there, but he's out and about now. Of Miss LeBeau, we've picked up she's an art appraiser of some sort. She caters to the rich and famous. With her following a playboy about town, she's either in for a heartbreak or heavy pockets. I'd watch yourself if you're having anything authenticated by her and then it suddenly ends up in Alistaire Shaw's hands. Though let's just hope this is a nasty... rumor.

Speaking of Shaws, we come to the most prominent living one we have in town. Miss Stephanie Shaw has apparently moved on from being dumped by the Brazilian Bronco. First it was a string of boys at Columbia. Apparently none of them measured up to her former mug of hot chocolate. Further solidifying that once she went black, she never went back, she's been seen out romancing Brooke Wyngarde. They've been seen together frequently in public and on a romantic dinner date. They were so taken by Languedoc that they bought it. Shortly thereafter, they went to the Diamond District. Together. I hope to score an invite to the impending nuptials. Since it is legal here in New York and in Miss Shaw's native Spain.

It has come to my attention that young Miss Erin Sterling, daughter of Ambassador Maximilian Sterling, has been hanging around the young men of 890 Fifth Avenue. With Roxie Danvers oh so slowly getting back into the swing of things, (only two, dear? tut tut) it seems as though the Avengers have a new blonde minx who's been leaving a lot of wet in her wake. And we don't just mean her ability to control water.

And finally, our usual Monday treat, which eligible singletons should you try to score by the week's end? No surprise, the number one guy is Tony Stark. Dress yourself up in nothing but strategically placed iPads and turn his head, darlings. If he's not your thing, try someone a little exotic: Marcelo Alencar da Silva. Rumor has it he's been out at a lot of hot nightspots lately. For those looking for the female persuasion, let's not forget brains and beauty as I have it on good authority Valeria Richards is still single. She appears a little down right now, but the right man could turn that frown upside down. Equally as lovely but a bit more hot-tempered is Eva Worthington. While she has been seen dressing down a few cabbies lately, it's nice to know a girl who knows what she wants and has a nice set of lungs. Don't you think, my cinnamon sticks?

And that's the tidbits I have for this Monday. Let's be back on Wednesday with even more to talk about.
Mwah, darlings!

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"I see." he said simply, thinking over the plan. He'd heard she wasn't free-spirited or spontaneous but he needed to judge that for himself. Perhaps he could awaken such a streak within her.

"Come to Paris with me, then. It's a city of lights, culture and romance. Romance is on that list, right? I think it was. Come with me and let's spend the day forgetting about silly New York gossip rags and crazy rumors. You can even send your friend a postcard and get home before it does." he told her.

"Bring yourself, your sense of adventure and a couple of outfits. I'll bring my sketchpad and I can sketch a muse on the Champs Elysee for fun." he told her.

"What say you, Brooke Wyngarde?" he asked.

"..." Brooke froze. Paris? Paris? Brooke had nothing Paris-worthy at the Institute. Besides, she'd need new shoes, new underwear, new luggage, new everything.

"You mean now?"

Because that was smooth.

And, oh god, her passport was in her apartment in the city.

"As in, say yes and we'll be in Paris before nightfall. In fact, don't worry about the clothes. We can shop when we get there." Alexander said. He tried not to smile on his end of the phone, but something told him that Brooke was on the other end of the phone weighing things in her head.

"..." Brooke turned and looked back at the Institute. Could she do that? Could she just get up and go like that? On a whim? She'd never been the kind of girl to do so.

Ever.

The most spontaneous Brooke ever got was ordering a dark chocolate almond biscotti at her favourite coffee shop instead of a vanilla hazelnut one.

And the thing about not worrying about the clothes? For a second Brooke thought that Alexander had meant to take that idea in an entirely different direction.

"...Yes. Sure. Okay." Pause. "I just need to get into the city to grab my passport."

"Are you alone right now?" he asked her.

Brooke looked around. There were some kids in the far distance of the property - Willow Woods communing with the trees, one of the many Guthrie offspring sitting on a bench doing some sort of written word puzzle, a couple of kids playing frisbee with a third whose power it was to turn into a thin, flat disc.

