Summary:
September 20 2014: Two Bobby's meet at a club at the end of the work day.
Trendy Club
Bright lights, penetrating bass, loud music, alcohol. Typical trendy club.
Characters
NPCs
- None
Mood Music:
[* None]
Roberto's quasi-hiatus to deal with the fallout of having his apartment attacked meant that when he finally got back to running his segment of the company, he had a lot of catching up to do. So much so that his usual relaxed approach to mixing work and play during the day simply hasn't been working out. If he wants to get some R&R in, he has to sneak it into the hours most of the business world uses for sleeping.
So it is that when he has to turn down Cold Twin's invitation to the team for a group dinner, he has a counter-proposal ready: loud music and stiff drinks at one of the nightclubs frequented by the city's numerous college students. He walks through the door with a grin on his face so bright that you can almost see it in the dim lighting. "Bar? Dance floor?" he asks his friend. "I'm not asking 'which' so much as 'in which order,' of course."
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Bobby flashes the other Bobby a grin. "Bar. I at least have a chance of keeping up with you there. Once you start showing off your moves I won't be able to get within a hot blonde of you." He winks, teasing though it's no joke that Berto's very charismatic.
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"Blondes? Where?" 'Berto asks, standing on his tiptoes and swiveling his neck in a halfway decent meerkat impression. Then he relaxes, flashes another grin, and pats Bobby on the shoulder. "Bros' night as long as you want it to be, camarada. I don't need to rush into that just yet. The night is long and the blondes will keep." He shoulders his way through the people clustered around the bar, then turns to ask, "What can I get you?" He's hoping to get their order sorted out before the bartender comes to ask him the same question.
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"Just a beer. You don't want me ending up like Scott did that other night." Bobby flashes Berto a grin. "You heard about that, right?" It's been kind of hard not to hear about it. They literally blew the roof off of some club. Good thing none of them got made but, oy… Well, they'll sort it out, the ice nerd is sure.
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Bobby da Costa shakes his head. "You know, I did hear something vague about him causing some trouble, but frankly, I have trouble believing it. Uptight Scott? It just doesn't seem like him." A bartender does come his way — a tattooed redhead, Iceman will no doubt be extremely relieved to see — and Sunspot gives her a flirtatious smile as he orders a high gravity beer and a top shelf vodka tonic. While they wait for the drinks, he turns back and says, "I may not want to cause trouble, but I don't want to leave you in the dust, either. I'm all about the Greek ideal of work hard, play hard." He's probably thinking of sound mind, sound body.
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Bobby grins. "Greek huh?" He takes the beeer and sips at it. "Eh, you'll have to leave me in the dust if the blondes get involved. None of them are quite pretty enough for me. I prefer my reformed goth." Clearly, though, Bobby has little problems with Berto cutting loose. "So what are you up to? I mean work, board meetings, blah, blah, blah, but what are you doing lately?"
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"I know how exclusive relationships work," Hot Bobby says, using a chiding tone that isn't exactly justified. Given his track record, it's reasonable to assume that he doesn't, in fact, know much about such arrangements. "I'm not going to invite you out and then ditch at the first opportunity I get. I'll wait at least… ten opportunities before ditching you."
The bartender returns with their drinks, and Roberto trades her for a style of card that most people haven't seen before. "See? Opportunity number one, and I was a perfect Ken doll about the whole thing," he points out as he passes Drake his bottle. They make their way out of the crowd by the bar, finding a quiet-ish balance between its loud chaos and the louder chaos of the dance floor. "I'm just catching up, to be honest," he finally answers the question. "Work has been killer. Other than that I've just been staying in and playing video games, working out, and occasionally dropping by a place like this to seek out women of all hair colors."
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"Uh huh. You see I figured blondes for you because 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.'" Yes it was an awful pun. No, Bobby isn't sorry. "Also for the way you and Doug were going to fight over Amara. Pity she took that leave of absence. Well, maybe a good thing for everyone over all, but still."
He looks about taking in the press of people on the dance floor over the lip of his bottle and takes another sip. "Well glad you're finally getting out. Hasn't been the same without you around."
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"I wasn't going to fight over Amara," Roberto insists, a touch defensively. "She's perfectly capable of making her own decisions, and I wasn't going to scrap over her like some sort of futebol trophy." After a second and a sip of his drink, he starts seeing this as the funny teasing it was, rather than a suggestion that he was behaving improperly, and smiles. "And really, it's whoever admitted our class that had the blonde problem. Amara, Illyana, Sam, Doug, Simon… the only ones with darker hair were black or Asian or aliens or whatever."
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Bobby chuckles again. "I was just observing with Kitty and Doug that it must be nice to be getting the old class back together. Well, some of it anyway." He himself is something of an outsider as he's observed before. It affords him a certain perspective the others don't have, but also means that he's a lot less part of the group. Nothing wrong with it, in particular, just the dynamic as it exists.
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"It is a lot of fun, I agree. We play off each other well; we know what each other can do," Roberto says with a nostalgic smile. "It helps, when you're in the public eye, to be working with people whose actions you can sort of predict. I would know exactly when to take a microphone away from Illyana, for example."
