knightinshinarmor | Outside the apartment above Needful Things, Thursday afternoon

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Outside the apartment above Needful Things, Thursday afternoon

Remy was now extremely familiar with breaking into the shop downstairs, but he seldom made his way from there up to the apartment above. Harley had been pretty clear about her boundaries, and he only really felt okay violating them in the shop itself.

But he'd just had a conversation with Pam and felt the need to offer at least a little something that might help Harley with her mood in these trying times. So after booking a quickie portal down to New Orleans, he returned to Fandom with a plate of what at first glance appeared to be entirely powdered sugar, but was, in fact, beignets. Direct from the very best source of the excessively sugared treats, Cafe du Monde.

He fully intended to just drop the plate off, knock on her door, and then duck speedily out of sight. Let it be an anonymous treat.

He might be ever so slightly off his game, though, with Pam's comment about Harley being an alternate version of her girlfriend, and what it would be like for him to have to hang out with an alternate Rogue every day, cycling through his mind. . . .

[for the one whose apartment it is, please!]

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Had he ever wondered what Harley looked without her face painted on, without the bright red lip and the stark black eyeliner and darkened brows? Probably not, but he was finding out now anyway! Because the answer was even paler than usual, just in more of a washed out kind of way.

It ate away some but not all of the effect of how her raised eyebrows dipped down into a deeply confused frown at his silent gesturing. "What, you're a mime now?" she asked, herself talking with her mouth and one also-gesturing hand. And also following his nodding with her gaze, only for her eyebrows to bounce right back on up. "Ya brought me cocaine? On a plate?"

... It made about as much sense to her as anything else, okay.

Anyway, crouching down soon told her she was mistaken. And she didn't even have time to be disappointed it wasn't cocaine. "Oh. Wait, what?"

Right. Keeping mum was clearly not going to work.

"Beignets," he said. He could just limit the talking. "Always cheer me up, when I'm down."

"Oh," Harley said again, softly, because sometimes she didn't actually have a bunch of loud words ready to go. Strange but true! She also picked up the plate with much more care than Remy was likely to ever have seen her do anything with. And then, with that same care, and the grace of a gymnast, sat herself down at the top of the stairs, the light from her apartment behind her. The sliver of her place that could be seen looked like a mess.

She lifted one of the beignets off the plate, took a little sniff (no not like that), brought it to her mouth -- and then a thought occurred, and she looked up at Remy again. "Who ratted me out to ya?" she asked, looking and sounding wary more than anything else.

She didn't listen to the radio, otherwise she might've assumed everyone knew by now.

"Ran into Pam," Remy said with a little shrug. The lack of yelling was . . . new. Slightly disconcerting. Much like her lack of makeup. "She wanted to make sure I didn't piss you off too much."

Harley's lips curved in a wry way, on just the one side, kind of weak. How was that for disconcerting, too?

"Oh, well, right," she said. She wasn't surprised - or at least, for once, knew she shouldn't be. The memory of crying endlessly on Pam's couch was fresh in the mind. "That's Pam for ya. And she's orderin' delivery, too?"

The pastries, she meant.

"She suggested something sweet," Remy said, giving her a small smile in return.

It was like seeing Kwannon or Illyana being sweet.

"Beignets specifically was me. Probably the fastest trip home I've had in . . . maybe ever."

He hadn't even gotten into a fight with an assassin!

It was as if Harley's brain suddenly caught up with something.

She looked from him to the beignets and back again, confusion just building and building.

"You got these. Specifically. For me? From home?"

“Oui?” He hadn’t meant that to be a question. “Is that okay?”

Was it enough of an answer that the expression on Harley's face began rapidly morphing from confusion, through a brief sense of what looked like wonder, right into looking like she was about to start weeping?

If not, tough shit, because it was what happened. Capped off with an incoherent sob that definitely had a word or two in it, but there was no way of telling what they were.

"Oh."

Remy was maybe having flashbacks to when Marrow had decided to like him again.

"Do you . . . want a hug?"

Well, that was one way to make it worse! Meaning Harley went from 'about to' right into actually sobbing. Sorry, when her floodgates opened, they tended to be aggressive.

But, she managed a few shaky nods in there, too. That was something.

Nothing about their relationship to date had prepared Remy for this. Fortunately he had several relationships -- many nonsexual, despite his reputation -- on which to base his reactions.

He came up the stairs and sat down next to her, offering her his arm.

Harley slumped right into it, with a sad, high-pitched noise and more shaky sobbing.

Notably, she was still clutching the pastry plate carefully in her hands like it was something precious.

And Remy was not about to upset that. (The powdered sugar would get everywhere. Cafe du Monde had to hose down their patio on a nightly basis.)

He held on, not trying to say any soothing words, just let her cry as she needed to.

He wouldn't know what to say anyway.