"For the most part? There's some people off in the distance of the property, but no one immediately around me." Also, no one who would generally willingly engage with Brooke in conversation.

"Oh good. That makes this simple." Alexander said.

Half a second later, Brooke is being tapped on the shoulder by none other than Alexander. He disconnects their call as it's now a moot point.

"As I suspected, you still look wonderful. So, shall we go?" he asked.

Brooke almost started. She whirled around, a blinking, trying to reorient herself to the fact that Alexander had just teleported over to Xavier's.

To see her.

That...that didn't happen.

Did it?

It just did, Brookie.

A multitude of dumb responses came to Brooke's mind and died on her tongue.

"This teleporting thing isn't going to make me feel all queasy, is it?" she asked, giving Alexander her hand.

Alexander took the offered hand, a show of her trust and smiled.

"While I enjoy giving you flutters in your stomach, my teleportation won't be among them. Now...you needed your passport?" he asked.

And in the space between eyeblinks, they were standing in Brooke's apartment.

"I love the decor here. When I get my own place, you simply must help me with the decoration." he said, looking around in admiration.

Brooke grinned. She really was quite proud of her apartment.

It was simple, tasteful, and elegant.

"There was a time that I had considered going into interior design," Brooke stated. "But that would lead me to follow someone's orders, and I'm not entirely that sort of woman."

She held up a finger then and rushed up the winding steps to her room, passing by Sharona's maid quarters, entirely ignoring the fact that Sharona was currently entertaining Timofey the doorman.

She was back down in a moment, slipping the little navy blue book into her clutch, along with a couple of credit cards. After all, all of her other monetary belongings were at the Institute.

"I'm ready," Brooke said, her confusion finally having given way to excitement. "Still not entirely believing I'm awake, but I'm ready."

Alexander smiled at Brooke's statement. She was adjusting quite nicely to spontaneity and he liked it.

"Very well. Hmm...let's try the Tower first." Alexander said.

He took Brooke's hand and after a moment, they were standing atop the Eiffel Tower, looking out over Paris.

"I love this view. It was the first place I ever teleported to when I was a boy. My mother was terrified because I'd vanished in the middle of our discussion about some of my bad behavior." he said.

"Once I brought her here, we both managed to calm down a bit." he said.

"You're the first person I've done this with, you know. I've never really dated before. It's been a far less personal...thing. If you get my meaning." he said.

She hadn't known what to expect when Alexander had said the Tower.

Granted, in retrospect, this really should have been obvious to her.

She gasped in a mix of surprise, pleasure, and exhiliration. Below her was spread the crystal roof of the Grand Palais, Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Sacré-Coeur, the Invalides, the Panthéon, St. Sulpice - everything iconic and beautiful and historic about Paris just laid out before her like some sort of visual buffet.

"This is...I've seen pictures of the view on the internet - I've actually Googled them - but seeing it in person...and just...when I was in my apartment a moment ago!" She tore her eyes away from the view and looked up at Alexander, who was quite a bit taller than her despite her four-inch heels. "I used to go to the top of the Empire State building sometimes. To get away. But if I could have done this..." Brooke shook her head. "Thank you."

She turned back to look at the view, her mind trying to process that and what Alex had said about...dating?

She turned back to him. It was funny, she thought. Standing on the outside of a situation, she could tell when there was a romantic connection going on. Being in one though... "I've never dated anyone either," she admitted. Had she admitted that during their dinner? Brooke couldn't recall. "I've never even...well." She let his meaning slide, though. He was, after all, Roxie's brother. They were bound to have some things in common. She raised an eyebrow then. "What...are your intentions with me, Alexander? Beyond the part where I inspire you, artistically, I mean."

Alexander smiled brightly then, genuinely happy that Brooke was happy. He hadn't expected that. Most times he didn't care what his current bedmate wanted because said person was there to satisfy his particular needs at the time.

Right now, though, Brooke's enjoyment made him enjoy this place more than he usually did.

"The Empire State Building is fun, too, at the very, very top. Sometimes I go up there to remind myself that this world isn't just what we see...that there's a lot more to it." he siad.

When she turned to face him, he wondered if he'd said something wrong. Her question about his intentions gave him pause.