He takes another sip of his drink, watching a group of girls go by, briefly listening to their conversation about new TV shows they're watching. "But in order for it to work, we do have to branch out beyond that. Pull in people from outside the Xavier bubble, like you. We're sheltered, in a way. I know a thing or two about being sheltered."
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"You'd give Illyana a microphone?" Bobby smirks. He likes the intimidating blonde sorceress. Nancy does too so she can't be all that bad. But the truth his she does in fact intimidate him. Even if she's been relatively nice.
Okay, she's a bit bossy.
"Sheltered? You?" Bobby's teasing again knowing full well he doesn't actually know anything about Berto's background. Man could be a rags to riches tale for all he knows.
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'Berto pops his free hand open and gapes in a false display of shock. "I know, right? The guy whose dad just gave him a building is sheltered? Crazy!" He smiles sheepishly as he takes another sip and then continues, "But I mean, all of us came of age in a pretty safe, pretty isolated place. Not to say our lives have been easy — a lot of us had really, really hard childhoods — but since becoming mutants, our problems have generally been of the supervillain variety, rather than the everyday stuff most mutants face. Having a different perspective is good for us."
The Brazilian's head starts to bob to the oontz oontz music thumping from the DJ booth. Looks like his half-empty drink is working its way up to the rhythm centers of his brain. "I would give Illyana a microphone. To carry. For a while." He snorts quietly, then explains more seriously: "She's very charismatic, actually. She makes waves, sure, but like a punk rock frontman. Her attitude's not for everyone, but it's really appealing to certain people."
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"You sound like you've met one or two." Nancy's talked about one in particular. Bobby tries not to listen too much because unlike most things that actually makes his head hurt a little. But hey, whatever makes folks happy. "I know you're friends. And hey, she's Nancy's best friend. I get the sense that she's good people. Like good people. And I don't dislike her. But man does she have this way of… commanding attention. In an 'I'm gonna kick your ass' kind of way, you know?" He takes another sip of his beer and watches the dance floor a bit more.
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"I'm not as into the punk scene as some of the related indie stuff," Roberto replies, smirking. "But if you count that, sure, I've been to a few parties with people like Karen O." He points at Cold Bobby with his free hand. "But you've got it. She has presence. She walks into a room and that's her room. I'd give her a microphone to talk to groups our age, for instance. Older people, not so much. A lot of them need things padded with more of a bullshit cushion."
He smirks and downs the remainder of his cocktail. "But you're right — I have a tendency to talk up my friends. And in a way, I'm talking shop. Want to give the DJ a request or something?"
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"I get along fine with older people… who aren't X-Men. I swear they put something in the water back then." Because he hasn't met a one of them yet who is a reasonable human being. Well, that's not true. Scott can be if you get around his tendency to be a paranoid boyscout, and Ororo can be even if she is a bit… matronly. Remy, Betsy and Rogue he's fairly sure aren't school products, at least not entirely.
Bobby shrugs. "Sure. How about something with a beat that you can't use to drive nails." Bobby winks. "Whatever makes you happy actually Berto. I know this'll shock you, but going to UCLA way back when, I didn't go to many clubs."
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"Most of the older X-Men were never really students," Roberto points out. "They came on as adults. Only a couple of them were involved with the school as young as my group. We were the first proper 'class,' I think." He waggles a hand noncommittally, adding, "I know you aren't a fan — e é bom — but you should cut the group a bit more slack than all that. On one level, Red is about doing our own thing, but on another, we're one big dysfunctional family. We don't have to actually get along, but we should stay polite." Given his background, Roberto has a distinct idea of how this sort of conflict should be handled. He gives a little smirk, and points out, "It's not really for driving nails, you know. Driving something, sure…"
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Bobby shrugs. "I am polite to everyone… who is polite to me. The moment someone crosses the line of unacceptable douchbaggery it ceases to matter who they are or how old they are or why they do it. None of it is an excuse. Not to me." This is, after all, the man who was nearly hanged by his friends while his family looked on so his notions of this are perhaps shaped by that. "It doesn't matter how close they are to you. Family isn't an excuse to hurt those near you more. It should be the opposite. A reason to stand up for them and protect them." He shakes his head. To an extent he does get it. He's not family. Nor was Nancy. He understands.
But he doesn't have to like it. Or forgive it.
"Eh, I'm killing the mood. You should go dance Berto. Cut loose. I'll be here if you need a ride home." Cold-Twin winks, nodding toward the dance floor, his good humor returning.
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"PR, Cold-Twin," Roberto says with a tight smile. "If it makes you feel better, don't do it for their sake; play along so we don't have to air our dirty laundry in front of the neighbors." Meaning the general public: with groups like the Brotherhood and M-Town gangs already out there, playing up the schisms within the X-men will only play into the stereotype of mutants as a fractured and anarchic community.
"If you're bringing down the mood, you just need more beer," he says as the conversation turns toward lighter topics. "But I understand if the beat's not to your liking. I'll just have to find another dance partner…"
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