So Harley cried. Loudly, like she did most things. Good thing she had no more makeup to smear around, huh?

Remy's shoulder was going to get wet, though. With tears, obviously, and possibly a little bit of snot.

Sorry.

It was far from the worst gunk he'd get on his shoulder. And for a much better reason than getting gooped at the park!

After awhile, Remy started slowly rubbing her back. At least he wasn't saying "there there".

Under these circumstances, Harley might even have taken that and let it slide.

The rubbing might also have contributed to how she seemed to at least manage a few deeper, non-sobby breaths, here and there. And then a few words, to boot. "I really thought it would work out."

Remy hummed noncommittally. He didn't know any of the details, so he was deeply unqualified to comment.

"You want to talk about it?" he offered.

"... No?"

It sounded like a lie, which it was.

"I mean, would you wanna rehash how ya got... dumped, like some dumb schmuck?"

She clearly wasn't liking the D word.

“Probably not,” Remy allowed. “Mostly I prefer to drink when that happens.”

And/or mutter under his breath about the dumb schmuck his ex was now dating. To be fair, said schmuck was an amnesiac supervillain! And Rogue was kind of parading him around in front of Remy!

…He wasn’t proud of that era of his life.

"Tried that already," Harley admitted. "Well, that was... before he actually pulled the plug, but, call it premonition drinking."

"Yep, done that, too," Remy said. Then, after a beat: "I'm sorry you're hurting."

"It ain't my first go-round," Harley muttered glumly, as if that made anything better. And, god, her pitch was climbing again. "I just thought this time would be different."

Huh. Remy wouldn't have taken Harley for a fellow hopeless romantic. He supposed that was his own oversight.

"Yeah," he said. "I know that feeling."

Funny what sorts of things you missed while you were busy getting yelled at for repeatedly breaking and entering!

Harley gave a few nods, then let her head hang forward. "You believe and you hope and ya try," she muttered, "and then it all just crumbles right back into shit in the end anyway."

Hey! Remy had never pretended not to be a thief.

"Yeah," Remy said on a little sigh. "That's love, for you."

But they just kept coming back for more.

It drew a joyless huff from Harley. Sort of a chuckle, but not really.

"Didn't get that far, this time."

Was that a lie? Even Harley couldn't tell. Hurt like hell to say, either way.

Remy nodded. "Don't mean it don't hurt, huh."

"No," Harley agreed. She finally picked up one of the beignets, still careful to hold the plate where it was. "No, no. Still hurts like I got kicked in the chest and the crotch and prob'ly my spine by somesorta belligerent donkey with steel toed boots on."

Remy couldn't help but smile at that analogy.

"Like you wanna scream the sky or huddle in the rain."

No, Remy, that's just because you're dramatic AF.

The narrative would continue to bring this up: Harley had considered burning her own car, earlier in the week.

She spoke dramatic fluently.

"Yeah," she said, considering the pastry in her hand. "Or you wanna go bang down their door in their stupid little living house 'til they take it all back."

"Could TP that living house."

Sir, you lived there too.

"Don't do that. My cats live there."

Harley gave a soft huff. "Aw, the little buggers would be fine with a little TP."

"Might even enjoy it. But then the house might not cat sit for me anymore."

Remy's cats couldn't really be controlled in any real way, but Midnight had bonded well with them, so they tended to listen when it kept them indoors.

"Well that ain't much to deter me," Harley admitted. In a manner of speaking, at least. "I don't think that place'll even let me in through the door, anymore, anyway."

Since that privilege had been directly tethered to Marc.

“Nah. You just need someone else to invite you.” Remy was . . . reasonably sure of that. “It’s not that exciting a place anyway.”

It literally had its own version of the Danger Room, but sure.

"I got three people in there that I don't think like me very much right now," Harley lamented, shaking her head. "And they run that place."

Remy snorted. “You wouldn’t believe how many places I’ve been full of people who don’t like me.”

She might, actually. How many times had she tried to kick him out of her store?

“If they don’t like you, that’s their problem.”

Harley made a pitiful little noise.

And then finally, clearly to drown her sorrows, lifted her head off his shoulder and bit into the beignet.

... And promptly groaned, but in the good way.

Remy had to grin.

“Good, oui? Some time you should try them really fresh. Like hot little pillows of sugar.”

"I wanna go to sleep on 'em," Harley sighed, through what felt like all the powdered sugar in the world.

Solely because he'd said that, yes. The image was now in her head, about pillows.

Remy chuckled. “Glad you like them, chef.”

Harley responded by taking another big bite, and savoring it.

But, once she had...

"Yanno, Frenchie," she said, turning her head towards him with a considering look, "maybe you ain't half bad. Sometimes."

“Only on special occasions,” Remy said easily.

Harley couldn't help a soft huff in response. Wry.

"I'll take it."

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Outside the apartment above Needful Things, Thursday afternoon

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