"You are not the first person to ask me that question. My sister also asked the same thing. You are my Muse and you inspire me. Do I want more than that? Perhaps I do. I admit that your lack of experience is alluring. You have not been ruined by the idiocy of human men who have no idea how to appreciate a woman." Alexander said.

"I want you to trust me, first and foremost. Beyond that...I told you that I would remain in your life until you told me to leave it, Brooke. I must warn you that I am not inexperienced. I have been with many women, but none that intrigue me the way you do." he said.

And now he waited to see if she was still interested in being near him.

There was a way that Alexander spoke about Brooke - words that he used to describe her - that made her feel as though she was more than she sometimes felt she was.

"I'm not looking for some emaciated, mentally and socially challenged Mormon vampire, so I assure you, I'm fine with your past existing," Brooke said. "The trust will come," She said, not wanting to lie to him by telling him that she implicitly trusted him right away. But he did make her feel certain things, and those certain things had made Brooke a curious young woman. "I'm drawn to you. It's the only reason I even approached you at Lanvin the other day, because that's not generally the sort of thing I'm prone to do." She reached up and gently adjusted her headband and added, "But, like I said, this is the first time I've ever dated anyone and..." she shrugged, "it's all very new for me."

"I was surprised at your willingness to engage me, I admit. But you seemed so confident that I thought you did such things all the time." Alexander said, looking out at the city for a moment.

"Well, it looks like both of us are learning something new together and that makes it much more fun. But I do find myself confused, Brooke. You're obviously very beautiful, you can carry on a conversation without repeatedly use of the word 'like' and you dress in way that shows respect yourself and those around you." Alexander said.

"I guess I don't understand why I'm the first of what should be legion of men fighting for the honor of your attention. I don't mean to insult or presume but I'm starting to wonder if men in New York really are blind when it comes noting a worthwhile woman in their midst." he said.

Brooke was silent for a long moment, gathering her thoughts. Then she threw up around her the attitude she generally had when she was anywhere and everywhere. It was a heady mix of arrogance where there should have been confidence, vanity where there ought to have been modesty, pride in place of humility, callousness instead of the ability to be warm and thoughtful to others, mixed in with a swirl of other attributes that served to create a shield in front of Brooke that made her an unapproachable, undefrostable ice queen.

It was precisely because of those emotions and attributes that she projected that no one had ever been able to approach her, and only now was she starting to realize it.

"Are you starting to understand?" she asked.

Alexander wondered if Brooke would answer his question until he felt the shift in perception between them. He felt the arrogance, the vanity and the pride in their full measure and saw Brooke as the ice queen she was, or that she at least allowed others to see. He juxtaposed the current feeling to the one he'd felt moments ago where she'd been accessible, gregarious, or at least approachable and his eyes narrowed...but not in anger.

In wonder.

"Yes...I understand where many men would perceive you as being 'out of their league' or simply 'unattainable'. Had you used it upon me, I can't help but think I would have wanted to know more about you. I would have considered it a challenge to get you to smile for me, even once." Alexander said, reaching out to take her hand.

"May I ask a personal question? Do you ever get...lonely?" he asked, looking into her eyes.

Brooke allowed Alexander to take her hand. She didn't tighten her grip or anything, but she did let her guard down the moment that their hands touched, after briefly considering keeping that swirling clouds of emotions up. She considered the question thoughtfully, her eyes now fully focused on Alexander instead of the view beneath and around them.

"I was raised to be a queen," Brooke replied. "To rule all of the Inner Circles of all of the Hellfire Clubs, combined." Let it never be said that Regan Wyngarde didn't have lofty, impossible ambitions. "Queens don't have friends, only minions and those who might backstab her at any cost." And she'd lost the only real friend she'd had to stupid high school politics. "I'm always lonely."

Alexander nodded in understanding. He didn't know what this 'Hellfire Club' truly was, but it sounded like some important mortal institution. He reminded himself to research it later so that he wasn't blind-sided.

Brooke's comment about minions and backstabbers brought an odd expression to Alexander's features that he quickly covered but he secretly wondered exactly which she expected to him to be? He'd been warned long ago that humans often looked for reasons to manipulate and betray each other; when they couldn't be found, sometimes they created them out of whole cloth for justification of their lack of character.

Still, he understood how lonely she was because he'd always felt lonely as well, since before his mother's passing.

"I understand that, believe it or not." he said, looking around. His attention focused on a couple in the corner. The woman was elegantly and tastefully dressed in a Louis Vuitton evening gown with a string of expensive pearls about her neck. She might have been a model for all anyone knew.

The man with her was dressed in an Armani suit with Italian leather loafers. He wore a gold Rolex watch and smiled easily at his date. The pair looked like newlyweds, having eyes only for each other as they seemingly ignored everyone else.

Alexander pulled Brooke gently toward him so that he could lower his voice and be heard by her.

"The couple you see in the corner is riddled with a thousand little fears that I could spend all night telling you of in several languages. That woman is not his wife. She's someone he's been carrying on an affair with for several years now. He wants to end it but he's terrified that she'll tell his wife about them out of spite and that he'll lose his family in the process." Alexander whispered.

"The woman, on the other hand, has always been insecure about her looks. She's had several costly operations to fix perceived defects all over her body. She knows that her lover wants to leave her. But she's pregnant and knows the stigma attached to being an unwed mother in this country. She's afraid that her family will cast her out and that she'll have to give birth to her child in an alley with no one she loves around her. Moreover, she's afraid that she'll die ugly and alone, no matter how many times she goes under the knife." Alexander finished.

"I know these things because I can sense them. From everyone. Everywhere I go. Every minute of every day without ceasing. I can look at anyone and pluck their deepest fears from their souls. So yes, I know what it is to be lonely because I don't know a single person who would ever want to live the way I do."

Brooke stared at the couple. It was romantic, she noted, even a little dramatic, to be having that sort of conversation up here at the Eiffel Tower. Almost as though they were in a private movie of their own. She watched them, wistfully for a moment, and then opened herself up, allowing her to feel their emotions. She realized then how strongly she kept her shields up, show much she didn't let herself feel what others were feeling.

How much she didn't usually care what anyone but herself was feeling.

"It's funny," she said. "A handsome Greek god, a family that's spanned centuries and still alive, one would never stop and think that you're lonely." Brooke reached up and stroked Alexander's cheek with the back of her hand. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry."

Alexander's eyes closed as Brooke touched his cheek. He was unfamiliar with this level of closeness with a woman; normally his interactions with the opposite sex (that weren't his sister) usually started and ended with sex. There was no time or inclination for talking or deep feelings, just the fulfillment of a primal need and then moving on.

Alexander now realized that he'd held himself away from that kind of interaction because of the vulnerability it implied. He didn't want pity from anyone.

Yet he didn't get pity from Brooke. Only a simply acknowledgement of his feelings and understanding.

"I'm not lonely now, though. I'm with a amazing woman in one of the most romantic places on Earth." Alexander said. "It's more than enough to inspire a man to create some excellent work."

He allowed himself to relax a bit more, his own guard lowering for Brooke. She would feel his admiration for her.

The only time Brooke ever pitied someone, it was a mocking sort of pity, and Brooke wasn't mocking Alexander. She felt that admiration shining through from Alexander and a faint flush crept up her cheeks. Her hand dropped and she turned away from him, not really sure how to react to that. She'd never felt that from a man before.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, watching her turn away.

Admittedly, he liked the view but he wasn't sure if she was all right.

Brooke smiled a little wistfully, though he wouldn't be able to see that. "Wrong? No. No, you're doing everything right. Whisking me away for a spontaneous romantic getaway, saying all the right things, connecting with me on an emotional level...it's all the things that someone like me dreams about." She looked down at the view beneath her and for a moment let herself imagine what it would be like to sit atop a throne on Olympus.

"I'm just waiting to wake up now and find myself back at Xavier's, my roommate softly snoring away and finding out that none of this actually ever happened."

Alexander nodded.

"Have you pinched yourself recently? I assure you that you are not dreaming, but if this were a dream...you would know it by being able to do something that you normally would not or could not." he said, smiling.

"Try it."

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Loose Lips Gossip - April 2, 2012

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